Typhon

Now this was a beast. Overall it was a pretty enjoyable model. I did some minor conversion work on the tail since I thought the original pose of Typhon holding his tail made him look more like a cowering kitten than a fearsome beast. Getting the model together overall took a fair amount of pinning and green stuff work but I have to admit that it wasn't as bad as I might have expected. The big problem was the bad alignment between his feet. I had to build up a bit of the rock base under him to even things out.

What went well:
* The skin worked out good. I really do like the lighter shade of skin than I did on the earlier beasts (unfortunately).
* Chitin was good as well, using a similar mix of colors as on the Raek. I used some dark green to shade the recesses and it shows much more on this model.
* This was a relatively fast model to paint. Again, like the Forsaken, it has relatively few different areas to paint, making things pretty fast.
* Using a mix of washes, 2BB, and traditional layered blending worked great on this model. The larger surfaces certainly help in that area.

What could have been better:
* The overall color balance seems a bit off. There's bright read near the heads, which helps to draw the eyes upwards, but there isn't as much to draw the eyes back.
* The spots are ok, but I still feel like they could have been better. I like the character they add, but there's something just not "right" about them.
* Claws and spines didn't get great treatment, and although I don't regret the shortcut, it is somewhat unfortunate that I didn't tackle them in a different way. Mostly it was a hindsight issue.

I'm seriously looking forward to getting this bad boy on the table. The two times that I proxied him I was quite pleased. Typhon, like the Raek, was one of the small handful of Legion models that really lured me into starting another faction. This guy will definitely be seeing tournament time next week.

Messiah's First Outting

Wednesday night I got to roll out eThagrosh for the first time and I have to say I really enjoyed it. I've got a goal to have him and Typhon ready for the tournament on Aug 8th and I figured I'd better get at least 1 practice game in with him before that tournament. Note that I'm working on refining my individual battle report format so I'd love feedback on how this works out. Sorry, no pictures though.

The Lists:
Me: eThagrosh, Typhon, Carnivean, 2 Shredders, Striders+UA, Incubi, Shepherd, Forsaken, War Chief, Deathstalker, Totem Hunter, Gobbers
Henry: eDoomshaper, Earthborn, Mauler, Axer, Bouncer, 3 Longriders, Champs, 4 Krielstones + Elder, Fell Caller, Gobbers

The Mission:
Ridge Runners - We decided to play this mission since it is already a known mission for the next tournament and is the least practiced for both of us.

The Throwdown:
There was a lot of marching to the middle and then punching in the face. The Earthborn, Mauler and Axer were all on one flank and eDoomy and his Bouncer on the other flank with the Champs following the Longriders up the middle. The Striders tried their best to clear a hole and kill the Fell Caller, but those darn trolls just wouldn't give him up. The Musician at least was able to stall the Longriders with his mini-feat which bought me the time needed to bog them down. In the end though, the Striders were mainly delivery mechanisms for Incubi. In the middle, the Champs charged forward to kill a couple of Striders and the War Chief, but then Thagrosh and Typhon took the opportunity to charge back, and boy did they charge back. Thagrosh easily dispatched 2 of them, and Typhon threw the other 3 back, killing 2 of them. On the flank, the Deathstalker started picking off Krielstone bearers and the Totem hunter charged in on the Bouncer. Thagrosh also feated and used the opportunity to position the Carnivean safely back to remain as a damage sink.

The Endgame:
Doomshaper boldly went for the kill. First the Bouncer charged in on Thagrosh, but unfortunately missed. Then Doomshaper charged in and got a couple good hits in on Thagrosh, allowing him to spawn out an additional Shredder which was positioned to block a future charge lane. Then after clearing out the Longrider/Strider/Incubi quagmire, the Mauler threw the Earthborn over the mess in the middle. Then the Fell Caller walked forward and gave the stand up call. At this point the Earthborn walked in, snacked the Shredder, goaded closer to Thagrosh, and started wailing. Unfortunately with the combination of Spiny Growth and a gobber cloud, it made things rough for the Earthborn and he failed to finish Thagrosh off by 2 points! Henry gracefully conceded at this point.

The Highlights:
* Thagrosh is a beast. His spell is has a nice combination of buffs and offense. Dragon's Blood combined with Tenacity from a Shredder can put Typhon at Def 14, Arm 20 which is pretty butch. And Glory of Everblight is ridiculously useful.
* Typhon is like a big warm bundle of cheating. His throws are ridiculous. I didn't even get a chance to try his sprays and I'm completely impressed.
* Shredders were great this game, actually getting into the fray!
* The Earthborn, Bouncer, Doomshaper, Krielstone combo is crazy, just like I thought it would be. Without the Deathstalker to start picking off Krielstones it would have been really challenging.
* The War Chief, as usual, basically just blocked charge lanes and absorbed some impact.

The Reflection:
In hindsight, I think dropping the Shepherd from this list makes sense. Thagrosh's control area is plenty big enough. I continue to imagine that Bone Grinders would make an excellent addition to my Legion army. Swapping out the War Chief is still a consideration, but my only option there would be for a Shredder or Gudrun. Overall though this force provided a nice balance between flank control and face punching. I'm very much looking forward to playing something close to this in the tournament.

Forsaken

The Forsaken, although still not a favorite sculpt, wasn't so bad to paint. It went fast due to the fact that it has very few unique elements on it. It basically breaks down into three categories: skin, chitin/claws, and wing membranes. This made painting it very fast, especially given that it's a pretty small model.

I should note that this base was actually the prototype base I had made originally when working out a basing scheme for my Legion force. All I did was carve out enough cork to fit her feet down, and then add the small amount of moss. Ironically I hadn't used the base up till now because I felt it was too crowded, but for this smaller model it worked out nicely.

What went well:
* Fast, and I mean FAST to paint. I was just aiming for tabletop quality, so this was probably under 4 hours of painting time easily.
* Wash experimentation with black ink, matt medium, flow improver, and water made for a pretty nice way to deepen the chitin and wing definition.

What could have been better:
* Bloodstone is not really a good base coat to start with for the chitin and claws. I ended up covering the majority of it by the end. It just ended up looking too "wet".
* Lack of "feminine" impression. The model, if you look carefully, is actually meant to be a woman that's been blighted. Unfortunately I just couldn't quite bring out more of a feminine appearance in the face.

