The Hordes of Commorgh

When I decided that I'd get back into 40k, and learn how to paint properly this time, I made a commitment to get two armies of the Imperium and two rival factions. This ended up initially shaking down as Imperial Guard as they were my first new test minis, though I soon chose Dark Angels and generic Chaos badmen as my next two, due purchasing the old 6th edition starter box. A large Impy Guard army was something I always wanted to do and as the project comes to a close I'm happy to see the end of painting green and khaki.
The Dark Eldar on the other hand are the other force that I always wanted to get into. They are my kind of evil, opportunistic pirates that desire nothing but plunder and slaves, and spend just as much time fighting each other for power and influence as they do other great powers in the galaxy. They are also so radically different to all my other factions, except possibly my chaos, but I only own them because they came in the core set.

Anyway, after putting it off for a very long time I've made my first dent into this project. After a furious burst of assembling and priming I'm now ready to talk about my new batch process for getting through the line infantry for this project.

Stage 1: The Airbrush

To start with I've fully assembled the models and primed using black first all over. Then a 45 degree zenithal highlight of white. Both applied with Games Workshop rattle cans, Chaos Black and Corax White respectively. After that the first big job, not just for the infantry, but for all of the other Venoms and Jetbikes that I've already got assembled, is the airbrush. The goal here being to achieve a decent first base coat with Incubi Darkness. This involves playing off the zenithal priming to achieve some of our first pass of shades and highlights. To do this we will take a light touch with the airbrush, applying successive layers of not too watery paint to prevent it running into the cracks. Obviously there is a lot of preparation leading up to this point, as to avoid having to break out the airbrush over multiple sessions.

Paints Used

• Chaos Black Rattle Can (first primer layer)
• Corax White Rattle Can (second primer layer 45 degree zenithal)
• Incubi Darkness (through the airbrush, thinned with Vallejo airbrush thinner)

Stage 2: First Drybrush

With the first layer of colour down, the next stage involves building up our highlights a bit more. This involves getting a large drybrush and putting down a layer of Kabalite Green, generally working with top of bottom motions with the brush to try and catch all the upper flat surfaces. We will slowly build this up until you are happy with the result.

Paints used

• Kabalite Green (Drybrush application, using large drybrush)

Stage 3: First Major Highlights

The most laborious stage of this project is the final overall highlight for the armour and clothes, which we've prepared in the last two stages using Incubi Darkness and Kabalite Green. The colour that we'll use is Kabalite Green. To apply this layer we'll use a fine tipped brush to perform an edge highlight on the armour panel edges, and all of the sharp edges of this clothing. This process will take time, easily the largest amount of work required and the most surface area that will need to be touched across all of the models.

Paints used

• Syrabite Green (Edge highlights with a fine brush)

Stage 4: Weapons & Belt Kit

For all of the infantry weapons we'll opt for a flat black colour. This does not include the power swords for the squad leaders, as I chose to try for a green jade look. First stage involves putting down two layers of Abbadon Black with the largest brush that I can get away with. Once the colour is even and dry we'll apply two edge highlights. The first is Dark Reaper, the second is Dawnstone, though applied only on the sharpest edges. We'll also use this stage to do most of the belt leather for tool belt that each model is equipped with, as well as a few pipes and fires where appropriate.

For the swords I we'll start with an overall base coat of Caliban Green. The goal here is to try and achieve blends and colour transitions on the blade. To start with we'll make sure our first coat is completely dry, then we'll immediately apply another coat. While working quickly, start on the next colour, Warpstone Glow, and blend the two on the model to try and achieve a colour transition in the intermediate areas, then let the colour throughly dry. Next up, we'll repeat the same steps with Warpstone Glow, blending into Moot Green on the highest surfaces. Once that is done, we'll give the sharpest edges a thin highlight with pure Moot Green, then a more selective highlight with Yriel Yellow. Once all of that is dry apply a final glaze of Waywatcher Green to tie the colours together.

Paints used

• Abbadon Black (Overall base coat with largest possible brush)
• Dark Reaper (Overall edge highlight, applied with a fine brush)
• Dawnstone (Selective edge highlight on sharpest edges, applied with a fine brush)
• Caliban Green (Sword basecoat)
• Warpstone Glow (Sword first blend)
• Moot Green (Sword second blend and edge highlight)
• Yriel Yellow (Sword sharpest highlight)
• Waywatcher Green (Glaze on the sword)

Stage 5: Cloth and Banners

Like with the weapons we'll start with an overall base coat of Daemonette Hide. Following that an overall shade of DruchiI Violet, being careful to make sure that shade stays off the armour. After letting it dry, at least half an hour, though I prefer half a day, re-layer the Daemonette Hide over about seventy percent of the raised surfaces. Follow that up with a fairly broad highlight of Warpfiend Gray, then an more selective highlight with Slaneesh Gray.

Paints used

• Daemonette Hide
• Druchii Violet
• Warpfiend Gray
• Slaneesh Gray

Stage 6: Skin & Hair

Due to this stage sharing a common wash colour I opt to do hair and skin together. As usual, lay the basecoats down, starting with Ionrach Flesh for the skin and Mephiston Red for the hair. Once down and dry lay down a shade layer of Druchii Violet. Once the shade is applied go over the model and soak up any excess shade, especially on the face to try and make sure the features are defined, but not overwhelmed by the shade.

Once the shade is dry, re layer the Ionrach Flesh to about seventy percent of the skin, focusing on raised surfaces, then do a more selective highlight of Deepkin Flesh, followed by highlights of Pallid Whych Flesh on the sharpest points, tip of the nose and cheekbones. For the hair, re-layer Mephiston Red, followed by Evil Sunz Scarlet, then Wild Rider Red at the roots and tips. I also paint decorative tassels in this manner.

