Tourney Prep 2

My fire warriors have officially filed a grievance against me. They are basing it on neglect. In many ways they are right to feel angry, what with me lavishing my brushes' affections on other models right in front them. That being said, my dalliance has almost come to climax and, while fun for a weekend, I am unwilling to leave my spouse that is 40k for another at this time.
As I eluded to earlier, in the case of Gorten and the Driller, the dwarf line for Privateer Press continually makes models that I must paint/play. The Basher is no exception. It has been very rewarding to watch it come to life as it gets paint. It makes me sad that more companies are not more inventive with their dwarves. Especially GW, as then maybe I would be interested in play WHFB. As they stand now, really short people shooting a lot is ok, if the following criteria are met: A chic, wearing fish-nets, in the movie Total Recall.

From Mars Project Blog

Anyway, the Basher is all based and washed/shaded now. I have been fighting some nastiness that has laid waste to my office so I have only been able to paint for brief amounts of time between bouts of the cough medicine "kicking in". I should be in a good spot to have this guy finished by tomorrow. He is the last 'jack that needs to be painted in the battle group for Sunday's tourney. I should be fully painted and not have to worry about the self deprecation associated with not being so. I will snap pics of the whole gang as soon as they are ready to go.

Thanks for reading,
T

Feel the Hate

Magnus always jokes that one of the secrets to his painting speed and ability to finish armies is that, "You have to let the hate of the model fuel your brush." While I am almost certain Magnus doesn't hate all of his minis, there may be something to this. I don't hate the Driller, in fact I love it. Although I had already been playing Warmachine, Gorten's battle box release was the first Privateer Press product that shifted my mind from models I played, to models I had to play.
However, last night, as I was putting the finishing touches on this 'jack, completed in an unprecedented 10ish hours (Sad I know), I felt the hate. I was so eager to be done with the model, and so close, and so pissed that he wasn't done yet, that I just kept going. I was a man possessed. I couldn't have stopped had I wanted to. I blacked out, and when I came to there was just this model and so much blood...er paint.
There is a terrible down side to feeling the hate though. Towards the end, when you are filled with the anger, your quality drops off a little. The last color I did was the darker brown. I noticed my blends more slap dash, and my highlights getting harder. I should have called it there and done a lot of the weathering today. The weathering is kinda sloppy, and makes the over all paint-job look a little shabbier than I intended.
Here he is from the back:

From Stuff I Have Painted

And side:

From Stuff I Have Painted

The last pic is kind of fun. The Driller on the right I painted probably six months after the Gorten box-set was released. It is cool to see them side by side and notice the different direction of painting style over more than five years.

From Stuff I Have Painted

The gray one, coined "Killmouth" by a friend, is still my favorite. Nostalgia and all that.

Thanks for reading,
T

Tourney Prep

So these fire warriors are what I was supposed to be working on last night. I had this whole thing worked out in my brain where I would paint 40k through all of February and March. Then use April and early May to put some paint on my Rhulic stuff before I headed to Seattle to play in the Privateer Press invite weekend. I have had my dwarves since they came out, and I enjoy the army, even if I can't win with them in Mk. 2. 0-6 so far, hear me roar!

Well what ended up happening was this:

From Stuff I Have Painted

I know, I know, that is not a fire warrior. It is my second driller. Lemme explain. I am in no way the most disciplined painter, duh. But for some reason I freakin' hate going to Warmachine/Hordes tourneys with unpainted models. This not to say that I haven't, been I have made big pushes not too if it is ascertainable. In this instance, the tourney this weekend is a format that is all warcaster and warjacks or warlock and warbeasts, so we are talking ten friggin' models at the most, maybe more for Legion or Cryx? Even still, when I look at Warmachine armies that are unpainted I can't help but have the internal dialogue of, "Really? You couldn't be bothered to paint like 15 minis for a tournament?" If I am the brunt of my own mental chastisement it normally ends in myself calling me a "douche bag". Then myself is mad at me, and I need another hour with the therapist, and that shit is expensive.

Consequently, my buddy Deke, who is more disciplined than me, but a self-proclaimed "slacker" as well, feels the same way about bringing all painted armies to Hordes/Warmachine tournies. He will often bring something less than ideal in his Trollbllod list because it is painted. How weird that both of us would feel this strongly when the company that produces the models releases tournament formats that don't give a shit if the models are painted? Perhaps we are contrarians by nature?

