After a long time of no modelling / painting (well over a year) I decided to start work on a new fleet for BFG, as the new release from Forgeworld centres around the Badab Wars I decided to focus my efforts on something interesting from that period. As the Badab wars took place near to the Maelstrom in the Ultima Segmentum and centred around a known conflict I found myself researching the Ultima fleets and thinking about Battlefleet Maelstrom.
Few facts seem to be known about the Ultima Segmentum with regard to Battlefleet Gothic, I could only find one unsubstantiated colour reference and if that was correct it invalidated GW's use of green for their own fleet, so I quickly dismissed it. One solid fact was the information about Kar Duniash the segmentum fortress and its use of the Kar Duniash pattern cruisers, which are sold by GW as their Rogue Trader cruiser. In the initial
Rogue Trader fleet rules release it says specifically on page 4: -
Kar Duniash Pattern Cruisers
The Rogue Trader model available from games workshop is based upon a Kar Duniash pattern cruiser, meaning the model is rather versatile and can be used to represent any class of Imperial Navy Cruiser. Our painted example has been equipped to represent a Rogue Trader cruiser, but by replacing the weapons with the appropriate combinations of Imperial broadside batteries it's possible to create a Gothic class, Lunar class, Tyrant class or whatever.
Armed with this knowledge I purchased a couple of Kar Duniash cruisers from GW and set about doing some modelling, I wanted to make some Kar Duniash pattern light cruisers as well. The first step was to duplicate the metal cruiser into something softer to work with, so I recast the body of the cruiser into resin and set about making a smaller prow. In addition I filled the back of the various weapon systems to make the back flush and cast them also, this was to make magnetising the weapon systems easier. As I wished to field some Endeavour, Endurance and Defiant pattern light cruisers I then extended and rebuilt the Lance bay and Fighter bays to the same length as the Light cruiser weapon bays.
You can see my work in progress below, the light cruiser half way through construction is at the front, with all the modified weapon bays ready to be reproduced in resin. The prow of the light cruiser has been cut down to make it scale better with the light cruiser body. The resin bridge section at the back has also been cut back as well. Directly in from the finished weapon bays will let me make a Kar Duniash pattern Endeavour class series of ships.
The middle cruiser body was the test for the magnets as you can see and in the end was cut up for parts as I experimented further with the Light Cruiser.
The Metal cruiser at the back was destined to become my colour scheme test.
Work in Progress Modelling shots
In between waiting for moulds and casting I set about working on a test colour scheme. I wanted to keep the colour palette relatively simple and would be relying on dry brushing (shock, horror, gasp) and washes. I got the basic colour outline laid down quickly using a white undercoat (I wanted the colour vibrancy that a white undercoat brings) and the blue was done with Vallejo Model Color - Medium Blue. Please excuse the poorly taken and over exposed shot from my iphone: -
Working up from that I used GW - Ice Blue with a heavy dry brush to accent all the small detail and then a heavy wash with GW Wash - Asurmen Blue. This left me slightly darker than the colour I wanted, so I ran a VERY light drybrush of Ice Blue which pulled the colour up to where I wanted and re-emphasised the small detail. Once this was done I went and retouched the white prow and eagle and started work on the "lights", in keeping with the "cool" colour scheme I had chosen white for the lights, small dots at key points helped sustain the illusion of scale that any small model requires. I then followed up with GW - Chainmail on the characteristic globes along the dorsal line of the ship and the tips of weapons and landing bays and finally the engines, which then received a further 2-3 carefully applied GW Wash - Badab Black layers.
Lastly I used GW Dwarf Bronze as the base for my Prow Eagle, then followed the edges with GW - Brunished Gold and went over with GW Wash - Devlan mud in the recesses. To make it "Pop" I then highlighted again with the burnished gold. To emphasise the bridge dome I used the gold to do some of the minor metallic work at that end also.
Here are a couple of pictures of the final outcome: -
