Early morning work

I woke up this morning around 4:30 was unable to get back to sleep. I decided to put a little more work into Gudrun and the Boomhowlers for my Borka list. Since my paint station is currently set up in one of my son's room I had to sneak in and grab a few things without waking him. Luckly I was able to get what I need without disturbing the little guy. I set up at the kitchen table and got to work. I basecoated the light and darker leathers on Gudrun and then went over the Boomhowlers with some thinned down black to fill in any of the gaps missed while priming.

After the boys got up and ate some breakfast I got a chance to put down my shading wash on the 2 leather sections.

I am pleased with how he is coming along. The mini is starting to get dominated with brown tones so I think I might have to paint the shirt in a brighter color but I will cross that bridge when I get there. Next up will be highlighting the leathers and then basecoat the metal sections. I also want to get the airbrush out for the Boomhowlers again. I want to try and base all the metals on them with my airbrush. This will be my 1st atempt to laydown color to specific locations with the brush. I will be using one of the model air metallic paints so that I don't have to worry about dilution.

I might be running up to Greg's tonight to play a few more game of Quarriors! but we will see how the day goes.

Nov Target Hit

We were suppose to head out of town this morning but both of the boys were sick so we stayed in. This game me a little long to get a nap and still finish up this months PtT for Lost Hemisphere. I am please with how she turned out especially seeing as I only decided to do her about 10 days ago. As you can see I decided on blonde with her. Here are the final photos. As with all minis there is definitely more I could do but seeing as I don't play circle and she was, for all intent and purposes, a practice model I am good with were she finished.

I have also been working on Gudrun for my "Family Reunion" Theme force. I have heard the call and I am having a hard time resisting it. I am really into this Borka theme and decided, despite already having the Troll coin, I am going to play Trolls again this Wednesday for our last Domination event and Borka and the "family" will be there. Despite Gudrun not being in the 25pt list I have been trying out some new stuff on him and I am liking the progression. The Borka theme will be sent to Gdaybloke over at LH for a Vox Populi submission as well.

you can see the red on the end of his staff is in an orange/red color. This is the mid tone for my red hair technique and I used this tassel as a test for Kaya. After laying it down on Gudrun I decided it was too bright for our girl and that is when I went with the blonde.

I have also been working on Greygore and the boys for my Borka theme. I have a min unit in the basement primed via airbrush and ready for paint. I don't see them getting worked on much prior to Wednesdays tourney but who knows what will happen if insomnia kicks in. I still need to assemble the last four for when I bump up to 35pts.

Maiden Voyage

The wife took the boys back to my inlaws today so when I woke up this afternoon I decided to break out the airbrush for the first time and see how it went. I brought my stuff down to the basement and set up on an old card table.

Once I was set up I needed a test subject. The lucky model was the Gudrun I finished brass roding last evening.

Here you can see the "naked" mini with the brass rod shaft and my bits box addition for the butt of the weapon. Time to put brush to mini.

Here he is primed up. I use Vallejo Surface Primer grey for this maiden voyage and I have to say I am very pleased. I was so excited after the first pass that I also primed a blackhide wrastler (drying in the basement) and made my first attempt at base applying a base coat. I was using my boneswarm for this as the mini is one uniform color. The boneswarm is also drying at the moment. I am not sure I got the dilution of paint/EtOH 100% correct (might have been too thin) but I am excited to have a new tool. Depending on how the 'swarm drys I might try out some base color on that wrastler before I leave for work.

I am getting a bit ahead of myself as I still need to work on Kaya seeing as her deadline is in 3 days. I am also mulling over a different Vox list to send to LH.....man I am hobby ADD.

Turkey Day/Progress

Happy thanksgiving to all. Just finished dinner about an hour ago and man do I want a nap. The last thing I want to do is go to work but gotta pay the bills (minis don't pay for themselves).

Got a little bit done on my pKaya for this months PtT. The skins got worked on, blacked the eyes/ added the whites, and based the wood on her staff. Some of the skin was actually done last night after I took the pictures.

