Kevin's Miniatures & Hobby Table

Sweet 16...Cryx

2012-02-12T16:17:00.001-08:00

The guys at work and I joined a year-long slow grow Warmachine league being run out of Thunderground up in St. Albert (just north of Edmonton). The league starts at 25 points, and you can add 5 points every two months to the army you're playing. I decided to go with Cryx, to give me an excuse to expand the collection.

This week I pushed hard and got 16 new models out. Starting with this full unit of Satyxis Raiders, with Sea Witch and Captain.

They were not an easy unit to knock out. All of the lacerator weapons needed pinning, and though relatively small, each figure had a lot of detail to paint in. Not least of which was the hair. These girls have BIG hair. Given that this unit doesn't fit in to either of the undead or rusty themes of the rest of my Cryx, I took them in a completely new direction and gave them some pretty wild hair colors. Can you spot Lady Gaga?

Next, I did a pair of Warwitch Sirens. These solos are very nasty, and are intended for my Mortenebra list.

And finally, I finished off the Warcaster Mortenebra (seen here on the right), and her Scarlock-like attachment, Deryliss. The Mortenebra figure comes with a set of spindly arms that come out of her back. I didn't like them, so I replaced them with a set of Stegadon tusks from the GW bits box. Now she looks like a wicked horned spider...I kind'a like it.

Well that's a sweet sixteen of Cryx this week. I'm pretty happy with the end result. For those interested, here's a set of WIP shots of the Satyxis.

Standard operating procedure for these girls...

Assemble, base and sand/glue combo.

Prime white.

Dark wash to start the shading and pop out the detail.

Metal.

Skin and cloth.

From here I painted the horns, hair, added the details, dullcoated, static grass and done.

Next up, some Cryx ogres (I think).

'Til next time.

Thyra and Friends

2012-02-05T09:22:00.000-08:00

I'm geared up to dig into more Cryx, but this week I was waiting for some models to show up in the mail. While waiting, I decided to finish off some Menoth models I was looking forward to painting.

First, we have the new 'caster, Thyra.

Finally, a Menoth 'caser that can give her troops stealth. Go Errants!

This is Thyra's solo friend, Nicia.

Double melee strikes and a ranged attack...awesome.

I also had a couple of mercenaries that work for Menoth that I wanted to finish. Here is Madelyn Corbeau (3" movement boost) and Anastasia Di Bray (Ambush/Espionage/Intelligence combo...very strong support piece).

I also did a quick base-coating spray job for Scott Cairns' Trollblood Mauler. From here, Scott can paint in whatever details he likes to get this heavy warbeast table-ready.

OK, Cryx on the table now, so photos and a step-by-step next week.

'Til next time.

Superbowl Chili

2012-02-04T16:05:00.001-08:00

Besides playing games and painting miniatures, I like cooking. My wife and I enjoy food and we cook like demons a couple of times a week. Tomorrow is the Superbowl, and I always accept a big football game as the best excuse to make chili. What do football and/or food have to do with the hobby table. Nothing. No excuse...this is a blog post of my football day chili recipe. Enjoy!

Get out your crock pot. If you don't have one...get one! Easiest way to make a ton of great recipes.

Ingredients:

A couple of cans of diced tomatoes.
A couple of onions.
A pile of mushrooms.
A couple of peppers.
Meat...or meat substitute (my choice).
Chili powder.
Pepper flakes.
Cayenne pepper.
Other seasonings...like salt, pepper and so on.

After taking the picture, I realized I forgot to add in:

A can of black beans (I don't like kidney beans).
Garlic
A handful of frozen corn (no pic!)

1) Put the tomatoes, cayenne, chili powder, pepper flakes, salt and pepper into the cooker. Turn it on high.

2) I like to pre-cook the onions a little. In a pan with oil and butter. Add salt, pepper and any other spices you like. You can add in some minced garlic now too. Throw it all in the cooker.

3) I sweat the mushrooms over heat with some salt. This gets some moisture out of the mushrooms. Throw them in the cooker.

4) Brown your meat (or in my case...brown the meat substitute. Add some chili powder and pepper. Throw the meat in the cooker.

5) To the cooker, then add your diced peppers (red and yellow look good), and a handful of frozen corn. Put the lid on the cooker and leave it for six hours. The superbowl starts at 6:30 EST tomorrow...so you could start this recipe at noon, and you'd be good to go for the game.

Since you're going through the trouble to make chili...get some nice French bread to go with it.

Into the bowl with it! Add some sour cream and grated cheddar. Enjoy!

I've got $5 on the Patriots, and I'm giving 3 & 1/2 points to Scott at work. Fingers crossed! Hope you like the game and the chili!

'Til next time...

Gladiators

2012-01-27T19:33:00.000-08:00

OK, the first 12 gladiator models for the upcoming club campaign are off the painting table. Here are the six more-heavily-armored gladiators...

And here are the six poorly-armored dudes.

These are all Foundry 28mm figures from their excellent gladiators range. While most of the figures in the range are a mix of armor and weapon types, I tried to pick out six archetypes from historical arena matches.

The first is the "Thracian." He is characterized by the sica sword (well, sort of a facsimile), which was designed to reach around shields and hit the unarmored backs of opponents. He also has a medium shield and the griffin-topped helm.

Next, we have the "Secutor." He is the traditional match up for the Retiarius gladiator (see next below). He is armed with the gladius sword (for short stabs), and is defended by a large shield and the secutor helm, which is finished smooth so that the Retiarius net cannot entangle it, and small single eye holes to protect against the trident.

And here is the "Retiarius." Armed with the traditional net and trident, the Retiarius tactic is to ensnare, then impale his foe.

Next we have the "Hoplomachus." This is a Roman rendition of the traditional Greek hoplite warrior...though why this poor fellow had to suffer with such a small friggin' shield is anyone's guess. After throwing his spear (should he have chosen to do so), the Hoplomachus could draw a gladius sword to continue the fight.

Here is the twin-bladed "Dimachaeri." Not a pervasive gladiator type, but cool looking nonetheless. This one wears a secutor helm.

Finally, we have the main archetype for the heavy gladiator, the "Myrmillo." He carries the standard scutum shield, gladius sword, left leg armor and a crested myrmillo-style helm.

And, as you can see, the Hotzmap arena showed up in the mail this week...yeah!

Well, looking forward to starting this campaign soon.

Next up, it's back to Cryx. I played in a local Warmachine Steamroller tournament last weekend and took 3rd with a 3-0 record. How do you get 3rd with a 3-0 record? Tiebreakers. Now, the main tiebreaker in Steamroller tournaments is enemy warcaster assassinations. The 1st place guy had 3 assassinations. The second place guy had 2. I, in third place, had 1. You see the pattern. Well, I play Menoth at tournaments, and Menoth is not generally an assassination faction. However, Cryx is...so I'm going to go Cryx in the next tourney. We'll see what happens. Anyway...

'Til next time.

Gladiator Skin

2012-01-22T08:37:00.000-08:00

Alright...first club project for this year. Gladiators. Over a year ago, I got the idea in my head to run a small gladiator campaign at the club. Every guy in the campaign is the head of a ludi gladiatori (gladiator school), and starts with a set amount of money (20,000 denarii). There's a slave auction...guys bid for fighting stock. There's an initial fight to see who's fit to undergo training. There's equipment, betting, and plenty of visits to the arena. You get the idea.

Anyway, that idea slowly went to sleep until I started watching the Spartacus series on DVD. Bad television aside, the gladiator campaign sprang back, front and center on the hobby table.

The first 12 gladiators...

I based on 1" hexes since Hotzmats has an appropriately sized gladiator ring mat. That's on order...but knowing Hotz it will arrive in it's own sweet time. Never mind. That time will be put to use painting and getting the campaign game components put together.

So, I started with skin. Most gladiators in the 1st century were slaves brought to the schools from all parts of the Roman Empire. A good opportunity to try a lot of different skin shades. I have several different skin series from Foundry and Reaper, so I thought I'd try a few.

Here are the North African and Olive Skin sets. North Africa, good. Olive skin...yuck. Way, way too green. The guy looks like he should be a zombie. Reaper...what were you thinking?

Next, we have the African skin and normal flesh series from Foundry. I've never painted dark skin before...the Foundry African skin series is really nice.

Finally, we have the Bronzed and Tanned Skin series from Reaper. Again, Tanned Skin looks a little off...not a warm enough color. However, the Bronzed Skin is pretty nice to my eye.

I think the rest of the figure painting will go pretty quick, so I'll have these 12 guys completed and posted next week.

'Til next time.

Gravus, the Menoth Dragoon

2012-01-15T12:11:00.000-08:00

It's inevitable that when you collect an army, you eventually get down to the last few pieces you feel compelled to paint. I was feeling this with the Menoth Vessel of Judgement, painted a few months back. I certainly feel it with Gravus. There was the Menoth Dragoon (a piece with mounted and unmounted versions), sitting on the table saying "Hey, you should really paint me if you want to finish off your Menoth collection...sucker!"

So, it was with little enthusiasm that I finished Gravus off. Will I ever use him? Well, character restrictions are coming to the tournament environment...so I can see him going into a Kreoss list when the Book and the Avatar have already been claimed into my main list.

Now, what I have left for Menoth are actually a few pieces I am excited to do. Those are the new models that came out in the Wrath expansion. Thyra, Nicia and the Blood of Martyrs are three models made with work well in a list with one another...so I'll be happy to paint them and try them out on the battlefield. Those, along with a few random Mercenary figures should finish off my Menoth collection for the foreseeable future (famous last words).

'Til next time.

Star Spangled SPAD

2012-01-06T16:24:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I wrote up my 2011 review. As I was posting that blog entry, I realized that I hadn't done a single WWI model last year. What?!?

Time to right that injustice. Fortunately, I had a project I really wanted to do. A few months back, I'd ordered away for some after-market decals for 94th Aero Squadron post-WWI showbird paint schemes. Captain Reed Chambers' "Stars and Stripes" scheme I found particularly eye-catching. These decals came from Mark's Models and Toys and were designed for the Eduard 1/72 late-model SPAD XIII.

There are a couple of photos of the original plane, from March 1919. Reed Chambers met with a fair bit of success during the war. He was credited with 6 enemy planes downed, as well as one balloon.

Each SPAD in the squadron was painted in its own unique and spectacular scheme. Marvelous!

As you can imagine, this project was an exercise in decal application. I sprayed the wings with Reaper Linen White (bright white, as a paint, did not come available until long after WWI). I started with the wing decals while closing up the fuselage and filling with GW's liquid green stuff.

There were chunks of the fuselage that needed to be painted in the same shade of blue that appears on the wing decals. I was able to get a pretty close match by mixing Vallejo French Blue with Pale Blue Grey. I masked and sprayed for the nose and tail plane.

Fuselage stripes and lots and lots of little star decals.

Presto!

Rigging was heated, stretched plastic sprue, painted metal.

Pilot figure was a resin piece I had in the parts box.

Even though this scheme was painted 5 months after the war, I'll have no reservation fielding this in our next Canvas Eagles game.

'Til next time.

Looking Back at 2011

2012-01-02T07:36:00.001-08:00

What a year!

2011 was awesome...so many games, so many models, and plenty of projects to keep a hobbyist busy. Looking back over the last couple of years, it looks like the pattern that's developing is to knock out about two big army projects a year, and then supplement that with plenty of work in other areas.

This last year, the two big armies that got put together were 1) 1st century AD Celtic army (which can double for many different Gallic, Germanic and British armies)...

