Hobby Update: Grimdark Future Warbands

As mentioned in basically every post over the last year and a half, the pandemic hasn't been great for my hobbying. To beat that dead horse, working from home really constrained my overall space in the apartment, and a tiny plot about the dimensions of a legal-sized sheet of paper is about all I could regularly muster for my intermittent hobbying.

One thing I haven't mentioned much though, is that the pandemic hasn't been great for my pile of shame. I rediscovered ebay last year, and picked up more than I probably should have since. One neat thing I discovered on ebay though, was the ability to get just a sprue of dudes, as opposed to a whole box. Often, this isn't economical (it's often at least few dollars cheaper to get the box, if able), but this was great for some small hobbying projects throughout the summer.

With an ample Kings of War collection spread over half a dozen armies or so, I decided to just hobby on various warbands this summer instead of more dedicated Kings of War stuff. I did not do updates at the time, but figured I may as well add these in to the blog history.

Most of these were hobbied on just because, but I eventually skewed towards building them for Grimdark Future: Firefight from One Page Rules. My girlfriend's little brother (who had gotten into 40k, then dropped out) had been coming over, and I figured a skirmish game like this could be a nice, nerdy activity for us (with some tweaking to make it multiplayer). Alas, it has not happened, but at least now I have some warbands, and learned a few new hobbying skills.

Space Regnum Warband

I had a small band of these going when messing around with Wiley Games and Fistful of Lead; taking some 40k stuff and adding my purple and white to it. One of my 2020 pandemic purchases was a used collection of old metal Cadian special weapon minis, so over the summer here I decided to ditch the marines and buff up the guardsmen. My intention was to run these more as some "Human Defense Force" for One Page Rules. 

No conversion work here, actually. All basic stuff.

While I built with the game in mind, I just built what I thought was cool, so I have no idea how effective the "list" would be, or hoe many of these would even make it in a typical list. I only used (looks like) 4 minis from the box, so I have room to expand later. Unfortunately, this box was bought a while before the new sprue was added. Alas.

Here, I wanted to play around a bit with my Regnum scheme, and try to improve on the basing a bit. I didn't come to any big conclusions, other than obvious one the paste is much easier to work with when you don't need to dance around the feet of the miniature... well, go figure.

Muunilinst Warband

I picked up a box of Clone Troopers and ARC Troopers from the Star Wars Legion game sometime in the last year or two. I was a huge Star Wars kid growing up, reading books nonstop, and I really liked the animated shorts by Genndy Tartakovsky leading up to Episode 3. It was one of the few DVDs I had back in the day. The series is packed with action, but I remember being floored as a kid when these troopers hit the screen for the first time. 

Not bad! I think the band around the helmet is supposed to be black.. but that's fiddly stuff I did not want to attempt. These are good.

The minis are mostly out of the box, with some very light conversion work to get the guy with the chaingun blaster thing. With all the white armor, I experimented with a zenithal highlight, spraying gray all over and then white from above. It definitely helped add a nice gradient, though I don't know how useful it would be in a more colorful army.  I shudder to think how long I looped the Jedi Temple March while painting these guys up. I tried to dirty up the bases without being oily or greasy, and that sort of worked, and went with a few thin layers of various grays and tans and yellows. I think that worked out to get a little bit of a grungy look without the grime.

I don't have a game to use these in (OPR didn't have the Clones added in when I did these up, and I don't know if there are plans to even do so) but they were fun to paint up nonetheless. 

Black Templar Warband

I really liked the Judiciar mini, and snagged that over the summer. I also liked the Easy Build kits from GW, and I have picked up a handful over the years. I had a spare Reiver sitting around from one, as well as some Intercessors, so I decided to paint these up for a warband too. I had just finished reading a book about the Great Siege of Malta, and figured some space templar would be fun to play around with.

Very light conversions. A few shields and head swaps. Gave the Retributor Armor paint a go, and I think it looks pretty striking on the sword guy.

For this warband, I wanted to play around with a few painting things. The first was black armor, and I went with a black primer, black undercoat, and then tried some edge highlights and dry brushing with brighter and brighter grays. It all worked well enough? It's not amazing, but it passable in real life and breaks up the dark forms just enough on the table. Secondly, I tried to keep a desert-like barren base, but played around more with rocks and dry brushing layers of brighter sandy colors more; typically my colors were wet to get a variation going. This dry brushing worked well enough too. Thirdly, I tried to reinforce some layering basics, by adding layer upon layer of white. This was likely a mistake.. I think I should have done w gray or a cream base coat for a few layers, and then transitioned into white layers. Lesson learned. These are just about done... I have some cross decals, but misplaced them. When I find them again, I'll add them on.

Apocalypse Orks Warband

The last sci-fi warband I did up was Orks. My girlfriend had heard some 40k lore, and thought the orks sounded pretty fun. About that time, I was getting into ebay again, and I found a few Orks and Warboss for about $30, and then bought a box of Lootas/Burnas to help bulk them out. I think a few are still on sprue? Otherwise I did pretty good working through these. Not a lot of shame buildup in the pile.

Nothing to crazy with these either. Mostly I wanted to just paint new things, rather than dive into a bunch of conversion work. I was trying to keep things simple as I got back to some hobbying in June.

For these, I just wanted to paint stuff and reinforce to some hobbying basics. I played with some browns and tans for basing, including a sepia-toned wash for the first time. For the skin I went with a subdued green, and honestly, I'm quite happy with how subdued these look overall. Nice and grim and gritty.

With the exception of the Clones, the rest of these are passible skirmish groups for Grimdark Future. If I ever do get a game in, I'll do my darndest to write up a report.