Succubus

Wrapping up another solo model for Legion here. The Succubus could have gone far better than it did unfortunately. This definitely turned into a "fighting with paint" situation. This analysis is going to be longer than normal so I'll dive right into it.

What went well:
* Extensive pinning work on the arms and wings saved me lots of heartache later, since those connection points are very thin.
* The base color worked out really well, despite only needing 4 colors to get it done.
* Uhm, yeah, and she's done. Honestly I don't feel like a lot went well with this model.

What could have been better (or went completely wrong):
* This particular copy of the model had horrible mold lines. I mean really terrible. And this model doesn't have a lot of meat to cut into. Unfortunately I didn't notice the mold lines when I bought it. I still should have gone back to the store and asked to swap it once I got it open.
* Speed painting this model was a double edged sword. It got done, and with relatively little time needed, but still left me pretty unsatisfied.
* In general I just found myself fighting with this model. It happens every so often and it's disappointing when it does happen. However I find that it's just important to wrap up that model before starting any other projects.
* Lots of ugly blending transitions and mistakes that never got properly cleaned up. Again, was just sick of fighting with the model.

As a final note, I think this model was sort of a mixed bag. I was excited to get it and paint it, but something about it just really broke my spirit. Perhaps it was the irreparable mold lines that was the root of the problem. Or perhaps it was the sculpt itself. I can't help but wonder if an alternate sculpt would have been more inspiring to paint. You know, perhaps something like...Spud's custom sculpted Succubus (scroll way down to see the results).

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #15

Lure of computer games: 2. Lure of painting: 5. Victory: Painting!

First up is Proteus. Made a lot of progress this week. The chitin is mostly done other than final shadowing/highlighting for contrast balance. The base is done painting-wise, but will need some minor flocking probably. I also got the base coating for the skin done which was incredibly tedious. At this point he's about 70% probably. I'm going to push to finish him this week despite the impending holiday and ensuing distractions that may occur.

Not pictured here is the Succubus. She's done! Nothing amazing, but I'll rant about that when I post the final pictures tomorrow.

And, uh, just a quick picture of the completely minor progress on the Throne. Again, just to torture myself with the lack of meaningful progress. The model is not sitting squarely on my desk where I have no choice but to see it. I'm going to need to get the airbrush out some more to speed this one along. There's so much base coating to do that without the airbrush it would be a soul-crushing amount of work to get over the initial hump.

Nothing else to report really. I'm trying to avoid making some OCD timeline of what needs to get finished by when to be at fully painted before my Holiday vacation up north. I'm pretty sure if I did, I would find that there's no humanly way I can make it happen.

Daily Inspiration: 3 Hours Without Distractions

Today's inspiration comes from the Massive Voodoo guys. This post is both awesome and frustrating. Having the opportunity to sit down and paint solid for 3 hours uninterrupted is something I would love to have but rarely get the chance to do anymore. Getting a chance to do that with a good friend pretty much never happens. There was also a post by Meg Maples on the Privateer Press Insider about focusing during painting time which I liked. It's easy to see these sorts of things by great painters and just get jealous or angry. Personally though, I find them inspiring, and it makes me want to figure out how I can create more focus to my painting. As an example of where I fall down, I was painting last night and put on the moving Immortals streaming to my computer while I painted. The results: I did paint during the 2 hours the movie was on, but I also ended up watching a fair chunk of the movie and not getting any actual painting done. I probably could choose movies that are less likely to draw my attention away. Particularly movies that I've seen a lot before. Time to raid the DVD closet I think!

Vassal Mechanic

Nothing particularly fancy here. A quick 3 hour paint job to slam this out. I'm skipping any analysis since it was a speed paint job and nothing really divergent from my normal stuff for Protectorate. Just good to have finished another model after a month of no completions.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #14 (+2)

So rather than cheat with my numbering and account for weeks I didn't actually post, I'm rewinding to where I should be, even though 3 weeks have passed (again) since the last Weekend Roundup.

So I took on a project to paint a full set of the Flagstone bases from Secret Weapon miniatures. It was a project that took me far longer than it should have. I spent a fair amount of time on a few prototypes. My goal was to come up with a painting scheme that would be easy to replicate accurately, was not too terribly long to paint, and yet still looked good. The results are pretty decent. For my own sake, I'll put my notes here on the painting process:
Step 1: Prime white and then base coat white.
Step 2: Wash individual stones using SWW Red Black, Flesh Wash, Concrete, Cool Grey, Dark Sepia, Sewer Water, Stone, Parchment.
Step 3: Go back over Red Black and Cool Grey stones with Sewer Water to darken a bit.
Step 4: Drybrush lightly with P3 MWH.
Step 5: SWW Baby Poop in the gaps between stones to darken. Additional darkening using SWW Heavy Body Black.
Step 6 (moss only): Base moss with P3 Wyrm Green, then wash with GWW Thraka Green.

