Hi,

Just curious how everyone else decides what to paint and when. Anyone have a method to it? I just painted the core set "use these first" armies and the core mercs, then added a bunch of easy to paint stuff to get sense of progress and give my players at least a few painted options for list-tweaking. Now I am finally painting my own personal army list(s) for skirmish, now that the group has enough painted models to sustain ongoing play.

Heroes last for me. allows me to have built up skill and patience. the heroes are on the board the longest. so a bit more time is spent on them

I started with some heroes to end a campaign. Then I added a couple for a new campaign.

Now I'm adding the bad guys as quickly as I can.

I wanted to only play with painted minis for our first campaign, so I looked through the possible missions we were most likely to end up playing and tried to paint just for those.

I had the rebel players choose their heroes in advance so painted only the four they picked. For the first session, I had both ewebs, all probe droids, vader, the at-st, royal guards, two squads of stormtroopers and all three officers painted and almost managed to play three missions purely with painted minis - just had to use the royal guard champion token. I was lucky though, we could easily have ended up needing nexus or trandoshans.

I always paint the mini I'm in the mood for to paint - that always works out best for me with minis for games that don't require several dozens of minis to play.

5 hours ago, Srba said:

- just had to use the royal guard champion token. I was lucky though, we could easily have ended up needing nexus or trandoshans.

I cannot decide about buying this model. I don't particularly like the look of it. But I don't want to go through a campaign using cardboard badguys either.

3 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

I cannot decide about buying this model. I don't particularly like the look of it. But I don't want to go through a campaign using cardboard badguys either.

He only appears if the IP purchases his Agenda mission I think... at least, that was true for our two play throughs of the core campaign.

I wasn't keen on him either, and only bought it out of a sense of completeness, but he was actually quite good fun to paint.

The Royal Guard Champion does appear in one of the core story missions.

24 minutes ago, a1bert said:

The Royal Guard Champion does appear in one of the core story missions.

Drawn In

And one of the core heroes’ side missions

Huh. Well now I'm thinking I need to construct a campaign out of all the missions we've missed.

Interesting to think how much content they crammed into that box, when you can play the core campaign multiple times and miss scenarios. With all the stuff in the blister packs and boxed expansions, I know I will never put a dent in all the campaign content I own!

Now that I've painted up a few solid skirmish warbands I think I'll be dividing my painting in to release waves.

Definitely. I was giving serious thought to some house rules to make companion and villain side missions more attractive to both sides, because those missions often don't get picked and therefore played. I have a pile of loose maps from expansion packs that have never been used.

Perhaps instead of changing companion rules I will try to come up with a campaign structure around them

Yeah. Just take all the missions you've never played and make a tree diagram out of them. Write your own campaign.

I usually try to paint by color. Often this means starting by putting a white coat on Stormtroopers, then seeing if anything else needs a large coat of white. Next, move on to another color, rinse and repeat.

Kind of a boring way to do it, but eventually I break off and start focusing on individual units.

2 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

I usually try to paint by color. Often this means starting by putting a white coat on Stormtroopers, then seeing if anything else needs a large coat of white. Next, move on to another color, rinse and repeat.

Kind of a boring way to do it, but eventually I break off and start focusing on individual units.

How big of batches do you end up painting at once as a result of this? This approach would have meant painting around 27 models at once for me. I try not to start batches of more than 5 for large scale games. For games like IA I paint no more than 4 models at a time, usually either two batches of two, or a hero plus a squad of 2 or three.

1 hour ago, TauntaunScout said:

How big of batches do you end up painting at once as a result of this? This approach would have meant painting around 27 models at once for me. I try not to start batches of more than 5 for large scale games. For games like IA I paint no more than 4 models at a time, usually either two batches of two, or a hero plus a squad of 2 or three.

Start with a deployment group. Say, 3 stormtroopers at once. Then, if you're up for three more, go for it!

