Beastlords: Robots In Plain View

 Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

Here we go with my latest set of commissioned miniatures, a set of Beastlords from Bot Wars.

For those who don't know, Bot Wars is a skirmish game in 8mm scale from Traders Galaxy. It's set in an alternate 1980's Earth, where armies heavily inspired by the tv and movies of the real 1980's battle it out. One of the main draw points of the game are the giant robots, inspir3ed by a fairly succesful toy franchise. These are resin miniatures, nearly 50mm tall* and present some unique challenges, with all the flat areas and sharp edges.
I had a mad idea to start these off with a base of Citadel Contrast paints. Why  is that a mad idea? Well,  a lot of people will argue that Contrast paints don't work over large flat areas but I thought it was worth a try to see what happened. And, whaddya know, it worked! I found working with the Contrast bases worked really well, as the pooled away from the edges leaving a natural blend that I could work over with normal highlights. It's just a matter of controlling the paint, not letting it pool too much in the wrong places then, once it's dry, laying down a smooth first layer, blended into the base colour, then built up a couple of layers of edge highlighting, being really careful to keep these as neat and tight as possible. Once all the highlights are finished, I then blended back some of the original Contrast colour, where necessary, to strengthen any of the deeper tones that needed a bit of reinforcing, before applying a controlled recess shade of Army Painter Strong Tone or Dark Tone, depending on the colour. This is blended out to form a smooth blend into the strongest shadow. It's a great way of giving more contrast to the shapes, which really helps to give the illusion of scale, especially when combined with the sharp edge highlights. The colour schemes were mostly based on the production artwork for the miniatures and I've outlined the specific colours used on each miniature below. The colour in parenthesis is the Contrast base layer.

TYRANNUS



Yellow: (Nazdreg Yellow) Averland Sunset, Yriel Yellow, Dorn Yellow.
Orange: (Gryph-Hound Orange) Troll Slayer Orange, Fire Dragon Bright, Luggunath Orange
Red: (Flesh Tearers Red) Mephiston Red, Evil Sunz Scarlet, Luggunath Orange.
White: (Space Wolves Grey) Ulthuan Grey, Corax White, White Scar.
Grey: (Gryph-Charger Grey) Celestra Grey, Ulthuan Grey, Corax White.
Black: (Black Templar) Dark Reaper, Thunderhawk Blue, Fenrisian Grey, Blue Horror.

ARKYNOR



Yellow: (Nazdreg Yellow) Averland Sunset, Yriel Yellow, Dorn Yellow.
Green: (Warp Lightning) Warpstone Glow, Moot Green, Kreig Khaki.
Red: (Blood Angels Red) Mephiston Red, Evil Sunz Scarlet, Luggunath Orange.
Grey: (Gryph-Charger Grey) Celestra Grey, Ulthuan Grey, Corax White.
Black: (Black Templar) Dark Reaper, Thunderhawk Blue, Fenrisian Grey, Blue Horror.

DACTYLOUS



Yellow: (Nazdreg Yellow) Averland Sunset, Yriel Yellow, Dorn Yellow.
Blue: (Leviadon Blue) Kantor Blue, Aliatoc Blue, Fenrisian Grey, Blue Horror
Red: (Flesh Tearers Red) Mephiston Red, Evil Sunz Scarlet, Luggunath Orange.
Grey: (Space Wolves Grey) Celestra Grey, Grey Seer, Ulthuan Grey
Black: (Black Templar) Dark Reaper, Thunderhawk Blue, Fenrisian Grey, Blue Horror.

STEGAROUS



Yellow: (Nazdreg Yellow) Averland Sunset, Yriel Yellow, Dorn Yellow.
Purple: (Leviadon Blue) Naggaroth Night, Xereus Purple, Genestealer Purple, Slaanesh Grey.
Red: (Blood Angels Red) Mephiston Red, Evil Sunz Scarlet, Luggunath Orange.
White: (Gryph-Charger Grey) Celestra Grey, Ulthuan Grey, Corax White.
Black: (Black Templar) Dark Reaper, Thunderhawk Blue, Fenrisian Grey, Blue Horror.

