FW Krieg Tank Bits on New LR Kit

I've been buying DKOK stuff for a while now, and am only now getting started building it. My first task was to build the single LR chassis that will be part of my 1500 pt force. I am going mainly with centaurs, but want one LR. The old FW kits do not fit on the new model without some work. The good news is that it is not particularly difficult. The engine filter requires a portion of the back engine cover to be sawed off. The trench rails simply do not fit. It turns out the FW full kit has a resin engine area. The tank gunner works, just not with the cool FW hatch because the new LR kit has the turret modeled on. I am luke warm about losing the more interesting turret, since it has more detail, and helps make the tank look more interesting. In any case, I am happy I bought the upgrades. I think they add a lot of character to the tank.

My plan is to run this as a regular old LR with battle cannon, hull las cannon, and bolter sponsons. It will support a static line of 2 teams of 3 heavy stubbers. Grenadier squads in centaurs, hq in centaurs, and quartermaster in centaurs work as my ultra fast open topped gun platforms. A single squad of engineers and death riders bulks out the army. Most of the army is made up of AP3 weapons, so it should be pretty fun to play SM. The centaurs have a built in gun mount so the heavy weapon from the squads embarked can fire. That gives me 2 heavy stubbers per centaur.

Kroot Ape Riders & Water Effects

I don't know what the Kroot riders are really called, but the thing the kroot is riding does look a little like a gorrilla. I painted this guy with washes, and I think the style contrasts really well with the ruined centaur. I am not sure more different styles could coexist!

I mixed some thrakka wash into some water effects and painted the mixture over the broken pipes on my resin bases. It took a full day for the water effects to go from a milky green to clear green, but it is worth the wait. The bottle is large enough that I don't think I'll ever run out of it either!

Water effects = epic win

Ruined Centaur Pt2

I tried out wet weathering powders on this centaur, and quickly discovered that mixing the powders with thinner was a bad idea. I skipped a crucial step in the FW master class book. It is really important to seal the model before moving onto further steps in the weathering process. I managed to get away without too much paint damage, but it could have been a lot worse. The dark metal panels in the floor took the brunt of the thinner, and it shows. I think I may try to make the tank more minty colored. I am beginning to think that my DKOK should be on desert bases, which would contrast really well with a darker color scheme. Imagine this tank with dust sprayed around the tracks, and the right side of the centaur embedded in a sand dune.

DKOK Ruined Centaur Objective Marker

I took a break from my tau to paint up an objective marker for my DKOK army. I have all of the miniatures now, and am just working our color schemes. To that end, I present my mint green and bone colored ruined centaur assault vehicle. The right side of the vehicle will be buried in mud. I haven't put the weathering powders on yet, but I am already pleased. I think scab red is going to be a really good accent color on these.

My army has 6 Centaurs, and I am considering making ruined versions of all of them. The centaur itself is just an amazing vehicle. Open topped, a heavy stubber, and a weapon mount for the squads heavy weapons. My company and platoon command squads in addition to 2 engineer squads, commissar general, and quarter master all get them.

Tau Stealth Suits Painted With Washes

Last night while my wife watched the Sex and the City movie, I painted my first stealth suit team. Using the pure wash technique I learned painting the stealthy fire warrior, I was able to get these guys done extremely quickly. One slight alteration from my normal painting method, is to go back over some areas of the paint chipping with dots of sepia wash. This makes some of the paint chips look older than the rest. Overall I am really happy with how the tau are turning out. I plan to finish up the red fire warrior squad today, though my purchase of one of those Kroot gorilla looking horse things is providing a difficult temptation. I would love to paint up some vehicles or battle suites as well.

Tau Fire Warriors Painted With Washes

Since I was happy with the previous tau painting test, I thought, why not try one more painting test. This time I used the all wash method, much like the kroot. I think I may have found a way to paint my stealth suits. What do you think? Should I maybe paint my fire warriors this way anyway?

The recipe is dirt simple.

• Black wash for armor plates
• Purple wash for head
• Blue wash for cloth
• Boltgun metel stippled on afterwards.

Tau Test: 4 Red Tau

I grabbed my camera from the car, and painted up a few more variations of the red battle damaged tau. One of the things I learned this go around was to thin my sepia so it did not produce such dramatic changed in the color of the clothing. I kind of like these guys. I will definitely paint up 2 more of them so there is at lease a full squad.

