Currently on the painting table

On the painting table: Batman Miniature Game!

Monday, March 25, 2013

Building Some Walls

OK so I mentioned the other day that I was working on some new rock walls for my troll army. I lost the two walls I had previously built at Templecon this year. I thought through my lists and figured I could use four or five walls just for my armies. Since I was going to be making a bunch of walls I figured I'd do a step by step and put it up here for y'all to look at.

First I grabbed a piece of plasticard. This was a spare piece I had left over from some other project.
 
 
It just happens that is was already cut to 4" wide.
 
Wall templates are 4" x 0.75" and since I already had my length set I started to measure out 0.75" strips. I marked these with a mechanical pencil then went back and scored the plasticard with my exacto knife and straight edge. If you haven't worked with plasticard you do not have to cut all the way through the piece. After putting a nice scoring line you just have to apply some pressure and it will snap off cleanly along the line you previously marked.  


  Like a glove.
 
Now it was time to go to the terrain drawer and grab a sheet of cork. When I was there something caught my eye and spun me off in a different direction for a little bit.
 
I bought this box of Tamiya sandbags well over a year ago with some plan for them that I never got around to (don't even remember what). After getting my trenches from Rob last Friday I thought one sandbag wall for Gunnbjorn would go very well thematically with the sandbags he put n the top of his trenches.

When I opened the box and poured out the contents this is what I had inside. As you can see I put some other parts in the box as well (also from Tamiya).

I did a little mock up with the bags then started to glue

 
All put together and one again the sluggers look at me menacingly to finish painting them.

Next I decided to mess around with some of the brick sections. I drilled some bullet holes and scratched in some battle damage.

Played around with mock up and threw a few extra sandbags in there for good measure.

OK now to what I intended in the first place. I grabbed the cork board and began to rip strips off that were roughly the size of my plasicard sections. .

I stacked these up until I got a design I was happy with. To keep the tops from being perfectly flat I glues some of the little scrap pieces of cork on top 

Lastly I head down to the cave and primed all five wall sections with Vallejo surface primer black primer via the airbrush. I have three more walls to build (making two for Oxyguy and his Gorten army) then it will be on to painting which I will cover later.

If you need some walls this is a very simple project that yields nice results (in my opinion) with more character than a store bought wall. It helps give those little personal feels to an army that says this is my army. OK once I get to painting these bad boys I will put up some step by steps for y'all to check out.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

It's Back: What's in the Box!

It has been a while since Rob has done a commission for me. This isn't for my lack of desire but due to him being extremely busy at the beginning of this year. If you don't follow his blog he has been making display tables/boards for both Cool Mini or Not (Kings of Wraith) and for Outlaw Miniatures (Wild West Exodus).

I received an email from Rob at the beginning of March saying he had some openings if I had some project I wanted to get done....ha I always have stuff that needs to get done. After a few emails deciding on what would be in this batch I sent of my stuff and anxiously anticipated it's return.Well Friday's mail was delivered and what was in the mail box...just a package from Jersey. I love getting cool stuff in the mail.
 
As I mentioned a few posts back I have been getting more interested in working on my Protectorate of Menoth again as you saw the High Relaimer wips. The first two items I will be showing are for my Menoth army. The first is actually for the FADD army which I failed to finish on time if you recall those posts.
 



Here is a guardian for my PoM but more specifically from Reznik and my NQ theme force. I like the idea of having a node with Reznik for perdition and when it is on a heavy that can do some serious damage with Iron Aggression even better. Since my PoM is all based on the new plastics 'jacks the guardians legs seemed out of place. The correct for this I sent Rob a set of plastic legs and a plastic crusaders head to match the current line better. you can see in the bottom photo he had to add a little plasticard and rod to tie it all together.


 
The banners for the guardians back had their poles removed and replaced with sturdier brass rod. He did this on his own and damn am I happy he did. The banners will be easier to paint this way and have a nicer connection point. I wasn't sure I was going to add the banners but I am leaning more towards including them now.  
 
