Painting Progress – 20110809

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Had an extremely productive weekend, which was refreshing after what’s felt like an extended period of being too busy to do anything.
For starters, I managed to knock out the rebasing of all of my Stormvermin.  That’s several more models than I actually need by the end of the month, but it was easy enough to just power through all of them.

Let the record show that I don’t particularly care for rebasing minis. It’s a little too tedious.  Just as well that, at this point, I really only need to rebase a single model (one Poisoned Wind Mortar) before I’m done with all of that.
I also decided to change things up a bit and knock out all of the movement trays.  I did a total of six: two 100mm x 120mm trays (from Litko), two 200mm x 100mm horde trays and two 5 model skirmish trays (from GF9).  They came together pretty quickly.
I also blew through another six Plague Monks.  (Not pictured because we know what they look like and the varnish was drying on them while I took these pictures.)
Finally, a while back I finally got the chance to play Chaos in the Old World (which is seriously a lot of fun), just about the time the Horned Rat expansion came out.  The components were solid, and I found it cheap on the internet, so I ordered a second copy of it (the expansion, not the whole game) to use for my army.  I’ll probably get around to using the clanrat / cultist tokens as wound counters and the rat ogre / lesser daemon tokens as unit filler at some point.  I had a little free time, though, so I ended up throwing this piece of terrain together using the vermin lord / greater daemon token:

It’s just the token, a round wooden chit to give it a base, and some left over Arcane Ruins.  It’ll probably go on the center of my display board, I think.

At this point, I’m getting near the end of prepping my army… that’s good, ’cause I’m getting a little tired of painting rats.  By my count, all that’s left is:
  • 5x Plague Monks
  • 3x Rat Swarms (optional, for popping out of an Abomination)
  • 3x Banners (everything else is painted, I just need to do something with the banner)
  • 1x Mortar Rebasing
  • Display Board
This is, I think, pretty doable.

"Let’s Have a Tournament" Tournament

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I ran a WHFB tournament over the weekend at GPC.

I think it’s safe to say it was successful: “full” at GPC is 12 players, max capacity (where people have to start playing on 5.5′ tables) is 16… we had 14 players.  Everybody seemed to have a good time and, with the solid turnout, prizes were good.

With the NoVA Open on the horizon, I decided to just use their composition rules (making an allowance for Chaos Dwarves ’cause we’ve got a player who’s running them), their first three scenarios (which were kinda  lackluster and a bit schizophrenic) and their bracketing (which meant we had two undefeated players at the end of the day).

We had a ton of Orc & Goblin Players, which was kinda neat.  No Skaven, though. :/  Warriors of Chaos performed the best, with both WoC players going undefeated through the day.  Best appearance went, by popular vote, to Joey J.’s Daemons of Chaos.

It was a long day, but we managed to pretty much stay on track throughout it… a huge accomplishment.

Results:

One of the local players took a bunch of pictures that can be found here.  (All of the pictures in this post are his.)

Something I really wanted to touch on was that I decided to take a risk that morning and run the tournament without a laptop.  Instead, I used just my iPad… and brought a pad of graph paper in case that didn’t work out.

It worked, extremely smoothly.  I had no trouble inputting results; because I was able to just walk over to a table where folks were working through their results, I’d say it was actually considerably easier than it would have been with a stationary laptop.

Tomorrow, I’ll touch on what apps I used.  I could probably stick them in here, but I imagine it’d be more useful on its own.

Most Ostentatious Turn Counter Ever

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It’s done!  I’ve talked a bit about it before, so I’m just going to photodump!

Painting!

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Finally finished that large batch of Plague Monks I’ve been stuck on for a few weeks, now.  Lesson learned (well, confirmed): smaller batches = faster accomplishment = more motivation = more done.

Eleven to go.  They’ll wait a bit for me to knock out some other things.  I need to knock out some smaller, lower-hanging fruit before I get tangled up in these again.
Here’s where I am on my plan:
I’ve started on my turn counter, and am making tracks.  If I have the chance to paint tomorrow (and I should), it’s quite possible that I’ll finish it.  In the mean time, since I’m posting, here are some WIP pictures.