It is a little hard to see the skin as it seems to be getting washed out a bit by the light. She is moving along and hope to have her all finished up in time. I still need to clean up the face a little, dot the eyes, pick a hair color and paint it, do the metals on the staff, wash the wood on the staff, and highlight the cloak.

I also shot and email to Gdaybloke over at Lost Hemisphere to ask him what the Vox Populi posts were all about. After hearing about it I have decided to do a Vox submission too. The Vox is all about Theme forces and seeing as I have been prepping a Borka Family Reunion force anyways it kinda fits right in with what I have been doing. I took a few pics of that as well. My lighting is a bit off at the moment but it will have to do.

As you can see I got 3 more Boomhowlers assembled only 4 more to go. I also drilled out the staff and hand on Gudrun to brass rod his staff. The butt of the staff was too small for me to drill into so I went into my bits box and think I found a nice end replacement.

Nov Paint the Target wip

Despite the weather being crappy out and perfect for sleep I woke up early today and was unable to get back to sleep. Instead of tossing and turning I just got up and did a little more work on my Nov PtT submission: pKaya. I was able to get her metals based and put the 1st aging wash on this am prior to laying down. When I got up I cleaned up the leather sections then washed the light leather and put the next wash down on my metals. I also cleaned up the cloak and based the rope sections. I know the traditional painter would be upset I am not working from inside out and have the skin completed already but whenever I do the skin 1st I always mess it up later. If time allows I will try and get the shading done on the darker leather prior to heading into work and maybe wash the ropes to give them some definition. So far she is shaping up nicely and moving fairly quickly. Next up after the leathers I will start on the skin and then I need to decide if she is going to be a red head or a blonde.

Change of plans

OK less than 24 hours after my last post and I am changing up my plans for my paint the target mini even though I was able to assemble my pEiryss last night. A combination of things went into my decision to change up. First off I was looking at Lost Hemisphere today and realized the deadline for my paint the target is 6 days away and I don't want to rush a limited edition sculpt, second the weather here is crappy (low 30s and raining) which is terrible weather for priming, and it is a work week for me cutting down on hobby time drastically. Before I came into work tonight I was thinking about it and was about to say forget the PtT this month. As I was sitting there I looked over at my shelves of minis and saw an assembled and primed pKaya that I prepped almost 2 years ago for my step son (before he lost interest in learning the game with me).

I took 30 min to lay down a little color before I had to pack up and drive into work. I was able to get the basecoat down on her pants, boots, and cloak. Depending on how tired I am when I get home and the state of the little guys I hope to get the metals based coated and maybe wash the leathers and metals. If I can get the metals based before I need to go to sleep I will be happy.

I was also able to get Boomhowler and 2 grunts assembled so we are still looking good for getting the unit assembled by the end of the week. Seeing as winter is coming and the weather isn't going to get better for some time I really need to get my airbrush set up and start practicing with it so I can prime via the airbrush.

On a side note I put in my time off request for Templcon so now just have to see if it gets approved. As it stands the hotel is fully booked so looks like I will be crashing on the floor in one of the rooms our group already has locked up.

Weekend gaming

Well this week was an anomoly for me I actually got games in 2 times this week. Saturday I had plans to play Quarriors! again that evening and was just planning on hanging with the family but the wife said why don't you go play some WM/H so I took her up on her offer.

I had a Jarl list which was an adaptation of my 25pt list I was excited to try out. So I packed up my stuff and headed down to mall to get a few games in. I was unpacking my army to play and I realized I forgot my Janissa......errrr. I always seem to forget something these days. Luckily I had enough gator stuff in my bag to play Blindwater instead so I did. I pull Maelok out and got ready to play. 

Maelok (-6pts)
*Wrastler (9pts)
*Boneswarm (4pts)
*Bull Snapper (3pst)
Gatorman Posse: full unit (9pts)
Wrongeye and Snapjaw (9pts)
Totem Hunter (3pts)
Thrullg (3pts)
Feralgiest (1pt)

I was going to play Eviscerae and his eLylth....Damn I wish I had my Jarl or even pull Barnabas out instead of Maelok. Well I game went poorly for me with the turn 2 feat/ranged death for my undead 'lock.