...and 2) A rather large Cryx army for Warmachine. This shot is of a unit of Mechanithralls; just one component of a project that ran close to seventy figures.

2011 turned out to be a pretty prolific year. I finished over 300 models and got close to putting the finishing touches on a couple of other big armies, like this Early Imperial Roman force...

...and an ever growing Menoth Warmachine army. Ah yes, Prime Severius and his 35 point juggernaut force. Good list!

My army projects seem to focus in on putting together one or more games for MayDay (our local miniatures convention). In 2011 it was the Battle of Sotium. MayDay is a very good driver for this sort of thing.

Some of the painting projects this year leaned towards the big end of the scale. The new battle engines for Warmachine came out this past year, and I did two of them. The Cryx Wraith Engine...

...and the Menoth Vessel of Judgment.

Another big project that got knocked out this year was getting all sorts of paint into dropper bottles. Wound up with more than 800 of these little buggers.

This past year I started posting a number of tutorials. These turned out to be pretty popular on the blog, so I'll continue this trend in 2012. I really enjoyed doing the horses tutorial.

I played lots of games this year, thanks mainly to our lunch time Warmachine group at work, and the Tuesday night Edmonton Wargame Group. Five game systems took up most of my time in 2011, including Warmachine/Hordes, Command & Colors, Conflict of Heroes, the new SAGA (pictured here)...

...and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition, which we use for our Middle-earth-based RPG system.

Well, that was a busy 2011, and 2012 shouldn't be any different. There are already several new projects underway on the hobby table, which I'll be posting on in the coming weeks. Hope you have a great New Year!

'Til next time.

Menoth Closes Out the Year

2011-12-31T09:04:00.000-08:00

Well, managed to finish off the pieces for my Epic Feora 50 pt list this morning. I've played the list twice with incomplete models, but that abomination ends in 2012!

A full unit of Exemplar Bastions.

I used a cool blue for the unit color cloth.

Also finished off the Menoth Heavy Jack kit as a Vanquisher.

I tried something different with the Menoth White this time. After spraying the two tones of white paint, I added a really thin wash of Devlan Mud.

If the Feora list does consistently well, I'll post some tactica for it.

OK...that's it for 2011. I hope you had a great year and got some fun games in. I'll post an annual wrap up in a couple of days.

'Til next time...

Star Wars Christmas

2011-12-25T11:23:00.000-08:00

If you've been following this blog for a while, you know I don't talk much about my work. This is the exception post that proves that rule...

I've spent the last two years working on the space combat mini-game for the just-released MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic.

SWTOR has been running live for nearly two weeks now, and I'm happy to say that it is being well received and looks like it will be a popular and viable online game for some time to come. I've been playing the game since launch day, and it's really awesome to see all the various game systems, worked on by the project's many teams, come together so well. I quickly worked my character up to level 14, got my space ship, and tried out space combat in the live environment. Everything worked! I was very relieved.

Here's some concept art for the minefield mission.

Someone posted a screenshot of their Bounty Hunter's ship in the ice field mission.

I'm very proud of all the great people I've been working with on SWTOR for the past couple of years.

Now, back to the hobby! This past Tuesday was club night, and I ran a Kursk scenario (Wounded Tiger) from the Conflict of Heroes game system. My opponent was Mark Wall, and we played twice, switching sides for the second game.

I used micro armor for all the game pieces (just laid the bases right over the game counters).

The German rescue column.

The Russian T34s and T70s rushed in to knock out the immobilized Tiger before it could be towed off the board. The Russians wound up winning both playthroughs of this scenario...volume trumps quality again, it seems.

I leave you this week with best wishes for your Christmas season. If you have time off over the holidays, hope you can get some painting in!

'Til next time.

Crusader...No, Templar

2011-12-18T13:15:00.000-08:00

A couple of years back, I bought some Warmachine models from a guy at work who was getting out of the game. I picked up his built Crusader for about $10, and it then sat on the table here for...well, a long time. Now, I recently picked up the plastic Menoth Heavy 'Jack kit to make a Blood of Martyrs character 'jack. As a result, I had some spare parts to make a Templar. Crusader chassis...Templar shield and flail...well, the result is a quick and cheap Templar.

I'm using a very simple paint scheme, so this conversion fell together quite quickly.

The holidays are nearly here...can't wait!

'Til next time.

Mixed Bag

2011-12-10T15:08:00.000-08:00

It was an active hobby and gaming week...even with a trip to Austin thrown in.

Started off by finishing up Epic Feora, a Menoth caster who I've been interested in playing at 50 points recently.

Her molded base is a carpet of flame which I struggled a little bit to paint, but it turned out in a passable state.

Now, I also finished off two Menoth Temple Flameguard. These two pieces (on the outer edges of this photo) finish off a maximum unit...a unit I actually started painting over five years ago. As you can see from the pieces now all arrayed, the painted styles and colors are a little different between many of the models...that's what you get for doing a unit piecemeal.

Last Tuesday night, the Edmonton Wargame Group moved into its new venue, at the Riverbend community league in the city's southwest. It's a little more homey and suburban than our prior digs over at the Warriors In Time club, but everyone seemed to like the change. We also held our semi-annual auction, which raised several month's rent for the coming year. WhooHoooo.

Finally, I got those T-70s done for the Conflict of Heroes Kursk scenario I want to put together. These are 6mm micro armor pieces mounted on 1" square metal bases.

The weather's turning colder and the hobby room is heating up.

'Til next time.

Vessel of Judgement

2011-12-04T07:44:00.001-08:00

Ever had a project that you really weren't that interested in doing...but you did it anyway because you felt like you had to? Well, here's mine: the Vessel of Judgement.

This is the Menoth battle engine. It's a fine piece for Warmachine, coming in at 9 points with a great selection of abilities...but for some reason, I just wasn't that keen on building it.

I think it's the design...maybe it just looks goofy, or over-wrought, or unbalanced.

Whatever the reason, I really don't like the look of it, wasn't that interested in building it, and really didn't put as much effort into it as was needed to get it cleaned up and made into a stunning kit.

Don't get me wrong...as a hobby project, I think I put in enough effort to field it proudly...it's just that I don't like it as much as I think I should. Hmmm, maybe the moon is just in the wrong phase for me this week.

'Til next time.

Saxon Orrik

2011-11-27T09:38:00.001-08:00

I've been working on a couple of large projects, but really don't have anything to show yet. However, this week I did finish off Saxon Orrik for my Kreoss anti-Hordes list.

Most of the paint on this guy is from Foundry. The cloak is painted with the Base Sand set...I think the intention is to use this paint as coloration for desert bases. But I contend that it makes a great buff color, and I like the end result on the cloak.

Hope to have something big next post.

'Til next time.

Epic Lylyth and Her Striders

2011-11-23T06:26:00.000-08:00

OK, back to a little bit of Warmachine and Hordes...

My attention has been wandering back to Legion of Everblight, so I put together an Epic Lylyth shooting list. As a consequence, it was time to finish painting Lylyth, along with the Strider Officer and Musician. A couple of Shepherds got caught up in the painting frenzy.

Striders work really well in an Epic Lylyth list, so I decided to paint Lylyth up in my Strider paint scheme, to make them look like a unified force.

Here is the complete Strider unit, along with the unit attachment and Deathstalker solo...and Lylyth. Here's to hoping they do well on the game table!

'Til next time.

Tutorial: Painting Horses, 28mm

2011-11-16T05:31:00.000-08:00

Continuing on with some Middle-earth figures this week...and I thought it might be a good idea to publish a step-by-step for painting horses for those who are interested in the subject.

So, starting out with the Valiant Rohirrim box...

We find that there are 18 cavalry figures in here. But only two different horse sculpts. What!?! So I'm going to end up with 9 horses with heads up and 9 horses with heads down. That's ridiculous. Now, having said that, the horse sculpts you do get are excellent. They are two very beautiful models.

I'm painting these guys up for my Middle-earth game, so I thought I'd go to the internet to get some source material. Looking at Hasufel, the Chestnut ridden by Aragorn in this pic, and Arod, the Grey ridden by Legolas, I decided to use these two for the inspiration for the pair of models I was going to do for this tutorial.

Another Grey. This one is Snowmane...Theodin's horse.

And Aragorn on Hasufel again.

There are a number of color variations for Chestnuts and Greys (as well as any other type of horse), so I used a couple of other photos for guidelines. Another Grey here. Notice the dark legs and nose.

And a Chestnut glamor shot. I liked this one because it showed off some nice white socks.

Well, with source material sorted out, I started into contruction. These are just two-piece figures, and they went together without any trouble. There was a slight seam between the two halves, so I busted out the great new liquid green stuff filler from GW. You know, GW puts out a lot of hobby crap. A lot of over-priced hobby crap in most instances. However, I have to say that the new liquid green stuff is magic in a jar.

OK...primed white.

Black wash. As always, this defines the detail on the figure and gets some base line shading in.

Base coats. I'm using Foundry's Arctic Grey set on the Grey horse, and Chestnut for the...Chestnut. The base coat is put down very thin.

Some darker shading next. I'm using Vallejo washes most of the time now. This is a great new product line. The Grey gets a wash of black, and I also added a little black paint to the wash to do the legs. I washed the Chestnut with a mix of Umber and Fleshtone. I think the challenge with a Chestnut, which is essentially a mono-color horse, is to get a convincing tone of paint. Mixing these two washes helped achieve that (I hope).

I darkened up the Grey's mane and tail, and then when on to highlighting. The muscle articulation on the sculpts was subtle, but very nice. I just used the sculpt as a guideline for laying down the highlights, which were painted on as fairly light glazes. Just a few passes each. The Grey gets the mid-tone Arctic Grey and then a little White. The Chestnut just gets the mid-tone Chestnut paint. I didn't go any lighter, because the second paint in this set is light enough for the color I was looking for.

OK, with the coat colors down, I went in and did the hooves (Rawhide for the Chestnut). I also did the socks on the Chestnut, starting with grey and then highlighting in white. There isn't a lot of tack on these horses. Just the armored head piece, some leather straps, a saddle blanket and the saddle. Didn't pay too much attention here, since the rider figure covers most of the saddle. Finally did the base as well, and that's it. Two horses from Middle-earth (or New Zealand, or where ever).

Popped on the riders, and Bob's your uncle.

Hope you found this tutorial useful. If you have suggestions for how I can make posts more useful for you, just send a note.

'Til next time.

Blue Trolls...And When I Say Blue...

2011-11-12T09:12:00.000-08:00

So, over at the office, Elliot and Scott talked another Scott into joining our Warmachine/Hordes lunchtime game group. He picked Trollbloods as his faction (or more likely Elliot and Scott talked him into that). Anyway, the new Scott is not a hobbiest, so I told him if he assembled his starting army, I'd "paint" them for him. I qualified this by saying I'd spray down a base coat for his troops which he could then add detail to if he ever felt the urge.

These trolls started with black primer and a pre-shading spray of white. I then went in with the airbrush and did a pass with French Blue and an overspray of Pale Blue. Each of the figures then got a wash of dark brown and blue, and a final highlight spray of Pale Blue. Elapsed time...maybe two hours. It all went pretty fast as you can imagine.

The next morning I did the bases, and voila, some "table-ready" trolls for Scott to learn Hordes with. Well, let's put it this way...at least he won't be playing with bare metal.

'Til next time.

My Favorite Day of the Year

2011-11-06T15:37:00.000-08:00

"Fall back one hour."