In my quest to get to fully painted, or very close to it, I'm trying to knock out the Vassal Mechanic real fast. I'm also heavily motivated to finish him since I just pre-ordered the Judicator a couple days ago. This guy is pretty fast to paint. I think this is a total of about 3 hours painting time or so. I'm calling him mostly done. I'm just going to get him stuck on a base and then do any final touch ups necessary.

No photo for this item, but I did a bunch of trimming and prep work on the Extreme Carnivean. Nothing really worth showing at this point. I'll try to do some posts of that project along the way. I'm very tempted to turn it into a competition quality piece, but I'm reserving judgement until I get it fully assembled. The thing is massive and might be a real challenge. On the plus side, the thing is massively awesome looking in pieces.

And then there was some other stuff. I got started (barely) on Proteus by base coating all the chitin sections with P3 Jack Bone. Next will be the layers and layers of washing. I also got a bit more paint on the Sorceress for the Throne. And the Succubus, well, she's got nothing new going on. I'm just including her as self-incrimination of my lack of progress on a model that I really do want to be able to field. All said and done, there are currently 6 projects on my desk at once right now, including the Extreme Canivean, and the Gator Trays (which got no attention at all the last few weeks). I'm really in need of closing out some things and getting focused.

Finally some flagrant display of my excuse for lack of updates. I spent a couple weeks touring around China for work. The trip was both exhausting (5 major cities in 10 days) and exciting (a weekend to bum around in Beijing). I ate amazing food, talked with amazing people, and saw amazing things. I am honestly looking forward to another chance to go out there again, particularly Taipei. These photos are some of my favorite impressions of China.

And I'm out. Now that my traveling is done until my Christmas break up in Canada, I am hoping to get some serious brush time in and close out some of these models.

Battle Report: Feora vs Doomshaper and Mountain King

This battle report is actually blatantly copied directly from an email. Often times when there's a game in our small gaming group there will be an email the next day capturing the amusement of the game for the others that weren't there. This one was pretty amusing, but even more so was the write up by my buddy (and opponent for the game) Lance. I'll let you read his version of the battle.

Some quick notes about terminology. "Paper clip mode" is a term we use to mean being helpful sportsmans to each other. We use this for situations like when someone hasn't played for a few weeks, or we're playing something completely new, or just generally helping each other remember features of our army. I also built my list with no knowledge at all about his list, despite what appears to be helpful match ups for me.

This was an extreme paper clip mode game. Things like me going "uh,
i'm moving them back and not activing that unit, the MK base is F'ing
huge" and scott forgetting he could boost the shots from the battle
engine on the first shot, which we retroactively fixed.

There may have been another round of scott applying damage and me
trying not to die between actions in round 2 and 3, but I think this
is the turn flow.

Scott was sporting;
feora
f'ing battle engine
f'ing nicea (sp, the daughter character solo)
mechanic?
gorman
two light jacks, the arc node and the spell protection one
full zealots with monolith bearer
aiyana and holt

I was running;
pDoomshaper tier 3
2x runeshapers
janissa
mountain king
earthborn
min kriel stone unit

When we plunked the stuff down there were a few interesting observations.
- hex hammer from feora does d3 damage when you cast spells,
runeshapers were in danger
- the mountain king is huge, I had problems initially placing my bonus
wall from the tier
- 35 point lists are hard
- zealots + aiyana damage boost + zealot prayer is a crap load of damage output

we played the three control point, one vanishes objective. scott won
the roll, i picked the side with a forest in the deployment zone. the
central area of the board was fairly clear.

scott - round 1!
Zealots take the lead, the battle engine and aiyana/holt go on one
flank. an arc node jack takes the other.

me - round 1!
I throw elemental communion on the MK so it can run 14". I pretty much
shove it out there so it can contest the center point and be within 2"
of the tier bonus wall. I know it can get blinded but I'm just
attempting to anchor down the scenario. Janissa receives elemental
communion and parks behind the wall, off to the side behind the
mountain king. Janissa, arm 19, cover. I smugly prepare to give scott
the finger if he tries to whack her.

