A tale of two pigments

In the end I didn't paint a squad in a mix of paints. Instead, I painted two squads, one in hobby paint and one in craft paints. The comparisons in colour between the pots and tubes were close, but different enough that they would look odd in the same squad.

For the basic coats I used GW Foundation Tausept Ochre and Folkart Yellow Ochre - quite different in level of pigment, and it took two coats of Folkart where I only needed a single coat of GW over black primer. Probably not a fair comparison since that's the whole point of the foundation paints... so let me ignore that one.

The other colours were a fairer comparison. My biggest complaint is the texture of the craft paints. The actual pigment levels were very similar between the two types of paint directly from the pot/tube, but the consistency of the craft paints was rather glutinous. In some of the colours, it was as though the manufacturer had sneezed repeatedly into the mix; the consistency  was almost like white (PVA) glue.

What this meant was that I needed much more thinning to make the hobby paints workable, which obviously reduced the opacity and then led to my needing two coats of most colours to get an even coverage (honourable mention for gray here).

Overall, I have seen enough to prove to myself that hobby paints are better than craft paints for the way that I paint. Craft paints may work for you, and the end results are decent enough, but I will go back to hobby paints from now on.

Oh - and if you're wondering, the upper picture is craft paints and the lower picture is my usual hobby paints...

Shocktroop platoon command

Well, I thought I would use the remaining figures from the first box while I waited for Wayland Games to get stock and deliver the other three. Eight figures - what to do, with not quite enough for another infantry squad. So I decided to do the Platoon Command Squad - grenade launcher spam and a couple of choices for the platoon commander - and the sergeants for the other infantry squads.

First of all, the grenade launchers. I played about to try to get a better angle on the gun, and I am pleased to say that after a bit of practice, there's some leeway in the pose. Anyway, the squad grunts are done.

Next up are the officers and NCOs. These are the guys I was more worried about; the box parts aren't all that great for command figures. Still, I'm quite happy with what has come out.

I really raided the bits box for them; there are some old bits in there that you're unlikely to be able to source easily these days. The sergeants are the guys on the ends, and they have laspistols from the old GW generic close combat sprue. The platoon commander's power fist comes from the same place (still needs a bit of green-stuff to blend it in). The plasma pistol and bolt pistol on the two platoon commanders, and the sergeants' chainswords, are the old GW assault marine parts - they still have the marine hands attached to the weapons in most cases, trimmed down to visually match the shocktroop wrists. The chainsword on the platoon commander third from left is from the GW Cadians, again with the hand still attached.

Most of the left arms are made from the arm that cradles the lasgun; cut across the bicep and rotated to move them away from the body, and cut at the wrist to replace the hand with a weapon hand. Right arms are mostly the flamer arm; it's at a decent angle, though the hand has a non-standard grip on the weapon so it has to be replaced.

That's a platoon command squad, a spare platoon commander, plus a couple of sergeants for the next two infantry squads. I reckoned these were going to be the most awkward to do, so I thought I'd get them out of the way while I had some time. Overall - colour me happy.

Stormtroops and Shock Troops - a comparison

I have now assembled the first few figures from the Wargames Factory Shocktroops box. As I said in a previous post, I intend to use them for an Imperial Guard army for 40k, so they're being assembled to fit that system. For the first lot, I have stuck (almost) exactly to what is in the box - here are ten troopers, with a sergeant, a special weapon (grenade launcher) and eight lasguns. Once the heavy weapons are released, I will drop two lasgunners from the squad and draft in an autocannon proxy, which is why there are two guys without squad markings. From my four boxes, I will get six squads initially (Echo Yellow 1-3, Echo Red 1-3); once the heavies come out I will be able to spread out into another two squads (Echo Yellow 4, Echo Red 4).