Every Fall, Daylight Savings Time ends, and it is always my favorite day of the year when it happens. One extra hour to do anything you want! Well, it seems that every year, I use this extra hour to finish off a cool project...well, cool for me anyway.

This year, I got up on the first morning of Standard Time and worked away on finishing off a company of 21 Dwarves I need for my Middle-earth RPG campaign.

Well, the banner isn't done yet...but the rest of these GW Dwarven Warriors are ready for the battlefield.

I've decided that next May, when our local MayDay convention rolls around, I'm going to run a SAGA game based in Middle-earth. So, these guys are going to see double duty. Dwarves will be using the Viking SAGA dice table with one or two custom abilities thrown in for good measure. But that's a ways off...time to think about the next project on the hobby table.

'Til next time.

Tutorial: Dwarven Warrior from Middle-earth

2011-10-26T18:49:00.000-07:00

This week my attention turned to some more Middle-earth miniatures for our ongoing RPG campaign. I need Dwarves!

I picked up a box of Dwarf Warriors from eBay for about $10 off of retail...not a bad deal I suppose. The box contained 24 plastic Dwarves. I only needed 21 for the campaign, so those got clipped and assembled.

The castings were good and they went together quickly. I needed one standard bearer, so I cut the two-handed axe off of one of the models and inserted a fantasy banner from Reaper.

So...starting with the bare plastic model, I went ahead and put the basing sand on straight away.

Primed in white. I wanted a light surface to paint on. Dwarves are small, and they really need to pop on the table or your eye skips right over them. So I'm going to try to stick with some lighter colors (or as light as I can get away with, anyway).

A black ink wash. I do this to see where the detail on the figure is. Gives me a better chance of not missing anything on the mini.

I started with the skin and used Foundry's standard 3 skin tones with a wash of GW Ogryn Flesh wash in between the first and second tones. I also did the shield at this point...no particular reason other than painting 200 Dwarf fingers all in a row is boring. I needed a break.

Metal next. The armor is Reaper Aged Bronze with a P3 Armor Wash followed with a drybrush of Reaper Tarnished Brass. The helm is Reaper Aged Gold with a wash of the dark orange ink/matt medium I mixed up a month ago. It also has a highlight of Bright Gold. Iron trim and the axe head are Reaper Shadowed Steel with a highlight of Reaper Polished Silver.

Next I did leather, cloth and wood. The jerkin is in Foundry's Rich Butternut paint series, while the shirt is Foundry's Tomb Blue. I used Vallejo New Wood for the shaft of the axe.

Finally I moved onto the hair and used Reaper's excellent red head paint series (which includes the Carrot Top paint color...excellent name!).

At this point I finished off the base with orange and off-white, shot the fig with Tester's Dullcoat and then added the static grass with some white glue.

And done.

I tell you...after doing that cavalry last week, Dwarves are a godsend. They're small, and simple, and quick as lightening to pump out. These GW sculpts and casts are very smooth and a pleasure to work with.

I'll post pics of the entire finished company in a week or two.

'Til next time.

Tutorial: Khandish Horsemen

2011-10-20T19:15:00.000-07:00

All right! Back to some Middle-earth goodness.

This time around, I'm painting up a couple of boxes of Khandish Horsemen. The men of Khand were allied with Sauron during the War of the Ring...but that doesn't make them all bad, does it?

These are metal models, with the rider cast with the horse. Due to the spin casting process, this sort of model requires a set of horse legs to be cast separately. Honestly, this sucks. The mould gaps are uniformly terrible.

Case in point. Yuck.

Well, there's nothing for it. You glue and then gap fill with green stuff. Now, I hate using green stuff...and filling gaps in general. Any way I can get around it (e.g. epoxy glue, gap-filling CA glue...whatever), I do...and have. However, this time around, the gaps are just too egregious.

Here is a horseman glued, filled, filed, based and ready for paint.

In fact...here are the lot of them.

I started by airbrushing on the handy-dandy new Vallejo acrylic black primer.

Then I did some under-shading (or whatever people are calling the technique these days). Essentially, you pre-shade the model by spraying white just from the top. I kind of like it.

One of the advantages of having the rider sculpted with the horse is that you get these wonderful, dynamic poses you wouldn't get with a separately cast rider.

I then did a light airbrush of dark brown over some of the horses...just to lay down a base coat. The under-shading is very noticeable.

Too bad I'll overpaint a lot of the shading subtlety later in the project.

I then airbrushed some other blocking colors...blue for the cloth, yellow for the leather and red-brown for the saddle cloth.

Getting down to brass tacks...skin first. I used the Foundry Oriental Skin set. I spent a little time on the face of each figure. I've found over the years and if you can get a passable face onto a figure, the rest of the painting project is gravy...or something like that.

Face...

I then moved onto the cloth. I used a darker blue for the cloak and a slightly lighter blue for the flag. Leather and metal were next.

Switching gears, I moved to the horses. All of these guys are riding pretty dark mounts. I did several black horses, some bays, and a dapple grey for the leader. Generally, horse painting started with a dark wash over the undercoat and then once that was dry...highlight layers of paint. Tack got red-brown and then the white tassels were added. I then put some white blazes and socks on a few of the horses.

I then went back to the rider and freehanded on a crescent moon symbol to each flag (I'm using these figures in my Middle-earth RPG, and the moon symbol has some significance for the players). I painted the saddle cloth a complimentary dark orange to set off the dark blue of the main figure.

The last things to do were the bases. Same as always here...brown, orange, off-white and then static grass. A shot of Dullcoat and these boys could be put to bed.

Now, to be honest, I really didn't put as much effort into these guys as I should have. I got part-way into the project and came to the realization that the casts were really rough. I hadn't done a great job getting all the pieces cleaned up for painting, and as a result, the whole project started getting a little ramshackle. That's fine by me. In the end, these are simply table-ready enemies for use in our RPG game. To that end, they get the job done, and they provide the Middle-earth flavor I'm looking for.

I'm not too surprised that these figures weren't up to GW's normal casting standards for their Lord of the Rings line. The Khandish figures (which didn't make a single appearance in any of the movies) have to be at the bottom of GW sales pile. Nonetheless, I think the sculpts are characterful and I was happy to knock these guys out.

Dwarves are on the table next!

'Til next time.

Prime Severius Warmachine List and Analysis

2011-10-16T12:05:00.000-07:00

First off, let me say that if you aren't a hardcore Warmachine player, this week's hobby table blog post will hold no interest for you. I apologize in advance! I'll be posting a painting tutorial for Khandish Horsemen next week...so come on back then!

Now, on to Warmachine...

I've been playing Menoth on and off for five years and have only ever had mediocre success with them. I've enjoyed collecting them...but I've really struggled with their intricate play style. Order of operations and getting the right match ups with my opponents pieces has always caused trouble for me.

This is unlike my experience with playing Cryx this year. I win with Cryx more often than not, likely because they suit my play style better. Order of operations aren't so important and they can consistently punch opponents in the face without much difficulty. You can play sloppy and still win with them.

In any event, after struggling with playing my 35pt Tier 4 Harbinger list in many, many Steamroller scenarios, I've switched to a 35pt pSevvy list and am finally meeting with consistent success.

Here's the list:

Prime Severius +6

^Blessing of Vengeance -7

^Hierophant -2

Avatar of Menoth -11

4 Choir -2

Errant Seneschal -2

6 Errant Exemplars -5

Errant Officer and Standard -2

Covenant of Menoth -2

Vassal Mechanik -1

Vassal of Menoth -2

Rhoven & Guards -4

3 Wracks -1

When playing this list, pSevvy stays in the backfield maintaining Defender's Ward (Errants), Vision (BoV) and Eye of Menoth (self). He pulls Wrack focus as needed. When the opportunity presents itself to clear enemy infantry or nasty solos through the BoV arc node, he can deliver 2x Ashes to Ashes (usually at +3 damage...Eye + BoV Affinity) by letting go of one upkeep (Def Ward), or two (Vision) if he needs to boost a damage roll.

Blessing of Vengence with Vassal of Menoth holds the center of the map or scenario objective with No Shooting (from Choir), Vision and Enliven (from Vassal). As an additional protection, he has the melee pushback from his shield. When the Avatar needs to go to bat, he loses No Shooting.

Meanwhile, the Avatar stands back with the Mechanik and No Shooting waiting to countercharge. Alternatively, he's off to the side to drag opponents away from scenario objectives with Gaze. When he's called upon to lay waste, he usually hits/damages at +3/+3 with Eye and Choir.

The Errants, with Defender's Ward, either tarpit in the objective zone, or shoot infantry, or charge 'jacks, or apply pressure by maneuvering on the opposite side of a forest...as the situation dictates. It's not unusual in a single game for these guys to do all of these functions. This is obviously a very versatile unit that your opponent will have to concentrate effort on to eliminate or neutralize. I like the minimum unit more than the max sized unit simply because with fewer pieces advance-deployed in front of the rest of my army, the chance that I screw up my 'jack and Covenant advance lanes is lowered (we usually play with a lot of terrain on the table, which adds to traffic congestion.)

The Covenant moves to the center of the map as quickly as possible and lays down No Knockdown/Stationary. Once the enemy caster is within 10", it's usually best to switch to No Spells.

Finally Rhoven and company either clear Sevvy's line of sight for Ashes to Ashes, or they bugger Hordes 'locks with Animi clearing, or they take scenario flags/control points/etc, or they engage troublesome enemy solos. The reach-weapon master infantry meat they bring to the list has come in very handy in several games now.

Well, this is the list that finally has me loving Menoth. It's been a long time coming! Fortunately, Warmachine is so well balanced, there are certainly lists that can tear this one to pieces...I just haven't run into it yet. And until I do...go Severius!

'Til next time.

Four-player SAGA

2011-10-08T18:00:00.000-07:00

So, a number of players at our local club pre-ordered the SAGA rules from Gripping Beast...and rulesets all got delivered two weeks ago. Good excuse for a club game!

We played the four-player scenario out of these new Dark Ages rules last Tuesday night. Dave (on the left) played Welsh. Terry and Mark (in the middle) shared the Saxon command. Scott (cursing his dice on the right) played Normans. I took Viking duties again.

We each played 4-point warbands. I was the only one to take Thralls (low quality troops) and this left me with a dice deficit from the beginning of the game. Not sure if I'd do this again, though the Thralls we able to do a good job whittling down Scott's Normans while shielding my Bondi warriors.

In the end, Dave eked out a slim victory with 58 points to Scott's 57. Terry/Mark scored in the mid-40s, and I brought up the rear with just 36. But at least my Warlord survived...which was more than some of the other guys could say!

The SAGA system continues to impress, and we'll be very happy when the campaign rules come out (rumored for the next release in the line).

Still plugging away on those Khandish horsemen models from GW's LotR line.

'Til next time.

Wagon Boy

2011-10-02T11:18:00.002-07:00

As I've mentioned a few times, I'm running a role playing game in the Middle-earth setting. We don't get together very often for this...but it has been going for a while now, and we've recently added a new player to the group. Chris plays "wagon boy," an apprentice priest character. The other guys are happy to have him around, because he's good at dispelling stress, fatigue and wounds...and carrying stuff.

Painted up a new figure for him this week...

This is a Reaper fig, and admittedly, while not very Middle-earth-ish, we do like having this guy around.

It's a whimsical figure, but I really like it.

Getting back to the serious side of our campaign, the guys are starting to wrap up in Moria and soon they will be traveling to new lands. That means it's time to start painting up some new potential enemies. I started into a couple of boxes of Khandish cavalry. I always regret starting projects like this, because, especially with horses, they are always more work than I think they'll be.

