Zodd’s Imperial Wing

[General Zodd]

Hi all, it’s been a bit quiet on here recently, so thought I’d get up to date with my Imperial planes. My Ork ones are here somewhere, I may come back and edit with a link if I remember.

 

Anyway, working my way through the most recent Imperial releases and realised I never shared what I’d done already! So, here’s my first batch of planes that I did about 4 months ago.

 

First up, is the 186th fighter squadron. Named after the group I play X-Wing with, and in the same colours as our t-shirts!

 

 

 

 

 

Most of them have a unique pattern, my thinking was that I wanted to easily pick out weapon load outs, so the Furies have yellow nose cones, those with missiles have yellow leading edges behind the nose cone/start of the fuselage, and then some other less uniform variations to make each one unique. There’s a couple with just yellow wing tips and tail fins, who are obviously rookies and haven’t earned the right to personalise their paint scheme yet!

 

I’ve also painted my bases in a similar style to my Ork bases, just with different colours;

 

 

All my Imperial planes have different squadron markings based on type of aircraft, but they all have yellow on them somewhere as the unifying colour. I’ll post some more up another time, so I’m not bombarding the thread all in one go!

 

One question for any air combat officionados out there, I know you wouldn’t have fighters and bombers in the same squadron, but would they be in the same Wing or Group? If you had a mixed air group of different squadrons deployed together into one theatre, what would you call that formation? Just want to call my whole Imperial collection something suitable. Thanks!

Edited September 23, 2020 by General Zodd

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Beautiful works. Do the Aquila wings ID the Squadron Leader's personal fighter?

[Arendious]

One question for any air combat officionados out there, I know you wouldn’t have fighters and bombers in the same squadron, but would they be in the same Wing or Group? If you had a mixed air group of different squadrons deployed together into one theatre, what would you call that formation? Just want to call my whole Imperial collection something suitable. Thanks!

Cop out answer? Whatever you like.

[General Zodd]

Beautiful works. Do the Aquila wings ID the Squadron Leader's personal fighter?

They do indeed! I think the Aquila wings look great, but they’re a little fiddly to put on over the wing detail on the left wing, so limited it to jus the boss. Thanks for the comment!

[General Zodd]

 

One question for any air combat officionados out there, I know you wouldn’t have fighters and bombers in the same squadron, but would they be in the same Wing or Group? If you had a mixed air group of different squadrons deployed together into one theatre, what would you call that formation? Just want to call my whole Imperial collection something suitable. Thanks!

Cop out answer? Whatever you like.

[Firedrake Cordova]

Looking good :)

[General Zodd]

Next up is 57 Bomber Squadron, named after an RAF squadron my dad worked with. I say worked with because he was what was termed an engineer’s apprentice, so spent most of his RAF career stationed at various airbases working on whatever aircraft came through. But he did spend some time attached to a couple of squadrons, one of which was 57 Squadron who flew Victor bombers, part of the UK’s nuclear deterrent. They had a Phoenix as their squadron emblem, so naturally this Marauder squadron is called Phoenix 1, 2 etc! If I’m brave enough I may go back and attempt to paint a tiny flaming bird on each one, but not yet...

 

 

 

 

Like many people, I imagine, I have 4 Marauders and 2 Destroyers. Unlike the 186th fighters, the 57th have virtually the same paint scheme across the squadron, with just the squadron leader (Phoenix 1, naturally) having some additional markings on his tail fins. The yellow is the same recipe as the fighters to have a unifying colour among the different squadrons.

 

Hope this is helpful for people looking for inspiration to get their models finished!

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Fine work on the Marauders.

[General Zodd]

Next up is the ground assets, yes I managed to get some when they first came out!

 

 

 

 

[Firedrake Cordova]

They look great! :)

 

Really inspiring me to finish assembling mine, and finish off my test model ...

[General Zodd]

They look great! :)

 

Really inspiring me to finish assembling mine, and finish off my test model ...

