Dreadfleet Part 6: 168 Gun Salute

Part 6 of thoughts and tips on the latest mega-box from Games Workshop. This article deals with the capitol warship of the Grand Alliance, the Heldenhammer.

Holy. Goodness.

This boat is easily the most complicated I've undertaken to date (for the record, I have now completed all the ships in the Grand Alliance.) The level of detail that has been added to this model is staggering. I counted 76 guns per side. Add in the 16 on the back and you're looking at a mind-bending 168 cannons and their gilded arches. My recommendation: patience.

The sails of this vessel are particularly difficult to paint as they require a heavy amount of freehand design and shading. Again, patience is key. 

My only real complaint with this model, which extends to dreadfleet as a whole, is the warping that has taken hold on many of the masts. It's hard enough to get the pegs to fit just right (in most cases I actually clipped them out), but it's nearly impossible to do so when everything is at an angle.

The weather token is my favorite piece from the entire box. It's stylish, well designed, and functional. This is the gold standard that every game piece should be held to. 

The Grand Alliance is now complete. The box is one half done, and I can't help but feel I picked the more difficult half to start off. We'll see next week when we take a look at some truly stomach churning sculpting work from the twisted minds at GW.

Charity Auction: Thank you

Happy Thanksgiving.

Thank you to everyone who made the charity drive a success. Thanks to your efforts, I was able to raise the money I needed to help Ohanamalu Tae Kwon Do. As always, you all amaze me. Have a wonderful weekend.

-James

Dreadfleet Part 5: Feeling Thirsty?

Part 5 of thoughts and tips on the latest mega-box from Games Workshop. This article is about, you guessed it, water.

Let's just get this out of the way now: The Heldenhammer is a beast. You need about as much time to paint this ship correctly as you would a Space Marine Land Raider. More on that next week. This week we're going to examine one of the most important aspect of any naval-based game: water.

If you look at any picture of the ocean (that isn't photoshopped to death) you'll immediately see that blue is not the only color. In fact, most bodies of water aren't blue at all, depending on the angle and time of day you observed them at. If you've ever seen an ocean sunset in July, you know there isn't a spec of blue in the tides of fire that are rolling in with the evening wind. Sidenote: Someone should totally paint a source-lit version of dreadfleet at sunset, you'd win awards with that done properly.

In any case, the biggest thing is to start with the supporting colors that are going to be showing through after the final washes. I used scorpion green and hawk turquoise as a glaze, laying it on top of the basic white undercoat. After that, I put down several layers of necron abyss and washed it with asurman blue.

The final step was one big layer of necron abyss that covered the entire base. The resulting color was united by the strong foundation layer on the topmost level while still showing elements of the colors that began the project. I then took a brush of space wolf grey and patted down the crests of the waves. A final smaller application of pure white at the very apex of the waves gave it the turbulent look.

Not technically complex, but an important technique for your toolset as a painter. Now, if I could just finish the boat that's supposed to fill this base!

Dreadfleet Part 4: There be Dragons

Part 4 of thoughts and tips on the latest mega-box from Games Workshop. This article details the High Elf vessel, the Sea Drake.

This boat has been the simplest I've undertaken so far. If you're just getting ready to crack open this box, you'd do well to start with this guy. You wind up with a beautiful piece with a minimum of headaches. And let's not forget the biggest reason to paint this boat...

Packing the heaviest load of awesome into a single model, the Dragons in this kit have an elegant and powerful look, just like the ship they accompany. Because this ship is built with a fast and deadly aesthetic, you don't have a lot of filler to take up your time. It's a simple, yet effective statement.

Make sure you get the gradients on the sails perfect before trimming out the rings and runes.

Be aware: The joins between the sails create some strange flat areas that aren't really anything but negative space that are needed for structure and support. These areas are on the undersides and backs of the sails, out of the way. You'd do well to throw in some dark paint to keep the area de-emphasized (I used Necron Abyss.)

My game piece for this round, the rulers. I left the contact points bare as any paint would only gum up the works and get scraped off during use anyways.

Painters beware: The tick marks on the sides of these ruler sections are sharp enough to draw blood. Handle with care and refrain from whipping any errant hands with these deadly weapons!

The grand alliance is almost complete, now if only we had a cathedral with sails...

Warhammer Fantasy: Dwarf Warrior

Inspired by Brian Niro's "For the Love" series, I decided to dig up some of the Warhammer Fantasy mini's that I've painted just because I really wanted to.

I love the look of GW dwarves, and I love how much weight they've managed to put into even the most basic warrior. I don't have the time or money to build an entire Warhammer army at the moment, but if I did, the Dwarves would be in my top tier choices.

Dreadfleet Part 3: Get in the Boat (Fish fish!)

Thoughts and tips on the latest mega-box from Games Workshop: Part 3. This article deals with the Alliance pirate ship: The Swordfysh.

There just isn't much to say about this guy. It's a black ship with black sails covered in skeletal imagery. Yup, that's a pirate ship alright.  

Going on looks alone, I actually thought that this ship was one of the bad guys. I wanted to paint up one of the evil ships to mix things up, but when I looked under the auxiliary table, I saw that it sailed with an alliance cog. Oops. 

Easily the most time consuming part of this piece are the sails. The slightly raised images are fantastic when they're complete, but a bear to work with. I've tried several ways of painting them so far, and there just isn't an easy way to do this. That being said, a little bit of patience goes a long way, and the results speak for themselves. I got the sea-green color on the masts by putting a wash of Thraka Green over a base of rotting flesh mixed with scorpion green .

These treasure tokens were a fun little distraction one Friday evening. They're detailed just like everything else in the box, but not painfully so.

3 ships down, 7 to go. I decided after this that I'm going to aim to complete the Grand Alliance before going on to the dark side. Next up, Elves! I've cut, cleaned, and primed the Seadrake for it's tour of duty. Thankfully this time I don't have any massive images on the sails, and for a bonus I get to paint dragons!