I'll post a painting tutorial on these guys in a couple of weeks (I hope).

'Til next time.

Microarmor...Blast from the Past

2011-09-26T06:11:00.000-07:00

Microarmor. I think a fair number of gamer-hobbiests these days may not know what it is. But before there was Flames of War and the explosion in 15mm WWII miniatures...way before...there was 6mm microarmor.

I started collecting and painting microarmor in the '80s. I used it for a game called Deluxe Advanced Squad Leader, which was the miniaturized version of ASL.

When I moved to Edmonton and joined the historical wargaming group here in 2005, I started back into microarmor, and painted a lot of it.

Down in my basement, there's a tool chest with several shallow drawers.

The drawers are lined with magnetic tape. And sitting on the tape are row after row of magnetized bases...each with a piece of microarmor. My German collection.

My American collection. Anyway, you get the idea.

Now, recently, Dave and I have been playing Conflict of Heroes. This WWII game feels to me like a very well done update to Advanced Squad Leader. Which got me to thinking...maybe it was time to miniaturized that game like the old ASL days.

Sounds like a project.

First up...I need T-34s in summer paint schemes (all of my microarmor T-34s are in winter camo).

For the scenario I want to play, I need 4 T-34s. Well, this should be enough to cover off that requirement.

Hot glue get gets a workout!

I airbrushed on the base color. Started with a new product from Vallejo, which is colored airbrush primer: Russian Green. Then oversprayed Camo Light Green, hit them with Mud Brown and then a dusting of Light Brown, all from Vallejo Model Air's line.

Next, I gave them a wash of Sepia and Umber Shades, from the new Vallejo wash line (these are really nice washes, by the way). Then the decals went on along with a drybrush of Bleached Bone, some Desert Yellow, a little Bubonic Brown and so on from the GW line.

I have an array of different T-34s here. 10x M41s (on the right), 5x M42s (in the middle) and 10x M43s (on the left). 25 models in one day...well, that's the advantage of microarmor!

Bases...this took a little while. 1" metal squares. Glue, sand, paint, flock, etc.

A group of T-34 M42s.

Well, it was kind of neat to go back and do some 6mm after being away from it for 5 years. Now I just need that order of T-70s to arrive, and I can get that Conflict of Heroes game underway.

'Til next time.

Games This Week

2011-09-24T15:21:00.000-07:00

I was lucky to have two really fun learning games this past week.

First off, Elliot and I had a Warmachine game over at the Edmonton Wargame Group club last Tuesday night. Neither of us had played for about two months, so it was great to shake the cobwebs out, and I got to try some of my new Menoth units.

Map setup.

Part of my starting lineup...I sent these cavalry around for a left hook, while my Daughters of the Flame did the right hook.

I was able to quickly envelop Elliot's Khador brick.

But as it turned out, I just fed units into Elliot's death grinder all evening long.

A terrible loss, but I learned a lot about playing the new Exemplar Errants unit I've recently finished up.

Then, on Saturday afternoon, Dave Coltman came over for a game of SAGA. This is the new Dark Ages skirmish rule set out from Gripping Beast in the UK.

Holy crap, is it good. The rules look nice too.

We played a scenario from the book. I took Viking attackers (6-point army), while Dave played the Anglo-Dane defenders (5-point army). This was the initial terrain set up...with my longship just beaching at the base of the village.

The Vikings debark!

On my left flank, I'm threatening one of the victory buildings with some Thrall bow fire.

My Bondi spearmen break through the market to get at Dave's Huscarls.

I cleared out the first two victory buildings pretty fast, then closed in and encircled the last one. By the end of the game, I tabled Dave's army, except for his Warlord. And honestly...that was a lot of fun.

SAGA just came out this week, and it is an innovative and very fun system that relies on the players planning out their turns based on the rolls of special "saga" dice which are then applied to army-centric battle boards. Essentially, the planning and application of these dice dictate what you can do in a given turn. You can also save dice on your battle board to counter your opponent's actions in his upcoming turn...so foresight is rewarded.

I haven't been this jazzed about a new game since Disposable Heroes came out from Iron Ivan Games six or so years ago. Can't wait to play again...I think this system will see a lot of play out at the Tuesday night club.

'Til next time.

Knights Exemplar Errants...Done

2011-09-20T06:53:00.000-07:00

OK...13 models got struck off the "paint this" pile today. Sweet.

I started these guys about two weeks ago, and I think I'm going to get them out on the game table tonight. Can't wait. As explained in the post last week, the Exemplar Errants are a pretty kick-ass unit, and I'm going to try them out in a Epic Kreoss list ASAP.

The officer.

Each of my Menoth units has a different principal color for their clothing. The Errants get orange.

This is the Seneschal. No surprise, the flag staffs needed to be pinned in order to have any hope of staying attached.

This project was the first time I've ever tried to paint gems. I don't think I have the perfect technique yet, but this one turned out pretty good.

I've got the itch to get back to historicals...maybe some WWII...but I should really burn down the Warmachine pile some more before I start into something new.

'Til next time.

Exemplar Errants WIP

2011-09-11T10:55:00.001-07:00

Time to work on taking a big chunk out of the "finish this" pile.

The Knights Exemplar Errants from Menoth's Warmachine forces has gone from a *meh* unit in Mark I rules a few years back to an absolute powerhouse in Mark II play. With the Officer, Standard Bearer and Seneschal solo...and then run in an Epic Kreoss list, here is the incredible list of abilities they have:

1) Cannot be targeted by spells

2) Immune to continuous effects (e.g. fire, corrosion)

3) Ignore forests when tracing LOS, ignore target cover and concealment when shooting

4) Initial deployment is 6" forward

5) Immune to fear

6) An extra die on melee damage rolls

7) Crossbows are magic and ignore most defence and armor boosting effects

8) Ignore terrain-induced movement penalties

9) They can immediately shoot if they kill an enemy in melee

10) If one is killed, you can pick another unit model within 3" to remove from play instead

Here is the current (half-way) state of the paint jobs. The Menoth white has been sprayed. Cloth has been based with Foundation red, and a few pieces have been taken to the final orange color. Black menofix markings have been blocked in. And the first pass on base metal has been done.

Still to come: gold metal, final steel pass, finished cloth, menofix highlights, scabbards, wood on the crossbows, leather straps and bases. Hmmm, this project is still going to take a while to finish!

'Til next time.

Totem Hunter: Step by Step

2011-09-07T20:10:00.000-07:00

So, I was so excited to get my paint collection finally squared away, I dove right into painting a figure Monday afternoon.

I started with this Totem Hunter from Hordes. He's a Minion solo...kind of inspired by the Predator, I believe. Assembled, primed and inked.

First I did the skin. I chose an alien purple and added some bronzed flesh tone to the highlight color.

Next I did the gold and blue armor. For the gold, I used some tones of Foundry Burnt Gold. The wash on the base gold color is pretty crucial for the effect, I think. Normally, I'd use GW Chestnut ink, but they don't make it any more. So I made a wash of Liquitex Burnt Sienna ink by adding flow improver and some glaze medium. This worked really well, and I'll keep using it from now on. For the blue, I used three tones of Foundry Bavarian Cornflower Blue. I wet-blended the blue to accentuate the highlights and shadows.

Finally, I added the silver metal, leather and bone colors. The staff is a shade of copper. At this point I added some more flesh tone to the skin because it was looking a little flat.

Here, you can see the paint job on the back of the figure.

The fully painted front.

And finally, here is the figure with the base done. Cork, sand, static grass, etc.

'Til next time.

Paint Madness

2011-09-05T07:55:00.000-07:00

Over the past several years, I've been collecting paint sets. Not like I use all of the paints...it's just that I'm a sick, compulsive collector.

Anyway, as I blogged a few weeks back, I was in the process of moving most of my paints over to dropper bottles. I'm happy to say that this stage of paint madness has passed. I now have (and I'm not proud to say it), 800+ bottles of paint from 5 paint sets packed into 10 cases. Yeow!

All the paints have been broken into sets of three...each a shaded progression of a base color. This standard was pretty easy to set, since Foundry and Reaper already used that convention.

So now all the paints from obscure Napoleonic Russian Gun Apple Green to ubiquitous Boltgun Metal are bottled and stored.

Re-bottling paint is damn boring. So, I've been watching instructional hobby painting DVDs from the laptop. Three sets so far.

The 5 DVD set from Mini Wargaming (which could have easily fit on 2 disks) is actually a good introduction to all the major painting techniques. The background music, however, is repetitive to the point of distraction.

The Core Techniques DVD from Privateer was actually a bit simplistic, cursory, and the narrator was annoying. The sample figures weren't painted terribly well either.

I ordered the Hot Lead 3 DVD set (8 hours of video) from the Cool Mini Or Not website. Although the production values were second rate, this was actually the most interesting of the three programs. All basic and several advanced techniques from model prep to basing to painting and finishing were covered, and I had few "Oh, cool" moments while this was playing in the background...you know...while paint was dripping from one pot to another.

'Til next time.

Vassal of Menoth

2011-08-31T15:53:00.001-07:00

Well, my wife and I were out of town this past weekend, so anything hobby-related came to a dead halt. And so went the last weekend of the summer!

However, over the last couple of days the gears of Warmachine started to grind again, and out popped a new Vassal of Menoth.

These cheap little solos are so good, I couldn't resist adding this second one to my collection. They add a lot of defensive versatility to Menoth 'jacks with their Enliven ability, can boost 'jack offensive output with Auxiliary Attack, and can even fling their own magic spell...but really, it never comes to that.

'Til next time.

Epic Asphyxious

2011-08-21T11:17:00.001-07:00

As beautiful weather continues here, painting production stays down. That's fine. This week, one more chip away at the "to be finished" pile. Here is Epic Asphyxious, arguably one of Warmachine's strongest Warcasters. On his feat turn, he brings 10 warriors back from the dead (your choice) for one last incorporeal charge attack against the enemy.

There was one fun part to this fig...in the middle of his weapon's blade, there is a creepy eye.

Hope you are all having a great summer as well.

'Til next time.

Absylonia

2011-08-14T13:22:00.000-07:00

Finally, there's good summer weather up here in Edmonton. The festivals over the past couple of weeks have been excellent, and my wife and I have been enjoying them all.

Of course, this means figure painting has been taking a back seat. In Edmonton, you have to enjoy the warm temperatures while they are here.

So, this week only one figure made it off the hobby table. Absylonia is a Legion of Everblight warlock who excels at running multiple heavy warbeasts.

I'm sticking to my main Legion theme, which is bluish skin and metallic bone extrusions.

She is small, so a pretty quick figure to bang out. When the weather turns, painting production should go up...but I'm not wishing that for anytime soon.

'Til next time.

Necrotechs

2011-08-07T07:48:00.001-07:00

Dug a little deeper into the "to do" pile again this past week. These guys are Necrotechs for the Cryx faction of Warmachine. They are cheap and perform a couple of good functions. For infantry spam lists, they generate Scrap Thralls out of wreck markers. They repair damaged 'jacks. They are also on medium bases, which are good for blocking tramples and charge lanes.

I used these three guys in a 50-point game with Elliot this week. They were in a prime Asphyxious tier 4 list, and performed great. They helped clog up the middle of the board with Scraps and even got a repair roll off, allowing a Slayer to mess up a couple of Elliot's Man-O-Wars.

'Til next time.

