Gatormen Posse

I really love these models. I’ve wanted them for a while, but was adamant that I would paint my Cetrati first. Yeah, maybe next time.To double my shame, I also took the partially finished Gatormen to casual games – breaking my own rule of never fielding an unfinished model. But I really wanted to test them in my Xerxis army, so I’m sure I’ll build a bridge, forgive myself and move on.

I grabbed the models on the 26th of Jan, assembled them that night, undercoated the next. By the end of the following week I’d finished the scales/underbelly and took some time off to paint Viktor Pendrake (see Brush for Rent).

I wasn’t sure on what palette to use – though I always knew I wanted to replicate the colours of my Skorne armour to keep them thematically the same. I did the spine scales first, and they came out a dream – so the pressure was on to pick a minor scale/underbelly colour combination that would suit the creamy/white of the spine. I decided to go with the default studio scheme, and that’s worked a treat. The only thing I added was a final drybrush to really bring out the scales.

To tie them further into my Skorne force, I added arm bands (yes, that is what they are meant to look like) to each forearm, with the added benefit of concealing the join connecting the torso to the arms. Painting these in the blue ties them to the “pop” colour for the Skorne nicely. Late in the process, I decided to replicate the blue on the ties on the halberd.

Finally, I wanted to test out a new way to mark the front arc. I’d seen it used elsewhere (painted the back half, rather than the front), and with some trepidation I chose to go with Skorne Red, the colour used on the cloth for other Skorne models. It may be too … strong a colour, we’ll see how they look on the table before I go back and re-do the arcs on my existing models.

I think I’ll have to finish the Paingiver Task Master next, just so the “unit” is complete. Good news, even without having access to Xerxis’ feat (they aren’t faction models), the Gatormen still perform on the table. Now that I have (practically) two full units of infantry, I really feel like I can contest scenarios, and that my game is getting better.