I Should Really Post More

My posting volume has gone way down lately.  To remedy this, at least in part, here's a list of stuff (other than posting) that I've been up to lately:

• Got a bad start on painting some Axis Soldier 3 units.   More on this later when they're painted up.
• Officially wrapped up the escalation/intro Dust league at Huzzah.  My spoils for victory?  The Axis heroes box.
• Won the first Dust tournament, also at Huzzah, with another epic showdown for supremacy with EV.  This match was better than our last, but still not entirely satisfying.  I haven't figured out what the spoils for this victory will be just yet, but I'm leaning towards the Axis heavy walker or waiting until the new zombies start coming out.
• Finally read the Dreadball book.  As a follow up, I opened one sack of components and started cleaning some models.  Dust has spoiled me with their already assembled and primed offerings.  The plan now is to paint them Right, taking time and doing details.  All the stuff I've gotten away from recently.  The problem there is that if I want to pimp the game around to draw in suckers players then I need to have a set ready to go, but if I paint them Right then they won't be ready to go until sometime in Q4 2015. 
• Collected the Gargossal I won in the Journeyman league last year.  I went with the Conquest.  Construction has yet to begin.
• Played a game of X-Wing with EV.  My spatial reasoning/anticipation leaves a lot to be desired.  
• The big culprit has been books.  Over the last month or so I've read the 10 Black Company books (all in a row, which is unusual for me) along with the final Wheel of Time book.  I've been knee deep in WoT for better than half my life and it's beyond odd to know that the series is wrapped up.
• I've stepped up to and backed (slightly) away from the Dark Angels cliff.  I got a lot of gaming gift certificates for Christmas and have been pondering using them, at least in part, on some DAs.  I still want to do a Terminator army and hope that Deathwing might do it more to my taste than Grey Knights, and I've wanted to do a biker heavy army for a while so why not do them both at once?  There are a couple problems with this idea, but I'll stick to two for now.  First is that I haven't actually played 40k in a while.  EV and I have pivoted to Dust of late and I don't know that I want to wade into looking for 40k games at a store.  Second is, unsurprisingly, money.  Since I don't have the 6th edition book yet I'd be looking at ~$140 between the starter box and the DA codex.  That's a higher hurdle than I want to jump to scratch a collecting/painting itch, especially considering how much my painting output has dropped.  I got burned by GKs not being what I wanted them to be, so I'll try the longer approach to DAs.  That said, the 6th edition box is still on the short list.
• Hockey also returned after a long absence.

 Why not add on some goals for this year while I'm at it?  On the painting front I want to do all the Axis, Conquest, a Dreadball team or three, all the Khador infantry, all the Legion beasts, and at least some of the remaining bits of both those factions.  Construction-wise I want to get the Stormraven together in particular and assemble all the stuff that's been hiding in boxes for far too long.  And get back to posting more as well.  Can't hurt to aim high, right?

Paint ALL the Models

Not a bad result for a day spent painting.

Let's be honest from the start: the subject line is a bit of an exaggeration.  But only a bit. 

I've been tiptoeing around painting my Axis for a while, spending plenty of time considering my approach, working on a test model here and there, but by no means making use of the time saving techniques I've theoretically been honing.  Today that finally changed.  After a bit of inspired late night gluing in Friday's wee hours I jumped in with both feet, slathering paint on anything within reach.  That tally is as such:

• Kommandotrupp with optional radioman
• Snipers
• Battle Grenadiers with extra Panzershreck
• Sturmpionere with optional radioman
• Two squads of zombies, still in progress
• Some dabbling with the test Hans (not pictured)

With the newly painted soldier 2 units it should be less of a struggle to figure out what models go in which squad (or how many Panzerfausts go in each squad).  I'll also be able to field at least some painted models, which will be a nice change of pace.  I've been spoiled by my past Journeyman efforts that let me take most any Legion model I have assembled while fielding only painted models.  The good news is that painting went about as quick as expected, so once I clear the final remaining hurdle of how to tackle the soldier 3 units then things should wrap up in short order.  The walkers will need a little extra attention, but they'd get that anyway since they're so big.  Now I just have to hope that the weather on Monday allows for varnishing.

Further Adventures in Painting Dust

Today's entry comes from the making lemonade file.  My weekly game with EV was pushed back from Tuesday to Friday to accommodate the new year.  Then the dastardly forces of Real Life converged to make our available window too small to game in.  Instead of moping about I forged on with hobby-related activities, namely getting stuff painted.

Step one: tape it up.

Since my previous experiment painting Axis infantry, I've managed to get exactly nothing finished.  Or started for that matter.  While I'm happy with the planned approach to painting Soldier 2 infantry, Soldier 3 is a hurdle yet to be cleared (what to do about all the armor), and there's also the small matter of walkers that need to be painted.  (As a side note, last week I took a hair dryer to my various bits of plastic and got them all as straight as they're going to get, so I'm running low on excuses to dodge painting.)  I'd picked up some painters tape a while back to try an idea for doing walkers, and today the weather warmed up enough that I felt comfortable giving it a shot.  I've pulled inspiration from the Cerberus camo found here.  The first step was simple: mask off spots that would end up the darkest.  Since the models come "pre-primed," and since I'd incorporated that "primer" into the Soldier 2 scheme, the stock grey forms the darkest, bottom layer of paint.  After taping I took a can of light grey spray to the entire model.