Next there was just a plain old repenter. Just basic assembly and pinned to the resin bases. In both cases the jacks are not glued on just pinned so I can paint them separate from the bases.

The next part of the shippent is my favorite part. I have been playing with Gunnbjorn theme lists for a long time now. Those of you familiar with the theme for know that for every two units in the army you get a trench to deploy on your side of the board. Having seen all the terrain he has been doing lately it hit me to have ROb build me a trench or two for the theme force. He had a few questions for me so he could match my static grass and ground sections to my based minis and BOOM!


 Two trench section that can fit perfectly together if desired.
 
The interior of the trench is exactly the size of the trench template from the back of Prime/Primal
 
 Nog! Hurry up and finish us so we don't look completely terrible in this awesome trench!

As you can clearly see there is a slope leading up to the trench sections. The plastic jack didn't have too much of an issue staying on it but if it were a heavier metal jack/beast or was more top heavy it may be an issue
 
Not an issue

 

"Hi guys"
 
Rob included four rock sections to use as wedges to prop up any mini approaching the trench..... hopefully the sluggers will mow them down before they get there but just in case :)
 
Well that concludes this episode of "What's in the Box" my favorite of all posts. In my next post I think I will be doing a building a wall tutorial seeing as I need one for Gunnbjorn, one for Janissa, and up to four for the pDoomshaper theme force and I "misplaced" my two at Templecon.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

What's in Your Heeeaaad, in Your Heeeeaaaad.....

Zombie, Zombie, Zombay ay ay oh....

OK sorry about that :) I have not been able to play many games of warmahordes since heading to Rochester a few weekends ago for a tourney. I have been theorymachining gargantuans and brainstorming for a potential tourney this weekend. Since I haven't been playing WM/H I have been playing some solo games of zombicide here at home to get some gaming in.

I really have been enjoying this game since picking up at Templecon. I have played about a dozen games by myself and about 6-10 with a buddy up the street. I have not too much success so far with the game as my win percentage has ben abysmal. I have won two if my solos games and only one of our team games. I think some of the loses can be attributed to running our of zombies and I hope the new tray of zombies I got from the abomination pack will help alleviate this issue.

I clear myself a spot on the dinning room table and set up mission 10 from the rule book: Small town. I have only played mission 09 and 10 as solo since I don't wasn't to set up a 3x3 grid and the 2x2 missions seem to play pretty quickly (3 and 4 year olds love to move pieces around).

I really wanted to try out the new characters so I picked them out of the pile of cards and then randomly selected the next three. Here you can see my starting six survivors and the equipment they started the game with. El Cholo starting with the double machetes really helps the groups damage output right from the get go 

 All set up and ready to roll.

A few turns in and the survivors are holding their own...
 
The crew has picked up some really good equipment pretty quickly while doing a really good job of keeping everyone in the blue.
 

 Victory condition met! Survivors win with no casualties and little issues.

I decided to try and get all the survivors off the board via the entry point to make it more thematic.



Really not too many issues getting back off the board. My crew had a ton of damage output at this point and was really able to mow down zombie like it was their job. I have to say of the new characters I think I like Nick the best. The tough ability that he has right from the blue level is really powerful and helps correct for some "bad luck" situations. I really wish I was on this kickstarter so I could have some of the other exclusive characters from season one but alas I missed out on that one. I really would like to have the Angelina, Bruce Campbell, and Samuel L Jackson characters from season one.....oh well cant have everything.

I ended up playing the mission again the next day with only one of the new survivors and once again I was able to win easy. I am not sure why all of a sudden my games have been easier...luck of the draw, the new survivors, or that I am just getting the hang of the game better. Either way I am still having a blast playing the game and hope that my success in solo games translates to my next group game and we can finally beat mission 01 from the rule book. We may be playing it Thursday night if we can set up a group and get away for the night.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Final Hours

The Wild West Exodus kickstarter I have been following so closely is coming down to the final three hours. The KS has seen a flurry of activity over the last 48hours and has gone up nearly $50k! This big bump has unlocked some really sweet minis. The first of which was a mini release for the Lawmen. Outlaw miniatures decided to push up some of the minis from the original $375K stretch goal due to the large amount of interest in the faction. Here are the concepts:


Since the release is a mini release and not a full release there are no heavy weapon hired hands yet or light and heavy support pieces. Even without these items I think the Lawmen may be my favorite faction of the lot now. due to the nature of the release these cannot be swapped out for starter boxes but can be added to any pledge for $60.