Spawning Vessel Acolyths

There's something unfortunately soul crushing about painting a whole unit most of the time. This unit was no exception. I really do like the sculpts, but for some reason these little ladies just turned into a chore instead of a pleasure. I couldn't really explain why either. Probably my own state of mind at the time.



What went well:
* Cloaks turned out ok. I did a speed-version of the cloak I did for the Shepherd and it worked out ok.
* Feathers also turned out decent. Again, a speed-version of what I did for the Shepherd. Funny how that worked out.

What could have been better:
* Metals are pretty lame. Just not my normal effort on these.
* Flesh is a little flat. They don't have a lot of flesh showing, so it made it hard to really put much pop into it without doing serious detail work, which I was not interested in doing.

Anyway, just a quick post this time. I'm on to the Forsaken and Typhon now.

2nd To Last Place

Another 500pt Steamroller 4 tournament come and gone. Hats off to our local unofficial press ganger Marco for putting it together.

My list: Thagrosh, Carnivean, Raek, Shredder, Shepherd, Deathstalker, Striders+UA, Totem Hunter, Swamp Gobbers

Round 1: Krueger, Gnarlhorn, Gorax, Druids, Wayfarer, Shifting Stones, Sentry Stone, Dhalia & Skarath.
This first battle was a blast. The mission was to control 3 of 6 zones (2 of own and 1 of opponent's). The battle was pretty vicious, with me taking advantage of the forest in the middle. The Striders dealt with the Druids fairly well, but Krueger's feat was murder on them. The Manikins were annoyingly good in this game too, actually taking out the Deathstalker on the first round. The endgame was fun. Krueger was positioned back behind a Shifting Stone, with the Wayfarer and Gnarlhorn guarding the way around to him. I set up a 4 part assault. First my Raek advanced and lept up behind the Wayfarer, blocking a key counter-charge lane for the Gnarlhorn. Due to some poor dice rolls the Wayfarer lived, but it was unimportant. Next the Carnivean did an assault charge on the Shifting Stone in front of Krueger, ending too far for melee but destroying the stone. Unfortunately the Carnivean did not hit Krueger though due to his Wind Storm. Next I used some careful positioning to get the remaining Striders into a CRA against Krueger, laying some damage onto him. (Important tactical tip: Having the officer on a hill to lead the CRA was very valuable, granting the elevation bonus to the whole CRA) Finally, with 10 points of damage left to do, and no fury on Krueger, Thagrosh charged the Wayfarer to get into position to target Krueger with Obliteration. I cast, I hit, and then the boosted damage roll resulted in a 7 (3+3+1), for a total of 22. Fail! Krueger had 2 damage left and Thagrosh was completely out of Fury. At that point my opponent won not only on caster kill but on scenario as well.

Round 2: Magnus, 2 Renegades, Mariner, Dougal, Orin, Nyss Hunters (10).
The mission was mosh pit, which I can honestly say didn't play into the battle much at all. Again, another vicious fight, with the Striders getting crushed by the Nyss template and then failing their break check. It wasn't until afterwards that I found out my opponent was wrong about shallow water (his claim was that it granted concealment, which it doesn't). I've made a mental note to call that particular player out on any rules I don't know for sure in the future. He was also rather sloppy on his measurements which I had to call him on a couple times. If I'd been in the winners bracket, I probably would have been much more strict with him, but I hate being a anal during a game and appearing like a jerk. Anyway, once again I got an assassination run in. Magnus (with no focus remaining) had used his feat to pull back, hide behind Dougal and a Renegade, and engage the Totem Hunter and Raek with the Mariner. The Carnivean was knocked down, preventing my favorite assault charge move as well. First, the Deathstalker stepped around the Nyss and laid a couple shots on Magnus, scoring a couple points of damage. Next, the Totem Hunter bravely walked out of melee with the Mariner. Now in all honesty, I got a bit lucky here. The Mariner had Frenzy on it, so it only needed a 5 to hit the Totem Hunter. Fortunately it missed, and he walked around, lept, and pounded Magnus futher. The Carnivean stood up and killed one of 3 Nyss engaging Thagrosh, with the Shepherd killing another. Then Thagrosh walks out of melee (taking some unimportant damage from the remaining Nyss), blasts Dougal with Mutagenesis and killing him, at which point he was sitting right on top of Magnus with 3 fury left. MAT 7, POW 16 vs DEF 14, ARM 17 and 12 damage left. On average dice rolls, just buying unboosted attacks with fury, I would have hit 2 out of 3 times, scoring 12 points of damage. Again though, my dice didn't come through for me. I scored 2 hits, but only scored 10 points of damage. I promptly forfeited at that point.

Round 3: Shae, Mariner, Commodore, Meg, Aiyana & Holt, Doc, Walls, Grogspar, Hawk, Rockbottom, 10 Sea Dogs.
The mission was ridge runners. My opponent was Marco the tournament organizer so he put us on the table with the desert terrain so that he could claim to be defending his beach, which was extra amusing. This game was a brutal fight. The ridge really saved my bacon, preventing the Commodore from getting many shots. In the end I pulled out another assassination run. First the Totem Hunter got a clear run at Shae and laid in some damage on a lucky attack roll. Next the Raek advanced and lept around to get on Shae and get 1 good hit in. Finally, after a little jiggery-pokery with Thagrosh (who was engaged by Grogspar and couldn't afford the risk of a free strike cause of Heave Ho), I managed to close just enough to get an Obliteration shot on the Mariner which was standing next to Shae. After boosting the blast damage, Shae went down like the pirate scum he is. Now, that being said, Marco's dice had betrayed him multiple times during this battle. He clearly was outplaying me and just got unlucky on some key dice rolls. However, every the good sport, we played it out. One of the most amusing moments of the game however was when the Commodore rolls up onto the ridge as a result of Shae's feat, turns towards the Carnivean and blasts the poor beast backwards into the Shredder and Shepherd in a marvelously comical maneuver.

