Dreamforge Kickstarter unboxing: Part 2

Part 1 is here.


In part 2 of the unboxing I take a look at the DreamForge stormtrooper infantry.  Tons of pictures of the sprues themselves are at the bottom of this post.

The stormtroopers are hard plastic, injection molded and are 10 parts each.  While this may seem like a lot, it's the same number for Space Marines.  Mold lines are faint and easily scraped off with a blade, details are crisp and the plastic will flex.  I love the peg on the foot of the model and the hole in the base.  It makes for a sturdy join and allows you to easily build a model without needing to glue it down first.

10 parts each, plus base.  Notice the peg on the foot?

Before you build: certain arms line up with certain rifles.  The stock of some rifles have a section cut out of it so it will perfectly align with one of three right arms.  The left arms are also meant to work with certain right arms, so read the little color coded chart that comes in the box before you build!  I was not so careful and I ended up carving a small part out of a rifle stock to get it to fit.

Left to right: GW IG-based Bloot Pact, DreamForge Stormtrooper, GW Space Marine.  In the background are the older metal Stormtroopers from DreamForge, another plastic Stormtrooper and a GW Space Marine scout.

Dreamforge has gone above and beyond to make negative space work for you.  The backpack is a perfect negative of the torso back.  The detail is so fine that the backpack clicks into place when it aligns thanks to four tiny ribs that insert themselves into four tiny vents in the torso back.

Torso (with vents) on top.  Backpack with matching ribs on the bottom. Click!

The rifle stocks are the same way: any part that would have clipped through another on the 3d model has been removed, leaving a perfect negative space to receive its neighbor.  Even the drum magazines have an imprint of the rifle's side!

Even with mismatching arms and a chopped rifle stock I couldn't make him look bad!

Not glued to the base.  Attached only by the peg.

The plastic version took half as long to build and involved 100% fewer glued fingers.

Stick legs in peg on base, build torso, glue gun to right arm, glue arms to torso, glue torso to legs.

Squad option box and squad box dwarfed by Leviathan box.

Stormtrooper box.

Stormtrooper squad and diagram.  Pay attention to the diagram!

Stormtrooper sprues.

Stormtrooper sprue #1.

Stormtooper sprue #2.

Stormtrooper sprue #3.

Do you hear the voices too?

Honestly I didn't hear the voice of chaos until I pulled all my painted models out and put them in this very nice Ikea case.  It was a gift from my adoring wife a couple years ago and is a quality set up.

Skulls, Blood Pact and coconut monkeys, those Dark Angels must be worried.

I put in a few painted models I had at hand.  Looked pretty good, too.  Then I remembered the Ikea light set I picked up to add more light to each level.  Surprisingly easy to put in!  Then I needed more models since all that light showed how few their really were.  Out come the boxes and all the Blood Pact take to the shelves.   

That's when I started hearing the voices.  The sibilant whispers telling me how great the Pact are, and how proud I am of them.  Just a few models. It couldn't hurt. Besides, lots of people play 40k and when's the last time you got a game in since you left 40k?  Lots of games out there, lots of scales and genres and beautiful models, it's true.  But how many games?  Not enough, that's how many.

So I poke around at the interwebs and find a few new Blood Pact armies online and come here to add them to the links.  (Blood Pact Links on the right, now moved up to the top of the page for ease of community access.)  Blogger has changed a bit since I last logged in, so why not have a look around, post something up?  Sure, I think to myself.  But then I realize that I'm not married to GW anymore, and there were always vehicles I wanted to do but didn't want to scratch build.  Uh oh.

Credit to SniperOne for the pic.

I had thought about picking up a Sd.Kfz 251 in 1:48 scall in the past.  Pretty good fit for size and scale.  Sadly the 1:48 kits are about $30, more for the variants with turret or 75mm gun. This is about the same as GW's $35 for a chimera.  Wait, why am I even shopping?  The voices tell me to hush, and mention that Warlord games just released a plastic half-track for their 28mm game Bolt Action.

Do you have any in red?

Why yes they do, and it's only $24.  Now I always leaned towards the US M3 half-track for the Blood Pact due to a line about a pacter standing in a pulpit on his vehicle, I think any pintle mount is sufficiently pulpit-like to make it work.

So now what?  Are 40k's flesh-hooks in me?  Will I ever pick a damn army?  Ooh shiny, a Bolt Action hanomag construction step-by-step.  Thanks Mr Hairy Painter sir!  Click the pick for more pictures on his blog.

Where do you keep the blood in this thing?  You know, for the blood god?

Finished Krieg Hellhound painted with Masterclass techniques.

I had fun painting this model up, which makes me think I should do more like it.  I remember a few years ago when I couldn't wait to paint, but it became a chore to paint everything.  After all this hobby is about collecting, sometimes playing, and painting.  In that order.  :)

I had to use natural light to show the subtle details, but the sun was setting so it threw some pretty harsh shadows.  Even still, the dirt weathering pigment is easy to see in the recesses in this one.  It's also worth noting that the tank commander was painted entirely with washes, barring a few touch-ups.