Scrap Thralls

2011-07-31T10:21:00.000-07:00

OK, back to work on the "to do" pile. This week I finished off six Scrap Thralls. I'm a little disappointed that these models only come in two poses, but what the heck. They blow up so fast on the battlefield, there will probably never be more than a few in play at one time anyway.

Keeping up with bad habits, I'm adding to the "to do" pile as quickly as I'm depleting it. These are some new Legion models for Hordes. Oh well.

'Til next time.

The Hobbit

2011-07-23T06:02:00.000-07:00

No surprise...like a lot of people, I'm a fan of Tolkien's Middle-earth books. When I heard some years ago that two more Peter Jackson Middle-earth movies were going to be made, I was ecstatic. Photos of the cast have started to come out...here's a composite of all the major characters.

What I find amazing is that each Dwarf has his own unique look. Very distinctive and worthy of the level of production design established by the Lord of the Rings movies.

Thorin is not as I'd imagined him, but he looks completely bad ass. If you read The Hobbit when you were young, as I did, your favorite Dwarves are likely Fili and Kili. These young Dwarves look suitably "elven" and heroic.

I'd have to say, I'm really excited about seeing this film when it comes out!

'Til next time.

Tutorial: Cryx Battle Engine

2011-07-17T19:40:00.000-07:00

Well, knocking off models from the "to do" pile turned out to be a bit tiresome, so I figured I'd dive into the new Cryx Battle Engine. This post is sort of a log of step-by-step build notes.

Started with the box and the tools I figured I'd need, including a dremel.

So here are all the parts. Most of them are in a soft, buttery resin. The metal was pretty clean, but the resin was full of horrendous mold lines. 1 - 2 mm mold lines through detail is trouble. I would have expected better for $85...fortunately, the model looked like it was going to be pretty cool and intriguing.

Mold lines were not the worst of the resin problems. Overall fit was pretty bad, and as can be seen in this photo, lining up all the pipes was going to take some work with a hair dryer.

The carapace was going to create a visible cavity in the model's interior, so this required the base model to be painted first. It got a base coat in black.

Moving on to the metal parts, the first thing I noticed was that the left hand was miscast. Great! :-(

As can be seen here the wrist guard and a portion of the wrist joint was completely missing.

Time to improvise! I had a spare Exemplar shoulder pad which made for a pretty good match. This would form the basis of the new wrist and guard.

Here are the two arms with the new wrist guard filed down and glued in place.

OK, all the components are glued in place and primed black. On the base, I've glued down a couple of detail pieces. These will get painted up later when I'm doing more work on the base.

The model is airbrushed with Cryx base and then a top-down overspray of Cryx highlight.

The brass fixtures and the head are brush painted next with Vallejo Bronze. I painted the tubing, which is often done in steel, with Vallejo dark rubber instead. This gives it a kind of PVC look.

This is about the half-way point in the painting. The brass areas got a wash with turquoise and I started into the MIGS weathering powders on the main body. Using rubbing alcohol and turpentine as a base, I worked up from the mud browns to the red browns and finally to the dust and rust patches. I also got the sand onto the base and built up a pile of rocks with cork and slate bits.

Well, skip ahead a few days and the painting and basing is all done now. The PVC tubing got a drybrush of Vallejo light rubber. The brass areas got a highlight of Vallejo old gold. Scraps of cloth are in Cryx base and highlight. Bare metal scrapes are done in steel and silver.

The necrotic Cryx green uses the P3 base color with a highlight of off-white and finally a wash of green ink. Not great, but serviceable.

As for details on the base, this is a Mantic skeleton. I thought the model was pretty cool, bursting out of the ground. I think it makes the Wraith Engine feel like it's rousing the dead as it passes by.

But this guy is likely a little too freshly dead to be roused! This disemboweled figure is from Army Painter.

Well, another Cryx corrosion piece for the collection. Despite the trouble the model molds gave me, the end result was pretty satisfying, and it makes a good centerpiece for the army.

Haha...while I was building and painting the Wraith Engine, I figured it would be little trouble to do a Harrower Helljack at the same time. Two for one!

'Til next time.

Paint, But Not Painting

2011-07-10T18:20:00.000-07:00

Well, I should have been painting this weekend, but I got distracted...by paint.

I've been using Vallejo for a while, and recently started up with Reaper paints. I've got to say I really like the dropper bottles. Now, I also really like my Foundry paints, and the pots they come in do a good job of preventing them from drying out (can't say the same for GW paint). However, the Foundry-type pots pretty much suck for everything else. They are tough to get into, the lids snap off, and like all non-dropper bottles, you have to degenerate your brushes loading paint out of them onto a pallet.

The best solution? Get that Foundry paint into dropper bottles.

So, Reaper sells bottles. A solution, and a project.

One thing I like about old Reaper paints is that they put a little BB pellet in each bottle as an agitator. I'm doing the same thing using small fishing weights. The first paints moved over are all the excellent Foundry skin tones.

Currently on the table is the new Cryx battle engine...hope to have an update on that next week.

'Til next time.

Middle-earth Denizens

2011-07-01T07:08:00.000-07:00

Happy Canada Day!

So, that Middle-earth RPG I was running using the new Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd edition rules is still going strong (if somewhat intermittently). The group has four player characters. Scott plays Herdir, a Wood-elf archer currently in the Assassin career. Elliot is playing Addax, a Woodman fighter in the Swordmaster career. Casper is the Dwarf Kale, the group's heavily armored tank. He is in the Mercenary career. The latest party member is played by Chris, who has started a human Acolyte in order to give the group some badly needed healing support.

Every time we run a session, I try to get a new figure or two out on the table. This past week I finished off a new armored Troll.

He's a big fellow.

The campaign year is Forth Age 121, so some time after the War of the Ring. The players are currently helping Durin VII's efforts to retake Moria from the Goblins. They have most recently made it down to the 5th deep of Moria in an attempt to discover the location of the Goblin King's chamber. Well, they found it, and the encounter was hilarious.

Anyway, here is the Goblin King, also recently completed.

Here are some older figures also seeing service in this campaign. A Troll chieftain.

I really like all of these GW sculpts. In metal, and great to work with.

Some time ago I painted up a schwack of undead. The group has run into these guys as well. Incorporeal opponents turn out to be pretty tough to deal with.

And here is a mix of Orc archers and swordsmen. Again, painted some time ago, but seeing service now.

'Til next time!

Rhoven, Gius and Cassian

2011-06-25T10:12:00.000-07:00

First off, apologies for no update last weekend...I was out of town.

OK, so continuing through the "to do" pile, I've decided to concentrate on Menoth stuff for the time being. Here is the Visgoth character unit: Rhoven, Gius and Cassian.

This was my first attempt at trying to paint fire. Obviously, I'm still trying to get the technique down right, but I think it was an ok first go.

The two bodyguard characters are Exemplar pieces, so they benefit from being in a Kreoss army list...I'll give them a try there first.

'Til next time.

Epic Skarre & Kreoss

2011-06-12T18:03:00.000-07:00

Started digging into the "finish this stuff, dammit" pile and knocked off two figures this week.

First up was Epic Skarre from Cryx. I'm not much for Warmachine fluff, but I get that Skarre is from the "pirate" branch of Cryx, rather than the rusty iron branch that I've been working on so far. As such...a more normal painting method.

I love the skeleton the sculptor molded in the prow of the ghost ship base.

I also finished Epic Kreoss, one of my favorite Menoth 'casters. I've been playing him partially painted for about a year. No longer!

Can't wait to get a Tier 4 list going with this guy.

Side note. Happy days! Last week I won a pair of tickets at work to go see the U2 360 concert here in Edmonton. What a spectacle!

Well, I'd still like to work through stuff on the must finish list...so...

'Til next time.

Tutorial: Making A Forest

2011-06-05T11:41:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I got the bug to make some terrain. I think it was all the Cryx infantry that was driving me a little batty...it was time to do something different.

I'm making this forest in the style shown at the back of the Warmachine rule book. Essentially, this is a forest template base with stands of multiple, moveable trees to facilitate unit movement through the forest as necessary.

I start with 1mm plasticard.

The large piece on the left will be the forest base template, while the three pieces on the right are the bases for the tree stands. Theoretically, the three tree stands fit nicely inside the bounds of the forest base template. As you'll see, practice is different than theory.

Because the tree stands will rest on top of the forest base template, I didn't want too much texture on the base. I used fine silica sand...the type found in aquarium shops for salt water tanks. This was sprinkled on top of white glue.

Skipping ahead a bit, here the forest base template is given the brown/orange/off-white paint treatment, and some watered down glue is then dabbed on to take the static grass.

Moving on to the tree stands, I glued several Woodland Scenic tree armatures to each tree base. Beforehand, the armatures are bent into the correct shape, and coated with a thin layer of acrylic texture gel to hide the join lines and give the bark a finer texture. Each one was sprayed black, brown and dark grey, and then drybrushed with light grey and given a wash of Reaper Brown Woodstain.

Each tree armature was bulked up with Woodland Scenic Foliage Clusters. This forms the main shape of each tree.

As seen here, each tree was then given an application of bits of Woodland Scenics Fine Leaf Foliage. This adds texture to the tree model and helps break up the clumpy shape of the foam clusters. Here, the tree bases have also been given the glue and sand treatment, and painted brown.

Drybrushing orange-brown and off-white onto the base sand brings out the texture, and just off to the right of the base you can see a pile of twigs I used to glue onto the tree stand bases to give the finished model a more natural and rustic look.

As you can see here, my plan to get three tree stands onto the template went awry due to the bulk of the finished foliage. No matter. The forest template now holds two moveable tree stands, and the third will form the basis for another template I'll do later.

'Til next time...

Painter's ADD...Thanks Privateer Press

2011-06-04T15:50:00.000-07:00

So this is what happens when you have painter's ADD. The following models are sitting on my table in various preliminary stages of painting...from assembled and primed/inked to fully base color-blocked.

These are all Warmachine/Hordes models...the product of being too enthusiastic about four armies.

For Menoth, there is a full unit of Errants with attachments, Bastions, five 'casters, Rhoven and guards, another Vassal, a couple of Flameguard and a long-unfinished Castigator.

For Cryx, three 'casters, three units of Necrotechs with extra Scrap Thralls and a Harrower Helljack.

For Legion, Epic Lylyth, Strider attachment, two light warbeasts and four lesser warbeasts.

Finally, for Khador, Karchev and three heavy 'jacks.

As I sit down to do some painting I feel like I'm standing at the chocolate counter...I have no idea where to start.

I know...tomorrow I'll post that forest tutorial!

'Til next time...

Cryx Infantry

2011-05-26T18:44:00.000-07:00

Worked on Cryx infantry this week. First up is a full unit of Mechanithralls with three Brute Thrall weapon attachments. Trying to stick with the corrosion theme, but this time using water-based rust colors instead of weathering powder.

And here are two units of Necrosurgeons with Stitch Thralls. In the game, the Stitch Thralls collect corpses for the Necrosurgeons to reanimate...nice.

I've posted these guys before, but wanted to get a shot of them in my mausoleum scene. The original Cryx battlebox.

And finally, a shot of some previous Bane Thralls I've painted...this time with their officer and standard bearer.

I'm working on a woods terrain tutorial...hope to have that up next, but we'll see where that project goes.

'Til next time.

Cryx Warcasters, Solos and an Attachment

2011-05-22T13:47:00.000-07:00

Sunday afternoon and I'm watching Vancouver beat up San Jose in a Stanley Cup semi-final game. Go Vancouver!

