Battlefleet Gothic. My old Imperial Fleet

As these days I've been onto small scales, I remembered that I even had a smaller scale than 6mm! If you remember, early this year I posted my BFG Ork Fleet. (1, 2, 3) Well, I haven't tested them yet on the table, my fault :(

But I've remembered that I painted this Imperial Fleet looong time ago, let me briefly introduce the ships:

Emperor class Battleship Orion

Dictator class Cruiser Athena and Mars class Battle Cruiser Perseus

Lunar class Cruisers Master of Cosmos and Atlantis

Gothic class Cruiser Solaris and Dominator class Cruiser Dauntless

I also made my own DIY star fortress, or more kind of a starship dock:

Star Fortress Penthesilea

Naive attempt made of tiny garbage about 15 years ago, give or take

But hey, it was designed with care

Besides, at some point I wanted to begin a Space Marines fleet, but only got to purchase my first Battle Barge:

The Octavius, belonging to the Ultramarines

Well, of course you can see they were painted loooong, loooong time ago, they need a repaint for sure. Not only because how chunky they look, I have another reason. As you can see, that fleet has a disturbing lack of escort ships. It's in dire need of frigates and smaller vessels. A friend of mine gently sold me his, but you can guess, I finally bought him all he had...

 

 

You know. These things happen...

So that's my perfect excuse to strip them all and repaint all of them unifying the style!
Agh! Lots of work ahead!! :D

Battlefleet Gothic. Ork Fleet (Pt. 3)

Dis is da end, my frien'! :D Project finished! Woo!

As you saw, my aim was to pay some attention to Orky details and make the ships suitable for the Warhammer 40,000 fluff. After some hours, this is what I got. Let me show the final results.

The White Dragons fleet is the informal denomination for the XF-O4-9753 Ork Fleet operating in the Eastern Fringe. Their infamous records include the Scourging of Agalphar, the Desecration of Thurginden II or the Battle of the Girthanys Straits. According to the latest intelligence reports, the fleet is currently composed by the following vessels (all Imperial 'informal' denominations):

 

Ravenous. Terrorship class. Flagship of the fleet

Ardent Jaws. Terrorship class

Dragonback. Killkroozer class

Blackmaw. Killkroozer class

Brute, Bighorn, Ibex and Chamois. Brute Ram Ship class

Piercer, Fangs, Sharpwing and Paindriller. Brute Ram Ship class

Carnotaurus, Fierce Scales and Bloody Jaws. Ravager Attack Ship class

Greedy, Mordorian, Atlantis' Claws. Ravager Attack Ship class

 

Hunter's Damnation, White Snake and Scars. Ravager Attack Ship class

 

Darkjaws, Killakilla, Swiftdealer and Dragonet. Onslaught Attack Ship class

Red-3, Savage, Gunny Bastard and Slippery. Savage Gunship class

Barracuda, Sharklet, Painship and Lifetaker. Onslaught Attack Ship class

Stingy Squadrons

The whole fleet deployed for a raid

 

All Battlegroups are adviced to act cautiously and immediately report any contact with any of these vessels.

I still have to calculate the point value of this fleet, but it's truly worthy of a full scale battle! Seeing the final result, I may want to revisit my old Chaos fleet (painted in painfully red tones, as everyone back in the day) and do something more oriented towards this concept. Besides, I still have a lot of Imperial ships that still remain unpainted. Shame on me!

I might take a breath before I face another fleet, but for sure this is not the last about BFG you see over here!

Battlefleet Gothic. Ork Fleet (Pt. 2)

Moar wurk!

Once I painted the black details, I begun the metals. Slow work, but kinda paying off:

Da big shipz

I must confess I love these scrappy ships

And so on until I get 33 ships

Maybe the Sharkies are my favourite ones

 OK, now it was time to begin to give them the Reaver looks. In order not to make them too flashy, I thought I could use a limited palette, only red and black (well, dark red mixed with dark brown on one part and black with dark blue on the other). I tried to stick to a kinda Orky style and I used simple patterns.

 

We ur elegantz!

Som' hourz later...

 

I'm still not satisfied with them, they lack details and personality, so I'm starting the new stage, painting each one of them with checkers, glyphs or whatever I'm able to achieve. Hopefully they'll look more like Orky stuff.

Moar stuff incomin' zoon!

Battlefleet Gothic. Ork Fleet (Pt. 1)

That's it, as you just read, I'm embarking myself in a whole new crazy project! I'm coming back to BFG after maaany years. I already have two fleets, an Imperial and a Chaotic one, but some months ago, thanks to a friend (thanks, Carlos!), I became the proud owner of an Ork fleet. This is what I got:

 

This is the 'before' pic. Long way till I get an 'after' pic

 

The mere idea of painting all this made me shiver, brrrr :S

Could I get something fresh out of this? Would I be able to paint them in a decent way and not make them look like rubbish? These models are not easy, if I was to make them look convincing I'd better approach the project at full strength. That's what took me these months, being convinced that I could make something worthy out of this.

I clearly didn't want just another generic fleet as everyone else has. I've always seen these ships painted in plain black with bright red additions, and that's pretty much it. If you are lucky you may find a Bad Moon Clan fleet painted in yellow. No, I didn't want that. Those colours make the ships look even more scrappy and dull, and I really didn't want black ships to play on a black mat.

So I took another different direction. I had quite a fair idea of what I wanted...

A hint...

Firefly.

You know what I'm thinking...

Reaveeers!!

 

Oh, c'mon, this is exactly how I see them; wild, harsh, in awful, dreadful ships. The current models already look like wildlings, so I thought this could work.

As my Imperial fleet is already painted in light grey, I opted for a beige/cream approach, something like that. I primed them in a creamy white and gave them a wash with Vallejo Earth Brown:

 

Hmmm... too shiny

 

I gave a second wash then, this time with a darker brown:

 

Now they look properly dirt

 

While in the middle of the process I was quite unsure of how this was going to turn out. I'm still a little scared about them looking too bright, but I have faith in my plan. They look dirty, but not too much, and they don't look like elegant brand new Eldar either :P

I've painted the metallic areas in black, and it's beginning to look like something:

 

Beginning to get some contrast...

33 ships. 33. Once again my sanity is going downwards

 

I know these are not many pics and doesn't look too much, but believe me, there are already some hours involved here. :D

More progress coming soon!