Paints used

• Ionrach Flesh
• Deepkin Flesh
• Pallid Whych Flesh
• Mephiston Red
• Evil Sunz Scarlet
• Wild Rider Red
• Druchii Violet

Stage 7: Details

Details covers every other part on the model that are quite quick to execute in batch painting, so they warrant an entire stage to themselves.

Eyes

For eyes most people start with painting a black eye shape deep in the sockets. This is great for contrast, but does make the model look like they are wearing eyeshadow. I'm generally not a fan of this look, so I prefer to rely on the shading that I've already established when painting the skin. To start with, I paint the eye shape with Vallejo Offwhite, the lay down a pupil of Vallejo German Gray. Once that is done I touch up the shape of the eye with Ionrarch Flesh and Druchii Violet if I haven't quite got the shape of the eye correct.

Bones

For ornamental bone we won't get fancy with the paint composition. A simple layer of Zandri Dust as a base, followed up with a wash of Agrax Earthshade. Once the shade is dry follow up with a thin layer of Zandri Dust, then some highlights of Ushabti Bone.

Gems and Symbols

There are some raised detail and assorted gems and that need to be differentiated from the armour. To do this we'll start with Mephiston Red, followed up with a shade of Agrax Earthshade, followed up with another layer of Mephiston Red, then a few highlights of Evil Sunz Scarlet, then some spot highlights of Wild Rider Red to taste.

Banner Freehand

For some banner text we won't get fancy. Grab some plasticard and sketch out some vaguely evil, flowing shapes that could be text. Once we're confident that we can replicate the result on the model go ahead and lay it down, don't worry about highlighting the text, though you can where there are significant cloth folds if you feel up to it.

Paints used

• Ionrach Flesh
• Deepkin Flesh
• Pallid Whych Flesh
• Mephiston Red
• Evil Sunz Scarlet
• Wild Rider Red
• Druchii Violet

Stage 8: Metallics

For the metallics we'll start with an overall base coat of Vallejo Air Gunmetal. This paint is runny so we'll go in thin and lay the base coat down over two to three layers. Since this particular metal is very dark on black we won't worry about a liquid shade. So for the standard metal we'll use Stormhost Silver.

Paints used

• Vallejo Air Gunmetal
• Stormhost Silver

Stage 9: Basing

For basing we'll use my standard method. That is we've previously glued down some pieces of cork for larger rocks followed by some sand. This should already have been primed so we don't have to worry about any preparation work. To start with we'll grab some Vallejo German Camo Black Brown. This should be relatively thin, so as to allow it to sink into the sand and cork. Once that is completely dry do some heavy over brushing of Vallejo Flat Earth, this should not be at a dry brush consistency, but just enough to leave a decent stream on the base, but keep the original Camo Black Brown visible in the deepest cracks. Again, let that dry, then do a final dry brush of Vallejo Dark Sand.

Once the dirt is thoroughly dry we can start on the rocks, to start with use German Gray to establish a base coat on the rocks. Once that coat is dry put down an over brush layer of Gray Green over the rocks. Finally, some highlights of Sky Gray dry brushed on as a final highlight. Anyway, that is pretty much it. For all of you that want to replicate this result, I hope this helps.

Painting Armour for the Table Top

I've always found vehicles far easier and quicker to paint than line infantry. The broad surfaces are easier and quicker to paint and you can generally get away with techniques like drybrushing without the final result looking like ass. Over the years my techniques have somewhat codified into a bunch of standard techniques that I use across a variety of projects.

GW Standard Method
This method is extensively documented on a variety of sources, most notably the Games Workshop YouTube channel with their fantastic walk-through for painting Cadian Armour. I usually make some slight modifications to this base depending on the colours I'm using.

Prime Black
Like with most simple painting projects I tend to start with a black priming coat using GW Chaos Black spray. Sometimes I might use some additional zenithal GW Corax White rattle can priming for highlights, but I usually only do this when I'm aiming for higher levels of quality.

Base Flat Colours
I usually use an airbrush for this step, however many layers with a broad flat brush will also work. With an airbrush I apply many successive layers of my first base colour until the entire model has an overall even layer of the base colour.

Optional Camo Patterns
Next I apply an even layer of my pattern colours using my chosen pattern. I apply this with a broad flat brush first stippling it on, then I use a smaller brush to define a hard edge between regions of colour, using the first stippling pattern as a base. Repeat this process with each of your pattern colours, then you're done.

Pinwash
This stage involves lining all the cracks and recesses with a shade of some kind. For the most part the GW washes are fine, though you can make your own with a colour of your choice and glaze medium.

Drybrush Colours
For each of your pattern colours apply a drybrush layer with the distinct highlight colour for each of your pattern colours. I'd recommending using a smaller drybrush for this stage to maximise the control you have for each section colour.

Final Drybrush
This is the final highlight for your model. This should generally be a light brown or off white colour for vehicles that are brown or green in colour. For vehicles that are predominantly grey and black you can use a variety of grays. This layer should go over the entire model and will generally bind all of the different colours together.

This should give you the overall hull colour, all you need to do now is finish the other relevant details and you've got a finished model. I find that this method works best when you have a relatively complex camouflage pattern that you need to paint in by hand.

Airbrush Preshade/Gradient Method
This method is fairly common for airbrush users, as it allows the rapid painting of armour to a pretty good tabletop standard. However, not every wargamer has access to an airbrush, so this method may not be accessible to everybody. This method is particularly effective for batching mono-colour vehicles quickly, though additional steps are needed if you need to add a camouflage pattern to the base colour, that step will need to be accomplished with either extreme care, masking, or brushwork.

Prime Black
First thing, start with an overall black primer. This will act as our first deep shade and cover the bare material.

Zenithal Prime White
A fairly heavy 45 degree zenithal prime will generally catch the raised surfaces while leaving the deeper recesses on the original black primer, this is especially useful for airbrush painting as it means we can rely on the opacity of the main layers to play off the white and black for shading.

