The First Step

Now in a darker grey.  

The pile of boxes lost a member a few days ago when a Redeemer took form.  Building a whole mini without a base was as odd as expected and pinning the model to the base caused some collateral damage (the gun popped off), but aside from seeming to take longer the process went off without a hitch.  The weather broke after everything was glued together and dry, a clear sign that I'm on the right path, so I even got to prime the little bugger.  It's incredibly top heavy even discarding the Vlad-esque shoulders, so I have a few concerns about the load-bearing chicken legs, but it's a finished model which is what counts at this point.  I've been planning to do TFG or Errants next, but now I'm thinking about doing the Choir.  They're single part sculpts for the most part, will feature in every list I'm likely to field, there's only six of them, and it'd scratch one of the metal units off the list.  We'll see how it turns out.

In keeping with tradition, I added another model as soon as I finished the Redeemer.  In my defense I didn't exactly go and get it for myself.  We had a white elephant/yankee swap/whatever holiday free play event on Wednesday, so I had to walk away with something.  I've never done one of these events before, but my initial impression was a good one.  Everyone seemed to have a good time and the amount of Menoth in the swap was nice as I had plenty of options but also a bit daunting as I'm now wary of faction overload.  I finished towards the sharp end, which meant I could almost take my pick of the litter.  There was a Devout floating around that tempted me greatly, but ultimately I went with a Vigilant because it's plastic.  I brought a Nephilim Soldier (it seemed prudent to bring something I'd like), so I think I made out fine.

Now With Title!

My latest endeavor.  

Fun fact: this is version three of this post.  The previous two were lost while trying to get the phone and tablet, and multiple apps on both, to play nice.  The future, it is not yet here.  This third iteration brought to you the old fashioned way, with a keyboard and mouse.  I had missed natural, effortless typing.  But I digress...

My lack of hobby progress over the past month or two has been unsettling.  Things are fine on the gaming side, but modelling and painting has slowed as much as possible without hitting a full stop.  The only sensible thing to do in this sort of situation is to add more models to the queue, which is exactly what I did thanks to Black Friday sales.  It took a while, but I finally pulled the trigger on Menoth.  I settled on a list of (what I consider) core choices, ran it past my locals, and finally gave Spikey Bits a shot.  Now I have many more mans waiting (and waiting) for some TLC.

Insert Knight Pun Here

Nearly there.  

My slowly growing Empire army is now on the cusp of having two units ready for action, the cannon from a while back and now a modest group of knights.  Both still require some final gluing and varnish, but all the painting is done.  The drive to look back at my work to find problems is irresistible, so it's no surprise that even as I was putting the finishing touches on I was regretting decisions I had made.  I tried to stick to the studio Reiksguard scheme, which meant red and/or white feathers.  I blocked these in with little forethought, and as things turned out every helm with a ribbon had a red feather on top of said ribbon, which meant those ribbons had to be white.  Since there's a ribbon on the banner pole, the banner had to be red.   In vacuum this wouldn't be a problem, but when the color of the lances (red) are factored in then you can see the issue.  A red banner precludes a red banner pole (it ended up black), which is a very small inconsistency that is unlikely to ever be noticed, but it'll rub a me for as long as I field the model.  There's also more red than white in the unit, but that will be addressed when the ranks swell.  Those small grumbles aside, I'm pleased with how the unit turned out.  Despite doing horse and rider armor in different ways, the results match up just fine.  I tried out using a wash to do some black lining between the helmet plumes with good results.  The champion's face came out particularly well, and the unit didn't spend an excessive amount of (work) time on the table despite being ~2.5 times larger than a standard halberdier.

Now I have a final hurdle to clear, and it's one I have no experience with.  The picture in this post makes the unit look basically finished, but it's still a collection of mounts, riders, and shields (where appropriate).  It's been so long since I've painted something before it was fully assembled that I might as well be doing it for the first time.  Ideally I'd like to put a coat of varnish on the riders and shields before assembling the whole model and applying the rest if the varnish.  I don't have a good idea for how to let the pieces dry without sticking it whatever they dry on and potentially leaving paint behind when I peel them off that surface.  I'll probably end up assembling the models before varnishing as it's the easiest way.  I'm also considering magnetizing horse and rider for potentially easier transport.  That may not be an issue though, and I'd very much like to have a unit well and truly finished.

Baby Stepping

Incremental advancement.

My grand plans for weekend painting pulled their usual disappearing act, but I did manage to get a little work in.  Considering how little painting I've done over the past couple weeks I'll take whatever I can get.  Last time I didn't quite finish the first layer of red so I remedied that first thing.  Next I did all the non-feather whites, then I finished up by putting down a green foundation on the laurels.  Not much overall, but every little bit.  Still outstanding are the feathers, standard, horn banner, green bits, and any forgotten details or cleanup.  The finish line is in sight.  Best of all, I stuck a rider on a horse to compare armor and found they match up just fine.

Trying New Things

Now with captions.  

Today's post is being produced entirely on my fancy new iPad.  We'll see how it works out.  So far no photo captioning or placement.  Not a great first impression.  Update: a few more steps, but looks workable.

After a longer than expected hiatus I again sat down at the painting table.  My ambition was only to knock the rust off, but I got some decent work in anyway.  Now I have a batch of Reiksguard with finished skin and armor, plus a start on red and white details.  There are some green details to be done and mouths to be finished, but that shouldn't take long.  Along the way I did a bad thing by changing how I did armor, so now I wonder if the knights and horses will match up.  Worst case scenario I redo the horse armor, which wouldn't be horrible, but I hope to not have to make that call.  With some luck I'll have the riders finished this weekend and shields soon after.  If the armor matches up then I'll just have to glue and varnish to have a painted, fieldable, and finished unit, which will be a nice little milestone.

