Empire Army from Spring 2011

For my initial post I thought i'd showcase the very first army I every successfully completed. The bulk of this was painted three years ago, and represents my most concentrated effort in miniature painting after almost six years of flip-flopping with Fantasy and 40k armies. 

Previously I would buy massive amounts of second-hand miniatures, assemble them as needed, and never paint them or game with them. After they sat around for a requisite 6-8 months I’d sell them off, cursing myself for a fool and vowing not to buy any more. Despite being completed, this particular army never saw action up until fall of last year, and even then only 3-4 games.

You can clearly see I’m uncomfortable with color consistency and highlighting. The yellow is particularly variable among the different models.

One issue I have with Warhammer and army-scale games more generally is having to paint scads of bog-standard line troops (who happen to be annoyingly detailed in empire armies, especially under a white basecoat) and only getting one or two really spectacular models to paint. All things considered I think this hero turned out quite well considering the level of my painting, although it feels like he lacks highlights.

I’m actually still really happy with the way this base on the cannon turned out, although the crew leaves much to be desired.

As it stands I’ll be returning to this army after many years apart from it to add a new regiment of halberdiers, some more handgunners, and some knights. I imagine I’ll soon have some pretty good comparison shots between the different levels of my painting!