Super-quick Thoughts on Aeronautica by Forge World

While at the GW Open Day a few weeks back I got a chance to flick through a copy of Forge World's new Imperial Armour book, Aeronautica. I decided not to buy it, as all the models is covered where already present in other books I already own. The Eldar flyers for examples, are both in Imperial Armour 11. I missed a couple of things though.

This week I got a better look at a copy of the book in my local GW store. First off I noticed that the Nightwing and Phoenix Bomber are both now legit Codex Eldar choices. As far as I could remember the statlines and points costs were the same as in IA11, but this now means you can field them in your Craftworld army and are easier (read:cheaper) to add as allies to a Dark Eldar force.

This also means, of course, that I just wasted a few quid and more hours painting those Corsairs. Grrrr. I may well be ebaying them soon. Or send me an offer.

The second thing I saw was that the Fire Storm has a transport capacity of six. This is not a change to previous rules editions, its just the first time I noticed it.

In 5th Ed. 40k the Fire Storm was the red headed step-child of the game. Not really much use in a standard game - the slot it takes up can be much better filled with more powerful tanks. In Apocalypse it could be useful - if your opponent took flyers. Other than that it was a high-cost low AP gun. But now we're playing 6th and there are flyers everywhere. Add in the fact Tankhunters USR got much more deadly in 6th and the Fire Storm (which did get upgraded to 'Skyfire' in Aeronautica) becomes a fairly viable transport choice for that unit of Fire Dragons you've got. Its not cheap. But twin-linked skyfire shots in a fast skimmer that can carry dudes around? Maybe worth it...

Finishing Touches - Eldar Sun Blitz Phoenix

Its been a busy few days, what with having two kids to wrangle and all, but I've nearly finished the paint job on my Phoenix.

Basic colours

Having finished the main body, hihlighted the edges with Bubonic Brown and a tiny edge of Sunburst Yellow, I did a pretty basic job on the pilots and glued on the canopy. Most of the gems are blue as a contrast to the flaming yellow of the fuselage, with just a couple of orange ones for variety.

With added highlights

Something was missing though. My Nightwing fighter has a nice Sun Blitz crescent (not a spiral, as I had previously erroneously described it) but it was not so easy to get this painted onto the bomber.

I tried the liquid mask method I used on the fighter, but it just didn't look as cool as I wanted it to when I pulled off the frisk. Actually it looked awful. So bad I had to respray the whole thing :(

The problem is the shape of the plane. It doesn't have a lot of large flat areas for painting such details on. It has a tiny strip of wing on each side, connected to the jet sections by a very thin strip, then the dorsal surface is, well cluttered and there are the two fins to get in the way too. I just couldn't see a way to paint on the crescent, or even crescents, without it just looking like a weird red stripe.

So, a couple of nights to think it over were necessary.

I had my eureka moment this morning. I had thought I was going to go with a sort of sunrayish motif, using the two panel/instrument pods as the centres. Their location was still a little problematic though and I couldn't figure out how to do it, using a freehand brush, and get the lines to look straight over a curved surface. I was dreading putting the brush down to find I had just painted, again, some weird stripes.


But then it hit me - the Phoenix! It is, of course, a legendary bird of flame, not just a pretty word the Eldar (the Imperium?) used to denote this flying beast. So, perhaps I could freehand a flame motif on the wing.

A quick bit of research (google) gave me this image:

I also found some other, less savoury pictures

I then practiced drawing those organic, naturally curving and authentic flames/feathers in a notebook (another good tip for freehand painting - practice it with a pencil first) before committing paint to model.

Too much?

 I used thinned Mechrite Red, followed up by a thin layer of Blood Red. Then I went too far, trying to add realistic flame effects, with lines of Gold Yellow, Blazing Orange, and Sunburst Yellow. In the flesh, as it were, the flames looked ok. Only ok. Part of the problem was I'm not very good, that is, haven't practised, at drawing flames. The other part was the yellows and orange were too close to the plane's base colour, giving a sort of diluted effect to what is supposed to be a strong contrast colour.

Not a complete disaster though as I was able to paint back over the flames with Mechrite and Blood Reds. I then added a thin highlight or Blazing Orange and thin shade line of Dark Flesh to each flame. It looks pretty good, albeit not as smooth a finish as it should be. 

I will probably add some more layers of Purity Seal on top and may even polish this, so I don't think the unevenness of the paint will be too apparent in the end. I will also do some better quality shots too as the paint job is, in places, better than these pictures show.

Eldar Phoenix Bomber Paint Job - Now with Greyscale!