Tomorrow is Foodmachine, my first "tournament" in a couple months.  It's a one or two list event, so I can pick a partner for the eVayl list I've been playing over the past few months.  Foodmachine isn't the best testing environment with the rampant and encouraged cheating, but it'll still be timed turns which will be a good exercise in speedier decision making.  I'm leaning towards Aby as a partner since her tier is like a well-worn jacket for me, but I love the idea of pairing prime and epic Vayl.  Also under consideration is eLylyth so I can east into running her in a "competitive" environment.  I have almost no practice with her though, maybe a half dozen games at most, and I don't really want to be the guy who brings a pair of big time tournament lists to a lighthearted charity event.  I don't have to decide for 12.5 hours or so, which is plenty of time to change and make up my mind a few times over.

One Foot at a Time

My most recent construction project.  

Been a while, eh?  You may have noticed that I tend to post when I've painted something.  Since I haven't sat down to paint in far too long, I also haven't sat down to blog in a while either.  That doesn't mean I've been idle, just occupied with things that aren't painting.  There's plenty of non-wargaming things that have taken up my attention (EV got married for one, hockey season for two, NHL14 for three), and there's been plenty of boxes being opened and models assembled as well.

I'm still working on eVayl and getting more comfortable with her and her tier list.  After 8-10 games played, a couple videos watched, and the much debated decision to kill my own mans for a turn one Shredder, things are starting to come together.  The Legionnaires are putting in more work (outside of simply feeding the pot) and I'm getting more lessers on the table in general, though people are starting to target the pot sooner as a result.  In recent games I've sent the Angels further up the table on turn one to make use of the tier SPD boost.  While this has cost me an Angel early on, which isn't so good, it also gets the Angels involved much earlier and puts some heat on my opponent from the very beginning.  This is true of the list in general as I've been running the Ravagores in turn one as well, plus trying to charge Vayl for the extra movement, all with an eye towards dictating the line of engagement instead of getting bottled up on my half of the table.  Vayl doesn't feel nearly as survivable in her epic form so it's been a learning process, but I hope I'm turning the corner on it.

Finally, there's the outstanding matter of the Empire.  The train has ground completely to a halt after a hard opening charge.  With EV due back from his honeymoon sometime soon, and our usual Tuesday game to resume after that, it looks like my grand plan to have a painted (starter) force ready to go is going to come up short.  I've been sniffing around it of late, notably to finally get a handle on Reiksguard schemes, so hopefully I get back on the horse soon.

More Randomness

A whole posse of gatormans.  

If I've learned just one thing about creating things it's to go with what feels right.  While I should be working on Empire or Infinity I felt like putting together gators today.  By going with what felt right I got a unit (plus a solo) assembled that had been sitting in a box for far too long.  The alternative was to tell myself I should be doing something else, dicker around with the phone/tv/whatever, and make little to no hobby progress on anything.  I think I made the right call.  Now if I can roll into assembling the lingering Hex Hunters I can try out the Bethayne ideas that made me order these things in the first place.

Magnets Are Tough

Witness my amazing conversion skills.  

Continuing my recent trend of thrashing around between projects, this morning I dug out and assembled that lingering third Legion heavy kit.  To be fair I only did the torso, but that's all that I need for the moment as I have a number of limbs and heads ready to go.  It wasn't all step by step assembly though.  I made two vital modifications to this latest chassis.

Foremost is the epic conversion work I did to make this torso stand out from the others.  The first two I've affectionately dubbed Lefty and Righty, thanks to the choice between left- or right-pointing tails that come in the box.  What to do for the third?  I'd already exhausted the tail possibilities, at least the ones that are easy to execute.  I suppose I could have made a straight tail or an upward-pointing tail, but those would have required a lot of work.  Instead I decided to mess with the only permanent (meaning non-magnetized) limb that doesn't connect to the base.  I thought this would be as easy as shaving down the peg so the arm could turn into a different position, but I soon found this was to be a more involved project.  The shaved peg had no real contact with its hole, so I pinned the arm and stuffed the hole with greenstuff to keep it from spinning.  I also had to cut down the meat on the shoulder to have the arm stick closer to the body.  PP did a nice job of making all the bits fit together well, so it shouldn't have been surprising that I'd have to fill gaps when I moved a piece around.  All my effort turned out decent even if the results came nowhere near justifying the time invested.  Worse still is that the new pose doesn't really inspire.  It's a bit limp wristed, which doesn't suit the heavy chassis at all.  It is different from the others, so I guess I'll call it mission accomplished.

The other modification isn't as obvious visually (which is saying something considering how little the limp wrist stands out) but is vital for usability.  It is, of course, magnetization.  I took my sweet time coming around on magnets, but now I'm fully on board.  With this third kit I can now field a pair of Ravagores and a Scythean, or a pair of Scytheans and a Ravagore, or (provided I put the bits together and suffer enough head trauma to make this seem appealing) five Carniveans.  My first excursion into using magnets wasn't the smoothest ever, but since then I've had a few more reps and feel confident that I can do the job right the first time.  That said, you've probably already guessed that I screwed everything up and had to take all the magnets out.  I thought that both arms had the same polarity, so I wasn't too particular about which one I used to make sure I put the magnets in the right way.  This was a large mistake as it turns out that the arms aren't the same.  I also had to swap out the magnet in the neck for a larger size thanks to putting it far enough off-center that the smaller one wouldn't hold enough to stay in place while moving the model around.  At least my prior practice digging out magnets came in handy.

Things Still Happen Here

Au revoir MP85.  

I wanted to start this post with hobby news, but that just isn't working.  Today I blog with a heavy heart because a tiny ball of French-Canadian exuberance is moving from swampy DC to sunny CA.  Sports games are also numbers games sometimes, and the crunch is rarely harsher than when the season is about to begin.  I could go on for quite a while, but ultimately this is a hobby blog and I probably shouldn't indulge in hockey talk when I haven't had hobby talk in quite a while.  I has a hockey sad, but the show must go on.

