Second Group of Heroes for Blackstone Fortress

 

Hi All!

Whew, it's been a hot one in the prairies these past few weeks. To be honest I really don't mind as I know we'll be complaining about the cold before we know it. I just wish we could bottle up this heat up and dole it out over the winter...

Okay! Here are another four intrepid adventurers from the Blackstone Fortress base set. Today we have:

Amallyn Shadowguide the Eldar Ranger.

UR-025, the mysterious robot with a dark (and very ancient) past.

Pious Vorne, the loonbag Imperial cult acolyte sporting her favourite accessory, a chainsaw/flamethrower(!).

And, Rein & Raus, the intrepid twin Ratling scouts.

Similar to the last batch, I kept these to an hour each for painting as I wanted to get them ready for gaming in a timely fashion. Most turned out okay, but a few suffered by the rushed brushwork (the the off-white armour of Amallyn and UR-025 look incredibly bland here - there is some shading there, honest!). Nevertheless, they're done and ready for mayhem in the Fortress. 

Speaking of which, next up I'll feature some of the nasty denizens of Blackstone Fortress.

Have a great week everyone!

Curt 

Blackstone Fortress: First Group of Heroes

For me, one of the nice things that has come out of these strange times is re-connecting with distant friends via online tools like Zoom, Google Meet and FaceTime.

Earlier this summer Greg put on a brilliant set of sessions which featured the GW stand-alone game 'The Burning of Prospero'.  The defined area map-tiles of that game really lend itself well to online play and so, encouraged by Greg's efforts and other talented hobbyists, like Barks, I thought I might take a stab at something similar using Blackstone Fortress.

 

As a result, over the past month or so I've been madly painting all the figures and hosting a few sessions of the game for friends. It really is a fun game and it's done a great job in getting me out of the painting doldrums, which often sets in after the hurly burly of the Painting Challenge.

Anyway, I thought it high time that I post a few images of the figures that come in the base game. So here are the first group of four heroes that I did up.

From left to right these are Espern Locarno, Janus Draik, Taddeus the Purifier and Dayak Grehk the Kroot mercenary. 

All the miniatures in the set are plastic multi-part, push-fit figures, and I have to say they are absolutely amazing models. Wonderful detail, great character and really a breeze to put together - I doff my hat to the designers at GW as they really hit it out of the park with these minis.

As I wanted to get up and running with the game really quickly, I set a goal that I wouldn't spend more than 60 minutes painting any one of the miniatures. I found the YouTube tutorials from Midwinter Miniatures to be very helpful, and for the most part I managed to keep to my target - blocking-in with bold colours, using lots of washes and amping them up with some punchy highlights.

This all being said, I did spend a bit of extra time on the bases to add some visual interest with rusting I beams, broken piping and bits of detritus. I kept the basing colour pallet similar to my other 40/30K stuff so they could be used in those games as well.

I'll post the next four heroes sometime soon and then feature some of the creepy denizens of Blackstone Fortress.

Thanks for dropping by and have a great week!

Curt