Hobby Update: Mounted Sergeants!

In between their WIP post and the Invasion game played last week, the Sergeants had a lot of work done. They were almost finished before the game, but still had a ways to go.

Progress! Just a little left to do!

I was worried about painting up the paste, but I think that turned out ok, and looks pretty sandy. I abandoned my original plan of mixing acrylic paints to try and match real sand, and I took the easy road, and picked up my pot of Ushabti Bone from Citadel/GW. Using a sizable brush, I applied a very diluted coat to the paste (which was actually spongy after it dried, not hard like I figured it would be). It functioned like a wash, and just got color into the crevasses. After the wash dried, I took a different large brush and did some very basic dry brushing of the same color. It turned out pretty good!

Painting up the humans was also pretty simple, and reminded me (in terms of painting complexity) of the Eccentric Foot Guard. Like the Foot Guard, the Sergeants were mostly just tunics and chainmail. With regards to the sculpts though, the Sergeants were miles ahead. With just a few very minor tweaks (a twist here, leaning a bit forward or back) the figures become far more dynamic than the Foot Guard. They are great figs. Props to Fireforge for balancing simplicity and dynamism so well in the models!

The horses were also fine sculpts, but took a little extra work to paint up. I have never liked painting horses. It was a vicious cycle of not putting in the effort, being dissatisfied with the paint job, and then vowing to not put in more effort in the future. For these, I made a conscious effort to go that extra mile, mostly because there wasn’t a lot of armor to hide a lazy paint job.

I decided to browse around, and assemble a catalogue of horse colorations that I could emulate (I’ve seen horses before; I just don’t know... well, much about them). Luckily, I quickly stumbled across this wonderful website. Bookmarked! It had everything I was looking for and more. I think the horses turned out well for a first try (I will try to improve my technique and try a few other patterns on my next batch of horses: Mounted Scouts with Bows! Coming soon...)

The above is how they looked in-game. Reasonable, but not-quite-finished. Finishing them up unfortunately became a “one step forward, two step back” process... 

I ran out of my normal basing superglue (I use basic Elmers for the sand, and a superglue for the small rocks), but picked up the thinnest-looking Gorilla Glue (some come in more of a gel form) from a store while I was out running errands during the week. When I found some time to hobby later in the week, I started dabbing the Gorilla Glue around, and dumped some rocks onto the base…

…and as I was finishing up the second troop, I noticed that the Gorilla Glue on the first troop was expanding. Not engulfing the model or anything so comical; just getting a nice bloaty look and then starting to dry a very dark, muddy-looking brown. Oops. Mud would have been ok, but a bloated, puffy landscape was not what I was aiming for! I ended up ceasing all my efforts, and spending the rest of the hobby session excising the gluey blobs with the hobby knife. Over the weekend, I returned with my tried-and-true usual superglue, and finished these up properly. 

The really dark brown parts (like in the center of the base of the to models on the right) is the color the Gorilla Glue was drying. It poofed up to about the horses' knees... not ideal for an arid basing scheme.

A second Troop. The GW models in the center of these are noticeably bigger than their companions. On the table, it doesn't look too bad though. More of a "might-made-right" way of determining who the unit leader was.

And the last troop. I might need to get shields for the unit leaders at some point, but these units will work fine as-is.

So, lesson learned. Avoid Gorilla Glue for basing projects! Use it to fix broken plant pots or chairs like it shows on the label! Anyways, these Sergeants are now “done,” and I'm looking forward to getting them out on the table soon!

Edit: I was originally going to write about their usefulness in game... but now I'm thinking I'll put that off and address all my army's lighter support cavalry options in one large future post. Suffice it to say for now, they did a great job, and I was surprised by their effectiveness, but I think I could use a little more experience with them before I write anything that sounds too authoritative.