Judging by the lack of posting for the last two weeks, you might think there hasn't been much happening.  You'd be right for the most part, but there has been some action going on.  Unfortunately there are no pictures of said action because pictures aren't appropriate.  There was a lot of reading, be it forums or rules, leading up to jumping in on Infinity.  After far too much effort I laid hands on a Military Orders starter box, a grunt, and a handful of Knights.  I've done a modest amount of modelling with much more on deck for tomorrow so I can have a squad more or less ready for Tuesday. Lack of fluff is starting to become an issue now as I start considering schemes.  I'd like to read more than just the blurbs on the Infinity site, and play a couple games as well, before I commit to a particular Knightly Order (and therefore paint scheme).  Painting issues aside, I'm looking forward to getting some reps in with my chosen faction.  In Empire news I built some Archers and got basing underway on painted and unpainted Spearmen.  The painting muse has been on vacation lately, and since Empire is mostly a painting project at this point that means there hasn't been much progress there.  Still need to finish reading the WFB rules as well.

There's less smoke but more fire on the Warmahordes front.  After girding my loins for competitive Khador play previously, I got to thinking about the best way to help my fellow gamers prepare for tournament play.  The Motherland hasn't had the best showing on the big stages over the past year or two for whatever reason.  One possible reason: Legion takes all their places.  It turns out I have a bag full of Legion, stocked with the vast majority of what the Internet tells me are the best choices.  [The only big hole I have are Raptors which I can probably borrow from a local (or build my Uhlans and use them as proxies)].  With this in mind I started assembling eVayl and the non-Shredder lessers so I could run the now-standard tier 4 list.  My first time out with it didn't go so well, but I did learn the pMadrak can be tough to kill.  I learned a lot from the game, which felt like it hadn't happened in forever, and I have some ideas for next time.  Once I get the Knights together I'll be looking to the lingering Gatormen and Hex Hunters, plus digging around while hoping that I have another Legion heavy kit hiding somewhere.  

Stay on Target

The ranks continue to swell.  

We'll get to the title in a bit.  First up is painting, which right now means Empire.  I've had a productive couple days at the painting table, pushing ever further down the road to a fieldable, and painted, Empire army.  The picture to the left is the combined result of two sessions, hence the two obvious halves.  The total haul is thus: six based Spearmen, ten unbased Spearmen, five based horses, one based Warrior Priest, one based Halberdier, and three based cannon crew.  I'm drawing ever closer to the (800 point) finish line and it's very tempting to put basing on hold to push through on the remaining ranks of unpainted Spearmen (and quintet of Knights), but if I'm making the effort to get everything painted before taking the army to battle then I'm not going to cheat on the basing.  It slots in well enough while painting and the brown bases look a lot better than the sloppy black/red/white/blue ones.  I told EV that he could expect a game of WFB when he sees a finished unit of Spearmen appear, so the plan now is to get bases done while finishing the unit.  I've set an internal target of EV's impending wedding about a month and a half from now, which is far enough out to be realistic but close enough to stave off complacency and wandering eye.  More on that later.

Mostly Empire, But I Still Play Warmahordes

Done.  For now.  

After a long(ish) break I got back to painting today.  More Empire, but some new models at least.  Before getting to the new, let's cover the old.  The horses got their finishing touches today, not that it really shows.  I did a search for horse hooves, which turned up no porn or other questionable material for a change, and found that they're black.  Unfortunately the hair is also black, so the hooves and forelocks blend into each other.  When it's time for the inevitable post-basing touch ups I'll see what I can do about the hooves, but ultimately they're so small I may just let it slide.  In the meantime I'll check out some examples for around the internets and see how others handle it.  In other horse news I went ahead with highlighting the barding, which produced no visible results as anticipated.  If anyone can pick out which one is the one with the highlights I'll go back and do the others, but since I know which one it is and can't tell any difference I don't think I'll be doing any more pointless silver highlights.

More of You Know What

Stuff that got painted.  

I find it amusing that I'm now writing my seventh consecutive post for a game I have yet to play.  It's what passes for news around here though so I'm gonna stick with it.  I had a very nice and relaxing Labor Day loooooong weekend which contained a bit of painting but not too much.  Still haven't made my way back to the idealized painting production line, but at least I'm crossing things off.  Once I get into the Spearmen in earnest the wheels should roll along with nary a bump.

Yep, More Empire

The box of finished minis.  

Trucking right along with this new venture.  It's a nice change of pace to see finished models (except for the bases, but more on that later) pile up with relative quickness.  I didn't quite hit the goal I set last time as the wizard isn't finished (I barely touched him in fact), but the Spearmen and cannon are all done so I'll call that close enough for victory.  The Spearmen have yellow tassels on their spears which doesn't show up too well in the picture.  They did come out a bit dark as individuals, but I'm hoping that when I get a couple ranks together they'll have more pop.  I'm also not sold on the feathers.  Most of the studio models I've been looking at have a second color at the end, either red or black.  You can see that I skipped this step, but now the feathers look bland and I'm considering going back to give them some zazz.  Hopefully they'll get the same rank bonus that the tassels get, but if not adding that extra accent should be quick and painless.

Yet More Empire

The Halberdiers have been done for a day or two.  

My assembly line approach has skipped a beat.  After finishing the first block of 20 Halberdiers I took a break from infantry to do a cannon.  Then I started on more infantry, this time Spearmen, as I continued working on the cannon.  Today I messed the whole thing up by introducing a wizard.  According to the rotating infantry method, discussed here, the cannon should be finished (from the previous session), the first group of Spearmen should be done, and there should be a second group of something (likely more Spearmen) that had been basecoated and washed.  Instead I have what you see to the left: a finished cannon crew, a mostly finished cannon, some almost finished Spearmen, and an unwashed wizard.  To be fair there are only parts of the wizard, skin and metal, that should be washed as I'll be washing the blues after layering up a bit.  There are two shades of blue that don't really come through in the picture.  The cloak and cuffs are a dark blue, while the inner robes are a lighter grey blue.  The wizard's globe is an unknown at the moment.  I wouldn't mind a starry night crystal ball look but have no idea how I'd pull it off.  Fortunately the internet is awash with painted minis.  While the model is a Celestial wizard, I'm not locked in on a lore just yet.  Heavens does look interesting, but the choice of model was strictly based on what I had primed and ready to paint.  My options were a Light wizard (used as a painting guinea pig here, since stripped back to an incredibly resilient) and the one I picked.  The plan now is to finish everything pictured above next time and get another batch of Spearmen going or maybe do some horses.