So, in the end I got 2nd to last, which I can't complain about. In all three games I managed to organize a viable assassination run with Thagrosh, which was one of my two goals for the tournament (the other being show up with fully painted Legion). Assassination is not my strong suit, and playing Legion now means I need to sharpen those skills dramatically if I want to feel competent with them.

Later that evening I played a 4th game against my buddy Mike from out of town. He rolled in with Calandra, Impaler, Axer, Slag, 6 Kriel Warriors with UA, Fell Caller, and 3 Longriders. I opted to play Cryx to get a break from Legion and brought Deneghra, Nightmare, 8 Bane Thralls, 9 Revenants, Rengrave, Skarlock and Pistol Wraith. I abused poor Mike, and I sort of feel dirty about it. Now, in my defense, Calandra is a pain in the ass. Star Crossed is just crazy. It turned my already sad Revenants into even more pathetic lumps of soggy deck scum. However, after some flopping around at the beginning, I hit my stride. Despite a lack of an arcnode, I got Crippling Grasp on the Longriders, and on my feat round did a pile of shooting, slicing and regrouping. Now, I'd love to say that in the end I pulled out some elegant No-Quarter-Challenge style win, but the truth is this: I didn't win, Mike lost. Due to an unlucky threshold roll, the Slag Troll frenzied right next to Calandra and wailed on her. She didn't die immediately, but with 1 damage left and no beasts to transfer to (the Axer was dead and the Impaler also frenzied) it pretty much flushed the game unfortunately. Despite being rather one-sided, it was fun to roll out my Cryx again after having spent time to paint them and then promptly move on to Legion.

Anyway, this is probably a record setting post for length for me, so I'll wrap this up. This was a fun weekend and overall I had a great time. It helps that I didn't ever have ridiculously bad luck with dice in any given game. And I can also claim my status as a faction whore now, having played 5 different factions in tournament play (Menoth, Cryx, Mercs, Trolls and Legion).

Crushings All Around

First some minor business: This blog is joining the Iron Agenda Blog Network. Welcome to any new visitors and please post comments!

So this last week has been busy. I haven't painted hardly at all unfortunately. Work has been ridiculously busy and I just haven't been home much in the evenings. It's unfortunate, but my painting rate prior to this was going pretty well, so I was due for a slowdown.

Last weekend (I know this is coming in late) I played a 500pt game of Legion vs Trolls. It was Thagrosh vs Doomshaper and unfortunately the game came down to a tough roll on Doomshaper's part. After making that roll, I was out of juice and the game was over.

Two nights ago I got a pair of games against my regular opponent Henry. Battle 1 was Thagrosh vs Grissel, and Henry just smoted me. His list was pretty tough, but I made a serious deployment error and he did a good job of capitalizing. The second game was Thagrosh vs Deneghra and unfortunately this game was pretty one-sided, but with a twist. About halfway through the game I was completely stomping Henry. Then Deneghra feated and then busted out Dark Seduction on my Striders, which of course failed the CMD check. That pretty much turned the game around entirely at that point and after a bit of calculating we agreed there wasn't anything to really do at that point.

Despite my 3 losses, I'm going to be attending the tournament at my LGS tomorrow. This will be my first tournament fielding Legion which should be entertaining. For now though I'm enjoying a good beverage (Grey Goose Screwdriver), a good podcast (Tabletop Quality), and a nice relaxing evening. Perhaps I'll actually get some painting time in this evening!

Raek

This was the specific model that got me interested in painting Legion. I love this model. I'm not sure why, but for some reason it really inspired me. Something about the pose and the details. This model was a joy to paint. I had primed it and the Acolyths at the same time and had intended to paint the Acolyths first, but the Raek kept whispering to me. So, he got all the attention and the poor Acolyths are still sitting there with only a couple quick coats of paint on them.

What went well:
* Skin turned out better than previous beasts. I do like the lighter color for this model. I used some pretty dramatic shading on this guy to accentuate the lines and muscles.
* Carapace turned out nicely. Not all of it though. The larger sections worked out just how I was hoping. Lots of washes and 2BB used.
* Speed painted and yet I'm really happy with the results. This whole "force myself to speed paint" thing is starting to pay off. I'm getting quicker with techniques and better at choosing which colors to shade with.

What could have been better:
* Claws/teeth were ok, but could have used a bit more character and definition.
* Tail spike is alright, but I just couldn't quite figure out what more to do with it to really bring out some detail.
* Tail carapace was pretty small detail to work with. I did a fair amount of zenithal highlighting and shading, but in the end I'm only lukewarm on how it looks.

Despite his mediocre performance on the table last night, I still love this model and I'm pondering getting a second one to paint. But for now, I still have 6 Acolyths screaming for paint, along with some other really badass stuff in the queue.

Skarre vs Thagrosh

Quick battle report before I pass out from exhaustion. Played against my buddy Henry in a very fun match up.

Me: Thagrosh, Carnivean, Raek, Shredder, Shepherd, Deathstalker, War Chief, Striders with attachment, Swamp Gobbers.
Henry: Skarre, Cankerworm, 2 Deathrippers, Skarlock, Bane Knights (10?), Bile Thralls (8-ish?), Mechanithralls (10?).

Overview: I won the initiative and got to go first. The Bane Knights were deployed far enough back to prevent the Striders from getting the drop on them right away, so I used the opportunity to carve out the arcnode of one Deathripper and clear out a couple Mechanithralls and Bile Thralls. Unfortunately the volume of infantry was rough to fight through and eventually the Bane Knights swarmed the Striders. Skarre feated early, and then the Carnivean got a good assault spray hit on her, leaving her with just 4 health left.

Endgame: Thagrosh got a run on Skarre, using Mutagenesis to kill a Bane Knight and end up in melee with Skarre. However she was camping 4 focus and despite needing only a 7 on 3 dice (boosting the damage roll), I managed to roll a 4 and fail the kill on Skarre. Stupid dice!

Highlights:
* Thagrosh was awesome. I need to remember Death Shroud's -2 STR to everything, which I forgot a couple times.
* The Carnivean again shined using his assault to get a great long range attack on a caster.
* Skarre didn't skarrebomb! Against Hordes it's a much smaller threat, but still, it was nice to not be constantly worried about it. Henry's a good sport that way.
* The Striders continue to please me. They did a good job of thinning the infantry and holding a flank.

