A small victory...

Last weekend we had a small Warmachine tournament at the local game store. Not having played for a while, I thought I'd try something simple. I wanted to play every painted model I had. This got me to about 550 or so of the 750 points I needed. Secondly I thought I'd dust off Sorscha again. She's painted, plus many players consider her to be one of the best tournament warcasters. How could I lose?

Well, it turns out the way to lose is to forget the huge armour boost a warcaster gets from unspent Focus points. Especially the Harbinger. I had the chance to remove all her focus on the "kill" turn, but wasted my chance, meaning that I ended up attacking an Armour 24 target, rather than an Armour 14 one. Makes a big difference. It also lost me the game, and as a result the tournament. Oh well, we live and learn. I still got a $20 credit, which I'll put towards some more P3 paints, or my Lions of Alahan army, whichever arrives first at the store.

So the lessons learnt? If you're going to assassinate the enemy's leader, make sure you've got all the tools to do the job. Secondly, get more paint on your figures. Two fully painted armies going toe to toe elevates the game to a new level. Seriously.

Widowmakers - unseen death...

Just a picture update - my Widowmakers now finished. Vow completed for the month.

Man Hunter. Hunts. Men.

I've just finished my Man Hunter, and I think he's turned out fairly well. One of the troubles I had with him is that he really cries out to be done in natural colours, and so I was looking for a selection of browns that would work well together, and yet stil somehow tie into my red / grey Khador scheme.


In the end the axes got the red treatment, as nowhere else seemed to fit.



This figure, along with my Widowmakers make up my vow for painting this month. I'm hopeful that I'll get even more done than I pledged, but we'll have to wait and see.

Alternate histories are fun...

Darkson Designs are holding an interesting "preview" event for the duration of Gen Con SoCal. They're previewing minatures from the new game and minatures range : AE-WWII, which is an alternate history based around WWII. They're offering people a chance to buy some of the figures from thgis range before their official release - not just at the convention, but globally. Just go to their online store once the convention starts (November 16th US time), and we'll see what's available. While I'm not sure about what the rules will entail, the figures look fascinating and I'm interested in getting some just to collect...


The alternate history provides all sorts of options for "what if" scenarios, and from what I can tell, the game will be largely aiming for a "Pulp" feel - evil villans, science experiments gone wrong and the like. I'm looking forward to seeing what they can do with this range, the previews I've seen so far look very promising.

Positive peer pressure

One of the nice things about a forum community is that people from all over the world can share problems and help each other out. In my case, the problem was motivation. The Internet came to my rescue though, when this thread popped up.

It's a challenge to all of us to put up or shut up, nominate our shot, or any other turn of phrase that's appropriate. I decided it would be a good idea to motivate myself to finish up some painting by the challenge's deadline - the end of the month.


My Widowmakers are nearly finished anyway, I just needed a prod to get them done. Here's the progress shots. They really just need a bit of shading on their leather pouches / shoulder pads and some tidying up.


The goggles are quite fun to paint, and not that hard. When prompted for a description of how they're done, here's the best I could come up with:

I'm not sure on the colours used, I've got a mixture of VMC and GW paints, not sure what I used. hollowedOut is pretty close, I'm sure. I've got a feeling I put three drops of colour on my palette, a deep blue, light (but not washed out) blue, and white.

Cover the goggles with the dark blue, then mix in the lighter blue, cover most of the goggles leaving the darker colour in a top corner. Lighten up the mix and apply to a bit less of the goggles. 3 layers will do, or go for 4-5 if you're keen. At the end your lightest colour (not quite white) should be around the bottom rim of the goggles. Then just a small dot or two of white opposite the highlight (on the dark blue) finishes the effect.