Assemble the Empire

Can't hold a candle to De-loused in the Comatorium.  

Just so we're all clear, the title of this post was an excuse to link to the song of the same name by Sparta, the (subjectively) less talented and (objectively) less successful remnant of At the Drive-In (The Mars Volta being the more talented and successful part for those playing at home).

Also note that I wrote the bulk of this post about a week ago.  I indulged in a far too rare proofread so there shouldn't be any linguistic train wrecks, but in case any slipped past the second pass I blame time and monkeys.

Now we can proceed.

More Empire

Kinda dark.  It happens.  

I fought through a bout of standard malaise yesterday to get in some decent painting progress.  The remaining  (ready to paint) Halberdiers and their standard got the full treatment, while a cannon and crew started their own journey.  I'm debating changing up the reds and/or blues on the cannon.  On the one hand it'd be awfully boring, both to paint and to look at, if all the reds and blues are the same throughout the army.  The other hand says it'd be good to have a cohesive army, especially since the current idea is a professional, organized, homogeneous Altdorf army (with the possibility of a different scheme for the Greatswords and maybe a unit of knights).  I'll probably go with different shades throughout the army while staying uniform within each unit, but it's something to consider.

Building Blocks

Looks nice even if the bases are distracting.  

Despite the lack of updates I've made good progress over the past few days.  My first block of troops is done (except for basing and varnish), which gives me a nice visual treat to look at.  The unit came together quickly thanks to the reasons I mentioned last time, but also because of the approach I took to painting them.  My usual approach is to take a model or group from start to finish before taking up another set.  There's a natural pause in my painting when I (very generously) wash the whole model, which takes a while to dry.  Ideally I'll let the wash dry overnight, but often I take a short break instead so I can push on to the finish line.  This time I decided to embrace the overnight drying time by adding a second group of models.  When I sat down to finish off the first group of six after their wash, I also base coated another group of seven since I already had the colors out on my palette.  When I finished the first six I had also finished base coating the second seven, which I then washed and left to dry overnight.  The process repeated with another new group of seven with a final result of twenty newly (re)painted Halberdiers, which is the size I've tabbed for detachments.  Whether these brave mans of the Empire are complete as a detachment for a larger regiment or are the core of a central block of Halberdiers is still under debate.  Said debate is largely pointless as they can be both, if not at the same time, and I have plenty more bodies waiting to be assembled to fill out the ranks.  There's another three on the painting table now, along with a bannerman, and I put together four more a few days ago.  The three plus banner didn't make it to the wash stage because I wanted to take some extra time with the banner, but also because my brush was suffering from the extending painting time.  If I want to keep this new version of the assembly line I'll either need to rinse my brush, and re-thin my paints, more often or work on smaller groups.  If I stuck to a more standard group of ten I could have five being finished and another five being started, with less brush abuse and more room on the painting table.  Turns out working on fourteen models at once (on pill bottle lids) takes up a lot of real estate.  I'm thinking about rolling into Spearmen after I finish the straggling Halberdiers, though I may take up a cannon instead to break up the long line of infantry.  There's also the bits that didn't quite get finished for the Journeyman league that I should get done.

Something New(ish)

Two sessions worth, which is a couple hours.  

We're going way out of order, not that you'll notice the difference, but the iron is hot so I'm pounding it.  Halberdiers are the new hotness around here and I'm having a hard time with them.  Not in the usual manner where I don't want to paint them, can't figure up a scheme I like, or can't implement the scheme once I decide on it.  Instead the "hard time" revolves around trying to maintain a reasonable pace and not binge on painting gobs of the blighters.  Hopefully this way I can keep up the painting steam to plow through the models without overheating and ruining the boiler.  I have about 25 models assembled (more or less, details to come), primed, and in various stages of existing paint that are ready to go.  Starting yesterday I've finished 6 and have another 7 base coated and washed.  That's a very fast pace for me even taking my recent speed boost into consideration.

Journeyman Painting Log 14

I painted Sorscha, so it only seems fair to do Beast 09 too.  

Another day, another finished model.  Today we have Beast 09, a model that rivals Gorman for having the best reputation that I get the least work out of.  I can see where some of the hype comes from since Beast's imprint will let you absolutely murder any living model, Reach is a rare treat for Khador jacks, and Thresher isn't bad either (especially with Reach).  Free runs are nice, as is Hyper Aggressive, but when you strip out the neat shiny bits Beast is just a Juggernaut that costs an extra 4 points.  That's a bit simplistic but still true.  As for the actual model, I assembled it in this static and boring pose for ease of use.  There's nothing worse than having to accommodate multiple models that hang over their bases, as many PP models do, so I had Beast 09 pull his arms in tight to make room for victims.  I went with the studio scheme (more or less) since Beast 09 is a character jack with a reason for being white, and this way no one will mistake it for a regular Juggernaut.  As usual I spotted a missed spot while putting the picture together (knee rings), but considering I started and finished the whole thing today I'm happy with the results.  Not my best work, but not embarrassing either.  I'm targeting the Spriggan as a "take your time and do it right" piece, though I'm still not sure what I'll do with the shield.

Speaking of the Spriggan, I took advantage of a break in the recent humidity to spray a bunch of stuff.  The Spriggan and IFP got primed, the latter taking quite a while and almost a full can of paint as I gave each one the royal treatment (holding the model and rotating it to get all the nooks instead of lining them all up on a box top).  I also varnished the Drakhun, Yuri, and the Mechanics so they'll be ready to go for Wednesday.  Hopefully I can varnish Beast 09 in time for gaming as well.  I think I can crank out another finished model and field it, but I doubt I'll have time for more.  The cross hairs are on eEryiss for this as she's got a decent start, is only one model, and would be nice to get back into the fold.

Journeyman Painting Log 13

These slackers can finally get to work.  

