MonsterMarch #2 – speedpaint those knights! – Vince on all things Kings of War

Last week, I posted about my pledge for MonsterMarch 22: a horde of knights. While a few of these knights were painted already, exactly half of them were not.

Swordmaster (the gracious host of this challenge) posted that the full model count for a horde of knights would be be 32. That might be a bit excessive, as I don’t know how to fit that many unto a single horde base. 😉 I guess, it’s a slip of the keyboard, which I gladly forgive him as the guy who actually reads all these posts. Anyhow, a full model count knight horde is 20 models, but as I do use old GW knights I can fit no more than 7 models on a regiment base if I want some scenery. My horde will be 14 or 15 models, depending on room.

14 models, 7 finished, means 7 knights to be speedpainted.

I started out by scouring my bits box for knights, but I had to raid my brother’s collection as I was a few models short. Especially as I wanted the knights to have various two-handed weapons instead of lances, so I needed some creativity while building them.

In the end, the models had either a two-handed weapon (comes on the knight sprue), a 2-handed weapon from the Greatsword sprue (needing some green stuff, as the torsos are different) or a glaive-like spear. Inspired by the Khan’s guard from Bannerlord, it seems that there is actually historical precedent for using edged poleweapons from horseback.

But historical or not, I had a pegasus rider that could be repurposed and was short on models, so this guy was my test model for a glaive. In the end, I built three.

Speedpainting again

Ever since I painted my ghouls/lower abyssals, I have never speedpainted. Painting, for me, is a relaxing hobby and rushing the process seems quite pointless, usually. This time, however, I speedpainted a batch of 7 again.

For those who never speedpaint, here’s the quick-and-dirty:

a) limit your palette to max 3 colours over the basecoat, an ink or two and max. 3 colours for hightlights/details.
b) Line up all models, chose one of these 3 colours and paint everything that should be that colour. Then, do the same for the 2nd and 3rd base layers. By now, your models should have no grey areas left.

Here’s my knights after the first base layer (brown) while I was painting the 2nd (yellow). The 3rd was my bluegrey undercoat for the armour.

Now, think if you want a highlight and then a a shade or vice versa and apply those, again the same colour on all models before moving on. I highlihted the armour (gunmetal) and skin (dwarf flesh) before moving on to the ink. Here’s the models halfway through the blue ink wash over the armour.

After the ink dries, it’s just a matter of final highlights, and tyding up. Here’s the final result after two evenings of painting:

At the bottom of the blog post, I’ll post a gallery of all pictures I took during the crafting and painting of these knights!

The good news is that the models are ready. Next is the base, but that’s something for next week!

A side project

While painting the knights, I couldn’t resist finishing this Gur Panther ship from Armada. It was halfway finished already and apparently, I love painting ships.

Painting tally

as usual, I keep track of my pile of shame counting the number of newly accrued miniatures compared to those actually finished! It’s something of an agreement, but it also keeps me sane!

I finished eight new models: seven knights and ship. I did not buy or acquire new models, so there’s no new models.

Also, the model I posted missing last month, hasn’t resurfaced, so I’m gonna write it off. It’s the Armada sky altar, a pity since it’s a great model.

Totaling: