From the Desk: Turning the Corner (of the Box)

Sleepy again... making progress though. I'm starting to feel less like smashing it with a hammer, and more like I'm getting somewhere. It's still a little frustrating, and there's some places where I've made some color choices that are not working out so great. However, it's still recoverable. I'm going to continue to take my time on in.

On another front, I've been making some terrain! I'll post more about that when I actually have something worth reporting. For now though, all I can think about is how desperately far I am behind my goals towards KublaCon.

From the Desk: The Box of Woe

Sleepy... bad photo... feeling better...

Not much more to say here. I'm making progress on Pandora slowly, and she's starting to come together to a point that I'm feeling ok with. Still though, I kinda want to hit it with a hammer and move on. This may not end up being a KublaCon painting entry after all.

From the Desk: Angelius Conversion Work

The Angelius is a breathtaking beast to behold, but the pose of the sculpt lacks a certain degree of action deserving of such a creature. I'm sorry, but it's true. The only time he'd be "sitting" on the ground is when he's sleeping. I wanted to do a little conversion work to better reflect this full-time flying pose. To that end I did this bit of conversion work. Despite being a relatively simple change, it took me a frightful amount of time due to my lack of conversion experience. Unfortunately I didn't take any in-progress shots, but it's pretty easy to figure out how I did it.
First I started with a wedding cake pillar from a craft store and packed it with leftover tabs removed from models and secured it with green stuff. I then attached it to one of the metal PP bases. My reasoning here was that with an increased model height, I needed to put far more weight on the base to help compensate. Next I cut out the coil piece from the body of the Angelius and put a brass rod in place to re-join the two pieces at an appropriate length and curve. Next I put in some Milliput, dremelled that down appropriately after it cured, and then refined the gaps with green stuff. The remaining work mostly amounted to filing, smoothing, and pinning the re-sculpted body piece to the pillar to secure it.

Bing bang boom, and there he is, ready to be primed. He's not exactly "epic", but he's a little more exciting than before and I'm pretty happy. One side note is that I probably should have put magnets into the base before doing the final attachment, but hey, being smart is overrated.

Tournament Report: Any Random Saturday

Another local tournament has come and gone. I'm in an odd mood this evening so this report will be a little left of center. Please note that all ratings use the traditional rating scale of "jock itch" to "locomotive".

Players: 7
Number of douche bag players: 0
Format: SR2010
Point size: 35
Fun level: banana
My results: 3rd place
Tournament organization quality: box of drywall nails

My list: Fiona, Mariner, Gun Mages with Officer, Nyss Hunters (10), Grogspar, Dougal, Bokur, Eiryss, Aiyana & Holt, Reinholdt

Battle 1:
eStryker is badass. Even under Fiona's feat, he went for the assassination run. This first picture shows him boldly charging in and trying to put the hurt on Fiona. He did his overcharge thing and roll +11 str, which meant he was doing P+S 26!! However, at MAT 7, he needed 9's to hit, and even boosting that's rough with Fiona's feat stripping off a die. He rushed in and... miss, miss, miss! I breathed a sigh of relief and then tried to figure out how to finish him off. Unfortunately he'd disrupted the Mariner which put a real crimp in any plan to hit him with something hard.
The end result was I dog piled him, and just barely failed to do enough damage, mostly because the Bokur rolled well below average on his back strike. Then he counter-attacked, and got a really solid hit in on Fiona, but due to further bad dice rolling (which plagued us both), he just barely didn't kill Fiona. At that point she was able to finish the job. Victory for Thamar!

Battle 2:
eStryker again! Didn't I just kill you?!?! This battle was majestic. My opponent and I did great jobs of maneuvering to limit what each other could get done. I should have feated early, but as it turned out the second round feating worked better. In the end I ran my assassination plan. Nyss took a 9-man Nanokian Branded CRA against eStryker and nailed him with some damage. I unleashed Holt on him as well (Aiyana was too lady-like to slap eStryker around unfortunately) and put a little more damage on him. Then Fiona, in a brave gambit, charges Ol rowdy to close some distance, tosses out Teglesh Mark on Aiyana to get the rest of the range she needed, and tries to spell him down. eStryker's got 1 focus and sitting on 16/16 (def/arm). She rolls and hits. POW 12. Dice minus 4. She just needs to roll 8 or more on 3 dice and.... 3... 1... 1! Damnit! I gracefully forfeited at this point. This guy went on to get first place, which I'm not sure it makes me feel better or worse.

Battle 3:
At this point it's just for fun really and it turns out to be eCaine. That's right... 3 people were playing Cygnar and I ended up playing all 3 of them. This battle was pretty amusing. At this point I was tired, and out of the running for 1st, so I was a little sloppy. His list had a pile of shooting in it too, so we traded bitch-slaps. In the end, a mistake on my part (using Fiona's feat on turn 2) caused him to go for the assassination run. Here's an interesting thing to note: Shield Guard applies to Gunfighter attacks. So yes, in this picture, the Bokur standing behind Fiona was able to reach around and block one shot for her. In the end, that's exactly what it took to survive. He had Fiona down to 2 points left, and more of Thamar's luck saved the day. At that point I dog-piled him. It was actually Holt charging in from behind that put eCaine down.

From the Desk: Pandora Progress

After struggling to find painting time, I managed to get the better part of today for it. I spent most of that time working on assembling the Angelius, and painting Pandora. Here's a shot of the work in progress. I'm definitely deep in the throws of frustration with this model. I'm sure once it starts to come together more I'll feel better, but right now I'm feeling like I should just hit it with a hammer and move on. Painting it in two pieces like this is necessary, but adds more frustration due to the awkwardness of working with it.

Highborn Tactics: Units

In this first installment of my thoughts on Highborn army construction, I'm going to focus on unit selection. Obviously there's importance in which caster you pick as well, but I'm going to sidestep that issue for the moment since caster choice has a lot to do with play style preference. I'll just highlight that my experience of playing Highborn spans the following casters: Fiona, Ashlynn, Madhammer, Gorten, and Bart. I have yet to play the other mercenary contracts. Also, for the purposes of discussing unit selection, I'm going to leave out some of the small character units, like Aiyana & Holt. For simplicity sake, anything that I've never personally fielded I've marked with a *, so know that any comments following them are strictly theory-machine.

Steelheads:
Steelhead Halberdiers - What is there to say about these guys. They are sort of a basic trooper. Cheap, effective, mobile, and they have reach. Nothing spectacular, and nothing really terrible. I can't say I'm a huge fan of them though, mostly because the models seem like a pain in the butt to assemble and paint.

Steelhead Heavy Cavalry* - Out of all the Warmachine cavalry, these rank #2 in my book, right behind Cryx. They have a fair amount of damage dishing power. However I've typically stayed away from cavalry due to their being expensive.

Steelhead Riflemen* - Maybe I just don't get it. Why would I ever field these when I could get a unit of Long Gunners? These guys gain a reroll on CRA attacks and 1 point of SPD and 1 of POW, but lose so much in comparison. I'd rather spend the 1 extra point for the Long Gunners, provided I wasn't going to use my Cygnar unit slot for Gun Mages that is.

Rhulics:
Hammerfall High Shield Gun Corps* - I haven't fielded these guys yet, but my initial thoughts are pretty lukewarm. In shield wall, they are tougher than Forgeguard. Their ranged attacks are quite comparable to Steelhead Riflemen. They're pretty cheap. It's just the SPD 4 that makes them a hard sell. Perhaps under the Searforge contract I'll be more enticed.

Horgenhold Forge Guard - I've tried to love these guys. Under the right circumstances they have been awesome. However they tend to have far too many bad match ups. They're just so blasted slow and easy to hit, and in the new MK2 ranged meta, they just have a lot of trouble making it to the fray. Even at ARM 18, they are easy bait for most things. At SPD 4, they get out-threat ranged by almost everything else. Granted, with Ashlynn's Quicken and her feat, they can really wreck some havoc. However these guys are not first wave attack troopers.

Pirates:
Sea Dog Crew - These guys sort of underwhelm me in MK2. If you pile in enough of the pirate solos, they gain a fair amount of synergy. However the tipping point gets pretty expensive. Plus, I find that my Highborn lists have enough toolbox to them already that adding more stuff to coordinate gets complicated. I will note however that I am a huge fan of the Riflemen attachments.

Press Gangers* - I can't really speak to this unit. They seem interesting, and for so few points, I'd love to work them in. I just haven't mustered up the desire to try them out so no real opinion one way or the other on these guys yet.

Cygnar Mercs:
Long Gunner Infantry* - If I didn't make it clear above when talking about the Steelhead Riflemen, these guys are a good choice. They have been a Cygnar staple for years, and having them in a merc list is definitely useful.

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages - I can't say enough good things about these guys. They bring an element to the army that nothing else possesses. I should note that not including the UA is rather silly, since True Sight grants even more utility that the Highborn contract has trouble mustering. I'd classify these as a staple unit for Highborn contracts.

Precursor Knights* - In reviewing these guys, I'm suddenly wondering why I would ever field Forgeguard in place of these guys. They have better threat range, equal ARM in shield wall, and with the UA can hit even harder on a key round. The one key advantage of Forgeguard is that they are always that good, regardless of UAs and special rounds. On the flip side, these guys bring spell immunity to the table, which is an interesting feature.

Character Units:
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters - I love this unit. They have been worth their cost almost every battle I've fielded them. They're fast. They're accurate. They're remarkably potent in melee. And they are hard to hit!

Captain Sam Machorne & the Devil Dogs - I want to like these guys. Probably with a few more games I'll be more positive about them. With the right support (like Ashlynn's Quicken spell) they can bring something interesting to the table. Most of all, Sam has the Pronto jack marshal drive to use with non-Rhulic jack options, which is really useful. However this is a unit that clearly needs good synergy to help them out.

Greygore Boomhowler & Co.* - Again, another unit I haven't tried yet. On paper though, these guys seem great. I definitely feel like this is a unit that might perform quite well. They bring some of that classic troll toughness to the table, and with a good weapon selection to boot.

Wrap Up:
So where does this leave me? Well, there's definitely a couple units I want to try out still. However, there are also some staple units that take precedence. Nyss Hunters and Gun Mages are pretty much my go-to units because of their high defense. With Fiona or Ashlynn's feat up, they are pretty much unhittable. However, I'd love to hear other opinions out there. Combo suggestions, other synergies, etc.

How To: Stripping Models

After a bit of a hiatus from my painting desk, I'm finally getting back to action. I was cleaning up my painting desk storage areas and came upon a box full of old models. Some of them were primed poorly too. I had been looking for some test models to replace my existing one and this looked like a good opportunity for another tip entry. Today I'm going to go over in gory detail how to effectively strip models. I know there are many posts out there about how Simple Green is great for this, but I wanted to actually post a tutorial for those that would like to see proof.

Notes:

This tip is geared towards stripping quality, not speed.

I've only really done this seriously for metal miniatures, and not plastics or resins, so reader beware.

Simple Green is the key to this tip. Not only does it do the job very effectively, but it's biodegradable and non-toxic.

Simple Green will dissolve glue bonds. Typically if a model is on a base, or has parts glued, it becomes easy to separate the parts after soaking for a week.

What you'll need:

Glass jar with lid

Simple Green cleaner

Old toothbrush

Rubber gloves (optional)

How To:

	Step one: Get a jar to toss all your models into. Preferably one that will provide a good water-tight seal, and is clear glass so that you can see what's going on. Then toss all the models into it!
	Next, get your bottle of Simple Green. The easiest place to find it is automotive stores. Whether you get the spray bottle or the big bottle of refills doesn't matter.
	Now fill up your jar! The important thing is to make sure that all parts of all models are covered up. You'll probably want some air in the jar just to make it more effective when you shake it. Once filled, leave it for several days. Every so often, gently shake the jar. This accomplishes a couple of things. First, it shakes loose pieces of primer and paint from the models to let the cleaner do more work. Second, it causes the models to rub against each other and help loosen more primer.
	In this photo I'd left my jar for 2 full weeks. Again, I'm more focused on quality and less on speed. I wanted to make sure every bit of old primer got removed. Remaining bits of primer will fill in model details and defeat the purpose of stripping.
	Next, take the jar to a sink partially filled with warm water. Bring an old toothbrush and start scrubbing. Sometimes you get lucky and a model comes out completely clean, like this one. You'll notice in this photo that I'm wearing rubber gloves. The Simple Green, although bio-friendly, is pretty rough on skin during prolonged contact, so I highly recommend wearing gloves.
	Sometimes, not so lucky, like this old Psyker model. In this case, take the toothbrush to it and scrub a bit, rinsing as necessary to make sure you get all the bits off. A few seconds of scrubbing and typically...
	...all the primer comes off easily, like with this one.
	After scrubbing each model, rinse them off real well in the warm water and set them aside to dry thoroughly. And you're done! If you're willing to wait a couple weeks of soaking, you can literally be looking at a matter of minutes worth of work.

Death Marshal #3

Last of the three Death Marshals! This one had some additional work on the magical flames coming out of the coffin, but otherwise he was pretty much done from the assembly-line work on all three.

What went well:
* Painting all 3 together for the initial work, and then working them individually helped a lot. It also helps that it was only a group of 3 of them, rather than 6 or 10 like I'm used to with WM/H.
* The coffins. Based on the feedback, the coffins obviously worked out quite well. I'm probably happiest with them over everything else about these models.
* Different, but uniform. I feel like I did a pretty decent job of keeping a uniform tone to them all, but also captured the unique details of each pose.

