Cerulean Clade Posse Set - Alien Miniatures Review

In this post I review the Cerulean Clade Posse Set by Warcradle Studios. Whether you are into Wild West Exodus or other games that allow you to use the miniatures that you want, I am going to tell you about these alien miniatures. So, pull up and enjoy!

The Cerulean Clade Posse Set is my first experience with both Warcradle Studios and Wild West Exodus. Before getting this boxed set, I have never built a Warcradle Studios miniatures before. This post will be on the longer side. In it, I talk about the build of the miniatures, how I painted them, the challenges that I faced, and I share a scale comparison image too.

Before going further, I would like to thank Warcradle Studios for sending me these miniatures for review purposes.

Updated August 21, 2021 to include the YouTube Video.

Review, Showcase, Build and Paint

In this article, you will see me Build, Paint, and Showcase these miniatures. Overall, they are very nice figures. How do they work in the game, Wild West Exodus? I am unsure. I just like the miniatures. Maybe I will use them in Wild West Exodus, maybe I will use them in something like Stargrave, or maybe I will just keep them for my collection of painted miniatures.

In this post, I will be focusing on the models themselves.

With that out of the way, let’s take a look at this box.

Unboxing the Wild West Exodus Miniatures

Review of the Cerulean Clade Posse Set for Wild West Exodus - Grey Aliens by Warcradle Studios — Under my photography and craft lamp, we have my Cerulean Clade Posse Set for Wild West Exodus by Warcradle Studios.

The back of the box shows you what is in there. In there, you find 9 alien themed miniatures. This is from their faction called the Watchers.

Opening this box is really something special. Warcradle put a lot of effort into the packaging of this product. Getting into this package is a very pleasant experience.

Mrs. Must Contain Minis saw me opening the pack and thought they might be high end chocolates. Sorry love. They are treats for me!

The miniatures are scaled for a 35mm game (Wild West Exodus), but I think they would fit in with other ranges and scales too. A little further on in the article, you will find a scale comparison image. That said, let’s look at one of the sprues.

Sprues by Warcradle Studios for Wild West Exodus Watchers miniatures — The Miniatures inside come on sprues like this. The miniatures themselves are made of resin, but are still very easy to work with. On top of that, the details are crisp.

unpainted miniatures of the Cerulean Clade Posse — Here are how the miniatures look when assembled, but yet to be painted.

The Freshly Built Miniatures

Now, before I start talking about how I painted these figures, let’s take a look at them unpainted.

The Cerulean Prime — This is the Cerulean Prime. He is the leader of this group. It went together well, but the legs on the miniature I built were spread a little further apart than they look on the Warcradle Website. That said, it still fit on the base.

Infiltrators. They work great as unarmed aliens for games like Stargrave and others too — The Cerulean Infiltrators. I used the link at the bottom of the page to get to the Wild West Exodus Website to find their rules. I really like the special ability that Warcradle gave these guys. This review is about the miniatures, but following the links at the end of the article for more information is worth the effort.

A Cerulean Nightmare before painting — This is a Cerulean Nightmare. This is an alien creature that has spent too long in human form and has been drawn to and mutated by the Hex.

Building Watchers miniatures — Here we have one of the two Cerulean Vixens. They hide amongst us and they are difficult to pick out from true humans.

That last guy looks to me like he is stylized after Giorgio A. Tsoukalos. If you don’t know about him, he hosts the History Channels’ show Ancient Aliens. In that show, Giorgio talks about Aliens and their possible links to Human History.

Below I share a short clip of him talking about Extraterrestrials and Early American Legends.

Ancient Aliens talk about Aliens in Early American Legends.

Before discussing how how I painted these miniatures, lets look at how they scale versus other manufacturers.

Scale Comparison Shot – Wild West Exodus

For those wondering about the scale of these miniatures, below is a shot that will interest you.

Scale Comparison - Wild West Exodus to Warhammer 40,000 and Frostgrave — Left to right… 28mm Frostgrave Miniature, Two Cerulean Clade Minis, A Primarus Space Marine, a Cerulean Infiltrator, a 28mm GW Chaos Cultist, another Cerulean miniature.

They are scaled to fit in with the 35mm gaming system of Wild West Exodus. That said, the small infiltrators are on par in size to 28mm figures.

I am pretty sure that you could mix these Cerulean Clade miniatures with other gaming systems, or use them in Warcradle Studios’ Wild West Exodus.

