Painting to Win

So, I have continued in my stores league, having played a single game of Age of Sigmar.  I played against an Ironjaws army, and the lesson learned is that Orc magic is really destructive.  I like the game.  I used to play a lot of Warhammer Fantasy, and while this is a different game, I wouldn't say it is worse.  Its likely to become my "quick and fun" game.

I've proceeded with the painting, and have now got to the point where I have a 1000pts painted, with a few extra, and am heading towards my 1500.  As well as the liberators and Retributors painted before, I have added the following.

Lord Relictor

Lord Celestant on Dracoth

Lord Celestant on Dracoth

Lord Celestant on Dracoth

Prosecutors

Prosecutors

Justicators

Justicators

I still have a Knight Azyros to paint (Built) and then I can add another Lord, and another unit of Justicators, and that will give me 2 Battalions.  I can then add some more paladins to make a 2000pt force and stop.

On Monday, I also played my first game of Warmachine in years, and certainly the first since Mk3.  This was only a battle box sized game, but it was enough fun for me to decide that I am probably going to start playing this more regularly.  I have a huge Cygnar force already, which can be expanded, and the startings of a Trollbloods force, so not too much work to stick with the only playing with painted models rule.

It's a Stitch Up

So, tonight I have finished the rogue Necromancy that was first referenced in the posts about my Take Back the Night Crew for Molly.  After much discussion, I decided that I should paint it as if it were "real" rather than a spirit, as that gives it more utility in other crews, and fits more with the fluff for the model.
Painting it was a chore.  I am still convinced that the lion parts look too Wizard of Oz cartoon Lion for my overall taste.  Nevertheless, it works as a whole.  As often happens to me with models like this, I got stuck for a few days, and lost inspiration, since I had decided that I really didn't like the way it was turning out.  So I stopped, and looked at it while playing Magic Duels online, and today I cracked on and ploughed forward.  It's not my favourite model, but it is good enough for government work as they say (Or as McMourning does.  And since the good doctor is likely to be the other user of this, well...)

Without further ado, the pictures.

Yes, I missed some blood on the front leg

And this back Haunch is missing blood as well

It's also worth noting that this weekend was the start of 2 weeks of Annual Leave.  Yes, this means that I have extra time, that needs to be divided between the wife, and the toys.  As is usual, I am going into my leave with a list of Hobby Projects, not all of which are likely to get anywhere near completion.  But the list is here anyway.

To paint
  Finish Rogue Necromancy
  Finish Aionus
  Finish Gracie
  Finish Daenerys Targaryen
  Paint Nova
  Paint Deadpool
  Paint Mysterious Effigy
  Paint Carver

Terrain Project
  This is going to be a Swamp/Bayou board for Malifaux.  Plans are currently being worked on, but I know that it is going to be made up of pieces of scatter terrain on a baseboard.  I have a proof of concept swamp piece and the beginnings of an elevated hut.  Other ideas include a stone egg, some trees, some stones, walls, fences, a pig pen, a still and anything else that grabs my fancy.

Army Projects
  Cygnar Army - Aiming to get a 75pt force selected and tested for Warmachine Mk3
  Trollbloods Army - Aiming to get 75pts painted and tested for Hordes Mk3 (This will require more painting and work that the Cygnar)
  The Girls of Malifaux - Developing my Viktoria's crew, by including as many additional thematic females as I can.  This is likely to include Hannah, Johanna, and any others that I can squeeze in by any means necessary.

None of the projects are set in stone and it's likely to be a few days before I finalise which ones I am going to try and get completed.  I shall cross them off here when I am done with them.  Any thoughts, comments or criticism really welcome.

Hans

    This weekend, having finished the Harlequins for my main project, I found myself at a loose end.  I knew that I wasn't going to have hours to spend on painting as I'm recently married, had had a tough week at work and therefore would like some time to unwind with the new wife.  However, I did want to get something done, and so there was some rooting through the "stuff waiting to be finished" shelf that sits guilting me above the work desk.

    I cam across Hans, the original metal sculpt for Malifaux.  While I considered starting work on my next commision (Deathstroke) he needed assembly and the weather was not great for undercoating.  My BMG Harley crew are undercoated, but I felt like I needed to dedicate a whole block of time to getting them started, which I didn't have.  So, without further ado, I give you (rather poor photos of, taken on my phone) Hans.

Next month for the ATONLG I will need to paint something extra for the Harlequins.  This will either be the second 2 Skyweavers that I have already, or I may need to get a third Troupe.   After I have both of those completed I will be able to fill my FOC and consider starting to play (probably very short, and one sided) games.

