Airborne Rangers, ready to drop down on the table and wreck face! I believe that the SMG ranger was one of my first USARF units ever, so there is a sense of nostalgia that I feel when I think about the process of painting this model in particular. This was back in my early days, where I was still learning how to paint and building up my color pallet. So, naturally, this meant that the SMG was one of my testbed models. Several years (and a gigantic backlog) later, he is joined by the rest of his team. It wasn't an easy journey, though, as these guys have taken a lot of abuse throughout the painting and rebasing process. I actually managed to break the SMG ranger's left foot in half when I pulled him off his original base, and they all got the Sugar Glaze of Doom treatment. Luckily, I managed to give the ranger a much needed foot surgery, and it now isn't very obvious what happened. The airborne rangers also were the models where I discovered that another layer of wash will do wonders for fixing the sugar glaze. But now that they're all done and ready to go, I hope that I will be able to use them, and I expect that they'll perform heroically, as I've almost always had good result with parachutists. Also, one quick side-note about Van Zant. In the 2010 Aliens vs Predator game, the colonial marine in charge of cleaning up Weyland-Yutanis mess (predictably, a large scale xenomorph breakout) is Major Van Zandt. I know that CB likes to reference other works in their models, so I suspect that this is another case of that. If so, I certainly hope that Infinity's Van Zant has better luck in combat, because the AvP Major winds up as host to a chestburster and gets shot in the head by the marine protagonist as the chestburster tears its way out. Definitely not a good way to go, that's for sure. If the photos don't show up, try this link: https://imgur.com/a/5ZG25GK Group Photo Airborne Ranger - Submachine Gun Airborne Ranger - AP Spitfire Roger Van Zant
Here are my Desperadoes. Originally, I thought that I was going to hate painting them, but it turned out that they were a lot of fun to paint. As irregular, almost-mercenary units, I was free to be more creative with my scheme, which is always interesting and goes a long way to spice things up. The drawback, of course, is that I have to actually think about how I'm going to paint them. In this case, I decided to try my hand at painting a black motorcycle with light grey flames on my boarding shotgun Desperado. The end result of the freehand flames were passable, but I don't have the artistic talent to make a 100% perfect copy of what you'd see on the road. Still, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The rider himself reminds me of Willie Robertson of Duck Dynasty with his long hair, beard, and headband. I thought he'd look best with grey boots, tan pants, and a brown vest, with a wood finish on his shotgun. This is one of the few USAriadna models in my collection that have wood furniture on their weapons as I didn't think it would work with the theme very well, but again, I was free to be more creative in this instance, and I believe it worked out beautifully. For the SMG Desperado, I decided to go for an old west outlaw look, complete with the black hat, which I believe is a common trope used in western movies to identify the antagonist. As I haven't seen any westerns, I can't verify if that is true, but I still went with it anyway. I also really love this model because of my own heritage, having a farming/ranching family in Colorado that goes back at least four generations, so the cowboy lifestyle runs in my blood. The Desperadoes are the last models that I needed to have a completely painted USAriadna force, and they were a great capstone to my painting project. By the time I had gotten to them, I was already quite experienced with painting motorcycles due to CB's cycle-mania that they have going with Ariadna in general, so the process was nowhere near as painful as I had expected it to be originally. Overall, I'm very happy with how they turned out, and I think that they will work quite well together with my Mavericks and Devil Dogs at being a major annoyance to their opponents. If the photos don't show up, try this link: https://imgur.com/a/nmi26jA Group Photo Desperado - Boarding shotgun Desperado - Submachine gun
Following up on my previous post, I have the other half of my motorcycle squadron: the mavericks. I don't have much to say about painting them as they have the usual USAriadna scheme, except with a motorcycle thrown in. And as stated earlier, painting the motorcycles was far more enjoyable than I originally expected. For gameplay, I was originally at a loss for how I was going to use them, as I wasn't the biggest fan of motorized troops, but the models made me want to use them. I really love the pose of the rifle Maverick, but the AP Spitfire is also lovely. Especially now that they're painted, I have grown a new fondness for motorized troops, and will probably be including at least one motorcycle in most of my lists. My favorite of the two Mavericks is the one packing a rifle because it is also a foreword observer, and I've found that it is super easy to pack a lot of FOs into a USAriadna lists. With the changes to Guided in N4 where it doesn't expire, I can use the Maverick's 8-4 to put the laser pointer on any poor fool with his back turned and then start shelling my opponent if I have orders to spare. If the photos don't show up, try this link: https://imgur.com/a/9mOZzJN Mavericks - Group photo Maverick - Rifle Maverick - AP Spitfire