Shepherd

This was perhaps my favorite Legion model to paint so far. The Incubi were definitely very cool, but getting to focus on this beautiful single sculpt was very refreshing. I'd been wanting to pour extra time into a single model and this was the logical choice. A special note, this was the model I got from the Tabletop Quality contest.

What went well:
* Overall composition seemed to work out pretty well. I tried to create a triadic color scheme to keep the overall look of the model in harmony. It's not traditional triadic, but hey, it worked.
* Greens on the cloak worked out nicely. Using Moldy Ocher for the highlights really enhanced the depth of the color.
* The feathers came out better than I was hoping. I used a number of thin washes that used matte medium, flow improver and various P3 paints (tans, browns, sanguines, and blues) which gave it good overall color. Then I hit the whole thing with GW black wash to darken the whole thing.
* Complimentary color shading is something I'm trying to practice more of and for the most part worked out well here. I used violets to shade the greens, blues to shade the browns, and sanguines to shade the blue skin.

What could have been better:
* The metals on the staff could have been a little more defined. Partially my photos washed out the detail that is there, but it certainly could have been better.
* Complimentary shading worked well, but there were some places where I had to clean it up and smooth the transitions more. My mastery of color is still lacking in this department.

Overall this was both a delightful model to paint, and a good learning experience. I spent more time than my typical to get small details done (like highlights on the staff wraps), and did a lot more thinning of paints when doing shading. Ironically I have nothing else assembled at this point so I'm going to be spending the rest of the weekend getting stuff put together to have something new to paint.

Out of curiosity I posted this one on CMON to see how it rates. (May take a day or two to show up)

Thagrosh, the Prophet

Not a lot to say today. Work is trying to hijack my free time, but I was determined to get this posted. This is a pretty cool model, but I should point out a couple things before my normal commentary. First, this was the last of the second hand Legion models I got. When I was stripping him I carelessly didn't keep track of all his spines and horns. As a result I lost most of them. I ended up resculpting most of them which could have gone better. Also, I continued to experiment with color and shading here and as a result some parts of this model got much less attention than they deserved.

What went well:
* Skirt-thingy - The shading was an experiment for the green sections. I actually used magenta to shade the recesses.
* Glowing weapon - Loved this! It was a pain to pull off, but I think the end result turned out pretty decent. I'm thinking of hitting it with some glosscoat now that it's sealed just to give it some extra glow.
* Overall color composition - I'm rather happy about the overall color hue and value on this model. It's not perfect by any stretch, but I feel like it came together better than average for my skill level.
* Base - It's hard to see from the pictures, but I create a stone with a rune inscribed and made it broken in half. I like the feel of this base for him. Borders on epic!

What could have been better:
* Face - It just tortured me the whole time. Plus I needed to clean it better before priming I think. Too many stripping shortcuts.
* Metals - Some of it was ok, like the weapon, but the armor bits were less than spectacular. Especially the detail work on the outside of the big glove.
* Uneven foot - It's hard to see from the picture, but the foot is actually sculpted with a groove so that it fits into a normal medium base. I didn't notice this until I was actually pinning him to the base and by then it was too late. Doh!

Fried Brain Cells

Today the weather is terrible. It's hot and humid, and that means no priming or sealing. Thagrosh is done except for sealing, so he'll have to wait until late tonight. Everything else is in pieces, so I'm going to catch up on assembling some things. As a result, today's post is more a random set of thoughts coming from my painting desk today.
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Yesterday I was planning on going to the 500pt SR4 Warmachine/Hordes tournament at my LGS, but during a plasma donation in the morning I nearly fainted. It's the first time I've ever had that problem (and I'm somewhere around 50 donations now) so I figured I'd better take the nice nurse's advice and relax for the rest of the day. So instead of the tournament, I got some good work done on Thagrosh. All things considered it was a bummer to miss the tournament, but trying to stand for 7 hours after doing a blood donation would have been a bad plan.
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I'm trying to figure out a good way to convert the Forsaken. The model isn't completely horrible, but to me it looks like some sort of mutant butler or something. It's just not a very interesting pose. I'm probably going to do some conversion work (more than I usually do), but figured I'd review the tournament legal conversion rules:

Privateer Press encourages players to have a fully painted force on the table. Games with fully painted armies are more interesting to watch and generally enhance the play experience for all. Although not required, players should take this chance to show off all aspects of the hobby. Proxies (substitute models) are not allowed under any circumstances, nor can a player enter a tournament with a model that has not been released to the general public. All models must be WARMACHINE or HORDES models appropriate to the tournament venue. Conversions (modifications to Privateer Press models) are acceptable as long as they are clearly based on WARMACHINE or HORDES models. Conversions must represent the model from which they are most obviously drawn. For example, a heavily converted Haley model is not a substitute for Sorscha. Weapon changes are acceptable provided they represent the same type of weapon replaced. For example, trading a sword for a sword is legal. However, mixing and matching warjack weapons is not allowed. A TO may make exceptions and approve any reasonable conversion. To avoid confusion and conflict, players must have an unaltered version of the model available in case a TO asks to remove a questionable model from play. The TO makes the final call on any particular model.

So here's my initial plan after talking with Jeff at my LGS:
* Use a Nyss Swordsman body
* Use the Forsaken's head, legs, tail, and separate arm
* Find a suitable wing substitute from some random model
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I was fooling around more with Kuler the other day and created a swatch of my Legion color scheme. This free resource continues to entertain and inspire me. You can see it here.
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Last but not least, I've been trying to find a new way to store my paints. I built a prototype of a paint rack that stores the paints horizontally in sort of a stack. I've been using it for about a week now and so far I'm pretty happy. I'll probably try to upgrade it to something I can mount on the wall, but for now it's a good test of the idea. As you can see from the picture, I also picked up one of the Tool Racks from Miniature Scenery. They just happened to have some at my LGS and I must say the tool rack is very nice. It took me about and hour or so to assemble it and it holds pretty much everything I need to have handy on my desk.

