Submission 11 To The AHPC - Warmaster Empire Knights

Two units of Empire Knights for GW's "Warmaster"

Since I let the Warmaster genie out of the bottle, I can't seem to put it back.  These figures have been neglected, unpainted and unloved for more than seven years, and since I started working on them again a few week ago, I want to make the effort count during Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  Here are two more units for my Empire army in Warmaster, both units of Empire Knights, my 11th submission to the Challenge.

This unit is sporting colours from the Empire province of Hochland

I tried to use bright colours to create a contrast and a "pop" on some of the features

While I am often wary of, and frustrated by, painting horses, I still love using cavalry in a game.  The heavier, the better, and in GW's Warhammer Fantasy setting, the Knights of the Empire are at the pinnacle of heavy cavalry fun.  The Empire Knights are fantasy cavalry at its finest, at least for me - not fancy, flighty horses or silly magicians, but men and big horses covered in enough armour and barding to bring down a panzer division.

These gold coloured Knights are inspired by the "Knight of the Blazing Sun" from the Warhammer Fantasy setting

These sculpts are just total home runs - some of GW's finest work

In reality, armour imposes burdens on warrior and mount that can limit its use.  People and animals can only undertake so much activity wearing all that steel. But in the fantasy setting, we can just toss those worries into the bin, and the malleability of the Warhammer Fantasy Old World as a setting offers limitless possibilities.  Obscure Knightly orders? Sure. Elite guards for the Elector Count or the Emperor? Sure. Collection of well-financed, bad-ass nobles? Sure.  All together in the same force? Why not?

A closer shot of some of the Hochland lads

Some fellows in the gold armour for comparison

I know history offers some amazing examples of very heavy cavalry (man, I wish I could figure out either Byzantines or Persians so I could paint Kataphracts) but the Empire Knights in Warhammer Fantasy really fit the bill for fun heavy cavalry on the table.

Keen players of "Hail Caesar" and "Pike & Shotte" (like Curt and the gang in Regina) have noted the resemblance of these sculpts to the heavy cavalry gendarmes seen in eras such as the Great Italian Wars.  I'm hoping to try painting some figures similar to these in 28mm...not so sure I have the courage to yet tackle something like the Italian Wars, but maybe it's time to finally start an Oldhammer project...

Some serious armoured power for the Empire army!

As I have been saying while painting these figures, I find GW just absolutely hit it out of the park with these little metal sculpts.  They have tons of character - in the case of the Knights, beautiful barding, large plumes of feathers and massive lances with wonderful pennons - dramatic, flashy and bad-ass.  I painted two of these units this past week, but these are so nice, I could paint ten more before I got tired of them...so of course I've been scouring Ebay for more...

Obligatory overall photo - the force is getting pretty serious now!

In the Warmaster game the Knights are the Empire player's hammer, an integral part of the force.  For the Empire commander to be successful the halberdiers, crossbowmen and artillery will hopefully hold the line, while the Knights must charge home at the right time and deliver a blow for the forces of their Elector Count.  It will take some time to get some enemies painted, but I hope these Knights will get to make some kind of big and carefully thought-out totally reckless charge in a Warmaster game later this year.


This submission included 24 mounted 10mm figures, so that should put another 48 points on the pile, the drive to 1,000 points in the AHPC continues.  I have more Warmaster figures in the pending pile, but I think some more 30k stuff beckons. Hope to share more next week!

Taking it to the next level

This figure is "Capt. Nee Sun", a 28mm scale resin master from Hasslefree Miniatures. IMO, Kev White sculpts the best human figures in 28mm scale. His "resin master castings", though more expensive than Hasslefree's regular resin or metal models, are extremely cleanly cast, and capture most of the detail of the original, epoxy putty sculpt.

I started this thing 18 months ago, and worked on her face during a 2015 painting seminar with Rick Taylor.

I decided to finish her after recently leafing through Angel Giraldez' book, "Painting Miniatures from A to Z: Masterclass Vol. 2". Angel's painting method uses both airbrush and bristle brushes to accomplish prodigious feats of painting. His style is marked by very high contrast between highloights and shadows, and pure white highlights and catch-points to emphasize cast light. Sometimes there's not even a lot of blending, but rather bold slashes of colour. I find the style very painterly, like old Dutch masters such as Peter Paul Ruebens.

I started as always with zenithal highlighting, using an airbrush to blow Testors Acryl flat white at a downward angle over P3 black primer.

Below, I used the Vallejo face painting set to lay in the basic colours for the face. Note the photo of British actress Natalie Dormer, with her head shaved for the role of Cressida from the Hunger Games movies, used as a photo reference.



Here's the full shot of Ms. Dormer:

Below, oils laid in. Note that I cannot seem to paint eyes with just acrylics. Contrast is a little less, since this is a female figure and I wanted to soften some of her features.



The stubble effect on her shaved head was done with very thin dots of Winsor and Newton indigo oil paint mixed with Liquin, kinda patted and pushed around the flesh of her head with a clean brush.



Details of the face. The face had been "done" since last year. Last week, I used  Weber's Pro Mix colour system to slightly lighten her cheeks below her eyes. I also went back in and with tiny amounts of alizirian crimson, burnt sienna, peach black, and titanium white, added more contrast, respectively, to the lips, right eye, nose, and left upper eyelid,



Her hair was painted with various tones, mixing titanium white, gold ochre, and burnt sienna oil paints.



The visor was highlighted shaded with mixes of indigo and titanium white oils. A couple of white catchpoints were added, showing reflections off the visor.



Her weapon,interestingly, is described by Hasslefree as a rifle firing either 10mm depleted uranium slugs, or flechette rounds. I used a Nuln Oil wash to darken the rifle, used the Vallejo NMM set's  Turquoise acrylic to show some reflections,  and picked out edges and tiny details with titanium white oil.