PARASOLAR

White: (Apothecary White) Grey Seer, Corax White

Green: (Ork Flesh) Warpstone Glow, Skarsnik Green, Nurgling Green

Red: (Blood Angels Red) Evil Sunz Scarlet, Wild Rider Red, Luggunath Orange

Blue: (Ultramarines Blue) Kantor Blue, Aliatoc Blue, Hoeth Blue,

Fenrisian Grey

Yellow: (Iyanden Yellow) Averland Sunset, Flash Gitz Yellow, Dorn Yellow

Black: (Black Templar) Dark Reaper, Thunderhawk Blue, Grey Seer

TRICEROUS

White: (Apothecary White) Grey Seer, Corax White

Grey: (Space Wolves Grey) Celestra Grey, Grey Seer

Deep Red: (Shyish Purple) Gal Vorbak Red, Word Bearers Red, Squig Orange

Red: (Blood Angels Red) Evil Sunz Scarlet, Wild Rider Red, Luggunath Orange

Light Blue: (Gryph-Charger Grey) Russ Grey, Fenrisian Grey, Grey Seer

Yellow: (Iyanden Yellow) Averland Sunset, Flash Gitz Yellow, Dorn Yellow

Black: (Black Templar) Dark Reaper, Thunderhawk Blue, Grey Seer

BRONTOUS

White: (Apothecary White) Grey Seer, Corax White

Deep Red: (Shyish Purple) Gal Vorbak Red, Word Bearers Red, Squig Orange

Red: (Blood Angels Red) Evil Sunz Scarlet, Wild Rider Red, Luggunath Orange

Blue: (Tallassar Blue) Sotek Green, Temple Guard Blue, Fenrisian Grey

Light Blue: (Gryph-Charger Grey) Russ Grey, Fenrisian Grey, Grey Seer

Yellow: (Iyanden Yellow) Averland Sunset, Flash Gitz Yellow, Dorn Yellow

Black: (Black Templar) Dark Reaper, Thunderhawk Blue, Grey Seer

So, there you have it. Seven Beastlords. I had a lot of fun with these. All in all, each one took roughly ten hours to do, and I'm fairly pleased with the results. The sculpts are clean, with just the right level of detail, and the castings are crisp and smooth, and I can highly recommend them. It won't be my last foray into the world of Botwar, either, so watch this space for some more from this range soon.

Thanks for reading!

-Stu

*which makes them around 12 metres tall in scale terms!

The Inevitable March Of Decay And Entropy. And Nurglings.

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

If you read last week's post you'll have seen my review of the new Death Guard codex and an army list of my very own Death Guard army.

Today I'm going to talk about my first proper army since...oooh, probably before some of you reading this were born...

When the new Death Guard were originally released in 2017, with the launch of the Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition, I was quite taken with the miniatures. Particularly, as a painter, I was extremely impressed with the work the 'eavy Metal team had done on the miniatures, managing to make them look suitably dirty and manky, yet maintaining the clean, bright house painting style*. 

Having got my hands on the Dark Imperium boxed set I planned to paint up both factions (the Death Guard and Primaris Astartes) into small skirmish forces. The advent of the Conquest partwork made me decide to expand that into two full armies. 

Of course, that never happened.

Both factions languished in boxes, doomed to gather dust with the rest of the Pile Of Shame. That is, until my friend Ollie announced that he'd like to start collecting a 40k army (Astra Militarum, to be exact) in order to start playing some games. I decided to dust off the Death Guard and do something with them at last. Why not the Primaris? 

Four reasons:

1. I'd just finished painting rather a lot of Adeptus Astartes on commission, and was somewhat burned out on them. 

2. My friend Jack was planning to do an Imperial Fists force, and I didn't see the point in having two Astartes forces in our little gaming group.

3. I wanted an army that would be fairly quick to paint and one thing that my experience has taught me is that it can be very difficult and frustrating to paint Astartes quickly to a standard that I would be happy with.

