Deadzone painting and gaming

So as a quick fun paint job today I decided to knock out a few forgefathers! I began by priming them in Army Painter would gray, I then picked out a few areas in skeleton bone, cloth in necromancer cloak, metal in gun metal and eyes in dragon red. I then let that dry and washed all the minis in AP deep shader.

I then layered the original wolf gray and skeleton bone and picked out eyes in Mars red. The hammers I painted in white, let that dry, then used dragon red, Mars red and daemonic yellow in a semi wet blend. I then edge highlighted all the armour in fog gray.

Bases were simply GW astrogranite followed by a uniform gray drybrush.

I have finally hit the goal of 2500 points for warpath firefight, I know there’s alot of unit upgrades and it’s an elite list but it’s been an ambition for years now and I’ve finally done it! Thankyou contrast paints for solving my painting white conundrum!

Sorry, the pun is terrible. So I was hitting a block with this project, something just seemed off and I finally realised what it was, the yellow did not provide enough contrast against the white of my enforcers, they needed a mid tone between the white and the black, so I did a test model with orange… and I loved it! So i set about this afternoon going over all the yellow on these guys and I can finally say I am happy with the colour scheme, I am aiming on doing alot more work with these guys over the coming weeks so stay tuned for more enforcers!

So it’s been a bit quiet for a while on this project, mostly because I’ve been languishing painting goblins, finally tonight I said I need a break from painting them and decided to get my peacekeepers done. An evening with contrast paints and army painter paints and here is my first squad of them done! It’s not an award winning job but I’m quite pleased with these guys.

So today I managed to succeed at painting up a bunch more enforcers and I rebased a strider I did a while ago, because I quite liked using the airbrush for vehicles rather than contrast painting such large surfaces. Here you can see my enforcers army so far!

Next time I’ll hopefully have my first squadron of peacekeepers painted up!

Kilo squadron had just caught up to the remains of Echo squadron, all that was left was their medic “Delta”, sniper “Kraken” and private “sparks”. Shortly after the rendezvous Seargent Thoth the ranking officer attempted to contact HQ again. The signal seemed to fail over the thunderstorm brewing overhead the city.

“Team we’re going to have to find a terminal linked to a satellite on one of these buildings, it’s our only way to boost our signal and get into contact with HQ”.

“My Intel indicates there should be one up ahead, we’ll split into two fireteams; Brick, Delta, sparks on me; Aleph, Arcturus and Kraken find high ground and provide cover to draw away as many of the infected as possible”

“All clear? Good. Once we’ve made contact with HQ we clear the area”

Kraken opened up with two shots from his sniper rifle in rapid succession, killing two of the beasts but more importantly drawing off the bulk of the infected in front of Thoths fireteam. Aleph opened up next slaying another one of the beasts that had just clambered onto their building. Before Arcturus did the same.

“Sparks I want you to head to your 3 o clock as quickly as possible, let me know if you see the terminal”

He nodded before activatin gb his jump pack and rapidly leaping from building to building ahead.

“Brick and Delta I want you two to cover us, I’m heading up too”

“Understood seargent” they replied in unison.

Thoth then leapt forward before opening fire and killing a zombie to his left.

Delta had just cleared onto the platform of the ruined building in front of her to be surprised by one of the creatures which failed to claw through the state of the art enforcer armour she was wearing.

Brick upon seeing this leapt up and knocked the z over the edge of the platform killing the creature as it impacted the ground below.

“Seargent I cannot see a terminal on this building” sparks said over the crackling comms relay, their short range communications more or less still working as the thunderstorm gained in strength. Suddenly two infected were upon him, but his combat conditioning allowed him to hold both the creatures off. Another z climbed onto Brick and Deltas position but failed to harm either of them.

Once again Kraken took aim at the creatures who were now swarming sparks he opened fire coolly and expertly killing both zombies with well placed shots even in the midst of combat.

Arcturus then opened fire killing an infected rapidly approaching Seargent Thoth. The melee with Brick and Delta continued  neither the infected nor the enforcers making much gain as the rabid beast fought on. Finally Delta saw her opening and tripped the creature up before bringing her monomolecular lade into the beasts throat.

The success was short lived as yet another one of the endless horde made it’s way up to their position, the melee beginning anew.