As well as that, I aim to reduce the size of the pile of half finished stuff on the the shelf.  So far, that consists of 

Warmahordes

Stormwall

2 Troll Impalers

Hunter

Malifaux

2 Thunder Archers

Fuhatsu

Lone Swordsman

Undertaker (Forgotten his name)

Vulture

Nicodem

Mature Nephilim

(Just needing Basing)

40K

Striking Scorpion Squad and Exarch

BMG

Harley Quinn

Joker's Daughter

5 Harley Henchmen

Gatling Brute for Harley

I know a few people read this, and so if anyone has any thoughts on which of these they would like to see worked on next, please feel free to comment.

Look at my Enourmous Chopper

Trollblood Axer finished.  Pretty poor pictures, camera phoned as usual, but less quality than I normally manage.  That said, I am off to work.  Any thoughts always welcome,

Can't see the Trolls for the Trees

Work this week has seen me finishing at 9.30pm, getting home around 10, and then with nothing else to do, hobbying until about midnight.  So, you might ask, (if you cared, which you probably don't, although if you don't, why are you here) what have I been doing.

Would anyone be surprised to know that the answer involves Trolls, and Trees?  More specifically, I have been working on my Troll Axer for my Trollbloods.  Got the skin done, got the metallic armour started.  Just some details (Face rocks, toe nail shading, the Bloody (literally, covered with blood) great axe, the copper bits of his armour, and of course, the tartan) to do.  Pleased again with how the skin is coming out, given that there are very few steps to it, it seems to give a quite nice effect, in person, even if it doesn't always come across in my (very poorly lit camera phone taken) photos.

The other thing I have been playing with has been trees and hedges.  Had the random idea to try making some of these, and so went to town.  Plasticard bases, pan scourers, clump foilage stuff.  Attach scourer to base, spray black and then drybrush brown, before covering with the clump foilage, and then basing to suit.

The trees are the typical twisted wire home made armature variety.  I am experimenting with them still.  The one that is shown here is made by covering the armature in liquid green stuff.  Too much of the "its made of twisted wire" comes across with that for me.  Other methods to be tried include "wrap it in kitchen towel soaked in PVA (A reasonable success) and the still to be attempted "smear it with green stuff to hide the wire".
The greenery is made with the same clump stuff as the hedges are covered in with one trick that I haven't seen anywhere else.  When I have attempted this before, the foilage always either fell off if I made big clumps, or looked quite bare.  To counter this second, I, before I added the foilage, gave the end of the branches some bulk using finely chopped up scourer stuck to the wire.  This was allowed to dry, and then had the (more expensive, harder to work with) clump stuck to it.  I'm still not 100% happy with the result, but its forward progress on previous attempts.

As always, comments, criticism, advise are more than welcome in the comments section.

It's A Bomber, It's A Bomber

Because, honestly, this may be my favourite Troll model so far,
 because he is just so fun....

Well, thats the Dire Troll Bomber completed to my satisfaction for now.  It was bought off of E-Bay a LONG time ago, sat on a shelf for ages, until i realised that it was missing the Pyg Rider.  That was then purchased from PP when I got the replacement part for the Storm Strider.  It was built, and has finally been painted as part of the great "Paint everything before I start a new project" drive that has started this year.  I still need to put the scatter leaves on the base, and possibly a log of some sort, but it is basically finished.

In other news, I have finally been persuaded into playing Magic the Gathering again.  To be honest, having seen the people at the local shop playing it again, I've missed it.  Small investment in cards, and I have a Red Aggro deck ready that should hopefully at least let me not embarrass myself too much in standard.  I am hopefully going to blog about my re-entry into magic in a seperate post a bit later.

Anyway, here he is.  I shall name him Boris.  Because reasons..  Any comments and criticism/suggestions are entirely welcome.

They are RIVETS.  NOT EYES.  Even if they would make really cool staring eyes.....

Tartan.  If only I could come up with a way to paint Scottish Trolls and NOT paint Tartan......

A first attempt at fire.  If I was braver, I might have tried to OSL the areas around the flames.  But I like it too much to risk ATM.

Dire Troll Bomber WIP

Not much to say.  Started work on my Dire Troll Bomber.  Any comments at this early stage welcomed.

Kriel Stone Bearers Unit

Just finished painting my unit of Krielstone Bearers.  I had finished the Stone Bearer himself as a test piece, and have posted pictures before, but the rest of the unit is new.  Basing style went with the ongoing forested/woodland theme, that hopefully will be developed with some terrain pieces in the near future.  Thinking some patches of rough ground, linear obstacles made from fallen trees, and some Troll dwellings.

All told, these weren't too bad to paint, even though there were only 2 sculpts for the guards, they just about managed to avoid my frustration at painting lots of the same model.

I've managed to keep the tartan featured on all of the models again, although I am not sure how well it comes out on these smaller areas, but the colours and pattern are at least in general consistent across these and my other trolls.  I think that the next job will be to paint another Warbeast, possibly finishing the Bouncer, or starting on the Blitzer or Bomber.

