The Dogs - Spring Clean Challenge 2026

There are two Level 1 heroes in the army.  I’m writing the background for them now.  I have a couple of beautiful Confrontation Griffin Hunters of Darkness.  You can still get these miniatures.  In my background these are part of the Firstborn contingent that La Lionne recruited earliest in her career as a mercenary general.  They are responsible for order and discipline in camp.  Able carries the contract that all the mercenaries have signed and harangues the troops, reminding them of their oath of service and the riches promised them when they win.  Kane does not speak and even the brashest bravo falls silent when he approaches.  If a transgressor is found with their throat slit as the camp awakens in the morning  then all know whose blade was responsible.  As a result of their efforts La Lionne’s army has a reputation for discipline and focus on and off the battlefield.

Painting

I have stopped using a straight black with a grey highlight for models wearing black clothing.  I think that there are much more interesting colours available that still ‘read’ visually as black.  To that end I’m trying both of my current favourites on these miniatures.  One will be in Tyrian Navy and the other Turnbull Turquoise.

Here they are after the base coat was on:

The other base AP Speedpaint colours used were:

• Skin – Crusader Skin
• Shoes – Grim Black
• Leather – Satchel Brown
• Clothes – Battleship Grey
• Buff coat and cuffs: Bony Matter

Metals all in Darkstar using the blued steel triad described for the Firstborn Iron Guard.

The ‘black’ coats and hats were then highlighted using AP acrylic The Darkness.

Now on to the detailing.  I tried sticking with the new technique I’m learning, to add nail varnish stamp patterns to my miniatures.  Whilst the shields worked okay this effort wasn’t so good.  In the first image below you can see what happened when I tried to transfer the block of text from the stamp plate to the scroll.  I wasn’t being pathetic – I spent ages on this and despite lots of attempts just couldn’t get any sort of pickup from the plate, no matter how quick I was getting the stamp onto it.  I think that the engraving is too shallow and the nail varnish dries too quickly between wiping the initial blob off and getting the stamp onto it.  You can see how little of the pattern transferred, and much of that then flaked off because it was already totally dry.  Pity.

To fix this I had to go in and do it by hand with a 000 sized brush and some very thin black acrylic.  It looks fine as you can see in the second image.

Bases completed using the new Goblin Green edges and Meadows of Purity scatter.

As these are characters I’m doing eyes as well.  Kane has glasses though so I got away without having to do his: