Some Light Gaming

A few weeks ago we got more people together than usual for gaming. It was mostly 40K; I borrowed some Grey Knights for a quick game myself:

As we started late the other tables had taken all of the terrain

That was a strange game. My tac brother were wiped out by a lot of high-quality Space Wolf shooting, then my terminators teleported behind enemy lines and got into combat. While they were slowly being whittled down, my hammer captain was ust murdering everything. I eventually called a truce though as my head was starting to hurt.

After a bit of a break I gave a quick demo game for Warmachine, using my now standard demo lists.

Moving on up

I initiate with my jacks

Butcher feats and counter-punches

Strakhov tries to gun Butcher down, but my dice are cold

It took more resources than expected but ultimately Strakhov went down

My opponent, who I shall nickname "Fuzzy", picked the game up quite quickly and seemed to enjoy it well enough. He's currently focused on building up a 40K army and I don't think he's ready to start picking up Warmachine models right now, but he doesn't seem opposed to playing the occasional game with borrowed models, which is fine with me, although I might need to sort out a better transport solution so I can carry more models around then...

Well, I don't know if Warmachine is going to start taking off locally, but at least I've been able to get some games in. I've been enjoying that.

Finally finished one

It's been over two years now since I decided to take the plunge and get into Warhammer. Amongst my purchases on that first day was a box of metal Grey Knight Terminators. This was a while back, over a year before I even heard rumours of a new codex. After reading the rules and codex, I picked up a few more terminators and some Grey Knights in power armour, with the intention of taking them as allies in a Space Marine army (I didn't see the point of painting more than a handful of the same models, and to be honest the idea still doesn't appeal to me).

I did some experiments with the models, like magnetising arms, installing bulbs, and using glow-in-the dark paint, but I never got around to actually painting them. This was initially because they were quite daunting with all the detail, and being some of my very favourite miniatures bar none I wanted them to be perfect. Later it was because I was busy, then because the new codex completely turned me off (Kaldor Draigo has the stupidest fluff I have ever read in a GW publication, though I do have a soft spot for Mordak's rules and fluff).

But, as I believe I have mentioned before, I've decided to paint the models that I like rather than worry about army lists, and I still like the GK terminator models. Plus, I don't think I'm going to get much better at painting anytime soon, so I finally decided to paint one.


This started off as an experiment in quick painting, the idea being to use Army Painter metallic spray and quickshade for fast results. I also wanted to paint this one to be relatively dark, and then a Grand Master to be brighter. It ended up taking a lot longer than I expected though.

First of all, I'm not getting good results with the metallic primer. Paint doesn't seem to stick to it very well, so I ended up thinning down some boltgun metal and using it as a wash, combined with a boltgun drybrush, to try to get a better base. The armour was later washed badab black then drybrushed boltgun again. Next time I think I'll I'll just put on a black primer coat and drybrush with boltgun, that should give good contrast and a 'pitted' surface as well as being much faster. I might try edge highlighting with mithril next time, just to see what difference it makes (I didn't bother this time because I normally find edge highlighting on boltgun or chainmail has very little effect, perhaps because they are already quite shiny).

I then painted the details dwarf bronze (I may have used a layer of tin bitz as a basecoat, I don't actually remember), and a few things in tin bitz (like the storm bolter housing and sword handle), but I applied it in very thin layers to try to stop it from clogging the detail, so it took many coats to get a strong colour. Plus I kept missing hidden bits of detail and needing to go back. It was washed black at the same time as the armour. In all the White Dwarf articles they always highlight gold with mithril silver, so I thought drybrushing them boltgun at the same time as the armour should work reasonably well and save time. It didn't. The drybrush robbed all the colour, and they ended up looking too close to the rest of the armour. Fortunately a wash of gryphone sepia brought the colour back, and the end result was not too bad - though next time I'll paint them after the armour and just leave them bronze with a watered down wash.

The eyes were simply white with a blue wash to create a very weak glowing effect (it's much easier than painting lenses, which look better when they're done well but worse when they're not). The paper was done the same as usual; bleached bone with white edges followed by a gryphone sepia wash (or maybe it was ogryn flesh). The purity seals were just mechrite red with a devlan mud wash ( I wanted them daker than usual). The book on his right hip was just calthan brown then scorched brown, then given the same wash as the paper.

I decided that the symbols on his shoulders and the book hanging from his waist were not actual paper and leather, just painted to look like it, so I used skull white and tin bitz, and washed them black with the rest of the armour. I also painted the sword symbols mithril afterwards to make them brighter than the rest of the armour. The freehand on the books is of course the two elements of the Sentinels Eternal symbol, just split up for a change.

The sword itself was slightly modified by removing the 'power weapon mechanism' normally found at the base of the blade to give it a much more traditional look. I hate that bit, it makes the sword look less sturdy. The blade was painted chainmail, washed black, the drybrushed up to mithril to make it brighter than the rest of the model, so it would stand out and serve as a focal point. I'm not partial to the power weapon effect on the current 'official' paint scheme, in fact I'm not completely sold on power weapon effects in general, so I'm just keeping it simple for now. Plus of course the whole look of the Grey Knights is very old fashioned, so an old fashioned sword looks the part to me.

