Castles in the Sky is model agnostic, but the minis in the book are all from Brigade. My existing fleets are also from Brigade and I like the look of them. Therefore, "Liberation Day" Tariffs were announced I moved quickly to secure a new fleet from Scale Creep Games before the new Tariff pricing took effect. I might not have been the only one with that idea, because the site didn't have much left on it. Quantities were so low, that I emailed Scale Creep before I ordered to make sure that the volumes on the site were correct.
Scale Creep got me my order right quick, and before Tariff pricing kicked in. I was thankful. This time I picked up two fleet packs of Austro-Hungarian ships. I was surprised when I got them that they were Resin/Metal hybrids for the big boys. I am not going to lie, I am not a fan of that.
Despite being metal/resin hybrids it didn't take me long to get them assembled with Super-Glue and Greenstuff. Flash was minimal, and the hardest part was getting the smokestacks off the sprue and somewhat lined up right!
Oh boy! Look at those beauties. I have a few different makes and models there. Look at those mid-size wedge shaped darlings. They look like a Star Destroyer had a baby with the Titanic. Ahhhh..... so cute. I also really like the look of those metal ships on the left. The only downside, is I am not sure which of these cool little guys will be the Austro-Hungarian escorts? They all look a little beefy and well-armed for escorts.
From there, I got them outside and gave them a Seer Grey undercoat. Next, I gave them all a dark grey wash and then I dry-brushed with cheap, white-acrylic paint. They were now ready for some paint. I took some time and thought a bit about the color schemes. I took a close look at the sky around me and my existing fleets. I decided that I was going to use Graveyard Grey as the "hull", Sand Golem for the wooden decks, and Runic Grey for the super-structures. These colors will give the ship a "camouflage" look in the sky from either the top or bottom as clouds are often grey as well. Plus, they will still look like World War One warships.
I decided to take a few of each ship type and give it a quick test run.....
As a quick test of the color scheme, I was happy with the results and decided to keep going with that color scheme. From there, it was a just a few touches here and there to make the ships "Pop" a bit. For windows I used Voidshield Blue from the regular Armypainter range of paints. I also gave them some markings on their "fins" where is made sense in Red and White. These also came from the main Armypainter range. Finally I painted the inside of the stacks with Grim Black speedpaint.
The last step on these test models was to mount them on some bases. I typically used a Litko flying stand ring on the base of the ship. Then, I would insert the bases that I got from Brigade. This gives them that flying feel and is very sturdy. Lastly, I tried to cut-out an Austro-Hungarian flag I got with the ships using an X-acto knife and mounted it on the biggest ship's observation mast.
This gave me a workable fleet for any games that were going to come up. However, what if I needed a bigger fleet? Good thing I still had several ships to get painted up!
Satisfied with the test ships, I decided to move on and paint the rest using the same general scheme. The only challenge was that I did not have enough Litko flying base rings for all of them. I only had enough for about 5 more airships. Oh well. I went ahead and painted them all anyway and decided which ones got to fly later.
Then, here is the ships on patrol somewhere over Bosnia, patrolling the border with Serbia. This show of force should deter any Nationalist sentiment from those regional upstarts!
This gives our local Castles in the Sky players 2 British fleets, a French Fleet, an American Fleet, a German fleet, and now this Austro-Hungarian Fleet. A good mix of fleets and ships for us to choose from.
Until next time!
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