Airbrush Deep Shade
At this stage we need to lay down our preshades for the main colour. This is typically our darkest shade colour based on our preselected triad of shade, base and highlight colours. The purpose of this is to establish the spots where our deepest colours are in shade. In the above model, the Cromwell, these spots are the ninety degree angles between between the main hull and the track guards, the hull front glacis and the sloped front of the hull, the lower areas of the hull, the underside of the hull, and so on.

Airbrush Overall Base
At this stage we will establish our mid tone colour across the entire model. The goal is to lay down many very thin layers of colour so that the opacity is sufficient to allow for the shade colours painted in the previous step to show through.

Zenithal First Highlight
This stage is our first highlight and will provide a general highlight of our first highlight colour over most of the uppermost surfaces of the model. Again, we need to build this up over many subsequent layers to get a gradient of colour.

Improvements to Shading
In the very deepest recesses it may be necessary to enhance the deepest shades. This can be some with selective pin washing and line highlighting with a brown or a black as appropriate.

Final Drybrush Highlights
This stage should be carried out generally as the final steps of the painting process. Like with the final drybrush highlight of the GW Method, the colour you use should be a tan colour. Vallejo Dark Sand is perfect for this. It doesn't matter too much if you highlight metallics or other colours with this stage, as it adds to an overall slightly weathered looked, which is perfect for armoured vehicles.

Enamel Shading Method

This method involves using enamel based washes to achieve the shade. Furthermore the products themselves are not as readily available as most of the usual tabletop wargaming staples, and include enamel products from manufacturers such as MIG or AK Interactive, which make them harder to source and often more in the domain of scale modelling rather than wargaming. However, as Wargames knowledge cross pollinates with the scale model community more and more FLGs are beginning to stock the kind of products needed to achieve this effect.
This method can also be combined with the above airbrush method for a result with more colour variation.

Prime Black

Like with all stages, start with priming the model black.

Flat Mid Tone Colour
This stage involves getting an even coat of the mid tone over the entirety of the model. This can be applied with either airbrush or a large flat brush. If you use a brush make sure you break it down into two to three layers.

First Colour Drybrush Highlight
This stage involves laying down the first highlight for your base colour. If the hull is a single colour you can go ahead and do a fairly heavy drybrush over the entire model. If your scheme involves a camouflage you will have to do several passes of targeted drybrush passes over each colour.

Other Colours
At this point you may want finish off other non-hull colours such as tracks, metallics, cloth and tools. I also wouldn't worry too much about shading these colours as the enamel wash stage will take care of shading these colours as well.

Floor Polish Seal

The Good Stuff

The next few stages are particularly hard on the underlying paint job, so sealing the work so far down is essential. This stage involves using a high gloss wood floor polish to seal in the model. If you are an American the product to look for is Pledge Future Shine. For my fellow Australians the product to look for is Long Life Self Shining Floor Polish, available at Bunnings across Australia.
You want to put down at least two decent coats of this stuff, though three to four is ideal, because the enamel wash will attack your paint job

Overall Enamel Wash
In this stage we will apply our overall wash. Obviously, make sure that your gloss layers are completely dry. Once that is done all you need to do is slather the entire model with the enamel wash, don't worry about it looking like rubbish, we'll end up removing most of the colour in the later stages. The idea is to make sure we have total coverage and all the deepest recesses of the model are covered with this layer. Once the application is down the next stage is to wait for the model to be touch dry, overnight is preferable. At this stage it does look like you've ruined your work so far, but don't worry, it'll be fixed in the next stage.

Wash Removal
Before you start this stage make sure you've purchased, stolen, requisitioned, or otherwise acquired some high quality cotton buds, or Q-Tips if you are an American. You'll also need some mineral turpentine, or a solvent specifically designed for the enamel wash. A cloth or a load of paper towel is also required.
What you need to do is use your solvent to slightly dampen the Q-Tips, then you use them to start rubbing away the wash on the middle areas and high areas, while leaving the wash in the recesses and lower parts of the vehicle.
At the end of this stage the look should still be a little grubby, but only in the deepest recesses, and 80% to 90% of the wash should have been removed. The good thing about this product is that you can remove as much or as little as you like.

Second Floor Polish Seal
Once you are satisfied with the wash, you need to seal in the results with another layer or two of the gloss polish that you applied in the earlier stages. Again, let this dry overnight, preferably under the cover of a plastic container to prevent dust from settling on the model and getting sealed in.

Satin Varnish
Now we need to kill the gloss. You can use any matt or satin varnish you like, either spray on or brush on. My preference is a thinned out Vallejo Satin Varnish, thinned with Vallejo Thinning Medium, a thin layer applied with an airbrush.

Final Dark Sand Drybrush
To bind all of the colours of the model together and to give the tank a slightly dusty and weathered look, I give the model a very fine drybrush with Vallejo Dark Sand or equivalent. This 

Other Techniques

Painting Tracks
I personally find that tracks and road wheels are often the most irritating component on the model to paint. Getting them to look right is often one of the more overlooked aspects of painting armoured vehicles for the table top. Most painters simply layer metallics, wash, then drybrush and call the job done. This is fine as a stylistic choice, but if you are going for a realistic look, it is not accurate. Some tanks don't use fully metallic tracks, most are a common of metal links and rubber treads, some are entirely rubber. So when you are painting a real world tank, either contemporary or historical, I'd always hit wikipedia first and look for some good colourized images.