Private sparks now free of his assalaint made his way to his 11 once a ghain failing to find a terminal. Aleph opened fire into the distance killing a far of zombie in an attempt to show the new sniper her own mettle.

Seargent Thoth meanwhile made his way to a location which looked promising before coming face to face with another damaged soul.

Looking around Kraken could see zombies approach in gb from all sides of their positions, they needed to find the terminal soon or they risked being overwhelmed.

All of a sudden a zed was on Aleph, the creature clawing and slashing away but met it’s match in the enforcer who flung it from the building dead. Kraken let out another shot killing one of the infected closing in on Sparks  who opened fire and slew another undead himself. Arcturus opened fire shortly thereafter the energy beams from his weapon making crackling noise as they slew another creature and impacted the building behind it.

Delta brought her wristblade up catching the zed in front of her off guard slicing it’s face wide open as it fell down dead.

Seargent Thoth looked around and there he saw it, right behind the beast in front of him was the terminal he pull his pistol up calmly and fired into the beasts heart killing it outright before he went ahead to contact command. Brick meanwhile slew another infected heading towards him and Delta.

contact had at last been made with command, the thunderstorm crackling overhead leaving peels of white lightning in the skies above.

“Squadron we’ve received coordinates for an extraction point, clear out.” ordered Thoth, his shortwave comms still grainy but understood by his comrades. Aleph and Brick cleared out first making it to safety, whilst a z grappled with Kraken it’s vicious claw cutting through his armour before being slain in kind by Arcturus. Kraken the  cleared out followed by sparks who was doggedly being pursued by the infected, Seargent Thoth and Delta both made it out but not before sustaining injuries themselves from the accursed creatures. Finally Arcturus left as the infected scrambled and circled around and on the building he had been firing from.

I had alot of fun playing through the second mission, with a larger strike team and better tactics I think I have figured out how to deal with the infected, though I must admit I got very lucky with some of my roles especially in defending private sparks when he we caught out be two of the ghouls!

So I think it’s time I played the second mission, which allows you a strike team of 150 points as opposed to the 100 I started with, I figured I needed to get two more specialists and another regular trooper to unlock them. I knew straight away I wanted to take a sniper and a medic, a medic plus a defender makes for a really good defensive combo and a sniper on high ground can easily take out the infected especially if you add in extra shoot dice!

They had received reports of the discovery of one of the fabled artifacts on Nexus Psi, Intel from the the pathfinder had indicated it had already been activated, causing the rapid outbreak of “The plague”. In light of this the planet was declared a deadzone, cut off from all outside communication and all reference to the planet scrubbed off of the gcps records. The enforcers were sent in, Kilo squad was sent to investigate rumoured sitings of the stage 1A. Little did they suspect they would be cut off by hordes of stage 3Zs or “zombies”.

Seargent Thoth cursed as he took in his surroundings, the vantage point they had secured showed they were surrounded by the lesser non infectious plague stage 3zs. “Arcturus, radio command, tell them no sign of the Stage 1A. Everyone else, fire positions! We’re going to have to hold off until we receive orders!”

Aleph, Serpent and Arcturus stood on the highest vantage point, with Brick and Seargent Thoth securing the second floor of the Shensig building.

Aleph combat conditioning  from “The program” kicked in, he opened fire, precisely killing one of the infected before he quickly turned his gun on another. Serpent opened fire herself slaying another one of the mindless wretches as they slowly converged on their position.

Brick then loosed with his sidearm, his defender shield occupying his other arm, easily he pierced the skull of an infected as another cleared the wall of the building and charged him, reacting swiftly he pushed the beast back and brough his pistol up under it’s chin slaying the beast. Another one from behind him lunged forward his vicious claw cutting a tear through his armour.

Meanwhile Seargent Thoth was battling two more infected behind Brick, using his monomolecular wristblade he decapitated a beast and kick the other back.

Arcturus realised she needed to draw the beasts away from her companions, activating her jetpack she flew deftly over the top of the Zs who were clambering around the building Kilo squad was holding. She brought her rifle to bear and slew another one of the infernal monsters drawing the attention of three more of the beasts who advanced towards her position.

The melee continues as brick bashes the stage 3Z to death just as Seargent Thoth skewers the Z in front of him. A Z catches up to Arcturus grasping at her as she holds the beast at bay with a few deft kicks.

