Episode VII: A brush with the dark side

I was eagerly looking forward to my first DBA tournament on Saturday 29th March. The tourny was armies from the 1st century AD,  in 15mm, I had only 25mm armies, but there were 'club' armies to borrow. On the Friday before I had a bit of a breakdown; using club armies would probably mean dirtying my fingers with those nasty Romans, club armies would most likely be of the EIR ilk. I could not bring myself to join the empire, something had to be done...

I am lucky enough to have Friday afternoons off, so I scurried away from work at about 1:30 and went straight to my local Minifigs stockist. By 2:30 I was at home with a bunch of packs of my favourite Numidians. At this stage I have to admit I was seduced by the dark side and decided to go for a black undercoat technique. This was purely from a speed painting perspective, if I missed any bits they would be less likely to show up in black undercoat. Anyhow the venture into the dark side was only a temporary incursion, I am back in the rebel alliance now and letting the white spray paint flow freely.

This is the timeline from then on....

14:39 - packs on the painting desk...

15:17 - elements sorted out and flash cleaned off...

15:49 - bases cut out and marked up, whilst....

...the black under coat dries off at the same time.

16:04 - painting begins, the elephant obviously is first to get covered.

16:12 - elements all made up, undercoated and stuck to bases for easy handling.

16:20 figures all fleshed out. Elephant finished.

17:34 - elements browned off. I was lucky in wanting a numidian army, their colour scheme is brown, brown and more brown. Notice no King juba yet, just two Spanish horsemen.

18:01 - elements given a brown ink wash, still no king.

18:20 varnish applied, elements placed on the top of the central heating boiler to speed up drying.

18:33 - varnish dry, flock applied. 

Some details added, like elephant grass and tree stumps. The whole lot left on the boiler overnight to harden off. Next morning, it dawns on me I have no camp, Doh! Fifteen minutes later, three cocktail sticks, a bit of cotton and some PVA soaked tissue and I have a nice black tent with a couple of camp followers. Army finished. I went for the blade element, elephant, cavalry general and lone psiloi options.

About four and a half hours work for a completed DBA army, not bad.

from the left; 1x2Lh, 1x3Ax, 1x4Bd, 1x3Ax with psiloi behind, 1 x 2Lh, 1x3Cv (Gen), 1xEl, 2x3Ax, 2x2Lh. Camp behind.

The army didn't include all options, I did do one extra Ax and two extra Ps elements to use up the figures in the packs, didn't bother with the blades. There should be a few more Ps and Lh to complete the Numidian army in it's entirety. I had some trouble getting a good King Juba figure, in the end I used some sort of carthaginian with his helmet filed down. The army didn't have a dream start, I didn't even make the final. The next tourney is having a different theme, so I wonder what my next 15mm speed army will be. I normally paint 25mm figures, the 15mm guys are just not that enjoyable to paint for me.  But speed painting to a deadline made the painting fun. OK my army wasn't the best painted there, but it was a long way from being the worst, some armies didn't even have flocked bases or a colour wash. Back to the big guys for me now, I have a load of Gripping Beast and Vendel figures to finish off.

UPDATE - Some answers to questions I have had:

No, it is not an April fool!

No, I don't want to try my hand at finishing off your EIR.

Yes, the numidians were probably the easiest army to paint.

Nope, I don't know what one to try next, depends on the next PAWS DBA tournament theme.

I will post some close ups so you can see the ink wash effect, I use Windsor and Newton Nut brown.

The basing technique is nothing more than a ice cream tub full of various green flocks, some cat litter, sand, model railway ballast, bits of grit, static grass, lichen off cuts and little white rocks. I paint the base black, brush on some PVA, put the base in the tub and cover it with the mixture, done. For this lot I picked the element out and let it dry on the boiler before blowing the excess off. When I am not in a hurry I ususally leave the element in overnight to dry in the mix, this means the rocks stick on better. The elephant grass is a lump of an old paint brush stuck in a blob of PVA, the treestump the psiloi are hiding from is from the garden.

Simon

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