The first mercenary to get logged is the Wardriver. Since I tend to take a lot of inspiration from the official schemes used by CB, I opted to use a lot of darker colors on her. For this, she gets a grey sweater and gloves, and then a lighter grey jacket. I also painted the plates on her pants light grey, and her tactical gear a dull brown to go with her dark blue pants. Finally, I used a few splotches of brighter blues and oranges for a nice contrast...the major exception being her helmet, which got the full orange faceplate treatment. She also gets the muddy/snowy base that I plan on using as the base theme for my Kazaks and Caledonians when I get around to them. The only part of painting her that gave me trouble is painting her faceplate, as I've found that this shade of orange (Troll Slayer Orange, if I recall correctly) likes to clump together when I put on multiple layers, but it's also so transparent that I often have no choice but to put multiple layers on. Perhaps I need to be more patient and let the paint dry more, and possibly thin it down? If anyone has any tips on working with this color, I would love to hear them! If the photos don't show up, try this link: https://imgur.com/a/gvIS1S7 Wardriver
And now for the Blackjacks...oh, Lord, no, please, no! Not the Blackjacks! Anything but Blackjacks! As anyone reading this can probably tell, I did not like painting these models in the slightest. The reason being that, unlike most other S5 HI, which are usually a slightly upsized version of S2 troops, the blackjacks are a walking collection of gears, tubes, hydraulic pistons, and metal plates. Upon seeing the final product, I think it works as they are Ariadna's first attempt at servo-powered armor, so they'd naturally look pretty clunky, but painting them was an absolute bitch as far as I am concerned. I can't really express how happy I am to have painting these models behind me, and I'm anxious to see them on the tabletop. Despite how much I hated painting them, I've almost always had good results with Blackjacks on the gaming table. Let's just hope that I get similar luck with the Ratnik when I get around to it, because I'm not expecting them to be much more pleasant. If the photos don't show up, try this link: https://imgur.com/a/9LgFAqH Blackjacks - Group photo Blackjack - AP Machine gun Blackjack - T2 Sniper rifle
Now for some USAriadna-brand werewolves. I quite like using Devil Dogs, and I think they turned out pretty good. The uniform for the Devil Dog is the same as the rest of my USAriadna, although it occured to me as I was writing this that USAriadna probably has a similar division of its armed forces to the US today, as the Devil Dog's lore explicitly states that they are Marines, and Rangers are most likely army. So, if I had thought about that at the time, I probably would have tried to develop a color scheme similar to MARPAT for them. But I didn't consider that at the time, and I'm still happy with the result. For the skin and fur of the Devil Dog, I simply painted different shades of Mechanicus Standard Grey, and I might have put a light drybrush on the fur to create some contrast and a more natural look (I don't remember 100%). The Antipode got a basecoat of Celestia grey, with the Mechanicus Standard Grey treatment on his fur. This time, I do know for sure that I drybrushed it. He then got a tan-brown vest-thing, which is definitely not a saddle. Riding antipodes sounds like a horrible idea because I doubt they'd let a human jump on their backs, and also antipodes seem to stand on their hind legs fairly frequently...but I digress. The main thing that I want to draw attention to, if only because this is directly related to my career choice, is the tactical rocks. I painted the as a sedimentary rock, most likely some kind of sandstone or finer sedimentary rock. I'm going to say that he's standing on exposed sandstone as this rock type can form in a desert environment, which USAradna does have, and I'm operating on next to no information about USAriadna's geologic record. If the photos don't show up, try this link: https://imgur.com/a/WsZ8TE4 Devil Dog Teams - Group Photo Devil Dog - Heavy Shotgun K-9 Antipode
Now to bring some artillery support to my troops, I present the Traktor Muls. Not too much to say about them, honestly. They're big, they're explosive, and they're...almost carbon copies of each other. Which made painting them pretty simple, and the only real hurdle I had to deal with was getting to the undersides of some surfaces. These were some of the first models I experimented with glazing to try to produce a glowing effect, and it really shows on their red sensors. Because Traktor Muls are found in every Ariadna army, I painted them dark green and gave them a mud/snow base to complement the scheme that I developed for the Kazaks and Caledonians (which will hopefully be finished by the end of this decade). So, they look slightly out of place with my USAriadna, but will fit right in with every other Ariadna army that I have. On the tabletop, I've had mixed results using Traktor Muls. On the one hand, they are deceptively hard to fit into a list, taking up SWC and requiring a Dozer to even field them in the first place, which often displaces something else that I wanted to take and would provide more utility to the list. But damn it if they aren't fun to use when the opportunity arises, even if I can't seem to hit the broad side of a barn with them. Traktor Muls - Group Photo Katyusha MRL Uragan MRL