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Well, that's enough rambling for today. I'll hopefully be posting pics of Thagrosh tomorrow sometime. Until then may your weather be cooperative and your brush be true, and paint like you have a pair!

Warmonger War Chief

This rounds out my first 500 points of Legion! This stout bad ass is the Warmonger War Chief solo. He likes raging across the battlefield, consuming hacked off limbs, and the occasional decapitation and ensuing fountain of blood. His turn offs include hesitant commanders, slow walks anywhere, and anything cooked.

This model was a must-add to my collection. He was equally as fun to paint as the Ogrun Bokurs were for similar reasons. My only minor complaint is that there was not a whole lot of skin surface available. I really wanted to put a glowing rune on him, but I just couldn't find a location that I liked. I thought about putting it on his exposed chest, but that would have reduced the skin even more, and I wanted to preserve a decent level of skin exposure to keep him tied in with the rest of the army.

What went well:
* The armor went fairly well. I'm not completely happy with it in all locations (chainmail especially), but the contrast between raised and recessed portions of the armor plates worked out nicely. I used a bit of the juicing method to get the armor shading the way I wanted it.
* Fur is something I hate doing, but this time it worked out ok. Usually I get bad results from trying to use washes on fur, but for some reason my order of techniques worked it out better than my usual. Wish I could remember what I did!

What could have been better:
* Smoother painting. For some reason I didn't get nice smooth coats. I'm sure it's because I need to thin my paints more, but I'm just not quite there with that thinning estimation yet.
* Misc details could have used a bit more attention. I'll admit, sticking to my speed painting mantra for Legion is getting somewhat annoying. I wanted to get this guy done for the tournament this weekend, and that meant taking a couple shortcuts on details and not rounding out the shading as much as I should have.

In any case, I'm happy with the result. I'll post a picture of the 500 point force soonish. Probably after the tournament on Saturday.

Legion Victories!

Last night I played 2 games using my Legion force and won both games! I've been in a scramble to get my 500pts painted for the tournament this weekend, but also I want to bring something at least mildly competitive. To that end I've been playing more than usual. It's unfortunately rather late (due to work and a run to the LGS) so this will be a brief battle report.

My force: Thagrosh, Carnivean, 4 Shredders, Striders with UA, Deathstalker, Incubi.

Game 1: Witch Coven, 4 Deathrippers, Tartarus, 10 Bane Knights, 10 Bile Thralls, Skarlock, Gorman. Miraculously I pulled this out. Some key things that went well were the Incubi opportunistically tying up arcnodes, the Striders getting lots of shots on biles and taking out Tartarus early on, and the Carnivean pulling off an assault spray on the witches.

Game 2: Madrak, Impaler, Mauler, Champs, Hero, Krielstones (5), Gobbers, Fell Caller. This game was a huge punch-face fest. In the end, Madrak just missed a run on Thagrosh, leaving him with 1 health left. At that point Thagrosh gutted the troll and claimed victory. I should note there was some terrible dice rolling on the part of the Champs when trying to take out the Carnivean.

Overall I'm feeling better about my Legion force. I think Thagrosh will be more my style, but I'm not sure I'll have him ready for the tournament this weekend. Maybe I'll get extra motivated though.

On the weekend I also played a battle box game of Legion vs Trolls, but my Legion force took a severe beating and in the end the Axer took Lylyth out handily. This was a fun game though as I was teaching a buddy of mine how Hordes plays. It was also amusing to me to realize that I have 2 battle boxes fully painted for Hordes.

Carnivean

There's a point at which I look at a model and say to myself, "Well, I'm not completely happy, but I'd have to do a pile more work to be happy, so forget it." This model was especially that case. Overall I'm ok with it, but there were a number of things that I struggled with. The model itself had a couple challenges. This was a second-hand model that I had to strip, mostly disassemble, and then reconstruct and smooth out. Unfortunately the previous assembly job used a putty that I couldn't entirely clear and added some textural challenges. Mostly I overcame that stuff though, and other than the join around the tail and one back leg, everything worked out pretty well.

What went well:
* Chiton - I can't express how well that went. I sort of struggled at first, but in the end it really came together when I did some shading using a dark green color and 2BB'd it into the recesses. I chose the dark green because it was an adjacent color to the orange/brown on the color wheel, so rather than just adding black, I added something else. As a result, the shading is quite striking and interesting.
* Teeth and Gums - These worked out well, despite the smallish detail.
* Details - The spots, the rune, and the back ridges are not exceptionally well painted, but they add character to the model that I think really breaks it out from just a sleek monster.

What could have been better:
* Skin - This just stayed frustrating. In the end I added some "stretch marks" and flesh striations to the skin to give it more character. One thing that definitely helped was using dark magenta and 2BB to create the shading of the skin. This was one of those "use a complementary color to shade" things that I've been trying to practice and it worked out quite well I thought.
* Time - I ended up spending a lot of time on this model that I didn't plan on. It really had little to do with the size and more to do with me just obsessing over details and trying to correct my displeasure with various parts and various points in painting it.

In closing, I have to give credit to a couple friends for some good solid feedback on the paint job when I was nearly finished. They confirmed that the skin needed some additional work (at which point I added striations and spots), but that everything else was solid. Jeff especially gave me some really excellent constructive criticism. He has an uncanny ability to leverage his role-player's brain when assessing a model's look and paint job and create a story for the look of the model. It's definitely a skill I want to start practicing.

Legion Crushed and More Photo Improvements

Played a game using my Legion models for the first time this evening. It went poorly battle wise, but I had a great time. My opponent was playing a pretty optimized Cryx list with Coven, 4 arc nodes, Bane Knights, Tartarus, and Bile Thralls. I got completely smoted. Still though, it was entertaining and I learned what all my models could do.

On the photo front I was directed to another good article about miniature photography and it included a link for a gradient image to use as a backdrop. So I downloaded it and printed out a copy to use. This was a quick test of that gradient as a backdrop using the Carvivean I'm working on. I'm seriously liking the gradient backdrop. There's definitely some additional tweaking needed, but this gets me ever further along on my photo quality.