The oil-paint rust streaks merge nicely with the dirt-pigment on the side of the tank.

Two colors of rust colored pigment, heavily reduced (I think I used water to pull pigment off those pipes 3 or 4 times.  Less really is more.)  I'm pretty happy with the oily fuel drums, the effect was simply built up using layers of Gryphonne Sepia, Ogryn Flesh and Devlan Mud.
  On the plate with the Imperial eagle I'm fond of the sponged paint chipping on the left edge turned out.  The dusting of dirt and rust on its right side also looks nice.

Tracks painted with umber, drybrushed with darkened boltgun and then dabbed with weathering pigment dirt.  They didn't pop until I went pack and blackened each rubber pad.  All the metallics were a mix of Boltgun and black to keep a worn, military feel.  I used blue and purple washes over the barrel of the flamethrower to show heat discoloration.  Then I added a little black pigment at the end for soot, followed by white pigment for ash.

I love the rust spots and streaks created by flicking the oil-paint.  I still have a bit to learn about the pigments, but they are surprisingly easy to use.

Secret Project, Masterclass weathering, Blood Pact N-20 wheels

In this episode of PaDA! I waffle on about trying to write a novel, post pictures as I attempt a Forgeworld Masterclass weathering technique and show off wheels for my Blood Pact vehicles that I made and a friend cast for me.  Read on, and take a tour of the three wings of my hobby mansion.  Please enjoy your stay, and do not feed the residents.

Now that the deadline for Black Library has passed, I will reveal that in most of my recent spare time I was working on a submission for a 40k novel.  I think my submission was around 16,000 words altogether and with the help of my wonderful wife, we managed to get in three reviews/edits in before it was sent off.  I'm pretty happy with the end result, and surprised that it seemed to take on a life of its own.  Now I'm curious what happens next in my own story!  Of course I know how it ends, but I want to read all those little details, I want to write all those little details.  It was also strange to read it after I sent it, if was like I wasn't reading my own work.  What was it about, you ask?  Well here is my pitch line:

"A calloused veteran of 10,000 years of war transforms two criminal youths into power armored Astartes and forces them to confront their inner darkness during his endless crusade against the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable." 
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I'm excited to say that just last night I tried out  the Forgeworld Masterclass technique of oil-paint weathering.  Not only is it very simple, the results are amazing.  It boils down to this:

1. Paint your vehicle and add minor wear like paint chips and pin wash.
2. Spray it with a couple good coats of gloss varnish.
3. Flick burnt sienna oil paint on randomly.
4. After the thinner ("spirits" for our friends across the pond) evaporates, take a wide brush and drag the oil spots down.

What this technique does is mimic the subtle streaks of dust and dirt on a vehicle, as well as create a few areas of rust which have likewise streaked vertically.  Oil paint is a pain due to its very long drying time, use of thinner (spirits) and the need to glosscoat the model first.  This is balanced by the ease of applying the technique and the amazing, subtle effect it produces.  I will be using this in the future.

Here you can see two rust spots on the front hull, as well as a few subtle streaks on the turret and upper right hull.

Some excellent subtlety in the streaks in this one.

I went heavy on the rear because it would lower to touch the ground, and thus chip more.

Opposite side.  Some tiny rust spots towards the aft, more subtle streaks towards the front.  The lower left corner of the rusted panel was painted on before hand but the oils covered the boltgun metal with grime and matched the foundation brown paint well.

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I'm also very happy to announce that Mal over at http://darkmaneuvers.blogspot.com/ is learning to cast custom pieces and as a result, my Blood Pact got some resin wheels for their N-20 halftrack.  He also made some molds for the bogies and road-wheels from the old tank kits, which are out of print now.

Very nice, very blurry, but very nice indeed.

They're the perfect size and knobbly-ness for 40k.

Here you can see the inside of the cast tire, revealing that it was but a humble drop-mold.

ForgeWorld Masterclass techniques

While I was at Warhammer World I picked up a few things from forgeword, or rather ordered them to be delivered back home.  One of these was the Masterclass Volume 1 and it is a beauty.  I highly recommend picking it up for the wealth of simple and effective tips within.  (Not to mention all the complex and effective tips also jammed in there!)

Here the masking process starts.  The model was first primed with Army Painter's Uniform Grey.  Remember to press down on the sides of the tape with a pencil tip to make sure the tape conforms to rivets and smaller details.