Now, having gotten myself all caught up with posting my record of painting, I present the marauders, hot off the painting table. Getting them painted didn't require much effort on my end because most of USAriadna's troops are very similar, and I did them immediately after finishing my Grunts. So, there isn't anything that I think is worth commenting on when it comes to doing the paint jobs. The Marauders are one of my favorite units in USAriadna, next to the Grunts because I've found them to be reliable when used aggressively. Marauders are very well suited to the role of an assault team, which I think is best utilized as a Haris. Looking at their N4 profile (as I haven't gotten to play N4 yet), and I'm pleased to see that they got a speed boost and can form a Duo as well. Also having Dogged makes them very flexible, maneuverable, and durable, which makes them an easy favorite to take point on missions. The only thing that I don't like about them is their specialist option because Dogged doesn't play well with being a paramedic, and I think that an engineer or forward observer option would make more sense. If the photos don't show up, try this link: https://imgur.com/a/8TpmX5X Marauders - Group Photo Marauder - Boarding shotgun Marauder - Heavy flamethrower Marauder - AP Spitfire Marauder - Heavy rocket launcher Marauder - Sniper rifle
I'm now done rebasing my Minutemen. From an aesthetic standpoint, I think that they are my favorite miniatures at the moment. However, because most USAriadna infantry look so alike, I wouldn't be surprised if I said that about the Grunts or Marauders at some point. What I like particularly about the Minutemen is their weaponry; I really like the design for the AP machine gun, and I also like the missile launcher a lot more than I originally thought I would. In gameplay terms, I'm not sure how exactly I am going to use them. Obviously, putting the ML Minuteman in a defensive link of Grunts is a very attractive option, so I'm sure that I'm going to be getting a ton of milage out of him. I think that the machine gunner would also go well into an offensive Grunt link, if I decide that I want to play on Opposite Day and put the Marauders or a Blackjack on overwatch duty. I haven't gotten a chance to try running a Haris or Duo of Minutemen, but I might have to try that at some point if I feel that they would do the job better than the Marauders would. Such a scenario would probably be if I am playing on a more sparsely populated table, because I notice that the Minutemen seem to have longer-range weaponry than what my Marauders would be typically carrying. If the photos don't show up, try this link: https://imgur.com/a/0Mi4Rfs Minutemen - Group Photo Minuteman - AP Rifle Minuteman - Boarding shotgun Minuteman - Light flamethrower Minuteman - AP Machine gun Minuteman - Missile launcher
Now for the finale of my USARF rebasing project...and it's a two-fer! Tonight, I present my recently finished and rebased Foxtrot Rangers and Hardcase. First up is the Foxtrots. I have the newer rifle and boarding shotgun versions, and the old sniper sculpt. The poses are pretty boring if you ask me, but it made for easy painting. The only pose that I found odd is the boarding shotgun Foxtrot because of the way that she's twisting her body, which looks pretty awkward and slightly unnatural to me. The only other comments I have to make are on the sniper foxtrot. Obviously, this is an older sculpt, and it is pretty easy to tell. However, I think she fits the aesthetics of her younger counterparts pretty well, so I decided to add her to the force instead of sending her to my retirement shelf with the rest of my older models. I found painting her ghillie suit to be pretty interesting, even though it was very simple to do; I just painted it brown and drybrushed some green onto it. The Foxtrots have already seen a lot of action on the tabletop, and I consider them to be auto-includes in my USAriadna lists alongside my Hardcase. For an Ariadna army, I'm not able to put down a lot of camo, and I wish that there was at least one minelayer profile on the Foxtrots. I also recall having the idea to sync a K-9 Antipode to one of these guys, but I'm still on the fence as to whether or not I think this is a good idea. Regardless, I'm still pleased to have the Foxtrots ready to go, as their tabletop journey is only beginning. If the photos don't show up, try this link: https://imgur.com/a/jR43af8 Group Photo Foxtrot Ranger - Rifle Foxtrot Ranger - Boarding shotgun Foxtrot Ranger - Sniper rifle
Here is part two of my final USARF miniatures: the Hardcase. The Hardcase was very fun to paint because he is so similar to the regular USARF troops, but being an irregular, he still breaks the mold a bit. I particularly love his cowboy hat, and the tactical bow is a very unique weapon that we don't see very often. I always take at least one Hardcase in my lists, and I've had a surprising amount of luck screwing people up with his ambush camouflage. Usually, I'll put the extra camo token somewhere where it is easy for my opponent to gain line of sight, with the goal being that they'll try to discover it and waste their order. I've found that, even though it looks and feels like schmuck bait to me (I've had at least one person tell me that the scarecrow I put out is obviously one of my troops), my opponents fall for it every time. The reaction that comes whenever someone successfully discovers my scarecrow is pretty funny, so the Hardcase is always in my lists for his mind-game potential. If the photos don't show up, try this link: https://imgur.com/a/DvMBi6o Hardcase Frontiersman - Tactical bow