Finished greenstuffing all the gaps and holes in the bomber this morning. One of the tips I picked up at the GW open day was using the back of a knife to smooth down GS surfaces once they've dried for at least a day. Using this, I've done a passable job on all the surfaces and its time to paint.

I decided to use a greyscale base on the plane, so as to help with shading and highlighting later on. The idea of pre-shading and -highlighting is to apply a multi-tonal base. When you spray thin coats of other colours on top of this, the difference between the dark and light areas shows through.

First then, I sprayed the whole thing black.

Nothing special here, just some black primer.

Then I carefully sprayed a layer of Codex Grey. I took care to avoid the base of the slopes, and where pieces were joined together.

Then a layer of Fortress Grey. This was lighter than the previous one and I took care to put more on the edges of the wings and fuselage and raised areas, such as over the jet intakes.

Now its time for some colour. First a layer of Mechrite Red. This goes on fairly evenly - I'm counting on the greyscale to add depth and definition.

And (almost finally) some Blood Red. As with the greys, I emphasised the edges of surfaces and raised areas.

Thats it for the base colours. Now I need to use some liquid mask to mark out the spirals and probably to protect some of the gems and other details too. This is because this red recipe is really strongly pigmented and painting over it can be a right job to do. For example, painting the gold bits on my Blood Angels sometimes requires a layer of flat brown before the gold paints as the red just shines through otherwise. I want to do some blue gems and the detailing will likely be in gold too, so there's some work to do this evening...

Forge World Void Dragon Phoenix - How Not to Build a Model

This week I got to move to the next phase of my planned domination of the skies by the Space Elves - the Phoenix Bomber.

I was at Warhammer World last weekend, up at the tills, trying to decide which of the two Phoenix models to get. They cost the same. But there is the vanilla version and the Void Dragon edition. In theory, the latter is a special reworking of the original, with a few extra details and female pilots. I believe the supplied weapons vary too. I was a little concerned there might some blatant Dragon motifs on the thing, making it a little uncool for my Sun Blitz Brotherhood detachment. Turns out that stuff doesn't matter - the model is absolute crap any way.

It started off well. Here's a picture of what you get in the box/bag:

At this stage, the model is awesome

The most striking feature of the set is the flyer is pretty much a solid single cast. Its a hefty beast, and you just have to stick on the engine nozzles, two sets of fins, and the cockpit surrounds. All good, yes? No.

For a start, the main body is attached to a a chuck of resin by three solid pylons of material and a substantial amount of flash. Cutting through the flash ought to be simple enough. Except for when you have to get through a pretty solid chucnk of it first, causing your blade to then suddenly run through the inexplicably thin and cuttable wing section. Leaving you with this:

OK, maybe I'm just not a good modeler

Great! A chance to put the greenstuff techniques I learned at the Open Day to use! Grrr... This one I was prepared to put down to poor technique on my behalf when cutting. Lesson learned, I said, move on to the next bit and we'll fix that one later. Its hardly noticeable....

Then I got to grips with the dorsal fins. As far as I can tell, the Void Dragon versions have cutouts, making them more, I dunno, spacey or something. Problem is, they too are attached to a big lump of resin.

Starting to think I'm not the problem

Yeah, thats the upper surface the resin is attached to too. Not the bottom surface you glue to another surface, you know, like a surface you can't see. No, its the top surface. Good luck getting that lump off without ending up with something like this:

That is not my fault

Maybe expert modelers know some foolproof way to deal with issues like that. I would have gone with not casting it that way round to start with, but hey, what do I know. That I need to do more greenstuffing, thats what.

Well, I thought, at least the cockpit canopies look pretty simple. I'll just stick those down, paint them, then add the clear plastic after. Piece of cake. Except....

I knew Eldar were supposed to be tall, but...

Thats right - the pilots are too tall for the cockpits. You can get the canopy surrounds glued on ok (as long as you're prepared to spend a good bit of time figuring out which bits are excess resin and which bits are supposed to look that way, then cutting and filing to make them all sit nicely against each other), but it is then physically impossible to get the clear plastic tops on because the bloody heads are too high.

At this point I realised that my clumsy fingers and lack of experience weren't the problem. Its the actual model itself. And don't even try to tell me Forge World is for experienced modelers and will require some finishing work. I can handle filing don the broken surfaces that are on every single piece of this kit. I can reshape bits with warm water. I can fill bubbles with glue or greenstuff. All that is doable. But come on - at least sculpt pilots that are the right size for the bloody model!

