Three Weeks Till NOVA Open Must Paint Faster!

With only three weeks till the NOVA open, and my Krieg only halfway done, I might have to investigate some backup options. I need a least a week to prep my painting entries. That means I really only only two weeks to finish these vehicles and move onto the Death Riders. All 30 Death Riders. What on earth have I gotten myself into!

So, I have a very packed three weeks. What do you have to compete before the NOVA Open if you are going? Have you donated to the NOVA Open Charitable Foundation army raffle? If not, then that is an excellent way to spend three weeks. We've managed to raise over $60,000 for Doctors Without Borders. I would really like to see us have the best year we've ever had.

To purchase tickets you can visit the NOCF site here:

http://novaopenfoundation.org/?tcp_product_category=raffle

To see more of these great armies, check out the NOCF blog here:

http://novacf.blogspot.com

Death Korps of Kreig Vehicle Color Scheme

I appreciate the comments on the color selection for Krieg vehicles. I've decided on the brown color scheme as you can see from the photos. The Interiors are a minty-green color in order to contrast. Looking at all of these vehicles, I can see that I have ages worth of paint chipping to do. I think they will look nice in the end, but it is a bit daunting. What isn't pictured here is the Bombard squadron. Yep, you read that right. Three bombards round out this force. The army has absolutely nothing special in terms of characters or death stars. Just a lot of artillery and horses.

I haven''t quite figured out what to do with this iron looking wheels. I am tempted to just shine them up with metallic weathering powders along the road facing portion.

Krieg Centaur Assault Vehicle Color Schemes

I thought it might be fun to share my vehicle color scheme tests for the Death Korps of Krieg. My original color scheme, painted ages ago is the dark blue-green centaur, painted ages ago. More recently I've been painting ww2 German vehicles, hence the middle centaur, dressed in a dark yellow. My current favorite scheme is a desert brown, with military mint color for an interior. The only problem I see with it is that it does not pop on the table. The yellow scheme is noticeable. The brown scheme is subdued. With my troops painted in subdued colors I am just not sure brown has enough pop. So as it stands, my wife votes for the brown centaur on the far right. I have not decided between the brown and the yellow, and while I really like the swampy blue-green centaur, it is just too dark for the force. Any thoughts?

Two Squads Of Death Korps

I took a break from painting to base a few of the almost completed squads. Technically there are three squads in this photo, but the engineers really need to be a full 10 man squad rather than a 5 man and 7 man squad respectively. Two more infantry squads are on the table just to the right of the finished models. Instead of finishing them, I think I'll go back and finish the artillery crew. They are nearing completion as well, and are essential to the army. At some point before NOVA I may paint the jacket collars a dark green. At least the army can be visualized now. It will just be bigger.

Ever More Basing For The Death Korps

I made really good progress this morning before the treadmill. It could have gone wrong though. Rather than follow my tried and true recipe using GW paints, I decided to mix things up a bit and use Tamiya air brush paints for these. After looking at the huge volume of painting to do, I decided that I really needed to avoid airbrush clogs at all cost. I am thrilled with the result. Granted that has more to do with SWM Green Earth weathering powder than my grey shading, but I like it none-the less. All I have to do is add black edging around the base, and I have enough bases for the force. Just in case I do some last minute list tinkering, I painted up some large bases to use with Krieg mortar teams. I love the idea have 6 more mortars to fire. When we play 40k with bolt action rules, the mortars are going to be incredibly important, since in BA they can fire smoke. That makes cavalry charges less hazardous. Alternately, it allows the dreaded Blood Pact (Dave, we have to play that game!) or Vrak's renegades (Steve, that is you!) sneak up and take out the artillery. If Greg ever paints up a huge force or orcs (I saw that painting tutorial, so I know you can do it quickly!) then we can also get in a guard on orc infantry game.

Got to rim the bases in black now. Better find a good documentary to watch.

Death Korps Bases For The NOVA Open

I've made so much progress on the Death Korps, that it is time to work on some bases. I see this army as complementing my Sons of Horus force. That means I have to produce what feels like an unlimited number of cracked cement bases. Now I don't like retracing old ground, so I made enough bases to provide me with extras for a while.

The cement like plaster is Hydrolcal, which has been broken into chunks and glued to normal GW bases. After the slightly diluted(water) wood glue has set, I'll probably carve in some bullet holes, and  other details into the surfaces. Painting these is a snap. Base coat them black, and using an airbrush, paint them from dark to light grey at the edges. After that a quick run of Steel Legion Drab around the dirt looking areas finishes it up. Wash the bases with weathering powder, SWM Green Earth, and then go back and paint the edges of the bases black.

That seemed like such a quick and easy process until I realized I had about a 100 bases to paint. Too bad I can't do this while on the treadmill.  

Death Korps Of Krieg Combat Engineers With Powder

I just added weathering powder to all of the armor plates on my Death Korps combat engineers. I like the effect, but it did wipe out quite a bit of detail. So the question is whether or not I add powder to all of the armor plates on the Death Korps. I could try to limit the amount of powder added on the next batch as a compromise. Maybe these will grow on me. They did take an enormous amount of time to paint.

I apologize for the photos. My camera is having 'focus issues'. Definitely not the photographer's fault.

Death Korps of Krieg Combat Engineers & HQ

I am finally nearing the point where some of the models are looking finished. This is where the long push starts to pay off and the models begin looking like the finished pieces. I still have a ways to go on them, but I can start envisioning what they will look like on the board.  The engineers have more washes, glazes, and layers to go, but the overall feel of the models is now set. Basically if you squint at them now and squint at them once all of the shading is done, the models will basically look the same. Engineers are a really characterful unit. They do the heavy lifting in the Krieg forces, building forward observation posts, trenches, and artillery emplacements. The 12 painted here will allow me to field two squads if I choose to do so, though likely they will end up joined in one big squad walking behind a tunneling hades breaching drill. I am not really sure what to do with the mole mortar. It looks like a pretty iffy unit game-wise, but it looks good paired with the breaching drill.

One of the time consuming tasks for NOVA besides the models themselves is the display board. I relish this part of army construction. However this year I have some problems. I have so many models that a normal 2x2 board simply isn't large enough. I'd really like to have a board with trenches and emplaced artillery, but what do I do with all the extra models? My list includes 3 heavy artillery pieces, 3 quad launchers, 3 medium mortars, 3 bombards, loads of infantry, and then 30 death riders. That takes a lot of space. I've though about doing a multi-level display, but really have no interest in that. Maybe I should bring an entire table to NOVA. :)