Dust Tactics Model Review

We've just painted up our first set of Dust Tactics. This stuff is intense.

The walker sculpts are great. I don't know if FFG has plans to make ridiculous super tanks, but they should. Both the Allies and Axis have some cool designs, and after six years of painting Flames of War I can say the Allied units certainly have a very WW2 feel.

The infantry are nice models. They've got a certain simplicity: part of this is because they're in bog standard military uniforms and armor. The other part is that that they don't share the GW aesthetic of packing lots of characterful doodads. This is neither here nor there, but I always prefer doodads. 

The Axis forces are fantastic. I don't know if this is just the Gamer "gas masks and Nazi colors" fetish, but they just have so much more style and presence:

Come on. How can you not like that?

The infantry do have a lack of detail on their faces, and I've noticed this about FFG's board game minis too. There's just nothing interesting about the faces -- Reaper often has this problem too -- they do boring faces that are bored of themselves. 

Dust Tactics is a good source of cheaper armor if you're looking for a bunch of interesting walkers -- and I bet there'll be super tanks from them soon enough. The Axis forces look great as Krieg or Steel Legion stand ins, and with a few bitz slapped on you've got some fantastic sentinels. Oh, and I bet Dust Tactics is probably a good game too. 

"Dipped" Orks

We did some dipped Orks for long-time client, Eric Hagele recently. By dipped, I mean we used the GW wash technique we learned recently. 

Predictably, they came out a lot cleaner and more uniform looking than dipping normally does:

We also got to use some Kromlech parts here, to make some Kommando conversions. We used a regular Ork Boyz kit, but the Kromlech Kommando heads; backpacks; and shotguns. The results are quite nice, you can buy Kromlech at a discount from thewarstore.com .

Here are some shots of the other goodies. 

Cheers,

Navin

"Dipping" is Dead

It has been for a while now actually, only we just got the memo about a month ago.

When GW came out with their washes, I remember a lot of enthusiasm and proud pictures going up, of people using them on basecoated figures. The results looked nice and we tried duplicating them, but to no effect.

We then left them aside and didn't think anything of it till Jason Bickford asked us to use some Devlan Mud on his Skaven, rather than dipping them. Here are the results:

https://picasaweb.google.com/105582963113829861589/JasonBickfordSkavenAndLizardmen#5737805490949723522

I fell out of my chair, and promptly stole the idea. It was quite simple really, and something I'm sure everyone else has been doing for a while now - just a 1:1 mix of the wash, and water. That's it. A single coat, and your done.

In our earlier tests we had tried doing multiple thin coats, and that just didn't gave us anywhere near these results.

We did a few tests after that, but the definite one was these that we did for Kevin Worden using a mix of Badab Black and Gryphone Sepia:

These are much cleaner and easier to do than regular, polyurethane dipping like the Army Painter series. They dry matte, and they dry quick -- especially given the tropical climate out here, drying time for polyurethane has never been something I've been fond of.

It's a little pricier per figure to use the Washes - or rather the "Shades" as GW has rebranded them, but I think it's completely worth it. You get a much better look, for far less time, and its much easier to clean up if you make any mistakes.

So that's our big secret for how we're doing "dipping" from now on. We're really just using the GW Shades, and yes, I think we really have been the last people to have figured this out!

Cheers and be well, 

Navin

"Dipped" Chaos Daemons

Here are some Chaos Daemons we just finished for Max Niven. They're dipped -- or are they?

Dipping is a messy, costly, time-consuming process that you have to work really hard at to make work. It also only comes in shades of brown.

We did something different here, that we've been planning and building up to for a while. It's the same price as our other dipping, and as you can see, looks better and cleaner. It will also work in other shades than brown, which should make for much better appearance.

We have a large set of Undead that we're putting up next that I think puts the final nail in the coffin of the old method. Once those are ready, we're going to tell you all how we did this, and how we're doing "Dipping" from now on.