Or if you're not quite there, maybe select a heavy stormtrooper group instead, or something slightly smaller.

Yeah, I guess this was more of my post-getting caught up phase (I too remember how daunting it was to paint 7 waves at once) but in theory it's roughly the same thing.

Once I have painted the core set, Hoth, Twin Shadows, and replaced all the carboard tokens with painted minis, I think I'm done painting IA for awhile. That's enough stuff to run lots of campaign games, and skirmishes, without putting unpainted models on the table. Got to take a break and focus on finishing my Seven Year's War army.

Edit: Twin Shadows is a big "maybe" too. I am getting tired of white armor and it has a high proportion of it. On the other hand, my merc army is small and it would probably get them up to critical mass.

I was the same. The thought of the Hoth Troopers nearly broke me, so I did them very quickly. I primed them in a smooth white (army painter) and then washed with a very dilute Nuln Oil, and then I highlighted using Vallejo Gloss White. Really just a little on the shoulders, knees, top of the packs, and the helmets. I did all 6 in about 3 hours. They are good enough for the table I think.

Stormtroopers are the worst. They really drain my painting morale.

I've only painted one group of the Hoth Troopers. I've also painted just one group of the Jet Troopers that came with Jabba's Palace. From the Heart of the Empire, I've base painted all the stormtroopers and washed them. Blue+black wash+Lahmian Medium is an excellent wash. The stormies need just a bit highlighting and don't look dirty since the slightly bluish tint.

Usually I paint the heroes first since they're on the board on every single game. And if I'm the Imperial player, I try to paint the figures that are going to appear next on the map. However, I'm far too slow and lazy to keep up and now at least 50% of my IA is still unpainted.

I've also painted some of the Mansions of Madness investigators and all Runebound heroes which took some time away from my IA painting. And today I "painted" my kitchen floor with Agrax Earthshade as I managed to knock an open pot of it onto the floor.

Yeah, I prioritise what I am going to paint based on what I am going to play. Last week I painted one group of the Weequay Pirates because I knew I wanted them in my open groups for the next mission. This weekend I painted Greedo so we can play his mission this week

With the heroes I am torn between doing them early because they are ever present in the campaign and doing the best job possible on them.

What kind of floor have you got? I managed to stain my desk with a nuln oil spillage a couple of weeks ago

12 minutes ago, udat said:

What kind of floor have you got? I managed to stain my desk with a nuln oil spillage a couple of weeks ago

Plastic mat in the kitchen so at least it's easy to clean. I got all of it off with a wet rag. But I'm a bit annoyed that the almost full pot of Agrax Earthshade is gone. Especially since Citadel washes are not that cheap.

I prime my stormtroopers white. Then I paint the armor light grey, avoiding the gun and body glove as best I can. Drybrush one coat of white. Paint black into key recesses such as eyes and armpits. Drybrush two more coats of white. Touchup errors on black parts, often using black ink instead of paint. Then I use smooth coats of carefully applied white on large areas like the cuisses, top of the helmet, etc. I might have to do a final coat of white drybrushing right across the face or something, in part of my final review of the model. Somewhere in there I paint the guns and gloves black. I also do a little bit of grey highlighting on the gun, the fingers, and other places it needs it like certain parts of the black jumpsuit that show between the plates. The whole effect is mediocre but it it fast and easy.

Stormtroopers do ruin my painting morale though. Which is why I really wish they would 1) Stop adding Imperial squads to boxed expansions, we have enough 2) If they must, give us Navy or Army troops in cloth uniforms instead.

Re: Agrax Earthsahde, Citadel finally priced me out. I used to use all-Citadel. But their prices rose far higher than inflation. At the exact same time, real competition finally arose in the hobby world, so, that was that. Back in the day, a lot of cheapskates used to claim that XYZ brand was "just as good as Citadel Colour" but it never was. Nowadays, there really are good competitors out there for hobby purposes. There probably always were, but, now they are much easier to find.