Forces of the Imperium.
I selected two Titans to initially represent Legio Ignatum; a Warlord and one of the new Forge World Reavers. I kept the possibility of a third or more Titans held in reserve until I had finalised the Tyranid forces. Originally I had intended to paint the Titans in an urban colour scheme, but after painting several for the Black Library Open Day, I decided to switch to a light desert scheme so that they stood out from the background more. I started by undercoating the Titans black, before dry brushing boltgun metal onto all of the joints and machinery areas. The armour plating and weapons were then painted with a watered down bestial brown base colour which I then re-based bubonic brown. The final highlights were a 50/50 mix of bubonic brown and bleached bone. I also repositioned both the Warlord and Reaver slightly to make them a little more dynamic.
With that lot out of the way, It was time to start making up the infantry. I wanted to achieve a distinctly different look between the off world Imperial Guard regiments and Planetary Defence Force, other than just using different colours. Delving into the depths of my Epic bits box, I rooted out some of the original Imperial Guard frames from the days of Adeptus Titanicus, perfect! Using the same colour scheme for the infantry as the tanks, I put together enough troops to field infantry and mechanised companies, as well as the supreme commander, artillery detachment and tank company. Certainly enough to put a dent in the Tyranids progress. Even more forces of the Imperium... As if that lot above wasn't enough, the second element of the Imperial line was to consist of off world Imperial Guard and Space Marines. The Space Marine force I kept deliberately small (although not to be underestimated) and flexible, basing the models around the Black Templar Chapter, I selected infantry units only and added in three Thunderhawk Gunships to help ferry them in when the time was right. If you have read Dan Abnett's Honour Guard, you will know that a large part of the story is based on the tank regiments of the Pardus. This really appealed to me so it didn't take too much convincing to write the Pardus into my Imperial forces. I have often found books such as Gaunt's Ghosts and Execution Hour are excellent sources of ideas when it comes to theming an army and highly recommend reading them if you haven't already. Having decided to include a company of Pardus tanks in the game, it was simply a case of hunting out the appropriate models. Once more it was Forge World to the rescue with their superb Epic Conquerors, Destroyers and Executioners. As I did not want to field just tanks on their own I needed to include a mechanised force fast enough to keep up with the tanks, so using the current Imperial Guard models, I painted them as Steel Legion and mounted the majority in Chimeras. To contrast with the urban colours of the defence force, I painted all of the vehicles in a light desert colour scheme.
These were first undercoated black (I pretty much undercoat everything using black primer), then base coated with a thinned down bestial brown the same as the Titans. The highlights were dry brushed bubonic brown and tracks boltgun metal, nice and simple. To add further contrast to the equipment of the planetary defence force, I restricted artillery to only Griffons and Manticores. With that, the bulk of the Imperial forces were done, 5000 points all told (phew!) Part Four: Expanding the city limits. The best laid plans of mice and men, how often I have heard that, but for this project its was so true. As I mentioned in earlier articles at the beginning of this project, the plan was for a gaming table in three sections, each 2' by 4' making a total table size of 4' x 6'. After taking two of the boards up to the Black Library Day at Warhammer World in Nottingham, I decided to expand the city by another table section to feature the city further back from the battlefront and hence a lot more intact. Naturally this meant I would need to include a lot more buildings if it was to look metropolitan, so it was back off to Nottingham to have a good root through Forge World once more (Many thanks must go to Forge World for accommodating my rather erratic and large 'I need these' lists at very short notice!). With a box full of buildings including the tank factory and huge cathedral, it was simply a case of drawing up plans for the board.
Armed with pretty much everything I needed, I sketched out where I wanted the roads to run and placed the buildings onto the board to see how they looked. After moving them around several times I eventually settled on a layout I liked and marked the board accordingly. The 6mm MDF was marked and cut using a jigsaw then sandwiched onto the main board using a decorators adhesive such as "no more nails". I then used strips of plastic card to mark out where the buildings would go and used modeling clay to make the road surface. Once all of this had set the rail tracks were pinned in place to link up with those on the second board and I constructed bridges out of plastic card to span the canal at various points.
The board was textured using a sand and gravel mix which was applied over a coating of watered down pva glue. The entire board was undercoated with black primer then dry brushed grey and brown. The final task was to add the canal water which was in the form of meltable clear resin pieces, otherwise known as E-Z Water. This does make fantastic looking water but extreme care must be taken if you decide to use it as E-Z Water has a melting point of about 180 degrees centigrade and will stick to you hand like napalm when molten (you have been warned!). To paint the resin buildings I first washed them thoroughly using warm soapy water before rinsing them in clean water and leaving to dry overnight. They were all spray undercoated with black primer and dry brushed codex, fortress and ghostly grey. For the rooftops I painted a 50/50 mix of scab red and blood red and the tank factory roof was painted in dark metals from tin bitz to boltgun metal. Overall all of the terrain was a great deal of fun to make and I really enjoyed seeing the city take shape. Am I now finished then? not by a long shot. Once Games Day is out of the way I will review the boards and see if there is anything else I can do to add further detail. High on my list are finishing the roads properly and adding some more trees and water. |
||
|
Dropship fully supports Games Workshop's Intellectual Property Policy. This web site is completely unofficial and in no way endorsed by Games Workshop Limited. Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo, Epic, Inquisitor, the Inquisitor logo, Inquisitor:Conspiracies, Battlefleet Gothic, the Battlefleet Gothic logo, Necromunda, the Necromunda Plate logo, the Necromuinda Stencil logo, Mordheim, the Mordheim logo, City of the Damned, Blood Bowl, the Blood Bowl logo, the Blood Bowl Spike device, Fanatic, the Fanatic logo, the Fanatic II logo, Warmaster and all associated marks, names, races, race insignia, characters, vehicles, locations, units, illustrations and images from the Blood Bowl game, Warhammer 40,000 universe and the Warhammer World are either ®, TM and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2000-2004, variably registered in the UK and other countries around the world. Used without permission. No challenge to their status intended. All Rights Reserved to their respective owners. |
||
Having been
inspired by Dan Abnett's books Necropolis
and Honour Guard, I split the Imperial forces into four distinct groups;
local planetary defence forces, off world Guard Reserves, Space Marines and
Legio Titans. To keep the game fast paced I opted to have both the Space
Marine and off world Imperial Guard held in reserves, ready to sweep in at a
later point in the game. This would ensure that not only an interesting
variety of models would play throughout the games, but also so there weren't
too many detachments on table at any one time slowing the game down. With that
decided I felt 5000 points would supply enough troops and vehicles to keep the
game going for a few hours.
In contrast to the
Titans, I wanted the planetary defence force to blend in more with the local
surroundings and went for a dark grey and green urban scheme. All of the tanks
and artillery units were undercoated black, then painted with a mix of codex
grey and chaos black. I deliberately watered this mix down quite thin and
applied it almost as a wash without too much concern for details. Once dry
this goes a very dark matt grey and really brings out the shape of the tank.
All of the vehicles were then dry brushed lightly with fortress grey, before
picking out the tracks and guns with boltgun metal. For the camouflage
patterning I mixed a little camo green and chaos black and applied it in
random patches just to break up the grey (in the case of some of the artillery I left them plain grey as it
seemed to suit them more). To finish off I painted the stowage with a mix
of bestial and vomit brown.
As this was to continue
directly on from a board that was already built, there were a number of
restrictions along at least one edge as to where roads were and the height of
the board at that point. I started by buying another 2' by 4' piece of 12mm
MDF to match the other sections. To this I added another 6mm piece of
MDF which was used to make the raised section where I could add a canal and
some bridges.