After all that hassle then,  I am left with the choice tonight of waiting till Monday morning to ring FW and ask them 'are all the models this crap, or did I just get really unlucky?' or chopping the heads off the pilots, gluing on the plastics, and then just painting over it all.

I am, shall we say, a little disappointed.

And the bloody weapon pods broke off when I tried to glue the canopies on

Maybe the vanilla Phoenix is great. Maybe I got a bad cast. I don't know. For £67 though, it ought to fit.

OK, rant over. I've spent some time this evening with warm water and lots of greenstuff. Tomorrow I should be able to post some pics of the almost good version of it.

Nightwing Scenic Base 2: Forest Pond

Just time for a quick shot of my scenic base for the Eldar Nightwing fighter.

Although my inspiration pic features green water, I figured I would make mine blue. This is to tie it in with the blue gems on the fighter. Just like the picture though, I am going to try to use lots of oranges and reds on the rest of the scenery, again to tie in with the paint scheme on the fighter. There, I must be getting better as a painter. I'm talking about 'tying in colours' and stuff.

Just pretend that glue isn't there...

So, I painted the slates with Bestial Brown, and dry-brushed them, quite heavily, with Kommando Khaki and Bleached Bone. They look earthy, with enough of the brown showing through to get that red hit.

I have then glued on some of that rubbery foliage you can get from any model shop. Its a little stinky and, if you use too much, doesn't look great at this scale. But if you just use a little, and put some thought into where it goes (i.e. coming out of the crevasses between rocks, not just slapped down randomly on top) it looks reasonably like natural foliage.

I also used some Woodland Scenics artificial grass to make reed-like clumps of greenery around the edges of the pool. Not too much - Just enough to show there is life around the edges of the water. I also kept it away from the 'beach' - if this is a living world we're looking at, its likely animals would be coming down to the waters edge to drink. This also helps the base feel more like a portrait - the open edge draws the eye into the water, while the rocks at the far end frame it all.
I ddid add a couple of fallen logs at the near end and some rocks though. I see them as an opportunity to add more red and orange accents, probably in the form of lichen or leaves, to again help tie the base in to the model flying above.

The water itself is really simple. Its just three layers of blue, starting with a dark layer under the rocks and finishing up lighter where the water ends. I will be adding Water Effects later, but this simple paint job will help give an impression of depth and reality to the whole thing.

Overall I'm very pleased with how this thing is turning out. Just have to wait a few hours for all that PVA to dry now...

Eldar Flyers Appear Unstoppable!

A few days ago, when I mentioned to a friend I was considering adding some Corsair Flyers to my Eldar army, he suggested I wait until Forge World released their FAQ/Errata for 6th Edition to see what they could do. Well, the documents were released on the 6th, July, and a quick read shows Eldar flyers are a must have!

Lets start with the Nightwing fighter. As well as being Supersonic (duh!) and being able to Deep Strike, this thing has the Vector Dance special rule. This means you will never have to finish your movement and not be lined up to shoot at something. This is, I believe, a major drawback to the Marine and other races' flyers, particularly on small boards.

Got my gems done today too :)

 On top of that though, you get the Shrouded special rule. Granted, it does depend on your interpretation of the Jink rule (and that really does need to be FAQ'd) but it appears that if you choose to Evade shots you get a 2+ cover save!

Then we have the Phoenix bomber. This has all the above plus Strafing Run - you hit targets on the ground with an extra +1 to your BS! This thing's bombs are going to obliterate nearly every infantry unit in the game :)

Given the power and potential of these two flyers then, it seems likely they will attract a certain amount of enemy fire early in the game. It is possible, even though most players will need 6's to hit, you will spend a lot of time evading. That said, many players struggle with target prioritisation and I can see a lot of players still choosing to spend their bullets on the infantry targets that are threatening objectives.

The smart move though would seem to be to target enemy fliers early in the shooting phase with some high strength (at least 7) weapons to force the controlling player to Evade. Then forget about them if you really do need to take out ground based targets.

The removal of the 12" penalty to range when shooting at fliers will help with this.

Sun Blitz motif. Yeah, I know it looks like a flower.

Fighters and bombers could be one of the most exciting aspects of New 40k though. Its seat of the pants stuff - flying at high speed, out of the reach of most weapons, hard to hit by all others. You can do a lot of damage - if luck is on your side. Or - stray las-cannon slams into your ship, a plasma blast glances you, and its all over. Dominating your enemy from the air sounds like a gamble, sounds risky. But pull it off and you'll be slapping the X-marks all over your fliers and coming up with Ace pilot names before you know it.

I'm looking forward to seeing which way the dice fall for me :)