Ace of Paints – Assemble the Fleet

So, last month, I decided to set out a timeline for me to get some models finished painting and get on track to try and make something happen with my painting progress. 

This is not a success post. 

By this time, I had hoped to be completed with a number of painting projects and well into my April models. Sadly, that has not happened. 

I did complete my Bane Samurai, after nearly a year of them being in a constant state of semi-Painted, which makes me pretty happy. I’m pretty sure I’m naming them all, but I’m afraid I’m going to butcher their names. 

 

Then, I started working on this big guy, as I desired. I was really gunning to get him down before the end of march so that I could have a bonus model completed: 

 

Well, Honestly, I got about this far: 

 Before I just, simply stalled out. 

Its when I got all of this in the mail, almost in the span of a single week: 

 

What you see there is: 
Slayer/Erebus Kit
Deathjack Resculpt
Skarre 3
Satyxis Raiders resculpt
Bane Knights
Cephalyx Overlords
Deathripper (x2)
Bloodwitches + blood Hag
The Slaughter Fleet Box
-Gerlak Slaughterborn
-Misery Cage
-Bloodgorgers Resculpt
-Black Ogrun Ironmongers
-Jussika Bloodtongue
-Scharde Island Dirge Seers
Satyxis Blood Priestess
Bradigan Pitt
Ashes to Ashlynn

I’m not really one to let models sit unassembled, even if I’m not going to be using them all to soon, so I had to get started right away, painting be damned. 

I started with Skarre 3

Skarre 3

Skarre 3 is the largest model I believe I have assembled, and I don’t know where I got the idea that she was going to be fun to assemble. 

We’ve all seen this image a thousand times on a thousand desks, but that doesn’t matter. Here is mine: 

She just covers the whole of the damned mat. 

The Souls and the center portion of the ship are solid resin, which is amazing and I expect also amazingly expensive. 70% of the ship’s volume is solid massive resin. There are a couple of spots I’d like to point out as problems, but before I do that, I want to preface this. 

Resin models are not made of the best material for assembling. These models, every one I have experienced, have giant injection ports, strange warping and clipping, and massive amounts of flash. That doesn’t, in my opinion, make the model any less, it is simply a limitation of the material. It is great at holding sharp detail, and it is lightweight without being overly expensive. It is still expensive, however. I didn’t really mind assembling her – except where I glued it wrong, and she was all put together except for a few parts within a day or two. 

here we go! 

 

This part has three huge injection ports, as you can see, and they are a freaking bear to get to. Thankfully, all three are in a place that really won’t affect the majority of your model. The front one is where the souls attach to the ship, and the back two are under the main area of the boat that you are likely to just paint in a nice brown. The more frontward of those two, however, is a paint to get with every tool known to men or gods, and I had to take a dremmel to it to get it where and how I wanted it. It’s not a big deal for me, but if you don’t have a mask and a grinder, I can see this being a huge time sink. 

This next part is the largest of the problems that are both encountered and reported about this big ass boat. If you look above, you’ll notice that the far portion of the two pieces is lined up pretty smooth. The fore portion, however, has a huge ass gap. This is a pain that many, many people experience, and is just, as I took it, part of the assembly process. It is hard to get to stay in place, but withholding the piece tightly and being patient it was solid enough after that I am happy with it. The flash on the end that joins to the ship didn’t help either, which you can see below, along with three more ports for Resin, though they are in an excellent spot to grind down and won’t be seen even if you decide not to. 

Another painful part of assembling the model is this image, here: 

 

You’ll notice that to the left of the image, the chunk-o-boat overlaps the actual decking by a significant margin. I extended the hole to fit the door-portion, because it is all underneath other parts of the boat, and I can see it being a simple and frustrating thing to have to deal with. It didn’t take long but was a hindrance.

All in all, though, it went together smoothly and, though it had frustrating portions, wasn’t any worse than a unit of Nyss Hunters. 

 

Slayer

With the Boat finished, I got down to putting together the new slayer chassis. It was a fairly simple plastic jack kit, and it went together easily, even though it has more parts than I’d really want it too. The head is in two parts, the leg is 3 separate sections, you know, simple thing. But it went together easily. 

What was even better here, was that I was able to easily magnetize up Erebus as well, freeing me to canabalize the old, metal Erebus I had and convert him back into a slayer. I just magnetized the nec, and put a little magnet in each of the back shoulders and the vents. Simple as anything! 

