In 11 Days, We Ambush

For many years, I have struggled with depression. This isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned it here and it won’t be the last. Every time it spills over into my hobby, the effects are slightly different. This time round I’ve been struggling to get anything finished  for months. We all know every model goes through a “jeez that looks bloody awful” stage before it gets good. Since I was ill back at the start of the year, I haven’t been able to push through this stage, not once. Even my second choice, scaled way back SCC ended up being a wasted effort. I just couldn’t make my brain work on the models. So much for small, easy wins. 

I depend on hobby to ease the brain goblins so I need to try and break this cycle. Perhaps a totally different approach to normal would help. I’m a traditional layers and washes type of painter but I do have a selection of Contrast paints picked up here and there over the last few years. 

Time to give slapch… value painting a shot properly. What to paint with it though? There are plenty of candidates in the pile of shame that could get rolled out for this. So I picked something from there, right?

Don’t be daft.

I needed to look up a single piece of information on the Mantic website one day for a work proposal and within ten minutes I’d bought a new army. Or an old army. Or a Classic army. With the new plastic Nightstalker range out, the Mantic webstore have some of the old models on 50% off. It would be rude not to help them with their warehouse space problem that all that old stock with be taking up. I grabbed two of the smaller army sets, two boxes of reapers and an extra box of shadowhounds for £109 with free shipping. 

Now I like KoW a lot but to be honest the dwarves just haven’t been thrilling me to paint them. I have a game set up for Ambush on the 1st of July where I am meant to be taking just around 900 points of dwarves but now that this wee army is on its way, I want to see if a stupid challenge and Contrast paints can be the thing to “fix” my hobby problem. Ten days to build, paint and base an army. Let’s go.

I’m keeping track of all these notes on my phone and deliberately not starting a Project on OTT until I know I’m done. I’m sick of having a page of unfinished projects that I can’t just close down. This way, if I don’t manage it and walk away from the army, no one else will read these words.

If you’re reading them, spoiler, but I managed to finish the project in some satisfying way.

Project mantra is done, not perfect.

I got the notification about the army dispatching yesterday and so I sat down last night to throw together a painting scheme. Lining up the Contrast paints I already own and looking at the models I had a rough feeling of what I wanted it to look like. Similar to the box art but a little more unified. Armies like Nightstalkers by their very nature tend to look a bit disjointed because each unit is very different looking and there’s no uniform. 

Working on the story behind them, I reckon that some sort of energy has brought them into Panathor from another plane, probably through the ground. The bases will have broken stoneground on them and lines of the energy showing up through the cracks. This energy colour can then be worked into each of the units, even in a small way, to tie them altogether.

Each unit got a line in the planning document and the colours I wanted to use. Dark tones seem fitting for the army but I also like a fair bit of bright colour when I’m painting. I want the army to be fun to paint above all else right now.

Looking at the Contrasts I have, I realised I needed a few more for what I wanted to do. Normally I’d take a trip out of town a bit for an independent shop but I actually have a relief shift in a different part of the city today and have to go past GW to get home. They’re a nice bunch who are helpful and not pushy in the local branch so I don’t entirely begrudge them the full price. Okay, maybe a little. 

Getting home from work I set to work on bases for the regiments watching the UHH. The plan was to use cork sheeting torn up to represent stone but after a bit of digging, I have no idea where the cork sheets are in the hobby cupboard. Rather than getting caught up in finding them, I grabbed the nearest thing that could substitute in (some textured plasticard). Done, not perfect.

• For the energy tendrils I dug out a box of GW creeping vines, trimmed all the leaves off and superglued them onto the bases. 
• Next I cut and tore at the plasticard to get chunks of paving to sort of look like the energy pushed them up. The plasticard isn’t nearly as easy to work with as the cork would have been but the overall look is fine. I’ve no models to hand for test fitting so I’m trying not to make anything too wild. From working on the dwarves, there is less space on the bases than you think there is even with MMC.
• If I’d the patience, I’d have mixed up some Milliput to do the ground cover but it was easier and quicker to use filler. Splat it on, place the plasticard on top and then a light sprinkle of bird sand to add the first round of texture. I’ll probably do a second pass with some PVA once this has fully set but for a couple of hours work, three out of the four regiment bases are done. 

Time for bed.

I wasn’t starting work until lunchtime today so the plan was to finish the bases. The brain goblins were draining my energy though so I managed one base. That gets the four big bases done and left three smaller ones for the evening when I got home. An hour or so and they were done too. 

The army arrived just before I headed out to work and jeez, it’s a lot of minis for £109. I only opened one box of the reapers and found two bags inside; one resin and one restic. Didn’t really do any investigating to see what the differences were but they do appear to be mostly one piece for legs/torso/heads with two arms and then the two extra arms as loose bits in the bags. 

Now I’ve complained about the restic before when working on my dwarves and it is more time consuming to clean up before painting. I’m trying hard to keep “done, not perfect” in mind but honestly mould lines are one of those things I really struggle to look past. This could be a make or break point for the timeline here

Knowing I was going to have to spend a while on the clean up stage I decided to finish off the bases to the point where I would glue minis on (so no tufts or flock yet) before tackling the newly arrived boxes.

