The Colour Out of Space

This post is nothing to do with H.P. Lovecraft.

Instead, the title is more of a reference to the fact that due to the recent weather, after finishing off the last of the Scourge models I own for Dropzone Commander, I was forced to take photos inside. 

Despite taking all of the following photos within a few minutes of each other, and taking them in exactly the same place, the lighting and colours have behaved really strangely, and so there is a complete lack of consistency.

I can assure you, that all of these models are the same dark red done with Fleshtearer's Red contrast paint.

I'm not sure why there is so much variation in the colours and lighting. I didn't even move while taking them.

Maybe it's because they are aliens.

Anyway, at least it gave me something to talk about here, because these were a quick and dirty job to get something else off the Lead Mountain and it gives me a workable Scourge force to use as I've now painted the whole starter army box.

Will I add to them? I'm not so sure. I prefer my Resistance army, which has more variety and character in the models, and I still have a few things to paint for that too.

Anyway. They're done. Here are the numbers:

Acquired: 26*

Painted:82

Lead Mountain:525*

*Yes, I've spent some money. More on that soon.

Painting By Numbers

A conversation with Pete and an opportunity to pop into my FLGS, Wargames Emporium, to finally pick up some Grey Seer spray reminded me that way back in March I'd started on another formation for my Dropzone Commander Scourge army.

And so I decided to get them finished.

If you feel like you're experiencing some deja vu, then it's probably because you've seen a very similar unit before.

Last January I spent a gift voucher on the new, larger, Scourge starter set. This gives me a large, if samey, force to build. However, it also means that I won't need to spend much more on my Scourge army.  I'm also hoping that playing with my Scourge feels different to my Resistance, where every unit is unique. More 'swarmy'.

The core of the unit are two squads of 15 Scourge Warriors. These have been done in my usual slapdash style for everything below 15mm.

I've actually done them in slightly different colours than the previous unit. This is to allow me to differentiate if they are in buildings together, and also gives me the opportunity to use one of the units as Aged Ones: older, fanatic, more elite infantry.

The Warriors are transported in Invader APCs. These have no weapons as they are designed simply to get the Warriors in close as fast as possible.

The Invaders are transported in turn by the Marauder dropship (it's out of focus because it's moving so fast). It's viscous plasma hose gives it the opportunity to rain death on enemy forces once it's dropped off its cargo.

Another 33 miniatures painted gives me a solid buffer against any potential influx of minatures over the Christmas period. Before anybody complains about such small models counting as 'one', I counted the infantry individually when I acquired them. So there!

Acquired: 189

Painted: 292

Alien Menace

I'm now ready to play the first scenarios in the Dropfleet/Dropzone Commander Battle for Earth, and it's been a bit of a battle getting here.

These are the Despot Command Walker and Intruder B Transport that I needed to command my forces in the opening scenarios on the game.

They came with the Scourge starter army I bought with a voucher and, with what I've already painted, allow me to get to the 700 points needed.

The Despot brings some close up destructive power to my small army, with short range plasma hoses and razor sharp claws.

The model is really nice, although one of the legs has some fairly rough casting that I'm not used to with Dropzone Commander. I've also had another extended battle with mold release agent - I suspect this is because the Scourge models have lots of lumps and bumps, making it difficult to clean.

I was really unhappy with how the painting was coming along (still not at all convinced by contrast paints) until I did the gold plates on the back and added some visual variety. At some point I may go back and pick out the spinal plates too, but for now I'm happy enough.

The Intruder also has a roughly cast part in that one of the lower connectors has a small bubble in it. This is disappointing, and worrying for when I make future purchases.

In all of my Resistance models (which are all resin) I've not had a single issue with the casting. However, in my first resin purchase since the game was bought by TT Combat, I've had two issues in two models. That doesn't bode well.

I'm glad to have got these two done, even though I've not really enjoyed doing them. Playing some games and getting my alien ass handed to me by Pete's UCM of infinite variety should provide ample motivation to get more units painted.

Two models painted and four models got rid of (I threw away three bizarrely posed PSC Soviets and a damaged Flames of War model) begins to make inroads into my self-created backlog. I'm currently listing a bunch of things on Ebay, so that acquired total should start to come down quickly.

Acquired: 112

Painted: 36

They Came From The Sky...

I hope everyone has had a good Christmas. I have, and along with the required family time and food gobbling, I've been getting a bit more painting done.

I've painted three Marauder dropships for my Scourge Dropzone Commander army.

