Beast Mistress (take 2)

Just a quick post that I finished the Beast Mistress that's been sitting on my desk for the last 5 months. This picture is atrocious, and it doesn't actually look that bad in person, but it's also nowhere near as good as the first one I did. This is just a quick tabletop paint job so I can be done.

Stormblade Officer and Standard

Not going to belabor this post. The only thing I'm not super happy with about the UAs is that I probably should have done more with the banners than I did. However I must admit that painting freehand on such an irregular surface proved very challenging to my skills. At least in doing this I got some practice at shading the freehand pattern. These banners though are sculpted in an odd fashion: they wave but are still very rectangular from the front. Something about their shape just feels wrong to me, especially given the amount of waves they have. Anyway, what's done is done. Time to move on.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #63

Finally started putting paint on my second Beast Mistress. I was updating my list of unpainted models and found that I have 5 unpainted Legion models, not counting the swarm of Shredders/Harriers/Stingers that are sitting around in various states of progress. Despite all my focus on Cygnar, Legion is still my favorite faction to both paint and play. This hiatus from them has actually given me a renewed vigor to get them on the table, especially now that I have epic Absylonia and a Neraph.

My Stormblades are coming along. The UAs are all done and just need pictures. The WAs are still in progress and need reds and insignias. My goal is to have them done this week which should be a piece of cake. That will wrap up that monster project and I can get back to painting single models for a while.

In a rather naughty move, I bought a second Stormwall. One of the guys at my LGS had a second one and wasn't going to be using it. The only downside was that it was already assembled and primed, but to some degree that saves me some trouble. He used a lot of glue so getting it off of the base was a bit of a pain, and there were some parts assembled slightly incorrectly, but otherwise it's pretty well put together. I'll probably take a much more rapid approach on this one to get it done quicker. Needless to say, this isn't at the top of my paint queue, but it is something that I had been thinking of getting anyway. The Stormwall is one of my favorite PP models to paint to date so doing a second should be really fun. Pictured here are the legs and a few pistons being stripped of primer so that I can clean up some issues, as well as trying to dissolve the glue a bit from the bottom of the feet.

Yesterday I also solved a minor mystery. I had assembled, primed and base coated a Defender jack, and it had been sitting on the side shelf for some time. Then one day it was just missing. Yesterday I happened to notice that it had taken a header from the shelf and fallen nearly 5 feet to the floor. Amazingly the paint was barely chipped, however the arms had come loose. Easily repaired though, and now I'm keen to get him painted sooner rather than later.

Stormblades

So here's the 2 Stormblade units finished up. The UA's and WA's are still in progress. It feels great to get these done though. I'm looking forward to fielding them, especially without any attachments just to try them out in their basic form first. In the end I decided to label them "A" and "Z" squads. Not really much else to say here though.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #62

Getting this week's update done a bit early.

My Stormblades effort is really coming along. 6 of them are completely done (except for sealing), and another 7 are very close, just needing insignias and bases. The rest need all the red plating done and some other misc work. I'm fortunately at the point where I can easily see the light at the end of the tunnel and I'm near the point of being able to actually play some of these models as well. My goal for the next week is at least wrap up the 2 basic units and the 2 unit attachments. The weapon attachments may take me a bit longer though, especially given this is a hectic week for me. I'm traveling for work for a couple days, Exigence drops on Wednesday, and I'm hoping to get another game in.

On the assembly front I got 3 warcasters, a Stormclad, and a second Stormblade Captain assembled. As much fun as pNemo is, I'm looking forward to playing a new caster.

I also got a game in this last week with Lance. 50pts Incursion, with me playing pNemo (without a Stormwall for once) and Lance playing a tier 4 Syntherion list. Lance crushed me pretty bad, with the end of the game resulting in me taking a wildly unlikely assassination run near the end in a last ditch effort to pull out a win. There were only a couple places where my luck was against me. The first was that the flag that disappeared was on the side I was weaker on. The second was a failed strength check for Thunderhead to 2-handed throw a Cipher. This match up sort of reinforced my sense that having a Stormwall is always a good idea. I just didn't have enough firepower to take out the Axiom, nor enough options to get a proper amount of damage on Syntherion since he was camping 4 focus most of the game. At arm 22, it was pretty rough for me to get enough attacks on him. I will note that Lance proxied the CoC battle engine and it was quite amusing to play against. Despite a pretty rough beating, I still really enjoy the Convergence-Cygnar match ups.

And finally a very different modeling project that my son and I did together getting ready for Halloween. It's very early but I didn't want to squash his enthusiasm for one of my favorite holidays of the year.

Battle Report: 25pt Newbie Tournament

No, I'm not a newbie. I crashed this tournament at my LGS for the following reasons:
1) I like helping new players have a good experience with the game.
2) I haven't played much lately.
3) Putting 1 and 2 together, my gameplay kinda sucks right now and I'm a good punching bag.