What could have been better:
* Faces and skin in general were not my best work. I think some additional color would have helped, but I just didn't quite get that pasty-goth kind of look that I wanted.
* Being clumsy. I mean seriously... I dropped the one model off my desk. I broke the arm off the jumping one when attempting to pin him to the coffin. I have expected to accidentally spill a pot of paint on the third one. At least the recovery processes weren't so bad.

Well, 3 more down from my Malifaux backlog! Eventually I'll get there I'm sure. These models, like the entire line, were a joy to paint. Not that I dislike the PP line, but I definitely have a more consistently pleasant painting experience with the Wyrd line. At least so far that is. Pandora's avatar form is up next so we'll see how that goes.

Death Marshal #2

The second of the three. Some minor trivia about this one... When I was clipping him off of the basing pin, he slipped out of my hand and fell off my desk to the hardwood floor. It's the rare times like these that make me re-think my standing-height desk and hardwood floors. *sigh*

This one was a little disappointing to attach since it sort of floats a bit above the coffin unfortunately. Otherwise it was pretty easy. I have to admit this is my favorite pose of the three of them too.

Highborn Tactics: Initial Battle Report

I was originally just going to write a battle report for a game I played on Tuesday night. However, the post quickly started to grow and take on a life of its own. So instead, I'm going to do a series of posts with my thoughts about the Highborn mercenary contract. This is sort of a departure from my normal painting posts since it deals specifically with the Warmachine game itself, so for any of you visitors out there looking for painting posts, don't fret, I'm still working on painting projects. This is just a cathartic exercise for myself. For this first post in the series, I'll focus specifically on the battle report. Regarding the photo: please note, there was a lot of proxying in this battle since we were both trying out some new stuff that we don't own yet.

The Setup:
Mission: Overrun
Khador (Lance): Zerkova (tier 4), 2 Berzerkers, Marauder, Doom Reavers (6+UA) x2, Greylords, 2 Koldun Lords
Mercs (me): Ashlynn, Mariner, Vanguard, Devil Dogs (10), Mangler (JM'd by Devil Dogs), Forgeguard (10), Dougal, Bokur

The Throwdown:
The Zerkova tier 4 list was crazy. Khador won the initiative and went first, which meant the Doomreavers were on my side of the table on round 1, and the jacks were already touching the control zone. Talk about being in my face. From there things went from bad to worse. The Doomreavers kept making tough rolls and destroying any plans I had to pronto the Mangler around and into the flank. On the other side, the Forgeguard went down like a house of cards. Eventually as I started to thin out the Doomreavers though, the jacks started rolling in and causing even more problems. In the battle of attrition, it wasn't going well for the mercs. However, Dougal and Ashlynn were the stars of the show, surviving long enough to clear out the left flank of Doomreavers and sneak around into the control zone. Eventually Ashlynn survived just long enough (by keeping Admonition up and camping 5 focus) to sneak around, ignoring the jacks, and get a run on Zerkova to finish the job. This was, however, a large piece of luck. At that point, only Ashlynn, Dougal and 1 Devil Dog were left for the mercs, while Khador still had 3 fully functional jacks, a Koldun Lord, a Doomreaver, and a Greylord. I have to point out that originally an abnormal dice roll finisher off Ashlynn beforehand, but we decided to ignore it and play it out, so it's actually a combination win/loss.

The Dice:
I think it important to note that Lance's dice rolling was on fire. On the Ashlynn feat round it was almost moot from the number of high dice rolls. Doomreavers were making lots of tough rolls, and generally the luck was with him. I on the other hand had medium to low luck on dice rolls. Not abysmal, but below average. However, the dice rolls alone were not what put the merc army through the meat grinder.

The Takeaway:
Zerkova is not a closer, and that's basically what kept me alive. Despite the amazing dice for Khador, that's not what crushed my army. The Forgeguard were completely outmatched by the Doomreavers, with their (at best) 18 arm not affording them any protection against pow 13 weaponmasters. The merc jacks were also pretty outclassed by the Doomreavers. And without enough ranged shooting, the Doomreavers were mostly left unchecked. In hindsight, I think that putting Quicken on the Devil Dogs would have been smarter than putting it on the Forgeguard, but even then the matchup was poor. I was at least hoping to pronto the Mangler into a good position and lay out some serious hurt, but that didn't work out either.

Next post: Units available to Highborn...

Death Marshal #1

This is the first of the three Death Marshals. I'll wait until I've completed all three to do a complete recap of the entire painting experience For now I'll just note some specific things about this model.

For the base, I needed to create a more obvious reason for the coffin to be resting in the way that it was, so I painted up a piece of pumice to look like a rock and rested the coffin on it. Some specific small details that I also rounded out are highlighting the static grass with some pure white, and putting a bit of a shadow on the top of the coffin around where his coat hangs.