As I got home and looked at all my conversion and scratchbuild projects I began to yearn for simpler days.  A bog standard army, straight out of the box began to appeal.  I considered selling all my armies and starting over, but I've had that feeling before and I knew it would pass.  To scratch the simple-build itch, I assembled a Hellhound that's been sitting in its box since my last birthday.  It's a great kit, I just hadn't gotten around to it and wasn't sure how to make it fit in with the Blood Pact.  Let me put this in perspective for you: sometime's I'll spend hours, days even, just building and converting a tank or a handful of infantry, so when I built this hellhound in less than an hour I was amazed.  Well done GW, your new kits are better and better.

Here it is after the masking tape is off.  The stripes were sprayed with Montana Steel Grey.  While Montana brand makes excellent paints with low pressure nozzles, be careful to stay close to the model or some "dusting" can occur.

With a simple build under my belt I thought I'd try some Masterclass techniques and as everyone who's looked at the book knows, the only way to do that is with some Death Korps of Krieg.  Luckily I had a spare commander or two laying around and tossed one in the turret.  The following pictures are my first attempt at masking camouflage and pin washing.  (Pin washing is a fancy sounding technique wherein you don't wash the entire model, just the rivets and the panel lines.)  This gives heightened contrast and actually lets you see all those tiny details from across the room.  Simple to do, with great results.  With the pin wash picture, it's worth clicking the link for the full size as the effect is pretty subtle.

 Before pin washing.

After pin washing with third parts Gryphonne Sepia, Ogryn Flesh and water.

Next up will be the sponge-weathering you may have seen on my Blood Pact tank previously.  Then it's a gloss coat and I'll try out some oil paints on a model for the first time.  Exciting!

The rest of the process:

Blood Pact N20 halftrack breakthrough!

Well after my last blog entry went over like a lead balloon, and I am on holiday in London right now, I will keep this short.

I haven't been playing with the Blood Pact army I want to have because I couldn't come up with something to replace chimeras.  I wanted to use either the N20 halftrack, depicted in Dan Abnett's books as close support flame-spouting vehicles, or the STeG-4, depicted as a 6 wheeled armored car, but what models to use?  I considered using the six wheeled IFV for the Oni faction of AT 43.  (Pictures here, towards the bottom)  Scratch building was another option, but it would have to be simple so as to not drive me insane, the Pact already has enough modding and converting.

Enter paper models.  I saw a post on warseer and set upon the idea.  Some searching of the Tubes and I discovered several free paper models for WW2.  They looked complicated.  I was all set to order some of the 6 wheeled destroyers from AT 43, even had the order screen up, when I thought "Well, I should at least try one out."  Less than an hour later we have this:

Paper test model, paper pattern, plasticard pattern.

Huh, look at that.  Those tonka toy tires I found a while back are the perfect size.  Thanks again Shawn!

Looks good so far.

Not in scale for a WW2 halftrack, but perfect for a 40k chimera.

12 Pacters could easily fit in there.

The curved section by the door was the most difficult part, the rest is right angles.

Oh yes.  It needs a bit of putty in the gaps but it was super simple to make, will be easy to detail, easy to repeat, and I can fit 3 patterns on a $5 sheet of plasticard.

Oh yes.

I return from Blighty on the 21st, normal service will return after.

Painted BloodPact Sentinel w/ Dave Taylor style chaos star

Here is the 35 point model I've just spent two weeks working on.  I originally was not planning on using any Sentinels in my force, but when I got one for my birthday (cheers John!) I became enamored with the new kit.  With a note like this one, how could I not use it?

I'd also like to thank Dave Taylor for his great tutorial on how he paints his chaos stars.  It was an easy addition to make thanks to his efforts.

I started out by converting up the kit by raising the weapon mount, replacing the exhausts with fuel tanks and some other minor additions as seen in my WIP post.



After applying pumice paste to a textured dreadnought base I primed the model black and proceeded to paint the driver before completing assembly as seen here.


Once the model was fully assembled I made sure to grey line all the edges to pick out detail, and then weather the vehicle with old GW fleshwash over metal and watered down bright orange paint in the recesses for rust.

I added paint chipping by dabbing with a sponge, silver over the black or black over the red.  Then I went back and added some more rust and dirt because a) it's fun and b) this is a looted vehicle after all.  I had a blast painting it, I just wish it was more than simply 35 points of my army.  At this rate I'll be a while, but never mind me, on to the pictures!

Backup fuel tank at the waist, custom exhaust, brass etch chaos star and a better look at the cadian flamer tanks used as fuel tanks.

Weapon mount, weathering on roll cage and hip joint, long view of the base.

I like the relationship between the driver and the raised weapon mount.  In this position he could use the old Mk1 eyeball when targeters fail.

Close up of weathering on the leg.  I'm also quite proud of the targeting system put on the chin in place of the weapon.  It's simply the binocular system from the Steel Legion style Sentinel with the lenses repositioned.

And lastly the base.  Part of me felt bad about smothering all that lovely plastic detail with pumice paste, but it turned out well I think.  I love the spent shells and hidden crevaces in the rocks.