Anyway, this guy was/is fun and a good thing to get back in the Warmachine saddle with. I way over-washed the khaki and spent probably an hour after this pic was snapped putting damn near another base coat of Hammerfall Khakki back on. Fortunately I was having trouble falling asleep last night. I should be able to finish the Driller up Wednesday night, leaving me Thursday and Friday night, as well as a large part of Saturday to finish my Basher. The tourney is on Sunday, I think...

As to my lists, they will be pretty straight forward, everything I got.
List 1: Gorten, Driller x2, Basher, Rockram, Gunner x3, Blaster x2. 35 pts.
List 2: Durgan, Driller x2, Basher, Rockram, Gunner x3, Blaster. 33 pts.

With these lists I am pretty sure my record will bump to 0-9 or 0-10, but at least my shit will be painted.

Thanks for reading,
T

Squad Done

I got the last three pathfinders of my eight man squad done last night. Stoked to have a squad done, but the squad isn't technically done since their devilfish is still nekkid. I am thankful for the Astronomi-con for, under the current rule set, there is no fuggin' way I would paint a full squad of pathfinders otherwise. Going for perfect comp not so much because I think I have a good chance of winning, but because I think I will enjoy the challenge of constructing and playing a list under their parameters. Or it could chug dick, in which case I still have a painted 1,500 pt army, which puts me closer to the 2k that is required to participate in many of the local area events.

From Stuff I Have Painted

From Stuff I Have Painted

From Stuff I Have Painted

The 'ui was fun, the rail rifles, not so much. A lot of that could be because in my list they are there to eat points and have accomplished dick in the two games I have played with the list. But mainly, it was those stupid knobs that run the top and bottom of the length of the rifle. They proved to be such a pain that I finally had a "fuck it" moment and just did what I could without getting angry. I am pretty stoked about the finished look. I love the idea of a "heavy" weapon in a squad, and it is a lot of the appeal of Space Marine Tac squads to me. Who doesn't want Jesse The Body with a mini-gun in their squad, seriously?

From Stuff I Have Painted

My orange spot color is working out well, I have had some nice feedback on it. However I am not executing it to the point I would like. I am going to try for less yellow of a high light in the next group, mixing in more white to the orange instead of following an unmixed progression. Even at its current execution level it is doing a damn sight more than the bone color did, and will be even more crucial on the vehicles and suits, which will not have a lot (If any in the case of vehicles.) of the blue-gray used on the fatigues. My buddy Magnus is getting some killer use out of orange over at his blog, linked here, so I will pick his brain a little as well. In the mean time, we got some fire warriors on the table now, needing to be primed and rocked. I was going to start on the Basher form PP but I am still feeling a little buzz from finishing these guys, and winning a game over the weekend, so I am gonna ride that high while it keeps me productive.

Oh yeah, also thanks to my sister-in-law, Anna, for making a cool shirt-thing for my kid.

From Family Stuff

Thanks for reading,
T

Bringing It Back

So if you have been following this blog, which shouldn't be too hard considering how little it is updated, you may notice something a little different about those fire warriors. Both my buddies Deke and Magnus had the same suggestion that I needed something other than the off-white to serve as a spot color for this army. Consequently, they both offered up orange as that spot color, and I took their advice. They were right, the orange goes a long way for grabbing the eye, especially against that green, and should I ever be in a position to do so, I will lavish gifts upon them of exotic oils, spices, gold, and nubile maidens.

But wait! There is more! I am not sure if I have mentioned that my Tau are winning out over my Eldar as the army I am going to paint for Astronomi-con in Vancouver this year. This decision came about because, well I had seven Tau models painted and only five Eldar models painted. The Tau army is also less models, so the selection process was very scientific. Seven is more than five! And therefore, closer to completion. Well last night I took another step closer to completion, finishing four pathfinders.

From Mars Project Blog

These guys were done like the fire warriors and pathfinder before them. Only I went back to GW Foundation Paint Knarloc Green instead of P3 Ordic Olive as the base for the armor. The Ordic Olive was a bit darker and made the line highlights a little more "tron", which some people like, but I am not a fan of. Side by side and up close it is obvious as seen in the pic below (Ordic Olive is the guy on the right), but from about three feet they the models all look green anyway.