we roll. middle control point, aka the one the mountain king would
have been contesting, vanishes.

scott - round 2!
nicea charges janissa and melee-kills her over the wall. Giant foam
middle finger is returned to the case. He uses sprint to engage
doomshaper from behind. OMGWTF. To be fair it was still 8's to hit,
and weapon master charges are violent.

zealots roll into position and pop greater destiny. a few pop bombs on
the MK and set it on fire. Scott misses the earthborn with the damage
boost. If he had hit he would have cleaned it's clock by putting more
zealots on it and a battle engine shot.

me - round 2!
runeshapers on one side move up to take the control point. lob magic
templates and aiyana and holt, decimating them and freeing the troll
people from their tyranny.
Mountain king moves up 5" to engage feora, gorman and a bunch of zealots.
doomshaper and the kriel stone folk fail to kill nicea.
earthborn chills, barely moving and staying where it can get +2spd and
+2 arm from terrain.
runeshapers on the flank with the light jack are largely ineffective,
running up to engage zealots and contest the point.
I feat to try and keep feora from slaying the MK.

scott - round 3!
battle engine contests the point the runeshapers had taken, uses
repulse and shoots two runshapers down.

nicea jabs doomshaper for 8. I take it because I want to hang onto my
other three transfers.

The zealots, in a feat of bravery, walk out of melee with the mountain
king. Many zealots were eaten. One remained behind so I could push
forward. This opened a hole for his light jack to walk in mostly
between the MK and gorman. He pushes gorman 1", out of melee with the
king. Gorman then proceeds to blind the Mountain King.

feora pops engine of destruction and charges the earthborn for a ton
of damage. He was in range to try a flamethrower assassination, but
three fury allowed for too much damage shunting. He took 4(?) points
of damage on his caster due to the doomshaper feat.

feora sets my army on fire.

me - round 3!
the entire kriel stone unit is knocked down from fire/tough checks.
Bad things happened to runeshapers. Doomshaper took 2 or 3 damage from
fire. Due to bad fury management, I only have 5 to work with.

Go time! doomshaper slays nicea in melee and puts fortune on the
earthborn. I'm sitting on 1 fury, aka dead if it doesn't work. The
earthborn boosts to hit on a two handed throw, needing a 9 or 10 to
hit feora. It hits, and I win the str check (12 vs 11 due to engine or
destruction). Feora is hurled into the zealot that is engaging the
mountain king. The blind mountain king starts making pow 19 auto-hit
attacks. Three licks to the center of the feora.

Summary!
In grand warmachine style, I think both scott and I were riding the
edge of "how to hold this together". He had me wrapped up if I hadn't
of pulled out the assassination. Feora could have easily survived a
round of attacks from the earthborn and then could have dispatched it
or moved on to doomshaper. The battle engine by itself could have
probably finished off doomshaper.

Swapping out mulg, an axer and whelps for the MK in my normal tier
list lineup felt like an ok point trade because the MK takes slams and
power attacks out of scotts portfolio of destruction.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #13 (and 14 and 15)

UHhhmm... Yeah. This whole weekly update thing just isn't always possible. More about that below while I play catch-up in typical sound-byte fashion. This is gonna be a long one so get a drink and buckle up or else tune and surf away.

Here's progress on the Succubus. Not a whole lot unfortunately, but most of the base coating is done.

No pictures, but the themed transport trays for my Gators are primed and base coated and have a couple washes on them. Next step is highlighting and then just the Envirotex and final details.

Skarre got finished! No more updates there! Hooray! Also I'm fully painted on Cryx finally! Double hooray!

If y'all haven't seen this already, check it out! Massive Voodoo are doing a big competition. I hope I can get something together to enter for it.

A tiny bit more progress on the sorceress for the Throne. Nothing amazing, but I'm happy to be keeping things moving.

Proteus is all assembled on his base and primed! Not sure when I'll start him, but he's there.

Oh, and here's an amusing pic... I got the Extreme Carnivean and some spare parts to create an alternate Shepherd with. Here you can see one of the eCarnivean's claws next to what is normally a Spawning Vessel Acolyte. It's, uh, big! I'll do a whole series of posts on it as I make progress, but don't hold your breath of course.

And battles! Harbinger vs Venethrax! Lytro gallery.

And that's that! Well, except for the explanation of so few posts. My work is crazynastyhello right now. The last 2 weeks I have painted almost nothing other than the flagstone bases. I was gone for a whole week, and tomorrow in fact I leave for another trip so there isn't going to be any more updates for probably a couple more weeks. It's frustrating, but on the flip-side, my job does a marvelous job of paying for my hobby (among other things) and this next trip promises to give me some excellent inspiration as well. I'll post photos when I get back.