Decals
Decals, when not done properly look terrible. They have a sheen that doesn't sell the illusion of a painted on symbol. This is the result of the decal not properly bonding with model and air bubbles getting trapped in between the surface of the model and the decal. The greatest secret when dealing with decals has to be Micro Set and Micro Sol, by Micro Scale Industries.
These two products are designed to be used in conjunction with each other, though in reality the Micro Sol solution is definitely the better and more important of the two products.
To use this product the first thing you need to do is apply a gloss coat to the surface of the model. The purpose of this is to provide a smooth surface for the decal to adhere to. Once that is dry prepare the surface by coating the target site with a layer of Micro Set. Then soak the decal in water and slide it onto the target sight as you normally do, then give it a quick coat of Micro Set, then sponge off the excess. Once the decal is relatively secure apply a layer of Micro Sol, this is when the magic happens.
This works particularly good for curved and uneven surfaces, as this substance will melt the decal and cause it to form around the detail of the model. This works particularly well for shoulder pad decals as many subsequent coats will cause even the most stiff decals to gradually conform the the surface of the model over many subsequent coats. To use this to best effect, apply a single coat, let it dry completely then apply another coat of Micro Set and let it dry. Repeat this process until the decal is completely flat and totally formed around any detail on the model. Once the decal is completely flat, apply another coat of gloss varnish to seal the decal in, then once you've finished any other detailing kill the gloss with a thin layer of Satin or Matt varnish.

Pigments
Pigments are more for display models than for table top models, as if they aren't properly sealed down, they will not stand up to the constant handling from tabletop usage. For this reason I certainly wouldn't recommend them for tabletop models. However, if you do opt to use pigments, I'd definitely go with the more is less philosophy when it comes to applying pigments. The best way to apply pigments is with two brushes, a medium to small brush that is generally used to dip into your pigment and do the initial application, and a second larger one to brush off the excess. I'd definitely use cheaper brushes for this purpose. Dust tends to accumulate in the deep recesses on the vehicle, that is where you want to concentrate your effort, you can start by generally applying it to the target area, then use another brush to clean most of it off. Other pigments can also be used to stain the model, for example use black pigment to stain areas of the model to create a sooty effect. This is best applied sparingly with a cotton bud rather than a brush. Another use for pigments is to build up solid clumps of mud to work into the tracks of your armoured vehicles. To do this you can use a small amount of pigment mixed with some static grass to create clumps of mud. Once they is applied and dry you can further shade with washes and highlight the mud with drybrushing.

Final Thoughts
I find that tanks generally easier to paint than most other things in the tabletop wargaming hobby. They lend well to simple colours, heavy weathering and the lack or organic surfaces that require more subtle shading than most, and the large, flat areas lend well to airbrushing and drybrushing, thus drastically speeding up painting time. Anyway, I hope this helps out with your own painting projects.

Playing too Hard

Breaking the Social Contract

My usual 40K game group has quietly died, and it was sort of my fault.

To set the scene, one of my associates from the tabletop RPG space has moved into 40k in a big way. At first I thought more the merrier and helped him get into it, unfortunately I already had an idea to the kind of player that he would be. In spite of this I put my reservations aside and resolved to give him a fair shake.

A few weeks in and he was regularly trouncing me in one on one games and ended up taking increasingly unfriendly lists tailored exactly to wreck my usual load out. Yet, in the spirit of inclusiveness I invited him to my usual Sunday group, but first I warned him to be on his best behavior and ease off on the hyper competitive list building.

Game day came and the list ended up being a list entirely of assassins that I later learned was from the hyper competitive variety. Long and short of it, the group hasn't convened since. Much later I learned that his list and behavior at the table was exactly the reason the group has not convened again.

A week later I went against him again with my guard list and literally got tabled first turn, at this point I decided the time investment of playing against him wasn't worth it. He did insist on replaying that first turn except with my guard having the first move, but my heart wasn't in it and I wanted nothing more than to go home and move on with my life. Unfortunately, since he is the only one that wants to play 40K right now, it means that I haven't had a chance to get a decent game in.

I guess the take away from this exercise is that each group has their own culture and norms on the table top. I made the mistake of inviting someone in that broke those norms to such a degree that it destroyed the trust in said group that I had previously earned.

Long and short of it, my game group is now ash and I have to rebuild it from square one. Good times.

What I've Been Painting
Finishing off the Ultramarines has been a major milestone for me. They were a major slog and I'm glad to see the back of them. In order to prevent the painters burnout from setting in again I've tried getting a variety of projects on the table in order to give me some variety to work with. While it has been a pain from an organisational point of view, it has allowed me to maintain a much greater throughput.

Recently Completed
Imperial Bastion
I bought this to help offset the fragility of my Astra Militarum infantry, but even though it has been finished it has yet to see action.
The kit itself was a bit of a pain to fit together. It required a fair bit of green stuff on the upper most battlements to deal with some of the gaps. In terms of painting I followed the schema that I used for my Aegis Defence Line and Bunker. I also made an attempt with concrete chipping using the sponge technique, but it didn't come out the way I was hoping. Otherwise I'm fairly happy with the result and it'll fit in nicely with the rest of my fortifications.

Pan Oceania Cutter
This one was supposed to be the last PanO model I would ever paint, unfortunately my participation in the local Infinity scene has brought to light some of the major gaps in my current line up. More on that to follow.
As with all Corvus Belli models, this one was a bastard to get assembled due to the thin components and the white metal material. Once that was done I applied the usual Giraldez method for PanO models. Gradient highlights with the usual mix of blues and a black line shade for the recesses with a stark white highlight for the sharp edges. Once that was done I picked out a few more components with their won colours and decided to call it a day.
Overall I was surprised with how quickly I managed to bang this project out once I was over the Airbrushing stage. Like with vehicles generally, the fewer colours significantly decrease the time spent on the model. I'm also surprised with how good it looks for such a lazy paint job.

Robute Gulliman
The big blue himself, and I hated every minute of painting him. The worst part of definitely an overabundance of gold trim. It took a solid layer of Vallejo Air Metallics Copper, followed by a layer of Gold to build it up to the base coat, and due to my lack of patience with being neat at this point, I had to go back and clean up all of the blue after the fact. The sword didn't come out as well as I'd hoped, though it does make use of the whole yellow glaze on white process, which I will certainly be stealing for future projects. Other than that, everything else was pretty much standard. The level of quality is probably mid range table top, and I'll settle with it at this point.

