Aeronautica Imperialis fighters join my epic army

With the Coronavirus in full swing, and living in an epicenter, I have some extra reasons not to leave the house. Oh dear what to do with all my time (aside from keeping a cooped up 4 year old more or less entertained)? You guessed it, more painting! Aside from Adeptus Titanicus I also picked up the new Aeronautica Imperialis Wings of Vengeance set. I never really played this game, but as it might just be made compatible with Adeptus Titanicus I couldn't resist the starter box. This weekend I painted the Imperial Navy fighter wing that's in it.

Hojotoho! 

Sticking this lot together brought home just how much bigger the 8mm scale is (when compared to 6mm). The Marauder Bombers are about as big as my hand.

That's a serious plastic fleet. 

Here's a quick snap of both the Imperial fighters and the Orc craft that come in the box (and the mess of parts around that side of the hobby station). In GW-style you actually get a rather large choice in extra bombs and guns for the Orc fighters and bombers. For the Imparial Navy you get a choice of a regular Thunderbolt Fighter or an Avenger Fighter. I opted for two Avengers because I like the look of the miniguns sticking out of from the fuselage.

Building a Reaver Titan, turns out these are not made to be magnetized. 

In the meantime I also picked up the 'regular' Adeptus Titanicus box as it contains 2 Reaver Titans, 2 Warhound Titans and 2 Cerastus Knights. I stuck my Reavers together and started on their paint job between painting the Imperial Navy craft. Did I mention something about the whole Corona quarantine thing? Nothing else to do here, even the gym has been closed down around now.

Painting the basic metal and carapace of the models. And trying some new reds for my Orc flyers.

Let's turn this into an interlude. Here's a shot of my Reaver Titans getting their basic color blocks airbrushed in. As you can see I left off most of the carapace for ease of painting. You can also see a head start on the Orc flyers. And quite a bit of overspray I need to fix.

Adeptus Titanicus comes with a lot of plastic counters. I intend to paint the lot.

Here's a lot of yellow carapace pieces. Painting two titans at the same time does get a bit confusing I must admit, let's hope it'll turn out alright in the end. I've also started on the counters and angle measuring sticks (not pictured). As a small aside, the smaller Adeptus Titanicus starter set (with the Reavers and Warhounds) is a bit odd compared to the Grand Master Edition. It also contains a rulebook, but this time in softcover format. That I understand. I like getting an extra set of plastic counters. The part that's odd are the datacards. In the Grand Master edition these are made out of hard cardboard with small holes in them. You use the small plastic cogs pictured above in these holes to keep track of your titan. The odd thing is that the new starter contains datacards made out of cardstock. Obviously you can't stick plastic cogs into thin cardstock, so why do these come with the box? 

Paint the grey plastic black, then paint the black plane grey, sometimes I question my efficiency. 

Back to the Imperial Navy. I looked around the internet for a cool color scheme, but I couldn't really find one. I'm starting to suspect Aeronautica Imperialis is not a popular game. In the end I decided to try a bit of a desert camouflage scheme you usually see on WW2 Spitfire airplanes. I basecoated the fighters black. Then I airbrushed a solid darkish grey layer from a slight angle (to keep the panel lines reasonably dark). I applied a lighter grey (Vallejo Game Color Wolf Grey) the the front and the cockpit areas. I let this dry. Then I used (quality) masking tape to mask straight lines along the sides and a smaller line around the tail section.

Going for a 'Spitfire style' look to these planes. 

I carefully airbrushed the tops of the airplanes Vallejo Model Color Dark yellow and then applied (freehanded) lines of Vallejo Model Color Dirt in stripes across the wings. I used a few pictures of actual Spitfires for reference (and probably missed all the finer nuances of airplane camouflage. Military modelers please stop snickering. ;).

Painting camouflage instead of the suicidal bright future soldier color turns out to be more fun then I expected. I may have to invest in an actual military model kit someday soon.

After the Dirt colored lines I used Vallejo Model Color Dark Earth to paint darker brown lines on the planes. I let this dry and then removed the masking tape (and got so carried away painting I forgot to take more pictures). I painted the cockpit and turret windows white and then applied GW Soulstone Blue. It's supposed to be used to paint gemstones but in my experience the only things that look reasonably well with this paint are windows. I painted the engines, guns, bits of the turret and a few bits I could get away with Valleje Metal Color Steel. I painted the bombs Vallejo Camouflage Green (I was a bit uninspired at this point).

Alclad II Aqua Gloss is one of the best ways to gloss up a model with clogging up all detail.

I let the planes dry, coated them in Alclad II gloss and gave them a pin wash with a brown oil paint. After this dried (more or less) I applied transfers. I cursed quite a bit after fixing the Imperial Wings as they cover most of my camouflage paint. I carefully cut the transfers to pieces on the wing (with a very sharp scalpel) to make the panel lines a bit more visible. I then sealed all transfers with GW 'Ardcoat, used AK Ultra Matte Varnish to take the gloss off. Then I used Vallejo Polyurethane Matt varnish to REALLY take the gloss off. I dabbed a bit of watered down Agrax on top of the decals to make them look a bit more part of the planes. And here I am.

Hey I can use these today as airfield decoration in Adeptus Titanicus. Now to build me a small airfield...

Here's a shot showing the top of the planes.

Sure the green bombs where a bit uninspired, but I suspect this was the last time anyone actually looks at the bottom of these planes.

Here's the bottom. I'm quite happy with the way the panel lines show after a nice pin wash.

Now to build me a really high building and re-enact the ending of King Kong.

And because I know I was curious about this, here's a shot of how the planes size up to a modern Warlord Titan.

Coming up: even more building sized war machines and (hopefully) some matching buildings.

Now let's hope the rumors about a fusion with Adeptus Titanicus turn out to be true, because that would be rather a lot of fun. I'm off painting Reavers and Warhounds and some other interesting AT related side-projects, while hopefully skipping the entire 'getting infected with Corona thing' (you hear me grandfather Nurgle! Stay out of here ;)