Pirate Queen Skarre

Finally done! After sitting on my desk for probably 3 months, Skarre is finished. A very big reason that she got done this week and not 6 more weeks from now is pretty much my desire to wrap her up before I leave on a bunch of work travel. More about that in my weekend roundup post later today.

This model is delicious. Seriously, I really enjoyed painting this model. I could have spent a lot more time on her. It's got a nice pose and overall I feel like it's fairly accessible. My only gripe is the left side of her face which is (probably) meant to be mostly hidden and shadowed, but it has just enough space to make questionable. There's enough gap such that some light could legitimately get in, meaning it should be visible. On the other hand, it is heavily obscured, making it easy to justify it being mostly shadowed. Again, tough call. Otherwise it's a majestic model. Kudos to the sculptor.

What worked well:
* Dark and brooding - I wanted a color scheme that created some stronger contrast in terms of brightness, but overall had a darker look. I feel like that worked out pretty well here.
* Lighting focus - I wanted to be very intentional about how I handled the highlights and shadows, and particularly how the eye was drawn. I feel like this also worked out pretty well. There's lots of deep shadows, with highlights predominantly on the upward-facing areas. The notable exception is her face where I purposefully highlighted brighter than the light would hit, specifically to draw in the eye better.
* Glowing parts - The glowing green pieces worked out pretty well, standing out as glowing against much darker surroundings, but not so overpowering as to draw the eyes completely away from her face.
* Ink glazes - I used a couple layers of ink glazes on the blue and purple surfaces to smooth out the blending better. This worked extremely well. I've read about this before plenty of times, but this was the first time I really felt like my own execution of it worked rather than ruined.

What could have been better:
* Multiple slops - During the course of painting I had a number of unfortunate slops. Particularly on her, uh, boobs. So many layers of paint there.
* Spending more time - I could have easily spent more time on this model and smoothed everything out better. The camera is a harsh mistress and really reveals the flaws. After staring at it for so long though, it was just time to be done.
* Some freehand - Adding some freehand, particularly on the cloak, would have really kicked it up a notch. Plus I need to start doing more freehand work to get better and more confident about it.
* Metals - Yeah, just... yeah... I spent a fair amount of time on them, but this model is rife with tiny details and had a lot of trouble getting the metals right. I think that my entire approach for the basecoating was probably flawed there. Definitely a lesson learned for the next time.

Daily Inspiration: Clever Basing

Today's inspiration comes from the Tale of Painters blog. This blog routinely has impressive stuff and good tips and tutorials. This particular model however struck me because of the clever basing element. I love how this guy is peeling up the deck plating and revealing some piping underneath. It helps make the base seem less like a gaming marker and more like a micro-diorama. Kudos guys!

Naga Nightcrawler

Once again I'm fully painted on Legion beasts. This particular model was an interesting change from the others. It has relatively little skin which posed a problem for me. Specifically getting a glowing rune on him. But after consulting with some friends of mine, I settled on the neck near the base of the skull and it worked out fine.

What worked well:
* Speed painting this guy worked great. He really only took about 3 nights of painting to get done, and while working on other projects as well.
* Including the rune was good, even though I was hesitant. I like the way it worked out.
* Simplicity over complexity. Rather than trying to get fancy with basing or color schemes or whatever, I decided to keep things simple and I think it really paid off.

What could have been better:
* The "legs" could stand out a bit better. They sort of blend in, but even on the studio scheme they tend to blend in as well.
* More shading on the undersides of various places of chitin would have helped bring a little more dramatic feel to the overall look. I just didn't take it that one extra notch.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #12

I had dearly planned to get much more done this evening before posting, but my 2-year-old cancelled those plans. *sigh*

First up is the progress on Proteus. So far he's mostly assembled for the basic level, but there's still a lot of work left to do. There are a lot of seams that need smoothing out. This being my first plastic beast kit, I can't say I'm particularly thrilled with plastic, but it's not terrible. I'm just not used to working with plastic as much. In addition, I need to get him on the stone base as well. Proteus seems like he's going to pose a particular balancing challenge with his head being all metal and he's so far forward. I may need to angle him slightly or weight the back end somehow.