Finally, the Man Hunter is just started really. I'm pretty happy with the expression on the face though. Nice and determined. Now all I need to do is block in the rest of the colours and shade them. Easy really :D

Pressuring the sloth

Well, the sloth is me. Painting is slow work for me, largely because I don't devote a lot of time to it. Having a couple of kids and a busy job doesn't help much either! Anyway, I've decided to try and rise to a challenge, and force myself to get some more painted by the end of the month.

Admitedly I haven't committed to painting much, but as I often achieve nothing in a month, it may be more than enough!

In other news, I've bit the bullet (now that we've sold our house and aren't feeling the pinch as much), and ordered some of the new P3 paints from PrivateerPress. I'm really looking forward to playing with these paints and seeing what I can do with them.

Played a 750 point game of Warmachine against Sam's Menoth last night. He came out with eFeora, who's every bit as nasty as her original incarnation. I tried to put together a tough Vlad list and more or less succeded with the following:

• Vladimir Tzepesci, Dark Prince of Umbrey
• Behemoth
• Destroyer
• Manhunter
• Doom Reavers
• Greylord Ternion
• Iron Fang Pikemen (7)
• Iron Fang Officer and Standard Bearer
• Widowmakers
• Winter Guard Mortar Crew
• Winter Guard Mortar Crew

I actually was well ahead on casualties, and fairly pleased with progress until Sam got agressive with eFeora, which evened things up a bit. It was a fun game (haven't played in a while) and it felt good to have a competive army. We ended up calling it a draw as Matt wanted to shut the shop for the evening.

Oooohlans

So I picked up my long awaited cavalry for my Khador army. The Iron Fang Uhlans are gorgeous miniatures, that I happily take home, ready to assemble.

And then I move house. That slows down progress a bit. Suddenly packing, cleaning and keeping small children under control become priorites. And then the room I had in mind for painting in the new home turns into the "storage" (read junk) room. My painting table and tools are now on the other side of a ton of boxes each of which needs to be sorted and emptied before I can approach my hobbies with a clear consience.

Thankfully I've got a space at work where I can sneak half an hours painting or assembly of miniatures if I'm lucky. Putting my (almost finished) Widowmakers to one side for now, I pulled out the Uhlan box to discover a lot of pieces:

1. Horse left body
2. Horse right body
3. Horse head
4. Horse tail
5. Rider left leg
6. Rider right leg
7. Rider torso and head
   
8. Rider left arm
   
9. Rider shield
10. Rider right arm
11. Lance
12. Cloak

All that times three adds up to quite a bit of cleaning. The first one took me about an hour all up including most but not all of the drilling holes for pinning. Hopefully this will be a bit quicker on the other two. Still the promise of the assembled figures will keep me pushing on. The assembly will require a certain amount of Green Stuff work, especially on the horses. I'll try to post pictures when I get a chance to take some.

Choices

So I've got a few figures for my new Confrontation army. I've gone with the Lions of Alahan because the sculpts are just amazing. It means there'll be a lot of filigree to paint, and I'm also thinking of trying NMM (Non metallic metal) painting which will no doubt be a stretch, but a challenge I'm looking forward to trying.

The first figure is cleaned up and ready to be primed, which means I have to start thinking about colours. The problem is choosing a colour scheme that will look good on all the figures and that I'll still like after painting a bunch of figures.

From the Rackham forums I've found a post where someone else has been through the same process, doing some very nice Photoshop work, some of which I've included here...



For an army that's as "high" fantasy as this one, I definitely think that strong bold colours is the way to go. I also like the idea of a strong colour contrasted with either off white or black. This gives a "crusading" feel to the miniatures and helps convey the idea that it's an army of faith.

As soon as I've finished my Khador Widowmakers, and moved house, I'll get cracking on a couple of test figures and post some images.

Temptation rears its ugly head...

OK, I admit it. When it comes to miniature figures (little dollies as my wife likes to call them), I'm a bit of a consumer. Can't resist the lure of shiny metal, and always own more than I can paint.

