It has been a few weeks since my last blog post, but the fires of
industry have been burning and Konquest has a new playmate – Judge Judy!
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| Judicator source - www.Privateer Press.com |
Assembly
I eagerly awaited the release of the Protectorate Colossal and set to
work building it as soon as it arrived, similarly to Konquest she was built and
painted in several sections:
· Base
· Legs and lower torso (rear skirt detached for painting)
· Upper torso (head and shields detached for painting)
· Left arm (hand detached for painting)
· Right arm (hand detached for painting)
· Missile pods
Building and painting in sections is something I find easier,
especially with large scale models such as Colossals, simply holding such a heavy
and large base for several hours can be difficult as well as getting a good
paint job in all the nooks and crannies should it be assembled as one. Conversely holding a section, an arm for
example, to paint can be awkward too as laying it down can ruin paint work, or
you might accidentally get finger prints embedded into soft, drying paint so
choosing the best method is quite tricky!
Conversions
Perhaps the first thing you’ll notice about my Judy is that I converted
the flame thrower weapons. I really
disliked the ‘machine-gun jubblies’ look, as well as the impracticality aspect
of the weapons themselves; i.e. they wouldn’t be able to be effective weapons
where they were positioned. Therefore I
decided to re-position the flamethrowers on the arms, behind the hand, allowing
them to stand proud of the vambrace armour and be seen. The flame throwers sit quite easily here and
I just added greenstuff to extend the inner armour and make the join as
seamless as possible. I contemplated
filing down the ball part of the flamethrower and adding some tubing, but
this would all be hidden by the hands once they were glued in place. To hide the two concave socket joints where the
flame throwers should sit in the Judicators upper torso I used two spare
plastic Errant shields that I didn’t use and had kept in my bitz box. I angled the concave sockets slightly to accommodate
the two shields and filled the void with greenstuff. Below are a couple of photos of those conversions for your reference:
Gap filling, pinning and filing
The Judicator had a lot of flash as well as gaps which needed
filling. Reading various internet forum
posts this had been an issue for some people, however it was pretty much what I
was expecting so I wasn’t overly bothered myself. If you are following this article prior to
building your own Judy, it is best to leave the gap at the top of the upper
torso assembly and greenstuff it later.
It is hard to explain but if you dryfit the metal and plastic pieces it
is apparent that they don’t fit as they should and a 3-4mm gap is
inevitable! Also the siting of the
missile pods is awkward and this will inhibit how dynamically you can pose the
arms, the shoulder pads will interfere if they are rotated too much. It is also definitely worth taking the time
to pin the big joints and those that are weak, such as the arms to body as well
as the upper and lower torsos. As I
painted the rear ‘skirt’ separately it had to be pinned also, if glued in the
initial assembly I suspect it would be ok without a pin, just that gluing
painted parts to painted parts yields a weaker bond. Also another good tip is to pin the missile pod doors, the contact here is tiny so lots of patience is recommended, oh and a small drill bit! A few of the WIP shots below show the positions of the main pins as well as up close details of the paint job in sections:
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| Base WIP, showing pins for feet |
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| Legs and base complete |
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| Upper torso complete 1 |
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| Upper torso complete 2 |
Painting
As indicated above I found it easier to paint the Judicator in several
discreet sections and worked from the base upwards. The colours for the Judicator were exactly
the same as previous articles, the gold being the first stage, given the messy
nature of drybrushing and washing. One
small change was my daylight lamp decided to go kaput and I ended up purchasing
a new lamp, the new lamp has a ‘white light’ and has a tube rather than a
bulb. The light I bought is designed to
aid partially sighted people and it has the effect of showing imperfections in
painting up. Basically it has improved
my layering because it shows up the different shades more harshly, therefore
you end up making closer, less harsh shades and under normal light the layering
looks more seamless. It is kind of like
when you take a flash photo of a model and it makes it look a bit naff! I did quite a lot of highlighting of the gold plate with P3 Solid gold on most of the protruding gold leaf and embellishments as well as the gold rivets, this was augmented by a lot of black ink lining, the latter is absolutely painstaking, it takes ages and needs a really steady hand, but the delineation between two surfaces looks so much neater and makes the model stand out - definitely worth the time IMO.
Below are a series of photos of the finished Judge Judy:
Judge Judy in action
So with Judy getting her paint job I had a couple of opportunities to
playtest her. I chose to field her with
Feora2, the pair seemed destined to fit together, heck I think Feora features
quite strongly in the Colossals book fiction!
My thoughts on Judge Judy is that she is a great piece for the
Protectorate and enjoyable to play. The
Judicator has great infantry clearing skills as well as being able to kill any
heavy target in the game. Feora2
augments the Protectorates already great ‘jack buffing abilities by giving
Judge Judy 2” of much needed extra speed, whilst buffing Feora’s armour with
the Escort spell. The bond adds that extra melee attack or
boost, but more importantly grants Judge Judy continuous fire on all of its
weapon systems allowing the missile pods to cause more havoc than you would
believe against infantry. Feora2 also
has the Ignite spell which grants
Judge Judy +2 STR to her melee weapons giving a frightening number of very
accurate high P&S attacks.
I’ve run the Judicator at 50 points and 35, it seems like a squeeze at
35 but quite do-able: 50 points however gets you all of the toys… I found that a Reckoner is a welcome addition
to the Battlegroup as its Flare helps
to counter the Judicator’s Inaccurate
rule when shooting high ARM, low DEF targets, clearly the Hymn of Battle,
aiming and boosting to hit all aid accuracy further.
A couple of examples of where Judy has passed judgement were as
follows:
Infantry: Carpet bombing high
DEF Satyxis Raiders who were immune to blast damage, basically they ignore the
AOE blast, but are susceptible to the continuous fire. Similarly any unit of high DEF or stealthed
infantry can be targeted by Judy from a considerable distance and the
inaccurate rule really doesn’t make any difference so she can be quite focus
efficient. The free focus can be used
when fishing for solos or UA’s to boost the damage and hopefully kill outright or
maim sufficiently for the continuous fire to finish off in the opponents next Maintenance
Phase.
Hard target (from range): My
Judy combined its firepower with a Reckoner and Battle Engine to judge Mulg,
the two fully boosted rocket pods were shooting at an effective RAT7 plus 3D6
and damaging at POW16 plus 3D6, with all the buffs. With the new SR2013 destroying enemy
objectives from afar will be another strong use.
Hard target (melee): My Judy had
the opportunity to judge a Kraken, the Cryx Colossal, receiving four focus, the
Hymn of Battle and under the Ignite
spell it just didn’t seem fair. In the
last example I had received a charge from Kraken and lived, though had dice gone
my opponents way then Judy would likely have been destroyed. In another game I had the opportunity to
judge a Conquest, but had to trample over half a dozen infantry to get
there. I did have the ‘alpha strike’,
but even with Battle and Ignite three
bought attacks simply wasn’t enough and it was Judy who was judged!!!
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| YOU will be judged!!! |