Immovable Objects vs Cygnar and Mercs

Sunday I was host to a 2-on-2 game of Warmachine, and it was a really fun time. It was 35pts each of assassination goodness. Sorry about the terrible pictures. I forgot to switch off macro-mode and it screwed them all up, but I didn't realize it until I uploaded them today.

The Lists:
Team Awesome:

Cygnar (Aaron): Stryker, Lancer, Stormclad, Defender, Long Gunners (6), Stormblades (6), Journeyman Warcaster, Squire
Mercs (me): Madhammer, 2 Blasters, Basher, Herne & Jonne, Gun Mages (6 + Officer), Nyss Hunters (10), Dougal, Reinholdt, Stannis

Team Immovable Object:

Trolls (Henry): eMadrak, Mauler, Axer, Champs (5), Krielstone Bearer (4 + Elder), Fennblades (10), Fell Caller
Khador (Lance): eSorcha, Behemoth, Devastator, War Dog, Fenris, Widowmakers, Widowmaker Marksman, eEiryss, Koldun Lord, Harlan

The Throwdown:
Rather than try to recall a turn-by-turn replay of the game, I'll hit some highlights. On one flank the Nyss faced off against the Widowmakers and eEiryss near the stream. On the other flank, Fenris and Harlan faced off against Stannis and the Long Gunners. In the middle, an impressive troll brick formed up with Champs in the center, and the beast on one end, while the Behemoth and Devastator took up the other end of the line. Behind that line were the Krielstones, eMadrak, and the Fennblades, while eSorcha stood carefully behind a wall further back. On the other side in the middle was a mish-mash of all the Mercs and Cygnar.

Some of the highlights from the battle:
* The Behemoth got plenty of good scatters with the mortars, taking out 4 of the 7 gun mages on the first round.
* Jonne laid out some great template action, taking out eEiryss, the War Dog, and some Fennblades on Madhammer's feat turn.
* Concentrated attacks from the Cygnar/Merc force took out both Troll beasts before they could get into the fray, negating eMadrak's fury generation potential.
* Stannis and the Long Gunners held their flank like champs. By the end of the game, Stannis had racked up 5 kills: Fenris (after being dismounted), Harlan Versh, 2 Fennblades, and a Fell Caller. Two of those he killed on defensive strikes!
* Although the Basher got to grand slam the Devastator into the Behemoth, eSorcha's follow-up feat round was crushing, leveling the Basher, a Blaster, and the Lancer all in one turn.
* eMadrak's feat was brutal, with a single Fennblade killing almost all the Long Gunners, not to mention the champs nearly getting a solid run on Stryker.

In the end, eSorcha went down first. She was just a bit too close and Stryker caught her with an earthquake. At that point it was a concentrated ranged effort by a large contingent of models to pile on enough damage to finish her off. eMadrak went down a couple rounds later, but only after another extremely focused effort along with a key earthquake hit on a nearby Fennblade. It's important to note that Team Awesome, although awesome, didn't have the hard hitting power needed to really punch through the Devastator and Behemoth. Both of those jacks remained relatively untouched the entire game. It was merely the concerted efforts of the Basher and Gun Mages to keep those jacks at bay by pushing/slamming them back that prevented them from causing massive casualties.

The Closing Thoughts:
[Note: The following closing thoughts are, let's say, paraphrased]
* Scott: Wow dang! That was a ton of fun! And Stannis is just the man.
* Henry: What the heck? Where'd this Stannis guy come from? I mean seriously, taking out a Fell Caller on a defensive strike! Crazy! I'd heard the legends of Stannis but didn't imagine it was all true.
* Lance: STANNIS!!!!!
* Aaron: At first I was concerned about that one flank, but then Stannis rolled in and provided the kind of leadership you only see in a Conan movie.

I'm sure the above quotes will garner a comment or two. In all fairness, here's a list of MVP's for the game:
* Mercs: Stannis - For being an outright stud and killing 5 dudes.
* Cygnar: Stryker - For bravely stepping up with the earthquakes, even after his arc node was down.
* Khador: Behemoth - For generally being terrifying, and mortaring the heck out of stuff, along with wrecking the Basher in nearly a single hit (eSorcha feat round, charge attack did 24 damage in one hit).
* Trolls: Champs - Cause nothing takes a licking and keeps on hitting like Champs.

From the Desk: Death Becomes Them

Work has been really crazy lately, so my painting pace is behind where I'd like to be, but I still managed to get some work done on the Death Marshals. I got them worked to this point with basically just cleanup work and the coffin flames left to do. I decided that the best way to tackle the remaining work is to base and finish them individually from here on out so that I can focus more on each one's unique details. I'll post them each individually as I complete them.