Cryx pieces continue this week, starting with some 'casters. First up is Venethrax, a very good anti-Hordes 'caster.

Next, a classic Cryx Warcaster, prime Asphyxious.

This is my favorite low-point game caster so far, Goreshade the Bastard, with his companion, Deathwalker.

This is a Cryx solo I'm really looking froward to playing, the Skarlock Thrall. This solo has Spell Slave, allowing him to throw one 'caster spell per action.

I'm really keen on this solo, the Pistol Wraith. Not so much for what he does (though he is potent, being able to cripple an opposing model for one turn), but because of how he looks. I really like this sculpt. I'm calling him Casper.

This is a Mercenary figure, Gorman Di Wolfe, the rogue alchemist. I like him with Goreshade, covering the Bastard's advance up the table.

Finally, here's the command attachment for the Bane Thralls...officer and standard bearer. Looking forward to using the ability "Dead Rise."

'Til next time.

Cryx Continues

2011-05-14T08:27:00.001-07:00

It was a good week...with the Celt project done, I've been able to really concentrate on getting some Cryx out.

Seether Helljack.

Another shot.

Nightmare Helljack.

...and on the way out.

Cankerworm Bonejack.

Nightwretch Bonejacks.

The Withershadow Combine, a character unit.

On Thursday I played a practice tournament game with my Menoth army and swapped an unpainted Vanquisher in for my Reckoner for better troop clearing. This worked pretty well, so I decided to paint the Vanquisher and make it a permanent resident in the tournament army. Painted it Thursday night...just a quick one.

More Cryx on the way...

'Til next time.

Start of the Cryx Parade

2011-05-08T15:32:00.000-07:00

I've got about 50 Cryx pieces on the table in various stages from assembled and base coated to about 90% done. The first two models got finished today in the "Cryx Corrosion" scheme.

Deathjack.

...and moving away...that's good news.

Machine Wraith solo. A very nasty 1 point piece that opponents with 'jacks must deal with.

And there he is, saying goodbye.

So this should be the start of a long lineup of Cryx. Love playing these guys.

'Til next time.

Battle of Sotium

2011-05-07T18:10:00.000-07:00

Edmonton's Mayday convention was held this weekend, and by all accounts it was a very successful. Thanks to all the out-of-towners who drove to Edmonton!

I ran my Command & Colors: Ancients game for Bob, Terry, Jonathan and Matthew. We ran the Sotium scenario twice, switching sides and commanders, and the team of Terry and Jonathan won. Congratulations!

The Roman battle line, ready for the Gallic onslaught (the Gauls won both games).

Should have another update tomorrow with some new Cryx pieces for Warmachine.

'Til next time.

Two Menoth Heavies

2011-05-01T08:40:00.000-07:00

So, Cryx...right. I'll start back into them today.

Last week I found out about a local Steamroller tournament running at the end of May. Well, if I were to enter I'd have to play Menoth...and if I ran Menoth I'd need to finish off my Avatar of Menoth...and if I finished off the Avatar, then I'd have to finish the other Menoth heavy I use a lot more, the Reckoner. So, both got finished yesterday.

Here's the Reckoner with a black paint scheme (just a break from all the white).

Reverse angle!

And the Avatar of Menoth. First time using inks to get that "burned in" menofix effect on the shield.

And a shot of that ridiculously dinky sword they sculpted onto the Avatar...what were they thinking?

Som WIP shots from many months ago. Reckoner with base colors on.

Avatar assembled and primed.

And inked...

And with base colors and more shading.

'Til next time.

Cool Idea...Khador Gun Carriage

2011-04-29T16:43:00.000-07:00

Elliot, my Warmachine gaming buddy, is already planning out a pretty elaborate conversion of the just-released Khador Gun Carriage. He's mating the Carriage model with a 1/35 scale FT-17 tank chassis. Brilliant!

Here is how he is intending it to turn out...

'Til next time.

Easter Romans

2011-04-25T16:41:00.001-07:00

Just finishing up a 4-day Easter Holiday weekend. It was a perfect opportunity to finally finish off the Roman army for this year's Mayday convention scenario of Command & Colors: Ancients.

Here is the completed Roman army for the Battle of Sotium. The army is composed of three legions.

Each legion has two elements of medium infantry...the core of legionaries we most often think about when we conjure an image of Imperial Roman soldiers.

Each legion also has one element of Auxilia.

And an element of medium cavalry.

Along with an element of light infantry...in this case, conscripted Gallic javelineers (I really don't like these particular figures from Warlord).

The army also possesses an element of artillery.

Well, that's the whole thing, and I can finally put this project to bed...and get back to Cryx!

'Til next time.

Tutorial: Painting a Roman Auxilia

2011-04-16T08:55:00.000-07:00

Well, my mind is on the Romans these days, so I thought I'd post a step-by-step on painting an Auxilia warrior.

This is a Warlord plastic fig. Here it's assembled and primed and glued to it's metal base. Started off with the standard dark ink wash.

Skin starts with Foundry shade, and once dry, it's given a flesh wash.

The mid-tone skin color is added next.

Finally, the highlight for the skin is added last. A little care is taken around the face in order to pick up the cheekbones and chin, etc.

Metal bits are next. The chainmail, spearhead and shield boss get some shadowed steel from Reaper, while the bronze helm and belt get Vallejo bronze (I really, really like this color).

All the metal is given a dark armor wash from P3.

Then, the metal is highlighted. The chainmail, spearhead and shield with Reaper silver, and the helm, etc. with Vallejo Brass. The bonze bits get a final drybrush of silver for a highlight.

Cloth and leather bits next. I used Foundry terracotta for the pants, and wet-blended through the three shades. The tunic cloth is white, built up from the Foundry arctic grey series. The shoes and straps get Foundry leather. His scarf is two shades of GW red. Later, the spear shaft was done in two shades of Foundry...spearshaft. The shield got two shades of light blue, and the Warlord decal went on over that. At the end, I did the base using the normal process (tutorial on this blog).

This is a pic of the tunic and pant colors near the end of the project.

As I got to the end of painting the Auxilia, I had all the paint pots I'd used out on the table. I was actually a little surprised at the number of different paints I'd used for this single fig...so what the heck, I took a picture. Here's a shot of all the colors used in completing this model.

I had used some Foundry winestain for the lower lip, and some dusky flesh shade for the recesses of the eyes...you can see them in this shot. Also, the shield is finally attached.

Well, that's it!

'Til next time.

Khador Tag Team

2011-04-11T08:09:00.001-07:00

Quick update...

Last Tuesday night at the club, Elliot, Scott, Casper and I played a four-player WarmaHordes match. Elliot and I both had our Khador out, against Scott's Skorne and Casper's Cygnar.

Fortunately for Khador, our two armies blend well together. My stuff is grey/red, while Elliot's is olive/grey/red. We each contributed 25 points to the 50-point army list (which included two full Winterguard Death Stars).

Here, the Khador swarm moves towards the opposing start line. The two sides maneuvered carefully for several turns. In the end, both Khador casters (The Butcher and Epic Irusk) popped feats and layed down a devastating Winterguard panzerfaust and hand cannon beat down on the Skorne caster. That was too much for the opposing force, and we packed it in for the night.

'Til next time.

Tutorial: Making Small Hills

2011-04-09T11:14:00.000-07:00

OK, so besides the armies I'm working on for the MayDay convention, the scenario requires a bit of terrain. I'm running the game on a 5' hex grid mat, and there are fourteen hills required in the scenario. Time to buckle down and make some hills!

I started with a paper cut out of a roughly circular disk that fits inside a 5" hex. Then I went to work with the scissors and cork tile.

Each hill is composed of three tiers of tile. Each circle was cut out a little smaller than the one below it. The hill tiers were glued together with white glue.

Before you know it...fourteen 5" diameter hills.

Texturing these, I used the same technique that I use for figure bases. First, glue and sand.

Next, a spray of flat brown.

Then, dry brushed layers of orange-brown and off-white.

Add patches of watered-down glue, shake on some static grass, and presto.

Of course, this technique for the hills has the benefit of allowing the figure bases to blend in nicely.

Next up will be a tutorial on painting Roman Auxilia.

'Til next time.

Celt Army Done for MayDay Convention

2011-04-02T20:54:00.003-07:00

The MayDay convention is coming up fast, but at least the Celt (more properly, Gallic) army I need for the Command & Colors game I'm running is now done. Well, it's not done-done...there are still lots of details I'd like to put in...mostly in clothing, but what the hell. Something has to give.

Here are the Warrior Infantry units, with the Medium Cavalry units in the background.

And here are the Auxillia Infantry, with the Light Cavalry in the background.

I'm going to assemble the required magnetic bases for these guys tomorrow...but at least I can move onto the Roman army now. Just a few weeks left, but I think it will all be done on time.

'Til next time.

Quick Basing Tutorial

2011-03-27T19:08:00.001-07:00

I was working on my 1st century Celt army this weekend, and thought I might post a tutorial on basing for anyone with an interest.

First off, I super glue the fig to a 1" square metal base. I've been doing this for years...mostly to facilitate storage, transport and ranking up figs into units. The metal base is magnetic, and all of my figs are stuck to magnetic stands.

So...to quickly base a fig, spread around some white glue.

Dip the base into a tub of sand...this is the stuff from GW; crushed walnut shells and all.

Let this dry.

Next, slather on some Scorched Brown paint, then let that dry. As you can see, this process is good when you're doing a lot of figs at a time...by the time you're finished the last in the batch, the first one is dry and ready to move onto the next step.

Next, I dry brush on some Vomit Brown...but of course, any orange-brown will do.

Next, dry brush on some Bleached Bone...or any off-white. As you can see, the base that the figure is on pretty much awkwardly stands out from the 1" metal base. Never fear...that's where the static grass comes in.

Finally, dab on some splotches of watered-down white glue. Make the splotches irregular in shape, but cluster them around the joint between the figure base and the metal base...this will hide the "seam" between the two bases. Then sprinkle on some static grass, tap off the excess, blow on it to get it to stand up as best it can, and presto...the fig is based and the seam is really tough to spot, especially on the game board.

Here is the current state of the Celt army project. Stuff is mostly painted, except for the details, and basing is underway. Sunday was a big production to get the shields finished off. Shield finishes are a mix of Warlord, Wargames Factory, Little Big Men and hand painting.

'Til next time!

Century Mark

2011-03-20T12:37:00.000-07:00

So...this blog recently ticked over 100 followers.

Two things. First, I want thank everyone who has joined the Hobby Table. I sincerely hope you've found something interesting or entertaining here.

Second, I wanted to do something a little different to mark this milestone. I've been collecting and painting my first Warmachine army, Menoth, on and off for several years now, and the collection stands at just over 100 pieces. Appropriate! Here's a photo essay of the collection. Enjoy!

First off, the whole thing...

Warcasters...from the Harbinger to Amon.

Heavy 'Jacks. Don't have enough of these finished yet!

Light 'Jacks. OK, plenty of these. And as to what possessed me to build three Devouts...well, I have no idea.

My faves...the Paladins.

Cannon fodd...I mean, Zealots with Monolith Bearers.

The Menoth staple...Choir. Scroll decals are from an internet store called Gnomish Workshop.

Daughters of the Flame. You go girls!

A couple of units of Knights Exemplar and their Seneschals.

Vengers.

A near-complete unit of Temple Flameguard with attachment.

Menoth solos. The Vassal seems to be the most cost efficient.