Lelith Hesparex
The Queen of the Arena herself has the honour of being my test model for my Dark Eldar project.The skin, "armour", and hair have turned out pretty well, as did the warpaint on the face. This somewhat problematically dressed lady will be centerpiece of my almost entirely skimmer-bourne assault army.
The only downside is that the model itself is finecast, with all the problems that come with it. Fortunately all of the details that didn't cast correctly I mostly covered with a paint job, and the major focal points turned out fairly well.

Underway
Leman Russ Punisher
This is the first, and probably most fundamental addition to my Astra Militarum army for this cycle. In terms of weaponry, the Punisher strikes me as the best antidote for multi wound monster models and hordes, a capacity that my AM currently lack.
In terms of hobby I'm planning on fully magnetizing the kit, which means I should be able to swap it to any configuration that comes with the box. I'm also planning to do the magnetization after painting for the most part to make my life easier.
So fair I've got the main Castellan Green basecoat down, a fairly easy airbrush job without any fancy pre-shading or gradients. Next up is the Steel Legion Drab brown stripes. I estimate that I'll have this vehicle completed relatively quickly, as I find tanks are fair quicker to paint than infantry models.

Kabalite Warriors
I've done all of the assembly and the gradient priming for my Dark Eldar Line infantry. I'm currently waiting for a decent time slot to break out the airbrush again and put down the base coat of Incubi Darkness.

Cygnar Grenadier Light Warjacks
Hopefully these two will be the absolutely last of my Warmachine Models, then I can put this army to bed. So far priming and the under paint layer of Exile Blue is down. These are the old school metal models that I stripped off from my old army. I did so at the advice of one of my local wargaming buddies regarding their effectiveness. Again, I won't be going for an amazing paint job, just something good enough to fit in with my existing army.

Ultramarine Rievers
So, it turns out that the getting started Riever snack pack doesn't give me enough models for a legal squad. I've picked up another small box to top them up to legal size. Given what I've just been through I should be able to smash them out pretty quickly. Since I want to start rolling out my smurfs on the table top they may get bumped to the top of the priority stack.

Games Played

Infinity
As mentioned previously, I gave the local Infinity Slow Grow a go with my Pan Oceania Fusilier horde. I wasn't expecting to do well, I was mostly hoping to start internalizing the rules and nuances of the game. Overall it turns out I stumbled on a fairly strong list in the early stages. My first few games were fairly tightly controlled learning games, I won the first through no fault of my own and drew the second due to unlucky dice rolls. Since I had a lot of help from the TO in the second game I certainly wouldn't allocate any of my army's success to my own tactical acuity.
The third game ended up being a grind, as this time I came up against Total Reaction Bots for the first time and didn't have an answer to it. I ended up being back into one corner of the board, and since this was a table quarters game I ended up losing in a big way. This was the game that showed me what my major deficiencies were, and now I'm planning to get my own Total Reaction Bots, as well as an engineer, medic and variety of other additions to my PanO.
I later got a message from my opponent pointing out a few rules he got wrong, especially since he is a relatively new player himself. I appreciate this sort of thing happening in the local meta, as it makes actual development at high level game play possible and builds a far healthier local scene. I'm looking forward to doing this again when it rolls around again. Unfortunately, I wish these things didn't conflict with my existing role playing game commitments.

Anyway, that is it for now. I've got a 40K game with a returning player lined up for later this month and a large game of Chain of Command with my British at some point in the future. In terms of painting I'm aiming to fill out the last of my 40K armies at a steady pace. Wintercon is coming up, so I should consider entering at least one of the events, hopefully more on that in the future.

Primaris Ultramarines - A Retrospective.

The release of the Primaris Marines, along side what appears to be a soft squatting of the current line of Space Marines was an entirely welcome event. I wanted Space Marines to look like the superhuman warriors that they are in the fiction, in comparison to a humble guardsmen. The Primaris range has fixed this scale issue to a respectable degree, and along with the releases of the Triumvirate boxed sets, I knew I was definitely going to pick some up and do them up as Ultramarines to go with Gulliman. So far I've finished up the entirety of the Dark Imperium starter box (with the Death Guard being moved along to a good home), and some additional Reivers both for skull marks and short pants power armour. As of right now they are sitting completed in my display case with Gulliman on the bench and the first few stages of paint already on plastic for him. This is a retrospective of the new line of Primaris Marines in general, both from an assembly and painting perspective.


Assembly
As usual, this part was not particularly hard. Like all contemporary Games Workshop plastics, they go together well, the instructions are clear, and the sprues well marked. I thought about leaving the arms off so I could have an easier time getting at the chest plates, but I ultimately got lazy and decided to ignore what couldn't be conveniently reach anyway.
After the assembly was done I based them in the usual way, as ultimately I'd intended the force to neatly slot in as allies for my other Imperium 40k armies.






Planning
For my basic palette, I opted to follow the Games Workshop painting guide as closely as I could. However, rather than use the Games workshop metallics, I subbed in my Vallejo Metal colour equivalents. Later on in the project I opted to bring in some more Vallejo colours.
The Captain in Gravis Armour served as my base colour template and method for the most part, you can find it on the Games Workshop Youtube channel.

Painting - Early Stages
My first major mistake of the project was in the priming stage. Like a total newbie, I opted to do my first layers of primer during a fairly hot part of the day. The result of this was a slight rough texture on a few select spots of the models. While the primer ultimately is meant to be slightly rough to the touch, you know you've screwed up when the texture is visible to the naked eye. To make matters worse I also opted to use a rattle can of GW Macragge Blue for my main base coat. While this was a major time saver I suspect that it did contribute to a few patches of rough texture on the model.
After that I put a base coat down of the other major colours. The Abaddon Black went down well enough, however the Celestra Gray / Ulthuran Grey for the standard bearer's helmet and the knee badge turned out rough, so I will be discontinuing these particular paints indefinitely, instead using Vallejo equivalents. I also laid down Metal Colour Gunmetal for all of the base metallic colours.