Do it! Glad I can be of help!

 

Now, finally on to the newer stuff! First up, some more fighters for the 186th, this time some Lightnings. Decided I’d stick these in the same squadron. There’s plenty of references to both being flown together and it saves me coming up with a new scheme! I also took the opportunity to finish my last couple of Thunderbolts, one as another Fury for the 186th, and the other to be the special character Thunderbolt, with a slightly adapted colour scheme to make him fit with my wing.

 

 

 

 

[duz_]

Wow great work! :tu:

 

 

Nice work on the paint job(s)

 

The bases are really good too

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Fine works.

[General Zodd]

Realised I’ve almost finished my Avengers, so I should get up to date with my other stuff on here! So next up is my Astra Militarum contingent. These are named after the other RAF squadron my dad served with, 39 Squadron. In his day, they were flying Canberras as photo recon, but nothing in Aeronautica is likely to cover that, so I thought I would reinvent them as a Force Recon type formation, and use that squadron number for my Valkyries and supporting Vultures;

 

 

 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Excellent work on the Valkyries/Vendettas.

[Firedrake Cordova]

Looking good.   The Contrast paint really is working well on those panel edges, isn't it?  *mutters something about using "normal" paints and drybrushing not picking the panel edges up as well :blush:*

Edited October 7, 2020 by Firedrake Cordova

[General Zodd]

Looking good. The Contrast paint really is working well on those panel edges, isn't it? *mutters something about using "normal" paints and drybrushing not picking the panel edges up as well :blush:*

Thanks! It was a bit of a mix of techniques. I painted the whole thing Death World Forest, then contrast Militarum Green over the top, as I don’t find some of the darker Contrast colours work that well over pale base colours. Then a drybrush of Death Guard Green (I think, from memory?) to finish it off. I’m using a lot more contrast recently, but hardly ever just them on their own.

[Firedrake Cordova]

I must admit, I spent about 90 minutes trying to blend-via-glaze the cockpit glass on my test Thunderbolt (Formula P3 Exile Blue -> Cygnar Blue Base -> Cygnar Blue Highlight -> Cygnar Blue Highlight + Underbelly Blue), and got an "OK" result, but struggled with adding the spot highlight (P3 Frostbite), as the paint wasn't coming off the brush (until I added too much flow improver ... ). 

 

And then I realised that I was doing this on the largest area of glass I had to paint, and that the smaller ones would be a struggle, so it probably wasn't workable ... I tried adding a tiny bit of indigo ink (Daler-Rowney FW) to some Contrast Medium, and several coats later, had a lovely gradation for much less effort ...

Edited October 8, 2020 by Firedrake Cordova

[duz_]

I'd call that a win :lol:

[General Zodd]

Finally finished the last of my current batch of Aeronautica! First up, the Avengers. I didn’t want to just keep adding different fighters to the 186th, so I’ve started the 212th instead, still keeping the unifying yellow detail. Not sure how often they’ll actually see table in preference to the Thunderbolts, but I wanted to do them for completeness sake. Only a single box, though!

 

 

 

 

I also painted my Arvus Lighters at the same time. One has painted to be a support vessel for my 57th Bomber Squadron. The other I wanted to do in Inquisition colours, so is the only Imperial plane not to have the yellow markings. A mate of mine has some Sisters of Battle and kindly have me some of the tiny Inquisition symbols from their decal sheet.

 

 

 

[Firedrake Cordova]

They look really great! :D

 

First up, the Avengers ... Not sure how often they’ll actually see table in preference to the Thunderbolts ...

There are a few missions in the Taros book where the 2+ agility statistic would be useful ;) :)

[General Zodd]

There are a few missions in the Taros book where the 2+ agility statistic would be useful ;) :)

Ooh, I hadn’t noticed the difference in handling, nice to know they might actually have a niche!

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Excellent works.