Hot on the heels of yesterday's painting triumph comes an even bigger victory today.  Both the Mechanics and the Drakhun were already under way when I sat down to paint today, but the whole point of laying a foundation for future success is reaping that reward when the time comes.  The Mechanics were close to finished yesterday, so it didn't take much pushing to get them done.  This unit is particularly satisfying since they've only been a full unit for about a week.  When I got them way back when I only got four bases in the blister, so whenever I ran the full unit I would use some of my extra Sorschas as stand-ins because I never got around to digging out my extra bases.  When I pulled all the unpainted stuff out of my bag last week I rode that wave of good feelings straight to my modelling bag and got the other two based and ready to go.  Now the whole unit is together, painted, and with any luck will be varnished in time to make it to the table for the Journeyman league.

Journeyman Painting Log 12

Who loves pelts and handing out Treewalker?  Yuri does.  

After a reasonable break from painting I dove back in today.  The result was a finished Yuri and a (now max) unit of Mechanics approaching completion.  Yuri got bumped to the top of the queue because I figured he would be quick and easy to paint, which he was thanks to all the leather and furs.  I took some time with the fur cloak to add some different shading to the different pelts and still got him finished quickly.  I'll be glad to get him back on the table as well since for this final week of the Journeyman league we're stepping up to 75 pointers.  I've never played a game over 50, so it'll be interesting to have all that extra elbow room.  While I like the full Manhunter suite (Yuri and a pair of Manhunters), 7 points for three models is often too steep a price to pay.  With an extra 25 points to fill I'll have less reservations about shelling out for the fur crew.  Yuri is potent enough on his own, but he really earns his points when he has a posse to run with.  Treewalker lets me use some of my Legion tricks with Khador, and running a mini "unit" means I can put a credible threat on a flank instead of a lone Manhunter looking to tie up an arc node or draw attention away from my main force.  Maybe Yuri will even manage to survive a game for once.

Construction Ahead

Welcome to Khador.  Have a lance and shield.  

The painting mojo didn't make an appearance today.  Taking its place was the elusive building mojo.  This is a rare beast, so I like to lasso it whenever it appears and ride it for all its worth.  Today it was worth a Spriggan and, at long last, the completion of the Iron Fangs.  I've gone on about IFP previously, and Black Dragons in particular, but I'll take a bit of space here to dig into the Spriggan a bit.  Much as many proud sons and daughters of the Motherland might wish otherwise, Khador is primarily a single jack faction.  There's no real jack support beyond the Koldun Lord, which is dubious "support" when compared with the options available to the other factions, and the majority of casters don't do anything past handing out Focus (which they'd rather keep) and maybe Boundless Charge.  Khadoran jacks aren't really compelling on their own, especially when compared to Khadoran infantry and the support available for the footmans.  You're more or less locked into taking a jack (if only to use the bonus points), so it makes sense to make your one jack a good choice.  The Spriggan is that good choice.  It's the only non-character jack with Reach (not counting Conquest, which is a fine choice as the lone jack but not yet available to me), has Bulldoze, is ARM 21 (via a shield, so it could go down to 19), has Powerful Charge, sports a pair of grenade launchers, and can fire off a flare to counter Stealth.  At 10 points it's the most expensive non-character jack in the faction, and on the expensive end for non-character warnouns in Warmahordes overall, but it's has so many tools that you can get value out of it on every turn (outside the running turn) and in all situations.  Last night I encountered Satyxis Raiders with Occultation, which is a real pain to deal with.  I ended up sending Sorscha way too far forward to get in range to (try to) Freezing Grip them, which led to a messy death for her.  If I had a Spriggan I could have fired off a flare to reveal a Raider so I could have targeted them from a more reasonable range.  Plus it looks awesome and has two big open spaces (forehead and shield) that are just begging for a nice 5th Border Legion icon and something else.  There are already a ton of Khadoran anvils on the model and I don't want to double up on 5th Border Legion so I'll have to consider what to do with all that prime real estate.

Something Other Than Finished Painting

Everything in my bag that isn't painted.  

Still about painting, just not finished minis.  After the informal listing of unpainted minis in my last post I decided to dig out the models and get a look at them as a group.  The results were better than expected and pictured to the left.  It's worth noting that this is only what was in my bag (except the mortar) so it doesn't include what was on the painting table at the time (eEryiss, Beast 09, eButcher) nor does it include the stuff that isn't completely built yet (the other two mechanics, IFP, all the horsemans, Spriggan, Conquest).  Despite those caveats, I'm basically down to three units (Great Bears, Mechanics, Mortar [which still needs the telescope]), three large bases (Drago, Drakhun, Beast 09), two medium bases (dismounted Drakhun, eButch), and two small bases (Yuri, eEryiss).  This is not much to finish and while it's not reasonable to think I can get them all done (and played) before the Journeyman league ends next Sunday (maybe Saturday) it's more reasonable to think that I could get all that painted by the end of the year.

Journeyman Painting Log 11

My MoW unit collection is now complete.  

My most recent painting success, the Demo Corps, were a rude awakening.  Speedy success with solos/pairs gave me a false sense of security.  After a marathon session today to finish the Demo Corps my illusions have been shattered.  I had expected to get this unit done quickly since they're mostly green armor, but I was unwilling to skip large amounts of detail this time around and my lap times suffered as a result.  To be fair this was a medium based unit, as opposed to a handful of small base solos, and I did the vast majority of the work in a single day.  Cranking out this many large(ish) models in that time frame is still a fine result, and the Demo Corps look better than the Eliminators.  I wanted to do a blend/glow thing on the ice mauls but had run out of steam well before I got to them so they just got the electric blue treatment for now.  Resizing this pic also showed me that I forgot the rivets on the gloves.  I took three shots of the group, which is the standard approach, but none of them showed the face inside the leader's helmet.  I kinda like the headless horseman vibe in the picture though.

Journeyman Painting Log 10

The first redhead I've painted in too long.  

