Wednesday 30 January 2019

"I Will Prepare An Attack Squad."

"None of the humans can guess our true purpose."
This 32mm scale metal miniature of a Sontaran is sold by “Warlord Games” and can be purchased as part of the Nottingham-based company’s "Sontaran Squad" five-figure boxed set. Resplendent in the blue-armour costume redesigned by Neill Gorton this latest incarnation of the “militaristic clones” made his first appearance in the April 2008 BBC television story "The Sontaran Stratagem".

Initially primed with a double coat of "Vallejo" Black, the bulbous-headed humanoid had his battle armour, belt and helmet treated to a layer of Gunmetal Blue before having them shaded in "Citadel" Nuln Oil. These areas were then dry-brushed with (more) "Vallejo" Gunmetal Blue for as long as it took for the metallic Model Colour paint to provide the sculpt’s ridges with a discernible silver shine.
"Doctor Who: Exterminate!" WIPs - These four Sontarans are already half-way finished
The Sontaran’s space suit was pigmented using “Vallejo” Heavy Bluegrey, and then washed with some watered-down “Citadel” Drakenhof Nightshade. As a final step (or three) I subsequently tidied up the  “Vallejo” Black base coat on warrior’s large laser-rifle before carefully dry-brushing it with Heavy Charcoal, and darkened the eye slits on the alien’s helmet with a tad more Black…

Having finished this figure I now have enough models (posed holding their firearms low-down in front of them) to utilise the “Sontaran Bodyguards” Recruitment Card on my “Doctor Who: Exterminate!” Battlefield, and need only paint one last diminutive extra-terrestrial warrior to complete a functional Sontaran Faction under the command of Staal ‘The Undefeated’. However, ideally I’d like to play some larger games against my significant forces of Daleks, Cybermen, Zygons and Sea Devils, so plan to paint four more of the clones in a single batch and therefore be able to deploy two three-miniature strong “Sontaran Patrol” units, alongside the General and his bodyguards, as part of a formidable four Recruitment Card sized Faction whenever a scenario permits it.
"Doctor Who: Into The Time Vortex" WIPs - A Cyberman, a defeated Dalek and the Cyber Leader
Interestingly, these'll probably be the last of my "Warlord Games" Sontarans which I'll be undercoating using "Vallejo" Black, as I think I'm missing an opportunity to paint them up even quicker by simply applying Heavy Bluegrey over the entire figure straight from the start. In addition, I've taken the time to pick out these warriors' black belt communicators, rather than leave them "Vallejo" Gunmetal Blue as I've done in the past.

Lastly, I making some significant headway with the six Cybermen models I own from "The Tomb Of The Cybermen" boxed set, and now just need to give them a dry-brush of "Citadel" Ironbreaker before settling down so as to 'pick out' all their piping. I have also begun finishing off a handful of partially-parted Daleks I have had hanging around my painting table for a while now, including a heavily damaged drone objective marker.

12 comments:

  1. Good work on these, Simon. I must buy the Sontaran sets from Warlord Games. I suspect they'll be on my next order.

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    1. Cheers Bryan. I was lucky enough to be sent all my Sontarans by “Warlord Games” as a thank you, but did see that on their main website the Sontaran Squad is out of stock. However, you do seem to be able to add that box to your cart in the “Doctor Who: Into The Time Vortex” webstore, so if you’re ordering it might be best to go that way.

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  2. Nice work mate. Your getting a substantial group of these now.

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    1. Thanks Simon. I hope to be able to field eight Sontarans, plus Staal within the next couple of weeks :-)

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  3. The sontaran looks great Simon, before undercoating the rest blue/grey test how the metallic blue looks when painting over this colour, otherwise you'll spend longer base painting the armour black then painting the suit

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    1. Cheers Dave. I’ll be doing the usual black undercoat for the metallic blue, so that shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve realised that when I dry-brush the metallic I can keep it tidy, so can do this phase a final step rather than a messy early one.

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  4. Your Sontarans are excellent. Your colour scheme is really nice, great job. I, like Bryan, am tempted by these models as they are just brilliant but I have far too much stuff on the to do list to fit them in. Shame as you're have me really tempted!

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    1. Thanks Undercoat. The "Nu-Who" Sontarans are one of "Warlord Games" best sculpts imho, and I've been hooked on them since I saw them at "Salute" last year :-)

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  5. Initially I thought "hmm, Sontaron with banjo", thankfully I was wrong.
    Great model and of course always welcome to see more Cybermen (even if I think that they're 'weak' models, but the Dalek wreck is great in every aspect.

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    1. Cheers Joe. Hopefully the "Tomb Of The Cybermen" shouldn't take too long before I start posting up some finished pictures of them. I'm planning on getting the Dalek wreck completed first though.

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