How I Painted my Squad of Aliens

To paint my miniatures, I used all of the paints below. You don’t need to paint them in the same way, but below is a lot of detail on how I painted them. I even share with you a chart telling you exactly what paints I used and how I used them.

Before looking at all these paints though, keep in mind the following. If you don’t own this many paints, that is fine. Often I find miniatures can end up looking pretty good with just three to five colors plus a shade.

Paints I used to paint the Cerulean Clade Posse - Painting up Watchers for Wild West Exodus — Above are all of the paints that I used to paint up these alien miniatures. Below I tell you how I used these paints to paint these miniatures.

Now, let me tell you how I used these paints.

The First Layers – Straight Up Miniature Aliens

To start, I “primed” the miniatures with Citadel Abaddon Black. I just brushed it on. I used this very same trick in my tutorials on painting Space Marines and Role Playing Miniatures. There are links to those articles in my resources section at the end of the article.

After that, I dry brushed all of the aliens with Administratum Grey followed by Corax White. This gave me a really nice starting point for these figures. Check these guys out.

Cerulean Infiltrator painted in three colors — My first steps on one of the Cerulean Infiltrators.

Cerulean Prime painted in three colors — And here is my Cerulean Prime miniature. If I were in a hurry to get these figures to the table, I think this would have been good enough after some base work. That said, I wanted to make them look better. At this time in the image above, I used just three colors. A black, a grey and an off white are the paints I used so far.

Paints I used to paint the Cerulean Clade Posse — These are the first colors that I used to paint this group of aliens. The Shade I waited until the end to coat the entire with. It made for a nice effect.

Next, I painted the arms, legs and chest with Black Grey. Basically, anywhere I thought these aliens were wearing an alien outfit, I painted it Black Grey by Vallejo.

The First Layers – Painting Aliens in Transition from Human Form

Ancient Aliens Host as a gaming miniature — I them gave a base coat layer to the rest of the minis.

Base coating a miniature of Giorgio from Ancient Aliens — Right now, it is only about getting the base colors onto the miniatures. Shading will come next and that will complete the work. I will call this mini Giorgio.

Base Coating my Wild West Exodus Miniatures — And here is the other Vixen with her base coat.

More Paints — Above are the other colors that I used for the rest of the miniatures.

I used two browns for the clothes on Giorgio, red for his tie and grey for his paints and shirt.

For the female Vixen, I used red for her dress and gun metal for her fan of knives.

I then used the Flat Earth paint for the bases. I painted the rims of the bases with the Abaddon Black.

Below, I will lay out exactly which colors I used and where I used them on the miniatures.

My Paint Recipe for the Alien Miniatures for Wild West Exodus

For more details on how I painted the Cerulean Clade miniatures, you can use the chart below. This tells you exactly which paints I used and how I used them.

Color	Brand	Items Painted
Abaddon Black	Citadel	Used as brush on primer. Rings of the bases.
Administratum Grey	Citadel	First layer dry brushing of aliens. Paints and shirt on one of the Vixens (Giorgio).
Corax White	Citadel	Second layer dry brushing of aliens.
Flat Earth	Vallejo	Flat parts of the bases.
Dragon Red	The Army Painter	Use for the tie and the dress.
Basic Skin Tone	Vallejo	Base layer on human skin.
Barbarian Flesh	The Army Painter	Human skin highlights after the shade.
Leather Brown	Vallejo	Hair and clothes.
German Camo Medium Brown	Vallejo	Second color on hair and clothes.
Black Grey	Vallejo	Alien clothes.
Gun Metal	The Army Painter	Knives fan.
Drakenhof Nightshade	Citadel	Shade for alien parts of the miniatures.
Agrax Earthshade	Citadel	Shade for all other parts of the miniatures.
Anti Shine Matt Varnish	The Army Painter	Varnish on the miniatures after painting them.

A chart detailing every paint that I used on these miniatures.

For those wondering, I bought these paints from my favorite FLGS (Forbes Hobbies).

Shading of the Miniatures

After completing the base layers, I shaded the miniatures with Citadel shades.

Anywhere that was alien (alien flesh and clothes), I shaded with Citadel Drakenhof Nightshade. I then shaded all of the human clothing and skin with Citadel Agrax Earthshade.

At this point, I was extremely happy with the look of my miniatures.

Painted Cerulean Clade — The finished miniatures just before doing the eyes and varnishing them. Also in this grouping are two minis by Reaper Miniatures that I painted in the same fashion as the Wild West Exodus ones. A link to the Reaper Miniatures review article is at the end of the article in the resources section.