Some merc solos that are part of the Menoth collection...mostly from Mk. I play.

The ubiquitous Wracks.

Wrecks...they get too much use!

Half-done models...some base colors and shading on, but these really need to be finished off. Epic Kreoss is just too good!

Models just underway. Most of my epic casters are in here, along with a unit of Bastions.

Well, there's the first of my Warmachine armies...in it's current state anyway. Still have some pieces to assemble, but most of the army is represented. I like playing them...lots of good strategies to use.

Next, I'd like to do an update on the Celt project.

'Til next time.

Cryx Terrain...Repaint

2011-03-13T18:37:00.000-07:00

About two months ago, Miniature Building Authority had a clearance sale on their website. I picked up some stuff...one of the pieces I thought could be repainted into a cool Cryx-themed "pod" (for lack of a better term).

This repaint uses the same colors and weathering methods I've been using for my other Cryx pieces.

I used a new Army Painter product on the base. You can probably see the longer brownish grass tufts. These are the 6mm turf bits being sold by Army Painter. I've got to say they are easy to use and look pretty good for little effort.

'Til next time.

Bane Lord Tartarus & Wrecks

2011-03-05T10:38:00.000-08:00

More Cryx...

This is Tartarus, a Cryx solo that works well with Bane Thralls. Gotta say this is probably my least favorite Cryx sculpt. It's like the sculptor just took a pile of fiddly bits and stuck them all onto one figure. Oh well...if you need him, you need him.

Heavy wreck marker.

Light wreck marker.

There's a lot more Cryx on the table, but I have to get back to that damn Celt army!

'Til next time.

Bane Thralls

2011-03-03T08:33:00.001-08:00

Continuing on with my Cryx project for Warmachine...

This is a unit of Bane Thralls...undead weapon masters that produce a dark shroud around them, reducing enemy armor values.

I've got to say that I love these figs...except for the goofy big axes. The figures are very well designed with good poses and animation and detail...love 'em. Very evil-looking. But what's with the axes? So over the top. I wasn't going to replace them, however, so I embraced them and just went to town on the blood and gore. A satisfying exercise in the end.

Commander and grunt.

Two Thralls.

Final gore shot. I put a lot of rust on the axes as well to get them as textured as possible.

I've painted these guys using the same weathering method as my other Cryx models...lots of MIGS weather powder and paint chipping.

'Til next time.

I Saw Horses From My Window...

2011-02-26T09:41:00.000-08:00

Dala fans out there will get the blog title reference. ;^)

Regardless, this past week I decided to push forward with the 1st century Celt army project. It was time to move onto horses.

For newcomers, this Celt project started in January. I've done skin on the warriors, and that's about it so far. Getting horses out of the way opens the door to the next big phase in this project...clothing. Yikes.

Here's a Bay.

And a chestnut.

And I put a fair proportion of Dunns into this army.

So it will be on to tartan and other bright clothes next. Then shields...and hair...and details. hopefully I'll get the whole thing done next month. I still have to do their Roman opponents for a big game at the beginning of May.

'Til next time.

Legion Striders and Deathstalker

2011-02-16T19:36:00.000-08:00

I'll be away from the computer this weekend, so I thought I'd post early this week.

So I was happy to finish off a unit of Legion Stalkers for my Hordes army this morning. I did a fair bit of work on them last Sunday. The Deathstalker solo is on the far right.

In the game, this is a unit of stealthy rangestrikers that also move quickly through rough terrain. They work well with shooty lists run by Epic Lylyth...and I'll be working on her shortly.

I'm still casting around trying to nail down a faction paint scheme. Right now my Legion stuff is all over the board. However, I watched Avatar again this weekend and decided that Legion for me would be all about jungle beasts and blue dudes. About half of what I've painted so far kind of fits into that theme...so the other half will just have to be allies from the frigid north where blue skin is unknown!

The cloaks are Foundry Buff Leather, and the leaves/feathers are a combination of GW greens and green wash. The darker browns are Foundry Bay Brown, and there's a fair bit of Foundry Rawhide in there as well. The blue skin is P3 Frostbight, GW blue wash and Foundry Boneyard Light. The bows are GW Deneb Stone with a brown wash. Well, that's about everything. Hope you have a great weekend.

'Til next time.

More Goblins

2011-02-12T04:58:00.007-08:00

This past week was all about the Goblins. These are GW War of the Ring figures. The first two are from the Goblin Captains metal blister. One bow, one sword. The sculptor used the same doll for both figs...too bad. A little variety in posing would have been nice.

However, the figures are perfectly fine and painted up quick.

Next I moved on to the Moria Goblin plastic boxed set. There are 24 figures in this pack, 8 swords, 8 pikes and 8 bow. I started with the swords. Besides the usual GW metallic paint-work, their scraps of clothing were painted with Foundry Rawhide.

All of these figs got a workout in our Middle-earth RPG game this past week, and were promptly disposed of by the bloodthirsty players.

I think there will be some Legion Stalkers up this week for Hordes.

'Til next time.

Cryx Battlebox

2011-02-05T08:42:00.001-08:00

I started into Cryx a few weeks back when I tried my hand at a new weathering technique and worked up the Slayer Helljack. This week it was time to knock off the Bonejacks and Warcaster from the Cryx Battlebox (old metal edition).

Here is Deneghra, the Cryx 'caster. Pretty much used the same color scheme as the 'jacks...Cryx Bane base and highlight, and rusted up and weathered the armor

The Defiler Bonejack.

Another view.

One of two Deathrippers that come in the Battlebox.

Here are the WIP shots for the Deathripper. First is the black base coat.

Cryx Bane base and highlight overspray (with a little light gray underneath the last layer to lighten it up).

First weathering pass with MIGS rust wash, grease wash, dust and mud pigments.

Next came the metal (Vallejo Bronze), bone (Foundry Boneyard) and necrotic green (using the method from the Cryx sourcebook...essentially white inked over with yellow and green).

Basing material is standard sand and glue, with a small stone added.

And now finished up with scenic base painting, silver scratches, washes and highlights on the metal plates, and a bit more rust added. Done!

I've got a couple of new projects on the table for this upcoming week, including Menoth Bastions and Legion Striders (oh, and a couple of more Goblins). We'll see what happens over the next few days. Enjoy the Superbowl tomorrow!

'Til next time.

Goblin Shaman

2011-01-29T16:55:00.001-08:00

The next session of our Middle-earth RPG is coming up this week, and I wanted to introduce a new portion of the WFRP game rules to the players...divine power. Sooo, they will be encountering a new enemy type: the Goblin Shaman.

Here he is with primer and ink wash.

...and fully painted.

Back view.

Also this week, I was happy to finally finish off the skin highlights for my 1st century Celtic army.

Moving back to Cryx for a bit...really like those guys.

'Til next time.

Celt Army Update

2011-01-23T12:28:00.001-08:00

Grinding away on this Celtic army for Command & Colors: Ancients. I'm about half-way through getting the skin highlights on. Below are some of the figures with finished skin.

Bits like eyes and lips haven't been painted in yet.

And, of course, the daunting task of getting the cloth painted lies in the future...but not too far off I hope.

At least there's a little bit of mail in this army...that will go fast.

Lots of distractions lately...mostly on the RPG front. We've been having a lot of fun with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd edition in Fourth Age Middle-earth. The guys are helping Durin VII take back Moria right now. Lots of dungeon crawling!

'Til next time.

WFB Club Game

2011-01-18T21:05:00.001-08:00

I was out at the club tonight and got a 2000 point game of Warhammer in with Scott. I pitted my Lizardmen against his Daemon army.

The Krox went to war!

This was one of Scott's main infantry blocks. I wound up doing a fair bit of damage to it with a charging Stegadon...but after a few rounds of combat the Steg broke and was run down. Boooo.

I don't know Daemons well enough to know the proper name of this unit that Scott painted up...but I call the models "Salamander Snacks."

Scott's Bloodcrushers really did a number on my Saurus Warrior block. I tried for two turns to get some buff spells off to help these guys, but the dice just weren't there. However, in the end, the Bloodcrushers went down to ranked spears and Krox.

The game ended on a terrible miscast roll from Scott. His Daemon Prince went down on a "2" miscast roll. The Prince, Scott's army general, got sucked into the warp never to be seen again.

Go Lizards!

'Til next time.

Cryx Corrosion

2011-01-12T18:27:00.000-08:00

Well, have to admit I'm taking a bit of a U-Turn here.

I already have Menoth and Khador armies for Warmachine, and a Legion army for Hordes, but I couldn't resist doing some Cryx as well. Their stuff is just sooo coool.

I was inspired to do some Cryx after watching a YouTube tutorial on AFV weathering. I thought the techniques would be great to represent Cryx corrosion (many of their attacks are acid/corrosion-based).

I've had the Cryx battlebox sitting in my closet for some time, and I always hoped to get around to them.

My first Cryx Helljack is this Slayer. A pure double-handed melee 'jack. I wanted a test subject for this new rust and weathering technique, so I put him together on Sunday. I sprayed on the P3 Cryx Base and Highlight colors, then started in with the MIG weathering powders and washes. A few evenings later...presto. Hope you like him. He was more fun to put together than anything I've ever done for Menoth (which always feels like such a chore).

Well, back to the Celts for a bit.

'Til next time.

First Project, 2011: Vengers

2011-01-09T11:29:00.000-08:00

...and now on to 2011!

I've had these Warmachine Exemplar Venger models sitting in my closet for about 5 years...ever since Mk.I. They've always intimidated me, and I've never had the jam to just pick them up and start putting them together. Well, over the holidays I said, "To Hell with this! Let's knock these boys out."

I used the airbrush to put on the Menoth White on, then painted the horses, leather, cloth and finally the metal. After basing and matt spray, I went back over the enamelled white horse armor and applied floor wax to bring up the shine. Glad to finally have these guys done.

On the Celt project, I have flesh shade on most of the figures, and will be working this week to bring the skin up to highlights.

Hope 2011 is starting well for you.

'Til next time.

2010: Year in Review

2010-12-31T14:54:00.000-08:00

Hello All.

It's been a busy year with lots of cool stuff going down at the hobby table and with the family. Time to look back.

There were 230 projects completed this year, ranging from the modest (Space Hulk Genestealer) to elaborate (the Viking Ship). Let's start at the beginning.

Back in January, I was plugging through eight Albatross DVs in 1/72 scale. That was a nutty project.

As the MayDay convention was looming, I started work on the Carentan Normandy scenario. Here is a WIP shot of some of the German infantry I worked on. 28mm.

Here are the finished American paratroopers I had out for that convention game.

I also ran a daylight bombing raid over Berlin, 1945. This was a six-player game with lots of 1/144 scale models, and lots of metal falling out of the sky.

In the early summer I got an airbrush and decided to take on a modest first project...nearly 40 15mm armor pieces for a still-to-be-realized Kursk scenario.

But before I could finish that project, Warhammer 8th edition was released, and I decided to take the plunge. A Lizardmen army occupied most of the summer.

The Stegadon.

In August, our city's Folk Festival hit town, and so did our nieces. Four days of music, food and a great time!

Late in the summer, Hordes 2.0 hit, and I started to expand my Legion of Everblight army. A WIP ship of Thagrosh.

In the fall, I undertook this Viking Ship project to spruce up the Danish dark ages army I was putting on display in the local library.

In October, my wife and I left for a beach vacation...it was nice to take a break!

When we got back, we decided to expand the cat family, so we adopted Orion from the Humane Society.