In other news, I got a 2-on-2 game of Warmachine in yesterday (for which I'll post a battle report tomorrow morning), and I finished watching the first season of The Last Airbender. I really enjoyed the series. It's probably the little kid in me that enjoys it so much.

Also, as a part of my normal scanning around for sources of inspiration, I found this rendition of Wyrd's Perdita that is just fabulous. Of particular interest to me is the cactus on the base. So small, and yet so well rendered!

From the Desk: The Last Paintbender

Quick post before getting some sleep. I managed to carve out some additional painting time today and continued to work on the Death Marshalls. Terribly reflective photo, but it gives you the general idea. I worked the pants, boots, and coats (in that order). Getting the pants and coats done gives me a real sense of accomplishment and progress on the models, even though there's a ton of detail work left to do.

I also started watch Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series. It's pretty entertaining so far, although I've only watched a couple episodes so far. I also watched the Miniature Mentor series with Jennifer Haley on Monochrome techniques. It was pretty interesting to see that she doesn't thin her paint very much in comparison to other people that they've featured before.

At the request of a previous comment, here's my notes on how I painted the coffins. It's sort of a quick summary of the paints and techniques and not a super detailed set of steps.
0) Prime in white - This is important since I started with washes
1) 2 washes of RPP Desert Tan (about 8:1 dilution)
2) wash of P3 Beast Hide
3) wash of P3 Gun Corps Brown
4) controlled wash of P3 battlefield brown
5) WP highlighting of RPP Desert Tan (following zenithal highlighting)
6) thin staining of VGC Sepia Ink
7) controlled wash shading of VGC Black
8) additional WP highlighting of P3 Beast Hide and RPP Desert Tan
9) 2BB P3 Battlefield Brown around the chains to make them stand out a bit more
That's my best recollection of what I did. The multiple layers help create more variation of color, and I didn't worry about blending too smooth since the color shifts help reinforce the wood grain look.
The NMM chains were a bit simpler:
1) Base with VGC Cold Grey
2) 2 washes of VGC Black (3:1 dilution using part water and part flow medium)
3) Highlight mix of VGC Cold Grey and Ghost Grey (1:1)
4) Further highlight VGC Ghost Grey
5) Further highlight VGC White

Anyway, sleep is calling to me since I have another hectic week ahead of me.

From the Desk: Coffins

It occurred to me the other day that I haven't been posting much on my blog lately except when I have a finished model or an entertaining battle report. Now in all fairness, life has been kicking my butt pretty hard lately, so I've had a decent excuse for not posting more. However there's a fine line between being busy and being lazy. So, to combat laziness, I'm going to start posting more in-progress stuff and random notes. In order to give myself more of an excuse to do so, I'll also give mini-reviews of the junk I watch while painting. And when I use the word "junk", it really is junk sometimes. Netflix streaming is awesome, but for some reason my MST3K sub-brain takes over during the movie picking process and I end up watching a lot of really stupid movies.


Today I carved out a bunch of time to start working on the Death Marshalls. More specifically, I worked on their coffins. I basically used a combination of washes, 2BB, wet palette, and some basic point highlighting. The only thing amazing really is the amount of time I spent on them. I'm really trying to lavish more time on all the Wyrd models and these guys are very fun to work on. I do have to say, the time I spent speed-painting Cryx models using wash techniques really did pay off in terms of being more confident with washes. I feel like that really helped me get a good base coat on these coffins the way I wanted it.

Today I watched two things. First was an episode of the TV series The Greatest American Hero. It was just as silly as I remember it being. I also watched an installment of Miniature Mentor about battle damage. This was very good. I highly recommend the series to anyone looking to learn new skills. The camera work continues to impress me. This particular tutorial around battle damage was definitely informative, but I can say that the amount of battle damage is a bit more than my preference.

Madhammer vs Mortenebra (round 1)

I labeled this as "round 1", because I highly suspect that there will be more games of this combination in the future. Henry and I had a blast in this game. Anyway, on to the battle report:

The Setup:
Scenario: 50pts, Assassination
Me: Madhammer, Basher, 2 Blasters, Nyss Hunters (10), Forgeguard (10), Alexia, Gun Mages (6+UA), Herne & Jonne, Dougal, Bokur, Aiyana & Holt
Henry: Mortenebra, Deathjack, Harrower, Nightmare, Biles (10), Pistol Wraith, Warwitch Siren, Withershadow, Gorman

The Throwdown:
This was actually a pretty fast battle, despite my swarm of infantry and it being 50pts. I won the initiative and went first, rushing towards the middle at my typical stumpy-dwarf pace. I'd positioned the Forgeguard centrally with Nyss on one side and Alexia/Gun Mages on the other. The Cryx force surged in, slightly favoring the side with Alexia and the Gun Mages, mostly due to the terrain I suspect, but also because the Deathjack was further up due to AD. I pushed in closer, used Madhammer's feat, and took a few shots. I rolled good damage on the Harrower, but unfortunate location rolls meant it didn't lose any systems. This is where things nearly got completely out of hand. You'll notice in this first picture my positioning after my 2nd turn. And then...

