With the release of the new Warhammer 40k Tau Codex I felt inspired to try my hand at painting a few of the xenos and bought a box set of Fire Warriors. One thing I wanted to avoid was the need to painstakingly pick out every armored plate and edge highlight. I decided to give the Army Painter Quickshade another try. Most Tau armies seem to be painted in a pristine parade ground condition, but I wanted mine to battered from campaigning, so I felt like the Quickshade would be a... well, quick way of achieving this.
One of the problems I've had with Quickshade in the past is that though the results look pretty good, they don't look like mine. The contrast is simply not as pronounced as on my layered models. One way I decided to overcome this was to ensure I picked a color scheme with a high contrast. I like the various city camo schemes for Tau I've seen online, but I'm tired of painting grey (Red Scorpions and Death Korps of Krieg). I started by spraying the models with Army Painter's Skeleton Bone. The other colors were picked out with Games Workshop paints: the cloth with Rhinox Hide, the gun butts and various other bits and bobs with Mechanicus Standard Grey, the visor lights with Evil Sunz Scarlet, and the doohicky on the end of the pulse rifle with Gehenna's Gold. I picked out the leader's helmet and part of his shoulder pad in White Scar. Any mistakes were cleaned up with Ushabti Bone, which is a perfect match for the Skeleton Bone spray paint (almost as if Army Painter planned it). This took about an hour for the whole team.
Next I doused all of the models liberally in Army Painter Quickshade Soft Tone. I use a brush rather than dipping them in the tin. After all of the models were covered, I went back through them to make sure there were no puddles of standing varnish. This took all of fifteen minutes, but I left it to dry for 48 hours (the time was not wasted because I assembled and undercoated a second squad of identical composition over this period).
You will notice I repainted the team leader's helmet and shoulder pad with Evil Sunz Scarlet - the white didn't provide enough contrast to the rest of the armor after applying the Quickshade. The pic below shows the models after being coated in Army Painter Anti-Shine varnish. There have been mixed reviews on the net about this brand of matt varnish (a Google search will reveal these), but I've never had any trouble with it. It is absolutely vital to matt varnish the models after using Quickshade because the results are super shiny! I let this dry for most of the afternoon.
Finally I spent an hour or so adding Sept Markings with Evil Sunz Scarlet and battle damage in the same manner I described in my Ultramarines article a few weeks back. While underlighting the battle damage with Ushabti Bone, I also did minimal edge highlighting on the helmets and shoulder pads. Mud was added by drybrushing and stippling Mournfang Brown on the lower legs and lightly on random upper areas as well.
I'm wondering if I couldn't have achieved similar results with the Game Workshop washes and avoided the two-plus days of drying time. While it only took about two and a half hours to achieve these results, I could probably have done the same thing with the washes and finished the unit in a single day. Of course the Quickshade tin holds enough product to paint hundreds of models while the GW washes might manage twenty or thirty! This may call for another round of experimentation. I'm also wondering if I wouldn't rather have a a color scheme closer to the official GW studio version...
I don't know where this project is going. Certainly I want to paint up an HQ to give me a legal, if tiny, army. Two squads like the one above come in around 180 points. I should be able to easily fit in an HQ and another supporting unit of some sort for a five hundred point force.
Tiny though it may have been, my Plague Marine Squad won the award for best Kill Team in yesterday's GW store tournament! I also tied for second place in the sportsmanship category by garnering multiple votes from my opponents as their favorite opponent. My brother Dennis was voted as the favorite opponent by ALL FOUR of his opponents and won first place in the sportsmanship category!
My first game was against one of my oldest friends and longtime 40k opponent, Jim, and his Imperial Guard. The Plague Marines stood up to my expectations for durability and absorbed amazing amounts of firepower, including multiple heavy bolter rounds. I managed to win this game with a comfortable 9-2 score, but the game would have been much closer but for the fact that Jim forgot to move his Chimera closer to the objective, giving me an easy 5 points!
My second game was against a Tau army run by a very nice guy named Jason. The game started poorly for me when I lost three Plague Marines on turn two, but I managed to hang on without any more casualties and won 7-5 on the final turn by pushing the Tau away from the objective and claiming the 5 points again!
My third game was against Dark Angels and a young guy named Drew. He was apologetic because he was just getting into the game and hadn't painted his models... then he crushed me with a combination of sniper rifles, crack missiles, and plasma bolts. The score was 12-0 and I had only one Plague Marine left at the end of the game!
In the end, I was 2-1 having missed out on one round, Jim and Dennis both 3-1, and Tom 2-2. Despite the victories, none of our average points were enough to place 1st-3rd in the tournament, but the Best Army award was actually more important to me anyway. More importantly, we all had a great time! The Kill Team event is going to be a monthly event at the store and I think we are all in again next time...
Tomorrow I am heading to my local Games Workshop store to participate in a 200pt Kill Team tournament. It will be eight rounds of Warhammer 40k on brutally small 4x3' battlefields which are sure to maximize carnage! I have NEVER played in a tournament and I am normally not very good at making competitive lists because I normally collect models I want to paint without much regard for their stat line. I really am just going for the fun of it anyway. My brother and two of my oldest friends are also going so I am looking forward to possibly getting the chance to line up against them.