Game 2 I played Thebottlerocket. I pulled Barnabas out instead for this game. He played an eBaldur list. Great a knocked down feat against an army with the ability to shut down KDs. After a bit of fighting for position I was able to engage on my terms and kill Megalith, a Guardian, lock down the second Guardian via voodoo doll, and put some damage on Baldur. He was in a bad way at that point and was just a mater of me finishing Baldur off on the next turn. OK not a bad 2 games. I got out of the house got to BS with the guys a bit and practice my gators some more.

Saturday night I got more Quarirors! games in and I still love the game. Played 8 more games with G-Stan with me winning the first 4 and him taking the next 4. We both got a little dice Eff'd in there a few time but the game is a blast. After this last set of games it puts him up 2-1 in our best of 7 series. According to Wizkids website the expansion is due out this week so that will be interesting to see. I really want to get a few multi- player games in to see how changes but I suppose that will have to wait.

The release of Domination gave me some reading material over the weekend as well. I have to say I am not too excited about the Troll stuff. It is all fine but nothing got me really excite. The Circle stuff on the other hand is a different story. The Gallow Groves are stunning models and I am interested to see how Ghetorix and the griffon come out. The Gallow Groves got me thinking about the eKrueger theme list in one of the recent NQs. looking over the theme I noticed that pEiryss was able to be used as a minion for this list. That got me to thinking about this months paint the target over on Lost Hemisphere. This month they wanted people to paint up female minis. Seeing as Janissa and Cally are 90% painted the wouldn't work and I had no other female trolls I wanted to paint at this time so I figured this month was a pass. I think I will try and do my NQ limited Eiryss now....only 9 days gonna be tight luckily she is tiny.

OK so plans for the week: paint up Eiryss for the paint the target and assemble full Boomhowlers for the Borka Family Reunion theme force.

Domination tourney II

OK so Wednesday night we had another Domination event. This week we had 14 players which was awesome and seeing as we had such great attendance at the previous two tourneys all the entry fees went to prize support from CZ equalling $140 WOW! The awards were 1st undefeated, 2nd fastest caster kill, 3rd most VPs, and the there were faction coins available as well. the break down was as follows:

4-Skorne
3-Legion
2-Minion
1-Circle
1-Trollblood
1-Merc
1-Menoth
1-Retribution

I brought may camera again this week to photo some of the games but once again forgot to take pics. Seeing as I already got the Troll coin last week I decided to go for the Minions coin and played Blindwater Congregation. My 2 lists were:

Maelok, the Dreadbound (*6pts)
* Bull Snapper (3pts)
* Boneswarm (4pts)
* Blackhide Wrastler (9pts)
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Thrullg (3pts)
Totem Hunter (3pts)

Bloody Barnabas (*6pts)
* Bull Snapper (3pts)
* Blackhide Wrastler (9pts)
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Feralgeist (1pts)
Wrong Eye & Snapjaw (9pts)

I know you are saying how can you use a boneswarm it is not released yet. I have on of the IK boneswarms and got permission from the TO that as long as I had the real model and a printout or the card from Domination he would be legal. Round one I got pared up with the Ret player from the week before. The mission was Killbox. He was playing the same list as the previous week which was:

Lord Arcanist Ossyan (*6pts)
* Hydra (9pts)
Dawnguard Invictors (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)
* Dawnguard Invictor Officer & Standard (2pts)
Dawnguard Sentinels (Leader and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
* Dawnguard Sentinel Officer & Standard (2pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
This game wet really well for me. My army advanced up under the cover of swamp pits and submerge. He advance his army to the point were I had all but Ossy and 2 minis in Barnabas' control area so I feated and destroyed all but 5 models. He tried to counter back but just didn't have enough firepower to do much and was tabled the following turn netting me a W and 36 VPs....good start.

