Since finishing my Aleph off and the flood of posts last week things have been a bit quiet for me on the blog front. I’ve not been quiet on the hobby side of things mind, with a box of Mulebots and the first Dire Foes pack arriving on my doorstep, as well as printing off more papercraft terrain.
I also got a fair few games in with the new Aleph – as luck would have it, I had a day off last Friday to wait in for a parcel, and so did one of my regular opponents, so it was only natural that we scheduled in a day of gaming at the flat! We also had a crack at the first couple of missions from Campaign Paradiso, which we plan to play with some regularity in the new year. I played these test missions with the Aleph, although when we kick off the campaign in earnest I’ll switch to using the PanO, as I’ve got a greater variety of models for them, so it’ll give me plenty of flexibility from mission to mission (hence why I ended up with a box of Mulebots – Baggage remotes are extremely handy in Paradiso, along with Engineers and Hackers).
In terms of papercraft terrain, I ran off a copy of the Mag Lev and Containers in preparation for the new Dire Foes mission pack (although as a bonus, I later found out that these templates are also used in Paradiso, so double use out of them is not half bad!) I don’t have any pictures of it as you can download the templates for free from the Infinity site, but I’m sure as I post more images in time of my games, you’ll see some images of them!
Speaking of the Dire Foes, here are Fusiliers Angus and Bipandra built up and undercoated. I don’t have any pictures of the third figure from the box as I’m trading her with my friend who’s bought the second pack, featuring Nomads and Aleph – handy given that I want the Aleph figure from that box and he wants the Morat one from mine!
Bipandra’s a nice model, although she suffers a bit (in my opinion) from a bit of a cheesy pose, what with her blowing a kiss and all – I’d have preferred her to be more action-oriented if I’m honest, since this is a wargame, but as a model she’s great (and if anything, cheesy anime style poses are part of Infinity’s aesthetic and overall charm). Angus would’ve been better with that ‘shit-eating grin’ that he’s got on his concept art, and again, more of an action pose, but he’ll do for me – if nothing else he can be a civvy that my PanO are constantly trying to rescue from sticky situations!
Up next are my pair of Mulebots – the Baggage Remotes of PanOceania – used as EVO Repeaters, Minesweepers and as security systems, these guys are really nice looking in my opinion, and are great support units (although support units don’t fit in with my normal penchant for big guns!):
I plan to work on these guys over the next week or so, ready for the New Year when Darren’s had a chance to paint up Anyat and we can play the first Dire Foes mission.
I also did a little bit of work on my Eldar, who as I’ve mentioned before, have been in a half-painted state since I bought most of them many years ago (some as far back as 2001!). I’ve been revisiting my Guardians since they’re some of the oldest models in my collection (in terms of how long I’ve had them, not in terms of how long ago they were released), and so their paint jobs need updating. I’m taking my time with the Eldar, as they’re all wonderful models which deserve decent paint jobs. I won’t take as much time over them as I would with an Infinity figure, given how 40k armies tend to be a lot bigger and so it’s not always practical to spend as much time on units, but I know my capabilities these days, and the paint job they had before was nowhere near my standard now, so it’s only fair these get a look that they deserve!
These guys, along with 5 others and a heavy weapons platform will be one of two units of 10 models which will form a regular backbone of my Eldar army. As time goes on I’ll try and showcase more and more finished Eldar models, as I know I have a habit on this blog of only ever getting them to half-finished stages! (You only have to look back over my various posts over the past 18 months to see how true that is!) For these particular models, they’re undercoated white, base-coated with Wild Rider Red, then washed with Agrax Earthshade. Once this is dry, I paint the armour plates with another coat of Wild Rider Red, then highlight it with Blazing Orange, with a second stage highlight of Fire Dragon Bright. It’s a much brighter and more warm colour scheme than they’ve had previously, and I’m pretty pleased with it. It should look even better as I get the army completed!
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The guardians look great, that orange is very nice and you have applied it in perfectly even coats. Lovely.
Did they take ages to paint? They look like they did.
Thanks! These didn’t take too long, although that’s because my younger self (about 12 or so years ago) undercoated them white and basecoated them red for me, so all I had to do was wash them with brown ink and do the highlights/details. Had I done them from scratch they would’ve taken a fair bit longer!