I suffer from Faction Attention Deficit Disorder, and when it came time to pick one of the 12 holiday bundles for the painting challenge I spent a good while pondering choices. Initially, I almost grabbed Cygnar, thinking I’d paint them up to match my Fort Falk lists from Lock & Load GameFest 2012. Ultimately, I decided to jumpstart my hobby efforts with something different and self-contained before jumping back into the grey and yellow shades of Fort Falk.

That said, I still wanted to do some painting that would be applicable to my expanding Cygnar plans. My greatest challenge while painting the Fort Falk scheme was definitely yellows, so I started thinking about picking a holiday bundle that would give me a good excuse to experiment with that color. With this in mind I settled on the Cryxian bundle. The opportunity to mess with my yellows on the helljacks’ and bonejacks’ soul furnaces, the spirit wrapped around the Skarlock Thrall, and the horns of the numerous Satyxis was too good to pass up.

I imagined this army as the leading edge of a Cryxian shore raid: Skarre and her handpicked Satyxis warriors with the Raider Captain acting as her second in command. Accompanied by a handful of bonejacks and a single Slayer, this force could range ahead of an expedition, perhaps encircling an isolated fishing village or Cygnaran fortification. I imagine that Skarre led a group much like this when she raided Igraine.

Since my theme for the army was one of stealth, speed, and rugged piratical murderers, I knew I’d want to keep their colors restrained despite the inclusion of yellow. For the most part, I kept their clothing colors based with a 1:1 mix of Battlefield Brown and Idrian Flesh, building it up in a few simple layers of highlights and dry brushing. I knew these dark browns would complement the yellows well and prevent the army from looking too fantastical. For the Satyxis’ horns, and the tusks on the Slayer, I began with layers of Battlefield Brown, highlighting up to a 2:1 mixture of Battlefield Brown and Moldy Ochre. With the browns and yellows applied, I washed each model with a liberal amount of Brown Ink, let it dry, and then hit the yellow portions with a 1:1 mixture of Brown Ink and Yellow Ink. Finally, I applied a light dry brush of Battlefield Brown and Idrian Flesh to take the edge off any gloss from the ink.

For the ‘jacks and the Skarlock Thrall, I followed essentially the same formula for the browns as I did on the Satyxis. However, I wanted the yellows to pop a little more on these guys, so I started with a base of Moldy Ochre and built up to a highlight of Sulfuric Yellow with a touch of Idrian Flesh. This time I was happy with the intensity of the color and didn’t bother with a final highlight.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with how this came out, and I’m feeling a lot better about tackling the yellow highlights on my next Cygnarans. That said, Skarre and her friends might need some more support in the future, and I’m very tempted to give them a new Kraken friend for the holidays.