Today we’re going to showcase the Best Painted Army from ATC 2017. Come take a look at this amazing Eldar army that took home gold.
Stiff Neck Studios took home both first and second place in this year’s best painted armies at the American Team Championship that took place over the weekend. This is the first year ATC did not have a paint requirement because of the release of 8th edition, but that didn’t stop a lot of painters from bringing out their best painted armies. But two armies out shined all the rest, and they were both painted by the same studio.
This Eldar Wraithguad army belonged to David “Tarzan” Jenson of Stiff Neck Studios which won him Best Painted Army, and is now up for sale. Let’s take a look at the army and see what they had to say about it.
This army was a bit different from our typical product when it comes to painting and playing. Usually we try and build well rounded armies that contain lots of different units from the codex giving a higher model count. Outside of playing with four Knight titans this is the smallest model count army we’ve ever had the pleasure of playing with.
And, for the first time we decided to incorporate LED lights into as many of the models as possible which was no simple task. We have seen many other great artists do it to great effect, so figured it was time to get our hands dirty and try it out ourselves.
After a few YouTube tutorials David Jenson an artist with over 10 years of experience in the studio was soldering wires and LED’s left and right. He his took time, hollowed out cavities & vents in the chest which allowed for fully hiding both the lights internally but also wiring and batteries into the bases.
Typically, when not doing commissions, most of our artists choose personal projects to work on and they hold true to the dark and violent nature of Warhammer 40K. This allows for lots of weathering and damage so this force was challenging because of the very clean and bright color scheme. Not to mention the freehand Celtic knot work covering most of the models head to toe.
While the layering, NMM and freehand work was extremely time consuming there were a couple tricks used to help speed up painting the army and achieve a striking look on the vehicles.
The most important one David used was vinyl stencils from Fallout Hobbies to spray the hex’s you see on the Knight and Wave Serpents. If you haven’t used one of their stencils yet we highly recommend getting a hold of some.
The army isn’t just all looks. It’s an absolute beast on the table to play against. The combination of the wraiths running around in the wave serpents and utilizing the special rule Soulburst allowing for additional rounds of shooting makes it devastating. During ATC it went 6-0-0 and totaled 97/120 points for the weekend and was awarded best painted.
The folks over at Stiff Neck Studios really did an amazing job with this army. Make sure you head over to their Facebook and give them a follow. They will be giving away a Blood Bowl box to one lucky follower at the end of the month.
Make sure you check back with us tomorrow to see the Best Painted army from the American Team Championship.
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About the Author: James Rodriguez