Middle Stages
As always, this is the part where the entire process really became a chore. Since I was doing them as a single batch, it meant days at a time of repeating the same process until completion. The very first process was a pin wash of Nuln Oil for the armour and a regular wash for the metallic components. I found my commitment sorely tested at this point, and took frequent breaks and made a start on two other projects to try and break up the monotony.

I had, far more than usual, a great deal of frosting problems in the deepest recesses with my Nuln Oil. I suspect that with my impatience I was overdoing it. Fortunately, it was easily fixed by watering down some airbrush version of the Abbadon Black and covering the worst of it up with a thin and precise layer of colour.
I also opted to do all the final metallics work at this stage as well, mostly to avoid having to change out my water when switching between colours. In doing so I ran into the limitations of the particular metallic colours that I was using. The first major problem was the shade on the Metal Air Gunmetal ended up with a finish that was essentially black

I didn't bother to fix it by redoing it, instead I applied my highlight of Pale Burnt Metal, again Vallejo Metal Colour, and moved on with my life, as my patience with the entire project was wearing thin.

The longest stage in terms of working time was probably the first highlight of the armour. Again, I made the mistake of tackling this as one huge batch, witch was in a word, demoralizing.

Towards the end of this stage I painted the bases using my usual technique for temperate grassland. Only at this point did the entire army start to transition from looking like garbage, to the point where at a distance it looks quite decent for a tabletop standard.

Late Stage
First I applied highlights on all of the secondary colours, which amounted to the blacks on the guns and body suites, and the red and gray colours. I also applied the golds at this stage, which I did using Vallejo Metal as usual. I started with a coat of Copper to act as an undertone, then layered Gold over it for the actual mid tone. Following that, a layer of Riekland Fleshshade for the depth, and some spot highlights of silver here and there for highlight. After that, all that was left were the assorted details, which came down to purity seals and other incidental details on the models. I painted the eyes in my usual manner, a flat layer of Vallejo Offwhite and glazed over with Bloodletter. To this day I have yet to find a technique that works equally well to this simple method. My final paint step at this stage was to apply a second stage highlight to all of the main colours.

It was around this point that I painted the Ancient's Standard, my major mistake with this was using a gray for the text that was too light to be effective. At this point I was a bit nervous  about going back and redoing it, especially because I wanted to move on to other projects.

The transfers are probably the best work I've done with getting them applied, set, and dressed to date. The key I've found seems to be working on a flat gloss surface and then repeatedly applying the Micro Sol solution until the transfer is completely flat, letting it dry thoroughly between coats. Once I was satisfied with the transfer, a coat of gloss to seal it in, then a coat of satin to dull it down. The end result was nothing short of smooth, and I'm very proud of the result.

I also opted to paint the Captain separately from the main production line once every other model was complete. This was due to some early cock-ups with painting the cloak and the need to strip my first attempts and start again. The one thing I would've done differently is paint the captain with his backpack off, because that cloak was annoying to get to once the model was assembled and based.

Final Thoughts
To be honest I'm not going to say that I enjoyed this project. It was a slog to get through at the best of times, and I broke my rule about painting a squad at a time which contributed to the usual mid-project malaise. In terms of quality I'd judge them at middling tabletop standard, which is par for the course for all my projects as of late. To be honest I'm looking at my upcoming project roster and I'm beginning to feel a bit of dread. I've got a final expansion for my Astra Militarum, which means a lot of infantry, and an entire Dark Eldar army to paint from scratch. I think for both of them I'm going to try to break the project up by squad and do something else in between. Anyway, catch you all next time, once I think of something else worth writing.

Christmas Holidays Retrospective

I admit, right now I've come out of Christmas, and I'm in a major slump when it comes to painting. I made a start on my small Ultramarine Primaris force, Gulliman included, and right now getting through them is a major chore. The various stimuli that I use to try and get me through said labour is also getting to be a bit of a drag as well. Furthermore I've pretty much plateaued at the level of that I am capable of attaining.

Since my last post I've completed a fairly eclectic mix of small projects, and very few large scale armies. This variety has helped keep things fresh, though it means that now I'm up to painting armies I've got a long slog ahead before I can mix up what I've been painting. So, starting some time late last year, here is what I've worked on since.

Tau Fire Warriors
I'm pleased with the way these guys turned out and they were a decent hit on Tumblr. The cool white armour was inspired by the Combine Elites from Half Life 2. Overall I'm extremely happy with the result, the one downside is that I started with a black undercoat, which made working the way up final blue-white an extremely arduous process. The fatigues themselves started at grey, and were shaded down to black in order to get the graduated highlight. This itself was a huge investment in time. Add to that the pin washing of the armour and all of the other details and the project results came in. Overall I think I could paint an army like this, though I'd adopt a few changes to the method to speed it up. Unfortunately I doubt I'll revist the Tau at any time soon.

Vindicare Assassin
I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out. I mostly stuck with the box art and achieve the differentiation between the black green of the rifle's furniture and the blue black of the body suit. The result was achieved by mixing in various blues on the body suit, working up to stark blue for the highlights. The rifle however was black on a simple green highlight. Otherwise all of the other components were painted fairly traditionally. Another thing I did was avoid washing to get shading and manually applied to much of the leather and other components. I was going to try non metal metallics for some components, but I still didn't feel like I could pull it off. At some point I have to sit down and intentionally practice NMM until I can execute it correctly before I try it on a model.

Dark Angels

The last of the Dark Angels are now done, which completely closes off this project. Personally I'm glad to see to back of them, I've got more than enough troops to roll out some regular marines, and since they are being soft squatted anyway I'm happy to call the project done. I did also finish off a bunch of scouts for the table top, and for Shadow War. However, now that Necromunda is back the entire thing is a bit of a moot point right now. On the plus side I think I've finally figured out how to weather a tank properly now.