A clear voice is heard over Kilo squadrons comms “team sending coordinates for extraction, the infection here is far more advanced than we thought, get out of there.”

“Confirmed” replies Seargent Thoth.

“Everyone move”

Arcturus turns her back on the Z in front of her and activates her jetpack but not before the creature slashes at the back of her leg. 

Brick follows suit along with Aleph; Seargent Thoth and Serpent begin to make a break for it but Serpent is quickly overrun by the hellish ghouls. Seargent Thoth turns to help, but he is too late.

“Your service has been noted, Serpent”.

With those final words Seargent Thoth clears out of the area.

This was my first proper attempt at the free solo rules from mantic Nexus Psi deadzone supplement, the battle was well fought and my strategy of stopping the zombies from piling in seemed to have worked except at they very end when “Serpent” was overrun. All in all I had alot of fun and painting up all my zombies for this was well worth it. I’ll be continuing  my solo play through over the next week or two doing a narrative battle report for each mission. Apologies for the grainy photos, the lighting in my makeshift play area is not great. Stay tuned for more of Kilo Squadrons escape from the infected city.

So a bit fitting but mantic have made their solo play rules tor deadzone free on their site for people who are getting gaming withdrawals like me. So I assembled quickly and painted up 20 plague zombies plus my first edition deadzone doctor simmonds.

Dr Simmonds was a gcps researcher looking into the plague on nexus psi before she herself got infected. In second edition she’s a cool specialist for the plague!

Now to paint the lab tech zombies and doctor Simmonds uniform I primed them all with Vallejo white primer, then covered all their uniform with gws apothecary white contrast paint before a drybrush of army painter matt white.

For the soldier zombies I primed them with army painter AP desert yellow, covered the armour plates in AP oak brown, washed everything with AP strong tone, then drybrushed the uniforms desert yellow before then doing a rough highlight/layer of desert yellow mixed evenly with AP skeleton bone. The skin for all my zombies was a layer of AP barbarian flesh, followed by a wash of AP red tone, and then once that was dry followed by another wash of AP flesh tone. I then picked out the extrusion with skele5on bone, the eyes and the yellow hoods of the lab techs with AP daemonic yellow. The bases were just Gws dust base mix, drybrushed in AP skeleton bone when dry. I went for different basing because that’s the system I used for my other plague minis and what I’m using for my marauders and eventual gcps (the idea being some of my armies are based similarly for storylines in my head).

These guys took me a few days after work to paint and I’m glad I did them as now I can go ahead and do solo play missions and post write ups here for the future!

I know it’s been a while but I have been painting more rats for this project in between regular life stuff and painting for my goblin project, and here’s proof!

All in all I’m really enjoying painting these rats, the colour scheme and painting method are basic but it’s refreshing to just let myself do the army painter splash on technique and not worry about multiple layers and highlights for a change. Here below you can see the whole gang together! I think I’ll be painting rats for months to come!

So I decided I wanted to do up two opposing forces for deadzone and eventually warpath from mantic games. These minis had been sat around too long and as part of this year’s goal of actually reducing the pile of shame I decided to go ahead and use two quick and easy methods to do both a yellow (veermyn) and a white (enforcer) force.

For the veermyn went ahead and decided to use the army painter method of painting. I started with a thin white primer layer followed by a regular layer of the army painter daemonic yellow. I then filled in the paints with TAP Matt black, the straps with oak brown, the teeth and bandages with skeleton bone, the chemical canisters with elemental bolt and finally metal parts and chips with gun metal. The models were all then given a coat of soft tone and once dry based with Luke’s APS base ready Mars Earth.

For the enforcers I first primed them with Vallejo white from my airbrush before being given a coat of apothecary white before being drybrush with wreck white and then pure white, the black weapons and soft material was done in black templar, the blade and jetpack exhausts talassar blue, the leather wyldwood, and the red eyes in blood angels red. The yellow is the army painter Phoenix flames. The models were allowed to dry before being based the same as the veermyn with Luke’s APS base ready Mars Earth.

These two strike teams took a few hours each over two days on the weekend which bodes well for getting two whole armies done this year! The next steps will be an extra 50 points for veermyn to make them a 200 point strike team and to do a strider for the enforcers.