Painting the Protectorate of Menoth

A month ago I bought the start 'Two Player Battle Box' for Warmachine. The box features two armies from the world of the Iron Kingdoms. I was over the moon with the content of the box and feel it offers surperb value for money. It's retail is £70 in the UK, I think it's $100 in the US, but if you shop around you will be able to pick it up for around £63.

The two factions that you get starter armies for are Khador (based on a Russian look) and that of the Protectorate of Menoth, a nation of religious zealots. Out of these I have decided to initially paint and develop the Menoth army. I thought that this would help me to develop my 'white' painting skills as I have always found this a tricky colour to paint in large areas.

The Menoth force in the Battle Box has three warjacks. A warjack is a steam powered robot with a basic brain that allows it to be given commands by a Warcaster, the forces leader. The warjacks all have a matching faction feel with does look good on the tabletop.

The Repenter is a light warjack, at nearly 3 metres (10 feet) tall and weighing a mere 4 1/4 ton. It is armed with a flame thrower type weapon and a war flail.  One of the benefits to his flame weapon is setting the enemy models on fire. Warmachine has a rule system where once on fire a model continues to burn from turn to turn, potential having a devastating effect on the bigger and tougher characters in the game.

A nice model looking like a heavy weight boxer walking up to an opponent. A limited palette of colours work well on the model highlighting the lines on the model.

The Crusader is all about combat. He is a large warjack being 12 feet tall weighing in at 8 tons. Moving 4 inches each turn (8 on a run, 7 on the charge) he is quite slow but comparable with similar size warjacks from other factions. 

I like the model but I am a little unsure about the look of the chain weapon. The chain appears that it is flying through the air however the arm holding it looks fairly sedentary.

The final heavy warjack is a Vanquisher 12 feet tall nearly 10 tons. This warjack has a mixture of a ranged weapon and a close combat weapon. The melee weapon has a 'thresher' attack that also negates shield wall bonuses in enemy models. The ranged weapon has a 4inch blast area and a ranged of 10 inches.  


The initial coats that I used on the white was bone-white from vallejo followed by stone wall grey in the recesses and Dead White for the highlights. The first model that I painted showed a few brush strokes but watering down the bone-white with multiple layers seemed to cure the problem. 


For the gold I used two of the new golds from citadel. Balthasar Gold as a base coat followed by a layer of Auric Armour Gold. To tone it down a little I used a sepia wash.


For purple I used a base layer of Hexed Lichen with a layer of Warlord purple both from the Game Colour range of Vallejo.