Last item before I pass out from exhaustion, I found this excellent resource for doing color selection. It's a free tool from Adobe and is quite useful. One particular reason I want to use it is to identify the variety of colors in various natural pictures to get a better sense of what colors actually occur. I'm still hunting for a color theory in the class and looking for books on the subject, but for now this is going to be super useful I suspect.

New Lights

This last weekend I took the opportunity to get some new lights for my photo setup. Before I had a ragtag set of 3 different lamps. The bulbs were all different hues and intensities. It created some hue variation in my photos that I couldn't correct for in Picasa which was really annoying. I have replaced those 3 lamps with 2 uniform shop-style clip on lamps with a pair of 60W full spectrum compact fluorescent bulbs. This gives a light spectrum pretty close to my painting desk lamp. I built a small wooden mount for the two lamps to hold them evenly on either side of the lightbox. I snapped a fresh picture of Grim to example the difference in quality.

Old	New

It may not seem obvious at first glance, but if you look at the old picture closely, you'll see a hue shift on the left side towards the blueish spectrum and more yellow on the right. The new lights have a nice even daylight spectrum. This also eliminates the overhead lamp as well, and without a loss of proper lighting either. Overall, totally worth the $25 spent. Now I just need one of those fancy white-to-blue backdrops that everyone uses!

Incubi

This rounds out my initial 350 points of Legion. These Incubi were pretty interesting to paint. I opted to go for sort of a Hellraiser style skinless look for the Incubi under the Nyss skin. Admittedly coming fresh off of KublaCon I ended up spending a lot of time obsessing over small details rather than getting these wrapped up quickly. They aren't really amazing despite the obsessing, but I'm pretty happy with them overall. I've decided that in order to satiate my desire for obsessing over little details I'm going to pick up some models from other lines and always have one on my desk to work on occasionally.

What went well:
* The skinned portions worked out ok, given that I'd never done anything like that before.
* Spines and claws worked out pretty good. I've got a pretty solid formula, but the contrast they provide on these models was a nice visual effect.
* Carapace bits turned out better than I was expecting.

What could have been better:
* Nyss flesh could have been better. It looks a bit flat.
* Transitions between Nyss flesh and Incubi flesh could have been handled better. There are a couple places where I felt like it doesn't have enough definition or contrast.
* Black armor/cloth could have had better highlighting. I sort of took a lazy approach to it.

Anyway, here's a group shot of the Incubi together...


And here's a shot of all 350pts of Legion so far.

KublaCon 2009 (part 3)

And KublaCon comes to a close (for me). There's more stuff going on today, but I'm used up, plus I have other commitments for today anyway. But, here's a recap of yesterday which was a very very good day...

First up was the 350pt Warmachine/Hordes Multiplayer event. Each table was set up with a control point in the middle and a 10"x10" deployment zone in each corner. Players were placed completely randomly for 3 rounds. We had 12 total players so there were 3 tables, for 3 rounds with each game lasting 75 minutes (at which point it was strictly dice down. Only VPs mattered, and in addition to scoring VPs for killing stuff, 1 VP was awarded for each successful power attack against an enemy model, and 15 VPs for having a model completely within the control point area at the end of your turn if no enemy models were on the control point (starting round 2).

I played a pretty well tuned list for this match. I had Broadsides Bart, a Mariner, a Freebooter, Gudrun and a Bokur.

Round 1 went very well. I won the initiative and went first. By my second turn, Gudrun was on the control point (a small spiral staircase) and was pretty much dug in. Bart had charged up and feated which pretty much locked down the middle too. Gudrun then proceeded to ward of complete destruction for 2 additional rounds. In the mean time Bard was busy slaying an Avatar and clearing out a Protectorate menace to one side while Circle and Trolls clashes on the other side. I scored a whopping 53 VPs that first game.

Round 2 also went well. I came up second in the starting rotation and thus was able to secure the same point again with Gudrun. This time I had the Bokur attached to him and the two of them once again held the point for 3 rounds worth. You can see in this shot how Gudrun mercilessly taunts the Behemoth, shaking his fist at it, right before falling down drunk at the top of the stairs (to prevent being shot at).
Eventually they cleared Gudrun off the top, and by then I was down to just Bart. The center of the table turned into a nasty little scrum between Hexeris, Bart, and the Old Witch. At the end of this one I came up with 47 VPs, again mostly due to Gudrun who was the real star of the show. I should also mention that the other players on this table were very cool and this was probably the most fun of all 3 matches that I played.

Round 3 I didn't fare so well. At this point I was the clear leader in the tournament with 100 VPs (19 ahead of the next player) and was instantly made a target. This map also had a small sump in the middle instead of a staircase which made for a bit more challenge. Gudrun was only able to secure the center for 1 round before being mercilessly ganged up on. However, the Bokur and the Freebooter both rocked the house in this game. The Bokur slammed an Ironclad, knocking him down in the water and putting out his hearfire. Then the Freebooter, taking advantage of a knocked down Avatar, proceeds to trash it pretty heavily and then chain attack throw it into Mulg, where it lands in the water, also extinguishing its heartfire as well. At that point the control pond was clogged up with inert jacks, blocking all attemts to control the point. Sorry there's no good photo of it, every one I took was blurry except for this one of Bart in melee with Striker, who he failed to kill by exactly 1 point! In the end I scored a mere 15 VPs, unable to actually get the credit for killing anything.

At the end of the tournament I had scored 115 VPs and (amazingly) placed 1st! I was as shocked as anyone, as I rarely even place at all. The multiplayer event was awesome, and the format with 75 minutes (which was kept secret) really kept people playing fast and rushing to the middle to punch face. Seriously, two thumbs up to the TO Jimmy for putting this one together.

After all this (and then dinner) I cruised down for the painting awards. Without belaboring the point, I had entered eSeverius, eSkarre, and the Cephalyx Drudges. eSeverius and eSkarre placed as bronze, and the Drudges placed as silver! I was extremely happy and quite honestly surprised about the Drudges since I didn't think they were that great. However one of the judges actually spoke to me right after the ceremony was over to tell me how good he thought they were which blew me away. Needless to say I am invigorated with a new sense of excitement to paint.

