Blast from the Past: Repainting the Khador Starter Kit

We all started somewhere.  My first Warmachine miniatures were from the Khador side of the 2 player starter kit, and they've seen plenty of action.  Over the past 5 years, I've jumped between factions and set them aside.  With MK III arriving, I decided to go back to my roots and take a fresh look at my old Khador army.

The changes to Man-O-War units were the final push to starting up this project, since I've always found the idea of steam-powered armor appealing.  Rather than buy all new models, I stripped them down and repainted them to my current standard.  More details and pictures after the jump!

Part I - Candy Coated Khador

 M&Ms's

I had set aside my brushes for a few years at the time I started painting Privateer Press models.  As a result, I had plenty of Citadel paints that I was familiar with, and used their colors almost exclusively.  This led to a very bright, semi-gloss appearance to my Khador models, as you can see in the pictures.

I'm not sure what I was thinking when I originally posed the Destroyer.  The static, stock poses of these warjacks were always boring to me, and needed to get fixed.

Likewise, the MoW Shocktroopers shared the same gloppy red and extreme edge highlighting that I learned from years of painting Space Bros Marines

The unit leader has a nice head sculpt, with his goggles and mustache, but after these years of waging wars for the Motherland, I imagined him being a bit more grizzled.

Part II - Toxic Waste Bath

I'm a huge fan of Simple Green.  It's non-toxic, quick acting, and leaves very little residue when scrubbed and rinsed.

The primer may or may not scrub off of plastic models, and in places has become stained with the basecoat.  This doesn't affect the sculpt in great detail, but it does work better on metal models.

Let's take a closer look at the unit leader's head.  He looks familiar.  Almost as if he used to invent things for some blue/gold faction...

Part III - Worn, Weathered, Machines

I used Reaper Master Series paints for these guys.  Clotted Red was the basecoat, followed by a blend of Clotted Red and Carnage Red.  Blood Red (the Reaper version) was used sparingly for some highlights.  This gave the machines a very nice matte finish, much like you would expect to see on a military vehicle.

I added wear and tear to the warjacks and MoW suits, which gave them a "Star Wars" style lived-in/well-used appearance rather than the parade-ready paintjob they had before.

Inspired by the latest No Quarter Painting contest, Sorscha received a quick repaint to better match her battlegroup.

I reposed the Juggernaut to give it a dynamic stance, ready to crush it's opposition!

The Destroyer now looks like it's ready to fire the bombard, instead of awkwardly chopping that little axe it has.

Part IV - Man-O-War and Bison

The final product of my repainting was the MoW Shocktroopers unit.  They match up very well with the newly weathered style of my warjacks, ready to resume slamming their way across a battlefield.

The grizzled unit leader prior to finishing the metallics and weathering.

He ended up with so much character that I decided he deserved a name of sorts.  His pauldron reads "BISON" in Khadoran script.  What better codename for a steam-armored, veteran leader than one of the toughest, most stubborn, and resilient animals?

I hope you've enjoyed this revisiting of some now-classic models as much as I enjoyed putting it all together!