Game 2 I got paired with the Troll player who was from out of town (we had 3 guys show up from over an hour away). The mssion was Incursion. He was playing a heavy army Borka list. I didn't pick up on it at the time but did when I started writing this his list was actually not legal. It had 2 'loack attachments. Here is the list:

Borka Kegslayer (*5pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Trollkin Champions (Leader and 4 Grunts) (10pts)

OK being a troll player myself had a really good idea what was what here. I went with Barnabas again. This game was a little touchy. I made a mistake in the middle of my feat turn (which again knocked down everything but Borka, the keg carrier, and the Runebearer) I charged his Mauler and killed it with Snapjaw then proceeded to charge with the posse. Half way threw this my opponent said wait he Snapjaw was out of Wrongeye's control area the Mauler is still alive and put him back on the table. I was a little put off by this as I was more than 1/2 way through my next unit when he called this and wanted to just put him back on the table. I didn't do it maliciously but he was right so we called the TO over and we just re-rolled the damage from the the 2 initial attacks. I forgot to pause my time which would be a big problem as you will see. Anyways I finished out the turn my Voodoo dolling the maulers spirit to limit the backlash on my opponents turn. On the feat I managed to kill 3 champs, and 4 gators. He wasn't able to punch back too hard on his turn and I only lost 1 gator and my feralgiest on his turn. I ended up losing to my deathclock expiring with Borka surrounded by gators, having 1 wound, and a charging Snapjaw having 1 initial and 3 fury left......arrrgggghhh. Hindsight being 20/20 I most likely could have won on scenario even with the short time. Game 2: L, CP 1, VPs 24

Game 3 was against PG_Moz who was undefeat and got paired down to play me (damn VPs) The mission was close quarters I believe. He was playing LoE:

Rhyas, Sigil of Everblight (*6pts)
* Scythean (9pts)
* Seraph (8pts)
Blighted Nyss Raptors (Leader and 4 Grunts) (10pts)
Annyssa Ryvaal, Talon of Everblight (4pts)

Once again I took Barnabas to try and avoid as much shooting from the battle deer as possible. I mighthave been beter off with Maelok so they didn't get poision but eh. I really Eff'd this game up and go assassinated at range due to a massive screw up. I got smoked. Game 3: L, CP1, VP 0.

We were suppose to have a 4th round as there were 2 undefeated still but the store was closing in 10 min so they just called it a day. I made some big mistakes but learned from them and seeing as theywere my first games with gators I am not too upset...I obviously didn't get my Minion coin (Damn you Scudo). Next week we have off due to the holiday but the following week it is back on. I am not sure if I will play Trolls, Gators, or something else yet.

Super Dungeon Explore

Well I just got home from picking up some groceries with the boy and a package was on the porch waiting for me.  It was from the warstore and was a preorder for Super Dungeon Explore. I have been looking forward to this game since I saw pictures from Gencon 2010. I actually picked up all the demo minis that summer from their online store but seeing as the game was so far off I never finished any of them. well here are some pics:

This is obviously the front cover and the blister of the LE Candy and Cola.

Here are 2 of the metal promo figures I purchased over a year ago and stared to paint up. This is the human mage and dwarf warrior but I think their names have changed in the official release. Well despite being really excite about this package it now has to sit until Christmas as Santa is putting this one under the tree for me. Oh well until then I guess WM.H and Quarriors! will have to hold me over.

Photo backdrop

Well I have been tinkering with using a different backdrop for photographing my finished minis and finally got around to trying a few out. I took 3 pictures of a nearly finished Borka I started months ago (he is about 95%) done and posted them as a poll question on mu local boards to see what people think before I pick a final set up. Here they are.

I think I like the traditional blue fade best but also kind of like the dark grey. The wife likes the blue best. I don't know. I will be interested to see what the guys on the forums think. We had our next Domination event last evening with a really nice 14 person turn out. Really one hell of a turn out for a Wednesday night. I will have more about last nights even later when I can recall some of the lists better.

I am hoping to get my first Quarriors! game in later this evening as well and will give my initial take once I get a few games in.

Quarriors!

I picked up this new game today at our FLGS. One of our gaming buddies said playing it during downtime at the past Warmachine Weekend was the best part of the trip. Me being a sucker for new thing looked it up online and the aesthetics and description got me hook. I drove the boys down to the store to get them out of the house for a bit so my wife wouldn't go nuts (they had been up all night long).

