Now that the Cult’s demo crew is painted, it’s time to get to work on the next, somewhat easier-to-plan crew. Much as I love the motley collection of clothing that you get with pirates, cultists, and other ne’er-do-wells, there’s something to be said for the uniform that comes with Imperial Armada models, so there’s a lot fewer decisions to make when it comes to color choices.

Just for purposes of record-keeping, my general “recipe” for Imperial Armada Blue is as follows:

1. Prime black
2. Basecoat blue
3. Highlight 1: 50/50 mix of blue and sky blue
   1. Smooth: glaze above color mix on layer edge
4. Highlight 2: Sky blue
   1. Smooth: glaze up to sky blue on layer edge
5. Highlight 3: Sky blue and pale lilac
   1. Smooth: glaze up to mix on layer edge
6. Highlight 4: Pale lilac & blue white
   1. Smooth: glaze up to mix on layer edge
7. Final spot highlight: Blue white
8. Shadow 1: Glaze mix of 50/50 deep purple and blue
9. Shadow 2: Glaze mix of 80/20 deep purple and blue
10. Tint everything with glaze of base blue

This sounds like a lot, but it goes by relatively quick and gives a nice blue fabric. I definitely do a bit more work on leaders (bad habit for a game that doesn’t have a bunch of models – I could be going full-speed on everything!), but it’s probably going to be my go-to from now on.

Cazador Guard #1

Here’s the first Deckhand for the Imperial Armada, a Cazador Guard.

One of the best parts of playing a skirmish game is that you can go hard even on the basic Deckhands, and I definitely had a great time working on him. While I’m not normally a fan of the Conquistador-themed armor designs, I think it works great for this particular sub-faction of the Imperial Armada – they’re a call-back to the Inquisition, but have been given a suitable New World appearance for the setting and its swashbuckling setting.

There were really only 7 materials/broad colors overall in this model: leathers, steel, gold, blue, faded whites, skin, and hair, many of which share some highlight colors and tones, so I got to spend a lot more time refining elements and playing around, rather than just making decisions about colors and separations.

This was the point where I felt my NMM actually started improving. While the breastplate is a bit dull in places, the helmet and halberd came out great. I think the part that really helped me with it was glazing some process cyan ink as a final step – it tied everything together and made the metal on the halberd feel more “real” in a way. I’m happy that I’m starting to get to this point.

The clothing was nice to work on, as well – I’ve found that doing slash-and-puff styled clothing is easiest if I work from the inside out, and while I’m working on getting a little more depth to the white fabric colors, the blues are nice and rich. While I could probably highlight it a bit higher using the recipe I posted above, I’m satisfied with what I’ve set up right now.

So Why Cazador Guards?

The Cazadores are the arch-enemy of the Cult, so it seemed only fitting to set them up against my Cult demo force. They were admittedly one of the many demo crews I set up with the minis that I have had in my backlog, but because they appealed to someone who offered to give the game a try, I’m concentrating on getting them ready for play.

Cazador Guards are – unsurprisingly – Deckhands for the Imperial Armada. Unlike the usual Armada specialty of long-distance combat, they are instead kitted out for some serious close combat action. It is possible for them to hit ST 13 on a charge against a mystic, which is bonkers huge strength given the number disparity. Oh, and it’s armour-piercing as well, meaning the opponent only gets to use their left-hand T value for resisting the damage. A best-case scenario for the damage determination on most mystics means they’re taking 3 V of damage – the average is closer to something like dealing 12 V, so in general, do not let these monsters charge anyone who is ferracero-intolerant!

Hobby Progress

Painted more of my Cazadores last night, as well as wrote down my steps for Imperial Armada Blue^TM in order to have it easily replicable for the tons of Armada models I’ll need to paint up in the future.

I’ve also been assembling other models for the next few demo crews, including a couple of sillier themed demo crews that I think help show the flavor of the game off well, and I’ve started prepping and photographing some of my terrain plans so that I can give a full step-by-step when I actually finish them.