4. The Death Guard playstyle of basically just plodding forward and rolling over the enemy, while soaking up any incoming fire, sounded about right for my level of tactical sophistication.

So, with the Death Guard chosen as my army, the next thing would be to decide how to paint them. As I mentioned, I wanted to be able to burn through them pretty quickly. I know what I'm like for flitting between projects and I knew that, if I wanted to get this one done, I would need to make it easy and quick to do. However, they have to look good enough to appease my delicate artistic sensibilities, so I needed a scheme that would strike a balance between speed, ease of painting and looking good on the tabletop. I knew I wanted to go for a version of the Death Guard's Heresy-era scheme of grey armour and green pauldrons and so I began experimenting on a few of the spare miniatures from Conquest, that I wouldn't be using in my force. 

The Death Guard miniatures are very detailed, with all their mutations, gribbly bits and whatnot, some of them are very busy miniatures, and that can look a bit overwhelming, especially before painting, when the whole model is the same shade of grey all over. I've seen some excellent conversions, where people have cut back a lot (if not all) the bone protrusions and tentacles and they look really good but it did look like a lot of work and, as I said before, I didn't want this project to drag on, so I decided to go ahead with them as they were. In the end, I'm glad I stuck to my guns as, once I started putting some paint on, what had initially seemed an overwhelming level of detail really started to come together and I was reminded why I liked them in the first place. 

On to the painting...

As I said, I wanted to get them done quickly. I didn't want to get bogged down in yet another unfinished project. I was determined to get this army fully painted and tabletop ready. I usually go for a clean, 'eavy Metal style but that sort of style does not lend itself to getting done quickly. I wasn't looking to spending 10+ hours on each miniature here! Luckily, the Death Guard lend themselves well to a rough and loose paint style but it's a bit of a step into the unknown for me so I've been looked at a lot of the grimdark-style painting for inspiration. I can highly recommend 28 Magazine if you want to see some incredible work in this grim and gritty style. I'm not trying to match the artistry presented there, by any means, but it certainly is a great source for ideas and, after a bit of experimenting, I had a method that I thought would do the job, giving me miniatures that would satisfy me by looking good on the tabletop but be quick and easy to do.

 

The miniatures were given a spray undercoat of grey primer. I use this one because, well, it works and it's cheap. After that, all the armour areas were stippled with a couple of coats of Grey Seer. Now, I could have gone with a zenithal overspray of the Grey Seer spray, and it would have worked quite well, as well as being really quick, but I wanted the texture that stippling would give. As for technique, you want to use a good-but-past-it's-best brush. I used an old Series 7 size 1 that won't form a point any more. Taking the paint straight from the pot and loading the brush well, wipe most of the paint off on a tissue and use a stabbing motion to build up the colour. Don't worry that it looks so messy, that's kind of the idea. I did a couple of passes of this, building the layers randomly.

The next step was to basecoat all the other areas with the appropriate colours. The shoulder pauldrons were stippled with Death Guard Green, the flesh areas were painted with Rakarth Flesh and the zits, slimy and gribbly bits were painted with Ironrach Skin. The rubber undersuit areas and pipes were painted with Skavenblight Dinge, the boney protrusions with Morghast Bone, and the gun cases with Corvus Black. The wood was done with XV-88, leather with Mournfang Brown and the Cloaks with Gal Vorbak Red. Finally, the metal areas were done with Iron Hands Steel and the Bronze areas with Runelord Brass. Again, I've not bothered to be perfectly neat and tidy here. The focus has been on getting them done quickly, rather than going for any showcase quality.

Once all that is done, the next stage is to do an overall wash to shade all the colours and to tie the composition together. In the grimdark style, this is often done with oil or enamel paints but I wanted to see if I could get the effect I wanted with acrylics. I made up a mix of Athonian Camoshade/Nuln Oil/Agrax Earthshade in a 2/1/1 ratio and washed this over the entire miniature and you know what? I was actually well pleased with the result. 

