I am not an expert miniatures painter, but I suspect the new Ogre miniatures to draw in a lot of other beginners so I wanted to pass along what I gleaned from friends, books, the internet, and that most valuable of teachers, my own mistakes. I'm still learning so don't take this as gospel. If you see me doing anything dumb here, please let me know.
Never cut towards yourself. Ever.
Its sometimes easier, you might feel like you have a little more control, you save a second or two, but soon enough you put the blade into your thumb and lose ten minutes while you clean and bandage it, and you work slower for days. I hate having band-aids on my finger tips.
I use a snap-off type razor knife, they're economical, and metal dulls blades quickly.
I also have this ceramics spoon, available at Michael's crafts for $3-4, and more than worth it. You can pull with it more easily than with the break-off blade, and you can get into small corners with great control.
I also recently picked up these needle files, and while I have not yet grown adept with them there are some problems they solve very nicely. These were $8-9 at Orchard. I should have picked up a "file card" while I was there, but I needed it more or less instantly.
Before gluing I washed some in soapy water with a toothbrush. With some I didn't. No discernable difference. I don't do it anymore. <\P>
"Super Glue" or another brand of cyranoacrylate (CA) has several advantages - quick setting, good hold, cheap, no mixing, and if your miniature is subjected to the kinds of forces you always aim to prevent, the CA will give first, and the model can be easily reglued, even during a game. With epoxy the metal may break, leading to more complicated repair. On the other hand, epoxy is stronger.
Have some paper or toothpicks ready to scoop away any excess glue squeezed out of joints. With any other glue you'd wipe it away with your fingers, but with CA, well, its hard to type with a GEV fin and missle pod stuck on your fingertips. Its important to remove squeezed-out glue because otherwise it dulls the corner between the two parts, removing a nice detail. I've found that the torn edge of ordinary paper will soak up extra super glue pretty nicely.
I wanted to use acrylics for water thinning and clean up. They're inexpensive, and easy to find. You can find a two ounce bottle at craft stores for $1-3, and they come in a wide variety of colors, including metallic. You probably want black, white, silver, red, green, blue, yellow. Also, get a large brush for dry brushing and washing (0 or 1), and a couple very tiny brushes for everything else (5/0 and 10/0).
On advice I chose Krylon spray primer. I bought the Sandable Primer, and used two coats an hour apart. I also flipped them on their backs to get the bottom. Be sure and spray from a low angle to get into the workings of the treads. Two light coats are better than one heavy one, because a heavy coat will fill in details, and these are nice models.
I chose Krylon spray burgundy next. The Combine paint most of their units red, I was in a hurry, I didn't want a splotchy main body. You're more limited in colors with spray paint, but that way I only have to do the black and white by hand.
Red paint can be a lot of work. Someone told me that the red pigment costs more, so they put less in the paint. I can't verify this, but you will quickly see that red paint is more transparent than even yellow or white, and its hard to cover a darker color with red. I used to use several coats, but have recently received a tip I hope to try soon: don't paint red over black, paint red over white, or even yellow. If you get black onto an area you wanted to paint red, first paint over it with white, then put red over that.
Some people leave turrets loose so that they can be aimed. I may do this when SJ Games starts selling spare turrets. I plan on taking my minis to conventions as often as possible, and small things get lost.
I like to have every fourth tank or so have its turret turned thirty degrees or so to one side. Same for missle pods. This looks more like they're doing something.
On the howitzers I glued the guns to their carriages, but did not glue the carriage to the base. The elevation of the gun is fixed this way, but you can still turn it. this would make the guns safer when packed. You can also pull it out and lay it on its side to indicate disablement. I forgot and glued my first couple, but the rest will rotate.