Chaos Demons

In order to refresh my current chaos army a bit I added a few things I bought at last year's Cancon to the roster. Overall they were intended as a bit of a rush job and it shows a little bit. That being said I'm somewhat happy with the blending that I worked in on the swords, the Demon Princes fingers, and the horns. A decent tabletop standard, but nothing revolutionary. At some point, if they re-release Khorne berserkers at the new Primaris scale I will add them to the army and retire the old scale marines, but until then I doubt the chaos will get any more attention.

Flames of War 15mm Assorted Armour

The intention of this project was to test out some new techniques for painting realistic armour. The standard method is base coat, overall dry brush highlight, gloss varnish, then enamel shading and cleanup. Once that is done a gloss to protect the work, a matt varnish to kill the gloss. The final stage a light dusty dry brush, then details. Overall I'm super chuffed with the results, so much so that I'm not quite motivated to refresh some of my older Flames of War armies with the new plastic kits. One thing that has turned me off a lot of Flames of War in the past was having to work with their resin and metal kits. The new moves to plastic has seen a general increase in quality, and I vastly prefer plastic at this scale.

Battlefield Objectives

These were a bit of a rush job, I did try to do some weathering and chipping but it didn't turn out as well as I'd like. Sadly this is a particular technique I have yet to master. Right now I'm looking for another opportunity to give this technique another shot.

Triumvirate Boxes

While the initial attempt I did try and lift my game when painting these fellows, but I quickly fell back to my middling tabletop level quality and some instances of experimentation with new techniques. In spite of this I'm quite happy with all of the results in general, especially the glow in Cyphers eyes and Greyfax's power armour. I will say that while the Cawl model looks good, that thing is an utter bastard to paint. Sub-assemblies are a must, and I wound up snapping more than a few of the small cabled bits off in the process of painting and assembling. Current Gulliman is going to get painted along with the rest of the Primaris Ultramarines. And the Yvranine (probably misspelled that) box will get painted up with my Dark Eldar army.

Sigmarite Priest

I started this guy with the goal of making a Crystal Dragon competition piece, but I ended up hating the model. I wound up getting a mediocre result, which might be good for a local comp, but not up to scratch for a more prestigious one. I attempted to do a molten glowing effect on the hammer, but the resulted ended up being fairly mediocre. I'm probably going to enter this into my local GW's painting comp, maybe ScaleACT later in the year.

Necromunda

I'm super chuffed with the new Necromunda miniatures and game rules. It has historically been my favorite Games Workshop game and far superior to 40k. The new miniatures are pretty wild in terms of their sculpting, versatility and creativity. I did try to lift my game with these ladies, but they were a pretty hard slog to get finished and the varied colours on the hair and animal print cloth ended up being a massive time sink. In spite of this I think the results were fairly decent, unfortunately due to my car dying I have yet to make it to any of the games that have been starting up. I'm looking forward to picking up the Orlocks boxed set and trying for a more unified set of colours.

That is pretty much it right now. I'm hoping to get back in the a mood to get some serious progress on my backlog done, but given how low energy I've been right now I'm not sure I'll be keep the throughput going that I used to, especially since I have not played much in terms of games lately, nor am I trying to make it into painting comps. I may be losing interest overall, if this is the case throttling my hobby down a bit might be for the best, as avoiding burnout should be the goal.

One thing I am going to do is try to write more painting articles when I have a decent enough project. I probably won't do much more streaming due to me being somewhat boring on camera and the batch projects right now aren't particularly great fodder for online content. Maybe some Youtube stuff if I can be bothered to do the work.

Bolt Action - A Retrospective

Big army projects seem to be my niche, for the most part. I don't particularly like them, but I am good at them. I lack the patience, steady hand and flair to really get spectacular results for single minis. But I do have a forte for the boring, repetitive labour of mass army building. My natural talent for painting also lies well away from the bright colours and fantastic detail of high quality display minis and lies in the moderate detail of the rank of file of a modernish army. The platoon, the company is my unit of work. The tank, artillery piece, and field gun are my treats. The real risk for these projects are ones of boredom. Painting the same detail endlessly can get tiring, and the risk of moving too fast and screwing things up is every present.

The Bolt Action British army starter at first glance is pretty standard for an army starter box comparable any other system. There is a full platoon (three squads plus some smaller elements), a vehicle, and a variety of support elements (AT gun, mortar, and a HMG). So for what you pay, about $100-$150, you get a bit more than your usual army starter box, which I find tend to be a special character, one or two squads and a larger creature or vehicle. So in terms of raw bodies on the field you get a a lot of plastic. In terms of quality of the individual model they are fairly mediocre and soft in detail, but the quantity you get does make up for it somewhat. They are fully poseable, you get a load of additional bits and pieces, additional kit and detailing which is good for a purchase of this volume. You will certainly come out of your build with a load surplus bits and pieces.
I'm not sure I'd call it a problem, but many of the weapons are quite delicate and easy to break, which makes the surplus of bits and pieces, especially for weapons, ideal. The upside to this does mean that the weapons are realistically scaled to the person.

In terms of paint job these guys were pretty much built for batch painting. I've already wrote a detailed guide for how I batched out the infantry, you can find it here. The vehicles themselves were done using a method that I was experimenting with for bulking large amounts of 15mm armour. I will go into further detail on this in a future article where I will discuss and walk through the process for combining airbrush pre-shading with enamel based products to get a quick and easy way of painting armour. In terms of my feelings about this process, as usual, batch work is hard and takes personal discipline to follow through with. The real slog with this process, as always, is the base coating. Vallejo paints, when thinned property typically take three layers to get an even layer. When applied to the entirety of the batch this rapidly adds up in terms of working time. The majority colour, Vallejo English Uniform for the uniform jacket and trousers in this case, I did with the air brush, which cut working time down significantly. Once that was done the rest of the details were done with brush by hand, which is where the real cost in terms labour lie. Once all the base coating was done the next stage was washing with a mid tone shade. Easy enough to do, but a I overdid it on a few of the miniatures. The re-layering was the next longest phase, re-applying the relevant colours over the washed areas. Once that is done the highlights were comparatively simple and quick to complete. After that all that remained were minor details like eyes and that is it.