As it turned out, it was great that I showed up. There were 3 other players, all who were relatively new players. With me it became 4 players which made for nice pairings and I was able to help answer rules questions and do set up for the event with the PG. The event was a 25pt Incursion format with 30 minute death clocks.

I brought a pNemo list: Stormwall, Lancer, Arcanist Core, 2 Stormsmiths.

The other three players all brought Khador, 2 of which had pButcher and the other had pVlad. I'm very proud to say that I lost all 3 of my games! In all 3 cases, the PG and I gave my opponent a pro tip on how to pull of a significant maneuver. In most of those cases it enabled them to turn the tide dramatically and resulted in me losing. In one case it was a clever use of another model to ensure that Electrify didn't push pButcher back out of reach range of the Stormwall, thus he got to completely level the Stormwall in a single activation with focus to spare which I think really got that guy excited.

Unfortunately I don't recall all the lists, but I do recall all my opponents being great guys and we all had a good time. Our PG even had some leftover Journeyman League patches that he handed out which was a nice bonus too.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #61

Better late than never...

Relatively light week on progress, but I'm feeling better about the Stormblades. I brought one of the standard bearers up to near complete as a sample piece to work from. He's the only one in this state unfortunately. All the others are just now starting their reds. It's going to take quite a while to finish them up, but at least now the next step takes them from looking less than halfway to being near complete. I'll probably resort to doing them mostly in small groups at this point and doing all the work except for insignias. I'll still need to sort them into squads and paint insignias to separate them out. Definitely an "A" squad and probably a "Z" squad.

I also painted a whole big batch of bases in prep for these Stormblades as well as for upcoming things. I'm hoping to paint the two Stormblade Captains and a Stormclad right on the heels of these Stormblades.

And that's pretty much it. I managed to play a few games this last week including an event at my LGS which I'll post about tomorrow.

Inspiration: Atomic robo

Just a random bit of inspiration. I've been reading the Atomic Robo comic series and absolutely loving it. It's a great mash up of pulp action, science fiction and humor. And even better, there are free issues on Comixology! Go get it!

And no, I'm not affiliated with them in any way, nor do I get any benefit from Comixology. Just spreading some inspirational comics happiness.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #60

Super fast, but on time for once.

So this was not as busy as I was hoping, but still got some stuff done. Stormblades are coming along, with about 70% of the dark cloth work done. I basically need to go back and put in dark shadows on all the cloth and then go back and do the quilted black cloth which is only base coated.

Thunderhead obviously got done which has me yearning for another jack to paint now.

I also did a bunch of work prepping bases. I got 26 small, 1 medium and 2 large bases primed, base coated and black washed. I also drilled and glued in magnets into another 20 small bases. This last bit of work was good since it gets magnets into my entire supply of Tau Ceti resin bases.

That's really all this week. Time to sleep.

Thunderhead

So very many coils. I mean seriously, there might be almost as many lightning coils as rivets! Well, not really, but damn. Just look at it! Covered in coils. It does however make for a striking look with the blue-red juxtaposed like they are. One of my friends also commented that the blue Cygnus against the bright red makes this Thunderhead look like a sort of robot superhero. Overall I like that impression. I've always thought of Thunderhead as being a bit of a rockstar-style hero in the army anyway. Now he's all charged up with lightning and ready for battle in my Nemo army.

As mentioned in a previous post, I wanted to put lots of insignias all over him and I feel like I got about as many as I could without making him appear overly cluttered. There's even another "secret message" one on his left shoulder that I'll leave mysterious. Insignias still feel like something I'm struggling with, but the practice is good for me and it is slowly getting easier to tackle freehand tasks. There are a few tricks I've picked up from various places that have definitely helped reduce my frustration.

One last note is his pose. I specifically turned his left arm upwards to get him away from "DJ mode" and more into a "High-5" pose. I have a habit of giving my models a high-5 in the middle of a game when they pull off something amazing and I'm hoping Thunderhead will deserve many high-5's.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #59

Yep, eagerly awaiting my new iPhone 6...

So this week wasn't super productive, but I did overcome some of my painting block. The Stormblades are now starting to look like real progress is being made. Rather than show them all, I just picked out a couple of them to demonstrate progress. They are all at this same painting stage. I got all the glow work done. Next I'll do some metal clean ups as needed and then start on the black cloth. Hopefully I can get those two steps done this week. Once things get to the reds then they will suddenly feel like they are coming together quickly, but I like to leave the reds for last because of the process. Sometimes the playbook is the best way to go to stay sane.

