Everyone remembers their first Conquest!

Now I have heard that the medium included with the Army Painter speed paints can be used to add to normal war paints to create your own speed paints. I’ve been wanting to test this for a while so I decided I needed a low level unit to try it on so enter the militia!

These guys are absolute chaff on the field so even if it doesn’t work they aren’t usually around long enough for people to see them!

So to test it out I chose hemp rope and did a mix of 3 medium to 1 paint and slapped it on.

Now they are block coloured I’d like to try to muddy them down a bit as they look way to bright and poppy for what should be lowly militia so I’m going to see if they hold up to a trade mark Brainmatter Beige drybrush and wash.

Well, of course I would!

Quick dip in the basing tub and they are done. Overall quite pleased with how they turned out. I look for to some more experimenting!

Now for the Acolyte it went a little off piste. I’ve been really pleased with Army Painter Speedpaints and with the recent announcement of metallics coming I wanted to see how they fared on my Conquest minis. Now, I did get carried away and forgot to take pictures of the steps but anyone with the set of them will be able to work out what I used. The only exception being the jerkin. It’s a mix of the speed paint leather brown and the yellow. The metals were done in my usual Chop Slap (TM) biege drybrush style

All painted up really easily and as it happens isn’t to jarring when standing with the rest of the army. I should note that the cape colour hive dweller purple was quite heavy so I did add some water to some it out. Not perfect but good enough. As I said, got excited and rushed!

After washing with 50/50 medium that warrior is ready

I’m back! It’s been a while but recently I’ve discovered the updated rules to Conquests First Blood and it’s got me re energised to continue my Hundred Kingdoms army.

Recently I planned a game and for the first time I included a retinue for my Theist Priest. I was going to proxy the models but then I remembered a kitbash I had done a while ago mixing a Man At Arms torso with Household equipment (and a slung crossbow just for added badassness) and thought he might work as a warrior retinue. They have the support rule so makes sense that he would have a halberd. I also needed a bodyguard so kitbashed him together from the crossbowman, man at arms, gilded legion and militia sprues. Finally I needed an acolyte which was trickier as he would need to be less martial looking. I had a spare militia head which has a cap instead of a helmet and with a bit of cutting and gluing managed to create a more magical looking staff and by trimming down a shield I created something that looks enough like a book to pass!

Now for the washes, all 50/50 mixed with medium in the true Chop Slap (TM) style!!

Added an old Bretonian transfer to the shield an the badass bodyguard is done!

Finally, my Path of Conquest army is ready to march to war!

Thanks to the slow grow league keeping me focussed its great to finally line up a full army shot and even though the units were all painted to a very basic level im really pleased with how they look en masse.

A friend of mine has also just got his 2000 point Spire army painted so come May 17th there will be a battle report!

After the obligitory Brainmatter Beige drybrush its in with the washes, 2/1 medium to wash.

Next up it’ll be the standard Brainmatter Beige drybrush for the whole unit and then washes (all 50/50 with medium)

military shade on the green, soft tone on the browns, dark tone on the metals / dark colours and the rest on the appropriate matching colours.

I won’t bother showing how it was done, the excellent Gerry Can video will do a much better job than I can. Have to say I’m really pleased with the results, makes the units look a lot more vibrant. Now to do the rest of the units!

In Conquest a hero in a unit is placed on a 4 spot rank base and whilst it’s perfectly functional its not particularly elegant. I have been using a plinth design a friend of mine created which is cool but with the new retinue rules you can now add characters to the heroes base to assist.

Seeing as i have a printer and Tinkercad i thought i’d see if i could come up with something.

So, two things. first design is a plain square with either 1,2 or 3 base holes. Quick bit of measuring and done. I’ll attach the files should you wish to use them. (No i wont, just realised you cant!! happy to share if required!)

Then i thought could i create a more scenic base using the printer to create the stucture. so this i what i did.

Then moulded a shape using brown stuff, primed, textured, paint, drybrush and softone said texture and finished with a dip in the flock mix!

Bit of backstory on this one. There I was happily trucking along on the Path of Conquest, riding high from a battle report and getting the core of the army painted when lockdown v3 kicked in. I was really looking forward to expanding the force and doing another battle report as this had really helped give me a push to keep going. With that out the window my motivation took a hit and i struggled to muster up the energy to paint more units.

In an attempt to break the funk i thought it might help if i just painted up a character to get me going again so i dusted off my mounted lord and had a think.

Now the the knights i had painted so far were quite plain and i wanted my lord to stand out  a bit from the ranks so i decided to go with golden armour with resplendant yellow and blue livery.

Firstly i primed the horse and rider in gold as it had worked nicely on the unmounted version and then the problems started!

Yellow, always f++king yellow! Now once again no matter what i did i couldnt get it to work and after multiple attempts i threw the whole thing to one side and decided leave it alone for a bit and find some other options for yellow.

This involved buying inks, new paints and defacing a bunch of old models!

after getting some satisfactory results with yellow with some Crisis Protocol X-Men i finally found a decent soloution. It still took another few weeks to build up the energy to tackle him again but finally last week i reprimed the skirts with white and got back to work.

Annoyingly this meant i would now have to pepaint the gold armour by hand and on a model that was already annoying me this really turned into a slog and i can honestly say i hated every minute of painting this one and i hate how it turned out but its DONE and i can move on!!

And there he is. All i feel is relief now he’s finished. Honestly every step with this one was a chore and everything seemed to go wrong. Even resorted to trying pigment powders on the skirts to try and hide some of the paint and wash issues but even that didnt seem to work!

One thing i can guarentee is this guy is going to be initating a lot of suicidal chrages in his future!!!

Have to say as annoying as this model was to finish, now its done i do now have a renewed vigour for getting on with my Conquest stuff. Time to grab a Wizard…