Armada: Mixed Fleet

The last ships I had to paint up for Armada are the 3D printed ones from BIG, these are to be used as neutral ships in some of the scenarios. 

First up we have the Orc XL ship Ripper Hulk, as you would expect from an XL it's a massive bit of resin and no doubt a real terror to face in a proper game. I've not had 3D resin prints to work with before and this was very easy with no washing required. The only thing I did was leave it out in the sun whilst it was in the painting queue to help ensure the resin was fully cured. 

Next we have the War Galley, which is an Empire of Dust large ship. With the EoD having an Egyptian theme this ship has some nice detailing nods to that period.

Lastly we have a pair of medium Gur Panther ships from Basilea. Again lots of nice little Basilean and panther details are included on the model.

The models did have the odd breakage here and there but overall for the price ( around 2/3 of a model from Mantic) I'm very impressed. The ability to also buy the models as individuals is a real bonus as many are only available as part of large packs. I'm sure more factions will have their 3D models released in the future so no doubt I will be picking up some more Armada stuff to paint.

The latest Armada book also includes rules for forming a Pirate fleet allowing you to use ships from any nation, so these models could be used together though I'm not sure how balanced a fleet it would be.

Armada: Battleship in my Pocket

Continuing the Abyssal Dwarf theme of ships having the stats of one size above what other fleets get we have the final ship in the fleet. The Hellfane / Arbiter of Pain is a proper pocket battleship and is in the same cost range as other fleet's XL's. This means it packs a powerful punch and can take a massive amount of punishment before being defeated.

It comes in two variants with the Hellfane being the standard version and boasts a nice little re-roll effect for boarding actions for itself and nearby friendly ships. Both versions have a good number of close range guns so will do their best work up close.

The model provided by Mantic comes with the central towers as separate parts that drop into a bay in the main hull so you can easily swap between the two versions without needing to resort to magnets or buying an extra model. Given the cost of both variants you would need to be playing a really big game to fit two in.

The Arbiter of Pain in the unique version of the ship and again wants to get in close, especially with it's Ram (4) rule and it's combat strength of 10, I have noticed that the unit entry on the Mantic app is slightly incorrect as the AoP has 4 close guns up front on it's unit card from the box rather than the 3 shown.

As the ultimate ship in the Abyssal Dwarf fleet I went in a bit more on the bling front when painting her up and despite not being an XL in actual size I think she should stand out on the table.

Lastly we have the two flyers to accompany the fleet, the flying sphincter was originally planned to be a Dwarf release but after a bit of a community outcry over it not fitting the theme is was moved to the evil Dwarf list instead. The Abyssal Dwarfs also share the Gargoyle Swarm with the Twilight Kin so I painted these ones with Abyssal red bodies instead.

So that's the entire fleet for the Abyssal Dwarfs completed, due to the high cost of individual ships the points for contents of the Starter + Expansion + Flyer box's is much higher than that for the same Twilight Kin boxes. I do have another Butcher to paint for the TK and then the extra scenario ships I had 3D printed, so I'm not entirely done with ships yet.