First thing in the morning I took twenty minutes to give all the bases a quick coat of watered down pva and an extra sprinkle of bird sand. I didn’t anticipate that the filler would react to the water in the pva but thankfully it wasn’t severe and some extra sand covered it over.

Getting home from work, I gave them all a blast of black primer before dinner so it had time to cure before I sat down for hobby time. Dry brushing was going to be my friend here. Dark brown then a lighter brown for the Earth surface. Two shades of grey over the stones. Done. Nice.

Then I got to the energy roots and this is where I wish I’d had a little more patience. I gave them all a coat of white but what I should have done is a coat of off white covering them all and then a highlight on the tops in white. It would have made the Pylar Glacier look better first go however, two tears in a bucket and all that. I’ll try to put a second coat of the Pylar on them tomorrow.

Now the army is here and the bases are ready, the last two evenings have been about building. 

I opened one of the army boxes (having opened the Reaper box on day two) and was pleasantly surprised to find that the scarecrow/spectre kit was hard plastic not restic. Really nice sprues with very few mould lines. 

Realising that they will be faster to put together, I’ve added an extra regiment of spectres and taken out the reapers for the initial list. Working with Preferred Model Count (PMC) in third edition of Kings of War is just a flat 75% which with these spindly little nightmares is good news. So instead of 80 models to build and paint for my standard infantry regiments, I’ve got 60.

Clipping everything off the sprues and into piles seemed the best move. I prioritised the weapons for the scarecrows along with the pumpkin heads and the heads with big hats. For the spectres I used more of the tentacle limbs. With the planned paint jobs it isn’t like they are going to be easily mistaken for each other but it made more sense in my head.

Between being exhausted from six days this week, normal chores that needed done and rain for a big chunk of the day, I didn’t get as far as I wanted to today. I’d really wanted everything built and primed for the full list but as it is, I’ve only got all the scarecrows and spectres done. 

They all got a black prime, spray of wraithbone as a rough and ready zenithal. Took a little time to dry brush an extra kick of white but unlike other times I’ve underpainted, I didn’t take the time to go and darken the recesses. Done, not perfect.

Knowing that throwing paint colour down now would be more satisfying than building restic, I sat for 45 minutes before bed and got a coat of Hexwraith Flame over the skin of the spectres. Originally all the mouths and tentacles were going to have the Pylar Glacier/energy colour of them but the paint really isn’t behaving the way I’d like so I changed to just Hexwraith. If I have time later, I’ll tackle the energy thing. 

“the paint really isn’t behaving the way I’d like so I changed to just Hexwraith. If I have time later, I’ll tackle the energy thing”

Remember that? The last sentence of yesterday? Yeah, I didn’t wait to have time. 

Today I wanted to go over the cloth on the spectres with Nighthaunt Gloom. Does it entirely makes sense that apparitions have different coloured clothing? No, not really but I felt the models needed something to break up the green. In searching through the paints for the Nighthaunt, I found a pot of Nihilakh oxide that I forgot I owned. Going back over the tentacles with that as the animating energy was much better than the Pylar Glacier though it will need highlighting. That’s a future me problem. Probably a tomorrow me.

I was only halfway through a long YouTube video so I decided to get cracking on the scarecrows. I had decided that they were going to have obnoxiously bright skin tones so I grabbed Doomfire Magenta or “Scottish Sunburn” as I prefer to think of it. There was a bit of fear putting it on but I walked around the room for a minute after I finished the first model and then sat down to crack through the rest.

I have a late start at work tomorrow so hopefully should manage a couple of hours painting in the morning. My fatigue makes getting reliable hobby time in the evenings almost impossible. Tonight I had to take an hour long nap just to function. Mornings are better so I try to value them when I can have them free.

Aaaaaaaaand my fatigue didn’t improve much today. Nothing done before work but thankfully managed an hour and a half when I got in from work which finished off the base colours on the scarecrows. Looking at the rest of the week, I think base colours is the goal for everything, details can come later. 

Managed a bit of time in breaks at work to start cleaning up the remaining pieces. They are a mix of resin and restic but so far nothing too much to take off. Certainly much clearer sculpts than my dwarves which makes sense given they are only five years old instead of the ten+ of the original KS dwarves. Tomorrow evening should be enough time to clean and build everything remaining but given the weather has turned, I’m not sure how priming is going to go.

Had a really strong evening of hobby tonight. I’ve started listening to the Rule of Carnage podcast and blasted through a bunch of episodes while getting everything remaining built and primed. Working with the restic wasn’t too bad, though the way some of the mould lines work around the Shadowhound faces is a pest and I couldn’t really get those cleared. 

Honestly, leaving mould lines in place might be the most traumatic thing about this project. 

Done not perfect.

