Ship-shape! Spring Cleaning Kharadron Overlords

Here’s a box of sprues I found, which look like some bits have been used for other conversions or part-built models (to follow in a later post). I’ve taken an initial look through and it looks like this box consists of:

This is the Tramp Steamer from Miniature Scenery that I bought and built a few years back. It’s been in the garage for a few years – hence the cobwebs.

So I’ll be giving it a really good clean, and plan on converting it with some large Aether Endrins to make it into the flagship for the fleet.

Shown here are a couple of cistern ball floats that I’m hoping to use as the basis for the Aether Endrins. They were a few quid each from B&Q.

And after a wash, I’m going to let this dry thoroughly before figuring out how to make it suitably armed and Kharadron-ed up.

Here’s more finished, part finished and incomplete miniatures.

Sky Wardens part-painted. Brokk Grungsson primed. A primed White Dwarf in Kharadron armour, a fully painted White Dwarf in spacesuit. Drekki Flynt in box, Codewright in box, and a box of Squat Prospectors that I was going to do something with.

And eep! There’s still more to inventory!

This Underworlds warband represents the look I’ll be aiming to achieve as a finished standard for all the miniatures in this army. I was really pleased with how they pop and look quite different to most Kharadron armies I’ve seen. The bases for these are painted in greys and greens to match all my other underworlds warbands.

Back in 2019 when contrast paints were released, I tried them to quickly get colours down on the Kharadron troops. The idea was to explore the paints and see what I could do with them. These are the results.

I’ve got 20 Arkanaut company troops and for some reason 15(!) Thunderers all painted up to this level. I think they were done with Skeleton Horde armour, Snakebite Leather boots and the orange was a 50:50 Blood Angels Red and Gryphound Orange mix.

These will now be detailed, highlighted and fully finished.

For my first frigate I went completely off-piste with the Barak Thryng colour scheme, because I wanted to make something a lot more menacing. Something almost piratical.

Named after my son, this is the Ernie!

Using parts from the WH40K mauler fiend and from the dark eldar Talos, I made this kraken headed, multi-tentacled monstrosity.

The shining portholes etc are all painted use reflective nail polish, but nowadays colour shift paints do much the same thing.

Painted in moody blacks, this really does look like a terror of the skies!

Because I always like adding miniatures that take my fancy (even if not part of the core range) I couldn’t resist adding this Golem Hammer of Tir-Nа-Bor from Rackham Confrontation to the initial force. The big ball shaped body and over-all aesthetic I felt would go really well with the industrial fantasy of the Kharadron. This miniature came from Cadwallon and is still available as a resin miniature.

I absolutely love how this turned out, to the extent I got a second one too. I just have to hope that after 7 years I can match the colour scheme and overall paint job.

“Endrinmasters are the senior mechanics of Kharadron airfleets, and take pride in squeezing ever-greater speed and firepower out of their skyvessels. No strangers to performing emergency repairs in the heat of battle, Endrinmasters will often outfit themselves with a strength-boosting endrinharness that allows them to grapple with the heaviest misaligned mechanisms and even heft a fearsome aethermight hammer.”

This one I converted with a number of extra elements. The helmet is an upside-down faceplate from a Dark Elder Tales, and I added some extra technical arms using parts from the Talos kit too. I think this added some extra heft and Warhammer-iness to the miniature – really makes it stand out.

“Arkanaut Admirals are the cream of the Kharadron officer class, intrepid leaders who direct whole airfleets from their favoured flagship. To reach the rank of Admiral requires proven excellence and tremendous profit – each one is a battle-hardened veteran of a thousand aerial engagements, whose booming commands inspire their crew to mighty deeds in the search for gain and glory.”

This is one of the first miniatures I painted. I gave him a headswap and added a small Aether balloon on his backpack.

This was painted fully with GW paints, to arrive at a bright colour scheme.

To go with the bright scheme, I wanted at the time to add basing that really made them look they could pop straight out of an Amiga platform game.

Back in 2017, I instantly fell in love with the Kharadron Overlords. Dwarves, Airships and floating sky-cities – what’s not to love?

I wanted to go bright with the army so settled quickly on the colours of Barak-Thryng. The bright orange-red and cream had a really pop-py scheme and I thought it’d be good to apply to individual figures as well as larger vehicles.