As a side note, just want to say well done again to PP customer services.  I had a mismatch of arms and bodies in my Fennblades.  Seamlessly the replacement parts service has dispatched the correct arms.  Lets hope they turn up in a timely manner, but based on past experience, I have no doubts that they will.

Fear of the Trolls

Right, its time to talk about fear.  And Trolls.  And fear of Trolls (or something)

I have a largish collection of Trollbloods that I have picked up from ebay about 18 months ago whenever they came up at reasonable prices.  So far, I have painted exactly 3 of them, a Dire Troll Mauler, Madruk and Janessa.  They weren't based.  I had no idea how I wanted to base them.  So they sat, unbased, surrounded by their boxed colleagues.

This weekend, I decided that I had to do something about the trolls.  I had been painting Warmachine stuff, and that had led me to want to move on.  So, I built my Trolls.  More specifically, I built a unit of Kriel Warriors, a unit of Krielstone bearers, a sorceror, a bomber, and started on a Blitzer and a bouncer.  It was here that the fear first hit me.

I HATE privateer press plastic units.  I remember with horror trying to clean up and assemble the 2 units of Stormblades and the unit of stormguard.  No instructions.  Pieces that fit badly.  Mold lines over important points.  The trenchers with bent guns.  This all combined to make me put off assembling my Fennblade unit.  Even though this is the oldest set I have for the Trollbloods, even though they would fit beautifully with my idea for a force of infantry with Tough.  No, the fear of just how bad they are going to be means that they are still in their box, not even examined.

To get over this, I moved on to the Krielstone Bearer.  And this is where we get to the fear MK II.  I have painted the skin, and I have painted the stone itself.  And now I find myself at the point where I KNOW that these look good, and are at the limits of my skill.  And I find myself reluctant to move on.   I worry that I am going to take this model that I have worked hard on and think looks good, and spoil it by messing up the rest.

So, before I wreck a model, I will show some WIP pictures of the Krielstone Bearer.

Thoughts, comments, criticisms all welcomed.

Storm Strider - Finished

So the Storm Strider is finished.  Unusually for me painting a large model, i managed to do so without getting very bored halfway through and rushing the end.  I think it has come out reasonably well, and am pleased with the results.  I think I may have to delay for a bit before I start on another large model though (by which I mean the Stormwall)

Infinity and Warmachine

Well, this is supposed to record my games as well, so I probably need to write about today's game.

Played infinity at LvlUp vs David.  YuJing vs My Aleph.  At 200pts, attempting to learn N3.

My list consisted of
  3 Devas (Lieutenant, Hacker, Spitfire)
  Naga Sniper
  3 Dakinis (HMG, 2xCombi Rifle)
  2 Thorakites (SMG, Combi Rifle)

It was a good fun game, with me winning deployment, getting everything in cover initially, with the HMG and Camo sniper covering most of the board.  I got no pictures sadly, but 1st turn was basically David running stuff forward, and exchanging fire with those 2.  The HMG eventually went down, as did the Sniper, but only after dogged had meant that she continued to shoot people even while bleeding to death!
The rest of the game was back and forth, with NWI and templates eventually helping me to win by eliminating the last model with my last order of the last turn.  I had the Devas, and a thorakite left, so it was a bit of a pyrhic victory.
I have to say, that I am liking N3.  This is probably the most fun I have had playing infinity, against another new player, where we both had a bit of a shaky understanding of the rules, but enough to play fairly independently apart from a few rules questions.  My opponent was a really good fun guy, and I look forward to more games against him.

Painting recently has been Warmachine based.  I rebased the Storm Tower that had somehow fallen apart, and worked on my Storm Strider.  The actual strider is finished now, and I just need to paint up the crew.  Of note, the legs have fallen off this thing at least 3 times.  Its probably my fault, but pinning them seemed like too much hassle, and now it is on the base, it should last.  This is the same Strider that feel out of a 2nd (3rd if you are american) floor window a while back.  The array at the back was lost in grass at this time (it was 24 hours before I realised it had fallen), but I have finally managed to get one from Privateer.

Talking of Privateer, its interesting to note that the first time I contacted them about this, I got a message asking which part was missing, and then nothing.......For months (at least 6).
The second time, I went through the missing/damaged parts service, and was very honest in how I had lost it.  They couldn't help, but gave me an alternative part of equal value to order from the online store, and instructions for letting them know I wanted something else.  I was nervous (this had the potential to net me a spare pair of Stormclad legs after all), but they came through and I quickly got the part I actually needed.  So, all I can say is well done store and replacement parts, and BOO HISS at their customer service department.

Comments and thoughts most welcome, both on the Infinity list and also the paint job.

Eiryss

Just finished putting the paint on Eiryss.  Simple, but hopefully effective job.  Needs basing up to match the rest of my Cygnar models now.