As winter approached, I expanded into a second Warmachine army. This Spriggan was my first Khador Warjack project.

On to Christmas holidays, and the last bit of insanity for the year...a new Celt army for Command and Colors.

Well, that about does it for the year. I hope you had a great 2010 and are looking forward to an even better 2011. Thanks and welcome to all the new followers of the Hobby Table blog this year!

'Til next time.

Holiday Project...Underway!

2010-12-31T08:29:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Holidays have been going for about a week and a half, and I've gotten a rather large project underway. Thinking forward to the MayDay convention 2011, I'd like to put on a game I've been wanting to do for several years now. This will be a miniaturization of a fairly balanced and exciting Command and Colors scenario: Sotium.

Quick background: In 56 BC Caesar had campaigned in Gaul for two years and had moved on to Illyria. With the Roman general gone, the Veneti tribe rebelled. Caesar sent Publis Crassus to Aquitania to subdue the Sotiates so that they would not join the Veneti rebellion. However, while Crassus was moving through the Sotiates territory, they were ambushed by King Adiatuanos' levy.

I'm starting with the Gaul army...62 figures, 15 of which are cavalry.

Here are the Warrior infantry units, along with the Gaul Medium Cavalry.

And then there are the seven Auxilia infantry units and three units of Light Cavalry.

It took about 5 days to clean, assemble, prime and ink all the pieces. They are a mix of Warlord and Wargames Factory plastics. I'm imagining they will take some time to paint because of all the plaid clothing and fancy shields. Better get started...skin first! At least there's a fair bit of that easier stuff.

After doing the Gaul army, I'll move on to the Roman troops.

Happily, the holiday's started with a Christmas ski trip to Banff. Weather was awesome.

'Til next time!

Vassal Mechanics

2010-12-19T10:56:00.001-08:00

Painted a couple of Menoth solos for Warmachine yesterday. Finished up the bases this morning, so figured I could double-post this weekend.

I have a 50-point game with Elliot tomorrow and thought these guys would come in handy to keep my Warjacks working over the long haul.

'Til next time.

Terrain Repaints

2010-12-18T11:36:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, our game club's "supplier" showed up with a pile of old Pegasus terrain pieces. They were painted, but I felt they really could use a repaint. I bought five pieces and started into the repainting this week. Here's the first one...kind of a hilly pass full of bones.

These two pieces came from my favorite game terrain source...the local aquarium shop. I can't pass an aquarium store without checking if there are any tank ornaments in the sales bin. Last weekend...bingo. Found these guys on sale. Quickly repainted.

All these bone pieces are good for either Legion or Lizardmen terrain items, I think.

This is another one of the Pegasus resin pieces...a skull tower. I repainted with most of the work done by airbrush. The metal rust was a test bed for some new weathering pigment powders from MIGS. I really liked working with these. Fast, and good results.

The end of the year wrap up is coming soon...

'Til next time.

New Khador Army

2010-12-11T20:18:00.001-08:00

More Warmachine madness...

Last month I bought the Ebay auction put up by col_festus of the First Rank, Second Rank blog. This was a large lot of Khador figures, and about half of the army was painted by Eric Festa to a very high quality level. Here is the Juggernaut from that lot, painted by Eric.

I was eager to paint some of the bare metal that came with this Ebay lot...the challenge was whether I'd be able to match Eric's style. Fortunately, he had posted a Khador painting and weather tutorial, so I had a great set of guidelines to match his work.

Here is my first Khador Warjack off the table...the Khador Spriggan.

Not a perfect match to Eric's style, but close enough to pass as a single army on the tabletop. The main departure I had from his instructions was to use water-based weathering washes instead of the oil-based paint he used. In any event, I'm happy with the result. More so because Eric's painting instructions were very clear and made for a very fast painting project.

So fast, in fact, that I was able to take this full Man-o-War Shocktroopers unit from bare metal to done this week as well.

I'm very excited about this new army, since I have a good head start with Eric's painted figs, and it's proving to be a very fast army to paint.

'Til next time.

Typhon

2010-12-09T18:08:00.001-08:00

Continuing on with Legion forces...

Finished the Typhon last night and did the basing this morning. Tried out another color scheme...this time it's a mottled green and brown. I airbrushed the base colors with Vallejo air model paints and then did the highlighting with GW and Foundation.

Continuing with the theme of hybrid metal and "fleshy" beasts, the carapace is brass and the spines, claws and teeth are silver. GW paints for the metallics.

I was going to bring this guy out onto the table today during our lunch game of Warmahordes...but he's really just too expensive for a 15 point game. I took the Angelius instead with Epic Lylyth and got my butt handed to me by a Khador force played by the very adept and experienced Elliot. Lessons learned!

Next up on the table...I'm trying out six Khador pieces in an attempt to match the painting style of the finished Khador force I got in an Ebay auction a few weeks back.

'Til next time!

Two Seraphs

2010-12-05T13:13:00.001-08:00

Continuing on with my Legion of Everblight forces, this week I finished off a pair of Seraph warbeasts. Kind of a shocking purple, given the muted tones of my other Legion forces, but what the Hell!?!

I'm guessing the sculptor of this model was different than the guy they used for most of the other beasts in this faction...the wing ribbing is very different, and I'm not a fan...I'd rather that the sculpting was more subtle. Whatever...these guys have a pretty wicked design.

A WIP shot of the next big guy on the table...the Legion Typhon. Going for a more mottled green/brown this time around.

Some more WIP. Here are three Menoth epic casters I need to knock off the list to get my Protectorate forces finished. I played Epic Sevarius (center model) three weeks ago, and he was pretty strong. Looking forward to playing him non-proxied.

'Til next time.

Angelius and Carnivean

2010-12-01T06:58:00.001-08:00

I finished up an Everblight Angelius last night, so thought I'd post some shots along with a Carnivean I put together a couple of years ago.

I'm intending to do all my Everblight beasts in different colors, but tie them together with "Alien"-like metal teeth, brass carapace plates and steel spines, claws and talons.

Angelius.

Carnivean

Here are the next ones up on the table...a pair of Seraphs. Obviously, WIP -- just the base colors down right now. Hope to have more progress on these guys this weekend.

'Til next time.

Raptors?!?

2010-11-28T07:37:00.000-08:00

So, the most inappropriately named Warmachine/Hordes pieces have to be the Everblight light cavalry, which are called "Raptors." Raptors? Really? They're reindeer...come on. Do they look like birds of prey? Or dinosaurs?

Anyway, I completed the unit this week, and enjoyed painting them very much. I used the Foundry Bay Brown and Chestnut sets for the fur, and blended the colors together by using some Reaper drying retarder in the paint.

I did something this week I rarely do...I bought an ebay auction of painted figures. In this case, it was a Warmachine Khador army put up by Eric Festa who runs the First Rank, Second Rank blog. It was a great auction, and the stuff got here in a week. However, as you can imagine, some of the heavy warjacks got pretty banged up in shipping. After I do the repairs, I'll post pics of the force.

'Til next time.

Warmongers and Chieftain

2010-11-21T09:04:00.000-08:00

Building up Everblight forces is now top priority on the hobby table. This week I finished off a set of Warmongers, along with the Chieftain solo.

I was hoping to get a more demonic/undead skin tone, but it didn't work out that way. I was using a purple wash on the skin, and built up the highlights with Rotting Flesh. However, in the end they just came out with pretty "normal"-looking skin. Oh well, I like 'em anyway. Great models from Privateer.

Here are some WIP shots.

First I started with the metal. The first wash was a blue ink and I drybrushed on a little bronze to help with the antiquing. Finished off with the standard armor wash and chainmail highlight.

Next I did the skin. Like I said, I was hoping this would turn out a little more "other-worldly."

Next came the fur, leather and bone. Finally, the basing material went on this morning...and all done.

I played my first two games of Hordes Mk.II this past week. Everblight is now 1-1. I really want Thagrosh to do well, but I'm up against a fast Skorne player, and Thagrosh's melee beasts just don't have the speed to match. I was better off with Lylyth.

Next up are a slew of other Everblight models. Angelius, a couple of Seraphs, two Forsaken, Absylonia and a unit of the ill-named Raptors. Oh, and I'm going to try my hand at the minion Totem Hunter. These projects should take me through the end of the year at least...so pics as stuff gets done.

'Til next time.

Daylight Savings...Thagrosh

2010-11-07T14:17:00.001-08:00

The first Sunday in November always ranks as one of my favorite days of the year. As we say goodbye to daylight savings time there is a magical, awesome extra hour to spend on the weekend. This year, I dumped that extra hour into finishing off Thagrosh the Messiah, Everblight's epic Warlock from Hordes.

It's a big model...and I can't wait to get it out on the table.

Also got a new computer this week. It came with a new version of iPhoto and some snappy new effects buttons. As witnessed by...

'Til next time.

Moria Goblins

2010-11-06T12:36:00.001-07:00

Several weeks ago, I dredged up a couple of blisters of Goblin archers from the basement stash. These figures are going to do double duty...just like my other Goblins and Orcs; War of the Ring and the Middle-earth RPG I'm running.

I just finished these up this week. I tried to paint them "lighter" than usual. I was finding that my other Orc figures were a little dull on the tabletop. Even through you're essentially looking at figs in dirty leather, dark hair, pallid green skin and muted grey metal, I'd like them to pop a little more while gaming.

I have a number of partially finished projects out on the table right now...so job one for the balance of this year is finishing off old projects (famous last words).

'Til next time.

EWG Library Display

2010-10-31T16:10:00.000-07:00

The Edmonton Wargame Group was invited again this year to set up a display in the Riverbend Public Library branch for the month of November. I went in today and put the display together.

The pics are not great...lots of glare off the display glass, but you get the idea. The top two shelves show a WWI dogfight and a dark ages stand off between Vikings and Britons.

Under the Dark Ages shelf is a WWII Normandy display.

This shot shows the Danish army along with the longboat I just finished off.

Below the Normandy village is a Warmachine display using a fine selection of Elliot's Khador troops. Unfortunately, none of the pics I took of the bottom shelf (Battlefleet Gothic) turned out...bummer.

It's October 31st, so I'll close with this pumpkin shot from the front porch. Happy Hallowe'en!

'Til next time.

Longboat...Ready for Action

2010-10-30T11:07:00.001-07:00

Just in time for the November EWG library display, the 1/50 scale Revell longboat is ready for action.

I put a single figure into the shot for scale reference. The model turned out to be pretty straightforward to build, but the rigging was a real chore...and there wasn't that much of it either. In fact, I didn't even put on all the recommended rigging lines. Just enough to give a sense of what was going on for a ship like this. Anyway, I'll be using it as a wargame prop, not a display model...so extra rigging is just extra stuff to break away during a game.

'Til next time.

Cats

2010-10-28T19:43:00.001-07:00

There may be a couple of cat fans out there. If so, this very short post is for you. The newest addition to our household cat family showed up today...Orion.

He joins the two others that have already taken up residence here: Jupiter (the big one), and Mini.

This weekend, Elliot and I are setting up the Edmonton Wargame Group display at the local library...I'll post some shots.

'Til next time.

Middle-earth Goblins and Orcs

2010-10-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

I've co-opted my War of the Ring Orcs and Goblins as adversaries in the Middle-earth RPG I'm running. The players have already run into a number of these fellows as they make their way to Moria to help Durin VII with the conquest of Khazad-Dum.

A group of mixed melee specialists.

Bowmen.

More Goblins, Orcs and Uruks with bows.

'Til next time.