Normally I'd have some sort of "I'm surprised at how much I painted today" thing to kick this post off, but considering how fast I've been cranking the models out it's not a surprise anymore.  Quality is definitely slipping, as I'll cover when relevant below, but it's hard to argue with the pace.  The Eliminators are a fine case study of how my painting is going now.  My big problem with the pair is in the scheme, and the torso in particular.  There's too much green together, though to be fair there are leather belts that don't show up well in the picture.  Black or grey pants, like on the Assassins, would have broken up the green expanse.  The good news here is that the plan has always been to add another unit or two, up to whatever the FA is, so I'll have different schemes already in mind when I finally pull the trigger.

Journeyman Painting Log 9

Taste my green ice cream!  

Four whole days since the last painting update?  Looks like I'm slacking off.  Today I finished up Zerkova and eVlad.  One is a terror on the tabletop and the other has the face of a horse.  I'll leave it up to you to decide which is which.  Looking at the picture on the left as I'm writing, there's little I like about the Zerkova model.  The pose is confused with the running and the ice cream, the sword is too thin (and therefore bends easily), the running-induced crouch plus all the swirling cloaks means much of the body is obscured.  Maybe it was the particular cast I got, but the detail seemed shallower than usual.  Then there's the face, which we won't mention again.  In retrospect I should have made the trim on the cloak a little darker, like the other Greylords, so it doesn't blend in as much.  She's also a bit googly-eyed, though that does seem appropriate when considered with all the context.

Journeyman Painting Log 8

Ladies first.

Lazy or efficient?  That's the dilemma I have with my painting over the last week or two.  On the one hand I'm cranking out finished minis at a record pace while maintaining a reasonable quality of work.  On the other hand I feel like I'm cheating by leaning on washes as much as I am instead of my usual, laborious process of too many layers.  This is a non-issue, beyond what I'm making of it, as the models look as good as, if not better than, what I've been doing and in far less time.  It's a bit dirtier and not as sharp as, say, the marines I do, but the time investment is in hours instead of days.  That seems like a good trade.  Of course the day that I'm truly satisfied with anything I do is the day we all get splattered by a gigantic comet/Godzilla/Cthulhu, so it's in everyone's best interests that I keep finding nits to pick.

Journeyman Painting Log 7

Two shot magic sniper is tasty.  

More quick work at the painting table today.  Employing the new double wash approach from last time I knocked out Kell Bailoch and Harlan Versh today.  Both feature the same sort of gigantic coat that Reinholdt wears (Kell is little more than the coat). so I made good time with minimal exertion while still painting to a reasonable standard.  Kell's sculpt gets knocked for being tiny like the Black 13th, but I haven't heard any complaints about how ugly it is.  90% of the model is coat and the face is disappointing.  I didn't want to do the coat in 5th Border Legion green since he's a mercenary so I did the pants in green instead.  Hindsight tells me I should have done the hat in green because it will thrust itself forward, unlike the pants which hide in the all-consuming coat.  The stock of the gun would be better with some wood grain too, but I'm happy with the result overall.

Journeyman Painting Log 6

An unpainted Reinholdt circa December 2011.

I'll get to the actual painting in a minute.  Quite a while ago I upped the storage for my little blog here, shelling out actual money for your virtual entertainment.  I've always thought that if I dug into the Picasa album that serves as the image host for Blogger and cleared out all the pics I uploaded but decided against, multiple copies when the upload went wonky (which happens far too often), and resized all the old pictures I could probably fit everything in the standard amount of storage.  Just now I've been digging around in that Picasa album looking for pictures of my recently painted models.  I don't think I'll be clearing the underbrush any time soon.  The amount of pictures up there is staggering.  Considering how many are for battle reports, and therefore are identical except for small details, the huge amount of work I was expecting looks like it'll be less the size of the moon and more the size of the universe.  None of this matters to you the reader, but sometimes it's nice to see behind the curtain.  On with the show.

Journeyman Painting Log 5

Ready to stab some folks in the face.

The final leg took longer than expected, as usual, but the Kayazy are now finished.  Once I abandoned the idea of having them simultaneously stand out from and conform with the rest of the army things progressed at a pleasing rate.  There were a couple painting sessions between now and the last update, but somehow they didn't seem significant enough to warrant a post or didn't fit in with an existing post (read: battle report).  It's appropriate for assassins that they should be slinking along in the shadows, their progress unnoticed, then spring forth prepared to do violence.

Journeyman 2013 Battle Report: Terror!

Different terror, but worth your time.

Painting for this year's Journeyman league has been underway for about a month now, but this week dice joined brushes and the battles began.  Since I'm still easing back into Khador, and Warmahordes in general, so the Journeyman league is a good opportunity to paint some of the many stragglers and get back in the Khadoran groove.  At the FLGS Thursday night (Warmahordes night) I heard the call for a Journeyman game, and with the need for practice in the back of my mind I snapped up the gauntlet.  Scant moments later I realized what I had gotten myself into, namely a game with Chris (pg_verlos) and his notoriously hot dice.  It would really be more accurate to say he has a notoriously hot dice rolling hand as his powers function regardless of what dice he's using.  When you add in that he's a very good player you know that you're facing a tough fight when you see him across the table.

Journeyman Painting Log...4?

Hammered by the ugly stick.  

Let's just call this #4 since there have been a couple updates and no numbers.  I put in a bit of work on the Kayazy yesterday and got the flesh done.  Having spent even more time with the models now I stand by my "not as bad as their reputation" assessment from last time, with one notable exception on the left.  I have three of this pose which is unfortunate as it's by far the worst of the bunch.  The face looks like it started off decent only to have the mold warp a couple times before casting my particular batch of minis.  It's a lot like this picture of Eddie Izzard, minus the beard.  The gaping mouth, the strong but dislocated jaw, the sneer or impending sneeze, it really is an uncanny likeness.  I also picked a direction on the pants: grey with black boots.  This is a cop out as it just mimics the studio scheme and doesn't really stand out from the rest of the army or convey the whole flashy gangster thing, but it does stick to my established palette.  More importantly it takes out the barrier to progress I had put up.  While grey pants may not be the best option as a color they are the best option in that I can stop thinking about which color to pick and get on with the painting.  I had wanted to get some more painting in today before heading to Hockey in July, but the Warmachine Tactics Kickstarter took longer to go live than I'd hoped.  Once it was up there was far more content than I expected though, so I guess it all evens out.  Between the little ginger Swan and Darth Warcaster it's getting harder and harder to say no to Cygnar...