Overall this project is a slog, and I'm definitely hesitant to start another large project like this and attempt to do it in one solid pass. Instead I'm going to break up large projects by a couple of units at a time, because nothing makes painting feel more like work than the lack of variety in a project. In terms of painting similar projects, I will be attempting to repeat this process with 15mm Battlefront miniatures in order to rejuvenate my Flames of War late war British.

Mini Post Mortem - Grand Master Voldus

"Painting is hard, why do I even bother?" I asked myself as I affixed my subject to it's base and collapsed back into my chair.
The cost of the mini itself, part of the Triumvirate of the Primarch boxed set is not cheap at one hundred and fifty clams Australian. This makes me look at the entire set with trepidation and doubt. "Do I have the painting chops to give these miniatures the attention they deserve?" For Voldus, unfortunately, the answer this time is a resounding and depressing no.
The reason why I started with Voldus first is that he was the miniature that I was most willing to risk, as I want to save Guilliman and Cypher to a point where I can afford to really take my time and give these impressive pieces the attention they deserve. One thing I tried to do with this mini is forced myself to experiment with some new techniques, in some respects I think this was the source of much of my ire with this project, so better to get it out of the way now before I start work on other, more impressive projects.

Sub-Assemblies
I chose to paint this model in two sub-assemblies, the head and the body.

First Stage - Armour / Metallics
Metallics have always been a problem for me, I've never been good at them. Thankfully the new Vallejo Metallic Air paints are some of the best I've ever use, and certainly didn't disappoint in this project. To establish the overall metal colour I started with a dark metal and layered up to the bright by heavy overbrushing, applied a black wash then applied successive layers of dry brush to bring out the upper layers and higher highlights. The end result was quite impressive and surprisingly good for how rough the process was.
The golds were a little harder to accomplish. Starting from a silver metallic basecoat I applied the Metal Colour Gold, washed with Reikland Fleshshade, then layered up the Gold again, then did a final highlight with a bright white metal. One problem that I have encountered with the Metal Colour paints is that they are very thin. While this is great for doing basecoating, it does make higher highlights not as prominent and difficult to achieve. In future a combination of these paints with my older, thicker metals may prove to be a winning combination for painting gold.

Second Stage - Robes
Since the robes are the next largest surface area they were my next target. As always, start at the largest surface areas and work your way down is my standard MO for painting projects, certainly didn't mix that up this time around.
I started with the inner robes using a darker red to establish an overall mid-tone. Then I hit my first snag, I can't wet blend for the life of me. Maybe it was a problem with the paints I was using, maybe I just suck at it. Either way I had a hard time trying to establish that transition between shades and highlights. While I did get a result that I am mostly happy with eventually I could've achieve the same result or better with a combination of glazing and layering, so I don't think I will be revisiting this technique any time soon. The outer white robes I painted with a more cream colour that uses Game Colour Bonewhite as the mid tone. The final result was way more to my liking as I fell back to my familiar techniques. I also tried some simple freehand on the robes to get used to it, the final result, a single purple line on the inner red of the cloak. Overall I had some hard time getting it even, but it turned out reasonably well. I also used this stage to paint all of the red and white components, which was pretty much perfunctory.

Third Stage - Black Leather, Armour Inner Suite and Book Pages.
I had some trouble deciding what colour to paint some of the books. They were layered and relayed several times which ultimately resulted in a fairly bad final finish when I settled on painting the book covers black. I used my usual technique with a mid grey and washing over until I get a black finish didn't quite work so I fell back to black with manual grey highlights. In the end the result was mediocre and this result was the point where I decided that I wasn't going to get the high quality result that I was hoping. The book pages were a major source of rage for me in this model. The detail is very soft and didn't take a wash well, so I had to layer up the pages with white lines to build up the impression of texture.

Fourth Stage - Scroll Work and Seals
Not much to say about this work, painted with the usual Games Workshop method. For some of the larger lettering I did try using a micron pen for the scroll work which didn't work out as well as expected, so I'll go back to using paint and brush for this work in future. The seals themselves were a simple purple with basic shading, layers and highlights so not much to write about.

Fifth Stage - Tubing
I wanted to try some glow effects for this mini, especially since the character is a Pysker as far as I understand. To achieve this I did a simple white basecoat and layered over with the Games Workshop blue glaze until I got an effect I like. I also used this to paint the eyes of the model to give the impression of an inner glow.

Sixth Stage - Flesh
I experimented with a new flesh wash this time around. It turned out okay but I probably could've achieved a better result with manual brushwork. But by this late stage of the project I just wanted it done, so I rushed it more than I should've and it shows. The beard on the other hand turned out way better than expected, a light grey washed over with black, then layered up with many small downward strokes of greys and whites. Generally I'm happy with the final result in this case.

Final Assembly
The last major problem was getting the head into the armour, I screwed this up at first and ended up getting some super glue on the model's face. I fixed this up with some matt medium once the glue had dried, but this instance did make me regret painting this model as sub assemblies. The base was my fairly easy usual technique to blend with the rest of my 40k collection, which turned out well as usual.

Final Thoughts
As a tabletop model it is a very good result, as a display piece the final paint job is definitely not up to standard. A combination of my own mediocre skill, quickly eroding patience towards the end all contributed to the standard of the result. I think it would help if I had a couple of different projects on the boil so I don't run the risk of getting sick of a particular project. Anyway, hopefully the other Triumvirates will turn out better than this fellow.