And now, after working on these next models over the past week (or five years, depending on when I decide to say that I started working on them), I present to you the Ariadna Scouts. These are my first completed "true" TAK units, and I cannot overstate how excited I am to be painting some of my TAK models, as the Cossacks were the troops that I played my first Infinity games with. Scouts have always been some of my favorite units, and my sniper Scout has always served me well...in fact, I usually get better results with my Scout sniper than I do with my Spetsnaz, and I have yet to figure out why. I haven't gotten to use the boarding shotgun yet, so he still has to prove his worth, but I expect that pairing him with a strelok or two will make for quite the headache for their enemies. Something I actually wanted to draw attention to about my work is how I do camouflage patterns, which came up during a conversation that @Golem2God and I had, where he mentioned how intimidating painting camouflage sounds. It's actually super easy to accomplish; all you have to do is spam paint dots and shapes all over the areas you want camouflaged in successive layers of color. As long as you have a steady hand and can keep your paintbrush restricted to the parts you want camo'd, it's pretty hard to screw it up because camo by its nature looks messy. If you keep going for long enough, you'll eventually end up with a pattern that looks like pretty convincing. If the photos don't show up, try this link: https://imgur.com/a/YapP3o8 Group Photo Scout - Boarding Shotgun Scout - AP Sniper Rifle
@Scribbler Your Scouts look amazing and the camo pattern seems professionally done. The fact that the technique is a simple one adds more awe to the end product. I'm glad you are getting to do the faction sectorial that you started Infinity with. Hope the rest of your Kazak units end up looking as good as these two. How many TAK/Kazak models do you have? The whole sectorial or are you missing some units to complete the force?
I think that the only TAK model that I am missing is Carmen Johns. I keep forgetting to put her in my cart when I order more miniatures.
Wow you got them all then. That is impressive. Maybe write down a reminder to buy Carmen & her Antipode friend on you computer & on paper on your desk. That should help you to remember to purchase her next time you buy something.
The next set of models to come off the painting table are the Tankhunters and their character, Vassily Plushenko. I really like how they turned out, and how they have a similar but different look to the Scouts. I realized that, in painting my morats and USAriadna that I had been painting all of my models to look very similar to each other, and I'm trying to move away from that pattern and be a little more creative with my TAK. So, the idea is that by the time that I'm finished painting all of my Kazaks, they should be easily identifiable as being part of the same army, but without having a copy-paste paint job done on them. In the case of the Tankhunters, this meant giving them a camouflage uniform underneath their body armor and jackets, which are a straight Caliban Green. I had considered painting them with a white shirt with red stripes, similar to what the modern-day Spetsnaz or VDV wears because I thought that Tankhunters are trained in the Dacha alongside the Spetsnaz. However, when I went through the lore again, I came to the conclusion that I had confused them with the Scouts, who I know for sure are trained at the Dacha. In the end, though, it didn't matter, because I think that what I have now works better for them. Also of note: I bought and used a proper set of spatulas to use for applying texture paint. So, the bases for the Tankhunters look slightly different from every other Spring Snowstorm base (as I shall now call the bases that I paint in this style going forward). Namely, the Stirland Mud is probably a little thicker, and the Valhallan Blizzard is definitely more pronounced. I'd found that Valhallan Blizzard is so viscous that I can't work it with a paintbrush, and needed a different tool for the job. After finding the right tool, though, I think that the results speak for themselves. Basing went off without a hitch, even with the tactical cans and tactical corpse that Vassily and the AP rifle Tankhunter are hauling around with them. For the Tankhunter with the tactical corpse, I painted it to resemble a Nomad heavy infantry because I was told that is what faction it likely belonged to...and also as a "take that!" to the Nomads. The not unexpected benefit of painting it that way also was that the red armor plates compliment the generally green uniform of the Tankhunters, along with the dark red markings on their pauldrons. Whenever I make a TAK list, I usually make sure to take the machine gunner. I've found him to be reliable at cracking almost any target that I need him to. I expect that all the other Tankhunters are going to be just as reliable and deadly, and I can't wait to give them some table time. If the photos don't show up, try this link: https://imgur.com/a/mSl1xue Group Photo Tankhunter - AP Rifle Tankhunter - AP Machine gun Tankhunter - Autocannon Vassily Plushenko - T2 Marksman rifle
@Scribbler Nicely done on the Russian troops. I also like how you painted the USA units as well. Everything you have done so far has been grand. What is next on your painting list?
