So… we’re still waiting for 4th to kick off and most of the Age of Sigmar coverage is checking out faction focuses or being upset about individual warscroll changes (noone likes to see their favourite toys get worse). We’re still stuck in the phase that I’ve termed the “paint and wait”, where we can all throw some models on the table that aren’t needed for that next tournament but the ones we just feel like painting (ignoring the fact that a lot of people I know are just choosing to take a bit of a break)! Meanwhile… I thought I’d start off this series while I get going collecting and buidling up a Kharadron Overlords Army.
This article is a bit of a funny one… it started out with a heavy narrative slant, going through the army I was building up for a Path to Glory campaign but at the first PtG day, my phone decided it didn’t want to do anything except show me a black screen and with that I lost my momentum on the narrative coverage (narrative is probably the right way to play this game but that’s a discussion for another day).
How’d I ended up starting this Kharadron Army
I’ve been a very heavily Nighthaunt focussed player for a long time… since the days of AoS 1.0. In the meantime, I’ve dabbled with Skaven (actually… just Skryre and as much as I love the army, they never brought me much joy although this wasn’t helped by trying to play only Skryre keyword units). I decided with 3rd winding down that I’d get a new army into the mix. Well, in fact, it’s an old Kharadron Overlords army which I’d bought just when I was finishing painting my first 2000 points of Nighthaunt… in the short time frame before the reveals for the new Nighthaunt models came out. I did at one point build together some 1500 points worth of the models but that went back in the boxes at some point.
I saw the Woehammer slow grow article (check out some of the early months here, here, and here) and this was the perfect place for me to jump in… shortly after that, my mate Janis, also kicked off organising a little Path to Glory campaign to close out 3rd edition. A more or less perfect combo for me to get going slowly on my Kharadron Overlords army… or so I’d thought.
As you can see from my Nighthaunt picture above… I wouldn’t call myself a good painter by any stretch but I enjoy working out a scheme I am happy with and going for that overall army look (or gang as with my Necromunda models). For my Kharadron Overlords, I’d previously done up a warband but hadn’t been happy at all with the overall effect. I found it too bright on the table and I absolutely hated trying to spray them silver (because it kept screwing up and layering on really thickly).
Getting started with some paint
So I did a couple of tests to see how I wanted to do the models on 3 models I bought for a couple of Euros way back and then tried to apply it to a Thunderer and an Arkanaut. In the end, I went with a heavy drybrush of a dark metal colour over a black undercoat with some dark blue and dark brown to keep the overall scheme dark. Then I used my coppers (and golds for heroes) to give it some more interesting points. The key part for me with the scheme is the aethermatic globes and effects to really draw the eye in and to make that the flashes of light within an otherwise dark army.
The bases were really important here as I wanted to avoid anything which took away from that army effect so I decided to order some Mediterranean soil from Geek Gaming Scenics and some more tufts from Gamer’s Grass. I even decided to go for some flowers to help make my bases contrast against all the metals. Those differences in texture were important for me. You can see what I was trying for with the Endrinmaster the photo below.
February – the Beginning
So I started out in Feb innocently enough with a single hero, my Endrinmaster, who was to be my general for the Path to Glory army.
I tried a few new things for me (like drybrushing on the effect for the aethermatic hammer) and trying to work on details I might have ignored in the past like painting every single dial on every single KO (even when you can’t see them… I’m not sure why I do it then but it’s become a thing for me).
March – Getting into it
I needed a battleline for the Slow Grow so I got some Arkanauts out and got them ready, where I started trying to paint the scheme a little quicker than with my test models and the Endrinmaster.
The other reason was that I’d gotten a Gunhauler out and really wanted to try doing one of the ships (and my first vehicle ever). I suffered from some real uncertainty about halfway through… I even made changes to my orginal plan for how I wanted to paint it. What I did to push through was to paint up the parts I was sure I wanted in certain colours and then left it out for a couple of days where I could look at it a bunch until I could decide where else I should paint my dark blues and copper tones.
My self made light box was to small to fit the gunhauler in and I’ve got to learn to use more subassemblies to keep painting those dials!
I actually really had some fun getting it done and I started to turn my eyes to the frigate but I knew I needed to do some ‘Riggers first so that I could play in the Path to Glory Campaign with something sensible-ish.
April – Starting to look like an army (albeit a small one)
April saw me finishing off my unit of 6 ‘Riggers for the Slow Grow where I needed a scout type unit too.
Plus a Navigator… I didn’t like that curved beard on the original model so I snipped it off and made my own respirator type thing in its place. It was also a chance to make another female Kharadron of which I have a few scattered through my units where I snipped off the beards and I’m going to do more of these as I go along. It’s not always easy to do with some of the heads but I dislike having too many beards in my KO army anyway.
I couldn’t decide how to finish the lenses on the stick but I’ve later gone back and done them up “properly” as in not just black… I’ll post pics again in May’s article if I remember. The dials all ended up looking a bit too blue… I might go back in and repaint that one in the top left… but we’ll see how much it bothers me 😉
Of course… I did a bit of a “family photo” of my Path to Glory Kharadron before our first games!
The end of Part 1
So I know it’s now June and this article mysteriously ends in April but I was super late with getting this finished and it’s already pretty wordy. Maybe if I didn’t head off on tangents and ramble on about bits and pieces it would’ve been shorter but that’s not what you’ll get from me!
With the tournaments winding down and not much gaming happening in general, it’s been a great time to just paint what I want and that’s what I’ll keep doing (at least until 4th drops and I start focussing on the units I need to fill out 2000 pt lists). I am working on doing better photos (these ones are already vastly better than my old photos) and that’s slowly becoming a part of my hobbying too. May was also a pretty big month for my with the KO with games, painting, more painting, faction focus reveal and a bit more painting so I’ll be back to fill you all in on my progress again soon!
Go and check out Part 2 here if you’re keen for more!
