Dawnguard Assemble!

So here we have some of the Dawnguard Invictors from Privateer Press for their Retribution faction. At this point I've got probably around 35-50 points of figures. Most of them actually painted and assembled even. I have more that need to be done including the colossus that I bought just because it looked like it would be a fantastic end game monster for RPG terms.

In terms of assembly, the Dawnguard Invictors were much easier to put together than the other Dawnguard with the big swords. No shoulder pads for one. Mold lines were still pretty bad in a few places and some of them were so subtle that I didn't notice them until I put down a layer of white at which point I was like.... uh, no, I'm not scrapping that off and ruining the job so far.

One of the things I always worry about with figures like this, that need two points of contact, is that the casting will be warped and not fit. That was thankfully not the case here. One of the models did have a miscast for a connection point. The ball point fitting was not clear. Thankfully I was able to use a knife and hand drill and take care of that problem.

Lot of smooth areas on these guys so if that's not your deal, you'll probably want to steer clear of them. Some nice details though like the pouches. The bases I think are from Micro Art Studio? Ruined temple maybe?

In terms of painting, I used my airbrush for the initial priming and layering of paint with a few touch ups after ward. I'm trying to minimize my time painting while still getting a figure I'm not trying to hide when it comes time to use. I'm happy enough with the figures that I don't think it'll be a problem. I finished basing them and putting some find touches on them.

When I painted them, I decided to move away from some of the advice in the Retribution book. The use of 'aqua' is way too high. When looking at the actual art of the Retribution, most of them have very shinny weapons as opposed to that aqua saturation that the studio models have on their metallic parts.

One of the things I like about these guys, is when I was painting them, they reminded me of Storm Troopers from Star Wars fame. Sure, they don't have a lot of actual physical similarities outside the color scheme but it made me think these guys would be perfect troops for science fiction table top as well. Their weaponry and armor is so different from the steam punk fashion of the Iron Kingdoms that they easily fit in multiple settings.  The one in the middle on the front line in particular, looks like a soldier on the march.  I keep wanting to play Bulkheads and Blasters and these guys would be a good army for that. Still, I'vet never find the time. Heck, I still haven't got a game of War Machine in yet.

And here's my second Dawnguard Scyir. I didn't know I had two. That's okay though as I originally bought it because it makes a fantastic character with a two handed sword. Here I used some of my old GW purple wash with some P3 armor wash to get that 'dark metallic' purple look and I'm pretty happy with it. I'll be using that more often in the future when painting more figures.

One interesting aspect to taking shots of the figures after you're done is seeing the mistakes. As I didn't hold the guy up, I would've never seen that dash of metallic paint under his visor. Think I'll be hitting that up next with a touch of white.

The base here was done with Happy Seppuku and green stuff. The other one I did I put onto a ruined style base and it added some height. With his huge sword, I decided that no more height was needed on this soldier.

Retribution of Scyrah:Dawnguard Sentinels

Funny story about my purchase of the Dawnguard Sentinels. See, I may have mentioned that years ago when Retribution first came out, I enjoyed the power progression article and decided to follow it. While at Adepticon last Sunday, I was in the dealer hall. One of the vendors was selling their Privateer Press stuff for 20% off. Well, most of the vendors were. I remembered I needed to pick up a unit and snagged these guys.

Oops! That should have been the Dawnguard Invictors. The armor is practically identical and the weapons are similar. The paint style is also very similar.

So I figured I'd make the best of it. First off, I hate figures with multiple parts. Every figure had to have their swords and one shoulder pad attached. After a while, I started using the two part spray where you put the spray on one side and the glue on the other. I was dead tired to gluing arms and hands to bodies. At least two of them had to have the torso attached. Ugh. The only good news in that vein is most of the fits were pretty good. In some instances I could have used some green stuff, maybe even liquid green stuff, to cover some potential gaps, but these are for table top play, not display so I said screw that.

They only have part of a tab, on one foot, so that was good news when I snipped them off to put them on the ruined bases. It was bad news when that one tab was too big to fit into the tabbed slot on the regular bases. See, I only had five of those ruins and figured I'd just use the regular bases for the rest. When I went to put my first figure in, well. suffice it to say it didn't fit. Highly annoying.

In addition, the mold lines on the shoulder plates are atrocious. I used a lot of sandpaper and after I sprayed them down, those lines were still visible.

So yeah, not my favorite unit. They would have to perform awesome for me to buy another one.

In terms of making the best of it, I decided to use some bases I had laying around. It's kind of a thing I'm doing with the Retribution where I'm trying to use at least some 'ruin' style bases on them to represent their fallen kingdom.

I also used my air brush for the main body of work. I used a few 'zenith' highlights by doing them all in a dark gray, then at a slight angle with a light gray, then from the top with white. All those primer by the way. Then doing the same thing with different shades of grey and white. I used my Badger and the new Minitaire paints. They worked very smooth. My biggest problem is that I probably needed to let them dry a little more. Didn't have the hair dryer out this time. See, when I finished, the topmost layer, which should have been white, still looked a little gray. Which it should have been pure white. Lesson learned.

I also busted out my Vallejo Liquid Gold set and used White Gold, which is a 'chainmail' color. Ugh. I don't know if it's because I haven't used them in a while but that experience sucked. The pigment was so faint that I had to go over and over and over and eventually wound up using an old brush to break up the bottom 'muck' and get the material flowing again.

So after some of this and some of that, I used a few washes on the blades to try and give them that 'glow' native to the Retribution and the darker metal on the handles.

I hate to say it, but even as I'm expanding my range in terms of the tools I use, my patience is diminishing. My... eyesight is starting to fade slightly. Not enough that I can't actually see the things, but enough that I realize I miss bits here and there. I still don't need glasses yet but... Well, the good news is they're done and I went out to Games Plus and bought the right ones. Now all I have to do is assemble them too.... but first the Mage Hunters and their commander! Who I've already finished... Initially bought him for RPG purposes. Dropped him once while painting and he did not break, but I flattened his nose. Ugh.