ETL Done, Journeyman Begun

All done.  Except for static grass, varnish, squad markings...

After a bit of a forced painting march my ETL vow is complete.  I stalled out for a while in the second half, but I rallied with a month and change to go which is a much better showing than I had for the LPC.  My finish wasn't especially strong on this squad.  I missed models multiple times while going along the assembly line, though I did mostly go back to finish the models off, and the overall quality of the squad isn't quite as high as the Dark Vengeance squad, but it's still fine quality and well above a tabletop standard (as defined by my Legion on the high end and my Axis on the very low borderline).  I'd like to put in a second vow but will wait and see how far beat down I am by the Journeyman painting grind before committing.

Painting Delay Over

After far too long of a delay I got back to painting today.  Some good progress on the Dark Angels, but not quite at the finish line.  The reds are finished, while the bone/white/flesh bits and rocks on bases need a final highlight (and wash where appropriate). Silvers need finishing off and non-silvers have yet to begin.  Leathers are also starting from scratch, and then there's whatever details have slipped through the cracks.  Despite a relatively long list of things to do the squad is almost finished and should be off my painting list after the next painting session, which will be this weekend.  My ETL vow will be finished with the squad, which will free me up to dive into Journeyman painting.  Or to tack on another vow that I may already have (almost) ready to go.  Or both if I'm feeling particularly saucy.

Kayazy.  And Gormann.  And brush cleaner.  And Legion bits.

Speaking of the Journeyman league, games start on Monday with a Highlander tournament next Saturday.  With the IFP still waiting for a second strip and reassembly I'll be starting with the Kayazy Assassins.  The models aren't anything special but they've been primed for far too long. Plus I'll have to paint them if I want to use them in Journeyman games (which I do).  Conquest is still the big item on the list but considering that I haven't done anything past washing the pieces it's going to take a special effort.  I say this with the Journeyman league not yet officially begun, staring down six weeks and change of time to get it assembled, painted, and on the table, but I'm being realistic about my chances.  I've never assembled anything like a colossal before and want to do it right.  These two factors combined mean an extended construction period to come.  Painting the monster will be no small task once I've built it.  All of this will have to slot in between frantically painting other things (like full units of infantry), not to mention life in general.  Is this a workable task?  Absolutely.  Is it an automatic success?  Not at all.  I've had a lot of fun with Conquest while proxying it a couple months ago and it's a large factor in my return to the Motherland for the Journeyman this year so there's plenty of drive to get it done, but nearly a year of inertia takes some pushing to overcome.

Third Time is the Charm

Ready to drop some ice bombs.

I've started painting more Sorschas than any reasonable person should.  Now I can finally strike that far too outstanding item from my painting list.  Some of the fine detail didn't come out too hot, though I'll lay at least part of that on the sculpt (the plastic version from the starter box), and Sorscha came out a bit googly eyed, but I'm pleased with the results overall and more so when considering the modest amount of time invested.  I split time with painting styles this time.  The armor is much like what I've been doing with my Dark Angels, which is to say mostly edge highlights.  The cloak is pure layering and came out particularly well.  Edge highlighting is, of course, just a (limited) type of layering, so the following notion is a bit silly, but it's nice to have different approaches for different textures.  Armor has lots of sharp lines, so the starker edge highlighting works, whereas the cloak is all one flowing piece with no edges to brighten but plenty of ripples to layer up.  Options are nice.

In other news, the IFP are well down the stripping path.  The Simple Green took the vast majority of the paint off quite easily.  Now I'm gearing up for a second bath, this time with acetone as suggested by my local PG.  My original plan was to leave the IFP assembled and simply strip the paint, but a number of them collapsed in the Simple Green and more followed suit while brushing the paint off, so now there's no good reason not to go all the way with it.

So Soon? More Painting

The big hammer makes pics awkward.

Break out the rose-tinted glasses for a minute.  Remember those halcyon days gone by (Friday) when I waxed lyrical about finishing one project (ETL) before starting another one (Journeyman)?  Those were good days.  Or day.  Ah, memories.

I was full to the brim with good intentions today.  Bolter casings and purity seals, that was the plan.  Of course when I sat down to get started things didn't work out that way.  I blame the weather mostly.  It was raining this morning so I figured the Nats' game this afternoon would at least be delayed, but when I sat down to paint the rain had stopped and the sun was playing peek-a-boo with some clouds.  I didn't want to get halfway through the squad and then stop for baseball, so instead I grabbed (yet another) Sorscha and figured I'd lay down some base coats.  One thing led to another and I almost finished my first Khadoran Ice Princess.  With the big red cloak I had to tweak the usual 5th Border Legion scheme which would usually call for red on the boot armor, loin cloth, bracers, and maybe some other bits as well.  There's already a ton of red though, so I scaled it back a bit.  Another half hour or so would have seen her finished, but alas dinner was bearing down on me like a large thing that moves fast so Sorscha will just have to wait.  Since Sorscha, albeit a different one, was the first Warmachine model I (started) painting when I got into the game a couple years ago I think she'll be fine with waiting another day or two to finally have a completed version.

Back To Painting

One step, but one very large step.

The gap between today and my last painting session is shameful, so we won't dwell on it.  Today I tackled the big hurdle in the second half of my (first) ETL vow: first armor highlights.  This is the single biggest area of controlled painting for the so-called Greenwing Dark Angels.  Base coating (as an aside, I need to either find a standard or invent one for base coat [basecoat] as I want to make it one word but grammar checkers complain when I do) is quick and easy since I don't have to be neat with it.  Since I switched to shading by targeted wash I don't have to re-establish the base coat anymore which was previously the biggest hurdle.  The second armor highlights are tiny edge highlights.  All other colors cover much less area and thus don't take as long.

Something a Little Different

Ready to burninate the countryside.

