There has been so much vitriol levelled at Dropzone Commander recently. Disgruntled backers are something that I am certainly used to having backed my fair share of Kickstarters some of which have gone spectacularly awry, but this is a level of toxicity that frankly makes me ashamed to be a part of the community. Let's remember that this campaign, although running late, (I am still awaiting one of my pledges after all) finished barely a year ago. That's a brand new range and game produced and (mostly) delivered in a year. I'm sorry, but in comparison to many Kickstarters that is damn miraculous. Still, it must be said that Hawk have NOT covered themselves in glory here, their organisation and communication has been sub par and as with so many companies it seems that they have woefully underestimated the shipping process. Really six months was a VERY optimistic timescale and it is no surprise they didn't meet that target.
All that said, I would like the game to succeed and look forward to facing Lee in orbital combat sometime soon. Though I don't think he has done much with his fleet, I think he has been focusing very much on Heresy stuff recently.
Which I should be really, and I can assure you that that time IS coming, I have made some progress on my Contemptor but a road bump or two has somewhat curtailed my progress.
The Contemptor was looking really good, Though I am still but the most novice of airbrush users I have to say I am incredibly impressed by the way that you can build up layers of paint, both as a time saver and for the finish you end up with it just cant be beat. I'd added some Ultramarine Blue Vallejo Air, improvised some highlights and I was feeling pretty good about the way it was looking.
Until I compared it to the captain that I had already done. Upon comparison the Contemptor was SEVERAL shades lighter, far too many to get away with. I had two options, either lighten up the Captain or darken the Contemptor.
Anyone who has seen my painting (hell the picture of the UCM frigates enough is illustration enough) will know that my 'style' as it were is NOT bright and colourful. No, I tend to paint things very dark, sometimes I think too dark. So I opted to try to bring the Contemptor down a bit. It was the wrong decision. I tried to add a heavy wash of Drakenhoff Nightshade to bring it in line with the Captain a bit more. However, it collected and pooled and overall ruined the nice clean finish I had. Damn and Bugger. I tried to fix it by adding a mid tone and blending the colours a little but it didn't really work. That is the main reason the Contemptor is not finished yet. A shame, I had got it looking really quite nice, I particularly liked the Gold Trim. I'll be doing some heavy weathering to it to hide my painting sins and mistakes.
So with the Contemptor put to one side for now I did what I should have done all along, tried to lighten up the captain.
Really all it involved was trying to bring it up to the Ultramarine Blue through a number of midtones, I was at least partially successful, it's another one of those where I'm just going to leave it before I make it any worse, It's in the it''ll do' category. They at least look like they belong to the same army now. I'll look to get the Contemptor finished and then compare them again, providing I can live with the results I'll be in the position to proceed full steam ahead with the Ultramarines.
So overall this week I'm fairly happy with my progress, I have never been the fastest or most proficient of painters but as long as I am painting something it's gotta be worthwhile right? Christmas is just round the corner but my main plan is to get a cruiser and three more frigates done for the UCM as they are half done already and to get the Contemptor done as well. On the side I have the Silver Tower stuff undercoated and ready to be worked on. I have made a start on some Screamers but I'm mainly going to focus on the stuff actually being used in the game at the moment.
Speaking of games I played some Silver Tower with my Girlfriend. We already had one amulet piece so the choice of challenge was up to us and we got our arses handed to us as we chose one of the harder ones (can't remember which one). Next time round we played a different one and succeeded in securing another amulet piece. I really hope that GW do an expansion to the game at some point, the base game will only last so long.
The other game we have been playing a lot of is Formula D. I do intend to do a full review of the game for the Conclave at some point but I will say it's a lot of fun. I'm grateful to Wil Wheaton's Tabletop for making me aware of it's existence. Vroom Vroom!
So what has Lee been up to then?
I could have replaced the close combat weapon with another gun but I like my dreads to be able to punch back in a fight and the two units I am currently working on, a Deredeo and Leviathan, both lack close combat weaponry so leaving this one gives me a walker with flexibility. Plus I want to see mine and Allen's Contemptor's go head to head at some point without me being at a disadvantage. Of course I could always sic a Mahra Ghal on it but that is overkill.
The Rhino is a Deimos pattern with some Word Bearer brass etched icons attached. I didn't do very much to this. I could have really chaos-ified it but I have been giving that a bit of thought and decided not to.
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During the Heresy the Word Bearers were beginning their journey along the dark path. Only the highest ranking and most devout legionaries were manifesting real signs of change. Therefore I will be adding more chaos iconography to the officers and elites and keeping the additions to the line troopers more subtle. I hope that way to show a transition throughout my army.
Although I also intent to use these models as Chaos Space Marines in 40k I didn't want to just be using Chaos Marines for Heresy games. Still, with the new Legions Codex that has just been release my Word Bearers will be pulling double duty.
Now for the bad news. I broke my airbrush. I was just cleaning it, nothing too rough but when reattaching the fine end nozzle I turned a bit too much and it broke off. This has put a dent in my plans to get on with my Scourge fleet however I have found some £10 airbrushes in China so will be picking one (or two) up after Xmas to get back on track. Till next time.
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