The 25mm resin base is from Studio Mcvey's Sedition Wars line. The base was glazed with Vallejo Stone wash, and weathered with various oils and Vallejo powders. Details again picked out with titanium white.



I used several glazes of Citadel Thrakka Green over the armour, just enough to tint the armour in highlighted areas, with more layers for shadowed areas. I lined around the armour plates with Winsor and Newton Greensih Umber, and picked out some catch points in pure titanium white. Various scratches were added to the armour, using Sennelier Peach Black oil paint, highlighted generally at the bottom of the scratches with titanium white. I weathered the armour with oils and Vallejo weathering powders.



I painted a similar Hasslfree resin master almost two years ago. The techniques I used back then are very similar. However, for the present fig I have used much more contrast, used more catch points of pure white, and weathered the armour and base.

Necromunda - Terrain

For sci-fi skirmish games like Necromunda and Infinity, you need a LOT of terrain. Otherwise, people will just hunker down their models in cover and blaze away at each other from across the table, with hits coming due to sheer luck. As someone described it, "Yahtzee with toy soldiers".

I have managed to add to the terrain to be used in the continuing Necromunda campaign.

I watched the Ghost in the Shell movie trailer. There are several vertical elements in The Major's New Port City skyline. Years ago I had painted up a KFC Col. Sanders piggy bank for a themed 40K mega game I ran at Campaign Outfitters ("The chicken shack at the end of the universe," or some such thing). I dug it out, fixed up some scratches and dings, and "Voilà", a tribute to an unnamed despot from Necromunda's ruling planetary elite. Any resemblance to certain Asian dictators is purely coincidental.



Anenoceti's Workshop had  Kickstarter last year, providing lots of different kinds of terrain elements. I picked up a tall, Blade Runner-esque video billboard. It's also a dice tower; the top comes off and one of the benches pulls out, with the dice falling through baffles on the inside. They offered several different optional ads. Unfortunately, this piece is not yet on their website for sale. It's basically ready to play; I only had to affix the ads, assemble the parts, and paint the benches, I think I and local Infinity gamer DerekY are the only guys in Western Canada with this kit.



They also made several different types of scatter terrain useful for roofs. A quick black primer, aluminum spray, and GW Nuln Oil washes provided three air conditioning units to break up the roof areas of some retail establishments.



Awhile ago I had got from Conscript Byron several MDF kits. The guard tower below is one of them. The roof comes off, allowing figures to be placed inside the structure.



Byron also made a few types of billboard that affix to 3mm MDF terrain. I found the Imperial recruiting poster online and printed it out.



A couple of years ago I picked up some holo ads from Micro Art Studio. These are beautiful pieces, with clear acrylic "holograms" with translucent printing on them. Fair warning: the kits themselves are bears to put together. You cannot add the acrylic after assembly and painting, because of the way the pieces fit together. Also, the pieces are a tight fit without paint. After painting with just a layer of spray paint, I had to use a claw hammer to drive some of the supporting pieces into the frame.






From Conscript Kevin I received a painted resin ruined building and several pieces of roadblock scatter terrain (tank traps, piles of tires). Below are some photos of the Necromunda table, in medias res. From pretty much any point on the table, a model can make a Run move and get behind cover.

Necromunda - House Delaque Gangers

It's been awhile since my last post. Good to be back in the saddle again!

I have enjoyed being Arbitrator (game master) for the ongoing Necromunda campaign we have been playing. I wanted to get another gang to go with my Spyrers, so I could always have a game with someone who doesn't have the figs, and to provide a different set of opponents for "bye" games in the campaign.

I liked the look of Dallas' gangers from House Delaque. So, I have started collecting a Delaque gang of my own.

In the photo montage immediately below are the first 6 models I painted. All but the flamethrower dude are old GW figs I got from an eBay seller in Serbia. The flamer guy is from Heresy Miniatures.



For the purposes of Necromunda gaming, the models are being used as (from L to R below), a Juve (probationary gang member) with an autopistol (i.e. machine pistol), a ganger with a lasgun, the gang's Leader with a shotgun, a Heavy (specialist) with a heavy stubber (think MMG), another Heavy with a flamer, and finally a second ganger with a lasgun.







I weathered the fuel and propellant tanks with various dings and rust stains.







After the first batch of 6 were done, I painted another Heavy (armed with a lascannon, he was the last figure from the fellow in Serbia), and another lasgun guy (from an eBay seller in Spain). In the 40K/Necromunda game background, laser weapons are very reliable. However, a lascannon is very expensive, and such an antitank weapon is likely overkill in an environment where just having a decent basic rifle is a big deal.





Painting:

I started with my usual zenithal highlighting, airbrushing Testors Acryl Flat White over a base coat of P3 Black Primer. I then used the Vallejo Face Painting acrylic set, followed up by artists' oils for their faces and hands. Citadel glazes and Vallejo Black and White set was used for clothing.











For the steel and brass bits, I used the Vallejo NMM set. I find that NMM for me is just as fast as painting with actual metallic colours (metal powders in a suspension), which I would highlight and shade anyways. The plastic 25mm bases are from the GW Sector Imperialis set. Lots of Vallejo Rust wash for the bases. The figures were sealed with Tamiya Semi-gloss spray.



Below is the palette of oil paints I used for painting the flesh tones of the lascannon guy and a long-primed tank crewman I had sitting around. Various Winsor and Newton, Schminke, and Sennelier professional artists' oils in tubes. Also there is a splash of Winsor and Newton Liquin medium, to aid paint flow; I sometimes also use some walnut oil.



Below, after painting the Delaque lascannon guy and the GW tanker, the palette now shows the colours I used to blend and glaze flesh tones.