Community Spotlight: Clan Wars, Eagles of Empire & Fallout’s Brotherhood!

Come and join us for another delve into the Projects to find the best of the best from the last week or so. We’ll be getting stuck into lots of great-looking miniature wargaming painting and hobbying this week…

…always let us know what YOU have been working on and share it across the site.

Clan Wars Phoenix Army by jodain

We start off this week with someone who is returning to the world of Clan Wars and the painting of their Fantasy Samurai for the old Legend of the Five Rings miniatures game. jodain worked on this project back in 2023 and so it's great to see them back, working on some more brilliant miniatures for this old-school army.

One of the miniatures that properly caught my eye from the new collection of painted miniatures was this excellent dragon. This Water Dragon looks superb, especially when you start delving into all of the little details on the miniature. I love the way that jodain has done all of the water dripping from its scales and how that works with the overall look of the dragon. The murkier waters below it also help to frame the creature nicely.

As well as the Water Dragon, we also got these excellent Avalanche Guard.

These are just a few additions to an existing range of figures for the army and they, again, look brilliant. This is all from a range of miniatures that I don't think I'd ever heard of until we first looked at this back in 2023! The painting on their rocky skin is excellent and it's nice and bright, which is something we often lose in painting when the lure of shadowy crevices comes knocking to hide your painting sins!

Last but not least, we also had some of these archers leaping into the fray to aid the army on the tabletop. The painting on these really brings out the detail on the miniatures, which have plenty of character. I also really like the basing from jodain which does put me in mind of a Japanese environment. I think it might be the flowers mixed with the rocks that does it.

Eagles of Empire Battle Reports by hutch

Dropping right into the middle of this Community Spotlight, we have some excellent Battle Report tales from hutch, who is diving into some games of Eagles of Empire and put together a great set of photos of a recent game with some great background too.

What was nice about this battle report was that it was done from an in-world perspective. I have always preferred this way of reading a battle report. It's all well and good talking about the dice rolls and the failed charges but if you can wrap that up in a cool narrative way then it makes it all the better. hutch has done that with this battle!

The fighting that took place during the Battle of Artenay was fierce and saw a French force clashing with the Prussians. I also liked that the objectives of the game and what each side had to do were wrapped up in a very cool "Message from Divisional HQ" at the start, which was very fun! The second game wasn't quite as narratively delved into but it was good to see someone learning a new game and getting to grips with it so much that they wanted to go down the narrative route to describe their games.

I think narratively written battle reports then get you to think about playing whatever game the fighting revolved around. You end up thinking, "If this was how cool this ended up being, I wonder if the rules will support what I want to do?" I also like that at the heart of it, hutch was also just happy to be playing a game with a friend. They took the game as it came and had a chat whilst also pushing toy soldiers around a battlefield. What more could you ask for?

Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel by draconis

Last but not least, we're going to be having a look at what draconis has been doing. They have been exploring the world of Fallout and working on some excellent miniatures for their Brotherhood of Steel collection. I don't think I get tired of people working on the power armour that the Brotherhood of Steel Knights bring to battle.

Painting something that's almost entirely metal isn't easy either. There's a temptation to just drybrush the entire thing and leave it at that. I think seeing the extra work that draconis has put in, tinkering with the inner workings of the armour and the additional detail on the gun, has really helped. It makes the miniature feel less one-note. The successive drybrushes of lighter and lighter metallics also really help add some depth to the miniature.

We also have these other members of the patrol who aren't lucky enough to be running around in power armour.

Again, I really liked the depth that draconic was able to bring to the miniatures. Doing all of the under armour can sometimes be a bit of a pain but draconis has done a great job on it here. Again, it's the successive drybrush layers that help with the main focal point of the armour and a little bit of added highlighting here and there that helps the miniatures pop.

I also really like their faces! I think draconis has done an excellent job on painting their faces and getting some character out of them. The darker circles around the eyes with the spots of white might seem at first a bit comic in style but I think it helps to draw the eye properly, weirdly, to the eyes. You can see more of their work on Fallout by heading to the project!

What Are You Painting Right Now?

Every week, we’re absolutely blown away by the incredible topics that are put into the Projects; it’s getting more difficult to choose Community Spotlights! We love your work and we hope to see a lot more of it in the future!

If you fancy getting your hobby fingers out and showing off your newest paint job, terrain piece or even greatest gaming achievement, we want to know about it! We don’t mind if you’re a newcomer to painting or a veteran of the brush; everything you do inspires us to create more and more content together!

What do you think of the entries this week?