Once the overall wash was dry I applied extra washes to some of the other areas, to introduce some variety into the colours. The tentacles are given a wash of Drucchi Violet/Carroburg Crimson mix, sores and boils get a mix of Drucchi Violet and Bloodletter. while these mixes are still wet on my pallette, I mixed a little Blood for the Blood God in with them and started applying them randomly, wet-in-wet over all the skin areas, adding touches of water to let it flow a bit better where necessary. Finally, some Nurgle's Rot was added into the mixes and this was applied as a glaze over all organic areas, leaving them with a lovely, grotty sheen...

The final stage is to stipple the armour with Grey Seer again. This stage is probably unnecessary but it really does finish them off nicely, giving the armour the look of having been painted and repainted over and over. You'll notice some stuff on the base in this photo too. This is Extra Course Pumice Gel from Golden Artists Colour. It's a transparent medium that has these hard crystals in it. The plan is to use them as a base for a sort of mud effect. I dunno if it's going to work yet, and it's going to take some experimenting with I think, but I've got plenty more miniatures to paint yet, before I need to do the bases.

So, there we go. I'm happy with the way they look as a unit and they only took me two hours each. Result! At this rate I'm actually going to have a functional, fully-painted army by the time I can play some games against my friends!

Thanks for reading!

-Stu

*I actually asked Max Faleij about it at Warhammer Fest the year they were released. What a nice chap.

"You Bought ANOTHER Book? Haven't You Already Got That One?!!" A Comparison Of Two Death Guard Codexes...

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

The Better Half was less than impressed when I explained that, yes, I did have this book already, but that this was an updated version with new rules and...stuff. 

"Well, at least you'll actually use this one." She said, indicating my growing Death Guard army on my shelves. 

"Yeah, and I've got almost all the miniatures I need for it, too!"

"Almost?!!"

"Ooh, look what the cat's doing over there, isn't that cute?!!"

Ahem.

So, having got my hot and sticky little hands* on the new edition of the Death Guard Codex I thought I'd see how it stacks up against the previous edition. For once, I can look at a Codex from the point of view of a proper collector/gamer as I do have a decent-sized Death Guard army that I'm working on (more on that next week) so I figured I could see how the new edition affects the army I am building.

So, first up, a little bit of a review of the new book, and a look back at how it stacks up against its predecessor. 

See, not the same book at all...

The first and most obvious thing you'll notice if you compare the two books is the new one is significantly thinner. DG1 is 104 pages, whereas DG2 is 96, and that's a bit of an issue for me. DG2 is £5 more expensive than DG1, which means you're paying 20% more for a considerable cut in content. What's more, when you look at the other Codexes so far released, at the same price as this one, the Necron book is 120 pages, the Adeptus Astartes one is a whopping 204 pages. Even the Space Wolves supplement is 88 pages, and that's only £17.50... You can't help feeling a little short-changed here, especially when you see what's been excised from the book. 

DG1 has 51 pages of background: timelines, colour schemes, history, and details of all the troop types and characters; DG2 has just 20 pages. It wouldn't be so bad if some of the descriptive text had maybe been moved to the datasheets section but no, it's just gone. There's one less page in the miniatures showcase section, too, and the example army spread has gone. There's more text in the showcase pages meaning there's less pictures of actual miniatures although there are some individual shots in the datasheets section, which is a little jarring, if I'm being picky. Why stick a whole page of Plague Marine miniature photos opposite the datasheet when it could have gone in the showcase section as it was? Why add photos to the bottom of the Terminators pages, but not to other pages, like the Defiler, where there's a faded illustration instead? Other aesthetic things irritate, too. Some of the datasheets have photos of the miniature to illustrate them, others do not. Okay, some of those that don't have photos don't have Death Guard-specific miniatures available, like th Predator and Land Raider, but neither do the Chaos Cultists, and they get a photo. I know it's a minor, niggling thing but it smacks of a lack of thought and lazy design, and neither of those things should apply when you're paying these sort of prices.