This time it's Rackham's Confrontation that has caught my eye. The appeal here is threefold. First the miniatures (and paint work) on the Rackham site is just that good. Secondly, it feels like a pure, or high fantasy setting, which nicely complements Warmachine's gritty, industrial fantasy. Lastly, armies are typically made up of 10-20 figures, which seems fairly manageable, even for me.

Watch this space...

The "Old Man"

After finishing Lylyth and her pack of Shredder's, I needed a change of pace, or at least colour palette. Returning to my "main" army, I felt like doing a single figure, and there was the "old man" Irusk waiting for paint.

I'm also keen to get him onto the battlefield with lots of troopers and burst templates! So here he is, looking ready to inspect his troops.

Speaking of which, here's the army to date. Just over 500 points, I think, If you count both warcasters. I'm quite keen to get to th poit where I can play only painted figures. It feels so much more rewarding, and it's a state I haven't been in for quite some time!

Good sunlight and a few minutes to spare...

Well, I finally managed to get some pictures taken. Here's the first lot, and perhaps the oldest in terms of when the painting was finished. They're the Legion of Everblight starter box for Hordes. Hordes is the "feral twin" of Warmachine. It's played in the same world setting, using largely the same rules as warmachine. In fact it's compatible, allowing games with heavy machinery and wild beasts tearing into each other. Very cool.

I've been using YoungWolf 7's tutorial as a guide. It's very well written. One of the issues I seem to have with painting is a difficulty in picking a good order to paint in. Following a "recipe" like this gives you a really good feel for how far through the painting you are - which is great when you need some motivation!

It's also the first miniatures that I've painted completely at work. I try to get about half an hour a day in, which so far has been enough to increase my productivity significantly. From zero to some!

The colour palette is very limited, and takes a bit of getting used to as the contrast between colours is very slight. It's not too bad on the war beasts, but can seem a bit minimal on characters. Ive tried to provide a bit more contrast to Lylth (See more pictures at right), but it's still not much. It may be something I revisit later.

The warbeasts (Shredders) are mouths and legs, with not much else. They can be deadly on the battlefield, especially in packs. However, if you fail to keep them under control, they'll turn on themselves in preference to anyone else! Painting these you really had to be patient, as most of the time they seemed fairly dull. Once the mouth and teeth are done though, they really jump out at you.

Camera shy...

I've been away with work for a while, in the UK where it was exceedingly hot. It makes a nice change from Dunedin winters, but it was even better to get home to family again. I haven't managed to get the camera set up to take any pictures lately, but here's a quick update on what I've been doing...

- Finished painting Irusk (Khador army).
- Started painting Widowmakers (Khador)
- Finished Lylyth (Legion of Everblight)
- Started painting Carnivean (yikes - here's a job and a half!)
- Assembled another unit of Winterguard (Khador)
- Finished assembling some more Iron Fang Pikemen, including the Kapitan and Standard Bearer (Khador).

I've also been casting more Hirst Arts molds to build more ruins to match the one I already have built, without a photo of it, of course.

So, lots to do, including a tournament at the LGS to prepare for. Plus family. And Work. And sleep too.

Doomreavers!

The recent Southcon competition was my incentive to get at least one more unit fully painted. I tend to paint fairly slowly, but my wife was kind enough to give me the best part of a day at home with nothing to do but paint. The result was these Doomreavers.



The varnish on them was just dry by the time I had to pack up and head to the LGS for the tournament. The varnish is also not completely matte, hence some of the shininess in these pictures.



Here's a closeup of the leiutenant. For some reason I kept putting off painting all the severed heads. They're very in keeeping with the fluff behind the miniatures, and I'm not really that squeamish. Oh well.



I'm very happy with a number of things about these guys. Mainly that they're finished :) It brings my painted Khador forces to 1 Warcaster, 3 Warjacks (if I count my Berserker that just needs some battle damage) and 12 Infantry. Not much, but it's a tad over 500 points. Other aspects I like was the red on the armour, which is just a Gore Red base coat, which is gradually highlighted with more and more VMC Red. Very simple but very effective.