 

 
We have also unlocked the wave 2 light support options for the union and outlaw factions and the enlightened and warrior nation are around the corner. I liked the wave one lights but light these even better. OK so with the KS ending in ~3hours this will be one of my last WWX posts until we get some more previews or I can give the beta rules a good once over. If you are on the fence and want to jump on board time is running out.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Gargantuans: More Thoughts

I have to say I am really impressed with the Gargantuans book as a whole. The more I look over it the more and more I like what I read. I think you we are going to see a lot of these minis on the tables pretty regularly even after the "new toy" phase passes. I am going to babble about some of the things I am most excited to try out or buy.

Trollblood:

The more I look at the Hunters Grim the more I can't wait to play them. Mortality is just a stupid good spell and I cannot wait to abuse the hell out of it. I have playing with list ideas in my head for the last few days and it really feels like you can play anything with him and he makes them pretty solid. Most of the lists I have been building have been at the 35pt level and while this is not my favorite point level it seems to be where are meta is comfortable at the current time. I'd like to put a melee heavy in the lists but at 35pts I just haven't been able to squeeze it in. I think the melee beasts for him with be Rok or EBDT and I am leaning towards Rok as the ability to put primal on a bomber or blitzer and then allowing them to charge for free with blood lure from Headhunter can turn them into melee monsters. Here is the latest builds I am playing around with:

Hunters Grim (-4pts)
*Blitzer (9pts)
*Impaler (5pts)
*Runebearer (2pts)
Scattergunners: full (8pts)
*UA (2pts)
Dygs: full (6pts)
Bone Grinders: min (2pts)
Fell Caller (3pts)
SSC (2pts)

I am pretty excited about this list and think it will be pretty damn fun to play. It uses a few models I have never played before (blitzer, scattergunners, and bone grinders) but I think trying new minis will be good...plus I have been meaning to play them anyways. I would like to put the fennblade kithkar in there instead of the SSC to have a commander near the dygs to try and mitigate failed command checks but since I have no idea when he is to be released I left him off. I didn't worry too much about trying to build around the feat but instead built around mortality (so good). The nice thing about the scattergunners is that on the feat turn they should be able to mark most of their own spray targets or let the dygs mark, spray over the dygs, clear a lane for the dygs to charge. The scattergunners will also be the mirage target in most cases. I went with the blitzer to have access to repulsion and the potential volume of attacks he can put out. The bone grinders are a unit I have been meaning to get on the table with Calandra but getting mortality (did I mention I like it) up to 12" is nice. I am really excited to try this out and may play my first game with a proxy mini just to do it.

One last thing on the Hunters Grim...I think this may be the home for the mountain king as once again mortality make everything just better and there is always the snare gun for KDs. The longer I look over the book the more the warders are growing on me. You really get a lot of model for not a lot of points. I am a big fan of the kithkar. He is a really good combat solo and can replace the champ hero in the dyg support package and reduce the cost of the dyg package by a point. I also see a home for him in my pMaddy beast brick. He would make a very nice crusher target and also save me a point over the champ hero. Still cannot get my head around the night troll. OK enough about trolls lets talk about some other cool stuff.

Circle: They got some pretty amazing things in this book and it is making me want to work on my circle army again.

