The box is opened, the books are cracked, the models are built, and it’s time to get to work.
Summer in the Pacific Northwest is a beautiful time of year. Weeks of perfectly clear skies, highs rarely above 85, and low humidity combine to make for gorgeous weather to spend exploring the rugged, spectacular terrain of one of the most beautiful regions on earth in the summertime. When it finally arrives. Usually on July 5th. So far this summer, we’ve been experiencing what we here on the West Coast call “June Gloom”. That means daytime temps rarely break 70, and it’s cloudy, chilly, and rainy. I love it. It also makes great weather to stay inside and play with toy soldiers. So that’s just what the other Warlords of this series and I have been doing.
Combat Patrol
Last week we received our Armageddon boxes and spent a very pleasant weekend indulging in that New Edition Smell. But when you’re building a new army with a specific date in mind, you’ve eventually gotta just get to work. “Work,” in this case, is a pretty flexible term. For instance, a few of us got together to kick the tires on the new edition at our club space in downtown Seattle to test out the new rules with the Combat Patrol format.
I dusted off my Tyranids and gathered up the Vardenghast Swarm to face off against my friend Max and the Death Guard of the Maggot Lords. Combat Patrol may not be as satisfying of a format as its beloved Age of Sigmar counterpart, Spearhead, but it is still a pretty good way to learn the rules of the new edition.
It seems that Combat Patrol is now very much intended to be an introductory format and secondarily, a way for existing players to dip a toe in the waters of a new army, and there’s nothing wrong with that as I wrote in greater depth a few days ago. I’m definitely looking forward to using Combat Patrol as a way to learn to play my Blood Angels. Randi and I have a playdate set for mid-July as a painting milestone and I’m really looking forward to it.
It was also a great opportunity to test out the Pyrewaste full color terrain set generously sent by our friends at Frontline Gaming. They sent a full set for use in the campaign weekend that this blog is leading towards, including a beautiful, full color neoprene matt. I didn’t use the matt, opting instead for a pair of GW’s official Combat Patrol format boards, but it’s a real looker and I’m excited to play a bigger game on it. The terrain itself is really nice MDF stuff. More on that in a few weeks when I break it out for a full thousand point game, but suffice to say, it’s great quality and going to be a boon to any event organizer with numerous tables to furnish.
The Armageddon box set contents include two new Combat Patrol forces for both Space Marines and Orks, of course. These make a great first goal in building out new armies. The Assault Force Combat Patrol for marines includes most of the models from the box. The captain, and librarian lead the ten-man Intercessor squad, five-man Vanguard Veterans, all supported by the Landspeeder. Eighteen models altogether, so not so bad! This excludes the three-man Eradicator squad, Assault Chaplain, and Ancient. They’ll be next in my queue, but it’s nice to have a little structure in my army planning.
Scheme Testing
My first real step on this project was painting up a single model as a scheme test. I already had a pretty solid plan in mind, but I wanted to confirm it was workable. When starting a new army I like to take one model all the way to completion to work out any kinks in the plan. My choice of model was easy. The Intercessor Sergeant was a perfect test sculpt.
He has enough unornamented armor surfaces to work out the main armor hues but enough secondary ornamention to figure out spot colors or other tricky concepts. He’s also not wearing a helmet (safety third) which would let me test out how my planned fleshtones would harmonize with the main armor colors.
I’m pleased to say it all went really well and I made no tweaks to my scheme worth mentioning!
With that sorted, I started work in earnest but more on that below along with updates from the other three Warlords.
The Campiagn Continues
As I said above, my scheme plan worked out great. Using what I’d planned and put into practice made painting up the rest of my Intercessors a piece of cake. I’m really happy with how the unit turned out. I think I’ve successfully managed a nod to 90s Citadel aesthetics without compromising the more interesting contemporary sculpts. All in all, these were a real pleasure to paint and I’m really looking forward to painting up my Vanguard Veterans next.
xWhile I am enjoying painting up my Boyz, I have a long way to go to get to where I want to be in skill. It’s taken me almost two weeks to get through my first nine; I have to learn to pick up the pace. My highlights are still not where I want them and I’d like the colors to pop a bit more. With my second set of Armageddon Orks I’ll get plenty of practice in. I’m looking forward to the larger pieces with more metal, I’m finding those the most satisfying parts of a model to paint.
I finished off the Storm Speeder. A great model that I needed some experience with to pull off the sub assemblies. So, it was a bit of an adventure but I got there in the end. I also used the big base to work out my basing scheme in full. I’m using AK Interactive Sandy Desert Diorama paste. Along with some cork and a sand mix I made aeons ago to paint a Saga crusade army for a friend. I’ve been putting off my main course of Armageddon minis and eating my dessert a bit early. I got 20 chainsword and bolt pistol guys worked up through their armor and some of the black under-suit detail work.
But, I did a stupid thing. I got distracted and built the terminators from the Leviathan box. What excellent miniatures. Once I had the five terminators and the captain in terminator armor staring at me in gray plastic how could I not paint them. So, the last two weeks I chipped away at some tactical dreadnaught armor. Good fun. Back to main stay line troops next. Hopefully knocking out the 20 assault intercessors and 15 intercessors (10 of them from the Armageddon box). Then it’ll be back to treating myself with a smash captain and a smattering of other command models.
Well the hard part is done – building and undercoating. So much fun (not)! My plan is to finish the new ‘Adrmob combat patrol then move on to the rest of the Orks from the Armageddon launch box. I’m not too worried about getting them done by Labor Day – as you can see I have some experience painting Orks!
Next week we’ll examine how we’re planning to go from Combat Patrols to full 1k lists!
Don’t Miss:
Simon Berman has been a wargamer since 1993 and has worked in the tabletop games industry since 2008 as a staff writer for the first three editions of WARMACHINE and HORDES. These days he’s the General President of the Brush Wielders Union, a worldwide organization of miniatures painters of all skill levels, a freelance games writer who has contributed to a number of roleplaying games like Eclipse Phase, Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, and The Hammer and the Stake. He runs his own small-press publishing company, Strix Publishing, and paints more miniatures than he can keep track of. Simon lives with his wife in Tacoma, Washington along with a number of cats and a pack of savage wiener dogs.
Source: Bell of Lost Souls
