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Introduction I am, by my own judgement, pretty poor at getting armies painted. I start a project with great gusto, the twirling of paint brushes, incidental knocking over of paint pots, and all the rest, and after a short while I get burnt out. Variety is key for me as a hobbyist, and painting the same thing again and again with the same colours and details generally bores the pants off of me. "But wait," I hear you cry, "surely this blog is about painting an army?". Indeed, yes, and it is part of a means to get myself painting, to share the results of my paint jobs with others, and use that as a form of motivation. Admittedly, there are three other motivations that make this army compelling for me to paint.
1. I will have a grand total of 36 models to paint.
2. It is for the summer 2019 Doubles Tournament at Warhammer World.
3. At last, at long, long, long last, after 16 years of hoping it would one day be viable, I can field a cavalry-based army!
Point 3 is, for me, the most important. Long have I wanted to field a force of cavalry as an army but obstacles stood in my way. Models were a big issue, as around 2002/3 the only mounted Imperial Guard models were the Attilans, which I'd never liked, and as part of an army I would have had to field so much other stuff that it wouldn't have been a cavalry army. The idea banged around the back of my head along with other concepts (a DKoK pioneer company based around flamers, a DKoK 'machine-gun' company with an unhealthy number of heavy bolters, etc.) but now, with 8th Edition, it is plausible to field a Fast Attack based detachment, filled with lots of lovely Death Korps of Krieg Death Riders. Cue: Mass cheering, throwing of helmets in the air, and shooting of heretics with las-weaponry.
However, before we get to the nitty-gritty of the blog, of pictures of models, I feel I should warn you of what this blog will not include:
1. There will be no spectacular conversions.
2. There will not be any Golden Daemon-worthy paint jobs (not even close!)
3. The photographs posted will be mediocre ones taken from my phone; I'm not a photographer, I have no interest in owning a decent camera, so my phone is the way for me to go.
The Army & Painting It
Spoiler:
The Army As mentioned above, there are 36 models, or there about, for me to paint. A few have been painted, about 8 are currently filed under "work in progress", and I have a box of models waiting to have paint grace their undercoated hides. Furthermore, I don't have all of the models I need yet; I lack an artillery piece and 5 Death Riders. What, then, is this army's composition?
Best as I can work out, in 1,000 points, if we ignore additional upgrades and options, etc., my section of the Doubles Army my friend and I are doing, consists of the following:
<Insert Regimental Name> of Krieg (Outrider Detachment) HQ - DKoK Death Rider Squadron Commander
Elites - DKoK Death Rider Commissar
Fast Attack DKoK Death Rider Squadron (x10 models)
DKoK Death Rider Squadron (x10 models)
DKoK Death Rider Squadron (x10 models)
Heavy Support Malcador Defender
Heavy Quad Launcher Battery (1x Heavy Quad Launcher)
The other half of the army, I am assured, has a hefty amount of artillery involved (including a Forgeworld Minotaur Artillery Tank and another Malcador Defender: mine has lascannons sponsons (Male) and theirs will have heavy bolters (Female), to keep in with our WW1 theme). However, this is not a tournament army, it is one built around a theme. Initially the colour theme I had decided on was built off of Great War uniforms, in the same way that the DKoK uniforms are aesthetically drawn from that period. However, after daubing a few Death Rider's in brown it really didn'look right, and so the colour scheme became a mash-up of 1860s-1914 uniform colours, whilst our artillery pieces and tanks are utilising a colour scheme I found for a late-war British tank, adopted into the style of Stalhelm patterning.
Current Progress Squadron Commander
Spoiler:
The head of the army, of course, is the Squadron Commander. The first difference between him and his men is that he is mounted on a grey horse. Other than that differences include a white ring on his cuff instead of yellow, and once his arm is attached, his shoulder pad will include insignia relevant for their rank (equivalent of a Major, using 1914-18 British Army cavalry rankings). In line with the DKoK's practicality, and excepting his cuffs, the officer's uniform is identical to the soldiers, including his sword (painted in a 'regulation' drag green) and other accoutrements. Left to do is the metalwork, his left arm (!), and touch up where I've made a few errors with the paint brush.
Death Rider Commissar
Spoiler:
The gaudiest unit in my army, his black coat is festooned with gold epaulets, medals, a gold ring around his red cuffs. His sword's guard is golden, whilst the scabbard is metal, unlike the drag side-arms of those he rides amongst. Like the Commander, to mark his rank he rides a grey horse, further marked out by its 'skull' head armour. I wanted the Commissar, who is pretty much finished, to stand out and contrast with the rest of the army. Fortunately, prior to this project, I had already painted him, so I updated his colour scheme to fit with the regiment, spruced up his metalwork, and made sure his black coat really was, well, black.
Death Riders
Spoiler:
Dark blue coats, red cuffs and coat edging, and grey armour; that is the colour choice I've gone for. Initially the first few were in Vallejo "English Uniform" brown coats with dark blue coat linings, but this looked odd. I had wanted to paint them as British cavalry with Prussian blue linings, but it didn't suit to my eye. As I wondered what to do about it, I painted another figure up as a 'bugler', with reversed coat colours, so blue with brown lining. This looked so much better, and so I painted them all in the same blue, including the linings, and aded red edging to go with their red cuffs. The yellow ring around the cuff came from looking at pre-1900 German cavalry uniforms, where lace was often placed.
The horses will be painted in different hues depending on their 'troop': 1st troop with dark brown, 2nd troop with chestnut/bay, 3rd troop with as sorrel. In theory, at least.
Their swords are all painted in a drab(ish) green as a regulation thing, taken from British swords of the 1914-18 period, their horse blankets are a non-descript grey, and the leatherwork on the horses will be in a variety of dark-to-mid browns. I chose grey for armour because it seemed the best compromise when considering the colour choices I'd made (I didn't want them to be metallic). Initially all of the armour was a dark green, but green and blue together? It had to be changed. I might tone it down further to be a more slate grey.
Malcador Defender N° 7 "Fear Naught"
Spoiler:
My project over the summer of 2018 was to paint this fellow up, the first thing I did as part of the project. Using 3mm thick masking tape, I marked out a pattern for each side of the tank and then over the body. The colours below grabbed my attention as I performed some research on Great War tank camouflage schemes, and combined with a 'stalhelm'-esque pattern, using squares, pentangles and so on, I began to paint.
These colours were transcribed thus:
The paint scheme progressed rapidly from there.
The only thing that remains is to paint the inside of the sides & stick them on, make sure the Tank Commander is fully secured (he keeps popping out), and to apply mud to the tracks and weather the paint scheme. As a side note the name plates are meant to be scruffy. I painted on a serial number, daubed it down with the same colours I'd used for the camouflage scheme, and then painted (badly) "Fear Naught" as the tank's new name.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/11/26 00:17:00
2018/11/18 04:59:19
Subject: Re:Death Korp of Krieg Death Rider Squadron (1,000 points, Half of a Doubles army)
I'm looking forward to seeing your development of your DKoK. A friend of mine is working on an army of them, and they are very imposing and great to fight against on the battlefield.
Also, that tank, as you seem to imply, definitely looks too clean to match the rest of your riders. Be sure to post images when you mud it up!
I'm working up towards weathering the tank. The paint scheme came out far better than I expected (for my skill level), so I'm worried of doing something to ruin it!
In other news, the first eight models are finished (well, apart from the few bits I've probably missed). Hurray! Just 24 to go...
