Battle Damage

[Lynne Pruskowski]

Thisis a very simple process and yields excellent results pretty quickly. But as with all these paint effects, less is more. Don't go too overboard on this and think carefully where the battle damage would be best applied for realistic effect.

You need to start with a model that has at least its armour already painted. After the battle damage has been added it will be very fiddly to do much extra other than add washes. As you can see from the image, it's probably better to work on a model where the arms aren't yet fixed as damage can be more easily applied to the torso. You can battle damage the arms separately.

Dipping the sponge in the appropriate colour (I used Scorched Brown) dab it on the edges and places most likely to be damaged. You don't want too much paint. Maybe just a little more than you'd have on a paintbrush when dry brushing. Try on some sprue first.

The same sponging process can be used on vehicles too. Because of the larger surface area keep the effect to a sensible level and vary the degree of denseness over the models area. Think carefully where the 'natural' damage will occur, apply that and then add any enemy-inflicted damage.

To apply the paint to the miniature, use the foam as a stamp: press it straight down, applying some pressure, and lift it straight up. You want to avoid smearing the paint onto the model at all, as that will ruin the effect. Repeat this several times, getting more paint on the foam as needed. You want to rotate the foam or use a different part of the torn edge for each stamp, to avoid repeating the same pattern. Try to concentrate the paint chips along areas where you would expect the most damage, such as around bolts and on edges, and around the feet and arms.

Go back with a brush to sharpen the effect created in step 3. Using the same color of paint (but now thinning it as you normally would) and a fine brush (such as a #1), add more damage to areas such as edges of armor plates. At this stage you can also join together some of the chips created in step 3 where you want larger chips. This is also a good time to add damage to areas which are difficult to reach with the foam. The reason to go back with a brush is it provides a much greater degree of control, which allows you to concentrate damage in particular areas, such as edges.

At this stage you can also highlight some of the larger chips with a lighter color, such as GW Dark Flesh, or P3 Bloodstone with just a drop of black. To highlight a chip, paint the lighter color in the middle of the chip, leaving the darker color around the edges. You want it to look like the darker area is recessed back from the surrounding surface, and so the edges of it will be in shadow.

Tip from the pros: this is a great way to hide imperfections in the sculpt or casting, or mold-lines you missed while cleaning. Just put a paint chip right where the imperfection is, and nobody will be able to see it!

Highlight the paint underneath the chips created in steps 3 and 4. Go back to your base-coat or highlight color (for my Deathripper, that was Cryx Bane Highlight) with a fine brush (such as a #1), and paint thin line highlights underneath each of the chips.

You want the highlight to be a bit lighter than the surrounding area, so use your base-coat color, highlight color, or a lighter version of your highlight color depending on whether the color around the chip you are highlighting is your shade color, your base-coat color, or your highlight color.

To really sell the effect that the paint has chipped and the underlying metal has rusted, paint rust marks running down from the chip, and subtle glazes of a rust color in the areas around the chips. Begin with several very thin glazes of a rust color (such as P3 Bloodstone) over limited areas centered on the larger chips. Then, paint several very thin vertical lines running down from the larger chips to simulate rust drips.

One should always give credit where credit is due. I learned this technique in a painting class with Todd Swanson, who used it on his Slayer-Sword-winning Festus. The steps above are exactly as he taught them.

Weathering using the blister foam technique is very effective for painted areas, like the gray parts of the Deathripper. However, the metals still look completely undamaged. To fix this, they must be weathered to match the rest of the armor. That is the goal of this second technique, which will leave the metals looking beaten and corroded. As metal is much more durable than paint, much less weathering is needed, so this technique will be much faster than the first one.

Just as with the first technique, before painting on damage, begin painting as you normally would: base-coat, shade, and highlight. (Shading and highlighting is just as important with metallic paints as it is with non-metallic paints.)

