Skarre and Blood Witches

Back from GenCon and back to painting. The big project I have going right now is a platoon of Canadian infantry being painted up for a Normandy scenario I have in mind. However, Warmachine units continue to roll out.

This is a unit of Satyxis Blood Witches with their unit attachment, the Blood Hag.

I've been playing a lot of Epic Skarre over the past several months, but I've never painted her prime version. So, here she is now.

Nothing special on her paint scheme...but I'm interested to find out who I like better with an infantry spam list; her or Terminus.

'Til next time.

GenCon 2012 Day 4

All good things must come to an end. Last day at GenCon started with the final Warmachine Midnight Madness event, a single list 25-point speed-caster-kill tournament. I played an eSkarre list with Deathjack, Nightmare and some Satyxis Raiders.

My first opponent was Robert Grant (sorry for the poor quality photo...everthing is blurry at this time of night). He was playing Retribution and unfortunately kill-boxed himself 5 minutes into the game. Win #1.

I took a quick walk around the site at 1:00 AM to try and clear my head. But I think I was still hallucinating. I thought I saw a white dog in pants.

...oh, wait...

Round 2. My opponent is Cory Hockman. Super good guy playing a Cygnar army with Stryker, cavalry and gun mages. This game went cock-eyed when Gorman black-oiled my Deathjack...for three straight turns. I lost on scenario points. Bummer.

Round 3. It's getting late. I play Chris Pratt, who has another Cygnar army, this time with epic Haley. I had my shit together this game, though, and got through her feat turn. Nightmare admonished past some infantry, had a charge lane on Haley, and beat the snot out of her. Quick assassination. Win #2.

Final opponent of the night/morning. This was David Koske from New England. He was playing a tight Trollblood army with epic Doomshaper and three heavy warbeasts. I followed his first game in the tournament and saw how devastating Mulg was...so that became my primary target. I raced up the board, feated early and forced him to turtle. I then charged my two 'jacks into his beasts, killing Mulg and heavily damaging the other two. In the end I had a quick win on control points, and the tournament was over.

And finally, a little plaque to commemorate the weekend of Warmachine madness. I took 3rd in the tournament and was happy. Off to sleep.

Final walk around the dealer's area. I was really struck by the number of costume shops. Way more than I've ever seen at past GenCons.

At the Privateer booth, the studio painter was putting the finishing touches on the upcoming Judicator model. This figure looks way better than the concept art. Can't wait to do one for my Menoth army.

Well, that's it. Back to the real world. Thanks for following these blog posts...hope they gave you a little peak into the Con and the Warmachine tournament scene.

'Til next time.

GenCon 2012 Day 3

Today was shopping day. The dealer's hall was...full. So much cool stuff to buy. I picked up the new Spartacus game from Gale Force 9 'cause I'm really looking for a good gladiator game. We'll see how that one pans out.

Hey, geeky Warmachine stuff. Cool.

A couple of things you can always count on seeing at GenCon. I mean booth babes.

OK, so GenCon is ground zero for doughy middle-aged white guys. That guarantees a couple of things. Fortunately, one of them is an empty hotel pool on a nice Saturday afternoon. Had a very relaxing swim.

Back in the dealer's area ran into some great old friends. Here are Jordan and Dawne Weisman and their son, Zach. Jordan is responsible for just a few industry juggernauts, like FASA, Virtual World Entertainment and Wizkids. It was great to see them again.

Ah, what every barbarian queen needs. A Blackberry. Hmmm, there's a joke in there somewhere. Well, it would be funny if I didn't hold RIM stock.

Was leaving the dealer's hall today when I ran into another old friend, Monte Cook. Monte is another industry stalwart. He and I worked together at ICE back in the '80s. He went on to write AD&D 3rd Edition, founded Malhavoc Press, and has done a bunch of other stuff, including Geek Seekers. Super good guy.

