Bot War…. Personal and Traders Galaxy Commissions

Beat em up is a wonderful little Kickstarter from Traders Galaxy, the same company behind the awesome Bot War and Rise of the Democracy games. Set within the same Bot War universe, it takes place in Motor City where COILS have infiltrated the Police forces and criminal underworld making the city a dangerous place.

The investigators from the Democracy’s DVIA have begun to fight back against the COILS on the mean streets, bringing justice to those that prey on the citizens of MOtor City.

Based on the scrolling beat em ups of the consoles of yesteryear, beat em up is a co op game where players take the role of a hero to defeat the COILS played by a GM. It’s an amazingly good set of models that are a brilliant deal based on the number of models that you get for your pledge.

Check it out. It only has a day to go!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tradersgalaxy/beat-em-up-miniature-game-miniature-production/description

My first update in quite a while and also a cautionary tale. ?. So this little lot has actually (for the most part) been painted twice. I completed them early in April however when I was Varnishing them the spray can obviously had an issue as after I had completed the front pass, the varnish immediately turned white. It was as if I had picked up a can of white spray and reprime them.

Not quite being able to believe what I had done I looked at the can to check that I hadn’t been so stupid and to my horror I saw that I had picked up the correct can of Matt Varnish. Now, this was a brand new can. I had shook it for 5 minutes as I usually do, I had made sure it was at room temperature and the environment I was spraying in wasn’t too humid or cold. After it had dried I tested it again on some sprues I had lying around and found that the same thing happened. Faulty can. Now this wasn’t Games Workshop spray it was from a relative new comer (I don’t want to mention them by name as it’s an aberration and I have had good experience of their other products) but I will definitely take precautions I’m the future.

This isn’t the first time this has happened to me. Back when the Lord of the Rings battle game was first released a can of Citadel Varnish did this to my proudly completed Gandalf and similarly I had to strip and repaint too. Still though, 2 occurances in 20 odd years isn’t the end of the world. It’s just irritating that I had to do the same work twice ?

More Electrotyrant miniatures. Palanquin of Power, Vexxed and Outrage.

Completes the list of current models for ETDA forces.

Agis and Dunebuggy in Rise of the Democracy 30mm scale. Dunebuggy is Agis alternative form.

Mineshaft and Tunneler also in 30mm Rise of the Democracy scale. Painted in COILS main colour scheme.

Bit of an unusual one this one. Traders Galaxy also has a wonderful line of Sci-Fi miniatures for an upcoming game called Heroes of Centaurus. They can also be used for a multitude of sci-fi games and I thought they would be perfect for stargrave if you wanted a feudal sci-fi look to your game. Perhaps men at arms  for a crusaders force ?

Completed this set of models for a client. He mounts all his Bot War minis on clear acrylic bases hence why I have just painted the bases brown. More so that they look okay in pictures as I’ll be popping them off for transit.

They were painted using an Airbrush initially using German Dark Green from Vallejo and then adding Game Colour Bright Green in order to achieve that horrible pea green colour. I then washed the whole model in Agrax earthshade gloss while wiping away most of the paint from the higher surfaces I wanted to be super bright.

The Avatar of Destruction is a cracking model. But with a few simple techniques you can get a really excellent finish very quickly with this model. Don’t be afraid to use drybrushing and washes to speed things up.

Painted in exactly the same way as the models I did for Traders Galaxy, the only exception being that I based them as if in the desert. 3d printed cactus were from Thingiverse and have been applied over the bases of my Valiants now too.

I wasn’t fussed by the COILS to start off with but the last couple of games I have had they performed really well and I am really getting the hang of them now.

So this is my personal collection of Valiants for Bot War. Nothing too outrageous here in terms of the painting. Followed the official schemes from the art work on the cards almost to the letter. Using a combination of Contrast paints for the base colours and then washes and line highlights, these models were fairly quick to paint.

I did want something more interesting for the basing though. I decided on a Route 66 theme as though the Valiants were travelling across Nevada or Utah looking for COILS bases to root out. So I painted the texture on the bases as road (works exceptionally well at this scale) and added some desert highway markings. I also decided to try and make the roads on the bases line up with each other so I can at a later time make a display base for them.

One thing that I do really appreciate from Traders Galaxy; is that many of the model that are out of production have been released as STL’s to be purchased through their webstore. I purchased the War Duc files to test them out for future purchases, such as the original Destroyer Cult models (which I personally prefer) and the terrors of the air.

There are a great deal of models to choose from and they print really well. My Elegoo Mars had no trouble with War Duc and even though they come unsupported. I used the free software, Chitubox to add supports and he came out excellently.

Electrotyrant Drone Army

The White Knights Protectorate is a very unique faction within Bot War. A limited edition force that is limited to the miniatures that you see in the main photo of this update. They are great models with excellent background and stats. The cards for this faction are free to download, just like all the other Bot War stat cards and soon will have a wonderful faction guide to accompany them with background and fiction to help flesh them out.

I painted these by spraying them with mechanicus standard and then Corax White at a roughly 70° angle to create a zenithal highlight of sorts. I then applied apothecary white and once dry, I used Corax White through my airbrush to even out the white.

Once I had a good solid white, I applied various contrast colours to match the artwork on the cards. I finished the highlights and then returned to thin Corax White to fix any mistakes from the contrast and highlight stage. Then finally I used Vallejo White to edge highlight the white and based and varnished them.

Excellent models and much quicker to paint once you get a good solid white down to start.

I painted these primarily with contrast paints. Flesh tearer red for the red parts including the canopies and lenses, Basilicanum Grey for the grey areas and Black Templar for the black areas. I used Vallejo Violet for the purple areas and then applied Nuln oil washes over most areas.

Highlights were kept fairly simple using mechanicum standard and dawnstone for the grey areas, dawnstone and codex white for the black areas and Violet mixed with Vallejo white to highlight.

Reds were done using mephiston red, evil sunz scarlet and a final fine highlight of Trollslayer Orange. I took the canopies and lenses further by using bad moon yellow mixed with a little white and used a fine brush to add fine line from the corners that I had taken the highlights up the furthest to create the impression of glare from the sun on them.

Once completed I used thinned black Templar to glaze some shading and even out the black panels on the models to make them look far shinier and flat.

I am so please with how they turned out.