After step 1, the Deathripper looks exactly as it did at the end of the first technique. Here, the iron areas were painted with GW Chainmail, given a wash of matte medium + P3 Thamar Black + P3 Traitor Green, then shaded with thin glazes of Thamar Black and highlighted with Chainmail. The brass areas were base-coated with a mix of approximately equal parts Chainmail, P3 Blighted Gold, and P3 Molten Bronze, then shaded with matte medium + Thamar Black + P3 Bloodstone, using two-brush blending to smooth the transitions. But each person has their own favorite recipes for painting metals, and the techniques I describe can be combined with any of them (even if you prefer to paint your metals with non-metallic paints using NMM).

Metals are damaged differently from paint. Instead of chipping, they accumulate scrapes, dents, and corrosion. To simulate scrapes, paint fine lines with a light silver color, such as GW Mithril Silver. Vary the length and direction at random. Try to keep the lines as thin as possible, but if you made a thicker line than intended, you can clean it up on the next step. To simulate dents, paint short, fatter lines.

The metals now look just as beat up as the paint! I have corroded the iron but not the brass on the Deathripper, because the verdigris would clash with the green necrotite glow I have in mind for the vents. Artistic license and all that.

I did want to talk about painting battle damage and weathering, the concepts behind it, and show you how I do it. Learning to do battle damage and weathering is a great way to add some detail and life to your miniatures.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. The commission earned helps maintain this site.

By contrast, you might be painting a tank. That tank, in your mind, just came back from a battle. The tank will also have scuffs and scratches, but it may also have deeper gouges, armor chipping, and holes in the armor.

Sometimes you want to create an area where the paint has worn down to the metal. This would be commonly seen in areas that get a lot of repeated use, like the edges of doors, the bed of a truck, any area that gets walked on a lot, etc.

Now, all we do is paint in the metal color while leaving some of that black on the edges. The black on the edges represents the primer. So, the wearing has worn down the paint to primer and then the primer to metal.

To do this you want to start your brush below the hole and then drag up to the hole. The reason being that wash or paint will deposit the most where you stop. Since the least amount of oil would be at the bottom, we start there and pull to the source.

Many thanks for the great article. Indeed, having a lot of information in one place is very handy so thanks for taking time to collect it first and then putting it all together, including the description of your experiences.

I must admit that when it comes to battle damage I have a dilemma. It seems to be perfect for tanks or models representing warriors that fight often but do not necessary care about their weapons. Like Orcs!

How would you approach applying some battle damage to the models representing Elves, if at all? Apart from the fact that there should be less of it, would there be something completely different in the process?

The Navy is in the early stages of determining how it will provide battle damage repair during a great power conflict. Eight organizations are responsible for the Navy's 15 battle damage repair planning efforts, however the Navy has not designated an organization to lead and oversee these efforts. Without designated leadership, the Navy may be hindered in its efforts to address the many challenges it faces in sustaining its ships during a great power conflict.

The Navy develops ship vulnerability models during a ship's acquisition to estimate damage during a conflict. These models are also used to inform war games that refine operational approaches and train leaders on decision-making. However, the Navy does not update these models over a ship's decades-long service life to reflect changes to key systems that could affect model accuracy. As a result, it lacks quality data on ship mission-critical failure points to inform its analysis of battle damage repair needs. Without periodically assessing and updating its models to accurately reflect the ship's mission-critical systems, the Navy has limited its ability to assess and develop battle damage repair capabilities necessary to sustain ships in a conflict with a great power competitor.

The ability to repair and maintain ships plays a critical role in sustaining Navy readiness. After the Cold War, the Navy divested many wartime ship repair capabilities. With the rise of great power competitors capable of producing high-end threats in warfare, the Navy must now be prepared to quickly salvage and repair damage to a modern fleet.

House Report 116-120, accompanying a bill for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, included a provision for GAO to assess the Navy's efforts to identify and mitigate challenges in repairing battle-damaged ships during a great power conflict. GAO's report (1) discusses the challenges the Navy has identified in using its regular maintenance capability for battle damage repair, and (2) evaluates the extent to which the Navy has begun developing the battle damage repair capability it requires to prevail in a great power conflict. GAO reviewed relevant guidance and assessed reports on naval war games and other documentation to identify challenges that may impede the planning and repair of battle-damaged ships and efforts to improve the repair capability for a great power conflict.

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