...the Harrower rolled in. I had not really thought through just how effective the Harrower could be against infantry. Between threshering on the first attack and buying extra attacks with the accumulated soul tokens (and continuing to chain based on those soul tokens), it cleared out the entire unit of Forgeguard and 1 Nyss. Geez! The Nightmare then trampled in, killing 2 more Nyss and buying an attack to kill Aiyana. And then the Deathjack rolled in and clobered Alexia and a Blaster. It was a pretty hammering round to say the least. However, victory still lingered within my grasp!

First the Bokur moved up out of the Basher's path. Then Madhammer advanced, put Redline on the Basher, and took a case-cracker shot at Mortenebra putting some damage on her. Then the Basher slamed the Harrower back 8"(!), taking out both it and the Pistol Wraith at the same time. This cleared a path for the second Blaster, which advanced and sprayed Mortenebra and due to the powerful shot, put some more damage on her. Then the Gun Mages advanced around, did a little clean up, and more specifically took out the Warwitch. This cleared the path for the Nyss who then charged in and finished the job. It took leveraging everything left in my army in order to pull it out, but that's what a "No Quarter"-style win is all about.

The Post-Game:
Man what a fun battle! It was Henry's first time running Mortenebra, and only my 5th or so game with Madhammer. It was fast and furious, but very entertaining. I think there were a couple key things that contributed to the fun from my perspective: First, the caster selections are entertaining. I've had discussions with multiple players now about how some casters suck the fun out of the game because they shut down armies and general remove your ability to just play your army (eDeneghra, Kreoss, Sorcha, eMagnus, Baldur). Motenebra and Madhammer fall into the category of where their feats boost their own armies rather than handicap (or downright stall) their opponent's army, which keeps things more entertaining. Second, both armies had more of the "toolbox" feel. Lots of features with lots of flexibility, and many choices to make each round.

Now, for the MVP awards:
* The Harrower - Good lord! 11 mans in one activation! 11!!! Level up baby! That whole soul-chaining thing is just badass.
* The Basher - Hooray for getting a slam off! I'm still not 100% convinced he's worth 7pts, but when he pulls off a Redlined slam, it definitely brings home the bacon.
* My dice - I have to acknowledge the fact that my dice didn't betray me, and when I needed to hit, I hit. No tragic rolling of 5 on 3 dice to miss a critical attack or anything like that.

Durgen Madhammer

Rounding out my initial Rhulic battlegroup is Durgen Madhammer. In the first few games that I proxied him, I had a great time, and I'm really looking forward to getting more games in with him. This model presented me with a couple of key options that I feel obligated to point out. First, the visor comes separate and can be positioned as desired, so I opted to go with it closed, mostly because I felt it gave him a slightly more surreal look that I liked better than with the visor open. The second thing was the spare ammo, which I attached to his hip. This came separate as well, and after painting and roughly positioning it, decided to go ahead and include it.

What went well:
* Painting him with the rest of the jacks helped speed up the process as well as create more uniformity to the whole group.
* Using a wet palette for metals was helpful. I wasn't really expecting it, but it was helpful, especially when trying to mix shades of gold and silver together to create better highlight colors. I need to give this some additional practice and see what it will achieve.

What could have been better:
* There are a few places where the metals look a little too cartooney due to too much blacklining contrast. Overall I felt like I got some good practice with metals in, but some of the detailing work is still eluding my skills.

Overall this battlegroup was a lot of fun to do. It also afforded me an opportunity to practice more with doing real metalics, which I personally prefer the look of to NMM. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and I do acknowledge some very impressive work done with NMM. However I just prefer the look of real metalics and would like to refine my skills with them much much further. Hopefully the experience of using the wet palette will open a new door for me.

Ghordson Basher

Next off the Rhulic assembly line: the Ghordson Basher! This compact but potent creation features a heavy duty smashing front, strong powerful legs, and a tail hitch for a convenient 10-ton towing capacity! Seriously, the tail hitch is probably my favorite feature of the model. It makes me laugh every time I look at it.

