How to paint a Slaaneshi spawn (using layering)

Another preparatory step for the painting competition: layering.

Introduction

After painting some Daemonettes a while back, I decided to have a go at a Chaos Spawn model assembled to be used as a Fiend of Slaanesh. I gave it a long snout and crab-like arms and tentacles ending in bony spikes.
It was primed the same as the other spawn, using the detail-obscuring graffiti spray:

(the model on the right)

I gave it a light violet base color. This was done using the same technique as for the Daemonettes: heavily watered down Hormagaunt Purple (or equivalent), to a wash-like consistency, laid down on a model primed in white. I also gave the crab claws a coat of bright Xereus Purple (equivalent). On the Daemonettes, this looks fine, since their claws are clearly separated from their arms. The Spawn however lacks that level of detail (as I've previously complained), and it looks somewhat clumsy:

I didn't know of any technique to fix this back  then, so I've just left it at that.

Enter layering, the practice of achieving color transitions by successive layers, going from one color to the other. (Really, I could have thought of this.) Check out this youtube tutorial.

Getting at it

My initial plan was to go from the bright purple on the arms to the very light violet on the skin. I re-applied my Xereus Purple (from now on, "purple") on the arms so as to have a strong basecoat to layer on:

I waited for it to dry (actually, by the time I painted all the appendages, the first one was dry already), then proceeded to the second layer. I used the same color, with some white mixed in. This is visible in this highly exaggerated contrast induced by the flash:

I left the original color in place around the joints and the inside of the claws, and layered on it everywhere else.
Then for the second layer, I applied more white to the previous mix, and a bit of Daemonette Hide (from now on, "violet").

The fourth and final layer contained more white and violet than the original purple color. I applied it to the edges of the claws, and at the color transition point, so as to smoothly blend into the main skin areas. This is where I realized that I can't reproduce that color anymore, so I went ahead and laid this mix on almost the entire model.

Once dried, this resulted in a weirdly pinkish color:

Which I proceeded to darken down using a black wash. This also popped out the details of the body (muscle groups and fur) and smoothed the transitions near the arm joints.

I then corrected the bony scythes with some light grey on their upper areas, and gave the model tiny, mean red eyes.

I still had some gloss pooling around from the previous spawn model that I've worked on, so I applied some of it on the inside of the claws and scythes, to give them a wicked shine.

I'll leave the base for another time, so that's it!

How to paint a Nurgle Chaos Spawn (using wet blending)

In preparation for a local painting competition, I have decided to have a go at wet blending.

Introduction

Wet blending is the technique of combining two or more colors on a model resulting in a fine transition between them. You can take a look at this YouTube tutorial. The technique consists of putting a thick coat of each paint on the model, then pulling one into the other at the edges ("blending") while they're still wet. In particular, this is easy to do with two colors, and it's a common technique to have one brush dipped into each paint (hence this is called two-brush wet blending). Besides ease of use, this has the added benefit of being able to switch paints quickly, such that the paint already applied to the model won't get dry before you blend it.

This video convinced me that this is fairly easy to accomplish on a Nurgle model. The painter mixed brown and green to get a necrotic flesh effect. This is what I've tried to do with one of my Chaos Spawn models, originally assembled to be used as a Beast of Nurgle.

(the model on the left)

As you can see, there's a thick layer of primer on the model. I was using a graffiti spray as a primer back then, and sometimes it just sprayed too much paint on my models. It's almost obscuring the details - muscle groups, abdomen, etc, which hurts even more, since this Spawn model isn't very detailed (compared to a Plaguebearer for example, which is full of torn skin, boils, pustules etc.). As such, this paint scheme has the added benefit of compensating for the lack of details!

Getting at it

I selected an appropriate looking brown and green color, and got to work.

Looking back, the green proved to be too vivid. I compensated by blending it as much as I could. You can see later on that I've left a larger green spot on the back, and it's just too bright. I'll have to revisit that!

I usually water down my paints. Remember, however, that I said earlier that wet blending needs a thick coat of each paint? Well, it really does. This is what I got when trying to blend watered down paints:

They just flowed right into each other, creating an almost uniform mix. I washed it off, and started anew.