At least in the rules section we get a lot more in this version, with new rules for Matched Play, Detachment Abilities, Stratagems, Deadly Pathogens, Contagion Disciplines and a big chunk of Crusade rules. These are well-presented and easy to negotiate, and give a lot of much-needed flavour to the army. The datasheets are nicely laid out, too, and include one for the new Miasmic Malignifier scenery piece. Don't expect to find the datasheets for any of the Nurgle Daemons though, as they aren't here (which, of course, means you'll have to buy another book later if you want to field Daemons alongside your Death Guard army...)

One major positive change is in the layout of the points tables. Each unit now has associated upgrades listed with it, which means you don't have to keep flipping back to the datasheet to reference your available options when working out your points cost. 

So, to sum up: the new Death Guard Codex is something of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it does contain everything you need in order to field your army (except for all those daemons, of course) it misses out on a lot of the things that should be in there, especially at this price tag. I'm not usually one to complain about GW's pricing choices (although I do think most of the single figures are overpriced) but the price of this book really sticks in my craw, especially when compared to others in the range. Either up the page count to the size of at least the Necron book, or drop the damn price. 

So, with that out of the way, what of my own nearly complete army? How does the arrival of the new book change things? Well, not an awful lot, actually, at least in terms of putting units together and getting them ready to paint and play with. My army is probably not very strategically organised (I've not bothered to think about detachments, Pathogens, etc. at the moment) as I'm basically just putting together the miniatures I have, and adding in the other ones I want later**. I've never been one for planning an army based on how to win, rather on what miniatures I want in my collection, so I'm fairly sure that the army I have (and the additions I have planned) isn't even legal but, hey-ho, it's not like I'll ever enter a tournament anyway... If you want to get a really good overview of the tactical and organisational changes, I heartily recommend this article over on Goonhammer. They know what they're talking about much more than I do...

One of the major changes (at least, that has affected the way I organise my collection) has been the change to the way weapon upgrades are available to Plague Marine squads. Whereas before you could have, for example, up to two plasma guns in any Plague Marine squad, now you can have only one per five models. This means that my 7-man squads, one with two Blight Launchers and one with two Plasma Guns, are now illegal, unless I increase the unit sizes to 10 each. It's no biggie, really, as I can just swap one miniature over from each squad, but it has lost a little bit of character to the units, I feel. So, with these things in mind, here's how my army stacks up at the moment:

HQ

Typhus

Lord of Contagion

ELITES

Noxious Blightbringer

Tallyman

Plague Surgeon

Foul Blightspawn

Biologus Putrifier

TROOPS

Plague Marines (7 inc. Champion with Plasma Gun and Power Fist, 1x Plasma Gun, 1x Blight Launcher, 1x Icon of Despair)

Plague Marines (7 inc. Champion with Plague Blade and Power Fist, 1x Plasma Gun, 1x Blight Launcher, 1x Sigil of Decay)

Poxwalkers (20)

Poxwalkers (20)

Chaos Cultists (10 inc. Flamer)

Cultists (10 inc. Heavy Stubber)

FAST ATTACK

2x Myphitic Blight Haulers

2x Foetid Bloat Drones with 2x Plaguespitters

HEAVY SUPPORT

Plagueburst Crawler with 2x Plaguespitters, Heavy Stubber

Plagueburst Crawler with 2x Entropy Cannon, Rothail Gun

TOTAL POINTS: 2289 (I think)

Later on I'm going to add one of the new Lords of Virulence, a squad made up of the Space Marine Heroes set (I also want to get the Malignant Plaguecaster that goes with that set, too, but he's going to be a bugger to get hold of for a reasonable price...) and I'd like to get one squad of Blightlord Terminators and one squad of Deathshroud Terminators. I'd also love a Helbrute and Defiler, but I really wish they'd come up with Nurgle-specific miniatures for them. I also want all my units to be eventually mounted in transports but, being that I'd need at least two Land Raiders and five Rhinos (or equivalent) to mount everything, that may never happen, especially as, again, there's no Nurgle-specific miniatures available, and third-party conversion kits are really expensive. Talking of expensive, there's always Mortarion, too...