Quick side note, I picked up a Protectorate Vassal Mechanic. I wasn't expecting to, but I put in a reserve request for it and it arrived sooner than I expected. So he quickly got assembled and primed. I wasn't planning to get anything until the Judicator, but, well, the Mechanic will be pretty valuable to have with the Judicator I suspect so it was either now or later.

Ok, this picture is pretty lazy on my part. I didn't feel like setting up individual shots. Going left to right...
The Succubus got started! Just a base coat on the flesh and a single highlight layer. Nothing really fancy here.
The Naga is nearly done. I've even got the base ready. However the one key remaining task is to paint a glowing rune on him to match the rest of my beasts' schemes. I'm just having a real challenge trying to figure out where to put that rune. My leading plan is to put it at the base of the skull, on the side, just past the circular chitin piece. It's just going to be a tight fit.
Next is Skarre, who's nearing completion. I'm mostly just tweaking and tweaking at this point. I don't want to call this one done until I'm really happy with it. My remaining list of items to do is pretty small (mostly just smoothing and metal work), but I keep spotting little things to adjust. Hopefully done this week.
Finally is the Sorceress that is on top of the Throne. The Throne has been sitting around primed without any activity and I figured this was the best way to kick start the process. Of course, I say that but getting the Succubus and Naga done will take priority.

And finally, I get some significant progress on the additional cRoxorz trays that I wanted to build. Today I poured the plaster and textured it. These trays aren't really that hard to make, but the process is lengthy due to all the steps that require long drying times. But it's worth it. I can't explain why, but my cRoxorz just demand this level of attention and diligence. I'll probably never consider doing trays like this for my Legion or Protectorate forces.

Legionnaire Standard Bearer

Straight to the analysis...

What went well:
* Matching the color scheme and style of the original unit. I felt like this guy really hit it.
* The overall shading of the banner worked out well. Not the rune on it though... more below.
* Uh, and just, uh, being done with the unit!

What could have been better:
* The rune on the banner. I wanted to have a glowing rune to match the rest of the army theme feature, but honestly, it just didn't work out as well as I hoped. I was originally trying to do a stippling method, but that sort of went sideways. Then it just went further sideways. I probably should have started over, but, oh well...

And that's it, on to the next thing!

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #11

Sound bites episode tonight. Not much on photos.

Finished Farilor and the Standard Bearer. My goal wasn't to paint them great. It was to paint them to match the original squad. Here's a side-by-side. I feel pretty happy with the matching job I did here. The green has a slightly different hue, but it's close enough that it isn't obvious. Challenge accomplished!

No progress on Skarre. Sigh!

I managed to get both the Naga and the Succubus assembled. I'll probably prime them tonight. I actually went ahead and put the Succubus on a base despite my normal process. I figured it would be easier in the long run. I also started assembling Proteus which is about 75% done now.

I've started prepping 4 more TableWar trays for my CRoxorz. I don't know what it is about them, but it makes me want to go the extra mile for theme.

Played another game against Lance's Venethrax list. This time I brought Harbinger, Vessel, and a pretty hard hitting list. I pulled it out at the last moment with an assassination run on Venethrax with the Harbinger herself. Crusader's Call, charging the Nightmare to get range to Venethrax who was hidden behind a forest, and then dropped the nuke on him.

Last thing is sort of a personal venting about life and crap, so people can feel free to tune out at this point. I had an insane week at work. In addition to work being intense, I totally overate during the week and yesterday when I stepped on the scale and I weighed more than I have in two years. This is incredibly frustrating because as of 2 years ago I had finished a run of losing 55 pounds. Things could be worse. The week was intensely stressful and partially I survived because gaming and especially painting provides an outlet for me. It grounds me and brings me relaxation, and most importantly joy. I set a bunch of goals for myself for this year. The only goal I haven't met is losing the few remaining pounds that I really wanted to. So for the rest of this year I'm going to use painting as a vehicle to help me stay focused on relaxing and losing the 15lbs I need to lose in order to hit my goal. I'll keep those posts off the IABN feed and generally try to keep them low key.

Captain Farilor

Farilor here makes the first half of the Legionnaire UA. Painting this pair was an interesting challenge which I'll talk about more in my weekend roundup. Here however I'll just focus on Farilor. Nothing particular special to talk about. This model was pretty fast to paint using my normal Legion speed-painting techniques. It's been a long time (probably a year now?) since I painted a Legion model and I did enjoy picking them back up again. This particular model was quick to paint but gave me a minor bit of trouble. When putting him on a base, the cape broke off. Normally I would try to pin such a piece, but this one just doesn't support an easy pinning solution so I didn't bother. Instead I went with green stuff and glue. Well I apparently wasn't quite careful enough and snapped it off. Fortunately the break was clean and didn't need much clean up afterwards.

