The Honourable Eclipse Company

A SHOWCASE FOR THE LATEST MERCENARIES TO OFFER THEIR SERVICES IN THE DYSTOPIAN WAR 

As you may have seen in the recent Battle Report, the Eclipse Company (first seen built but unpainted here) are now finished! Almost two weeks after their finishing touches, I must admit, but here are the pictures. Better late than never...

The Elysium-class Large Airship

The fleet took a few sessions to paint, over a period of ten days. I was given a rather nice deadline by Ben to have the fleet ready for recording our Battle Report, and had to get everything sorted in a very short amount of time given my work and social commitments. This was done while also painting the new Objective Set, pictures of which can be found here.

Phoenician-class Scout Flyers

At first I thought the fleet would be rather simple - it's only a couple of squadrons and some airships after all! This was before taking all of the tiny tokens into account - overall the Eclipse Company numbers 48 individual models, some of which are very small, and some are very large indeed.

Oceanus-class Bombers

Once the scheme was settled upon (see below for inspiration), I found a great deal of time was spent waiting for washes to dry. On the predominately metal models like the Elysium and the Phoenician squadron, as well as the Fortifications, the metal was achieved with four to five washes of various colours over the silver metal. I am particularly pleased how this barely shows up in the pictures (/sarcasm)

Hades-class Interceptors

I am proud of the glass window frames on the prows of all the Eclipse Company flyers, which again look a lot better the closer you get to them. Bold bright colours like this are needed to make the models "pop," as their scheme is otherwise rather bland. 

Tartarus-class Fortification and the Stingray-class Attack Submarines

The Tartarus Fortification was painted in several different pieces, and glued together when everything was done. Perhaps difficult to see, the silvers and golds of the main structure are painted to be faded and tarnished, representing their constant exposure to the elements. The Submarines were also painted bright gold but given a heavy green wash to weather them. 

Gadeiros-class Fortifications and the Atlas-class Assault Ships

The Gadeiros Fortifications were painted with a rusted and faded scheme, as they would suffer the worst during any battle, and also because their simple design lacks a lot of detail and flash of other Eclipse Company models.

Tiny Flyer Tokens

The Tiny Flyer Tokens were not painted in a contrasting scheme like my other projects, but painted the same as the Hades and Oceanus Flyers. This is a reference to their background, which speaks of waves of Eclipse flyers of all different sizes and classes attacking together. 

Inspiration

Inspiration for the scheme was originally taken from an old Rackham miniature I painted over eight years ago. The simple colours of brown, creamy white and gold work well together without offering a strong contrast like I have used for other fleets, and I knew that this would be reminiscent of Spartan Games' Eclipse Company scheme without resorting to their dark browns and terracotta. I think the white on the wings of the flyers and the canvas of the airships in particularly effective, though it does tend to dominate any pictures they appear in.

The scheme is one of faded grandeur - the golds and the silvers have seen better days, the brown is weathered and the metals rusted in places. I wanted the Eclipse Company to give the impression of a military outfit very conscious of its presentation, prone to ostentation, but also make it apparent that they have been engaged in a World War.

Overall, the Eclipse Company were a really great project, and though I am not a particularly big fan of painting Aerial models for Dystopian Wars (I struggle with the underside, and tend to drop them a lot), I am happy with the final result. My favourite models are the fantastic Fortifications, and I am looking forward to adding them to my fleets in future games.

Thanks for reading,

George