Insert pretty pictures here...

Well, it's been too long since I've updated this blog. I've still been playing and painting though, and I can now add a Hordes army to my collection. There's a number of photos that I'll try to get up here in the near future - my Legion of Everblight battle box, Khadoran Doomreavers, some scenery built with Hirst Arts Blocks and also photos of the games at the recent Southcon Tournament which had a small but fun group of people playing Warmachine.

In this update though, I just want to mention that I've taken up painting at work. I can typically get in half an hour most days, and we've got some unused space upstairs where I can leave a few figures and paints set up.

While it's not a lot of time in the week, I'm finding that I can get through a model or two a week on average (or 2-3 weeks for a unit). It all adds up, and keeps me motivated to get a little bit more done.

Enough for now, next tie I'll have pictures, promise.

A whole days painting...

When the wife and kids went to Christchurch for a couple of days, I took the chance to get some painting done. It's been a while since I sat down for a whole day at the painting table. While I've got all sorts of lovely models waiting for paint, I decided that I just had to get my Winterguard unit finished first. They've been sitting in various stages of undress for the best part of a year.

That filled up the morning quite nicely, and a bit of the afternoon too. Feeling somewhat better about life, I thought that I should continue with the "partially finished" theme, so I pulled out my Berserker and Kovnik combo. The Berserker in particular got plenty of attention, with its first couple of layers of reds and metals finished. At that stage I figured I could safely attach the arms and still be able to paint everything - anything I can't reach with a brush is in shadow anyway, right? The metals are done (although not as well) in the same way Alison McVey paints her Khador models - as described in No Quarter #1. The reds are also following her technique fairly closely.

Painted vs Non-painted

One topic which comes up on the forums again and again is whether people play with fully painted armies or not. Many people refuse to play with anything but painted miniatures, and I applaud them, really I do. Myself, I find I just can't carve out enough time to paint all the figures I buy. Buying is part of the hobby for me (* big sheepish grin *), and I just struggle to keep up.

Throw in a family and work that can often call you up at unexpected times of the day (or night) and painting armies comes at best a poor third. Add in all the other good things in life, like reading, watching movies, playing games of any sort etc and somehow the painting is never quite finished.

So I've come to a compromise with myself. It can be summed up as follows:

1. Play with painted miniatures in preference to "uber-powerful" unfinished models.
2. Never play with a bare metal model.
3. Figures are assembled with textured (sand / pebbles) bases and primed. The first thing that they then have done to them is four colours quickly applied to the base; brown ink wash, dry brush Bestial Brown, drybrush Bleached Bone and finally tidy up the black trim around the base. As a side note it's important to let the ink wash dry thoroughly, as it has a tendancy to loosen the glue holding down the sand. And that can really rot your socks.
   

While these are obviously still far from finished models, they are at least tidy in some sense, and don't jump out quite so much as bare metal. I guess a number of people still wouldn't approve, but it helps me get to play the games I enjoy with a variety of interesting options. And I will paint them, one day.

Honest.

Rapid army building

Well, I wish the title of this post was refering to actually assembling and painting armies. I'm actually talking about building army lists though. I've recently grabbed a copy of Armies of Immoren, which is an army building program. I still have a version of Army Builder v2, which is a great tool, but updates tend to lag behind quite a bit, and the interface is general enough to handle any type of game system. This might sound good, but with a system as simple (in terms of building lists) as Warmachine, the extra generality gets in the way of a simple interface.

Armies of Immoren is purpose designed for Warmachine, with a reasonably simple interface. It's written in Java, which allows it to be used on multiple platforms. More importantly it just works. There's a couple of small bugs, but I'm sure they'll be sorted out quickly enough.

