Neptunes

3 of my 6 Neptunes are finished now!

Dropzone Update

Last night I played yet another game of DZC and had a good time. I lost the game (against Shaltari) but it was somewhat by design since I wanted my opponent (a bigger noob than me) to have a positive experience so I was helping him a bit along the way. Plus it helped me get a better understanding of how Shaltari work. That actually makes 5 games played at the starter box level now. I'm really looking forward to playing a 1000pt game to get the feel of using a commander and the command deck.

I've got more painted stuff finished but it needs photos still so I'll try to get those up in the next couple days. In the mean time, my 1000pt paint goal is as follows:
4 Neptunes, 2 Zeus, 2 Odins, 2 Juno A1s, 4 Immortals, 2 Triton A2s, 4 Janis.
At present I'm over halfway on that. My extended goal is to also have 2 Ares and 2 Phobos painted as well since that will fill out a fully painted starter box.

One last note about the game last night is that I got several compliments on my paint scheme and how cool the airbrush masking looked, especially on the finished Neptunes which are fairly large. It gets me excited to paint more!

Oh and a resource link is the web-based army builder for DZC located here which was built by the local Talon. I can't say how stoked I am to have a mobile device friendly army builder for this game.

Triton A2

Quick post before I pass out for the evening. Here's my finished Triton A2 dropships. I really like these models and had fun painting them despite the challenge of how to hold them. Also, here's a picture of them carrying the 4 Janis walkers (via magnets). I have to say that having them magnetized and all painted does please me quite a bit. I'm looking forward to finishing up some Neptunes for this very same reason.

Immortals

This is actually a quadruple pack of Immortals that I painted all at once. Gets them done quicker this way. Nothing really special to say here though. They are tiny! So silly to paint!

Juno

Next up from my DZC is 2 Juno A1 tanks. These I feel worked better for the patterning by virtue of sheer size for surfaces. I also really liked doing a bunch of pigment application to the treads to dirty it up. These, like the Janis, are magnet-ready. I'll share a picture of that once I finish the Neptune that's going to be carrying them.

Janis

These are my first finished DZC (Dropzone Commander) models I've finished! Painting the 10mm scale is a real challenge I have to say. I really wanted to paint these to a higher quality but honestly it's pretty tricky to work with them for a number of reasons. Since I haven't done one of these in a long time, I'm going to take the time to do a proper painting analysis.

What worked well:
* Having a plan - If I learned one thing from my Cygnar army, it's that having a plan before starting an army is a massive help. I spent a fair amount of time before starting to have a plan, and especially experimenting on test models.
* Using the airbrush - I'm getting more and more comfortable with it, and especially at diagnosing problems along the way. Using it here to create the boxed pattern was both fun and fairly unique.
* Not going too crazy - I wanted to try using techniques I don't normally do and this definitely worked out well, but I didn't push too far out beyond what I already know.
* Using custom printed decals - Again, something new for me, and it went pretty well. I'm glad I used them to do the designations on them. The medium has certain limitations due to how they work so using black lettering sort of aimed my paint scheme towards a lighter base tone.

What could have been better:
* Spending more time - I could have easily spent way more time painting these, but honestly, painting at this scale is just really challenging for me still.
* No base - Seriously! No base?? You've got to be kidding me. I rubbed so much paint off while handling them during the painting process.
* Gloss but no matte - I sealed with only gloss and no additional matte coat. It makes them shiny which I'm not super happy with, but I sort of had to keep it that way to preserve the armored look.

Summary:
There's more coming. My goal is to get most of my army painted in short order and then get back to WM/H. I've got a wide variety of types and sizes of models for DZC to paint so this will definitely be a learning experience. It's a refreshing break though.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #92

Late update. Very late.

My desk is a total train-wreck. I'm going to do a whirlwind roundup here. I've been really slacking on blog posts and I'll make no apology for it. Perhaps one day I'll explain why I blog, but that's another story.

Lately I've been painting stuff for Dropzone Commander a lot. I'm currently working on painting up a 1000pt force for it, which necessarily means I'm taking a bit of a break from painting Warmachine. Just temporary. I'll post some finished stuff from DZC in the next few days.

On the Warmachine front, it suddenly struck me how many tier 4 lists I've painted for Cygnar so far. In fact, the lists built so far include: Nemo1, Nemo2, Nemo3, Darius, Siege, Haley2. So why is painting to tier lists is a good option? I end up with models that I may not otherwise have added. Generally it isn't that far out of stuff I would have painted, but it does force me a ways out. My next paint target for Cygnar is going to be a pCaine tier list I think.

What else has been going on? Well I've obviously been playing a bit (3 games so far) of Dropzone Commander. I'll try to post thoughts on that in the near future.
I also played a test game of Age of Sigmar, which shockingly didn't completely suck. If anyone out there wants my modest perspective on it I'll share it. It's not amazing, but I also don't get what all the hate is about. There's some interesting differences between it and other games I've played before. Plus never having played much of previous editions of Warhammer, I was fairly untainted. I also am not burdened with a huge mountain of Warmhammer army painting time invested in the game, so I was just looking at it from a mechanical way. But again, if no one cares, I won't waste the internet bits on it.

Review: Shipping containers

Just a quick review on the Knight Models shipping containers "kit". I got 3 sets of these on a whim and have to say I'm very pleased with them. They look nice, are perfect scale to use with Warmachine, and go together really easily. The doors even open and close if you assemble them properly. Sure, they aren't painted and say Wayne on them, but honestly, for 10 minutes effort to assemble 2, it's a pretty sweet terrain option.

