More painting - the Ba'kash get dirty!

A couple of weeks ago I put up some pictures of my Ba'kash getting their first touches of paint - an overall coat of Army Painter Weapon Bronze. I then gave them a coat of Strong tone to knock this back a bit. This worked as intended, and my original intent was to then dry-brush, detail paint and then weather, but I then found after a test I really needed to weather first before drybrushing to knock back any over-application from the weathering stage.

Now of course, space "weather" is really just variations on subatomic particles and radiation, with maybe some ionised gas thrown in for good measure. This is rather immaterial, however, because what I wanted to do was to create the "feel" of a raider fleet that used rather aged and worn - if still perfectly serviceable - ships. As I'd gone for a bronze base, I decided to spot wash a three-stage weathering mix - a dark blue-green, followed by a lighter turquoise and finally some Vallejo Green Wash. This produces a very distinct finish;

I also went mad on one cruiser just to see what it'd look like...

So after this had dried I decided it probably should have been more dilute for the effect I wanted (the original ones I tried were)...oh, well, just chalk it up to experience! This is why I definitely needed to drybrush after weathering, which I did...

This absolutely improves the look, although the photographs don't really capture the look that well. Anyway, I then went on to drybrush with Greedy Gold to add some lustre.

Finally I added a Shining Silver/Bronze/Gold mix (all Army Painter colours) to further accentuate the worn look and give some detail highlighting. Overall I'm pleased with how this turned out.

The next stage was to detail paint the "stripy" banded elements on the main body and arms, which I envisage as some sort of inorganic ballistic or ablative plating. This I did in Vallejo 70.896 - German Extra Dark Green.

The destroyers had a similar treatment on their exposed pipework, leaving the "collars" in the base metal

This was followed by a Strong Tone wash and highlighting with 70.890 Retractive Green.

I'm pretty happy with them so far - just need to add engine and weapons glow to them now, which I'll do by airbrush, with final highlights by brush...then my raiders are ready to fully support the Zenian League wherever needed!

Quick update - painting recap...Halo, Firestorm Armada, Planetfall & Zombicide!

Well it's been a month since the last post, and although I intended it to be the final segment of the System Wars review with the Commanders, I've had a few developments since that time. Work has been pretty unpleasant and stressful too, so instead I've been investing what little free time I have into actually doing some painting. This is relaxing, especially whilst catching up with recent or historical podcasts, and exactly what I've needed.

Of course, this is a good thing on many fronts, as it also reduces the wall of unpainted resin and plastic, and enhances our gaming experiences, so it's all good...the true win-win!

First up in this review of what I've been doing are the Covenant ships for Halo Fleet Battles. These are truly lovely ships, and I've waited a little while before painting them as I wanted to think about the effect I wanted before committing. Anyway, I saw a painting Youtube on the SG Community, and decided to steal/adapt their technique. This essentially involves priming silver and then covering with transparent paint to achieve a metallic under-sheen that looks very Covenant-like. I used an auto-spray can for Alloy wheels, and then used Purple and Blue Shades from Army Painter to finish. I put in a fair amount of variation, which I find gives quite a pleasing effect on the tabletop.

Now this is only stage 1, of course, with detail and engine glows etc still to add, but I think I've achieved more-or-less the effect I wanted. Unfortunately half-way through this my faithful Badger 150 broke, the nozzle shearing off somehow, so I bought a complete Medium conversion kit for it (it's the most cost-effective way of repairing it), and as I was away on business it arrived before I could spray again anyway, giving the old faithful a new lease of life, plus my old needle and parts as spares.

Next up were the Works Raptor Destroyers and Battlecruisers. These I gently shaded from black to lighter grey on several surfaces to give some tonal variation, then added weapons and power core/engine glows to fit with my other WR ships.

Note I've left off the PITA metal shields, which I'll paint separately and attach after I'm done detailing the main battlecruiser hulls. This inspired me to press on with my Ba'kash as well, since I've only played with them once as primed models and they did well, so they deserve to have a proper finish. For this I've chosen a Bronze basecoat, again Army painter which I've sprayed over a matt grey primer. This produces a very shiny and slightly glittery effect overall.

Cruiser and Destroyer, which I've used as a heavy cruiser and standard cruiser respectively. This is mainly because I'm not a huge fan of the Heavy Cruiser parts for the model, and I much prefer the old destroyer models, which I have a pair of...

And here's one of them with a frigate. Now this glittery effect is not one I particularly want, but I wasn't too worried since this is just a basecoat, and after a coat of Army Painter Strong Tone...

 It looks much nicer. You can see the pipe areas where I haven't washed (as I'll be painting these a different colour) are much brighter - the washed areas look much more "lived in" and realistic.

Here's the Frigate similarly washed. A drybrush with the bronze and edge highlights in silver, with some oxidation wash here and then should look good before doing the engine glow on these.