I’ve gotten color scheme info from Mike: I’m taking a few liberties with his process to make them fit with my style, but not many.  I’m really happy with the face of this poor bastard:
Other’n that: 
  • I’m running a tournament at GPC tomorrow (that I should have advertised here, but it filled up so quickly… there was no need).  It’s ostensibly a NoVA Open prep for the handful of us that are going to play Fantasy.  Hope it’ll be fun, but it definitely makes me want to run a looser, goofier tournament some time soon.
  • Storm of Magic came out: I’m super-stoked to play it.  I desperately want this thing to catch on so I can convert up a bunch of silly Skaven crap.  Say one thing about me, say that I like to convert up silly Skaven crap.

Painting Progress 20110708

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Haven’t had much to post about: haven’t actually finished anything in a bit, but I don’t like leaving things quiet for but so long.  So, I’ve got some WIP photos.

For starters, the test model I started for the Vampire Counts / Empire army I was noodling about the other week.

Pooling on the bit beneath that left eye aside (something easily fixed with a bit of matte medium), I freaking love this.  Pale, unhealthy, striking.  This is good stuff!  For the curious, the face is:

– GW Dheneb Stone basecoat
– Heavy GW Ogryn Flesh wash
– GW Dheneb Stone drybrush
– Wash of 3:2:2:1 of water, GW Ogryn Flesh, Matte Medium, GW Asurmen Blue

For the curious, that 3:3:2 ratio of water / wash / matte medium is my new magic freaking bullet.  Any time I want to wash something that isn’t super-powerful, it’s my go-to.  Mixing washes is also a hugely powerful tool.  I really should throw up some comparison photos to prove it, but Ogryn Flesh plus, or Thraka Green plus produces much richer, more interesting colors.

I’ve made a good bit of progress on the rest of the guy.  It’s enough for me to know that I hate everything else.  The bits swapping hasn’t worked out very well, I think.  Worse yet, the colors– the ones I kinda need to use to make this work– are pretty much exactly the same colors I use on my Skaven.  I need to do something different.

So, I don’t think I’ll be going forward with this.  I’m still kinda shining on the Empire, though, so maybe I’ll push forward with a more traditional province.

Still plugging away at ten Plague Monks.  I’m closing in on finishing them, but I’m not quite there.  Poo.

Also, to try to break up things, I’ve started on the turn counter.  It should paint up pretty quickly when I get a solid couple of hours to sit at the desk.

Painting Progress 20110625

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Not much progress over the past week: I’ve been just too dang busy with work and such.

I did manage to put the finishing touches on a batch of 5 Plague Monks: I needed to knock out a Musician and Standard Bearer and, at that point, I might as well do a few more and get 5 done.

I’m still in the mood to paint Plague Monks, though, and it’s been a while since I’ve tried doing things in a large batch… so I hit 10 with an airbrush.

We’ll see how they go.

I also bitz ordered a skeleton and a swordsman to pull together a model to experiment on.

About as soon as it showed up, however, I decided that all of my living dudes would be based on Free Company models, rather than State Troops models.  Still, it’ll be something to play with colors on.  It’s mostly a swordsman with Skeleton equipment and Karl Franz iconography shaved off.  I sculpted a little skull on his chest… it’s not great, though.  Need to practice that sort of thing.

Finally: if you want some Cygnar for Warmachine or Circle Orboros for Hordes, you should buy my stuff!

Auctions wrap up Sunday night!  (Need to pay for Storm of Magic + Sylvanian Levies somehow, right?)

W: Empire Advice

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I’ve got the percolation of an idea for a new army, directly inspired by this guy:

I painted him up a couple of years ago because 1) that’s one badass model and 2) I was working through how to achieve the bloodless skin tone I use on my Daemons.

I’ve got some work to do making the fluff make sense, but the short version is Sylvania-as-Empire / Stirland.  Basically, an Empire army themed to the tone and style of Sylvania.

The idea would be that I could play around with models I really like the look of (Vampire Counts), without having to play Vampire Counts (I don’t want to paint a billion Skeletons).  An upshot would be that I could, if the spirit moved use the same models in a VC army if I decided I want to.  It’d be fun to play around with conversions with Empire, VC, and Mantic parts.

I’d also like to be able to run a more varied, flexible army: with real shooting, access to cavalry and monsters (as mounts, I guess) and book lores.