I also got back to work on Thunderhead. This guy got started at the same time as the Lancers but quickly pushed to the side. Since I was already doing the glow for the Stormblades, I figured I'd just go ahead and pick this back up. He's basically at the same stage as the Stormblades, but I'm eager to finish him first. What I really need to do on this one is start sketching a bunch of insignias. I want him to be heavily decorated with them.

Oh, and the 2 Lancers got done obviously. I drilled out 10 more 30mm bases for magnets in prep for the Stormblades (so now I have 22 ready). And finally I binged at the LGS and got eAbsylonia, a second Stormblade Captain, and a Stormclad. Didn't play a single game, but yeah, sort of a busy week anyway.

Lancers

Finally finished these 2 Lancers. They had been sitting at 98% done for a week before I finally wrapped them up. I really need to get a game in tonight to help stir my passion for painting again. In any case, nothing fancy to say here.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #58

Blah. Just... Blah.

To say that I've been in a painting funk for the last 2 weeks would be an understatement. More on that later for those that actually care. For now, here's sort of the state of my desk and other hobby related things for me.

The Thunderhead is still early in progress. The vast number of glowing coils has intimidated me a bit. The two Lancers however are nearly done with just insignias missing at this point. I hadn't planned on starting them at all, but there was a tournament last weekend that I was hoping to bring my new Cygnar force to and I needed a few extra points to round it out to 50. Lancers with Nemo1 seemed like a perfect fit and so I was trying to crank them out real fast. Long story short, I didn't make it to the tournament due to a back injury and hence getting these done didn't push to the top of my priority stack.

My next big push with Cygnar is probably an insane one. Pictured here are 2 units of Stormblades. I've got them, with 6 WAs, 2UAs, and a single Stormblade Captain all assembled, primed and base coated. My plan is to paint them all together at once. Like I said, probably insane, but once I do this I'll have my Nemo1 tier 4 army all done and it will give me a whole other level of accomplishment with this new Cygnar army. I purposefully did this roundup post early on Sunday instead of in the evening in the hopes that forcing myself to look at my paint queue would get me motivated tonight.

So what else has been happening hobby-wise? I received my Blighted Bather which is good, although I have no idea when I'll actually get around to painting it.

I also backed the Massive Voodoo Indigogo campaign for the Ultimate Paint Rack. I'm super stoked about this for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it is supposed to ship before the end of this year. An added bonus is that it will come with a brush box and wet palette which will dramatically increase my portability for painting (I theorize). I've been struggling with my existing paint rack capacity already so I'll be curious to see if this solves it or just shifts it.

Beyond that, life has been challenging. I had a back injury a couple weeks ago which really laid me up hard. We also had family visit and work has generally been a different shade of stupid. On the plus side, my son (who is now 4) has been awesome. He's learning to read and engaging at a whole different level now. The joy he's been bringing to my life has really kept me above water.

Hunters

Yep! 2 Hunters. Not much to say here. I painted them to field with Jakes since I figure they will make a good pairing for her. Can't see it in these photos, but I numbered them 1 and 2 on their right top shoulder plating to easily tell them apart.

Lieutenant Allison Jakes

This was the sculpt from the PP Kickstarter. It's the first of the Kickstarter sculpts that I've painted too. I love the dynamic pose of this sculpt too. It was a lovely model to paint. The details are incredibly finely detailed. More so than my skills really support unfortunately. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this project quite a bit.

Tactical Arcanist Core

These guys were, admittedly, a late addition to my Cygnar wish list and motivated entirely by their helpfulness for Nemo1. I haven't even proxied them yet either. I just liked the models and figured I'd try them out.

Because these are mercs and not Cygnar models, I struggled with how to paint and base them. I wanted them to end up looking sort of like Nemo's pit crew. To that end, I kept them on the same style base, but gave them a more traditional Cygnar blue look to accent the glowing orange-red arcane parts. Before I'd finished the highlights I was getting a bad feeling about them, but once the final highlights went on, I was pretty pleased. I'm looking forward to fielding them next time I roll out Cygnar.

Storm Strider

Nothing makes a new force seem bigger than it is like having huge bases added. Throwing in the Storm Strider to my queue definitely had that effect. I'd been anxious to paint this one up once I opened the kit. It was pretty quick to put together and paint, and I really did enjoy it. Some parts were annoying to work around, like having all the legs put together and trying to paint the interiors. Other parts were easy though. I worked the project in 6 pieces: base, legs and hips, main deck, ball, pilot, and leader. I just worked from the bottom up and assembled as I finished parts. The last piece was the insignias, which I have to admit I struggled with a fair amount. In the end, the insignias ended up being a bit random but I feel it gives the right sort of look to the whole thing.

Nothing much more to say on this one really. I've fielded it a couple times already and find it to be an amusing addition to my list. Definitely well suited for taking out chunks of infantry, but if it can get a couple power tokens, it can hit pretty hard too.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #57

Oops! Missed a week again. Mostly cause I was painting and playing a lot. And went to see Guardians Of The Galaxy which was badass.