I should note that I entered the "Open" category rather than the Masterclass. Quite honestly I don't consider myself that good, and I also wanted to get a baseline for how tough the judging would be. In the Masterclass category there were a few entries and Ryder Gaddis took the best of show award (quite deservedly) with an Anima Tactics model that he'd painted (which apparently will appear as the studio paintjob). Perhaps next year I'll put one entry in the Masterclass level.

The new open judging system is great, and there were many awards given out to models that really deserved them. Hats off to Wayne for doing a great job with it. Next year is the 10 year anniversary of KublaCon and Wayne is pushing everyone to enter to have a big showing for the competition. I'm determined to spend a good chunk of my painting time over this next year working specifically on models for next year to make a really good showing.

Well, that's it for KublaCon 2009. I had a great time and am seriously looking forward to next year. Now it's time to catch up on home stuff and continue practicing my painting skills. To all of you painters out there, I hope the inspiration of the brush strikes you and that you continue to paint like you have a pair!

KublaCon 2009 (part 2)

Last night was the Steamroller 4 tournament. There were 25 people signed up which was ridiculous. Overall it was a pile of fun, but unfortunately it started around 9:00. It was meant to be 4 rounds, but after losing my first two games it was past midnight and I drew the by for the third (shocker!) so I decided to just drop out and get some sleep. On the plus side I got a lot of comments about my painting and played 2 very enjoyable matches.

My list was Reznik again, with the amusing loadout from a previous SR4 event at Game Kastle: Reznik, Fire of Salvation, Blessing of Vengeance, Hierophant, Revenger, Vassal, Chior (6), 2x Seneschals, 3x Wracks.

Battle 1 was against Cygnar: Striker, Longgunners, Storm Blades, GMCA, Squire, Lancer, Journeyman Warcaster, Stormsmith and Rhupert. The mission was speed assassination, which my opponent just barely missed getting. All things considered it was a seriously fun battle, despite my opponent hiding like a little girl way back near his deployment zone. I had fun throwing Firestarter on the Longgunners and watching them go up in flames. Unfortunately his whole "pop and drop" tactic by using Earthquake was enough to stall me out. My opponent was a lot of fun to play against though and we had many a laugh during the battle.

Battle 2 was against trolls: Grissel, Champs, Krielstones (4+UA), Impaler, Pyre, Fell Caller, Hero, Gobbers and Gudrun. The mission was Mosh Pit which I nearly pulled out at the top of turn 3. Unfortunately he had Gudrun who I hadn't managed to peel out and then the Champs got stuck in. Again though, fun opponent and we did a lot of punching each other in the face. I was trying to get some damage applied to Grissel but my attack rolls for spells really failed me in this battle. In the end I lost of VPs.

Overall the tournament was fun and I'm glad I went, despite the late hour of it. The guys that were running it did an incredible job of organizing. I'm looking forward to the 350pt multiplayer battle that they are running today.

One last pic to display the majesty of KublaCon. This was a shot of an Aliens vs Marines game that was being played. The picture isn't great, but there's one group with green helmets and another group with white shirts and they were playing on a taped-out grid on the floor. It was a pretty crazy looking things. Unfortunately I didn't get to watch much of it since it was running at the same time as the SR4 tournament.

KublaCon 2009 (part 1)

KUBLA!!!! That's right, it's the weekend of KublaCon. I dropped by earlier today for a bit and got a Monsterpocalypse demo. A very knowledgable and friendly local player named Aaron introduced my wife and I to the rules of the game and then Jeff from Game Kastle (as heard on the Tabletop Quality podcast) showed up and gave me a firsthand introduction to the game. it was a blast. Likely when I drop by tonight to play in the 500pt SR4 tournament I will pick up a starter pack for it. The game plays fast, the rules are easy, and of course it has giant monsters throwing each other into buildings. Anyway, just a quick post. There will be more over the next couple days.

Strider Musician

Whew! And that wraps up the Striders! Doing them all as a group (including Lylyth) really helped. They look consistent and although the solos didn't get my normal level of special treatment, I'm really happy with the uniformity of the whole Strider set. My painting velocity will probably drop back down now, especially with KublaCon this coming weekend. Now the big question is whether I want to enter the Striders for the painting competition or the Drudges like I had planned. There will definitely be some serious pondering tonight.

What went well:
* Runes... seriously, I'm starting to enjoy them more. And the practice at doing them is very useful.
* Speed, again, was refreshing. I'm looking forward to having a 350pt force painted and ready to go soon.
* Breaking out the Musician, Officer and Deathstalker from the rest of the Striders to do at the end worked out great. The large work of cloaks, armor, skin and feathers was mostly done, so last night was mostly just detail work on these last two.

What could have been better:
* Same as the others... quality. Having wrapped them up though, I'm pretty happy given the speed.

This brings me close to 350pts now. Next up will be the Incubi. I should point out that I have yet to field any Legion force yet in a battle. It's going to be fun to see how this stuff actually performs.

Strider Officer

Posting this guy separately from the Musician who I will post in just a moment. Nothing specific to note about this guy over the Musician except that I like how this rune turned out better than most of the others. I was able to put a little glow effect on the surrounding feathers and metal which helped the effect.

Strider Deathstalker

Now this is a rockin model. I really enjoyed painting it. Lots of interesting surfaces to work with, and a good blend of details and large surfaces. Anyway, this will be a quick update since I'm doing it on break at work.

What worked well:
* Doing this model along with the Striders really helped keep her consistent with them. Although painting squads is sometimes soul-crushing to grind through, these weren't so bad since it was the 6 Striders, Lylyth, this Deathstalker, the Musician and the Officer, so it broke up the group a bit to do it this way. Plus I just like that they all match.
* Glowing rune on the back worked out better than I was expecting, and helps bring that theme element of the army more into this particular model.
* Details turned out fairly well overall, especially the hair, eyes, and leg wraps.

What could have been better:
* More time spent on quality would have helped. It's not a premium paint job, but again, I'm practicing speed.
* Skin could have used a bit more work.
* Black armor blending is pretty poor. I almost went back to touch it up, but honestly the surfaces were small and would have required a pile more effort for a small amount of change.

Striders

Despite a recent heat wave here, I managed to get an early morning sealing done and wrap these guys up. The unit attachment is still in progress along with the Deathstalker.