The problem is: I know nothing about how the Empire plays.  I’ve played against them once, and that was editions ago when I was learning Fantasy.  I’m not sure I even begin to understand how to play Fantasy outside of a very specific loathsome, verminous context.

Scanning the internet for “Tournament Empire Lists” isn’t terribly helpful just yet; never mind that they all seem to involve a lot of Priests, which is something I’m not opposed to, but don’t want to use as a foundation for the army (since it’s all Castlevania’d up).  Also, though I’d like to play an effective list, I don’t want to play a dickbag list (we’re not talking High Elves, here! :D ).

So: rap at me.  What do I need to know about what works and doesn’t work with The Empire?  Where’s a good place to get more info about it.  Any thoughts?  Advice?

This might not go anywhere… but if it does, I’d like it to go in an informed, considered fashion.

Unloading Warmachine / Hordes!

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After a fairly prolific couple of weeks, it’s been dead around here.  We’ve had house guests, which has done a solid job of breaking my stride.  Hopefully, I’ll find it again this weekend.

I’m about halfway through painting another 5 Plague Monks, which is significant, because that includes a standard bearer.  At this point, standards are pretty much the only actual new-new painting need to do… and boy, do I hate doing them.  Nothing I ever do with them feels inspired or satisfactory.

More significantly: thanks to help from Casey, I’ve finally begun selling off my Warmachine / Hordes stuff.  I haven’t played the game in years (since 2008), and it’s time to move on.   So, I just (last night) put a bunch of stuff (Cygnar and Circle Orboros; most of it pretty well painted, IMHO) up on eBay.

If that’s something you might be interested in, I (and my next 40K army) would really appreciate it if you took a look at what I’ve got up for auction!

(I’m still a huge n00b to the eBays, so I’m pretty nervous and excited about how all of this is going to work out.)

C’mon, really?

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Called the local GW on the way home from work today to see if they had any square 20mm slottabases in stock: I’m rebasing the Skaven and need some more for the Stormvermin.

The guy said, yeah, they had them in stock.

So, I went out of my way* to stop by to pick them up.

“Oh, we don’t actually have any in stock.  But you can order them right over here…”

I turned around and walked out.

If I wanted to order them (and I’ll have to), I’d have done it my damn self.  I stopped by because I’d been told my immediate need for slottabases could be filled.

I’m trying to decide if this guy was just a complete idiot who wasn’t up to the task of turning around and looking or if this is some equally idiotic plot to get me to put $5 worth of slottabases towards the store’s sales.

I’m also considering calling GW and complaining.  It’s not a big deal, but this guy was either too dumb to answer my question or he flat out lied to me about the answer.  On second thought: he was a black shirt.  I am going to call.

* Not terribly far, but in Northern Virginia traffic, “not terribly far” is still “far enough.”

Finished – Plague Furnace

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After more than two solid weeks of painting, I’ve finished the dang Plague Furnace.  Lesson Learned: do no assemble and play with complicated Skaven models for a year before deciding to paint them.  I mean, it still would have taken me weeks to paint, but it would have been much, much easier.

The Plague Priest came out great looking.

As did the crew.  One thing I need to point out: the Plague Monk closest to the center of the Furnace has an extremely strangely sculpted face.  It’s just weird.  Parts of it are clearly skull, parts of it are clearly not, and the transition between the two is very unclear.  I found the ‘Eavy Metal jobs not very helpful in figuring out what to do with it.

Ultimately, I gave him a face-melty thing.  One side of his face is skull, and the other side looks like his skin’s sloughed off.  Very happy with how it came out, considering what a pain it was.

Some of the non-ratty details.

And the model from each direction.  I’m extremely happy with it; definitely time well-spent.

While the varnish was drying on that, I set into doing of the more tedious, but necessary tasks for the army.  I finally repaired the Doomwheel banner that just barely made it through the Golden Daemons.

Not perfect, but screw it.  There’s about an inch of paperclip pinning this thing.

I also started rebasing some stuff, from a grassy base to my cavern-style bases.  I’ve got 12 Gutter Runners, the Grey Seer, a Mortar and 25 Stormvermin to do.  I’ll also either have to rebase about 25 Plague Monks or repaint them.  Since this is going to be tedious, best to do it in chunks.  So, I did the Seer and the Gutter Runners.

That puts me here, in really great shape!