They're actually the last three models from the starter force I bought back in the summer (well, in truth, there's a spare Invader transport that I've used as a test piece that I need to work out what to do with).

I've used the same colour scheme as the rest of the force, although it looks very different in natural light. 

Now I've worked out what I'm doing, this should be a relatively fast way to get additional units done, and I'll need additional units as Pete and I are planning to play the Battle For Earth campaign with our respective Dropzone and Dropfleet armies. The games escalate in size and so it should give me plenty of impetus to add units in the future.

The only downside with these is that they were second hand. The person I'd bought them from had already stuck the widgets to the base of the models and so they've ended up with paint on during the many paint stripping processes they've been through. However, as they're underneath,  this shouldn't be a problem. Also, one of the flying stands is cloudy due to glue spillage and so I'll gave to swap that out with my Resistance flight stands when I play.

I'm waiting for drier weather to add a few coats of varnish to them as the tank models actually stack on them like a CD rack, and so I want to avoid the inevitable wear as much as possible.

You'd think that with all these Scourge done, I'd be sailing towards my goal of painting more models than I acquire, however, this happened...

 

...thanks Santa...

That's a grand total of 70 new models!

Bugger.

Acquired: 276

Painted: 222

I'd better get painting before Wednesday.

Tis the season for giving...

...your planet to us!

I've finally got around to painting the vehicles for my Scourge starter set for Dropzone Commander.

The reason fo this delay has been settling on how to approach them and a bit of a battle with the Fleshtearers Red contrast paint from GW.

The first issue was deciding on colour scheme. I didn't want to do them the same as my Dropfleet force as I'd got quite bored of that. I also wanted to have something that contrasted with my regular opponents' armies. Given that Matt's Shaltari are purple, Wes's PHR are blue, Mike's Scourge are black and Pete's got grey UCM and green PHR.

This left me with red (although its come out a bit orangey in the pictures), and, being lazy, I thought that the new contrast paints would save me a lot of work.

This was not the case.

Being cheap, I elected to avoid buying the ridiculously expensive 'specially formulated' spray paint, I experimented with sprays I already had.

Firstly, Army Painter white, not only came out too thick the first time (I'm not a fan of AP sprays) and the miniatures needed stripping. Then, when I'd done them again, the Fleshtearers Red came out a bit pinky. Time to strip again.

Then I tried a Humbrol Sea Grey, however this turned out too dark and you couldn't actually see any contrast.

Finally, having only done one of the transports, I elected to try dry brushing white over the grey before applying the contrast paint. This worked (too an extent, you can't really see it in the photos) and all that was left was to pick out details and apply washes, including Hexwraith Flame for the 'eyes' and weapons, as necessary.

All in all, I'm quite satisfied with them. I still have three flying transports to paint, but now I've worked out what I'm doing they should be quite quick once it's dry enough to use spray paints again.

I'll still need to pick up a command unit before I can field a game legal army, but adding individual units in Dropzone is much easier than batch painting.

I've also managed to pass on a free sprue from Wargames Illustrated to Mike and so things are once again moving in the right direction. However, I have a bad feeling that tomorrow might really hurt my tally...

Acquired: 206

Painted: 219

All that remains is to wish you and yours a happy Christmas. I'll see you on the other side for my round up of the year.

I, for one, welcome our new parasitic alien overlords

I've started a new army. A Scourge army for Dropzone Commander.

Yes, I know I made a new year's resolution to work on what I have, but I'd like to point out that it isn't for a new game and really is just an expansion of my Dropfleet Commander force, and given that the Battle For Earth book included rules for running a campaign across both systems, I was really given no option.

Yes, they're small.

This is the infantry contingent of a starter box I picked up cheap on Ebay. They form one of the core units required in any army.

In terms of painting, on figures this small washes reall come to your rescue, and I've not done anything fancy except the eyes, which are dots of white with a wash of Hexwraith Flame over them. This gives them a glow which reminds me of night vision goggles.

I've done the packs dark red to tie the infantry with the main colour I'll be using for the vehicles, but I'll talk more about that in a future post.

Importantly, however, getting these chaps done has a massive impact on my painting tally. I counted them as individual models when I bought them, so I can count them as individuals now they're painted.

My only purchase this week was a ridiculously cheap Lifthawk for my Resistance force that I stumbled across in Wargames Emporium, my flgs, and so the scales have balance up somewhat.

Acquired: 158

Painted: 120