My brother Dennis is bringing Chaos Daemons based around Khorne and will be using the brand new codex (out today). Jim is bringing Imperial Guard. The last time he played Kill Team it was with a Veteran Squad outfitted with a Chimera, but he may run a different list. Tom is going to borrow a tactical squad of Red Scorpions from me as his Space Wolves won't be ready by tomorrow. I have a myriad of armies to choose from - Red Scorpions Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines, Orks, Death Korps of Krieg, and Tryanids! It seems like close combat armies will have an advantage on the small tables, though a shooty force could do a lot of damage if they win the first move.
With all of the choices available I have gone back a forth a dozen times, but I think I have settled on a small squad of Plague Marines drawn from this unit...
I am fielding a squad of seven models (and no Rhino). With a Toughness of 5, Armour Save 3+, and Feel No Pain, they will be hard to bring down! I can only field seven models but they will pack a punch in shooting and close combat and will absorb an enormous amount of punishment.
I plan to take my camera so I'll have plenty of pictures and report on the outcome (including if I chanced my mind on my force again) next week.
I don't know what kind of local readership my blog gets, but I am happy to pass on the information that Virginia Beach, VA will soon be home to an official Games Workshop store...
First to the Fight!
As
part of Games Workshop's expansion across the country, squads of Space
Marines are descending on new locations! Stop by on opening Saturday at
noon and be the FIRST TO THE FIGHT with activities, contests, and a free
stuff (like the patch, buttons and poster shown) while supplies last!
Conversion Competition - We'll provide the bitz, you bring the tools, excitement, and creative genius!
Space Marine Painting Competition - Grab a Space Marine and paint your heart out! Be sure to bring your paint and brushes for this fun painting contest!
Scenario Challenge Competition -
Bring your favorite 40K or Warhammer Fantasy army and/or the Lord of
the Rings forces and face your opponents in quick, fun scenarios.
Participants can play up to three games each if time allows.
The
store's first day opens at noon. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners for all
"First to the Fight" competitions will be announced at the end of the
day.
JANUARY 26th Hilltop East Shopping Center 1564 Laskin Rd. Unit 172 Virginia Beach, VA 23451
I far exceeded my goal as my army is up to 86 models and 2300 points (basically the cost of the Tyrannofex). While I am finished with the A Tale of One Gamer series, I have decided to push this army on to 3000 points as I have time. I still want to add a Trygon (or two - I easily have enough units to build a two force structure army) and a second unit of Tyranids. I also like to max out each branch selection so I need another Fast Attack (the second spore mine unit doesn't really count as I would probably field a single unit of six) and another Elite choice - probably a Gargoyle Brood and Hive Guard Brood respectively.
One of the goals of this project was to concentrate on models I already owned. I bought the Tyrant Guard Brood, Lictor Brood, Zoanthrope Brood, and Tyrannofex - everything else came from my storage closet!
This has been a lot of fun. I don't know if I'll do another series like this next year, but I definitely plan to follow the 500 points/month model the next time I build a new 40k army. The pace was quite leisurely for me and left me time to work on other projects. Splitting between two armies was a great way to avoid burnout as well as each unit felt fresh when I sat down to paint!
The next thing I want to do with these armies (besides play some games) is set up my photo equipment and get some action shots with terrain - next year!
This is the first in a series of auctions designed to clear out some space in my game room. The first listing is my Crimson Fist Space Marine army, offered as separate auctions. Some pics below...
There will be some historical stuff up for sale soon so keep an eye out!
Have I mentioned how much I loathe undercoating models with a brush? I can paint an infantry model, highlights and all, in the time it takes me to paint ten infantry models black. Spray paint takes a little experience to get good results and minimize touch ups, but once you master the process it is a huge time saver. I find myself with little enough time to paint these days and I try to spend that time finishing models!
That said, on Friday I received my first regiments of Warfare Miniatures horse in the mail (watch for a detailed review soon). I wasted no time assembling them, but it was RAINING thins morning. Never mind the impossibility of spray painting in the rain, high humidity often produces poor results as well, so even if it stopped soon I didn't want to spray these models. If I wanted to start painting I was going to have to undercoat a few by hand.
I decided to try one of Citadel's new 'Technical Paints' called Imperial Primer. I still haven't had much time to mess around with much of what I got in the Citadel Paint Bundle, so this was my first time using this. The paint is thinner than 'ordinary' Citadel paints, so there is no need to mix it with water to avoid obscuring the details. It also has a high concentration of pigment and adheres well to metal (unlike thinned down acrylics normally do). When it goes on, the paint looks a little streaky, but it dried to an even coat. The results were indistinguishable from a pair of models I had setting nearby that had been undercoated with Chaos Black spray paint - in fact maybe better as the models painted with spray paint appear satin while the those painted with Imperial Primer are matte.
Anyway, I'm off to paint some cavalry (photos and a review soon). If you undercoat models with black primer by hand, give the Citadel Imperial Primer a try.