All that was left to do was to color in their eyes and varnish them to seal in the colors. To fill in the eyes, I used a black pen. The trick works very well and is discussed in my “How to Paint Role Playing Game Miniatures” tutorial. The link to that one is also in the resource section below.

With these miniatures, I did not bother with the highlighting phase of painting with these miniatures. Once I got them to this point with their eyes done, I was very happy. All that was left to do was to varnish them.

Problem with the Varnishing

I am not sure if it was because it was too humid out when I sprayed, or the fact that I used the same box for priming earlier, but I had a mishap with my varnishing of these miniatures.

Looking at a varnishing problem I came across while painting my Cerulean Clade Posse — From a distance, the look fine, but if you look closely, you can see a white dusting on them.

I originally thought that the dusting is a spray back of white primer from the project that I sprayed before varnishing these guys. Since then, some readers told me that it could have been from the varnish too if it was humid out. Regardless, it was disappointing to see a dusting over my beautiful paint job.

Varnishing issue while spraying miniatures - White Dusting on my miniatures after varnishing — A close up showing my varnishing mishap.

Fixing my Varnish Issue

To fix the white flex, I repainted the rims of the bases black.

Fixing dusty varnish artifacts on a miniature — To clear up the white flecks, I repainted the base rims with black.

I then decided that the white flecks on the brown part of the base will not be noticeable once I get the terrain on them.

Finally, I took a good look at the miniatures. Being that I have a backlog of other projects to get to, I decided that the miniatures were good enough. After repainting the base rims, I applied the basing materials and considered the miniatures complete.

Oddly enough, the issue affected the fronts of the miniatures more than their backs.

The Finished Miniatures

Here we have my finished models.

Cerulean Clade Posse Set for Wild West Exodus all painted up by me — The Cerulean Clade Posse Set all painted.

Now, for some close ups.

A Cerulean Prime Miniature. This is the leader of the Cerulean Clade Posse for Wild West Exodus — The Leader of the group.

The leader of the group — The back of the miniature.

Cerulean Clade Nightmare — A Cerulean Nightmare.

Cerulean Clade Nightmare - Rear of Miniatures — I didn’t use many colors on this one, but I like how it turned out.

Giorgio A. Tsoukalos Painted as a miniature — Giorgio Tsoukalos, or at least a miniature that looks like him.

A Cerulean Vixen from Wild West Exodus — Some nice details on this mini.

Giorgio Tsoukalos painted as a miniature - Warcradle Studios — I have to say that I like this miniature. I wonder if Giorgio would like my paint job. 🙂

Cerulean Clade Vixen from Wild West Exodus by Warcradle — The other Cerulean Vixen.

The back of a half human / half alien female miniature — It turned out so well.

A Cerulean Clade Vixen — These aliens are in transition from their alien to human forms.

Grey Aliens in Miniature form from Wild West Exodus. — The group of five Cerulean Infiltrators.

Grey Aliens in Miniature form — The back side of those miniatures.

I have to saw that despite the slight dusting of white on the fronts of the miniatures, I am still very happy with my paint job.

These miniatures are going to be fun on the tabletop no matter what game I choose to use them. In the YouTube video, I plan to talk a bit about them in Wild West Exodus.

YouTube Video to Come

The YouTube related to this post actually covers different topics of these same miniatures. In it, I get into the lore of the game and the abilities of these figures in Wild West Exodus.

A Video Review and Showcase of the Cerulean Clade Aliens for Wild West Exodus. In it, I also talk about the lore and abilities of these minaitures.

Wrapping it up…

There you have it. My painted Cerulean Clade Posse Set. Personally I like the miniatures and they are fairly crisp in their details.

Gray Aliens by Warcradle Studios — Overall, these are some nice miniatures that were a pleasure to paint.

As mentioned earlier, the spread between the legs of the Cerulean Clade seemed larger on my miniatures than pictured on the Wayland Games webstore. That said, it still fits on the base and it is a nice looking miniature.

Hopefully you enjoyed this post. If you want more related stories, be sure to check the Related Resources and Links above.

Until next time, Happy Gaming Everyone!!!

This Post Has 2 Comments

glasvandrare January 2, 2022

When frosting occurs during varnish, I’ve had some success with spraying a layer of gloss varnish on top, and then re spray with matt.

Then again, since I started varnishing in two steps, using gloss before matt, i have never had a problem with frosting.
1. Jacob Stauttener January 3, 2022
  
  That’s great. Thanks so much for the advice glasvandrare.

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Cerulean Clade Posse Set – Alien Miniatures Review