Anyway, not much else to say here. What went well? I painted a Legion model again and enjoyed it! What could have been better? Not snapping off his cape! On to the Standard Bearer...

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #10

Ten? Crazy!

Finally some real progress on Skarre. I decided it would be wise to get her on a base sooner rather than later, so I whipped out something that I'd wanted to use for a while and put it all together. It was definitely a good time to go ahead and do this step as well. It'll help me make sure I have a good balance in color between the base and the model. I got a fair amount of work done as well. I did a couple of thin ink washes on the blue and it really smoothed out the blending and brightened up the color nicely. I also did some general clean up and a bunch of work on the metals. So far it's coming along well and I'm still enjoying painting it.

I also got started on Farilor and the Legionnaire UA. These guys are sort of an interesting painting challenge since I want to make them look at similar to the original squad that I painted. I'm keeping a pair of the original squad on my desk while I do these two in order to have as a reference. I'm also still mulling over what to put on the banner, but that will likely take a while to decide.

So my whole self-imposed countdown before getting a new airbrush got thrown out the window. My normal online seller for airbrush supplies was having a big sale and I broke down and picked up the Harder Steenbeck Infinity. It just arrived this last week so I haven't gotten a chance to try it out yet (despite my anxiousness to), but it looks very nice and definitely ridiculously easy to clean.

Maelok is now 3-and-0! I won a game against Lance's Venethrax experiment this week playing 35pts using the Overrun scenario. Lessons learned: When faced with Satyxis jamming, counter-jam with Gatorman Posse and be amused how the Satyxis can't kill them when they are fully buffed. I also have to say that I am really enjoying playing Maelok. He's amusing and extremely survivable. He definitely push the r0x0r into my cRoxors.
And as an added bonus... Lytro pics of the battle!!

Vessel of Judgement

Wow am I glad this one is done. Not very proud of this effort. There's a bunch of obvious problems with this model, and I'm going to skip any normal analysis. The only time I started to feel at all happy about this model was when I got the bulk of the red/black highlighting done. But in general I was just pushing to get completed and the final result shows it. And so, just pics for this posting. On to other projects.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #9

Another evening posting of my weekend roundup. Why do I always wait until 10pm to do these?

Significant progress on the Vessel of Judgement! I got a bunch of work done on it. Once I turned the corner of getting some highlighting and shading done, it started to feel a bit more like positive progress. This is a common problem for me. Often I feel like a model looks terrible until I get a certain amount of highlighting progress done. I've definitely hit that point finally here. I also reached a point at which it was critical to get it on a base just from a handling point of view. So I quickly got the base put together. Nothing amazing there.

And in order to keep my momentum, I got the priest and, uh, puller guy, primed and ready for painting. I also have the chains primed but it didn't seem relevant to post pictures of those minor parts. Of course, this picture isn't particularly interesting either. But the point here is that I'm in the glide path now to finishing off my first huge based model. I honestly think this is a pretty important accomplishment for me. I've been putting off these huge based models for far too long. And with the colossals coming out soon (which I love already), then I need to start clearing my existing huge based models to justify getting more. Anyway, enough of that prattling.

Ok, so the Succubus... What a pain in the butt to assemble! I'm pretty OCD about making sure my models can't accidentally come apart due to tipping over on the table. So of course for this very finely sculpted model, I decided to pin all the little fiddly bits, and this has become a nightmare to do. So many tiny arms and wings! And getting things lined up properly when pinning? Ugh! So this is a WIP shot of extra long pins sticking out. They are the pins for the upper arms and wings. I had to put it all together in this way to make sure the pins were secure. At this point I have all the holes drilled. I need to put everything together which shouldn't be too much more work at this point.
I do have to mini-rant that this particular copy I got had terrible mold lines. Really awful. And the sculpt is such a fine sculpt that there wasn't much I could do to clean them up completely. Oh well.

Mini battle report:
Maelok vs Morghoul, 15pts, overrun.
Another battle with Maelok, and another close victory won by pulling out a multi-part assassination run. Actually the biggest thing that enabled it was Morghoul feat doesn't prevent Warlocks from spending fury. Zorch!

And that's it! Another week and a good feeling one at that.

Musing on Gators

Now that I've gotten several games in with Gators and completed painting my current collection, I thought it would be a good time to look back on the experience and philosophize about where to go from here...

