DFC Series - Scourge Fleet | Tabletop Made Easy

Dropfleet Commander Series - Scourge Fleet

Hawk Wargame's Dropfleet Commander is a tabletop game which is pretty new to me; but it rapidly becoming one of my favourites.

Originally I started out with the United Colonies of Mankind (UCM) faction. The dull grey hulls and ranks of mass drivers appealed to me to start with. After a few games though, I expanded my collection to include the main enemy faction... the Scourge.

Scourge ships are meant to be alive and fluid.... bio-mechanical beasts swimming through the void. The studio paint scheme posed a challenge to me. One which I enjoyed taking on myself. After a few attempts (getting it completely wrong) I sought advice from one of the Painters of the original Studio work. Gary Connell from HotdropStudios was kind enough to point me towards the proper paints and a techniques used.

Now the best method to paint these would be with an airbrush - but not everybody has one (me included) So the tutorial will be for brush blending techniques.

Before we start with the guide though, there are a couple of points to detail below, which are important to take into account for painting this figure - detailed guides can be found in the 'Painting Guides' tab at the top.

Things like - Basing - Drybrushing - Detailing - Washing - Weathering

If you're unfamiliar with any of these painting techniques, or you are and you think that you could do with a refresher, please follow the links above, or where they're inbeded in the body of the text.

Model parts laid out and cleaned up

Stage 1 - Assembly

Probably as important as the paint job itself is the preparation of the model and the assembly.

Most plastic models are made from injecting hot liquid plastic into a 2-sided mould... so you'll have mould lines. Resin has flashing, which is a similar thing. This all needs to be removed before you paint - because if you don't - it will come out in the detailing and it will look rubbish.

I have chosen the 'Nickar' Scourge Corvette ship class for the tutorial. Purely because it is a flying wing, and comes as 1 solid piece. I'll be able to show you all of the bits you need to do on these 3 ships which come as part of the Scourge Battlefleet boxset.

The other parts are the flight stand and stalk (which need making and painting)

Stage 2 - Priming and Base Coat

Priming models is the key to making your paint stick to your models, and stay stuck to your models. To get a good clean finish all over - Use an airbrush or a rattle-can primer.

I used Army Painter Plate mail Metal on these models. With spraying anything, hold the can 4 inches away from the model and dust in the model in light thin coats - Too much and the paint will pool in the detail and make it so that the detail isn't as pronounced - which spoils the model.

Vallejo Chrome is a good (brighter) alternative to Plate Mail Metal. The brighter you can manage the better. We need the base level to show through the later stages to make that slimy/wet look.

Wait the recommended time from the paint manufacturer to dry, if you're painting more than one model, it would be a good idea to get all your parts based at the same time to speed things up.

Don't forget to paint the other side(s)

Platemail Metal sprayed over both sides of the models

Nuln Oil being applied all over

Stage 3 - Base Wash

Now comes the messy/fun bit! Washing the model is a great way of making all of the sunken detail (panel lines, mouths, eye sockets etc) sink back into the model and create the illusion of ambient occlusion.

Now we're going to be putting GW's Citadel Nuln Oil to cover the whole model. Gary suggested I use a few drops of Lahmian Medium to help the flow of the wash into all of the spine detail on the ship.

Note: Wash goes on very shiny, but usually dries matt.

If the wash is pooling anywhere, make sure you keep it moving to where it needs to go.

Give it a long time to fully dry - you may want to batch-do these models, so by the time you have done one or two more, the first one is dry.

Again, make sure you do the underside of the model. It's at this point I superglue the Hawk widget onto the bottom of the model. The next few stages are easier being able to hold onto the base stalk.

Stage 4 - Colour Wash #1

Now comes the tricky blending bit (if you're using a brush)

We're going to be using Vallejo Dark Green Wash to make up the Green element of the blend.

How you do the blending is up to you. If you're wanting to keep as close to the studio models as possible, it might be worth looking at the pictures of the studio models for the pattern. I have done it as follow:

Green is from the leading edge of any wing/nose/tentacle, and it fades to nothing after about 10-15mm.

Apply the wash using your brush like you normally would, however, immediately after applying the wash - clean and dry your brush - and then use the dry brush to drag the edge away from the main block of colour. Dry your brush again and repeat on the edge. You'll get an edge which gradually fades back into the nuln oil washed plate mail metal.

See Figure 1 (right) for the blending of the green.

I have also not put any green on the underside of the model as I leave that completely in the area of the other wash colour.

Do 2 coats of the green for a really deep finish.

Dark Green shade being applied to the model

Fig.1 - Green Blend

Magenta shade being applied to the model

Stage 5 - Colour Wash #2

Next we're going to do the Magenta portion

We're going to be using Badger Miniataire D6-173 Ghost Tint Magenta to make up the Magenta element of the blend.

We're going to do the same technique as the Green, however, we're going to do it from the back to the front.

By the time you're finished, you shouldn't be able to see any of the bare Plate mail metal left.

See Figure 2 (left) for the blending of the Magenta into the green. The overlap of the blend makes a orangy brown in the middle.... this is what we want.

Once the top is dry, turn the ship over and do all of the underside in Magenta (without having to worry about any blending)

Fig.2 - Magenta Blending into the Green

Stage 6 - Detail 1, Wash and Detail 2

Runefang Steel to the Spines/Ridges

Nuln Oil Gloss over the top of the Runefang Steel

Astorath Red to the weapon system nodes

Now we're onto the detailing.

All Scourge ships have a visible 'spine' along the ridges of the tentacles. We're going to get a very narrow brush and load the bristles with Citadel Runefang Steel. Using the side of the bristles, rub the brush along the spines. The paint will pick up on the raised ridges and leave the paint behind - missing out the gaps between them. Don't forget the bits on the underside.

Once the Runefang Steel is dry, we're going to redo the Nuln Oil wash from earlier, but this time with Nuln Oil Gloss. This is so that the bodywork we've worked hard on getting this way so far isn't dulled down. Rather than going over the whole model though, we're going to just run the Nuln Oil Gloss over the top of the ridge. This should mean that the wash sits inside the groves either side of the spines.

Once all of the ridges have been done, it's time to paint the Corvettes weapons. The weapons should be bright red, so I'm going to paint Citadel Astorath Red (dry) onto the model, and then highlight it with a tiny spot of Citadel Tau Light Ochre.

The Corvette doesn't have an visible engines, however the other ship classes do. At this point, I would paint the engine exhaust in Warpaint Weapon Bronze. And then wash it with Nuln Oil.

Stage 7 - Effects

Now that the ship is all painted, you can call it a day here if you wish.

The studio scourge ships have a blue plasma glow around the engines and on the underside of the fins and tentacles.

For this we are going to drybrush a medium pressure application of Citadel Imrik Blue Dry.

Then once that is dry, a lighter pressure application of Citadel Skink Blue Dry.

There you have the completed model, 3 models finished in a couple of hours.

Now onto the rest of your fleet Admiral.

If you like what you see, please let us know in the comments section below.