If I go this route for troops, my vehicles will be chipped red and blue from the top, and a dirty chipped cream color underneath. I think that would look pretty good. I will use the orange for sept markings. Is this the scheme?

Tau Test:Green

I have green paint. I have seemingly unlimited numbers of tau fire warriors, so how about another tau-test! This time I used reaper master series paints, and sepia wash. I am going to have to extract my real camera from the car so I can take real photos again, but I think these probably do the mini justice. After three test minis in one night I am starting to notice a trend. Hard lining does not look good on tau. I think the minis with simple base coats and heavy washes look the best. These test minis all look over worked to me.

Should I battle damage this one as well? Which color scheme do you like the most?

Another Tau Test:Blue

I am still trying out color schemes for tau. This guy was supposed to be my clean attempt, but between the iPhone photo and my painting skills it really does not look good. I think I may use grey and bolt gun stippled on the armor to see if that spices things up. As it stands I think I am going to use the legs from this model and the red armor from the previous model. Good thing I did not paint a whole squad at once right!

*EDIT my wife said add some battle damage, so I gave the the model the boltgun stipple and sepia treatment.

Battle Damaged Tau Fire Warrior

I am still not sure what color to paint my fire warriors, so I thought I would try another test mini. This guy got one of the city bases even though he is not painted terribly well. I am thinking of moving to orange all around, with none of the mottled dark red. I am not sure the the battle damage works on a mini this small. I plan to try the wash technique tomorrow, which might work well with these older plastic models.

How about red brick? HDR iPhone Photo

The new iPhone iOS came out today with HDR photos. I had a bunch of minis without bases. I happened to have a bunch of easy to cast molds. You can see where this is going. Basically I have been randomly basing all of the test minis I have. Since at some point I am going to paint up some space wolves, I thought I should find a base color that works with the cool tones of their armor. I am really pleased with the adobe red brick color, and think it might just stick. Add a little dead grass and I think it is a winner.

I am not sure about the quality of the HDR photos. I think my cannon XSI produces better images.

City Kroot

After making all of those stone roadway bases, I had to put them to use. Like most painters, a lonely unit of unbased models waited on my painting desk. In truth I have several units awaiting bases. I've got some Tyranids gaunts that have been partially completed for months now. Rather than waste my new cleaner bases on the kroot, I painted over the resin bases that I had used for color tests. Watered down chardon granite followed by astronomicon grey dry brushing worked out so well it is not one of my favorite painting recipes. Add a sepia wash over the top, followed by careful drybrushing of astro-grey once the wash is dry, and you'll have what I think is a pretty cool color scheme.

So now I have city kroot. I suppose this means I have decided on the basing for the tau army and I should start constructing it. I am pretty excited about this prospect, except for the fact that I have a giant collection of FW stuff to paint. I keep squirreling it away, saving it for the day that I can really paint. It seems like such a waste to not jump feet first into pre-heresy given that I have 50+ pre heresy marines now. Or maybe I should put that titan together, or the death korps of krieg? Let's not forget the grey knight army that is primed and waiting to go, or the voystroyans I have been hording in a basket under my desk.

Perhaps I need to challenge myself by speed painting an army in a month. Maybe I need to finally unearth my unpainted striking scopions and paint some up. After all Path the Warrior was such a good book that I actually like Eldar again. (seriously, go read it!)

Army Painter Primer

So with some ultra cool home made resin bases, I just had to paint up a test mini to put on one of them. Since I painted my sample bases grey, I thought yellow would provide very interesting contrast. My last attempt at yellow was so-so. This time I was armed with Army Painter yellow primer. The miniature turned out ok, but the primer did not cover the grey plastic very well. This encouraged me to keep spraying more of it on, rather than just dealing with a light coat. Once the mini was primed yellow, I started having some problems. For some reason my GW paint would not stick to the paint. The behavior was that of oil and water. I struggled through it, using far more paint than I would have liked. I like to thin my paints and use a lot of washes, which was very difficult to do with this base coat. I think I will stick with white primer and air brushes for base coats going forward.

More Home Made Resin Bases

With what little remains of my resin, I decided to create some city bases for fun. I spent much more time sculpting these than my trench bases, and am starting to get the feel for what works and what does not. I think these would be great for imperial fists. If my Death Korps ends up being warm brown colors, then these could work well as bases for them. What do you guys think? Is the broken pipe part worth having on a base?

I only made two of these molds, so there really isn't much variety right now.