I decided to leave this one glossy, as it makes the metal look more shiny. I agonised a bit over this decision since I was supposed to be going for a 'dark' look, and when I look at him I'm not sure I like it (it doesn't help that I applied the varnish rather thickly so it fills up the detail a bit, making it look almost laminated), so I'll try a matt varnish on the next one to see which I prefer.


As you can see his name is "Tighten". It's a reference to Megamind, if you've seen the movie - and you know about Grey Knights - you'll get it. I hope. I might be using him as a ghost Knight - not in actual gaming, but just in terms of the unit I'm painting. I've been experimenting with glowing spray paint and getting somewhat usable results so a part of me is tempted to use it on 'ghost knights', but I don't think I'll use it on him. Maybe the next one, we'll see.

Abject Failure

I finally decided to try painting one of my Grey Knight models. Not, however, as a Grey Knight. The chaplain took a lot of effort, and I wanted to paint something quick and easy instead of another big project, so I decided to try painting a Ghost Knight. Mordrak and his Ghost Knights are probably my favorite fluff and special rule from the new codex (which, to be honest, is not saying much, but I'll leave that topic for later), so I figured why not start there.

Based on an idea I had for painting Legion of the Damned, I wanted to use glow-in-the-dark paints. I picked these up a while back with the intention of using them on the aforementioned Legion, but never got around to it. So this was an experiment in using those paints, and on achieving an "otherworldly" effect.

The basic idea was instead of the usual method of painted recesses darker and protruding areas lighter to achieve a natural lit effect, to paint recesses in white and higher surfaces darker, to make the model look as if it was lit internally and not reacting to actual lighting. Kind of like the ghosts in Ghost Busters, in a way. I planned to do this by painting a white basecoat of glowing paint then drybrushing it in blue.

The results were terrible. This was partly because of the paint not doing what I expected: it turns out that the paint dries clear, not white. So the metallic primer (I chose metallic with the assumption that it would help reflect the light outwards - that and I don't have any white primer right now) was not actually covered well, and I didn't get the basic colours I wanted. also, the glow effect was very weak and patchy (there are glowing particles in the paint, so a single coat does not give a smooth glowing effect, rather there are spots where it glows). So I had to apply a large number of coats of paint. But I was impatient and the paint took longer than normal model paints to dry, so I applied it too thickly (since it was clear a thin coat was barely visible to the eye so there was a strong temptation to load the brush and place a lot in each stroke, which I succumbed to). And the paint flowed very freely, so it ended up all pooling in recesses. This all made me even less patient and I gave up on having a nice model, so I just threw the paint on to see how thick it needed to be to glow nicely.

The result was that the model lost all detail and still looked metallic, albeit metal covered with something translucent. Then I rushed the drybrush and, because of the complete lack of detail, the drybrush looked terrible and covered too much. So I tried a white "wash"; white paint with a lot of water to fill the recesses (I mixed in some of the glowing paint figuring it couldn't hurt). That just made things worse. The final result? Complete abject failure.


As you can see it looks awful in the light. It doesn't look bad in the dark once it's had a good charge, but it's still not smooth and it takes a LOT of paint to get a reasonably bright glow. Here's a closer look so you can see the spotty glowing effect:



It's possible that those spots are partly due to the watered-down wash I painted over the drybrush, but I don't really think so - every time I checked it it looked spotty. Still, a lot of the problems are down to me not being familiar with the paint and rushing it's application. Actually, it's possible that my choice of model is not suitable either: Grey Knights have a lot of fine detail and different materials, the combination of flowing paper and detailed engraving means it's hard to tell what's happening without the colours. Perhaps a simpler model would be more suitable.

I plan to strip the paint from this model and try again. This time I will mix the glowing paint with white and apply it in very very thin layers, and stop when the white looks good instead of when it glows well. I'm thinking of either painting straight on the model (best done with plastic) as the glowing paint didn't stick to the primer very well. Actually, I suspect this metallic primer might not be very good for painting on as I noticed a little trouble with the Chaplain as well, although the problem seems to be much worse with this glowing paint than with my Citadel paints. Perhaps a wash and/or drybrush applied first might help.

Another thing to try would be to paint the model normally and then paint a few thin layers of glowing paint on top. Thus the model would look normal in the light and glow a little in the dark. Not the quick easy paint job I had in mind, and won't look as good under UV lights, but if I can get a reasonably strong glow it will still be kind of fun.


I also have some glow-in-the-dark clay, the problem is that it needs to be baked hard. I plan to use it for bases and perhaps eyes and blades, other bits of detail etc. However I don't have an oven right now so I can't bake it. I tried mixing it with greenstuff and milliput, but it the mixtures don't harden properly and don't glow brightly, so that's out. When I get an oven I'll come back to it.