Yesterday on What's New Today had a feature on some of the great Armies on Parade entries. It is great to see Games Workshop supporting this aspect of the hobby alongside Golden Daemons and Throne of Skulls. Let's hope this continues with possibly some proper prize support. As usual everything below the break is from What's New Today with my own thoughts in purple italics.
The Armies on Parade contest was originally started in America a few years ago, and ever since it was introduced it has grown astronomically - so much so that it was one of the largest displays at this year's event. One of our missions while we were over in Chicago was to get pictures of all the Hobby Centre winners for Armies on Parade and show off their achievements on What's New Today. So while I'm busy flying back across the Atlantic Ocean, I'll leave you all with a few of our favourite entries from the day, including the overall winner and the Studio Choice (the winners for Armies on Parade are voted for by the people that go to Games Day, but Adam Troke did pop over to pick a Studio favourite from the ones that were there).
We showed a snippet of Dave Taylor's Empire army link to Dave's WiP on his blog yesterday on the blog and here is the whole force. What we really liked about this entry is how simple it is - the display really is all about the army on it and it's not overwhelmed by the scenery around it. The cannon crews are exceptionally cool, with all the wicker barricades and barrels around them to protect the crew from incoming fire.
All of the units are painted in the colours of Nuln - the Empire's city of guns and artillery (hence all the Great Cannons, Rocket Batteries, the Steam Tank and the Land Ship). Dave also hand-painted all the banners on every unit in exquisite detail - a great way to make your display really stand out from the crowd. As is his use of unit fillers such as Great Swords mascot or the statue.
Adam Troke: It was quite the honour to be asked to nominate a "Studio's Choice" from the Armies on Parade. There were loads of great entries - some of which wowed us with sheer volumes of warriors, others focused on a small, but highly detailed selection. Then, of course, there were the entries that had amazingly detailed scenic bases - a massive monster carrying a Lizardman army on its back, a Dark Eldar army erupting from the webway and more!
Choosing the army for the "Studio's Choice" award wasn't easy (and I think I tried the patience of a few good folks as I dithered around). In the end I worked on the philosophy of which I felt best embodied the imagery of the race, had the most attention to detail and the greatest overall effect
The Studio Choice was the stunning Black Templars army by Randy Sizemore. Not only were the individual models painted to an exemplary standard, with many wonderful details, but the overall affect of the army was gob-smacking. Banners were lovingly rendered (capturing the awesome heraldry of the Space Marines), models were kitbashed and converted and the board they were presented on was marvelous. Favourite thing is the sculpted hair styles on the bare headed marines... least favourite is probably the sniper in the top right picture above.
What made picking the Studio Choice really satisfying, however, was that any one of a dozen or so armies could have been the choice! Each entry bore all the hallmarks of care and devotion - and all of them will look great when they take to the battlefield. Quite honestly I'd like to take a few of them home with me!
Dan: Michael Salzman painted this Lizardmen army, and it was one of the highest voted armies on the day by the general public. Michael went for a completely packed scene with loads of trees and the massive mega-monster in the middle of the display, which attracted a lot of attention from people looking at it. The whole scene reminded me of the book Temple of the Serpent, in which Grey Seer Thanquol travels to Lustria and encounters some suitably large and impressive-looking monsters.
Michael converted the Thunder-Lizard from a plastic toy and covered it in literally hundreds of Lizardman parts. There are, for example, 14 Stegadon kits used in it's construction, plus countless Skinks, Kroxigor and even a Terradon launch ramp at the back. Shows how much effort he put into scratch building and planning this. Michael actually entered the army into the last chance category on the day and was voted through by the general public into the finals.
Dennis Gunia painted this Warriors of Chaos army, which caught our eye very early on in the contest because it was just such an unusual colour (well, colours actually). I remember when this striking army was on BoLS. We loved the striking combination of Liche Purple next to Hawk Turquoise on the armour plates, and the gigantic dragon dominating the middle of the display. The army itself looks great with the choice of colours. However, the display board is a huge let down and ruins the army for me.
The Dragon was converted from the High Elf Dragon kit, combined with parts from the Chaos Knights set. The whole Dragon was essentially cut up into chunks to be wound around the pillar in the centre, which was a hugely time-consuming process, but well worth the effort in our opinion. Can remember some of the readers on BoLS were offended by the two Daemonettes kissing on the pillar. Was amusing and lots of fun... good old BoLS.
And (drum roll please), here's the overall winner well deserved - this stunning Lizardman army by James Wappel. What really stands out on this display is the huge attention to detail. Every building is beautifully painted and weathered, and every unit ties in to their surroundings to give a fantastically well-composed piece. Every single base on every model has been modeled and converted to tie in with the terrain (remember the 'faces and bases' mantra?), while the colours used on the various units all complement each other superbly. However, the really jaw-dropping part of the display was this part...
... the Engine of the Gods, which includes this stunning portal into the stars above the Warhammer world. At first, we thought it was a picture that had been stuck in, but it was actually painted on by hand and, as you can see in the previous picture, James actually painted two of them! Missed the third one on top of the pyramid. Overall, a well-deserved victory. Apparently the gauntlet has already been thrown down for next year by a few of the competitors - we're very keen to see what they come up with in 2012.
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