This model was worked on at the same time as the Blasters, and Madhammer in order to keep the look fairly consistent. Again, more paint wear to represent usage, and even more verdigris on the bronzes to show extended use in dank humid tunnels.

What went well:
* Painting these at the same time as the rest of the battlegroup really helped keep things looking consistent.

What could have been better:
* The numbering was not quite as crisp, but still readable.
* More challenges with placement on the base, but much more reasonable than the Blasters.
* Flat plates on the legs made for some challenges around zenithal shading choices.

For my own future reference, here's a quick summary of the painting process:
Prime: black
Steels: heavy drybrush Boltgun Metal, wash Badab Black
Bronzes: Shinning Gold, wash Gryphon Sepia, selected wash P3 Turquoise Ink
Verdigris: selected wash Arcane Blue, selected wash Necrotite Green, selected wash VMC Smoke
Reds: (all wet palette) base Skorne Red Base, highlight Khador Red, first shade Skorne Red Base + Meridius Blue (3:1), second shade Umbral Umber
Steels: highlight Boltgun Metal, second highlight Mithril Silver
Bronzes: highlight Shining Gold, second highlight VMC Brass

Grundback Blasters

Fresh off the assembly line: 2 new Grundback Blasters! These nasty little buggers, often referred to as part of the "gun bunny" family, are a part of the Madhammer battlegroup I am currently working on. Although small in size and point cost, I've found them to be an amusing addition to my merc force. Sprays are very potent in MK2, particularly in clearing off infantry from an engaged heavy, and these little guys are champs at that job.

Before talking about painting these, I'd like to mention the assembly. They posed a bit of a challenge in a couple ways. First, their feet are not exactly basing friendly. Big wide flat feet are amusing, but hard to position reasonably, especially when I paint the model off of the based and attach him later. Second, the joints all required pinning as the joins are less than perfect. I ended up doing a combination of pinning and green stuff to get them all together.

As far as painting goes, I decided to go with a metal-and-red scheme, since Madhammer strikes me as a bold sort of fellow. Red is the color of fire, and blasts, and well... more fire! So that's what I decided to go with. Just like the Vanguard, I wanted some battle damage on them so that they appeared used, but not broken down. In order to do the battle damage, I used the same technique as before. Specifically I did all the metals first, with metal everywhere. Then I used the wet palette and added the reds afterwards by controlling the transparency and layering the red on. This gave it a look like the paint was partially worn/blasted off in places. I've become more and more fond of this technique as I use it.

What went well:
* These were fun to paint! Quick, easy, and not at all frustrating (except for the normal tedious nature of bronzes).
* The numbers for each of them, although not Rhulic characters, turned out good. I like the industrial formatting of them.
* The bases worked out great. I used a little red in the shading of the rocks to tie the whole scheme together. My wife even went out of her way to comment on the bases, so I take that as a good sign.

What could have been better:
* More time as usual.
* Better planning around the bases so that they positioned better.

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages

Sometimes I am caught off guard by a model. I think to myself "Wow! I love those! I want to paint those!" If they aren't in my primary factions, then I often wait or look for an opportunity to paint them for someone else. In the case of the Gun Mages, MK2 made them available to the mercenary Highborn contract, which made me very excited. I proxied them one game and found them to be excellent. I rushed out and bought them soon after. I stuck them to bases temporarily and played them unpainted while I was finishing up previous projects. Then I started painting them and... they were tedious. Not just a little tedious. They were painfully tedious. I honestly couldn't explain why either. Painting units is frequently soul-crushing, but these were especially so for some reason. I finished them up, and they aren't great, but they are finished. So it got me thinking... why were they so painfully tedious to paint?

1) Units are tedious. Duh!! Painting a whole unit of models together can be frustrating. So much time gets spent in the beginning and so little progress seems to get made.

2) I primed these white, and I often have a problem with being frustrated with my progress when painting over white. It has to do with the color balance to the eye. I typically don't base coat everything before doing shading and highlighting, so I'll get to this point where half the model is done and the other half is stark white. It makes my eyes angry.

3) Although these models appear like nice simple sculpts, there was something about the color choices I had and the surfaces available that just didn't seem to jive. I think used much more of a brown palette and eliminated the green that I'd have been happier. Unfortunately that didn't become clearer to me until I was nearly done. *sigh*

4) Rushing to get them done obviously got me cranky. I was sick of proxying other models in my battles while I tried to get these guys done. Lesson learned: Don't field something until AFTER it's painted.

Most of this is no revelation to anyone out there I'm sure. This just felt like a chance for me to step back and pay attention to where my own personal desire to paint is gravitating towards and aim more in that direction.