Lost Among Bananas and Insidiousness

This is just a quick post to note that I am currently taking a bit of a break from Warmachine. Not a serious one. Just temporary. My life was completely upside-down for the last 6 weeks and is finally returning to something resembling normalcy. Health issues with my son, challenges with my job, injury to my back, and other random small things sort of smothered my hobby activities. I've decided to take this time as a bit of a break from Warmachine and play some other things for a bit. I'll post those activities here as time allows and eventually will circle back on Warmachine once I feel properly rejuvenated for it.

Some Good Basic Painting Tips

Read this post the other day and really liked these tips. Several of those are things I wish I'd known sooner rather than later too.

Inspiration: Tiny Sculptures

Damn this is cool...

Battle Report: Nemo3 vs Sorcha2

No picture unfortunately. Also, it'd been a whole month since my previous game which sucks, but at least I got to play and had a good time.

My list: Nemo3 (tier 4), Finch, Stormwall, Jakes, Dynamo, 3 Stormsmiths, Stormblade Captain, Stormblades (6+UA), Stormguard (10).

My opponent: Sorcha2, Beast 09, Ogrun Bokur, Reinholdt, Andrei, Decimator, Manhunter, Drakhun (no dismount), Winterguard (10+UA), Kovnik Joe, Widowmakers, Aiyana & Holt + Valechev, Eiryss2.

We played the Recon scenario and I won initiative, choosing to go first. I ran, then he advanced and used Shatterstorm to take out half of my Stormblades, then I feated and started laying out some hurt. The Nemo3 feat round is pretty ball busting especially when I use focus to extend his control area. Stormguard killed the Drakhun and tied up some Winterguard. A Stormsmith snuffed Eiryss. Dynamo mostly shot the Decimator off the board, with the final blow coming from the Stormblade Captain. The Stormwall had dropped a lightning pod right near Sorcha which afforded Nemo the opportunity to use his ranged attack on it and bounce lightning into Sorcha. The next round however things got messy for me. Winterguard cleaned out my Stormguard and then the rest of the army created a hole for Sorcha to do her whole Cyclone/Wind Rush charge thing and head in on Nemo. It was well done, and perfectly ranged with about half an inch to spare. And then dice happened. She had to take a free strike from Dynamo on the way in. He hit and rolled just above average and slayed Sorcha.

Lessons learned: Sometimes it's better to be lucky than smart! Sorcha2 has crazy threat range which I forget about, and even just camping 2 would have turned her assassination run from "average dice kills" to "average dice doesn't come close". Also, Nemo3 is super fun to play, but I doubt I would play in tier next time. The Stormwall is just not a great pairing for him in my opinion. Dynamo, with Jakes, is still the bomb and I love that combo to pieces. It's important to note that Dynamo still gets his affinity bonus in Nemo's control area even if he's in a different battlegroup.

Games this year: 31

Avenger

This is probably the last warjack I'll paint for a while. It's the last warjack from my unpainted pile, and more specifically, the last I wanted to add until either the Reliant or Hurricane come out. I really did like this plastic kit though and thought it gives the model a very large bulky feel, appropriate for a heavy jack.

Triumph

Another one done. This is actually the first Warjack that I've ever painted that was an add-on kit to a base heavy. Technically I'd done Proteus before, but never for a warjack specifically. I have to say that I like how well this add on kit worked for Triumph.

Major Markus Siege Brisbane

It's Siege! He's done! Moving on.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #91

Short update cause I'm exhausted.

I meant to get this out yesterday but the crazy situation in my household caused me to fall asleep early. Hence, a day late and, well, just a day late. So what's been happening on my desk lately? Well...

Siege, Triumph and the Avenger are all done and just need final seal coats. I'll have pictures of them this week. I got the riders for the Tempest Blazers primed and Saeryn/Rhyas assembled. I also got Zuriel mostly assembled. He's going to require some up-front basing work to get ready but that will make things much easier in the final steps. I also started monkeying around with some terrain stuff but odds are low that I will give it much attention during the next couple weeks. At this point I have almost everything in my backlog assembled, with the exception of finishing Zuriel, and then assembling Stryker3, Kraye, and a second unit of Stormguard.

I've been watching some basing tutorials off and on and it's getting me all excited to paint something to premium quality again, which may end up being the twins if I don't find a suitable alternative.

Rutger Shaw

Finishing a merc for me is sorta like watching a random movie trailer in the middle of watching a whole season of a show. Rutger here was more added to my paint queue due to the Moving Targets fiction that I listened to on Audible than because I'm super hot to play him. That said, it will be interesting to put him on the table with Tarin and perhaps put some ranged merc jack with him.

When I painted this model I took an approach of trying to get color on 80% of the model before doing highlights and shading. It was an interesting practice exercise for me since I'm used to doing the "finish a section" process method. After my discussion with Matt from PP, I decided this is something I need more practice at if I ever want to up my game on overall composition and quality.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #90

Short update cause I'm exhausted.

Lots of stuff has been getting done, but I'm sorely behind on blogging. My personal life has been thrown into complete disarray with health issues for everyone in the house. Despite this, I got some stuff done recently, including Rutger Shaw who I'll post tomorrow. I also got a ton of models assembled and primed and base coated Siege, Triumph, an Avenger, and the horses for the Tempest Blazers. I also cut out felt templates for trenches, painted a whole slew more Tau Ceti bases for Cygnar, and generally got all my stuff organized. The next couple weeks are likely to be dead quiet from me though as resolving health stuff takes priority.

Shredders (take 11 and 12)

It's been a while since I finished a lesser beast, and since my paint queue hit a weird log jam, these got done. Whee!

Artificer General Nemo and Storm Chaser Adept Caitlin Finch

Done and done!