Well, I'm in another midnight madness tournament tonight, so I'll be up until the sun rises. Will post tomorrow and then fly home. Sniff!

'Til next time.

GenCon 2012 Day 2

Friday morning, and GenCon is getting into full swing. The main gaming hall is filling up!

I walked through the dealers area for a few minutes and had a nerdgasm. Holy shit, how could I ever explain buying this gaming table to my wife?

OK, onto the games. I entered my 3rd Warmachine Masters qualifier today. First opponent was Sean Whitten, who played Retribution. He brought out their melee 'caster, Garreth. He slipped away from my forward units and got into my backfield for an assassination run. He pulled up short and was quickly killed. Day started out good.

Second opponent was Alex Lau from NYC. Good guy who brought out epic Sorcha. Unfortunately, he kill-boxed himself, and handed me my second victory of the day.

OK...third match. Ever had an opponent who made you question why you even bothered playing your favorite game? Weird...I've locked horns with so many great guys so far at GenCon. Nice players who enjoy the game and friendly competition. Then there's Matthew Flager. Oh well. I lost to the death clock. Really want to avoid opponents like this in the future. Maybe Kromac does something to people.

Final game of today's tournament was with Shane Philippi. He played a nasty Skorne Zaal army. In the end we were both ground down to a few final pieces, but he won on objective points. Very good game.

Well, tomorrow, I'm going to spend some quality time in the dealer's area and maybe get in a few Iron Arena matches.

'Til next time.

GenCon 2012 Day 1

OK, so you know you're at GenCon when...this is not considered unusual.

Hey, Brian Ferry...I found Mamouna. She's in Indianapolis.

It's the start of Day 1, and at the Privateer tournament area all is quiet.

The tournament organizers have been very busy getting all the tables ready.

And there are some great terrain set-ups in the Iron Arena for players to game on.

Sweet boards.

OK, it's 10:00 AM on Thursday, and the first tournament gets underway. There are 76 guys in it. My first opponent is Charles Kleinwort. Nice fellow. He has a Trollblood list and is playing Gunbeorn.

My 'jacks cross the ridge and wind up laying waste to just about every troll on the table. Game 1 is a win, and I'm feeling confident.

Then, in round 2, I get paired with Nick Crumptin. He's "Crump" from the Muse on Minis podcasts. He's a very good player, and his Circle army went 5-0 today. Oh, that means he beat me. But it's how he beat me that bears mentioning. He had to slam his own Warlock over my caster to get the killing blow in. I've never seen that before.

During a break I ran into Walter Ritz, and old friend from Toronto. He's a role player, and a very fun guy. It was great to connect with him again.

Back at the tourney, I play Rick Sidebotham and stumble into a very bad match up with Menoth. He runs a list with 50 weapon masters. My 'jacks get torn apart. Oh, the day's not looking good.

Game 4 and I'm up against Jason Knox's Cygnar army, which includes and Stormstrider and Stormwall colossal. I work my way through Haley's Temporal Barrier with Perdition and apply Deathjack to face. Jason is sad.

Game 5 and I run into another Warmachine community personality. This is Jake VanMeter who is better known as Neutralize on the forums and podcasts. He played an Everblight army and ground me into the dirt.

So, the first tournament ended after 12 hours. I take 29th place. It's late at night, but another tourney starts at 11:00 PM. I'm in it. I grab some food and get ready. In the mean time, you can't swing a cat without hitting community celebrities. Ran into Jason Flanzer...another Warmachine podcast staple.

All through the day, the Iron Arena (non-structured play area) was going strong.

OK, midnight madness descends and we're into the next tournament. My first opponent is a great guy from Australia by the name of Tobias Ford running a Retribution army. He gets a lucky spray attack off on turn two, killing me inside of 20 minutes. Bastard.

My next opponent is Brian Leugers, also known as LordOfChange from the Prime Generation podcast. He is playing Everblight, but this time I grind them down and win the scenario handily. Yay.

