The Daemon is in the details
Well, I did a couple of test schemes (you can see the failed ones on the far right of each of the Daemon units) to try out some options. After that, I got everybody painted up, or at least their base coats done. I started on the Horrors, but ran out of time, so I'll have to save them for a little later. I'll admit, I'm a little intimidated by the Horrors. Although I know they'll look cool when I'm done, they also look fairly difficult to paint, and I'm having a hard time with the color scheme. The traditional scheme is Pink and Blue, which doesn't fit the theme of the rest of my army. Should I paint them that color anyway, or should I do the Grey and Blue of the rest of my army? The Furies just need some Gold, a bit of watered down Blue ink and maybe a quick drybrush of Grey and they'll be complete. The Dragon Ogre is done. The Screamers also just need the ink wash and light drybrush and they'll be done as well. That will leave me with 2 more Dragon Ogres, 3 Exalted Champs and my Marauder Horsemen still to go. It's getting close to crunch time here!
Okay, so this week, I covered Details and Highlighting and Shading. I explained different ways to do each of them and showed an example of each. For Details, I painted the eyes and teeth of the Dragon Ogre/Daemon Prince, as well as some decorations and Chaos symbols on his armor. For Shading, I used a watered-down Blue Ink Wash over him to settle in the recesses and increase the contrast between them and the raised areas. This also had the effect of making his skin tone a bit more blue. For Highlighting, I took advantage of this darker skin tone and drybrushed the original color back on, making the highest areas distinctly lighter, further increasing the contrast between low and high points. Next week, I'll cover basing, then we'll have our tournament with whatever is fully Painted, Detailed, Highlighted and Shaded! The Tau player commented to me that he was getting a lot done on his Tau and that he was really glad I was doing the event, since it made him get up and do stuff, which made me feel very good.
The Space Wolf player couldn't play this week, so there were three of us. Both the Tau and Guard players had gotten a lot done and we setup for a game of Carpe Ranam. The objective was a Tyranid Zoanthrope that would move randomly (scatter die and 2d6 inches) if anyone shot or assaulted within 6 inches of it. Random turn-length game. Whoever had the closest model to the Zoanthrope at the end won the game. I set up with an eye to keep my Daemon Prince protected from all the shooty nastiness. (taking on Guard AND Tau? What am I, nuts?) We were playing on a semi-open city board. The Guard player moved a few squads up to get sight of the objective and wiped out an entire squad of Firewarriors with his Leman Russ. The Tau player advanced his Pathfinders in their Devilfish. A pair of drones got line of sight on my Daemon Prince and one actually wounded him and he failed the save! Turn 2, I made my reserve rolls and the Daemons came in. The Daemonettes were too far from the Tau to do anything, so I sent them to hide around a building from the approaching Guard squads. The Screamers scattered toward the Tau and came in behind the Pathfinders. (A little too close, I had to leave one off the table.) They proceeded to eat the pathfinder squad. The Guard player moved up and shot a few Daemonettes, but didn't get many. The Tau player rearranged his lines and hosed down my Screamers, killing all of them, while the Crisis Suits moved toward my Prince. After that, my memory gets a little fuzzy, but here's what happened. Crisis Suits and Daemon Prince played a bit of Cat and Mouse, trying to get the drop on him without getting charged. Meanwhile, the Tau player tried to keep out of sight of the Leman Russ. (Great visual here, as the Guard player managed to get LOS to a single Fire Warrior in some ruins, through a blown-out window. Looking over the Fire Warrior's shoulder, all you could see was the barrell of the battle cannon! Unfortunately, it scattered away.) The Daemonettes eat a bunch of Guard, and the LT and a Missile team get thrown into the fray to stop them. Although it's to no avail, the missile team did manage to take down a couple of daemonettes, which is better than the Lieutenant did! On turn 4 and 5, the Zoanthrope, apparently spooked by all the carnage in the streets between the Guardsmen and the Daemonettes, leapt toward the Tau. At game end, the Tau had the closest model, so they won.
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