Lock & Load 2014 Convention Report

Last weekend I, along with about 30 other players from Alberta, went down to Seattle for Lock & Load 2014. Here is the video report for the convention.



Lots of games and good competitors. I got 12 games in over the course of the weekend.

First opponent in Masters was Cam Buskell, from Alberta. He was playing pButcher and had me on the ropes...but I was able to get off a last ditch assassination with one of Rhoven's Guards.

Second game was against Brook Murphy from Victoria. Another Menoth player. I played eFeora and managed to get his Harbinger on fire twice...but both times the flames went out. My caster went down to Redeemer shots.

Next I played Brett Vogel from Texas. Using an eKruger list, he quickly got Ghetorix into my face with a Hyperagressive, Telekinesis, Teleport and another Telekinesis. Dead pSeverius!

Then I faced Steve Rich from California. He was playing Lylyth3. We had a good battle, but he eventually ran out of time on the clock.

The Masters top 8 looked like this going into day 2. Two Canadians in the top 8, but unfortunately, none from Alberta.

In the Hardcore tournament, I was playing an eFeora list. My first opponent was Scott Summerville playing Absylonia. I was doing quite well, until a Forsaken got a 7-dice attack off against my 'caster. Well, that was the end of that game.

Next I got paired up against my good friend, Elliot Christian (eVlad). On his second turn, he engaged my line of 'jacks, and took one down. I counter-struck with three 'jacks, juiced up with triggered abilities and focus...and whiffed everything. Terrible luck. Oh, well...Elliot is a worthy opponent and deserved the win.

Then it was off to Iron Arena. I played Zach from Dallas. He had a Lucant list (and not the only time I'd face something like it during the weekend).

Next I had a game with Matt from Seattle. He had the new eReznik battle engine out. Sweet model.

I then had a match with Logan from California. Talk about a high-energy guy. He was also playing Lucant from Convergence.

On Sunday, I had a game with Birch Helander who had a Vlad3 tier list.

And then I played Alex Kosma who managed to get off a Morghoul assassination against me. I was happy with the game state at the time...my 'jacks were laying waste to his beasts. Never mind.

At the end of the day, I had a game against another Skorne player: Joe from California. While I was getting beat up from most of the weekend, this game made me feel good for the plane ride back. He was playing Rasheth, and I had a tier 4 Mortenebra list on the table.

This was the final turn...it's not often you see 5 Cryx 'jacks at the end of a game standing next to an opposing 'caster.

As we were packing up to leave for the airport, the finals of the Iron Gauntlet worlds were in progress. Jay Larsen (in red) defeated Jason Watt to snag the world championship.

It was a fun time, and got to see plenty of old friends.

'Til next time.

MayDay Steamroller Report

Last weekend I ran the 2nd Annual MayDay Steamroller for Warmachine. It was a 50-point, 2-list event that provided local players a final opportunity to tune up their lists and play just before Lock & Load (June 6th down in Seattle).

Here's the video report...



The tournament was held up at Thunderground in St. Albert. Roy Kim generously donated the space for the day.

We had a battlegroup painting competition. Christian Lombardy took 3rd with a really nicely painted Cygnar battlegroup.

Tyler Webb took 2nd with a group that centres on a converted Stormwall.

And Elliot Christian took 1st, with a super well-executed Butcher 3 battlegroup featuring lots of nice hand-painted details.

We had a full house for the tourney (24 players), and everything went off without a hitch. Very fun day.

'Til next time.

Orin Midwinter: Assembly and Painting

I've been away on vacation for the last few weeks...but before I left I started up a small project: assembling and painting Orin Midwinter, a Warmachine Mercenary.

I've put the project up on a video blog here:

Here is the finished figure, painted up in Menoth colors.

A fun little project, and a nice miniature with good animation in the sculpt.

'Til next time.

Starting a Video Blog

I've been wanting to add a video element to this blog for some time. I finally got around to buying a camcorder, along with the bells and whistles to make video reports.

My introductory video is here:



And the second episode, which focuses on Warmachine, Khador, Vlad2 and a battle report, is here:



Hope you like these. Please provide any feedback so that I can make future videos that are more in line with what you may be looking for.

'Til next time.

Finishing Up My Galleon List Models

I'm getting close to finishing off all the Mercenary models necessary for my Bart Galleon list. Here are Dougal, the Vanguard and Wyshnalyrr.

Everyone and their brother seems to have a Wyshnalyrr model.

Because so many 'casters need an upkeep focus.

Dougal sees a lot of work in Merc lists.

So good with shooting colossals...like Galleon!

And on the Vanguard, I used the same painting technique I developed for the Galleon. It has a rust brown undercoat and then a green overspray that was distressed away with a stiff brush and rubbing alcohol.

