Stunty Mayhem!

So, I suddenly found myself with a free Sunday on the WHFB week in the local GW tourney rotation. Now, I am NOT a good WHFB player. In fact, I'm pretty abysmal. However, with a free day, I'm not really one to turn down a game. Or three, in this case. The question, then, was what army to play. I tend to flit from army to army in WHFB, whether that's because of my lack of success, or the cause of it, is up for debate. For this one, I decided to go back to my Dwarfs for a couple of reasons. They're a compact army, so I wouldn't have TOO much painting to do, they're pretty rock-solid in smaller games (the shop WHFB tourneys are 1000 points), and I kinda miss playing the little guys. I've been trying really hard to make sure that I only play fully painted armies in store events, trying to be a paragon of the hobby and all that. If I were smart, I would have played my Skaven, since they're pretty much finished, and I definitely have enough done for a 1K game, but what can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment.

The list I planned for the tourney is one of those "so you want to start a army" sort of lists. Warriors, Thunderers, Slayers, a couple of heroes, and the ubiquitous cannon. I'm using mostly Battle for Skull Pass models for a couple of reasons. The most important is that because they're so similar, they're really, really easy to assembly-line paint, even with my color scheme. I also really like building that sort of army out of obvious sets of models- setting the example for someone who's just starting. "Hey kid, look, if you trade for a second Skull Pass set, pick up a Runesmith, and a couple boxes of Slayers, you too can be awesome like me."

Army philosophy aside, here's what I started out with:

All the models have some paint on them, it's just a matter of whether or not it's GOOD paint. The Slayers are priority one, as they're both my favorite models, and the ones that I think most benefit from a decent coat of paint. Plus the Foundation Paints, washes, and the spraygun make them really, really easy to get done to a decent standard.
A quick spray of Tallarn Flesh, followed by Ogryn Flesh wash got their skin sorted, then it was on to the beards. Slayers are notable for their orange hair, so the Mechrite Red I had originally painted them was Not Okay. I went back and laid down Macharius Solar Orange:

followed by a wash of Gryphonne Sepia, and a quick coat of Boltgun Metal on their axes:

I've got fewer pics at this point, but I think you all can figure it out from here. Dwarf Bronze on the remaining metal bits, Khemri Brown on the trousers, and Calthan Brown on leather pouches and shoes, followed by a Devlan Mud wash for those same parts. The Dragon Slayer also got a bit of Mordian Blue on him for woad.
One of my favorite bits of finishing any unit is basing- there's few things that make a unit go from good to great as quickly. Here's the unit after sand, but before paint:

And after:

They got a coat of clearcoat, and then a little bit of static grass.

The next thing on the list was the cannon. I like basing my war machines on the textured movement trays from GW, but the Skull Pass cannon is a little bit smaller than the regular one, so it looks a little lost on that size of base. To eat up some space (and use one of the many Grudge Pony carts I have lying around), I decided to add the cart to the base. In retrospect, I wish I hadn't done that, since it was a pain in my butt to paint. There are a number of small details on the top of the cart that are hard to tell what they are. Here's how they all started out:

And here's the finished product:

This is actually the finished shot of the whole force, as unfortunately I ran out of time because of life getting in a way. Not quite as much as I'd hoped to get done, but at least there's no bare plastic or just-primed figures in the army. Tourney report to follow!