Tag Archives: Army Painter

Gripping Beast Anglo-Dane Hearthguard

I’m almost done with my 6 point SAGA warband. Here’s some dane axes from Gripping Beast, which I got from their US reseller, Architects Of War:

I primed them with The Army Painter’s Leather Brown spray primer. I’ve become a huge fan of their color spray primers and the matching brush paint. It saves so much time to not have to paint the various straps, pouches – AKA the fiddly bits.

I’ve found a local group that plays SAGA once a month. I’ve played one session with them, and they are a good group of guys. I’m looking forward to next month.

All I have left in my warband is to base my levy. They are all painted, only basing is left.

Painting a 28mm Archer

In this post, I paint a Warhammer bowman. I’m using these guys to play SAGA, though they may be, historically, a little later. They look good, though, so I’m not really concerned.

I painted 12 of them. I primed them “Leather Brown” with spray primer from The Army Painter. This way I could skip the fiddly leather strap, etc.

I consider myself an average painter. I’m not going to win any awards. However, I think my troops look good on the table, and that’s the point, isn’t it?

These first 3 pics are after a base coat only. The face, however, has a base coat and a highlight coat. He’s blue tacked to a craft stick (with 2 of his brothers) because I do basing after they are painted.

These next 3 are after I painted the highlights:

And these final 3 pics are after a wash with The Army Painter Srong Tone:

Assembling and Painting Wargames Factory Saxons

Over the last several weeks I’ve been assembling and painting Wargames Factory’s plastic Saxons.

They come on several sprues, body, head, each arm, shield, and weapons all separate. It took me about an hour to do 4 soldiers. Clip off the sprue, choose and fit the parts, clean up the mold lines, and glue.

I used Little Big Men Studios’ shield transfers. I read that it was easier to apply the transfer if the shield was not attached to the soldier, so I did the shields separately. If I were to do it again, I’d go ahead and attach the shields from the beginning. Applying the transfers was pretty easy.

A bunch of them assembled and ready for primer.

One point of Hearthguard. I primed them black, then dry brushed The Army Painter’s Gun Metal over the metal parts – helmet, chainmail and axe heads. When I do this step next time (for my levy) I’ll use a leather brown primer instead of black. Then I can paint everything but the belts, straps, etc.

Getting close to done.

Two points of Hearthguard painted and based.

Wargames Factory’s plastic minis get a bad rap in some circles, but I think they are great value for the money. I got them for $15.99 at The War Store, and there’s 32 soldiers in a box, so that’s 50 cents each. Each box also has more weapons, heads, and arms than you need, so you have a lot of flexibility in your poses and armament.

SAGA and Gripping Beast’s Harald Hardradda

A friend at my local game store has gotten me into SAGA. (Yu know who you are (that’s a pun that one person in the world is going to get)). I’ve not played yet, but we have some games scheduled in a few weeks. I’ve just started painting my army, but tonight I finished my warlord.

I used Gripping Beast’s Harald Hardradda figure, but I’ll use him as a generic Anglo-Danish leader.

Here’s what you get in the package. I ordered from Gripping Beast’s USA partner, Architects Of War. They shipped fast and have good prices, and an easy to use website. I got my SAGA rulebook from them, also.

Harald is BIG. I read up on him, and he was a big guy in real life, also.

This is where the shield attaches to his back.

I used a decal for the shield front. It was easy to put on.

The shield after the decal was applied.

When I primed the figure and the shield, I put a bit of blue tack over the parts that I would need to glue, so that I could glue metal to metal with no paint in the way.

The shield is attached.

Harald is painted and washed with The Army Painter Strong Tone ink.

Done and based. The sword on the base is from Wargames Factory Saxon Thegns. He’s on a 30mm Litko.net wood base with a heavy duty magnet base underneath.

I am really looking forward to playing SAGA. I’ve started on my Anglo-Danish warband. Hopefully I’ll have some pics of them for you soon.

Army Painter’s Color Primer Review

I recently got a buttload of 15mm Sci-Fi minis from the Critical Mass Games Kickstarter. I need to paint them, so I can have a full company vs. company to try out Quadrant 13. I looked into how to speed up the painting process, and I came across The Army Painter’s Color Primer. They spell it “colour” but they are wrong. 🙂

I use Army Painter’s washes – Strong Tone and Dark Tone, and I like them a lot better than the Citadel washes I had used previously, so I was already feeling positive toward the company.

The genius thing that Army Painter has done here is that they have a “100% match” regular paint for each color primer. So you can, in theory, spray your minis with the colored primer, paint the other colors, then touch up with the 100% match paint.

Anyway, I wanted to try it out before I sprayed it all over my CMG minis, so I tried it on Kurasan’s “Terror Of Clambake Beach.” These were perfect, because they are mostly one color.

The Clambake Beach minis before and after cleanup.

After priming with “Ultramarine Blue”. In the back is the spray primer and the 100% match paint.

The completed minis. I drybrushed a mix of the 100% match paint with a bit of Citadel’s Runefang Steel, then painted the eyes, mouth and teeth. Of course I messed that up, so I had several touchups to do, and they blended perfectly.

Then I washed with Army Painter’s Strong Tone mixed with acrylic medium to thin it. Basing was done my standard way.

The color primer really sped the whole process up. I’m a fan. The 100% match paints really seal the deal. I think this will save me about 25% time when I paint the 79 infantry from the CMG Kickstarter.

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Miniatures and the games that use them.