Experimenting with Grey Primer

I have had continual trouble with primer through my entire hobby experience. Some of it comes from, it seems, always having the time and inclination to paint at the exact opposite time when its good to prime things – when its warm, super-humid and generally gross outside.

But beyond that, several brands of primer have given me pretty bad results under the best of conditions. I flat out don’t use Armory-brand primer anymore (the stuff with the Dork Tower characters on the label) after a simple prime job left me trying to strip the paint off about 30 miniatures…twice. Very, very grainy, it looked like my models had been caked in white dirt. This was despite waiting for perfect conditions, shaking way more than any reasonable can of paint can require, etc. Just bad stuff. The Citadel primer (sold by GW) is off and on – sometimes it works well enough, sometimes it doesn’t.

Following the recommendation from some other people, I’m now trying a two-fold experiment. First is switching to Krylon brand primers – perhaps a company that specializes in selling spray paint will, well, make good spray paint. I’m also trying their grey primer.

The reason for this second part is driven mostly by the Huntsmen color scheme – green and white. It doesn’t matter much what color the Green side gets primed, since between the strong foundation colors Citadel puts out, a coat or two of Dark Angels green, a wash and highlighting, its pretty clear the color is green. White on the other hand is tricky – you can’t highlight pure white, because how are you going to paint on a color that’s a lighter shade of pure white? So all the definition in the model is based on highlighting. This is mostly done with grey, so it seems to make sense rather than painting over a layer of white, just skip straight to the grey. The one risk seems to me that while white primer you missed while basecoating stands out, and black primer just looks like a shadow, grey primer may be really noticeable. We’ll see how it comes out when painting.

I’ll say this though: The first batch went on smooth and even, and I’m pretty pleased with the Krylon stuff. We’ll see how it handles metal later.

Assault on Black Reach Space Marines: A Short Review

The Assault on Black Reach boxed starter set for the latest edition of Warhammer 40K came out awhile ago, and marketing hype from GW aside, was very well received. As far as starter sets go, it was pretty packed with stuff – both Orks and Space Marines got a core unit, a commander, plus sundry goodies like Terminators, Dreadnoughts and Deffcoptas.

Oh, and a tiny, oh so convenient rulebook.

This is not a review of the boxed set. Because really, I have nothing to add. No my friends, this is a review of the Space Marine models inside:

Generally, they’re good. The figures are designed to be easily assembled, so they’re single-pose, “Insert Peg into Slot” type figures. Which, while limited in their dynamic range, its probably best for beginners. And really, when it comes down to it, they’re in the same “advancing slowly with bolter held to chest” that probably 90% of the multi-part Space Marines are in anyway. Size-wise they’re the same, and generally they should blend into an existing army without much effort. They do seem to be an improvement over the previous editions starter Space Marines.

The casting quality is good, they’re made out of the “Dark Grey”, somewhat harder plastic GW has taken to using – which is generally resulting in plastics that look way better. Which leads us to one of my two gripes with the figures, and the only one that’s really generalizable: Molding decisions. I understand that GW packed *a ton* into those sprues, and in the process had to make some space saving decisions. Which is fine, and I appreciate – except invariably two points of connection from the model to the frame are on the shoulder pads. The smooth, curved shoulder pads. It is *extremely* hard in my experience to preserve the ultra-smooth curve when separating the models, and the harder plastic means its harder to smooth out the divot that tends to get produced, as well as the inevitable mold line. Its a minor point, and odds are noone will notice – especially not when my boys are getting their shoulders painted black – but it is none the less irritating.

The other gripe is that they use slotted bases – again, for the ease of beginning players. But I use custom bases for my guys, and cutting them off gives their feet really weird angles. But that’s really petty, and pretty me-specific.

Overall, they’re great, and a decently cheap way to add some bulk to your force, get a nice portable ruleset, and some Orks to use in live-fire drills.

Minor Delays

A tip for those embarking on major modeling projects having just moved…don’t half unpack your stuff.

I’ve got some stuff unpacked, sitting on my disaster of a desk, and other stuff still in boxes. And most importantly, no idea what is in what pile. Has anyone seen my knife?

Oh Space Wolves, what have they done to you?

I’ve been eagerly awaiting news of the incoming Space Wolves codex, because to be honest, the Space Wolves are awesome. I’ve always favored the Dark Angels or one of my own creations in terms of gaming style, but the SWs have always had a place in my heart.

Much of it is their attitude in the setting. They’re a touch silly, because everything in Warhammer is a touch silly, but they’ve got some very compelling thematic elements. On one hand, you’ve got a group of insanely powerful warriors with the same “Doomed Berzerker” theme as the Blood Angels, but without all the poetic angst. And they’ve also got a great humanist bent to them, a grounding that doesn’t exist for alot of the other chapters. They’re absolutely the types that will come howling (literally) out of the night, and leave the floors slick with blood, the Inquisition wondering if they are still entirely on the Imperium’s side. At the same time, they’ll also protest loudly about the treatment of the civilians of Armageddon. They’re a great army.

So, despite my “Why DIY” post, I’ve been waiting for news about them to make sure I didn’t want to head down that path. The good news: I know now. The bad: It’s because they Space Wolves have gotten *silly*.

Specifically, this guy:

Not content with their normal “Lets put a skull on it”, we have a wolf, poised like a dressage horse, in armor, with a bionic eye that looks like it shoots lasers. Atop it rides a Space Wolf, with a pair of lighting claws, waving his hands about, as if to say “Look at me, riding a huuuuuuge freaking wolf!”.

We’ve past Grimdark, shot right through funny, and landed squarely in some sort of absurdist, gonzo miniatures making.

Space Hulk!

I…am looking forward to Space Hulk. Rather than rehash the news and information that’s been floating around about it (briefly, $99, limited run, full complement of miniatures, tokens etc), I thought I would spend some time talking about my experience with the game – the game that actually got me into miniatures in a big way.

Why DIY?

WordPress was acting up last night and ate the first version of this post, so we’ll see how this works a second time around.

The question that occurs to me every time I get frustrated with my somewhat irritating paint scheme (see the blog header), or the various 40K forums get worked up into a froth about the clear overpowered nature of Random Codex #17 is why exactly I’m bothering with a homebrew chapter. After all, the canon chapters get beautifully sculpted characters with conveniently placed iconography, handy paint bottles in their primary colors (and indeed at one point spray cans), and free chapter-specific shoulder decals.

The Beginning is a very delicate time…

Hello, and welcome to The Huntsmen Project. The blog is small, for now, but the hope is that it will not remain so for very long. The primary purpose of this blog is to track the progress of the construction of a Do-It-Yourself, non-canon Space Marines army for Warhammer 40K. If that last sentence doesn’t mean much to you, I’m sure the good folks at Games Workshop will be happy to tell you more – keep an eye on your credit card though.

From time to time however, we’ll digress into either other aspects of Warhammer as a setting, as a game, and indeed on RPGs and miniatures games in general – particularly Pendragon, Blue Planet, Exalted or a number of other games that have caught my fancy.

Comments, requests and the like are always welcome of course. Thanks for visiting, and pleasant reading.