Cancon is almost here!

Well it's now Thursday morning, which means by this time tomorrow I will probably be getting into the car and starting the drive up to Canberra. There is still a lot of packing to be done, so any remaining hobby time will be limited. The question then is, am I ready?

Unfortunately the answer is no, not quite. Despite having spent a fair bit of time on these models over the last week or so, my battery of Empire special characters remains unfinished. Just how unfinished depends upon which model you look at, as you can see below.

The 4 Empire special characters, in various states of paintedness

I started off by painting Marius Leitdorf, as he and his madness are largely the reason for me putting this army together. He is the inspiration. As he was the first, it was only partway through him that I realised just how pressed for time I was going to be. This means he nearly got finished. Apart from very small details like gemstones and eyes, he is basically done.

Marius Leitdorf, chief crazy man of Averland. Of all the models, he is the closest to finished. 

Next up I tackled Kurt Helborg, because I was basically trying to avoid Ludwig Schwartzhelm, whose banner looked complicated and time-consuming. I got Kurt second-hand a while back, and as such he was basically assembled and green stuff had been used (rather wildly) on his joins. I cleaned him up and gave him the sword from the plastic Empire General set, as his own blade had gone missing. It was only partway through painting him that I realised something else was missing - his cape. Actually, I was looking at his back and decided he needed a cape, so I added one out of green stuff. Then I started wondering if there wasn't meant to be one all along. Turns out there was. Ah well, my own version will do the job.

Kurt Helborg, who is nearly done but really needs a highlight on his gold detailing (which is everywhere). 

Kurt is not as finished as Marius. The most obvious this he needs done is highlighting on the gold detailing on his armour. This will lift the brightness of the model considerably, but I simply won't have time before the event. I also need to clean up the paintwork on the cloak, as it's a bit messy. I need to do a better job of hiding the fact that it's a bodgy home-made effort...

This shot gives you a slightly better view of Kurt's dodgy home-made cloak. 

At this point I decided I had to move on, so I pulled Luthor out of the dip, cleaned him up and got him ready to paint. Then I tackled Ludwig, He Whose Standard Has Far Too Much Detail. I considered painting the standard in the same manner as it's been done by GW, but as usual I ended up doing my own thing, and just tried to use the pictures to help me make sense of some of the detail.

Ludwig Schwartzhelm, who is really only half-painted. 

Ludwig is less painted again than Kurt. His sword is still black, there is highlighting to do all over the place, and I don't think his horse is even the right colour yet. However, he is still mostly painted (in that there is paint on most of him). So I can probably handle using him at Cancon as he currently stands.

The Emperor's Standard is a bit of a pill to paint quickly. 

And then we have Luthor. The poor guy, he has barely had a look in with all these fancy-pants character models taking up all my time. I admit, I have him pegged in my mind as being the simplest model to paint, and it's part of why he got left until last. However, as you can see, he is nowhere near painted. A coat of armour does not a painted model make.

The most painted part of Luthor Huss is his base. Note the back banner, which I added when I suddenly realised (after undercoating) that he had a bloody great hole in his back. I think it might be for a book, but I can't find it right now...

So, where does this all leave me? I'm just about to a point where I can take the stuff to Cancon and not be too embarrassed about it. There is still some work that absolutely has to be done on Luthor, and I'd like to put a few more colours on Ludwig to make him look less half-finished (even if he will in fact still only be half-finished). I'm not sure when I am going to find the time to do this. I may end up taking some paints up to Canberra with me. Last-minute painting on the night before a tournament is a time-honoured tradition, after all.

In recent times, my Empire army has done very well in the presentation component of tournaments. In fact, it won the players' choice award in at least 2 events last year, including Cancon. With all this, it feels strange to be entering a tournament with clearly unfinished models (however few of them there may be). However, that doesn't really bother me. My army has none of the eye-catching conversions and fancy models of my previous lists, and in fact I plan to leave all of the unit fillers behind too. I don't want to be in contention for the voting again this time, because I feel that the army has had its time in the sun. It feels silly when the same army keeps turning up in the voting at every event. I'm effectively retiring the army from contention. If I field a list chock full of new things that nobody has seen before, I may put it back up for people's attention. In this event however, it will be just another painted army.

In other news, after listening to the latest offering from The Dwellers Below, I now know what Dave Duriesmith is using at Cancon (and what I will be facing in the first round). It includes something like 52 Glade Guard, Hail of Doom Arrow, Highborn with the Bow of Loren and Arcane Bodkins, a level 4 Spellweaver with Lore of Life and the Wand of Wych Elm, a Treeman and 8 Treekin. There are sundry other things like Eagles, of course. I fear that my rather basic army is going to struggle against so much firepower. Dave seems to feel otherwise, but time will tell whether my 1+ armour can hold up against such a barrage...