What worked well:
* The bows actually worked out better than I expected. I did sort of a fake wood grain patterning on them and then buried it in a couple wash layers. The end result doesn't look like thin wood grain, but does provide sort of a marbled-wood sort of effect. For the amount of time spent on it, I can't complain.
* Basing turned out nice with the bits of orange lichen on them. It helped bring some unity to the basing and overall color scheme. I'm pretty happy with how this basing scheme is coming along.
* Washes worked pretty effectively. Part of my challenge to myself is to use more washes and work with green to expand my abilities. I've had lots of challenges in the past with wash consistency and getting "rings" around the edges of washes, so hopefully I can continue to get better at this.

What could have been better:
* Sharper details would have helped a lot I think. All my recent speed painting has left me realizing that sharpness of details is one serious area of improvement for me. It's hard to point out specific things, but there's lots of spots where I don't get nice crisp details and it reduces the readability of the model.
* Feathers are just not something I've practiced much. I felt like these could have been much better, but I just don't have the experience with them. Rather than dwell on them too much, I decided to just move on.

Lylyth, Herald of Everblight

Gasp! A painted Warlock for Legion! I feel like I've completed an important step on my Legion army.

This model was plagued with challenges. I got it second hand and had to strip it, disassemble it, remove some putty, clean it, and get it reassembled. The whole battle box was second hand, but this model was really the bigger job. Plus, I had my first dremel accident with her. I was drilling a pin hole in her foot and it went right through. Fortunately I didn't hit anything critical like the cloak or, say, my finger.

What went well:
* Cloak - The green worked out ok. The overall color scheme is fine.
* Pink glow - The photo doesn't really show it, but I painted the danglies on the end of her belt-thing to have a pink glow to tie her in with the Shredders and the glow worked out pretty well.
* Speed - Pretty fast for the quality, and the Striders will match her fairly well as well since I did the flesh and cloaks at the same time.

What could be better:
* Quality - It's definitely not my best work, and I partially wish I had spent more time on her.
* Metals - The metals didn't work out so great. I think instead of basing them with a metal and then trying to wash and shade and work back up, I should have just started from the black base coat and just worked up from there.

Last Tourney Before KublaCon

Today was the last SR4 tournament at my LGS before KublaCon. I pulled out my typical 1 win and 2 losses record. I only played one army for all three matches (that's right, no by this time!) and again have no regrets doing so.

My List: eSeverius, Blessing of Vengeance, Fire of Salvation, Revenger, Devout, Hierophant, Vassal, Chior (6), Zealots (10+MB), 2x Seneschals, Aiyana&Holt, Orin Midwinter, Rupert, 2x Wracks.

Match 1: Circle: eKaya, Warpwolf, Woldwarden, Woldwyrd, Gnarlhorn, Shifting Stones, Brun&Lug, Blackclad Wayfarer, Druids. (probably something else too, but I forget)

The first battle was against Marco, who was the tournament organizer. Last tournament I had mentioned how he and I still hadn't gotten to play each other and "magically" this time we drew that match. I was stoked. This battle was awesome. It was a brutal punch-each-other-in-the-nose battle. Marco did a fantastic job of leveraging his army against me and supressing key elements. I on the other hand did a better than average job of keeping eSevvy inaccessible and mucking up his plans. I laid out some serious damage and tore things up, but in the end Marco executed a complex set of maneuvering and jiggery-pokery, throwing the Blessing into eSevvy, then running Laris up and using the animus to put Kaya right in next to the knocked down eSevvy. With the combination of a bunch of models in melee and 4 remaining Fury, the math was academic. Even though I lost, I give this battle a hearty 2 thumbs up for entertainment value.

Battle 2: Menoth: Severius, Hierophant, 3x Redeemer, Blessing, TFG (10+UA), Zealots (10+MB), Knights Exemplar, Seneschal, Rupert.

The second battle was against a newer Menoth player. This game almost ended very early. He won the initiative and went first. After his initial advance, I ran the Blessing up, then charged it in the back with eSevvy. My opponent was a little confused until I then popped my feat and terror struck him. I managed to get control of a Seneschal which I walked over into melee with Severius and took a couple swings. Unfortunately I missed with the first one, otherwise the battle might have been over on turn 1. I then got one of his Zealots loose to throw a bomb and apply a bit more damage. The rest of the battle was a brutal trading of blows and leveraging of denial abilities. In the end I pulled out the victory by orchestrating a series of ranged attacks against a cowardly Severius who was hiding well back.

Battle 3: Skorne: eMorghoul, Rhinodon, Cyclops Shaman, Cyclops Savage, Krea, 2x Ancestral Guardians, Pratorians (10+UA), Venators (10), Paingivers (6), 2x Extolers, Swamp Gobbers.

Ah, my old arch-enemy: Lance. Playing eMorghoul in a Mosh Pit scenario is like those nasty tire spikes they put on parking lots to stop you from getting out without paying: You either back up and suffer irrevocable consequences (lose the scenario) or you move forward and pay the price (eMorghoul's feat). This time though I managed to keep him contained enough to prevent the assassination run. Aiyana put the threat on the table of never getting to use his feat, so he used it top of round 2 when I was not really expecting him to. If he hadn't, he'd never have gotten a chance. This battle was almost close actually, but I had some key problems. First, when I use eSevvy's feat and take control of a Paingiver, it is no longer friendly to the Skorne warbeasts and can't just add Fury, otherwise I would have put eMorghoul in a horrible position by loading all his beasts up to max. Second, eMorghoul's 17 DEF is brutal to overcome. This battle was particularly painful due to a forest sitting right in the middle, which brings me to the third point of Lance masterfully leveraging that forest and dramatically limiting my options. Oh yeah, and Extolers make eMorghoul's feat completely ridiculous. I hates it! In the end, I lost on scenario after a failed assassination run on eMorghoul. If he hadn't had fury to transfer, he'd have been toast, but that's the way of Hordes. At least I didn't get jacked by him and merely lost by scenario, so I count that a mini-victory.

Lance walked away with the 2nd place trophy though which was rockin for him. I got to chat with more people about painting which was rockin for me, plus all 3 games were enjoyable.