I've just finished repainting some of my Imperial Navy fleet for Battlefleet Gothic. The old ships (as you can see) were not painted in a consistent colour scheme, so I decided to strip them off and repaint them.
About half of the original fleet remains unpainted. I think that I will turn them into a Rogue Trader fleet: I have some old Space Fleet ships which are quite characterful and would work well in that faction.
One innovation in my painting technique for these ships was the use of Sharpies metallic pens to do a lot of the metal. It's much faster and easier than brushing on paint, and the finish is perfect. I recommend investing in some!
You may recall that last year I painted a Cairn-class Tomb Ship, which inspired my to repaint the other ships in my fleet. Well, there they all are!
The colour scheme is based on the same bronze and gold scheme I’ve used on my Epic- and 40K-scale Necrons, so there is consistency across all three games.
More pics below.
Scythe-class Harvest Ships. Shroud-class Light Cruisers. Jackal- and Dirge-class escorts. The assembled fleet.
I picked this model up for a (relative) song on eBay. A couple of days ago I had a catch-up session with the airbush, to prime a bunch of models that had been sitting there waiting to be painted, and the Cairn was one of them.
I have been thinking about repainting my BFG Necron fleet, which currently has a rather uninspiring paint job, so I tried out a new colour scheme on this model. The scheme is based on the same bronze and gold scheme I've used on my Epic- and 40K-scale Necrons, so there is consistency across all three games.
Just what are the Demiurg? They've been part of Warhammer 40,000 canon since the release of Battlefleet Gothic back in 1999. Some have seen them as an attempt to re-introduce the Space Dwarf archetype after the unfortunate fate which befell the Squats. Others have noted the similarities between the Demiurg and the Bentusi race from the Homeworld series (NB, save Homeworld!).
Anyway, while there are rumours about the Demiurg making an appearance when the Tau codex is revised, you can play as Demiurg in Battlefleet Gothic. There are two ship types that are available from Forgeworld: the massive Stronghold ship, and the smaller Bastion cruiser.
Several years ago I bought four of these smaller ships with the intention of giving them to a friend as a christmas present. Shamefully, they've languished in the queue since then. But now I've finally finished them!
The paint job is very simple: Army Painter Uniform grey, washed with a 50/50 mix of Badab Black and water, then drybrushed with Coat d'Arms Slate Grey, and finally Citadel Rakarth Flesh. These models are a dry-brusher's wet dream. I picked out some of the surface detail using Tin Bitz or Gunmetal, which I then washed with Devlan Mud.
Here are some Falchion class escort ships. I've been thinking about repainting my BFG Imperial Navy fleet, as each squadron has been painted with a different colour scheme which doesn't really make sense. I decided to go for a fairly simple style and a more realistic look (the idea of painting billions of litres of paint onto the outside of a ship which no-one will ever see doesn't make much sense to me). This is just Army Painter grey primer covered in a watered down mix of Badab Black and Devlan Mud, drybrushed with codex and fortress grey.
I haven't had a chance to play Battlefleet Gothic for a couple of years: I used to have a nice black gaming board (painted with scratch resistant floor paint) but I had to jettison it when I had my basement refurbished.
When you are short of space to store rigid gaming boards, mats are a great solution. They can be rolled or folded and take up very little space when stored. And there are some great manufacturers out there: Zuzzy textured rubber mats are pretty awesome, but there's also Eric Hotz's felt mats and those of TerrainMat.com.
A few days ago I bit the bullet and decided to buy a gaming mat: I miss playing BFG and want to get back into it! As it turned out, the Hotz Deep Space Mat which most closely fits the size of my kitchen table was very affordable, and shipping was good too. The only downside was the five week waiting time. So I was very pleasantly surprised when my mat turned up this week!
The mat is really nice: the colours are sharp and the felt is a nice deep black, which is important to properly convey just how black space really is. The only quibble I have is that the stars are quite big blobs, but this is really a very minor thing. Here are some pictures of the mat, laid out on the floor of my basement:
This inspired me to get my old Imperial Navy fleet out for a dust-off: I finished it some time around 2000 and I'm still quite pleased with it. Here are some photos:
Painting BFG ships is pleasingly simple: black undercoat and lots of drybrushing! Simple but really effective, and very rewarding to do. The miniatures themselves are absolutely gorgeous. And the fact that you can create quite a large fleet but still only have to paint a dozen or so models is a big plus for a time starved gamer like me.
You'll see some planets above - the big ones I bought from an anonymous vendor at Salute 2009. The smaller moon is one of my own creations: basically just a styrofoam ball from a craft shop, painted with textured paint and washed with red and brown.
I also have a small Necron fleet and some static defence stations, but they can wait for another post :-)
