Building Planetary Empires!

 We got Planetary Empires done last month for the beginning of the Brave New Waaagh!!!  The guys have been battling it out over the last few weeks on the planet Nokk, so I thought I'd post these pictures of the humble beginnings!

 We resolved to complete the project as quickly as possible, but it still ended up taking a week for Planetary Empires and the Hive City Tiles.  We had an idea in mind and thought we'd dedicate the Warhammer 40,000 empires box to our new set of "Brown World" terrain, since we also have Mighty Empires and plan on doing that one in a "Green World" motif.  So, welcome to planet Nokk!

 Jerry Wargate and I gathered our materials and began by spraying all the tiles with the Army Painter's Desert Yellow spray primer, which gave it a nice shade of dirt.  I heartily recommend the Army Painter's line of products, and have linked their main site here and on the main links list, so check out all their really cool products that make our modelling quick and easy.

Spraying the tiles.  Remember kids, fumes are noxious!

 We took the base colored tiles and clipped them from the sprue.  With a bottle of Desert Yellow paint we filled in the clip marks and touched any tiles up we needed to.  Some tiles needed a second spray altogether so we just gave it to them all at once.

Base colored spaceport tile.  The clip together teeth are tight!!

 Then we began painting them.  There were 50 total tiles, (48 in the box and 2 Hives) and about 8 of those were only one sided.  So, 42 tiles x 2 sides each took about 3 actual working days to complete between the two of us.

 It was really fun going through and choosing color schemes for the tiles.  Going by some of GW's illustrations, there's a lot of ways this can be put together - but our agenda was simple.  Planet Nokk is a dry and nearly barren wasteland, with few trees and little water.  It was easy!

A vision of diligence.

After all the tiles were painted, they got a bath of Quickshade Strong Coat. This is another Army Painter product that by now I'm sure everyone is familiar with.  If not, check it out on their main site - it's a gas once you learn to accept it's use.  It's a bit like that liquid oxygen fluid in The Abyss.  You don't want to start it, but once you do it's actually pretty cool.

It's difficult for me to adapt to use of the Quickshade, because I usually use a black undercoat and use that to help me shade through all the stages of my painting technique.  I have a fairly developed style and Quickshade makes a mockery of it - so I basically have to paint in reverse.

 If you can develop a style that plays to it's strengths, the Quickshade is an invaluable tool.  Luckily, I had Jerry there and you can check out his videos on the subject here and in the links section.

Shaded, not antiglossed.

 Of course, when using the Quickshade, you probably want to apply some of their Anti-Gloss as well.  Personally, many of you know I break from accepted practice by applying gloss coats to many of my miniatures.  To me, a gloss coat adds a special quality of togetherness to a model, and many of my armies have gloss coated miniatures.  However, the sheer weight of time that I've been collecting models means that even in a single army you can find gloss and matte varnished miniatures.

 Since I've started using Quickshade, I've come to the light.  Matte seal is the way to go on minis simply because if you do them all the same way, upon close inspection they all appear more similar.  Not that the gloss coat on some of the models and matte coat on others is distracting (there are literally too many orks to worry about that) but from an aesthetic point of view the uniformity is especially appealing to me.

 Not only that, but when applying Quickshade it doesn't always dry evenly.  This means the basic coat may leave some spots shiny while others are dull.  Best option - apply an antigloss spray to the entire model!

A bombed out, ruinous crater.  Now with Anti-Gloss!

 We've been playing the campaign pretty much right out of the box!  The style is fun, loose and appropriate to our gaming habits!  The finished Planetary Empires looks great with all the pieces put together and everyone has had a blast routinely checking on the fate of planet Nokk!

The Realms of the Ruthless.

 We'll be doing the Mighty Empires for our next Warhammer campaign as well!  Join us at the Wargate next Sunday for more battles on Nokk, as well as a few other surprises!