Bot War – Mercenaries

This is the end of the challenge.

All the bots I set out to paint have been completed.

There is only one more Merc in the faction that i have not yet painted, this is because its a resin Deceiver air warrior who unfortunately took a bit of a beating, so needs some TLC time with some glue before I can actually paint it.

Below you will see a gallery of all the bots I painted in the last 30 days.

It can be tough to see high mega pixel shots of your work, especially if you’re not a pro painter, and even more so when you’re painting with speed and to get models onto a gaming table.  I know people who are still painting the same 30mm miniature for the last 3 months, i knocked out 20 in 30 days, and this is slow compared to the February painting challenge, but its not a competition.  I am happy and proud of my work, its not perfect by any means, i can do better, but i wouldn’t have completed them.

And thats it, CHALLENGE COMPLETE !!!!!

……..the Bot War will continue

The penultimate day is upon me and so i have begun the final touches.

looking over the bots there are a few common areas left to paint:

• tracks
• weapons
• metalwork
• tyres

to make life simpler for me i grouped the bots based on what needed to be painted, so all of those with tracks went into one group, and those with tyres into another.  Every bot (bar Humvee) had a weapon of some kind, and the majority also had some metalwork (internal mechanics or grates etc).

First i painted the tracks, these were basecoated with vallejo game color extra opaque heavy sienna, this gives a nice ruddy brown foundation which i then highlighted with a mix of the sienna and p3 traitor green. This was then recess washed with secret weapon sewer water to give the tracks a grimy effect.

The tyres were first based in secret weapon rubber, then highlighted with secret weapon rubber highlight before getting a wash of secret weapon soft body black. This leaves a slightly gloss finish but they will all get matte varnished before gaming.

For the metal work and weapons these were already basecoated in vallejo model color German grey, so I simply sketched out highlights of P3 sickly skin before given them a glaze of Vallejo model color deep sea green to add an interesting colour change for the bots.

With these details painted its time to call it a night, but I’ll leave you with some shots of the finished details

Managed to get all bots reattached to their bases tonight, thanks to a trusty tube of Loctite.

I did wonder if I would have difficulty sticking flat metal feet onto rough textured painted bases, but so far so good, not sure they’d survive a lot of travel though…… Not that I have anyone to play against ?

Tomorrow will see the start of the end as I paint up the final details like tracks and weapons, and give whatever bot needs it a bit of a boost with some more edge highlighting and perhaps a glaze or 2 to help with contrast and saturation.

I managed to get all of the bases painted up today using my normal Bot War base workup.

After being left to set overnight, first they were all primed using an airbrush with Stynelrez Black, then had an airbrushed layer of a 50/50 mix of Scale75 Gobi Brown + Citadel XV88.

Next I then dabbed each base randomly with a mix of Army Painter Dark + Strong Tones with a little Citadel Drakenhoff added.

Once dry they were then lightly drybrushed with Citadel Typhon Ash to bring out the highlights.

Finally the edges were rimmed with 2 layers of the Gobi Brown + XV88 mix.

Once the bots are re-attched I can then add final touches like tufts.

With all bots to 90% complete it’s time to remove them from their bases and begin a big batch build so they can then be reattached before the finishing touches are applied.

If you haven’t seen my Bot War basing before it’s a pretty straight forward process but involves thick AK-Interactive diorama paste and airbrushing. I’d rather not risk messing up the bots at this stage so I’m going to carefully remove each one…. And hope that I don’t cause any damage in the process.

Sadly, I do expect some casualties, so I have taken my first proper group shot of them all before I begin.

Well it was a pretty successful debasing. 22 bases removed with only 1 mild chip on the food of one symbiote, so I’m happy with that as it will be an easy fix.

With the bases removed I set out with my pot of AK-Interactive Rough Terrain paste and some Instant Base Scatter from Rival Crafts and applied a mix of everything to the bases which after some drying time to firm up was blasted with Army Painter Anti-Shine varnish ready for painting tomorrow.

A short update today because I’m knackered.

After painting another Blackwheel recently (see my other project), I did debate painting this one in the original art, however I decided against it for faction coherency, meaning only Oleeta will be different as she is a Sell Sword and can be used by other factions.

So Blackwheel got my normal green workup only i decided to add some vallejo dark sea blue to some parts to increase interest. This colour will most likely be used in the coming days to paint weapons and other details as I think it fits the scheme well.

Blackwheel is the last of the bots I’ll be painting for this challenge, so from here on it will be final details and basing to wrap up this project on the 30th April.

Less than 7 days now until my challenge ends, and so it’s time to enter the final week.

Wraith is a repaint of the Valiant bot Speedracer, only much cooler. For 18 points Wraith is literally a ghost, able to become invisible, blind enemies it damages, and teleport anywhere on the battlefield not once, but twice. Pretty cool for getting some flank attacks or grabbing objectives.

The ordinal artwork for Wraith is very ashen greys, playing on its spectre like rules and playstyle, however I have once again opted for my Mercenaries green workup. I think it looks good, I added a subtle blue glaze to the grey face to make it look a bit cooler. It’s only a little thing but I like it and it’s another bot done!

One of the elements I like about Bot War is the resource management element which dictates how your units activate and what abilities you can use.

At the start of each turn all of your bots generate a small number of energy cubes that get added to a pool, you then distribute these cubes back to the Bots for them to then use as they activate. Each of the core actions (move, ranged attack, close attack) costs one cube, and you can do 2 activations a turn. What you can do though is “boost” once a turn, either a shield or an attack, meaning you can get an extra dice to that particular throw at the cost if an energy cube, this is where you want to dish out more than 2 cubes to the Bots that you know will want to have a more impacting ranged attack, or may be activating later in the turn so you’d want them to be a bit more resilient. Super Abilities also need cubes to activate and maintain, meaning some bots need to have 4+ cubes to stay powered up and then do their 2 activations with possibly additional cubes for boosting.

So energy cubes are a key resource to fight in Bot War, it’s extremely beneficial to have more to provide options during the game. A lot of the Mercenaries have the Artillery Support special rule which requires 2 cubes to maintain each turn after being activated. This makes the force quite energy hungry and most bots are only generating 2 energy each power up phase. This is where the concept of “batteries” comes into play, they are cheap units that are energy positive, they generate more than they use meaning there is additional cubes to go into the pool for redistribution. The Mercs have access to a Generator unit which is the perfect embodiment of a battery, it costs 4 points (forces in normal games are 80 points), and generates 2 cubes, but it has no movement, ranged or close attack stat, so it is adding 2 cubes into the pool and taking nothing out.

So, with all of that information taken on board, in order to fuel my energy hungry abilities I need a generator, so I dug out one of my spares and painted it up in my Mercs colour scheme. It’s only blu-tacked to the base for now, but I have chosen to put it on a 40mm base instead of the normal 35mm so I can also add a pile of energy cubes next to it for a cool looking piece that could also double as an objective marker.