Fun: I am having a blast with gators. They are fun to paint and fun to play. They may not be a full fledged faction, but I feel like I can mostly compete and have a good handle on their strengths and weaknesses. And for painting I find them to go relatively fast and have just the right amount of detail for my tastes. I can see myself continuing to play them for quite some time.

Time Spent: At a blisteringly slow pace (9 months) I painted the 18 models. That didn't count the other stuff I did at the same time, nor the models I'd had previously to starting Gators that will work for them. It's a terribly slow pace, but in the context of what was going on in my life, I can't really complain. The net result is 58 points and 3 warlocks.

My Battle Record: At this point I've gotten 10 games in with them (that I can recall) at various point levels. I tried to recall all the battles and this is what I came up with:
* Calaban: 2 wins (eHexeris, Mordikaar), 4 losses (eMorghoul, eMakeda, eHaley, Vlad).
* Barnabas: 2 wins (Zerkova, Harkovich), 0 losses.
* Maelok: 2 wins (Kaelyssa, Morghoul), 0 losses.

Where to go from here: So what more would I potentially add to this collection? Well I started thinking through this and prioritizing what I would get next and here was my list...
1) Pendrake
2) 2nd Ironback
3) Second Posse
4) 2nd Croak Hunter
5) Bone Grinders
6) Bog Trogs

And that concludes my musings about Gators. I'm taking a break from painting anything for them so that I can close out some of my other unpainted models, particularly getting caught up on Legion. But who knows! My Gatorlust may get a stranglehold on me and I'll start filling in those items. Or perhaps the Gargantuans book will yield unexpected treasures for Gators that I just won't be able to resist.

Battle Report: Sparkle vs cRoxors

Because of the proliferation of great battle reports out there (especially Chain Attack), I've generally gotten away from doing battle reports unless there's something specific to the game that I feel is worthy of blogging. This game however was amusing for a number of reasons. What follows is a somewhat disjointed battle report, more in the form of scattered notes. Oh, and to all you Retribution players out there, just take it all in good spirit.

Battle: Sparkle (Lance) vs Gators (me), 15pts
Mission: Restoration
Sparkle: Kaelyssa, Daemon, 5 Destors, Mage Hunter Assassin
Gators (tier 1): Maelok, Swamp Horror, Bull Snapper, Gatorman Posse (3), Witch Doctor, Croak Hunter
It's important to note that both lists were based on what we had painted. Not actually optimized lists at all. This is especially true of Lance's Sparkle list. There are obviously more optimized choices at 15pts.

Battle Notes:
* Destors are just not equipped to deal with Gator Posses. With Death Pact on them, the Destors were at -8 to damage against them at best.
* Maelok with no armor buffs however can take a fair amount of damage from a hail of pow 10 gunfire if dice run hot.
* Gators really have trouble hitting hard enough to take down jacks. A Swamp Horror in particular is simply unable to do that.
* The scenario objectives (which can be activated and heal nearby models) really came into play in this game. I think Maelok and other gators probably healed 25+ points of damage across all the models.
* The killing blow on Kaelyssa was dealt by the Croak Hunter!

Quotes from the battle:
* This is so bad! (after a hail of pow 10 ranged attacks barely scratches my 3 posse members)
* The reason Venethrax looks so badass is I've been reading these cards.
* Retribution is so EMO they don't kill you, they just hand you the knife.
* This makes my Gators feel like a real faction!

Project Sparkle:
Here's a shot of Lance's Project Sparkle army at its first 15pts. He used iridescent paints on them which gives them a multi-colored sheen to them. It's definitely a nice touch on top of the studio color scheme. The Scribr bases for Kaelyssa and the Assassin were really nice touches as well.

War Room: As a side note, we tried out using War Room (iOS version) for this battle. The good side is that it does support the features needed (tracking/viewing damage and cards for both sides). And even when we swapped out from the app to take pictures, we were able to re-join the game and keep going. The down side? Well, there were some places where it just hung and crashed and some other things. Also trying to add just a single point of damage on solos is tedious. And in general, it's a bit slow when switching between certain things it takes a while. Overall, probably not going to be using it for games in the future.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #8

Super light weekend roundup post this week.

Vessel of Judgement! How I hate thee! This model just doesn't gel with my style of painting. I'm hating every minute of it. I need to get this thing done though.

