Something New(ish)

Two sessions worth, which is a couple hours.  

We're going way out of order, not that you'll notice the difference, but the iron is hot so I'm pounding it.  Halberdiers are the new hotness around here and I'm having a hard time with them.  Not in the usual manner where I don't want to paint them, can't figure up a scheme I like, or can't implement the scheme once I decide on it.  Instead the "hard time" revolves around trying to maintain a reasonable pace and not binge on painting gobs of the blighters.  Hopefully this way I can keep up the painting steam to plow through the models without overheating and ruining the boiler.  I have about 25 models assembled (more or less, details to come), primed, and in various stages of existing paint that are ready to go.  Starting yesterday I've finished 6 and have another 7 base coated and washed.  That's a very fast pace for me even taking my recent speed boost into consideration.

Empire Man.

Why so fast?  It's mostly the models.  They're very simple.  I'm working with models that are at least one cycle old, meaning they're not the current sculpts.  They're both more and less detailed than the new ones.  They're more foppish than the new batch with lots of puffy, slashed sleeves, but there isn't much to them beyond clothes, armor, and weapon.  There are no belts, pouches, daggers, scrolls, chickens, sausages, jugs of wine, rashers of bacon, pocket watches, lucky stones, unlucky stones, or childhood artifacts.  They're lean and mean, all business.  This lack of detail makes for quick painting.  There are a grand total of five colors on this batch, not counting hair: red, blue, silver, bronze, brown (leather/wood).  I could easily take out the bronze as it's just a little accent here and there, but it fits with the Altdorf theme (more later) and it takes longer to find the paint and mix it up than it does to actually paint the bits.

There are other factors in the simple(ish) scheme beyond the sculpts.  Since Warhammer Fantasy (henceforth WFB) revolves around blocks of troops, individuals don't stand out as much as they do in a "skirmish" game (using the term loosely) like 40k or Warmahordes, so there's less drive (for me) to paint all the bits.  (Of course I am painting all the bits, with shading and highlighting no less, because there aren't many of them as discussed above.)  There's also scale to consider.  Small units start at 10, while the large blocks that center your line likely start at 40 and go up from there.  With that many bodies, and so many of those bodies largely hidden from view, it's a poor use of time to paint each one to the fullest (says the guy doing just that).  It's a different approach for a different game with a different aesthetic.

P.S. - Mere moments after I posted this, I headed over to Faeit 212 to catch up on GW news.  What do I find?  This blurb about a new edition of WFB and a starter set that includes Empire.  A bit of good news/bad news there as I'm working up momentum for the long-delayed push into WFB but will now be a bit more reluctant to invest in the current iteration if there's a new one in the pipe, especially if it has Empire troops in the box.  Of course these are just rumors, though his information is generally pretty reliable, and I suppose I could always just lean on EV's books for the duration of 8th...