The second try went a lot better:

And I covered the entire model using this scheme:

I think it came out pretty good, especially for a technique used for the first time. I wasn't entirely happy with the fact that it looks somewhat like a military camo paint scheme, so I decided to add some more details. I started off with a light drybrush using Dead Flesh:

You can spot some of the highlights around the knuckles:

Then I applied a violet wash to some areas, aiming for a bruised flesh effect. I only have black wash on stock, so I used a heavily watered down paint:

I have found that heavily watered down paints have a wash-like effect. If you apply too much of it on the model, it looks bad while still wet, giving the impression of globbing up:

 But once it's dry, this is how it looks like :

Some more Dead Flesh color creates the effect of pus gathering near the eyes and running down the body:

The too-thick primer created some bubbles which I wasn't happy about, but then I decided to pretend they're pustules. Applying tiny yellow speckles to them did the job:

I then wanted to get some contrast on the model by painting the eyes red:

But it just felt off. So I added yellow pupils to the smaller eyes, and a huge yellow center to the bigger eye. This feels menacing and disturbing enough, instead of just a swollen red welt:

Finally, I felt that the pus isn't standing out enough, so I applied some gloss varnish to it. Now it has to be said that this was more of an experiment, as I don't have miniature-paint-quality gloss on hand. I just hopped down to a hobby store, bought an acrylic gloss, and hoped for the best. It isn't really visible on the picture below. The surface is also kind of small, and shadowed, since the model is leaning forwards. If some light reaches it though, it has a bit of a shine.

I'll leave the base for another time, so that's it!

Chaos Daemons vs Imperial Fists, 19.05.2015, 7th ed

Time to restart the battle reports. This here is my first 7th edition battle report. Or 7th edition battle, for that matter. So I obviously tried a list based on summoning. Here goes...

Mission: Spoils of war
Map: Hammer and Anvil
Lists:
Chaos Daemons:

• 3 Nurglings
• 13 Pink Horrors, champion, icon, instrument
• Soul Grinder of Nurgle with Phlegm Bombardment
• Daemon Prince of Nurgle, exalted reward, lvl 3 Psyker, power armor, wings
• Daemon Prince of Nurgle,warlord, lvl 3 Psyker, power armor, wings

Imperial Fists:

• 5-man tactical squad, with flamer and combi melta
• 5-man tactical squad, with flamer and combi melta
• 10-man tactical squad, multimelta and melta, veteran sergeant in a Rhino
• lvl 2 Librarian, terminator armor, force staff
• 3-man centurion devastator squad, grav cannons
• 5-man devastator squad, 4 lascannons
• Thunderfire Cannon

So we're both battleforged...
I put it to good use. I rerolled my warlord trait and got Warp beacon (deep striking Daemons do not scatter within 12"). I have also managed two identical lvl 3 Psykers: both with Smite, Iron Arm, Summoning and Stream of Corruption (Nurgle template primaris). The non Warlord Daemon Prince got the portalglyph.
I won the roll of and was quick to take advantage. We were both eager to get into the battle, so there aren't any pictures of the deployment. However, I put everything on the table in ruins, with the Nurglings infiltrating into a crater on the middle of the table, close to some objectives; my opponent deployed everything within ruins.

This is the Imperial Fist deployment, although you can already see a swooping Daemon Prince coming in:

Devastators on the first floor.

Chaos Daemons, turn 1.
The portalglyph was placed at the beginning of the turn to provide free objective holders. Then both Daemon Princes swooped forward at maximum speed and took psychic shots at the marines, chipping of a wound from the Centurions and killing 3 Devastators.

The home field was pretty quiet, with the Horrors forming an objective-holding konga line.

Portalglyph in the bottom right corner.
I tried to take pictures of the tactical objectives drawn, but they came out unusably illegible.
6 Daemonettes came out of the portalglyph.

Imperial Fists, turn 1.
Everything shot at the swooping Daemon Princes, inflicting 1 wound (thanks, 2+ Jink!).

Chaos Daemons, turn 2.

Time to swing my evil plan into motion. Both Daemon Princes changed into gliding mode. I couldn't charge that turn, so, to avoid getting shot to pieces, I summoned some fodder:

So far, so good. Except that one of the Daemon Princes got Perils of the Warp, rolled a 1, rolled 11 on Leadership, and was removed from play. At that point I actually wanted to give up, but we played on, just to see what happens.

Imperial Fists, turn 2.

This happened. Shot to ribbons:

My opponent drew the Blood and Guts objective, so he's contemplating a charge into the Bloodletters with his Centurions.

For great justice, not only did the Bloodletters survive, thus denying the objective, but they inflicted 2 wounds, killing a Centurion.
The Thunderfire Cannon in the mean time pounded the Nurglings. However, they heroically resisted for a couple of rounds, scoring that objective in the middle multiple times.

Chaos Daemons, turn 3.

Since the Daemon Prince was jinking all the time, there was no use in shooting. So I summoned more reinforcements, and joined the close combat. The Soul Grinder in the mean time took shots, missing completely.

Imperial Fists, turn 3.

The Daemonettes were promptly decimated. The Rhino also stole the objective towards which my konga line was moving.

The tactical squad joined the combat, and challenged, so I had to hit them. They were decimated and routed. The Librarian got off Force, but didn't land any hits.