As for building real armies, I have managed to assemble and prime the Old Witch, Scrappy and a unit of Doom Reavers. Plus one more IFP. One day I'll have the whole unit assembled...

Fire and blinding light

Time for a battle report. Sam came around in the weekend and we had a couple of 500 point games. I thought I'd take some photos as we went, to help remember what happened, and maybe learn something from it.

As it turned out, I failed to take pictures regularly, meaning a number of turns have been missed out. I guess I was enjoyng myself too much - planning carnage for the Behemoth and such :)

Anyway, game one pitted Vlad against Feora. I was trying new casters today and now that I've played Vlad I'll definitely do it again. Rough force compositions were:

Khador:
Vlad
Behemoth
Juggernaught
Widowmakers
Trollkin

Menoth:
Feora
Reckoner
Devout
Knights Exemplar
Flameguard
Choir
Piper
Eiryss

The first photo shows the setup after the first turn or so. Both of us were leading with our Warjacks, protecting the squishier troops behind. Not much happened in the first couple of turns, the main action being the Widowmakers and Behemoth chipping away at the Exemplars and Flameguard. Sam was using Feora's wall of flame to shelter the Flameguard, but I was always able to see a couple around it, and picked them off.

The Menoth 'jacks charged mine, causing much consternation and not a little damage. The Knights also hit home (with a couple of figures) against Boomhowler. Feora popped her feat, and set pretty much everything on fire. Ouch!

In my maintenance phase, most of my infantry fell victim to fire. The snipers all died, and a large chunk of Boomhowler's lads. If I could have swapped my tough rolls with my putting out fire rolls, I'd have been much happier. The 'jacks and Vlad didn't really care too much about the fire though. Fortunately the Behemoth had kept both its hands operational though, and was able to pick up the Reckoner and throw it into the Devout. I was aiming for Feora, but unfortunately she was protected by the Devout. Still the Juggy laid the smack down on the two helpless 'jacks, causing much happiness. Another turn at them would most likely have done the job. Boomhowler and Co also got stuck into the Knights, more as a delaying tactic than anything. Vlad mopped up a few flameguard, and didn't cast Blood of Kings, because I didn't want to take damage from Feora's spell that damages anyone casting spells. What a dick.

Here's where it turned sad. Not being familiar with Feora's abilities, I thought she couldn't get too me. She could though, and ran around through the gap mad by Vlad killing her Flameguard, and "Engine of Destruction" gave her just enough distance to catch Vlad and beat him up real good. Game Over. The last photo show the situation at the end of the game.

A few of lessons to learn here, but the big one is to keep Vlad's BoK speel running at all times. If it had stayed up he'd have had a much better chance against Feora. I should have probably kept my snipers away from her feat too. Boomhowler's boys had a chance against it, but the Widowmakers were dead meat.


Game two, Sam switched to the Harbinger, and I trotted out the Butcher, another new one for me. I dropped the Trollkin and proxied some Iron Fangs, with the Kapitan and Standard Bearer attachment. I deployed the IFP up front, followed by the jacks and the Butcher. The plan was to make the most of Shield Wall to protect and distract before using the IFP to lock down a target unit and free up the 'jacks for charges. My Widowmakers were covering the left flank, although after Sam deployed his ROF 3 warjack across the table from them, they moved in behind the rest of my army to lend their support to the right flank instead.

Sam bought his Zealots around to my right and Exemplars in the middle supported by the Harbinger and Choir. Things looked good initially, the Behemoth and snipers started ranging in, forcing Sam to either loose the troops or take the hit on the Harbinger.

The IFPs charged the Exemplars and supprting 'jack, which was at the limit of their reach, so only the front rank got into the combat ( or perhaps I stuffed up the movement of the second rank?). Still did a fair chunk of damage, and ending up with a number of enemy killed or knocked down (saved by the Harbinger).

