Painting Winter War Finns

I have finalized my process for painting my Winter War Finnish infantry. There are a lot of steps, but most of them go very quickly and don't require careful painting or much skill, so I was able to get my infantry painted relatively quickly using this process. There are also some steps (like numbers 14 and 20-24) that could be left out without making too much difference from a distance, but I thought they added enough to the overall look to be worth the little time they took. The paints I used are mostly out of print Citadel paint colors, but hopefully by looking at the pictures below for each stage you can figure out an equivalent color to use, if you want to follow a similar process.

Here is the full list of steps. Further down I have close up pictures showing the results of applying each step.

1. Chaos Black - undercoat/basecoat everywhere
2. Adeptus BattleGrey - paint winter camouflage coat/pants and helmets, hats, gloves, black boots, bases, and NCO pants, leaving black in recesses
3. Fortress Grey - wet brush winter camouflage coat/pants, leaving some Astronomicon Grey at edges (AVOID boots, bases, gloves, hats, and NCO pants)
4. Fortress Grey - edge highlight black boots
5.  Codex Grey - dry brush NCO pants, black gloves, and cloth hats
6. Codex Grey - edge highlight cloth hats
7. Skull White - lightly wet brush winter camouflage coat/pants, leaving some grey at edges
8. Catachan Green - basecoat bread bags and straps
9. Salamander Green - paint helmets, paint wide stripe on NCO pants
10. Tallarn Flesh - basecoat faces
11. Gretchin Green - wet brush bread bags and their straps
12. Badab Black - wash black boots, bases, black gloves, helmets
13. Elf Flesh - highlight/wet brush faces
14. Dwarf Flesh - paint lower lips
15. Calthan Brown - basecoat rifle wood, brown leather boots, belts, mittens, and rifle straps
16. Calthan Brown - wet brush ammo pouches, beards, hair, and cap fur
17. Desert Yellow - wet brush/highlight rifle wood, brown leather boots, leather pouches, mittens
18. Bleached Bone - highlight/dry brush mittens, wet brush rifle straps, beards, and cap fur
19. Ogryn Flesh - wash rifle wood, brown leather boots, ammo pouches
20. Adeptus BattleGrey - highlight gun metal and bayonets, paint helmet straps
21. Chainmail - paint cap buttons, edges of bayonets, rifle bolts
22. Skull White - paint cap badges and eyes
23. Sky Blue - dot center of cap badges
24. Chaos Black - dot eyeballs

Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower

In a vast and statue lined Chamber did the champions first come together. Whether by the dark designs of the Gaunt Summoner, or the vagaries of fate and destiny, each champion descended the winding stairs to face one another across a sigiletched floor. How each had come to this place was an epic tale in itself. Why each had come remained a secret known only to them. Yet it was Clear that, for now, their paths were intertwined.

It was then that the Gaunt Summoner’s visage loomed above the champions in a blaze of unearthly light. In a booming voice the Summoner revealed that, should the champions wish to win his boon, they would have to best his trials. Only in this way might they gather the fragments of the shattered amulet upon which his truename was inscribed. Do this, the Gaunt Summoner promised, and the Champions would have whatever they desired. Fail, and they would be his prisoners forevermore. With this the Summoner faded from sight, leaving only his echoing laughter, and a glowing portal leading on into the Silver Tower’s labyrinthine depths.

Having arrived at the long-sought Silver Tower of Tzeentch, Byron quickly allied himself with a mistweaver saih and aelf assassin. He didn't have a great deal of choice, really. Even in the face of such peril as awaited them in the silver tower, many adventurers tend to avoid and distrust necromancers. The shadowy elves had no such qualms, however. And they spoke very little, which suited Byron just fine.

Kingdom Death Monster - Olympus Year 6

Hera, Dionysus, Ares, and Hephaestus depart Olympus to hunt for a (level 1) white lion. Hera is armed with a scrap sword and wears a full set of rawhide armor. Dionysus wears some rawhide and carries his twilight sword. Hephaestus brings the king spear, and Ares carries the butcher's cleaver in one hand and a bone ax in the other.