More quick updates...
* Maelok (and gators in general) are done!
* Skarre got no attention this week.
* Got an awesome battle in against Lance and his now unveiled Project Sparkle!
* Also got a battle against Henry where I brought Legion and he had Cryx with Scaverous and the Kraken. Was a good battle and I definitely don't feel like colossals are required to stay competitive, although they definitely change the dynamics of scenario play.
* Started a prototype model for my Sunset Cowboys.

And that's it! I'm going to spend the time I would normally burn on blogging to try and get more progress on the Vessel. Being done is better than not being done.

Maelok the Dreadbound

My third (and final for now) Gator warlock is done! And with this completion it rounds out my Gator forces. I should caveat that by saying that I may eventually get more Gators, but this rounds out the first level of commitment I made to starting a Gator force. Anyway, more on that in an upcoming post. For now though, a quick review of painting this model.

Ok, straight up, I didn't spend as much time painting this model as I had originally intended. There's multiple reasons, but probably the most guilty of them is my desire to be "done" with my Gator force. This model is a really nice sculpt, but I did run into a couple challenges. Particularly in the realm of readability, I found the sculpt to be very busy with details. This always causes a bit of trouble for me. I felt like this model wasn't as frustrating, but it being the last Gator in my collection, well, I just wanted to be done. So it could have gotten more attention but the end result still makes me pretty happy.

What went well:
* The candles turned out quite nice I think. They added a lot of color and attention, and especially brought my Mardi Gras color scheme well into focus.
* The dead flesh and exposed muscle turned out fairly well for what I wanted. I was going for more of a dried out husk sort of look and I feel like I accomplished that.


What could have been better:
* As mentioned above, more time and more effort would have been nice. But c'est la vie.
* Basing turned into a fiasco with his feet being very wide apart and not fitting properly. If you turn the model upside down, you'll find several unfinished parts.
* Some details just didn't quite get done, like the eyes. I sort of spaced on them, and now that it's sealed, I'm not going back.

Gatorman Witch Doctor

And then there was one! Finishing this guy leaves me with just Maelok left out of my Gators collection. As noted in yesterday's Weekend Roundup, this model was plagued with disasters and frustration, so I'm keenly happy to be done with it. I'm actually going to skip the normal analysis because I was that frustrated with the model. It's not a terrible sculpt. Just happens to be one of those models that didn't gel for me.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #7

This was a week full of setbacks, but I still made good progress. Time to recap.

Ok, first up was a bit of a disaster. I had poured the Envirotex for my Witch Doctor and set him aside to dry. I also did the Swamp Horror at the same time but he managed to escape incident. Anyway, the Envirotex had a mind of its own. It ended up getting on the Witch Doctor's tail, running slightly over the edge of the base, and then siphoning about half of its volume over and onto the wood. This of course left me with a Witch Doctor very firmly stuck to the piece of wood. Now fortunately, that piece of wood is there to protect my desk, shelves or whatever I happen to put projects on. Unfortunately I had to do some major work to get him unstuck without doing irreparable damage. Then results...
As you can see, the final damage ripped a big chunk of paint off the bottom of his tail and the back of the base. However, after a bit work work I was able to cover up the mistakes. All things considered, it could have been much worse. I just used some brush-on primer (thank goodness I had some on-hand) and then did some very quick base coating and washing work to hide the scars. Since it was the underside of the tail I didn't bother with doing anything too fancy.

Here's a WIP shot of Maelok. He's my last remaining unpainted Gator model (until I end up buying more I suppose). Nothing special to note really. He's very nearly done and it's just little touch ups and such remaining.

A micro-battle report for this week as well. I played 50pts of Kreoss vs Gaspy3. The goal was actually to play a game where 1 side had a colossal and the other didn't to get a sense of game balance. I had the Judicator and Henry rolled a pair of Seethers. The game was sort of a wash. Henry totally trounced me on scenario, but as a result I was definitely winning the attrition game. I honestly played far to conservatively. We're going to do another 1-sided colossal match this week (Legion vs Kraken) and see how it goes.

No, this isn't some new age art. I decided that I needed a full set of felt cutouts for the SR2012 scenario zones. I find these to be extremely helpful when playing the various scenarios as they make the zones obvious for both players. There's definitely game play advantages and disadvantages of doing it this way, but I tend to feel that the "disadvantages" (better ability to judge distances, etc) are really balanced out by the fact that both players see them. So anyway, I finally got off my butt and made these. Now I just need a set of flags and objectives.

And that's it! I'm sure I'll do something more tonight, but probably just on Maelok. Skarre and the Vessel got zero love this week, but mostly due to my push to wrap up Gators.