Somehow I failed to take any pictures this week, so I've included this single photo from the shelf beside my desk to give a sense of the state of things. I got a lot of stuff done in the last 2 weeks, while my wife and son were out of town. It doesn't necessarily seem like a lot to me since nothing really got done, but there was a lot of prep work that will streamline upcoming projects. Here's the highlights:

Painted a light dot in the center of Stormwall's base. This was a suggestion from Lance and is specifically to have an easy reference point for when a Stormpod gets launched, since the POW 10 hit is based on a line from the center to the center. It's already come in handy once.

Ordered way more paint than I should have (Andrea, P3, Vallejo). A bunch of this was due to running low on various paints, but also had a lot to do with making sure I had ample supply of the colors I'm using for my Cygnar army. My LGS was shockingly low on P3 stock so I had to pick them up at a slightly further store. At some point I'll do reviews of the various stuff and what my personal take on each is.

I avoided buying hardly any models! Just the Gobber Tinker. He's 1 point and will be convenient in a Cygnar list sometimes.

Assembled, primed and base coated a ton of stuff. Like, a lot of stuff: Allison Jakes, Thunderhead, Thorn, 2 Lancers, Ironclad, Defender, 2 units of Stormblades, 6 Stormblade WAs, 2 Stormblade UAs, a Stormblade Captain, and 6 mechanics. All the jacks have gotten metal base coats on too. I'm currently focused on Jakes and the 2 Hunters.

I got a bunch of bases drilled and prepped for priming. As many as I could until I ran out of magnets, which I also ordered. I think the count is 10 small bases, 10 medium bases, and 6 large bases. The drilling task is annoyingly tedious so this was a nice step to get completed.

Oh, and I updated my Cygnar Dragon Horde spreadsheet. Yes, I created a spreadsheet. Currently at 23% completed of all the new stuff I bought for Cygnar. It tracks the state of all the models. It's convenient to have it on my phone for reference when I'm at the LGS. Oh, and an amusing column on the spreadsheet is the number of rivets each model has. Yes, I'm that crazy. I'm counting rivets. Cygnar models are just completely covered with them. It's very humorous. If folks are really interested, I'll share the counts once I get further along in painting my Cygnar army. As a teaser, the Stormwall has just over 1000 rivets.

One last thought: I'm debating re-basing my Gun Mages. I've used them a couple times now and really enjoy playing them with my force. I'm very tempted to make them fit in closer with my overall army just for kicks.

Journeyman Warcaster

A necessary addition to any Cygnar army is "Junior". This was a pretty quick model to paint. I'm not super happy with all the parts, like the freehand which still feels a bit awkward looking. However I am particularly happy with how the face turned out given how quickly and few coats of paint I used on it. But again, this is just a tabletop army, so I'm not in a twist about it at all.

Battle Report: 15pt Reveals

So our 15pt reveal tournament has come and gone. The results are pretty interesting.

Henry's List: Harkovich, Conquest, War Dog
Lance's List: eThagrosh, Nephilim Soldier, Swordsmen (6+UA), Bone Grinders (4)
My List: Nemo1, Stormwall, 2 Stormsmiths

Battle 1: Harkovich vs Thagrosh!
In what looked like a rather one-sided battle, Harkovich advances and tucks in behind Conquest and an obstructing stone. What happened next bent the odds. 3 Swordsmen charge in, followed by eThagrosh, and they destroy Conquest entirely. In a single round! It was insane. After that, it was a quick grinding out of the rest and Harkovich's army was tabled.

Battle 2: Harkovich vs Nemo!
In a well played batch of maneuvering and timing, Conquest gets the drop on Stormwall and destroys it. After that it was a desperate attempt by Nemo to Voltaic Snare Conquest and shift towards an assassination run. Unfortunately a well landed crit devastation sent Nemo sprawling and then gunned down like a dog.

Battle 3: Thagrosh vs Nemo!
This battle started out pretty good, taking out the Soldier early with some good rolls and then clearing out Swordsmen quickly. However I got greedy and put Nemo in obvious harm without thinking. If I'd played an attrition game I could have easily won this one. Unfortunately Thagrosh and the Bone Grinder leader landed multiple spell attacks on Nemo and slayed him.

Observation 1: It was amusing how the reveal resulted in a sort of rock-paper-scissors set of match ups. It reinforces my high opinion of the Warmachine game as being well balanced.

Observation 2: Although only my force was fully completed, all three of us agreed that having the goal and the date was a great motivator for making progress on our projects. Henry in particular said that this was exactly the motivation he needed to get Conquest going given that it's such a huge project.

So what's next? Perhaps a 25pt reveal? We'll see!