Armies on Parade 2020 - The Fall of Hive World Novgorod

Well, it's done and dusted! My 2020 Armies on Parade entry is entered and photographed with the good camera. This article includes all of the the photos and video I sent in to Games Workshop for my my entry. So, enough of the buildup - on to the army!

The Cult arises!!!

On the Road to Armies on Parade - Part 6 - The End of the Line

We're finally at the end of the line for Armies on Parade 2020. The board is done and as many miniatures as I think I'll have time to actually finish are completed as well. Photos have been taken (not only of my entry, but my son's too). This blog entry will be the teaser where I go through the final set up of the board for photos, and hopefully get the photos of the "real thing" up tomorrow using the photos that actually went to Games Workshop. Now I sit and wait for the results. I honestly have no high hopes, I'm a good painter, but I'm not Golden Demon quality by any stretch of the imagination. My board also tends to stretch the 2'x2' limit to the very reaches of credulity in hopes of telling a good story (speaking of which, you'll be getting a full army background in a future blog entry as well). The bottom line is I had a lot of fun doing this board, and I learned a lot of new techniques that will continue to serve me well in the future. 

All of the photos in this entry were taken with my Galaxy S8, whereas the photos for my official entry were taken with my Nikon DSLR. You'll likely see the difference in quality even from the thumbnails. I also set up an actual photo shoot area with a real white backdrop for these as I wanted to get the best possible photos for the contest itself.

The bare bones board ready to accept terrain

On the Road to Armies on Parade - Part 5 - A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy

I'm finally getting into the home stretch on the board of doom, but I've got a bit of a ways to go yet. The first pass of the surface is good to go, though I'll be adding a little bit of static grass to the corners to just provide some additional interest. I'm hoping to get the trench line done, but if it doesn't happen, I won't be broken hearted. It's a neat piece, but the compromised detail on some of the surroundings makes it a beast to paint. The ground effect is made up of fine and medium soil and dirt ballast, with a little bit of Ammo of Mig Kursk Soil (AMIG1400) pigment thrown in.

Surface with crater-ponds and trench line placeholder

On the Road to Armies on Parade - Part 4 - Workin' in a Coal Mine

I've made quite a bit of progress on the lower levels of the board since the last installment. The mine level is nearly done, and now you can see all of the extra bits I've added to bring it together. I used one of the old resin Forgeworld 12" x 12" floor tiles (now OOP) to create a raised platform with a couple of Plastruct truss structures and some cut foam so it looks like the wrecked Goliath drove onto its platform from something. You can also see the test fit of the fragdrill in the upper quadrant. Also reealed is the reason for the green LED lights that were in the "effects package" for the mine level - they're glowing green crystals of course! I epoxied some quartz crystals together in order to create them, as if you've got a mine, there should be something exotic down there to actually extract!

Lower mine level - nearly done!

On the Road to Armies on Parade - Part 3 - Scratching the Surface

As this is part three of the series on this year's Armies on Parade board, I figured it was about time to get around to talking about the third layer of this cake - the surface level. I'll also go through some major updates on the mine level as well, as that level is coming right along. My parade board is designed to tell a bit of a story, with the Uprising taking place simultaneously across the planet - in the mines, in the Hive city, and across the planet's surface. As my army is a mix of traditional Genestealer Cult models with a very liberal dose of unique Brood Brothers examples, I figured I needed at least some surface area to show off some of the larger vehicles that wouldn't show up in a mine or Underhive.

Early phases of surface construction

Armies on Parade - Wrecked Goliath (And How!)

As mentioned in previous blog entries, I'm really trying to put together a great Armies on Parade entry this year. To that end I've been planning out the uprising of my Genestealer Cult and how to turn that into a fun and dynamic board. I'm not ready to go into the full details at this point, but I do have one of my set pieces finished. As part of the board is going to be set in a mining area (complete with tectonic fragdrill), I wanted to include at least one Goliath. I'm still finishing up a Goliath transport for my cult, which will likely make its appearance on that level - but to add some drama to the board (and as I needed a few Goliath wheels for another project - keep watching this space), I decided to build up a wrecked Goliath on a disused heavy equipment lift platform. However, just having a derelict vehicle on the platform didn't seem to be quite enough... so I took it one step further.

Work in Progress - Tectonic Fragdrill

It all started innocently enough, I wanted to work up a killer "Armies on Parade" entry for this year's competition, so I decided to go all out with at least a two level entry. The foundation will be a mining area underneath the hive city above. So with that basis in mind I decided that it would be great to have a Tectonic Fragdrill as that would be right for the idiom of the army - at least that portion of the army. What has happened from there is the most time spent painting a low point-value part of a force... ever! It's not quite complete yet, but I wanted to get some detail photos before I started putting the whole shebang together.