When I glued the Vanguard pieces together, it seemed that the natural position for the arms left the pike and shield below the level of its feet. So to counter that, I built up the base with cork and perched the Vanguard on top.

This painting project went very fast. It's a simple scheme with some fast weathering. But all in all, a pretty cool looking light 'jack.

'Til next time.

The Forgotten Men of Middle-earth

A few weeks ago, I got the urge to paint some more Middle-earth figures. GW's old metal minis are really nice. Great sculpts, nice animation, good proportions...on and on. Looking through the shelves of inventory, I decided to do some free men. 

And when you think of men in Middle-earth, Gondor and Rohan immediately come to mind. I have some Rohirrim ready to go...but I didn't feel like painting horses. So I dug into some of the more obscure models.

These are an assortment of models from the fiefdoms of Lamedon and Lossarnach, the Kingdom of Arnor, and men from Dunland.

After basing, priming and the first ink pass, skin and metal were the first things to paint.

Then, cloth. GW painted their clansmen from Lamedon with tartan kilts. Looked good. I tried it on mine as well.

Next up I worked on the leather items. There was a significant amount on the Dunland models...it's always a challenge to vary up the shades of leather.

Then it was time for cloaks. King Arvedui has the fanciest.

Finally, it was time to finish off details. The remainder of the wood bits, eyes, hair, and everything else missed in the previous steps. Bases were painted and flocked...and then, all done.

Clansmen of Lamedon.

Axemen of Lossarnach.

Men of Dunland.

And finally, an assortment of characters from Arnor.

This week I was also able to base the 10/12mm sci-fi vehicles I've built recently. First there's this flight stand for the 1/144 scale stealth fighter.

And then a mix of other vehicles and artillery pieces. I like how they mix with the Heavy Gear models.

Well, that's all for this week. Next up, I have a number of Warmachine models ready to be logged in.

'Til next time.

Step-by-Step: Building and Painting the Galleon

Well, you can't play a Bart/Galleon list without a Galleon...so here's the guy I built to Batten Down the Hatches!

This is a step-by-step post, so let's start with the model. All right...I have to admit, I don't like the look of the damn thing. I find it kind of silly-looking; particularly with the overly-large trident. But it ain't gunna build itself.

So, as we've come to expect from Privateer's big resin models, the mould lines and flow gates are ridiculous. I spent a long time cleaning the parts. And in this kit, there are a lot of parts. I'm glad they included an exploded diagram for the thing, because, honestly, I would not have figured out how to put the Galleon together on my own.

Thinking about how I was going to paint this colossal, I figured that the best strategy for building it was to assemble four large chunks...the hips, upper torso, left arm and right arm.

I started by priming black.

I wanted to distress the green paint scheme to reveal rusty metal underneath. So, I sprayed all the assemblies with a combination of hull red, brown and rust colors. After that dried, I sealed all the brown areas with multiple coats of Testors Dullcoat.

I'll use the cargo claw as an example of how I got to the end finish on the rest of the model. First, I taped off areas to avoid overspray. In the case of the claw, it got a spray of yellow (I used two different shades here).

Removed the tape, and moved on to spraying other areas with green (two tones again...a dark then a light).

And this is how it looked after the top coat was distressed.

To distress the top coat of paint, I applied rubbing alcohol to the surface of the model. I then used a brush with very stiff bristles, and rubbed away the top coat. The alcohol loosens up the top coat to make it easy to remove, and then evaporates quickly, so the new distressed paint scheme stabilizes in about a minute.

As you can see here, I also painted in the metallic areas as well. I used two metallic progressions for this model...a light bronze from Foundry, and the silver metal metallics from GW.

Once I had the hip assembly complete and painted, I glued it to the base, applied glue and sand and painted the "soil" brown. Once that was dry, I attached some of the other scenic base elements. These included a section of fence from GW...

...and a few larger slate stone pieces. These were blended into the ground cover with more glue and sand.

Skipping ahead a little, I then applied a fair bit of static grass, tufts, scale flowers and a few extra odds and ends. You can see a sword and shield leaning up against the fence here.

Anyway, after all the painting was done on the major assemblies, they were all attached with CA glue, and the model was largely done by this point.

I applied some silver paint chips, and then added some rusty washes to the finished model.

Like the highlight of the yellow claw o the left hand, I made the shoulder pad on the right side red to add another accent to the model.

The bronze was washed with sepia, and then green and blue inks to weather it. The silver metal areas, on the other hand, were washed with umber and rust colors. Both got a final highlight drybrush.

Well, that's the whole thing. Another colossal in the bag. I still think the model is pretty goofy, but I'm happy with the finished result.

"Til next time.