Firestorm Armada - The Armada has to start somewhere...

Firestorm Armada is a new miniatures game from Spartan Games
Look for a future post with a full review of the game.

However before I can give a review of the game I have to play it... And to play it I need to have the miniatures ready.

My Son Jake and I each picked a fleet and started there. Jake went with the Dindrenzi, Klingon looking ships, big and mean ships that grace the cover of the rulebook.

I went for the Sorylians for the design of their ships. A cross between the Sulaco from ALIENS and new Battlestar Galactica.

Construction

I started with a cruiser sized model to start with. Here is a view of the pieces before construction. The casting is very crisp. I only noticed a few small imperfections but nothing serious. (mainly small pits in hard to notice spots)
The fore and center parts are resin cast while the engine cap is metal.
Construction was simplicity itself, after some light sanding to make the ship straight, some glue and she was ready to paint!

(Click for larger view)


Painting

I decided I wanted to go with a blue paint scheme of some kind. I didn't want to use Ultramarine Blue, (As that is a big part of my BFG fleet) and decided to use Tamiya intermediate blue as the primary hull color.

I based coated the ship black and then gave it a good covering over intermediate blue. Then went back with (gw)Chaos Black to tidy up the black areas.

Once the black was on a simple dry-brush of (gw)Boltgun Metal and (gw)Mithril Silver completed the ribbed under-structure of the ship.

The panel lines...

Then I gave the ship a good gloss coat and whipped up some India ink, future, and water and carefully inked the panel lines.


(Click for larger view)



I suppose I could leave the panel lines like that, subtle and clean. But these are war gaming miniatures, best viewed from at least a couple of feet away. Because of that I like adding some dramatic, over scale highlighting.

I highlighted the panels with (gw) spacewolf grey.
Added some green and red painted lights.
Some decals from a Aircraft carrier kit.
Once dry I hit it with a dull coat and we will call it done.


Cruiser 23 Reporting for duty

(Click for larger view)


Now, for the rest of the fleet!

Enjoy!

Jon