Unforunately the Behemoth ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and got munted by the Seneschal and a bunch of Zealots. How embarrasing. The might of Khador toppled in a single round. To add foolishness to stupity, I tried to send the Butcher in to finish what the Behemoth started. Didn't work though, and the Harbinger pounced, knocking him down, and the Zealots were able to break of and grenade him to bits. Very sad.

Still, I had a lot of fun with some new units that I hadn't used before, and I'm looking forward to the next time I take on Sam, hopefully for a bit of retribution ;)

Measurable (though small) progress

I said I'd post some pics of the Behemoth, so here he is in all his primed glory. He went together fairly easilly in the end, considering how many parts he has. I used a number of pins, as he's just so darned heavy. I also used Araldite on most of the larger parts, as it's less brittle than super glue and I trust it more.

While I don't hate the Behemoth's pose like some people, I thought I'd try to pose him with both his feet on the ground, perhaps looking like he's just about to take a step. So feeling brave, I cut off the locating bits on the right leg, allowing me to swing the leg into a different position.

My first attempt was fine... until I put the top half of the figure in place. Once I did that, it became apparent that the figure wasn't well balanced, and the weight of the top half caused the pins in the pelvis to act like an axle. End result is the top half of the Behemoth slowly succumbed to gravity until his forehead rested on the ground in a most undignified pose! This in turn lead to the legs becoming unstuck so it was back to the drawing board.

The drawing board dictated that the best thing I could add was more pins! I moved the arms slightly to better balance the figure, and then put more pins in the pelvis, five in all until eventually the beast was still.

The only other trouble I had was the spikes for the shoulder pads. I kept dropping the buggers. Only one was lost for good though, and after a little thought I pulled out my unassembled Bereserker and used one of its spikes. Of course the spike was too large, but a short time later with a bit of careful saw work I had the piece I needed.

A coat of primer and a black wash, and he's where you can see him in the photo... He's been blooded in battle, of which more later.

Here's a photo of my Winterguard unit. It's taking forever to paint. I don't think there's a specific reason, it just seems to be taking a long time. They're looking pretty good though, and I just need to fill in some details and they'll be all go.

Start the year by looking back...

Happy New Year!

I've just finished assembling my Behemoth for Warmachine, and let me tell you it was a bit of a mission! The parts fit together well enough, but there's just so much weight on some of the joints that you have to make sure everything's well balanced when you stick it together.

I'll post more details and some decent photos soon, but first I realised there's a lot of stuff not on this blog yet that I've done over the last year or two.

First off, here's where the armies live. I tried to keep it to painted figures, but made a number of exceptions so that I could see my armies assembled in all their glory! Although the original intent was to use the cabinet for other things, I've pretty much taken it over now. Which is why the wife has relegated it to a bedroom that most visitors never see!

Here's a couple of my Warmaster armies. It's a great GW game that I have a lot of time for, and the figures are a dream to paint. I'm beginning to realise that, by and large, I'm happier painting the small scales. It's largely that I tend to enjoy myself more if I can paint something fairly quickly with reasonably rough brush strokes - hence I love drybrushing and washing! Carefully painting layers onto 28mm miniatures is not my favourite thing in the world...

You can see both High Elf and Orc armies here. One day when I've figured out proper macro photography on my camera, I'll post some better pictures.

There's lots more Warmaster figures waiting for the paint brush - easily 2-3 times what's painted, but they'll all have to wait for now. They're lower on the priority list than my Khador and Cryx for Warmachine. My Hordes army once I get it, and the 3 armies I'm putting together for Flames of War. Oh boy have I got a problem...

Speaking of Flames of War, here's my Afrika Korps army. Currently a tad under 2000 points. I've been aiming to get everything painted to a minimal standard so that I can play games.

So all the vehicles have basic colours on, but you can see that there's still details to fill in. Also, I've not put all the infantry on their bases yet - I figure it'll be too hard to paint 5 figure on a stand, so I've put 2-3 on each stand, and I'm painting the rest separately.