Turn 4. I summoned more Daemons. Tried to kill the Librarian, which saved every wound on a 5+. Then he hit me with Force and my Daemon Prince vanished. The Soul Grinder finally got in a lucky shot, killing half the squad on the hill. However, at this point, the score was 13-11 for the marines, and all I had were the two units in the backfield. I drew objectives, but they were all going to be stolen (since this was Spoils of War, after all). So I surrendered.

What would have happened if the Daemon Prince with Perils survived? A very different field back here, for sure.
Is summoning useless? Not really. The plan actually worked, with all the firepower of the existing squads going into the summoned fodder, giving my (theoretical) Daemon Princes free reign. Alas, it was not meant to be. And throwing 6-7 dice at a power is a good way to get Perils of the Warp.

Priming models (on the cheap)

Priming models using a brush takes a lot of effort, so you're usually better off using a spray paint. However, spray primers tend to be expensive. GW's spray paints are around £10 each. Luckily, you can use other spray paints, too.

Unfortunately, not just any spray paint will do. Being a naive miniature painter, I hopped down to a local hobby shop and asked for "any spray paint that sticks well to plastic and metal". They gave me a 'graffiti spray' (about £3). Sure enough, it worked by the specified parameters. It stuck well and covered the whole surface. However, it was prone to sometimes uncontrollably just spitting out large gobs of paint. By the time I realized this, I have primed a large number of models. Unfortunately, on smaller models such as infantry, the spray has visibly covered up some details. I'll let you be the judge of it:

Looking carefully on the model on the left, on the rightmost tentacle, you can see spraying marks - like small craters.

Same on these Daemonettes.

The Goblin King (intended to be used as a Great Unclean One) was completely ruined. I stripped off the paint later on.

I followed up with some googling and reading up forums. The internet's combined wisdom led me to buy a spray paint used for cars (about £2.5):

This gave much better results. I've primed everything ever since using this spray. It always covered well the "visible" part of the miniature. I sometimes needed multiple spraying sessions to cover the parts that were "hidden" the first time - inner thighs, buttocks, under wings etc. Take a look:

 I use this large cardboard box for mass priming.

All the fine details on Bela'kor are kept.

To sum it up, you really don't have to throw money out the window purchasing "official" spray paints. Just be careful and experiment with your paint before priming all your collection with it!

Site review: miniwargaming.com

I have recently become a "miniwargaming vault member". What does that mean, and why should/shouldn't you do the same? Find out below.

The miniwargaming site (referred to from now on as MWG) is a massive repository of wargaming battle reports, as well as painting and terrain-making tutorials. It also features other videos, such as tactics and gameplay tutorials. Their videos are always high quality (and can be viewed in HD) - usually both the video itself and its content.
They also have a store, which used to sell miniatures, but no longer does. They still have some books and instructional DVDs.

The good parts

The site features a lot of free content. Besides the Banter Batrep (which I'm sure most 40k players have at least heard of), there are other battle report shows, including narrative campaigns (of which I'm a huge fan of). Of course, I'm only interested in Warhammer 40k/Fantasy, but there are other featured games, too. Some of their guys are into it for the fun; others are excellent at diving into rules. e.g. see this video where they detail how graviton weapons work.
Content that isn't free includes for example this marvelous painting show which I've found very useful.

The "meh" parts

Obviously, they need to make a living; so a lot of content is not free, but is accessed based on a payed subscription. This collection of videos is referred to as the "MWG Vault" (hence payed subscribers are referred to as "Vault Members"). This isn't bad per se; however, they are experts at goading you into becoming a vault member. For narrative campaigns, every second mission is in the vault. That means that you can only view half of it for free, and you will miss a lot of the storyline.

The bad parts

The nasty part is their subscription model. You can create a free trial account for 7 days, which you can switch off or continue with the payed subscription. However, instead of assuming that you will switch it off and ask you to confirm, they assume that you will continue and silently take the money from your account/paypal. Now, the sum itself isn't that large. If you are into wargaming and painting, it really pays off, as the videos improve your painting/modelling/gaming skills. I was just greatly annoyed by the gesture, and indeed I haven't visited their site in anger for a few days after that. Afterwards however, I needed a small painting tip, so I went and searched for it, found just the video that I needed, and so I was hooked - again.

Magnetized bases

You may have noticed that my models are mounted on thin discs instead of regular bases. They're on metallic washers, which thus stick to magnetized bases - both square and round. This is how I keep my army compatible with both Warhammer40k and Warhammer Fantasy.

Note. I've written about this before, when I've made my wargaming/blogging "debut" at Wargames Romania. If you've read all that, feel free to skip this; this is mostly a mashup/rewrite/expansion of my earlier article. Also feel free to check out that blog. It features beautifully painted miniatures and some expert advice, as well as a web shop.