Plus points:
The figures are in general nicely sculpted, the coats seem to flow well, the shoulder pads are distinctive without being intrusive. There are enough of the standard weapon to arm every figure; it's is a nice looking gun which is very much equivalent in length and bulk to the GW offering. There are five other gun options; three are similar to the lasgun in style and could be used to kit-bash other weapon types by combining them with GW parts. There is also a grenade launcher (which looks nice) and a flamer (which I'm not so keen on) so plenty of options for the standard troopers. There are a couple of water bottles and knives; I would have preferred one more of each, so every man got one, but nice nevertheless. There are enough spare powerpacks for every figure to get at least one hung from their belt, which is good.

Minus points:
The left hand is at the wrong angle. If you assemble the figures exactly as they come, the thumb is too high and the heel of the hand is too low. I have started amputating at the wrist and rotating it about 15° so that the gun sits neatly in the hand.
The command options are very weak - the only options are a pistol-packing right hand and a pointing left hand. The pistol is a real pea-shooter of a weapon, and this was the one adddition I made to the figures I assembled, exchanging it for a lasgun from the GW Cadians. If you assemble the pieces exactly as they come in the kit, it makes the command figure look very peculiar. This is a multi-part plastic kit, yet the only command figure you can make is completely two-dimensional. I have put one together for this blog entry, but it will be the only one to look like that - I will be drafting some Cadian parts in for the others.
The necks are too long. They are giraffe-necked if you assemble them directly from the sprue; I chopped back the length of the neck by somewhere between 1 and 1.5 millimetres (which may not sound like much, but in scale that's perhaps 3" out of the neck!) On the plus side, it's far easier than doing that with metal, and you quite quickly learn where to cut rather than having to offer the head up to the body each time. Another option would be to spin a 1/8" drill bit in the neck socket, which might be quicker; I will try that on the next unit.

I'm reading back, and I think I am coming over very negative. I don't want to, and I don't mean to. They are nice figures with a few small problems which are pretty easy to overcome or ignore. And at the price, they are hard to beat. Anyway, I have enough for two 35-man Imperial Guard platoons for under £50; that's pretty good going. I will almost certainly buy some more when I have assembled all of these, which is surely the acid test of a model.

And finally - the painted veteran squad, and a comparison between the GW Cadian Shock Troops and the WF Stormtroops - I think it shows that they can happily be used together.

Greatcoats have arrived!

The first box of Wargames Factory greatcoat troops arrived from the States this morning; they were sat on my chair in the living room when I got in from work a few minutes ago. This is written from the point of view of a 40k player who wants to use them to bulk out his Imperial Guard; I will be using GW Cadians for Veterans, and the WF Shock Troops as basic infantry, as they're about half the price.

First impressions. Nice mouldings, very compatible 'size wise' with their GW compatriots. The basic gun and grenade launcher are closely comparable in length and bulk to the GW equivalents. The heads are nicely moulded, and there are plenty of choices. On the downside, the flamer is very weedy; however, there are three extra lasgun variants that could be easily cut-and-shut into a plasma gun or a bulkier flamer using the spares from my Cadians.

The basic box comes with 18 figures for US$20, which feels about right. You can get them for £14.50 from Wayland Games; I have a pre-order of another 3 boxes coming at a fairly decent discount which will give me a total of 72 guys which is plenty for a couple of troops choices. They don't have heavy weapons (yet) which is the only downside, but they are in the advanced planning stage.

One final comment, and this is more cosmetic than anything. You know how you open a GW box, and it feels as though it's been packed with goodness? Well, these feel the opposite. The sprues are small, the box is tall, and you could very easily have fitted another two, maybe even four, sprues into the box. No reflection on the quality of the product, but it feels like it could have used a slimmer box and thus saved packaging cost, transport volume, and felt like better value too.

I will hopefully build some this week; pictures to come.

Wargames Factory release the Greatcoats

I'm excited to see that WF have a release date for their Greatcoat infantry at last. Because of the nasty add-on fees that the Post Office slaps onto them, I'm only pre-ordering one pack, but as soon as Nick at North Star gets them in, I want another five.

Anyway, in case you have missed the pictures, here are one or two...





...I think mine will be in 'Steel Legion' colours with tan greatcoats and black armour, but they do look very nice. Assuming the shoulder pads are attached to the arms, I should be able to remove some pads to use on other minis to tie them together stylistically.