Diesel DM

Rangers – Scouting in the wild

While I have been working steadily on painting models for lists I have been trying to play, I took a detour to paint the Rangers, who had been primed and on their slate bases for many months. I don’t currently have a list I use them in, but now that they are painted I think I’ll find some spots to try them out.

The Ranger were a good change of pace as they are mostly green cape with some brown armor and clothing. There is a bit of Cygnar blue on the knees and edges of their coats. Just enough to make them Cygnar and hopefully not ruin their camouflage.  The bases are standard P3 bases with Kromlech Slate Basing Kit pieces applied.  I wanted the Rangers to feel adventurous and not just in the middle of the battlefield, so I the slate rocks helped elevate four of them and add some larger scenery to the other two.  I went heavy on the Jungle Tufts from Army Painter to really sell the deep woods feel.

Camo Cloaks

The cloaks are based with Ordic Olive, highlighted with Iosan Green and shaded with Battlefield Brown.  These jumps of color helped give a camouflage feel, but instead of the pattern, it’s as if the cloaks change from green to brown based on the viewing angle.  Probably could go one highlight more, but I think it is pretty good.

Archduke Alain Runewood, Lord of Fharin

Having just wrapped up the max unit of Sword Knights I needed to switch back and do a solo. So naturally I chose the master of Sword Knights: Runewood.  I really like this model but the studio paint scheme is surprisingly boring. I spent some time altering the default scheme to match both the Sword Knights I just finished as well as blending in with the rest of the army. I spent as much or more time on him than I do on a typical warcaster. This time really shows as I believe this is my best model to date. The face came out perfect. Fantastic definition and contrast, the eyes came out sharp and shapely. The hair and mustache also pop nicely.

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Anyone who follows my work over at Hand Cannon Online may have noticed I did a writeup for a Kickstarter last week titled Wild West Exodus.  Up to this point I’ve stuck to a single tabletop wargame (Warmachine, of course). But something about the WWX appealed to me.  I think it’s partly from watching a lot of Spaghetti Westerns featuring Clint Eastwood.  Combine that with some Civil War themes and notable characters from American history (Grant, Lincoln, Sitting Bull, etc) and color me interested.  Also look for the Firefly-themed Merc crew. Now add in some really good-looking minis and I was willing to read through and watch the videos.

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Sword Knights – Max Unit

Still working on getting my eStryker list fully painted, here are the Sword Knights. After the pain of painting the full Long Gunners with UA, I tried to decide how best to tackle these.  I decided to do the full unit without the UA, but it was still long and trying.  Perhaps it would be best to just do the min unit, then the extra troopers separate. That probably ends up being less efficient, but perhaps less trying on my sanity.

Nevertheless, these guys turned out okay, but the loin cloths could have been cleaner. I think all in all for a full unit they are okay.  I really like these models, especially the variety you get out of the similar sculpts by combining different arms and shields.  I tried a couple different schemes, before returning to something very similar to the studio scheme.  The studio painted models are not great, your eyes just kind of slide off them. I think because they lack any real contrast on the metallics.  I think I got a better range on mine. I also went with the yellow Cygnus instead of gold for the shields, which also helped.  And to incorporate the Jack Bone/MWH color, I applied it to their cloth, front and back.  To break it up a bit and add some more blue I free-handed the blue stripes on the front and back of the cloths.

To help distinguish the leader I used a technique I learned at Lock & Load last year for making rocks. Whenever I’ve had leftover modelling putty I’ve been rolling it into little spheres, about 3/8-1/2″ in diameter. The you take your modelling knife and cut various side off the sphere until you get something that looks like a rock.  Super glue the putty rock to the base and then paint, wash and drybrush.  Then I did some long field grass behind the rock.  It came out great and I look forward to trying this technique again.  To further distinguish the leader I painted a yellow stripe down the blue pony tail from his helmet.  This was pretty sharp-looking and I kind of wanted to do it to every model and then I could make the leader’s solid yellow, but I think the extra blue is good too.

My main list now only requires getting Runewood painted.  I should probably tackle the Sword Knight UA as well…but maybe that can wait for now.