From Mars Project Blog

The other major difference is more of a failure on my part. I was trying to come up with a "quick wet blend" on the cloth to make it look a little more natural. Sadly, within the scope of my own painting skills, there is no "quick" for wet blending. It looks spotty in areas, as seen below:

From Mars Project Blog

Eventually I just went back to line highlighting, so the pants look kinda funky up close.

From Mars Project Blog

In all, the pants problem is a little nit-picky and falls into the category of "the stupid shit painters beat themselves up over that only other painters who beat themselves up will notice". I have to do an 'ui, though he isn't actually an 'ui in the list, and a couple of rail rifles, and then the squad will be done. I am hoping to get those last three models cracked out this week, so that I can spend the weekend working on a Rhulic Basher 'Jack I ordered. That is of supremely optimistic as my new daughter will be getting baptized this weekend.

I have been able to get about three games of Warmachine Mk. 2 in with my dwarves and I enjoy it a lot. Like everyone else who isn't Cygnar, I can't wait for my book (Mercs). There is a tournament in the Spokane area at the end of Feb. in which I want to use the Basher, so I will take a quick little detour from my Astro list long enough to get the 'jack done.

Thanks for reading,
T

Battlefield In a Box

Yesterday I went looking in the Spokane area game stores for a Warmachine Prime Mk. 2 book. The only one I could find was hardcover, which is annoying so I passed on it. I finally got to play a Mk 2 game last Sunday and really enjoyed it, thus the need to find the book. This foray about town reminded me of my primary frustration with playing Warmachine in the Spokane area, stores stock the game for shit. New releases are first come, first serve, and reorders are less than regular or disciplined. I feel like the minimum wage kid who is in charge of ordering uses up all his passion in the behemoth GW lines (Because they sell.) and by the time Privateer Press rolls around he/she is just picking crap at random seconds before their smoke break. But, that diatribe has nothing to do with what I actually want to talk about.

There was a silver lining to this failed attempt at acquisition. My mind was set on the notion that I was gonna drop fifty bones yesterday, and by damnit I meant to do it! But on what? My 40k armies had all they needed and then some, and the Warmachine stuff I needed was unsurprisingly out of stock (see above). As I pursued the game store looking for ways to while away my hard earned money-angry wife be damned- I came across the Battlefield in a Box product line from Gale Force 9.

My table at home is pretty cool for Warhammer Fantasy (which I don't play) and Warmachine/Hordes (which I hadn't played in forever) but it was pretty much hurting for 40k. All my hills and trees did little to provide any kind of cover in the new true line of sight rules and for the most part my opponents would graciously smile and make friendly comments about how the game might have gone if they had something novel like cover.

For someone like me, this stuff is great. I needed to get my table up and running at home anyway since we have a new daughter. I barely have time to finish minis, let alone terrain, and I paint so damn slow that the limited time I do have is never enough. Alas, my problems are solved!

Perfect For the Gamer With Money but Not Time/Drive!
I feel like this should have been their advertising slogan. The price point on the terrain itself is not brutal. The pic above is fifty bucks worth. Now I am sure that a lot of terrain savvy people will say that for fifty bucks they could be a whole table, To that I say, "Eff you!" That comes from a jealous place of course. I do not posses that level of terrain-fu and people who do, often sell their stuff at a pretty high price point in order to recoup some of the time they spent on labor. In all, I don't think you get as many pieces as a GW kit can provide, and it certainly isn't as detailed. But, the most effort you have to put forth to get it on the table is opening the box and surviving the god-awful squeaking sound the Styrofoam makes.

Detail and Paint are Pretty Good

From Mars Project Blog

From Mars Project Blog

So the terrain is pretty much just dry-brushed, but that is all I would have done to it any way. Admittedly, it looks a bit flat cause they just used a gray-white build up, it still adds enough depth for the sculpts. If one really felt inclined they could actually just hit the pieces with a warmer wash (brown, red, etc) in parts and it would do wonders. I am not so inclined and will leave it as is.

The detail is pretty cool too. Again, not as intricate as GW kits, but lacking skulls, which I deem as a huge bonus. The pieces still defiantly look like they are what they are supposed to be.

In all this stuff is really cool. If you can make your own terrain, you probably still should. But for those of us who can't/won't/shouldn't this is a great alternative that still makes a board look nice. I for one will spend the next couple months acquiring a couple pieces at a time until I have all the kits.

Thanks for reading,
T