Nova Open: this is costing me how much?

Wish I'd gone when it was in my backyard... 

Lots of considering the Nova Open today.  It didn't take a lot of convincing to swallow the $60 price tag for the weekend (35 for the con itself, 25 for the Warmahordes component) as it covers up to 7 non-overlapping tournaments, plus open gaming (with prizes!) in the form of the Iron Arena, plus free loot via a swag bag.  Not much convincing at all.

Now that I'm looking at lodging and associated costs, the outlook is less rosy.

Been a while

Long time, no post.  There hasn't been much painting going on, which means no pictures waiting to be posted, which means no words to go with the pictures to make posts out of.  Things are cyclical and this is a down cycle.

Painting on the go, living the dream

Bad lighting?  No problem. 

This past Thursday we had a painting night at the FLGS.  While the participation rate was dramatically less than I anticipated that didn't stop me from getting some good work in.  You may recall eLylyth in a basic state from a while back.  Fast-forward to now and she's (probably) done after a rather casual night of painting.  I'm not entirely happy with the bow, and the armor as a whole could use a highlight to knock some of the blue down, but I'm pleased for two reasons.  1 - another model (close enough to) done.  2 - painting time was low and the results are still decent.  Considering I did all the actual work (anything after the initial basecoat and wash) at the FLGS with new/sub-prime lighting in a not entirely comfortable position while engaging in the usual gaming night gabbery, I think the results are fairly remarkable.

Revenge of Tournament Mode

The right way to prepare for a tournament. 

I keep my eyes open for tournaments in the DMV, and this weekend was full of them.  On Sunday Games & Stuff (which I'll get to one of these days) had a tournament going and on Saturday my local group was trying to put together an end of Olgunholt tournament.  Unfortunately that fell through because of the other tournament going on Saturday, a 50 point Steam Roller down at Game Vault, which was already on the calendar for a number of the locals.  We ended up sending five people down south to take the fight to Fredericksburg, the first expedition of the still coalescing Nova Nomads (of which more will undoubtedly be written later, when there's more to write about).  I met up with Danny, Hawk, and Ron in Falls Church, where we all piled in Hawk's car.  After a quick drive down and a stop at Sonic, we got to Game Vault and saw our fifth local, Austin, making his way in.  There were 15 players when we got started, so the TO filled in to even up the numbers.  Fortunately there was another willing organizer who took over the administrative duties (also the same guy whose Skorne I played at Dream Wizards about a month ago, but whose name I still can't manage to hang onto.  Third time is the charm).  I'd played a handful of games over the past week to reacquaint myself with Legion and fielded the following:

Return to painting Legion

Wonder twin powers activate! 

I've had my Shepherds on the painting table for a couple months now.  Since I'll be playing Legion this weekend I needed to resolve that situation.  With painting time at a premium this week, I girded my painting loins and got to work today.  They were mostly done already, just waiting for me to figure out how to paint Legion infantry.  The method I employed?  Get it painted.  Continuing my painting regression, I'm now aiming for "looks nice as a group on the table," which is an easy standard to hit.  This is a bit of an evolution of my outlook on the relation between gaming and painting.  Typically I paint each model as well as I can, or at least to a standard that each one looks good(ish) when viewed up close.  While this produces an army that looks good both together and individually, it does so very slowly.  Until recently I've looked down my nose at people who seemingly slather the paint on as fast as possible across all their models.  Surely they're missing the point by neglecting one of the pillars of wargaming.

Shock Troopers finished, a small measure of redemption, Super Dungeon Explored

Waiting for an opportunity.  And varnish.  Mostly varnish. 

Details took longer than expected, as they always do, but I still got the Shock Troopers finished on schedule.  In retrospect I should have had a Bombardier handy to make sure my treatment of Man-o-War armor remained consistent as the Shock Troopers seem darker than the Bombardiers.  I guess I can call it diversity.  With the Shock Troopers complete I'm well above 50% painted (for Khador), which is very nice.  Once I get the Demo Corps done I'll be able to field a fully painted pButcher tier 4 list, which is always satisfying.

Shock Troopers WIP #2

Closing in on the finish. 