I have a few half-finished TAK troops that I started painting a few years ago and didn't get around to finishing, so I'm going to try to get through all units that have a half-painted model in the group. So, the order that I tentatively plan on going through is: Spetsnaz, Dog-Warriors, Antipode Assault Pack, 112. EDIT: And thank you for your compliment! I'm half braindead at the moment, and I totally forgot to acknowledge it, so sorry about that. I appreciate your praise of my work!
After going on hiatus due to work and college classes, I have finally been able to get back in the saddle and finish my Spetsnaz. I've had the shotgun and sniper ever since I first started playing and are therefore quite special to me. I'm super pleased with how they turned out, although painting them was a bit more challenging than previous miniatures. The reason for this is because of the amount of freehand work that I had to do painting the stripes on their shirts, as well as the inherent difficulty that I have in working with Ceramite White. Additionally, the Stormshield varnish, which is supposed to give a matte finish, produced a glossy sheen that was particularly noticeable on the shotgun Spetsnaz. However, I fixed that issue pretty easily with a coat of Lahmian Medium, which also produced another accidental discovery: apparently, putting a coat of medium over the varnish makes the miniatures look better to my eye, so I'll be sure to do more of that in the future. One of the quirks that the Spetsnaz have is how different the parachutist shotgun Spetsnaz looks from the machine gunner and the sniper. Specifically, while the machine gunner and sniper are wearing their berets and NVGs, the shotgun Spetsnaz has donned a gas mask that makes him look like he spends his free time hunting for mutants around Chernobyl. As I was working on him, it stood out to me so much that I thought that he could just as easily belong to a post-apocalyptic video game series as he does to Ariadna, but I couldn't figure out which game he would belong in. That was until I discovered the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, which I have been enjoying so much lately that some of the faction's designs are going to be leaking through into my paint jobs. For the Spetsnaz, that takes the form of the purple lenses on their NVGs, which is inspired by one of the night vision modes that you can get in the game, which basically puts a lilac shade over your field of view with perfect clarity as opposed to the standard green night vision that also looks like the player is seeing double. One quick piece of trivia: the sniper is directly responsible for my decision to put line of fire markings on all of my bases. This is because I had a friend who was constantly thrown off by the way that he was holding his rifle, and whenever he was playing with the Spetsnaz would usually place him with the rifle pointed down the table, which meant that the Spetsnaz was facing at a 90 degree angle to the right side of the board. The results could range from either me reminding my friend that the sniper was not facing where he thought he was to him getting straight up shot in the back, depending on whether I was coaching him or if we were playing a serious game (which, come to think of it, also makes me wonder why I was allowing a Spetsnaz on the table with a new player). So as to hopefully mitigate this problem, I put line of fire markings on all of my miniatures as a visual reminder to pay attention to facing, and also make it as explicit as possible to determine where the troop in question is looking. I chose red to make these markings because red is easily picked up by the human eye and stands out from the otherwise black base without being so obnoxious that it disrupts the color scheme. If the photos don't show up, try this link: https://imgur.com/a/JZVMrbh Group Photo Spetsnaz - Boarding shotgun Spetsnaz - Machine gun Spetsnaz - AP Sniper rifle