Introduction

I'm lazy enough to lift this paragraph from an earlier post, Where to start your Warhammer hobby?:

The third step (as suggested on some forums) was to combine my 40k and Fantasy armies. As you may know, one is a fantasy setting, while the other is sci-fi. Not a chance? Ha! Ideas include: running fantasy Orcs as 40k (space) Orks (bows count as shootas) and running Empire gunners as Imperial Guard (just say they're a regiment raised on a backwater feudal world). Then there's the entire army called Chaos Daemons/Daemons of Chaos, which are 100% compatible. The only thing in the way are the bases (round vs square), but that can be solved by magnetizing. (I'll post about that later.) This got me sold completely, and soon enough I got my daemons army up and running.

As you may have guessed by now, I went with Daemons and magnetized bases. So let's get down to business!

Magnetizing techniques

I've spent a fair amount of time reading up forums. I've gathered three ways to magnetize bases:

• magnetize both the round and the square base, then glue the model on the smaller one. e.g. for a Daemon model, which uses the 25mm bases, you would glue it on the round base. It would then fit snugly on the square base, and the magnets would make it stick.
• glue the model on the round (40k) base, and use movement trays for Fantasy.
• magnetize both bases and glue the model on a piece of metal. Thus it would stick to both bases, depending on what you're playing.

Now all of these have their merit. They also have their drawbacks. 

The first one results in probably the least work needed. However, it looks downright silly. Not to mention that on the tabletop, some of your models would be on double bases, and some on single bases, depending on which is the smaller - round or square. If I spend a lot of time painting up my models, I expect them to look good in games!

The second approach is the cheapest (least magnets used), but needs the most work (for the movement trays). If you want to get your models on the tabletop for Warhammer Fantasy quickly (like I did), it's easier to just glue magnets onto bases. You would also run into trouble with models that have a larger round base than the appropriate square one.

The third approach is the most flexible, given that you can find an appropriate metallic support. As a hidden benefit, a piece of metal just above the base greatly improves the balance of the model. Those pesky standard bearers should no longer fall on their face all the time! This is the path that I ultimately took.

My magnetized bases

I bought a load of 25mm metallic washers (as well as some larger ones) from the local appliance superstore. They proved to be excellent for this job, from every perspective. A rare earth magnet, glued below the base, attracts the washer sufficiently such that you can lift the whole thing by holding the model. It won't move either if you're careful. 

Here are some old pictures of magnetized infantry bases, and how they look like with the models attached:

Irridescent Horror on washer.

The whole squad of Pink Horrors, on square bases.

Daemonettes on round bases.

Bloodletters on round and square bases.

Since then I have field-tested my models, and this is what I can add:

• putting on the magnetic bases is a chore. After the 20th infantry model I've stuck on the base, my first opponent flipped out, and asked what size the washer is. After I told him it's 25mm - the same size as the base, he asked me to use my models without the actual base - just the washer. I've been doing that ever since in 40k.
• you'll still need movement trays for Warhammer Fantasy. Hordes of 40+ models can't live without them. I'll build some magnetized trays later on.

Non-infantry bases

Cavalry and beast models use bigger bases than infantry, but they can be magnetized using the same technique. The key issue is that, although the bases are longer, they are of the same width. Also, the models touch the base on a small surface - these cavalry mounts for example have only two legs.

I had to cut through a good bit of plastic to get the magnets in there.

Seeker of Slaanesh

Warhounds of Chaos (posing as Flesh Hounds of Khorne)

It gets more complicated when the bases are much bigger - monstrous beasts have 50x50mm square, respectively 50mm diameter circle bases. After some trial-and-error, I’ve found that two magnets placed at almost perfect positions can hold all three kinds of metallic washers.

The magnets fit really tightly into the square base, with no danger of falling off.

 

Screamers of Tzeentch. These creatures have a round “flying base” that is only a little larger than an actual infantry base, so a regular 25mm washer is a good fit.

The nurgling swarm touches the base on a much larger surface, so I used bigger, 30mm washers instead.

These two Chaos Spawn have different positions. One has its legs spread further apart, so it required an even bigger, 35mm washer.

Future magnetization projects

I've got quite a lot here.

1. magnetized weapon arms. I've already magnetized the right arm of my Soul Grinder. I want to experiment with some smaller models - maybe have a Bloodletter that can switch from a regular hand to holding a standard or instrument.
2. magnetized movement trays. I've tried using a wooden plank as a movement tray. It went horribly, everything kept falling off. I'll try gluing on a magnetic sheet, and we'll see where that gets me.
3. magnetized scenic bases. I want to give something special to some models that require large bases but are themselves small, like the metal Bloodthirster I got from eBay.
4. magnetized chariots. I've got a Skull Cannon/Blood Throne and a Burning Chariot half assembled each. I want to assemble them using magnets, such that I can switch from one form to another, depending on what I want to field.
5. magnetized weapon mounts. I have some friendly Space Marine players, and I'll try my hand at magnetizing jets and tanks.

All right, that was it. Post a comment if you want to share your experiences with magnets, or want to ask a question!