Now actually it's been a fair while since I posted anything paintwise, so I've quite some catch-up to do as well on updating the blog. Before I had my airbrush failure, I'd sprayed my Directorate Invasion ships, and before that I'd sprayed the Dindrenzi landers took. As these are atmospheric entry craft, I painted the Dindrenzi in my planetfall colours, whilst I tried some of Anarchy Models' paint masks on my Directorate, carrying on with my new adapted paint scheme for them. Here they both are.

Here's my Directorate RotO ships sporting the newer camo. Although I liked the effect, the Anarchy Models masks are definitely better than the "kids fishing net" mask I used for the RotO ships.

Now it's not just spaceships that have been receiving the attention of the brush...I know I'm jumping the gun a little since I've not yet posted unboxing blogs of them yet, but here are a couple of the new aerial Helixes. The first, the Dindrenzi...

As I was an ardent modeller prior to entering the gaming arena proper, and the rest of my dindrenzi are in late WWII German camo colours, I thought aerial late WWII colours of RLM 81/82 over 76 was appropriate.

The sahrk-like heavy looks especially menacing with the dapple on the fuselage.

Next up are the Dindrenzi's sworn enemies, the Terrans. Their "just in the future" look means they benefit from a US-style modern two-tone aerial combat scheme, both on the interceptors and the heavy.

Finally, the last of the aerial Helixes I've photographed (though I have sprayed the Aquan and Sorylian) is the Directorate.

This was another use of the Anarchy models Hex camo masks, but with a reversed colour contrast.

The Drones I've just gone for a simple dark grey top with light grey undersides, similar to the plain grey of the ground forces.

Next up are some of the larger zombies from the very fun Zombicide - here we have the original season 1 Abomination with a Fatty...still need to finish the camera. but almost there...

And here are the Prison Outbreak and Angry Neighbours Abominations too.

These are great models to paint, a lot of fun and painting them really makes a difference...can't wait to play with them!

Ba'kash Patrol Fleet & Cruiser Group Unboxing

Courtesy of Mr Fawcett, we are now in possession of a rather nice Ba'kash patrol fleet and cruiser group (natural allies for my Relthoza), so I thought I should return the courtesy by showcasing the products here. First up, the Patrol fleet. As with the other unboxings I've done on here, and all of Spartan's releases over the past year, it follows the standard format of a glossy card sleeve over a sturdy corrugated box. The box art of the Studio models is pretty nice;

On the rear of the box is the usual little bit of fluff, plus overhead renders of the Battle Carrier, destroyers, frigates and SRS tokens.

Opening the box and taking out the contents, we get the usual three card token sheets, a set of the new TAC cards, flight stands, a bag of SRS tokens & arms, and the actual models themselves in bubble-wrap bags.

Delving deeper into the models themselves, we have the Battle Carrier and its six arms plus flight peg attachment (just the one, which was surprising given the size of it), the two destroyers with their single arms and flight peg attachments, and the the five single-piece frigates. We also have the four SRS tokens to round out the set - essential for the Battle Carrier

The Cruiser group follows a similar pattern, just in the smaller size box;

Inside this we find a familiar set of bags containing flight stands, parts and main hulls;

Opening these out we can get all the components for three cruisers - or heavy cruisers;

That's a LOT of arms!

Taking a closer look at the models, starting with the Battle Carrier, we can see just how big they are. Taking a standard Chironex cruiser, you can see just what a brute the Karrak is;

The Destroyer is ;

As you might be able to tell from the picture of the Cruisers above, some of the heavy cruiser arms weren't straight;

Fortunately these "bendy ends" are easily fixed. A cup of boiling water, immerse the part for 15 seconds or so;

Then take out, carefully bend back to straightness and cool. I do this in the kitchen so I can have a cold tap running next to the hot water, then I can bend back into shape and plunge straight under the stream so the part fixes immediately.

There we have the arm, now pretty much straight - certainly without the very pronounced bend it had previously. I only saw this on about 30% of the heavy cruiser arms (and only on the thin end parts), not on the standard arms - these are thick enough, with strengthening "ribs" not to have this problem.

Moving on from the cruisers, the frigates have certainly put on a LOT of weight since the original versions - here they are with the trusty Chironex for comparison;

Given the warping of some of the heavy cruiser arms, I can understand this, and the old frigates were always rather anaemic looking. Personally I'd have preferred a happy medium somewhere between the two, but hey, I'm not complaining!

So overall the Ba'kash are looking good, and continue the quality and themes of recent SG releases. The ships don't have open and closed options anymore, but then these were always a little bewildering previously as there was no MAR to differentiate them in game, and the heavy metal pieces did make constructing them (and keeping them that way) problematic to say the least - a little less flexibility is a small price to pay IMO for the new resin models.