Alabaster Automata

Alabaster Automata

Relic Knights. Well. I blogged about this game before, back in 2017. You can read that blog post here. In case you haven't been keeping up, that Kickstarter still hasn't delivered. Due to spiraling costs. Nevertheless, Ninja Division has started to put out a small number of new sculpts, and are ploughing the profits from them back into fulfilling the original Kickstarter.

It's a long sad story, and not one I want to particularly retell here.

This model is for the 'void' faction, which is essentially the bad guy 'meta faction' which can be hired by any of the three main bad guy factions.

According to the Ninja Division website:

Chained to her duty and torn between two worlds—that of the chee and the "living"—the Alabaster Automata struggles to find the true meaning of self as she battles throughout the galaxy in the name of the Chee Collective.

I think they are going for the human-created robot gains self-awareness trope. Which I suppose explains why she (it?) is proportioned and dressed like a love object. I used to be really into Anime and had a definite fondness for this kind of content, then I grew a bit and discovered shame.

A bit of an indulgence then in terms of the subject matter.

I'm really pleased with how the skin turned out, given the name of the model it really had to be a very pale white skin tone. I actually followed a Games Workshop tutorial for painting raven guard faces. The 'clothing' is my standard black recipe; I did struggle a bit to differentiate the metal of the chains and the metal of the sword. Tried to do more of a dark gunmetal on the chains, and more of a polished iron on the sword. Not convinced I carried it off. 

Blackstone Fortress Ambul (Citadel Contrast)

Ambull

So, in case you were somehow unaware, today Games Workshop launched to much fanfare their Citadel Contrast line of paints. Basically, a very heavily pigmented transparent paint with slightly odd flow properties. The idea is you can paint your model in just 'one thick coat' of contrast and get a passable tabletop standard.

I had pre-ordered a bunch of contrast painted in the colours I tend to favour (black, red, bone) but due to funky distribution issues, I have not yet received my pre-order. However, Helen decided to go down to Games Workshop and pick up some other contrast paints so we would have some to play with. I looked through my shelves to find something that would look good painted in mostly blues and greens.

This is the Ambull from the Blackstone Fortress expansion set which I picked up essentially because I wanted to play the game. I never had much interest in the model, and therefore it was in the 'unlikely to ever get painted' section of my staggering collection of models.

Enter contrast. This is maybe 30 minutes work bashing paint on straight from the pot like I used to paint when I was eleven. It just dries with magical highlights. Could I do better if I invested far more time? Yes! But the Ambull undoubtedly looks better with some paint over no paint.

There is a bit of mottling on the top of the carapace. It looks okay on the ambull because he is a creature. I think the contrast is going to look suboptimal on space marines, however. Best to stick to natural textured things like Lizardmen, Tyranids, Skeletons, Nurgle Daemons or Skaven.

Nekima

Alt Nekima

I decided to buy and paint the plastic 'Alternate' Nekima. Neverborn have always been my favorite kind of Malifaux Crew, so even though I already have a first edition Metal Nekima (you can see her here, I've improved!) I decided to pick this one up as a bit of treat. We don't talk about the second edition 'standard' plastic Nekima. It was a terrible model.

I attempted to do some blending on the wings, which I think has worked out really well! I'm not very confident with blending, but in this instance, I seem to have nailed it fairly well.

Crimson Fists Kill Team

Crimson Fists

I know, I know these aren't Emperors Children, or Fallen, or Malifaux. Like I said nothing if not totally inconsistent.

As I have explained before I run a Warhammer Club at school and I  have had these guys knocking around my office for ages and ages. I like to have a simple project on the go so I did the basecoating and edge highlighting over a couple of lunchtimes. At half term, I decided to take them home and get the rest of the details done.

The aim of this project is kind of twofold. First of all, I had a pile of marines knocking around. The three Intercessors are from the push fit starter kit sprue: although with some conversion. The lieutenant is from the endless parade of limited edition primaris lieutenants Games Workshop seems intent on producing. So I had some models without a purpose.

The second aim of the project was to test out painting Crimson Fists, as I may decide to paint my currently assembled-but-not-undercoated space marine army this way. Let me know what you think.

Malifaux!?

I know. I know. I'm nothing if not inconsistent. I have, in fact, made a start on the next five fallen in my painting queue. However, it came to my attention that the third edition of Malifaux is out shortly, and the rules are basically known at this point since there was an open Beta.

So, what started as an activity of rationalizing my Malifaux miniatures collection (a lot of Guild and Outcast stuff is no longer desperately useful to me) ended up with me clearing out the last two unpainted Maliufaux models I own which have sat out on the side for an extremely long time.

Fallen Librarian

Fallen Librarian

So the second character in my Fallen Angels detachment is the Librarian. Now, technically the model is a Chaos Sorcerer; but with the fallen, it's a question of degree. As there is no specific model I decided to go for the Librarian from the old Dark Vengeance boxed set, which happily can be picked up on eBay for a reasonable sum.

The paint scheme was a matter of some debate, as there is very little in the way of description of how librarians dressed in the time of the Horus Heresy. There are references in some of the novels to the Librarians having blue robes. I decided to interpret this as being the inside color of the robes. To hint at the fact that this marine now uses spells from the Chaos spell list I decided to paint the blues in the slightly more turquoise tones used by the Thousand Sons, rather than the royal blue of most imperial librarians.

It's a Rhino

Rhino

Behold the mighty rhino APC. Not a massive fan of how this turned out. The edge highlighting is weird and chunky. No matter how much you paint black, it still kind of looks unfinished on a big tank. I did some weathering. The chipping came out quite nicely which you can see. I used some forge world weathering powders on the tracks and wheels and around the bottom of the tank. Which look a lot better in real life then they do in this photo, but still somehow don't quite pop.

Still, having done a character, a squad, and a tank I now get to loop back around and do a character. Might get these fallen done this week if I power through.

Dark Angels and a painful month.

Fallen Angels

Yeah. I started a new army. When Vigilus Ablaze came out I looked at the Fallen angels detachment and thought to myself. Hmm. Two of the people I am most likely to play against play Dark Angels. This will be enormous fun. 

I've always had a soft spot for the fallen. Not Imperials, but not quite Chaos worshipers either. Probably. Just sort of doing their own thing. Desperately seeking redemption, fighting for the right to exist.

They can and do exist at all points on the spectrum from out and out villains to the space A-team. With no real official models, I decided to make mine fairly sympathetic. Essentially, I made heresy era Dark Angels.

Brexit?

I know. You are accustomed to coming here and looking at painting toy soldiers. For a long while I have felt their is no point writing about anything political. We the people as it where cannot change anything just at the moment. However; my view is evolving and I feel the need to lay it all out once again.

Barty Crouch Jr and Death Eaters

Barty Crouch Jr and Death Eaters

I said I'd end up buying some more of these. I'm not even a Harry Potter fan really. I've seen the films. I thought they were pretty good. I'm not convinced they make my top 10. What I like is collecting I will collect anything. I used to have a collection of bottle caps. I also used to have a collection of miscellaneous cables until I was made to throw them out (I still ache for the loss of my miscellaneous cables). But better than the random hoarded items is when you can collect entire sets of things. Since my wife decided we were going all in on the Harry Potter pre order and I was doing the evil side. I mean now I am doing the evil side. Now I have to own every single evil model. That's just the rules now.