More painting today, lots and lots of green and red.  Once again the time invested in the red was too much for the (visible) results.  I have a real problem in highlight red too subtly.  There's a layer or three of highlights there, but you'll be hard pressed to find them.  All I have left to do is blacks, metals, basing, and any details/touchups that pop up along the way.  That short(ish) list should only take one more painting session which will hopefully occur this week, and even more hopefully give me enough time to get those straggling Shepherds finished in case I go Legion for the tournament next weekend.  Assuming there's no hockey that day of course.

Shock Troopers WIP #1, Tournament Musings

Preparing to take some objectives.

This month's Paint the Target is for a unit and while it's tempting to run with a thrown-away line Gdaybloke dropped on the post and do my second Mortar team, instead I'll take this opportunity to finally paint up some Shock Troopers.  I've been wanting to paint these models for a while, but always managed to talk myself out of it.  This time around it's no different, as the Shock Troopers have featured prominently in my list building of late, but I'm not letting that stop me.  I can always proxy them for the next week or two and I could (if things go well) get them done by Thursday and not miss any table time, but even at the worst I'll have them done by the 19th.  Why the 19th?  More on that in a minute.  Today I was focused on getting base coats and the preliminary wash done.  I managed that feat, though it was far more painful than anticipated.  Turns out painting a full unit of medium bases takes a lot longer than doing a single small based model.  Everything that needed a wash got that far, which is everything except what will end up black.  Next time I'll be satisfied if I get the green done, and after that it will be another session or two to finish.  It'll take some work, but I think I can get them done next week.

Orin Midwinter, Olgunholt Week 2

Ready to persecute your spell casters.

This is a quick one before hockey starts up.  Keeping up the mojo from the Manhunter, I painted up Orin Midwinter today.  Keeping a limited palette meant he was quick to finish, while still keeping an acceptable quality.  I think I may be getting the hang of painting at a decent speed with decent results.  Orin was another 3ish hours with a couple of breaks for drying and the like.  Over the weekend I diagnosed part of my recent struggles to playing with unprimed, and in some cases not fully assembled, models, so I based up a batch of silver troops last night and primed them this morning.  Orin got the nod towards the table mostly because I wanted to paint his robe.  I'm not sure his arc markings are accurate, despite using the same template I always use, and I had no idea what the thing on his chest is supposed to be so I just fudged it with some red and bronze.  The white/cream/bone/whatever parts were a bit of a test run for the upcoming Menites, mostly via a Bleached Bone base and a Gryphonne Sepia wash.  The results were encouraging, though not quite as white as hoped for.  Perhaps next time I'll use a white base instead of bone.

Olgunholt this week was ugly.  Ugly ugly ugly.  I went 0-3.  The highlights included Killboxing myself, getting Beast 09 thrown on top of eSorscha, and moving my War Dog off an objective via Counter-Charge/Return to give my opponent an uncontested scenario win.  Not my proudest moments.  Unsurprisingly there are no pictures.  This week I plan to put up a fight, play for scenario instead of caster kill, and (most importantly) not Killbox myself.

The Most Dangerous Prey

I've been on a combined losing/apathy streak lately, as witnessed by the browser window that's been open (unloved) for hours that I'm just now typing in.  The course of action I decided on earlier today is to get back to basics: play conservatively, increase blog frequency, paint more.  The former is a work in progress (that has yet to begin, but I haven't played any Warmahordes today) that may get a post at some point (don't hold your breath), the latter got going today, and the we're both in the middle now. 

Sorry (again) for fuzzy pictures.

 Instead of banging my head against the Legion infantry scheme wall once again, this morning I resolved to at least make a good dent in something Khadoran.  I wanted to go chronological and finish something that's been waiting for the brush for too long, but the main options there (MoW Kovnik, pSorscha) weren't getting the juices flowing.  Instead I went with my dominant instinct: Manhunter.  Since I'd already painted a Manhuntress the scheme wouldn't require any consideration.  I often think of painting minis at doing a 3d paint-by-numbers, and in this case it was truer than usual.  This time around I took a different approach, one that I always mean to use but never do.  Base coats were followed by washes, then a reapplication of base colors on lighted surfaces, then a highlight or two.  The results were more or less what I hoped for, that being a decent model that will look good on the table and didn't take too long to finish.  Time investment was about 3.5 hours including 30-45 minutes of drying time for the wash and the base.  Taking a model from start to finish in a single session is still a novelty, but I don't see why it can't become the standard with some (more) practice.