The final player colour is yellow…

The human faction is the Terran Republic. “After having set their home in the Sirius system and doing their part in the Hegemony war, the people of the Republic have built a democratically ruled society, enjoying a relatively stable prosperous life.”

The alien faction on the other side of the player mat is the Descendants of Draco: “The Descendants are rumoured to be directly related to the Ancients. Statistics show that the survival ratio in Descendant-Ancient contacts significantly higher for the Descendants than the other Seven. Hailing from the Draco system, the Descendants are a somewhat elusive species.”

They start with a Fusion Drive (better movement), may draw two hexes for exploration and keep the one they prefer. They cannot attack Ancients, be attacked by Ancients, and score points for Ancient ships on the board at game end.

These have been great to paint. There’s no detail underneath, and while the detail of the surfaces isn’t greater/lesser than any other colour, the fact that the main ships are mostly flat or have gentle curves made it very easy to paint a lot of that detail. Of course, it also needed a steady hand, and a fine brush!

The base colour is yellow ochre, with a distinct brown wash. This brought out the detailing really well. Next was a pale green for cockpits on the fighters, and the view-ports of the larger ships. Then orange, red, green and filling in some of the shapes. I did a black wash on the front grills on the dreadnoughts, and more black, mostly to fill out lines along or around other parts. The smaller shapes took the longest and was careful, slow painting. Finally some silver touches on the dreadnoughts, and a spot of silver on the very top of the star-bases (which isn’t really visible in these images). I could have done a bit of yellow highlighting, but I don’t think they really need it as board game pieces.

I’m really happy with the way these came out. They got a varnish spray this afternoon and I can probably bring them back inside now. I want to get every figure out on a table for a huge group shot now!

This post, and the last two (Green and Blue) all qualify for the “Paint What You Got” Painting Challenge 2024/25 by Dave Stone. All three colour sets for Eclipse: Second Dawn have been completed between 26th Dec 2024 and the 28th Feb. I might yet paint something else in the next month, but I’m impressed getting 54 figures done in one month!

Green is complete! The fighters of this group are the most awkward pieces I’ve painted at this stage as they are all fins and points.

The human faction for Green is the Terran Union. “Despite occasional internal struggles, the Union has stood tall during hard times, often through strong diplomatic efforts and by staying carefully neutral. This may soon change, however, as the home system will not be able to provide for the whole civilization.”

The alien faction on the other side of the player mat is the Planta: “Being a moss-like species with a distributed sentience, their intentions are sometimes difficult to decipher. After overgrowing most of the planets and moons in the Cygnus system, they seem to be content with just expanding their lush growth in new systems, fully co-operating with the other species, who mostly regard them as harmless companions.”

The Planta get extra exploration, and there ships have higher energy and better computers (bonus to-hit). They are slower (lower initiative) to compensate.

I had a spray can of “Grassy Green” which was a nice base colour and everything got a brown wash. I had already decided that yellow would be the main secondary colour

I started with the star-bases as they had more detail than just fins, “flower-heads” and rounded protrusions. ‘Expresso’ (brown) was used in the lower ribs and central spike, ‘Viridian’ on protrusions and then multiple coats of thin yellow as a highlight on the spiky tips and edging. A few light yellow coats gives a very light green highlight, more starting to actually look like yellow proper. The final detail on these was a thin coat of white on the small globes/protrusions. These were fun to paint, and easiest to handle.

The ships themselves followed a similar procedure. Yellow and Viridian on the flower-petal like fronts, Viridian on protrusions and both colours used in some of the more distinct lines etched into the figures. Most fins got yellow edging, and a swirl of yellow on the sides giving a pale green/yellow finish. The small fighters and mid-sized cruisers have small weapon-pods and detail on fins – some of these got Viridian paint, others Yellow. I went over all the small yellow ones with Yellow Ochre giving them an almost orange-yellow look which stands out a bit from the straight yellow highlights.The cruiser’s side pods (missiles?) got ‘Fushia’ to darken them, and the three points in each got tipped in white. Engines on the cruisers and dreadnaughts also got fushia paint, with hints of fluro-red to brighten them up.

All but the star-bases have some detail underneath, similar to the tops/sides. Mostly I simply tried to match the main green of the other sides, with bits of yellow highlight to suit.

On the whole these were pretty easy to paint, although once the star bases were down, I felt the ships to be a little disappointing in terms of detail. There’s a lot of small (and fine) scroll-work along the sides of all of them, which was brought out by the brown wash, but you can’t really paint that.

Over the weekend I got the Blue player pieces completed, so that leaves two colours to go! Blue is the Terran Federation, which “consists of numerous state systems with relatively similar ideals and histories.”

The reverse of the player sheet is the Hydran Progress: “The Hydrans have long since embraced technology as their main interest, constantly evolving and augmenting their society and even themselves with new inventions. The speed of their technological progress is unparalleled among the Seven.” They start with high Science resources and slightly less Materials & Money. They also have an advantage in using Science resources on Hexes.

With the player figures, particularly black and red, I hadn’t sprayed/painted the base since it was flat, not detailed, and you normally wouldn’t see it. All the pieces are coloured plastic, so if you turn a piece over, the underside is now a slightly different shade compared to the paint colour. This wasn’t going to work with the mid- and large-sized blue ships as they are rounded, with curving fins. They don’t sit flat on the table and are actually detailed underneath! It made painting slightly more awkward. Green are going to be like this also.

After the initial spray in white, I went over all the figures in ‘Blue Lake’. This got a blue-black wash for shading. I’d been going to use a pale blue for highlighting some features, and started with the round star-bases. It had contrast, but didn’t look that good, and I went over most of it with white. This stood out much more, and looks good against the blue. White then became the main colour for any protrusion or raised edge on everything. Weapons were detailed with either white or silver. My “Insect Green” made a nice edge highlight on the star bases, so I used the same on fins on all the ships, and on curved protrusions like the back of weapon pods. Looking at weapons (and thinking ahead to engines) I realised I’d been thinking about front/rear for the big dreadnoughts the wrong way round. (I don’t see why you’d put engines on the front of your ship and have all rear-firing weapons…) Much of the detail on these miniatures doesn’t stand out until they have paint on them!

The fighters got silver canopies, as did the slightly raised circles on top (and underneath) the larger ships. Orange over black on engines. Varnish spray and done. Both the best and worse part about painting recently has been that it all dries very fast in the heat.

I like the aquatic blue-green finish on these. Their planet Beta Hydri is in the Hydrus system (I believe all the systems mentioned on the hex tiles are real) which means “male water snake”. I feel the star bases would be right at home on the bottom of an ocean.