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.