With the slayer done, I stepped into the Army box. The first thing I tackled, knowing I needed to play the 9 slayers list, was the Black Ogrun Ironmongers. 

Black Ogrun Ironmongers

These models are absolutely full of character! Each one is an excellent sculpt, and a charm to put together. The arms are separate parts that go together in a specific and easy to figure out method, with the exception of the two grunt heads, which feel interchangeable – and I used them as such because I love the “Hammer” tool model – But they really go on specific models. 

I also want to note that the unit leader is one of the best in the line. She’s wearing goggles, smoking a cigar, and wearing nothing under her mechanics apron. Tough as nails! 

 

Misery Cage

oh, right! I almost forgot the misery cage!

This only had a problem because there are two supports you have to clip out of the inside curvature, which made me really nervous that the resin would snap. I’m glad it didn’t, but I am sure that there will be at least a few people out there who’s will snap, and that’s a shame. 

Satyxis Blood Priest. 

Another Easy model to assemble, the Blood Priestess is a fantastically easy model to assemble, with a simple 4 part assembly. I didn’t like her blade behind her head, so I moved it forward to better suit my tastes, and there it is. 

her horns, a sore spot for me throughout a number of Satyxis Models over the years, went together easily. It was a charm to simply toss them into the correct spot, for once, instead of having to fuddle around with my less than great dexterity. I appreciate whoever made these, because they were awesome, as were the Skarre 3 models, come to think of it. 

Jussica Bloodtongue

Another easy pickup, Jussica was another easy to assemble model. She’s three pieces, and they slot together amazingly easy. While I wasn’t thrilled with the Pyg that she has with her, I was a touch disappointed that I didn’t get it in the box. Instead, I got an extra Iron Monger arm; which wile something, is not something I can do anything with. The only thing I’m really disappointed with on her is that she seems a shade smaller than the other trollkin, which I can forgive most of the time, but these are cannibalistic insane killers! Shouldn’t she be able to threaten them! 

Ah well. 

Bloodgorgers

After the Jussica, I couldn’t pass on the building of the Bloodgorgers. They were the first ever model I’d seen come on a sprue of resin, and it was interesting to worry about the brittle resin popping  of or simply breaking on me. I even left one be overnight because I was convinced I was going to snap him straight in half off of the sprue.

You’ll notice, on the far left, that we even have some lady-gorgers, which is pretty excellent, all told. 

These guys went together easily, much more easily than their old metal brethren, and are substantially larger. Though they do go together very specifically, its nice because its easy to assemble, paint and delineate them on the field. The Leader even has a really amazing new sculpt. My favorite by a long shot is the one with the devilish war pick! 

the detail on all of them is just really sharp, and full of cryxian character!

Satyxis Raiders

I’m a huge fan of these resculpts, btw. They are functional, flashy, stylish and light, but above all, they were a joy to assemble, With only a few pieces, and all of them in great, hearty attachment points, they wen’t together amazingly well. The only hard part of assembly was figuring out which set of whip arms went on the two ladies with the right arm forward. They do have different gauntlets, but its still a bit difficult to tell. 

cleaning and preparing them, though, was another issue all together. 

The resin bars underneath the models were miserable. I broke a number of them simply clipping off portions of flash and injection ports from the model connecting it to the sprue. Additionally, a couple of the models has support posts that are in delicate positions you have to be very wary about cutting else you could easily cut detail off the model. 

Leader and UA Sprue. The new UA is amazing! 

The whips come bent all over the place, but I’m pretty sure that just makes them better. 

This crotchpost broke more heels of the bars… 

This bar holding up the tail end of the resin skirt makes for very anxious clipping and cutting. 

I was pretty irritated to clip the whole of her toes off, but they slid back on just fine. 

In the end, though, they were all functional and ready to roll

Dirge Seer

Finally, with all that out of the way, I assembled the easy-peasy dirge seers. I expect these guys to become one of the staples of my slaughter fleet lists, because hell if guidance isn’t just awesome. Thankfully, they were easy as anything to put together, with but a single set of arms on one, and only one arm on another to be glued. 

Now, with the majority of my models put together, I can wait and see what comes up next, but try and get this storm giant done by the end of creation. We will see! 

 

’til next time!