I only got a chance to open the box and take a quick look so far but looking forward to giving it a go. I think I will try it out with a friend who wants to get into gaming but is afraid of the hobby aspects of table top. Being the OCD WM/H player I am I also had to make a purchase or two for my Blindwater army as well. I picked up a Thrullg and a Croak Hunter which now gives me at least one of every model available to the faction at this time.

Reinforcements

Well 2 days in a row that I woke up to a package. Today my latest miniature market order arrived with some reinforcements for my Blindwater Congregation army. I got a second wrastler, second full unit of gatorman, 2 blisters of bog trogs to bring them up to a full unit, and Pendrake.

Now I need to get some of it assembled and a bunch of stuff painted by next Wednesday for our next Domination tourney. This should be the last of my purchases for a bit as I have way to much stuff to try and finish. Hopefully next update will some some completed minis.

Troll foam

While I was getting my sleep this afternoon a package arrived for me. I picked up 2 trays from battle foam to see how I liked them and how my trolls fit before I went all out and got a bag and more custom foam.

Don't have a ton of time to see how things fit as I have to head out to work but looks like it should fit the bill nicely. Now I just need my miniature market order to show up.

Domination tourney

Well I skipped out on sleep Wednesday to play in one of our weekly Domination tourneys. One of the local FLGS is running weekly 25pt tourney with full Domination prize support (faction coins). We did this with the release of Wrath and it worked out really well so we continued it for Domination. I had to miss week one (11 player turnout) so I made sure I went this week despite it being a work week.

We had 10 players this week with 8 playing Hordes factions and 2 Warmachine. I went 1-2 but won the Trollblood coin by default being the only troll player that days. Game one had me match up Jarl vs Minions and a Calaban tier list. The game was pretty back and forth with Jarl finally falling with 9sec left on my opponents deathclock and one health box on Calaban....Damn you Scudo. I think the major tipping point was when I made a fury error and had my EBDT frenzy in the middle of the game. I left the one on him seeing as we was not near my 'lock like the impaler and hell he has a threshold of 10 no worries right? Boxcars....oopps.

Game 2 Jarl vs. Ossyan. This game went really well for me. All the dice were rolling hot and a crit smite from the impaler slammed a hydra in Ossy setting him up for the ranged assassination.

Game 3 eMaddy vs. eCaine and the professional Cash. I was pretty shot by this point made some big tactical mistakes and got shot down by Caine.

Next week I should hopefully be more rested and play a little better. I think I might be trying for a different faction coin but will depend on how much painting I can get done at the beginning of the week. It has been a really slow week on the painting side with little/nothing to show.

The Beginning

Well I have been toying with the idea of starting a painting/gaming blog for some time and have finally taken the plunge.  I have been doing the Paint the Target challenges the last 2 months over on Lost Hemisphere and have gotten more painted in that time. My hope is that through this blog I will be able to get even more of my projects finished and work my way towards fully painted status.

My journeys in the IK started in late’04/early ’05. I saw the starter boxes in my FLGS and was intrigued. After discussing it with a college buddy I picked up the Khador starter box (maybe I will shoot some picks of my first battle group to post) and he went with Protectorate. After playing 1 or 2 demo games he moved away and I never really played again.

Over the years I continued to collect PP models and built up a large collection. Then around late ’08 I was online killing time and came across DeadDogg’s trollbood in 10 day article on the old brushthralls site and got pulled back in.  Then in early ’09 I got in touch with our local press ganger PG_Moz and have been hooked. Playing the game has only fueled by compulsion to buy minis and I have amassed a very large pile of unpainted minis (I own at least one mini from every faction except Protectorate and Skorne). This pile of unpainted minis brings me back to the goal of this blog to get stuff done.

As mentioned above I have minis for nearly every faction and have played games with Khador, Cryx, Mercs, Trollbloods, and Circle. I consider Trolls to be my main faction but Khador has a soft spot in my heart being the first PP minis I ever purchased. I am also working on a getting a new faction fully painted as well, but more on that at a later time. Hopefully I will have pretty regular updates/progress. Thanks for coming along with me.