Hobby Update: The Empire

Willkommen meine Mitmenschen aus Reikland!



In this blog I'll be sharing pictures of my newest Empire unit(s), some tactically flexible and utterly expendable archers!

Please note, these archers are not the dreaded huntsmen, masters of the wilderness and invaluable scouts. My archers are explicitly chaff. Their role is to die so that other, more expensive units, may live.

Anyway, here are some pics!

Since the last iteration of Empire Archers from Games Workshop currently can be purchased for around $100-150 on eBay, I instead decided to use some third party miniatures. After much consideration and internet exploration, I settled on two wonderful Mercenary and Militia kits from Reptilian Overlords.

There's about a 99% chance I'll be using these kits in the future to fill out my existing units or build new ones from scratch- they're just too versatile and great.

I initially did some test prints to see how the RO minis scaled vs more modern and classic GW minis. There's a lot of scale creep and general size shenanigans in the GW line, so these RO minis actually felt both too small and too large - perfect!

With that sorted, I began general assembly. I made a few mistakes along the way, but fortunately 3D printers provide you with an inexhaustible supply of replacement parts.

I wasn't quite happy with the quivers that came with the set, so I opted to make my own arrows-stuck-in-the-ground in Blender instead. 

Once everything was assembled, I began priming. I suffered a little bit of primer fuzz unfortunately, but was able to remove most of it with some vigorous brushing using an old toothbrush.

Once primed, I hit the minis with some white zenithal spray. What I should have done was evenly coat the minis in Vallejo Grey White, since it was the majority of the model, then use a zenithal spray. However, I wanted to try out some GW Contrast Paints and, like a coward, hadn't quite settled on which province my archers would hail from (*Spoilers* the Contrast Paints did not work well for me and I decided on Reikland).

Reikland is a bit tricky to paint in a way that's visually interesting, as the majority of the uniform is white or off-white. They also tend not to feature stripes or quartering. Reikland uniforms favor colored slashes in their clothes, but, since I elected simpler clothing for my archers, these flourishes were generally unavailable. Fortunately, one set of legs featured ribbons and two torsos sported slashed backs, so we were in business.

Anyway, let's look at some painted minis! I'm overall pretty happy with how these guys turned out, especially considering the limitations of the uniforms. One of my objectives was to ensure these Reikland archers didn't feel like Talabheim or Ostland, which have fairly similar uniforms.

First, a more foppish style archer. He features a plumed cap, slashed vest, and ribboned calves.

Second, a more pragmatic archer. He's equipped with a sallet, quilted gambeson, and simple hose.

Next up, the archers broken up into units of ten.

Lastly, all twenty in a giant, twenty man skirmishing mob!

Thanks again for reading,
Nick

P.S.

I had questions about how I achieve the whites on these uniforms, so I've decided to include that info below!

As mentioned previously, I began with a grey primer, in this case Krylon K05131807 ColorMaster Paint + Primer, Ultra Flat Primer, Gray.

I then used a zenithal spray of Vallejo Air White 71.001 from my airbrush over the primed minis. 

For the Warm Whites:

-Vallejo Dark Sand 70.847
-VERY thinned Army Painter Soft Tone

-Vallejo Dark Sand 70.847 cleanup
-Vallejo Ivory 70.918 highlight
-Vallejo White 70.951 highlight

For the Cool Whites:

-Vallejo Sky Grey 70.989
-VERY thinned Army Painter Soft Tone

-Vallejo Sky Grey 70.989 cleanup
-Vallejo White Grey 70.993 highlight
-Vallejo White 70.951 highlight