I took the time to go over all the bases with the new energy colour (Nihilakh Oxide) and it is starting to grow on me. Cutting all the painted minis off their painting bases and moving them onto to the regiment multibases was the next job for the evening. Thank goodness for Preferred Model Count! Fitting 15 instead of 20 on these bases was more than enough. I did make sure that no part of them was overhanging the edge of the bases; these models are very spindly and I have no doubt they’d snap as soon as look at their enemies in a charge.

At this point I did have to take an honest look at the situation. I can’t do any hobby tomorrow because it is our RPG night which means I only have one more evening left to paint up everything for the game on Saturday midday. I really wanted to go back over the spectres with a dry brush and the scarecrows with a highlight pass but it’s just not going to happen. By putting them on the bases, they are going to be more difficult to come back to in the future but painting the next steps on just what can be seen when they are all massed up in their regiments is more efficient I guess.

It’s done. Not perfect but done.

My RPG group got cancelled so I got a bonus evening to paint. At the start of the evening I had three butchers, eight shadow hounds and two character models to paint. Now they’re all finished and based!

To be clear, the paint jobs across the whole army are one coat of Contrast paint over a zenithal prime with some metallic put on the weapons. Do I love the look? No but I don’t dislike it as much as I thought I would. However, in ten days I have a painted army ready for the table.

Done, not perfect.

I had a little time left over today so I added some spots on the heads of the butchers and even just that one detail really lifted them. I should manage a couple of hours work on the project tomorrow so I’ll need to have a wee think overnight about what I want to prioritise for Saturday’s game. Given I’ve used Contrast, I know I’ll need to do at least a quick coat (preferably a couple) of varnish.

I also need to find a head. When I went to paint the Shade, I found I’d just completely skipped gluing it’s face on. Oops. It doesn’t look too bad given the theme of the model but yeah… find the face is on the to do list.

The last day before the army hits the table for the first time.  By Friday my fatigue and chronic pain are at their most severe. Most weeks all I can do is climb into bed around 6pm to pass out. 

Thanks to yesterday’s bonus hobby time, there’s no real need to work on anything today in terms of painting. I realised after I finished last night though that I forgot to magnetise the bases so I didn’t have a safe way to transport everything to the game shop tomorrow. I challenged myself to do hobby for the time it took to watch The Weekender.

• Though not ideal, I had to go with magnet sheets on the bases instead of magnets. It’ll be fine, I think. 
• Managed a single pass of highlights on the models I felt needed it most
• Totally forgot to put a wash over the metals, oh well.
• The weather was miserable so there was no way I was getting varnishing done

That’ll do for today though.

It has been so long since I played a full game of Kings of War that I honestly couldn’t’ tell you the extent to which Ambush feels like the same game. It is really fast to play and very killy. Or maybe that’s just going against an army where every army has Crushing Strength 2 or more on it. Either way, in three and a half hours we managed three games at a fairly easy pace.

We played scenario each time but we never really got to a point of scoring them, my army was so decimated by turn three or four that we called the game and reset.

Now those of you who know Kings of War, and in particular know the Nightstalkers have probably been screaming at the screen for every entry in this porject up until now. Because you probably all noticed something that I, using only the companion app, hadn’t. Those lovely spectres that I pivoted to make a second regiment of because it was easier than dealing with the restic reaper kit? They don’t exist in the new version of the Nightstalkers list. My mistake was selecting Nightstalkers, not Nightstalkers 2023 when list building or I would have realised they have been taken out and the models reclassed as Dopplegangers. It was my very lovely opponent who pointed this out when we were chatting in game two or three and wondering what exactly they were firing for their ranged attacks.

Going forward I definitely need to look at my options for dealing with crushing but on the whole, I’m having a blast with the game. I’ll do conclusions on the project in a separate post but to close out this one, here are some photos.

I wanted to start this project to try and kickstart my motivation after a big old bout of depression related hobby stagnation. Using a new painting style and a self-inflicted deadline to push me. It has done that and managed to be fun at the same time.  I can’t say I love the look of Contrast as much as I do my normal way of painting but as a way of getting a relatively satisfying job done in quick time, they are a valuable tool.

Has it revitalised my painting? I don’t know but I think maybe it has. It felt really good to get an army on the table quickly without it feeling like much of a chore to do. Painting sessions were little bubbles of good feels because a whole regiment could be done in a couple of hours. Every session felt like a little win which, certainly for me, is one of the key ways to work through my depression. “Fixing” my hobby wasn’t going to be what “fixed” me but by able to claw the joy back, even a little, hobby can go back to being part of how I cope.

Who knew Contrast paints could do so much?!?!

This is an army I’ll be adding to in the future – I already own several units and have plans for a couple more. After the spectres/doppelgangers revelation and being pummelled by Crushing Strength, there’s certainly some thinking to be done. Knowing that it will be easy to plough out the rest of the units I have and anything else I add in makes expansion and or list changing a lot less intimidating a prospect.

For now though, I’m calling this project complete. I think all future army updates might just go into my other KOW project and leave this one as a reminder to myself that I can finish things even when they are “just” done and not perfect.

A lovely wee way to close out the project thanks to a butt-butt-ding