To celebrate finishing off my first Dark Angels squad, and to cross an item off my to-do list that had been there far too long, I dug into an IKRPG miniature.  I have grand plans for a whole suite of minis, but one must be first, so I began with the only mini out of the bunch that required no converting.  (More are theoretically in the works, but conversion has yet to begin despite having bits in hand for a while now.) 

I indulged in a number of old and new favorites here, mostly the new dark red and a BA purity seal sort of bright green.  Since my character is (partly) Khadoran it seemed appropriate to paint her in the same manner as my WM Khador, namely red and green.  There are, as always, little complaints.  The hair is a bit too light, more grey than black.  The lacing up the front of the dress could be crisper.  The left eye is a bit wonky.  I wonder if I went too far down the limited color palette road.  How many models can I really do in red and green?  I wanted to do an illuminated letter in the book, but went with just Micron squiggles.  The cobblestones have more shading differences.

First of the First

One squad down, many more to go.

More painting action today, this time with a happy ending.  I'm calling the first Dark Vengeance squad done in spite of the myriad teeny details that scream to me for satisfaction.  The most valuable painting lesson I've learned over the last year or two is that eventually you have to put down the brush whether you're 100% satisfied or not.  (Whatever lesson applies to sticking by your resolution to not start a post by running down your own work is still one that I'm trying to learn apparently.)

A Personal Painting Triumph

Look at those glorious, dark(ish) reds.

Sunday was supposed to be a painting day, but that didn't work out so well.  Turns out letting those painting juices marinate an extra couple of days meant I finally sunk a harpoon into my painting white whale, the ever elusive darker red.  I always knew it was possible, had an approach tucked into my back pocket in case the opportunity arose, but until this afternoon I never quite managed to do red in anything other than my usual bright(ish) hue.  With a supreme effort I kept the Bloody Red on the sidelines, only calling its number for the final edge highlight.  If I feel triumphant in finally conquering this seemingly easy to produce feat it's only because I am.  Ding dong and whatnot.

WIP Dark Angels, RIP Uncharted Seas

Green and mean.

 More painting today.  The focus was armor and the bounty was (relatively) great: a squad worth of green finished.  Previously I was unhappy with how the armor was going, but something clicked this morning and gave me a new perspective.  The work I had done before looked odd because it was incomplete.  With highlighting, and armor, finished the squad looks much better.  It was a rude welcome back to the world of painting for quality instead of speed, but after blitzing through Dust models for the past while it is satisfying to do work that is satisfying instead of sufficient.  The plan is to do the do the metals and/or reds on Sunday.  If I can get both done the squad will hopefully need only one more session to finish and I'll be halfway through my first EPL pledge.

Mostly a Place Holder

The vengeance, it is dark.

I may come back to flesh this into a fuller post in the future (probably not).  Mostly I need a place to link pictures from.  I've jumped into the E Tenebrae Lux (ETL) painting challenge at the Bolter and Chainsword as a goad towards getting my Dark Angels painted.  I'm starting small with two Tactical squads, one each of Dark Vengeance and Assault on Black Reach flavors.

Unpainted these many years, but on the road to completion.

These are just starting point shots.  I actually got more work done on these today, mostly base coating the AoBR squad green and taking a second swing at shading down (which is an awkward phrase at best, but nothing better has come to me just yet).  This time around I tried a wash (Army Painter Dark Tone, aka Badab Black) instead of a full-on paint.  The time invested vs results gained ratio is still too lean for my tastes, but it looks decent enough and doesn't take as long as layering 95% of the model to leave those black cracks intact.  I'll save discussion of work done today for when I have pictures of it, so for now use your imagination, then scale it back a few steps so you aren't disappointed when you see how they've turned out.

A Long Expected (Partial) Assembly

Finally on the road to the table.

Prompted in large part by a flurry of texts with EV last night, today saw the nigh-total construction of my long neglected Stormraven.  The impetus for this assembling was the dread Heldrake and attempting to find an answer for them that doesn't involve buying my own flyer or a large batch of Tau that I have no real interest in outside of killing flyers. While I think the Stormraven will do a reasonable job of fending off the dragons, I don't really like it as a solution for my Dark Angels mostly because it requires allying in Blood Angels and getting away from my plan for 6th edition (build some Dark Angels). Despite these misgivings I'm glad to get the Stormraven on the path to completion.  The red marines are getting a rest for a while, but that doesn't mean they have stopped occupying the place closest to my (40k) heart.  I'm the only person who likes the look of the model and I love the idea of a flying gunship/transport that gives unique flavor to the Blood Angels any random chapter can now field (except for Dark Angels of course).  Why all marines get the Blood Angels' special toy while the BAs can't field a Stormtalon is beyond me, but I'm sure there's some well thought out reasoning behind it.

Of course I can't just take the Stormraven, it has to have a minimum posse of a BA HQ and a Troops choice.  My initial thought was to load up on Death Company, plus a DC Dreadnaught, and top it off with a Chaplain.  Turns out that's really expensive, so now I'm considering something that is probably just as expensive: Dante and Sanguinary Guard.  The SGs got a bump this edition thanks to the nerfing of power weapons (their 2+ actually means something now), though their weaponry still leaves much to be desired.  Whatever route I end up on it'll be something with melee punch as I've had issues getting swamped in combat lately. 

In other news, don't let the long pause between posts let you think I haven't been doing other things.  I finally assembled the remaining parts of the pair of AoBR Tacticals, plus basing and priming.  I'll need to find a pair of missile launcher marines to join my BA Devastators now that the aforementioned Tacticals will be filling their primary roles, not to mention building a whole squad of Devs for my Dark Angels, but at least now I won't have Devs with Tactical markings.  While poking around at the Bolter & Chainsword I found a painting challenge that started a couple days ago and runs through the middle of August, which sounds like a great time frame to get some stuff finished.  I've noticed a large drop off in painting recently, aside from the speed painting that is Dust, and I wonder if it isn't related to the loss (to me at least) of Lost Hemisphere's Paint the Target (which may still be running in spite of the demise of the site).  I'll lurk along through the various B&C threads for a bit before making my move, but considering the personal success that was the LPC it's all but certain that I'll be throwing in my hat for this new (to me) challenge.