On the way, the survivors find a lion cub, which they slaughter, gaining some precious resources. The rest of their hunt is relatively uneventful, and they eventually track down an adult white lion.

First Winter War Finns

I started painting my first batch of Winter War Finns. These are the Baker Company models from their Winter War Kickstarter. I'm still working out a paint scheme for them. I have a lot of them to paint, so I'm trying to come up with something quick that still gives decent results with plausible colors for the uniforms and equipment. Have a look below for some pictures of my initial attempt.

Warhammer Quest Skaven Stormvermin

It has been a while since I've made any progress on the Warhammer Quest monsters, but I've finally completed a group of 12 Skaven Stormvermin. The paint job was pretty straightforward and similar to my previous Warhammer Quest Skaven, but for some reason it took a long time to get these finished. I suppose because I had other projects being worked on at the same time that I had more motivation to make progress on.

With these completed, I'm now very close to having the entire level 1 monster table painted, which you'd think would motivate me to work faster to reach that milestone. However, looking over the level 2 monster list and seeing how huge an undertaking that will be is somewhat discouraging. But I suppose I've just got to keep plugging away at it. Getting all the monsters painted for Warhammer Quest was always going to be a huge undertaking. Certainly a marathon, not a sprint, so I'll have to accept that there will be periods of relative inactivity. In any case, have a look at the Stormvermin below and let me know what you think.

Kingdom Death Leather Armor Survivors

I've finished another magnetized set of Kingdom Death survivors. This time it was the Leather Armor set. I painted a mix of dark brown, light brown, and black leather to add some variety. Otherwise the painting was pretty basic. This kit did present some new challenges when it came to magnetizing them, which you will be able to see in the pictures below.

First, I had a hard time attaching a hand to the leather shield in a way that would allow it to fit on any arm, but still look like a natural way to hold a shield. So that didn't turn out very well. Hopefully someday I'll get around to making some new shield holding hands that look a little better but will still fit on at least most of the arms.

Second, it's almost impossible to get the hand holding the coiled whip to look good. Because a section of the whip hangs down, it needs to be aligned perfectly correctly, with the end of the whip hanging exactly vertically, or it looks wrong, like it's defying gravity. Very few arms will happen to be in exactly the right position to make this work, so I'll mostly have to use the hand with the uncoiled whip in mid swing.

Finally, there were a couple of really big weapons, with one being so top-heavy that the magnets wouldn't hold it upright. From now on I will use longer rod magnets in the forearms to give a stronger hold on these heavier weapons, but that revelation came too late to help with this armor set. Instead I added some weight to the bottom of the Counter-weighted Axe (which is actually not counter-weighted at all by default). That helps it balance better at just about any angle, and as a bonus it makes the name much more appropriate.

Painted Warhammer Krell, or Wight King with Black Axe

Having picked up the Warhammer Age of Sigmar General's Compendium, I became interested in the Path to Glory campaign rules contained therein. I was hoping to arrange a Path to Glory campaign at some point using my old Vampire Counts models. The new factions are much more limited, and my variety of different Vampire Counts stuff doesn't really make a coherent faction anymore. The closest I had and the simplest to implement was the Deathrattle faction, which contains Skeletons, Grave Guard, and Black Knights, lead by a Wight King. I don't have a painted Wight King, but have several unpainted, so this gave me the inspiration to finally paint one of them up.

I went with my finecast Krell model, who is no longer Krell in the Age of Sigmar, but simply a Wight King with Black Axe (of Krell). It's a really nice model. I tried to imitate the blue glow look of the black axe in the paint job on the Games Workshop website, but couldn't really pull it off. That aside, I think he turned out pretty well for a quick paint job, and hopefully someday he'll get to lead his war band to glory. Have a look below for plenty of pictures.