Hobby Update: The Empire

Hey folks, welcome back!

Excuse my absence, it's been a minute.

This blog focuses on the first unit of Warhammer Fantasy Battles I've painted in oh, about 12 years or so. It's a pleasure returning to the old world and I couldn't be more excited to spruce up and round of my classic Empire force!

Rather than start with something reasonable, like a lone hero or something, I decided to crank out a full fifteen man unit of Knights of the White Wolf, the templars in service to Al-Ulric, the leader of the Cult of Ulric and High Priest of Middenheim.

I still had many of these guys in my now ancient collection when I began the project, but I did round them out with a few nifty eBay purchases as well. My knights were in all different states of assembly, painting, and general completeness; some were missing parts or had cobbled together alternatives crafted by my boyish hands over a decade ago. I also had never been happy with the original plastic head sculpts, so while we were in the midst of scrubbing paint and reassembling knights, why not sport for some upgrades?

After scouring much of the internet, I settled upon these fantastic STLs from Puppets War which fit the bill.

Stern, menacing, scarred, and (for the most part) possessing wild, flowing long hair. Using the nifty 3D printer (Phrozen Sonic 4k Mini) that my wife purchased me, I swiftly had my new heads ready for assembly.

These were a little tricky to affix, needing some pinvise work in order to fit the neck sockets on the plastic torsos. Likewise, some 3D printer resin doesn't love super glue, so there was quite a bit of fiddling around before they stuck.

I also took the opportunity to sculpt and print some nice fur capes to round out the unit. This was a tedious and painstaking process, but I'm glad I invested the time to learn a bit.

Now fully kitted out and (at the time) ranked up, it was time for these ferocious warriors to hit the spray booth.

Once primed grey, I next airbrushed the whole unit Vallejo Steel. The majority of the miniatures are in full plate armor, so this allowed me to knock out most of the surface area in one fell swoop. After that, my tasks became to pick out every detail with a brush.

Here we see the flying circus being given skin tone and red.

One knight receives his skin tone.

More progress! Did I mention doing fifteen knights at once can be tedious?

I like to pin my knights to their horses. It gives me more control during painting and greater stability once glued in place.

The first knight with painted gauntlet (oh my!).

The queue for leather is quite long.

The skin, leather, and hair is finally inked. There's something wonderful about seeing these miniatures come together. While the heads and 3D printed capes are clearly new additions, somehow they feel "right" to me. It's funny how the mind can make "new" things feel like "originals."

The whole unit, inked.

I use a secret recipe of blue, black, and warm toned inks to get the armor looking just right.

Here are some knights with fresh new faces and hairdos.

The bottom line of knights eagerly await their turn for full faces and hair.

A closeup on a particularly mean mug.

Some stern and other wild expressions.

The last batch of faces now painted.

With the knights done, it's now time to start painting fifteen horses. This felt more tedious than the knights, despite taking less time. I began by airbrushing them all red, as their armor plates cover most of their bodies.

Now for all the other details.

You might notice the tails are different from normal steeds of that era (or not). I made sure to pin and reposition every tail to prevent them snapping off or causing collisions with other models.

All the knights ranked up, steeds unfinished. You might notice that the placement of knights has changed...somehow during painting, some knights no longer ranked up!

Here they are with the first step in basing complete- good ol' sand.

Here's the unit fully painted (even with knock-off Goblin Green base trim)! I'm pretty jazzed with how these turned out, though I might need to do a few heroes or artillery next to break up the L.U.F. (Large Unit Fatigue).