After some furious painting this afternoon, I finished up my Dropzone Commander army for the big campaign event at Gen Con 2018. I went through to finalize my list and found that I didn’t just need to work up my new commander Tilt Rotor aircraft but also needed to work up another squad of infantry and another set of tanks.
Lucky for me, the infantry I was painting used a pretty simple scheme of just taking the base primer grey, adding black details like the boots, belts, and helmet, then washing it all in pure GW Nuln Oil.
After the Nuln Oil wash, I add their captain’s red paldrons and orange goggles to separate them from my other infantry with green goggles. These are a set of Marine Force Recon infantry, the best infantry in the Resistance faction, and work well with Commander Rodriguez.
The Citadel painting handle worked fantastic even for these little figures while they remained on their sprue. I didn’t try them individually but the sprue worked well when placed across the handle’s “jaws.”
Next I quickly painted up a squad of Mehmed Siege tanks. These guys are for serious demolition works and I’m excited to how well they roll. Again, an easy scheme made these guys possible. Primer grey (different shade this time), followed by liberal applications of Army Painter’s Dry Rust, craft paint silver for the weapons, craft red for my army’s telltale blood stripe, and black and some yellow/orange for minor details. Another liberal application of Nuln Oil and these guys were ready to go. This was almost the exact same scheme I used for my orbital laser so I figured it would work out easy.
All told, those two squads took 2 hours to paint and then some additional time to dry, seal, and base. The only thing that was a little disappointing was that I didn’t have magnets to magnetize my tanks. I’ll have to pick some more up and finish them off later.
And now we have the main event. I covered this guy in Army Painter’s outrageously expensive primer/color spray Gun Metal. I also picked up their pot of Gun Metal as well to help with clean up but it didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. I picked up the Gun Metal to prime my Stark army in ASOIF so this also was going to serve as a test.
Rodriguez’s Spirit of Manhattan command vehicle went down pretty easy since there wasn’t much to the model after the Gun Metal priming. Blacking out the windows and props then highlighting the weapon systems and lighting finished off the main model. I don’t try to push much beyond “tabletop standard” so I don’t line the seams of the metal or accent the windows. I just want ‘er done and playable. I did indulge in a little nose art of the Statue of Liberty torch, which was pretty easy to do and came out well enough.
Since this ship is unique and pre-war according to the fluff, I have to imagine it is hanging together with duct tape and grit so I rusted it out as much as I could. Pity the sculptor didn’t incorporate that concept to the model and have damage and repair over repairs showing.
I went with the metal design (a first for my army) to harken back a little to the famous Chrysler building in NYC.
Overall, I’m very pleased with the result and was happy that I could get across some of the fluff character of the model as I interpreted it.
I’m interested to try out the list. It has a lot of Anti-air guns with the Spirit of Manhattan, the Zhukovs, and the Gun Wagons running around. It has demolition with the Mehmeds and can be supplemented with the Typhoons and Lifthawks. It’s weak against armor as the Typhoons are the only real AT weapons. The Mehmeds can run that role as well but with a close 12″ range, they are more of a deterrent than something that can hunt heavy armor units down. Spirit does ok with hunting armor as well but we’ll sees since its guns are Energy 9 (against armor that is usually tougher than that). The big point sink is infantry. I have a ton of dudes dropping in on this map with five separate squads on infantry and they all hit hard with beefed up CQB capabilities. The Occupation Veterans can also lay down some mean anti-tank strikes with their overclocked Scourge weapons and fight as strong as the MF-R groups (but without all the fancy evasion shenanigans). Though not technically infantry, I finish out the list with 2 squads of bikers out there to scout for me or snag objectives. They can also harass armor as well if needed. I hope I don’t annoy my opponent taking a lot of pics…
With the painting done, the army built, and my games all packed into a massive rolling bag, I’ve got the bulk of Gen Con done and ready to go. Just a little more personal packing for me this morning and then it is off to the airport where hot Indy awaits. It’s good to finally be ready.