In the wee hours of the morning, I play round 3 against Marc Parvis from Florida. He brings a Khador Colossal out and I spend all game beating it down. In the end, I have nothing left to deal with his infantry, and another game goes into the loss column.

The all night tournament ends just before 5:00 AM, but the whole day is worth it. I get lucky and come out with a painted army prize.

Holy crap, are there really 3 more days of this to come. I'm beat. I't just past 6:00 AM and I've been up for nearly 24 hours. Time to get some sleep.

'Til next time.

GenCon 2012 Day 0

Hi All,

Flew into Indianapolis today for GenCon. Flights were pretty good, and most importantly, all my Warmachine made it here with minimal damage.

First stop, the Will Call line. This was to pick up badge and event tickets. The length of the line increased as the day went on. Fortunately, I was only in it for about 10 minutes. It was super easy to get registered, and all my tickets were in order.

I then got online to figure out were to pick up a Warmachine game. Fortunately, some kindred spirits had booked a room over at the Union Station hotel to play some pick-up Warmachine.

I got a practice game in with the evening's organizer, Greg Leonard (aka Crazyfish).

He had a nicely painted Menoth army. His left flank was stacked with 'jacks running "no spells".

And his right flank was stacked with weapon master infantry.

We had a fun game. Note to self...don't take Deneghra against a no-spells army!

OK, the con starts in earnest tomorrow morning. I'll send a report in tomorrow evening.

'Til next time.

Pistol Wraith in 75 Minutes

I'm leaving for GenCon in two days...and at the last minute I decided I wanted to bring along an extra Pistol Wraith for my Deneghra list. Sounded like an opportunity to post a tutorial about speed painting a good table-top quality piece.

I started with the one-piece model based, primed and inked. OK, start the clock.

Blocking out base colors. 30 minutes.

Fast painting calls for a few bold choices. I decided to contrast dark blue with orange-red to help make this simply-painted figure stand out. All base colors are shown here. The inner skirts are Cryx Bane. Main coat is Storm Blue. Scarf and sash are orange-red. Cuffs are leather. Skull and hands are bone. Pistols are wood and steel.

Inner skirts. 5 minutes.

Starting on the Cryx Bane Base, I did a quick highlight with Bastion Grey and then edging with Cryx Highlight.

Coat. 15 minutes.

I spent the most time on highlighting the coat, as this constitutes the majority of the figure. I generally wet-blended up to the highlight color and back down the the base shadows.

The shades and highlights of the coat are fairly subdued, but this helps represent a very matt finish like wool.

Sash and scarf. 5 minutes.

I used P3 paints for the reds, as their pigmentation is quite dense. Their coverage is good. Since this was an exercise in fast painting, I didn't want to waste time with building up multiple coats of red, which would have been the case if I'd gone with a paint like Reaper.

Leather cuffs. 5 minutes.

I used some Vallejo paints for the cuffs. The tones were probably not the best choice (too muted), but I was rushing through and didn't spend a lot of time dilly-dallying over choosing the best leather color.

Guns. 5 minutes.

There were only two colors required for the guns, and the equipment was quite small. Pretty fast to paint up.

Bone. 5 minutes.

I used a wet-brushing technique for the head and hands. Wet-brushing is like drybrushing, but using damp, thin paint.

Base. 5 minutes.

This is a very simple base with a couple of stones and some static grass. The drybrushing goes very quick, and the paint dries so fast, you can move straight on to the static grass.

All tolled, 75 minutes of painting. Adding in a little drying time between stages and a few minutes for a coat of matt spray to dry on the figure, this Pistol Wraith still comes in at under 1.5 hours from start to finish. Just enough time to listen to a Warmachine podcast (today I listened to an episode of Road to War, from the guys in Texas).

Now I'm off to GenCon, and I hope to post from there. If you are at GenCon, look for the tall fellow in glasses toting around the Cryx bag...that would be me. Stop and say hello!

'Til next time.