Okay, that's it for now. Next week I'll be showing off my first painted Death Guard miniatures, as well as a painting guide for them.

Thanks for reading!

-Stu

*Possibly not the best phrase to use when dealing with Nurgle...

**Don't tell The Better Half...

I'M BACK!!! Let There Be much Celebrationising!!!

 Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

You may have noticed* I haven't updated the blog for a little while. Don't worry, there hasn't been any great crisis, I just needed some time off from it. I have to admit I have struggled with motivation to get on with writing. I was struggling to come up with content to fill the pages in my schedule, and that was beginning get me down. It was starting to feel like a chore so I needed to regroup and refocus for a bit and I knew the best thing to do was to step aside for a while. I'd only meant to take a break for a few weeks but that expanded into months. However, I knew the time would come when I would be ready to start it up again. That time is now.

I've been told it's a good look for me...

I've been very lucky in that, so far, I have been relatively unaffected by the global Covid crisis. My Real World Job, as a night care support worker, has been business as usual and, as The Better Half does the same job, our daily routine has gone on pretty much as it was before this whole calamity kicked off. Apart from minor changes to our going out habits (we didn't have that much of a social life to lose, but I think I'm actually going for more walks than I ever have...) we have plodded on pretty much as we always have. Like I said, we've been very lucky. I have noticed it's started to get to me a little bit, though, not being able to go shopping, have a pint or visit my friends. Lockdown fever has skirted the edges of our lives and we're not immune to the need to return to "normal" Still, I can't complain. We're healthy (so far), work has been unaffected and we've coped with the changes. Many others have not been so lucky and I really do feel for those whose lives have been seriously affected by all this. I have friends and colleagues who have lost loved ones, suffered issues with their jobs, been left high and dry by the lockdowns or have simply had to cope with a year of terrible upheaval without the sort of support networks that some have had and my heart goes out to them.

There are those who have been able to turn this situation into a chance to improve themselves, and I take my hat off to them. In the hobby world, many have managed to turn their new-found extra free time into a chance to catch up with their painting. Seeing all these new armies and display pieces pop up has caused a mixture of almost equal parts admiration, inspiration and frustration. I've barely been able to maintain the status quo in terms of my productivity. Moving house at the ned of the summer also put a big dent in my work schedule for a couple of months.

It's not all doom and gloom, though. For the first time in years I actually have a proper room in which to do my work and, although I still don't have it organised and laid out entirely to my satisfaction, I am putting my new workspace to good use. For the first time in far, far too long I have started to get some commission painting done. It's been such a relief to finally get back to trying to make some inroads into the mountainous backlog of work that I have to get through. Jobs that have been languishing in my commission drawer for years are finally getting completed. The backlog of work has weighed particularly heavily on me, as I hate to let people down but I've been doing exactly that for far too long. I don't really hold with the idea of making new year's resolutions but I have set myself the goal that, by the end of this year, I want to have caught up with all my backlog of work. I want that drawer empty by this time next year.

Working on that backlog means that I have a number of painting articles ready to go so I'll be sharing those with you over the coming weeks. Hopefully, I've got enough articles finished (and half-finished) to mean that I can maintain a weekly schedule of posts going forward. So, you'll be seeing a new post from me every Monday night (GMT) from now on.

At least, that's the plan.

Wise words from a wise man...

We'll see how things go... The blog has always been an organic thing, and I'm still figuring out what I'm doing with it. I'm aiming for a decent mix ofnarticles on my painting (both commission work and my own hobby projects) as well as reviewsnof some of the stuff I buy and use. I would love to hear your feedback so, if you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. In the meantime, I'm also going to try and be a bit more active on the old social medias so, if you fancy it, have a look at my pages on Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr. I'm also planning on updating my galleries on various arty groups like DeviantArt, but more on that another time. 

Right, that's enough witterin on from me for now. Next week I'll be looking at the new Death Guard codex and seeing how the new edition affects my developing army.

Thanks for reading!

-Stu

*At least, I hope you did...