John Blanche Vol 1 & 2 by Army Painter...a new good thing.

 

Wanted to post a quick one as I had a very enjoyable experience with a new set of paints.

I like paint.  I have too many bottles of paint.  My miniature painting journey began many years ago and included Testor and Tamiya paints.  These were primarily for D&D and military models.  Think Ral Partha and Grenadier miniatures.  Years went by and I picked up painting again and used Reaper and Vallejo paints.  I had a few of the old screw cap Citadel paint pots, which were my prized paints but just a little too expensive for me at the time. 

Fast forward a few more years and one day my daughter and I were walking out of a bookstore only to spy a sign that said “Warhammer” and my life was changed forever.  Citadel seemed to have a paint for every occasion and color and the mini boxes even told you what to buy!

Not so long and a few spilled pots later I decided to see what else was out there.  I tried Scale75 and while they did have a bit of a learning curve, I was very pleased the results.  Then ProAcryl became all the rage and I bought quite a bit of those paints.  I will be honest, everyone loves them but I have had my issues, mainly some of the colors being very hydrophobic and lacking surface adhesion to the miniatures (looking at you greens).  But their white and off-white colors are pretty amazing.

And then the guy at the Warhammer store (no really) told me to try AK Interactive and those absolutely were THE paints.  To the point that all other have remained mostly unused except for terrain (well except Incubi Darkness and Abyssal Blue, those two are awesome!).  I will add, I do use quite a few Contrast and Instant paints from Citadel and Scale75 still.

But, I get bored, and I did have a few holes in my AK Collection.  And I kept seeing these John Blanche paints popping up here and there.

Now I admit, I have always avoided Army Painter as they seemed lower end (the pre Fanatic range that is) and by the time the new Fanatic range came out I was fully committed to AK.  But I bought a wash set and kind of liked them (although they can be a bit glossy if you don’t shake them enough).  But I resisted buying any of the new regular paints just based on reviews claiming they were very thick and had a satin finish (matte finish all the way for me!)

But….I just could not resist the John Blanche set.  Perfect for Trench Crusade, yeah?  And it pretty much has all the colors I like best and filled most of the holes in my decently large AK collection.  So, I bought Volume 1 with a credit I had on Amazon, started painting this guy and immediately ordered Volume 2!  Thank you for next day shipping (and no, my local store did not have one in stock unfortunately).

The paints remind me of the best of the best of Citadel.  They are thick, but that just was not a problem.  They are very smooth and creamy and mix very well, and they mix fine with my AK paints.

 

I did this miniature (kit bash from Wildercorp Hunters and Cities of Sigmar because I lost his original arm) using every trick I know.  Wet blending, dry brushing, used the washes (mainly on the belt and gloves and some pin lining) and even tried some NMM.  They did dry very satin, but I actually tried Scale75 Instant “Dispel Magic” medium mixed in them to dull them down a bit.  But in the end, that is what matte varnish is for, right?

Oh, and bonus, they were perfect still on my wet palette the next day, something I can not say about AK Interactive. 

Banshee Brown is a Rhinox Hide replacement and Bloodmoon red is basically contrast Blood Angels Red.  All the greens are amazing shades and well they are all pretty great colors and paints IMO.  The only exception was the Ivory White.  It was fine, but super thick and I honestly have much better off-whites and ivories in my collection so wasn’t wowed by it like I was the rest of the paints.  The only paints I did not use or mess with was the Fiery Vermillion and Heavy Metal.  But, these two seem to be favorites in several of the YouTube reviews I watched.  I just sort of ran out of miniature to paint.

Anyway, big thumbs up on these sets.  Will I but more Army Painter paints….I have no idea.  Are they a great value….I don’t know, paints have gone up and up in price so I am not sure.  But I am glad I have them.  I plan on using them exclusively on a Trench Crusade warband……should be perfect!

 

 

Five Parsecs From Home - Starfire Scoudrels and the Rival

 Episode 3 -

 After the successful mission assisting the VIP recover the "stolen" research for Biomorphix Corp the crew decided to relax and get ready to possibly leave Mirrorshroud on route to the recently discovered Salvage Job.  While exploring town, Kai received a message from an old hacker contact that there was a data-stick on Mirrorshroud and asked if she could retrieve it....one catch.  Her personal rival Drave Spectre was on route to intercept the data-stick.  Kai couldn't pass up the possibility to earn some credits from a old friend and get rid of her rival for good.  And as a bonus, she was told this was a known loot cache and therefore more to be found than just a data-stick.  Captain Voss agreed, but unfortunately Rax would have to set this one out as he was in the middle of prepping the Starlight Vanguard for dust off.  

The crew of now five, armed up and made way to the area where the cache was supposed to be found.  And they had it on good authority their Drave had hired some local Tech Gangers to provide some extra firepower. 

Drave Spectre (right) the Freelance Hacker and a Tech Gang Sharpshooter

 This was a pretty straight forward deployment with the enemy randomly placed on one edge of the table, which just so happened to be a pretty lucky spot for the Starfire Scoundrels.

 The mini's were all Infinity and the table was set up with a mix of BattleSystems, TinkerTurf and MicroArt Studio,

 

 Drave and his crew at the top with the Starfire Scoundrels on the bottom, equidistant to the loot cache.

The two crews move into position

Drave shows himself

First blood as Voss wheels into motion and takes down one of the gangers as Drave charges across the street towards the cache

A barrage of gunfire from the opposing rooftops echos through the streets.  In the end the tech ganger sharpshooter is down

Drave throws a smoke grenade, but Voss's cyber eye sees through the darkness and engages in melee.  They both hit and both do damage and both escape via a spent luck point

Drave literally runs right into Hex Tanis, and that is his end...

After taking out the final ganger and as the smoke clears, the Starfire Scoundrels look down over the fallen Drave Spectre.

 

Kai drops down and checks the loot cache...the datastick is there along with two damaged items - nano sludge and a motion tracker.  

The tech gangers have a set of Flex Armor and Drave's neural optimizer is "removed" from his skull.  Interestingly, he too has a data-stick and it contains a quest rumor involving the derelict salvage ship Voss has recently discovered.

The crew hastens back to the ship.  There may be other interested parties headed for the salvage job.  Rax has the ship ready, and hey! He sold 3 credits of cargo and got 2 more credits on the side while waiting for the crew to return.

The Starlight Vanguard  receives clearance to depart and the Starfire Scoundrels leave Mirrorshroud on route to the derelict vessel far out on the edge of the Nexus system.