As promised, I wanted to provide a review of Claymore Castings and I'm going to talk more about the new Citadel paints as well. The sculpts are by Paul Hicks and the models are quite simply some of the best I've ever placed on my painting table. There is a careful attention to detail, but the manner in which the sculpts are rendered make painting a joy - even the tiny laces on the leather jacks are easy to pick out with a brush. The soldiers are dynamically posed and carry various odds and ends of equipment that lend a lot of character to these models.
I'm going to build a small collection for playing border skirmishes in the period so I mounted my models on wooded Litko bases (25mm round). The next step would be to clean up the model with a clipper and file to remove mold lines and flash... hmmm... ok, my Claymore Castings had ZERO clean up work. Wow - nice job (maybe Dave Imrie cleaned mine up before he sent 'em).
On to the painting. I never use a white undercoat. Ever. My style depends on using the black undercoat to provide the deepest layer of contrast and separate different areas of color to provide the ultimate contrast. Having said that, I am following along with Dave Imrie's painting tutorial so I decided to try his method of a white undercoat followed by a dark wash - Citadel Devlan Mud for Dave or Citadel Agrax Earthshade from my shiny new paint collection. This will provide a bright base for colors while hopefully providing the dark contrast the in deepest recesses that I want...
I'm not going into every stoke, but I want to say I am extremely pleased with the results and I am really happy with the new Citadel paints. In another departure from my normal method (and again following Dave's advice) I used a lot of washes. For the majority of colors I followed the following method:
1. Citadel Base Color
2. Citadel Shade (the wash)
3. Two layers of highlights from the Citadel... errr... Layers Colors
There are literally TWICE as many colors in the new range. One of the reasons I switched to Foundry paints years ago was to get a more subtle contrast between layers without the need to mix paints (yes - I am that lazy). Citadel has basically taken all of their old paints and added new shades between to create a range much closer to the Foundry model.
The end results of my initial test of the new line. While I am happy with these models, I still feel like I would rather start with a black undercoat. The new Base colors give even coverage even over black. On these models I actually went in and added a black line in a few areas. I've left the device off of the heraldry for the moment as I haven't decided exactly what to use for my fictional Scottish lord.
One thing about the Citadel paints that I'm not crazy about are the new texture paints. If you typically base your models with sand and then paint it you will probably love them, but for me the texture was too fine. I have my own basing method so I'll stick with that - maybe I'll find another use for the texture paints.
More Claymore models and another Warfare Miniatures unit coming up soon...
Yes - I'm nuts. Despite having hundreds of paints from Foundry, Games Workshop, and Vallejo, I just pre-ordered the mammoth new Games Workshop set. This monster comes with 145 paints and takes one of my three favored brands to a whole new level. I've been using the Foundation series quite a lot, as even the yellows and reds can be painted straight over black, maintaining a high degree of opacity even when thinned. They also make my favorite washes because they dry matte.
There are now seven different types of paint - Base Paints, Shades, Dry Compounds, Layer Paints, Glazes, Textures and Technical paints...
Citadel Base Paints
There are 34 Base Paints. Their high concentration of pigment makes them perfect for coating your miniatures, even over a black undercoat. These replace the Foundation Paints I mentioned above.
Citadel Shades
Shades are for adding depth to your models, to create areas of darker color, define details, and accentuate recesses. These are the new range of washes, and again will dry matte.
Citadel Dry Compounds
Drybrushing is one of the first painting techniques that many painters learn; it's an exceedingly handy way of picking out the details on a model, or applying highlights quickly and easily. There are 15 different shades. The Dry Compounds aren't like your traditional paints - they're, well... they're pretty dry. They look kind of lumpy, but the result should be a smoother drybrushing effect and easier to achieve to boot.
Citadel Layer Paints
There are 70 Layer Paints. Everything from red and yellow to gold and silver are a part of the Layer range. To give you an idea of the scale of it all, there are 12
different greens, including everything from a vibrant turquoise to a putrid yellowy green. Essentially the Layer paints are the main colors of your model.
Citadel Glazes
There are four Glazes in the new paint range - yellow, red, green and blue. Their role is to intensify color, to make an area of a miniature really stand out. On initial examination they look a lot like Shades, but they actually act very differently, and apply themselves evenly over a miniature, giving it a new hue. They are also perfect for restoring color to an area that you might have over-highlighted.
Citadel Texture Paints
Unlike Layers and Base Paints they contain a mixture of paint and fine grit, which can be used to texture the bases of your miniatures. Even better, there are six
different colors, so you can paint your bases to look sandy, dusty, snowy, muddy, or swampy straight out of the pot. I have my own basing techniques, but I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of weathering effects I can achieve with this.
Citadel Technical Paints
Liquid Green Stuff (really cool stuff - if you haven't tried this I highly recommend it), gloss varnish, a clear matte medium for thinning the Layer Paints, and a black primer.
You can see more on all of these paints here:
I'll certainly have more details when the set comes out, but after reading about them I knew I had to have these new tools in my paint arsenal. No matter what you may think of Games Workshop rules, they have always made fantastic paints and the new range, with expanded colors and tricks, looks to be no exception.