-Morvahna: best 'lock in the book in my opinion. The model looks beautiful, the spell list is top notch (can you go wrong with purification?), and her feat is sweet. All in all she is an A caster in my views and I would be shocked if she doesn't see a ton of competitive play the remainder of this year.
-Rip Horn Satyr: Wow this guy is awesome too. His damage output is going to be scary with 3 base attacks of p+s 16 (4 with smash & grab), a free charge, and circle buffs. I know Scudo is crazy excited about this guy. Damn you Scudo (just 'cause)
-Warpborn Alpha: He got spoiled a while back and he is still really good.

Skorne: Also got a lot of really nice minis. I think the general feeling is they got the best gargantuan by a long stretch in the mammoth. Skorne is one of the two factions I do not own a single mini for but PP keeps pushing me closer and closer to picking some up.

-Makeda3: She looks like a blast to play. She is an in your face I will take care of it myself kinda girl. The feat looks like it could get out of control and be a blast if you are playing her. The models for the unit are really nice too.
-Reptile hounds: Look like a fun little lessers
-Despoiler: I like this guy. Mordikar has been one of the skorne warlocks I have been interested in painting/playing and this beast is his baby. Unlike some of the other characters beasts of late (looking at you Rok) this mini begs to be with Mordikar.
-Willbreaker: Like the warpborn he was spoiled a little while ago and is also still good

Legion: Haven't really looked at much. I am not overly interested in legion right now.

Minions: I have a soft spot for minions. I have a blindwater army and I have wanted to start a thornfall force ever since I painted up Carver for Les. I was able to hold off on thornfall but then the Sturm and Drang theme force pushed me closer to the edge. I am afraid that Midas and his theme force may just push me over the edge.

-Midas: A really solid 'lock across the board. I don't think he as a bad spell on his list between bad blood, battle lust, calamity, and hex blast. His feat brings back minis and his collection of bone tokens mean you don't care if his beasts die. His theme force is full of minis I have wanted to add to my collection or already have. Bone grinders we already mentioned, Slaughterhousers I have wanted to try Jarl, he can use boneswarms (have three), and the pig beasts are just so cool. Here is my very first shot at a list:

Midas (-5pts)
*War Hog (8pts)
*War Hog (n/a) <---T4 benefit starts dead
*Boneswarm (4pts)
*BoneSwarm (4pts)
*Razor Boar (2pts)
*Razor Boar (2pts)
Slaughterhouser (6pts)
Slaughterhouser (6pts)
Bone grinders: min (2pts)
Bone grinders: min (2pts)
Bone grinders: min (2pts)
Bone grinders: min (2pts)

This is T4 granting me a dead beast as listed above, three corpse tokens on both boneswarms, and 4 war beast get advance more. What’s not to love here? At 50pt just add more razor boars, grinders, and road hogs to taste :)

This has gotten long. Real quick....Rask = really good, Shamblers = good just not pAlexia good, mechanic = good 1pt filler if you are playing a battle engine.

Like I said I am a fan of what PP did with this book and looking forward to seeing these minis in play.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Enlightened Hired Hand....Done

So I finished my enlightened grunt for Wild West Exodus. I just need to base him but since Outlaw is using a new style base for their minis I will have to wait until I get my hands on one.






The mini was fun to paint. I may have highlighted the paint a little too much but all in all I am pleased with how this gentleman turned out. Despite these guys not be zombies per say I did add a little gore to the stitching on the arm and to the face. I used the blowing technique described in Hordes: Metamorphosis.

The kick starter is in it's last 48 hours and moving along well right now. I am hoping to knock down a few more stretch goals over the remaining hours and unlocking some cool new toys. I still need to figure out which faction will be my "main" and to figure out how I am going to break down my pledge to optimize the utilization of my fund. Here is something Outlaw announced the other day that
I thought was really cool:


This miniature was announced the other day. I know you may be thinking so what they showed another mini. Well the really cool thing about this one is it was created by an anonymous backer. Here is the statement from Outlaw:

"A secret backer that would like to remain anonymous reached out to us with a cool idea.  He asked if he could personally fund the creation of a model and supply it free to all backers at the Fiendish and above levels. 
This means that one of the guys that helped back this project actually will pay for the manufacturing of each of the free minis and the design work going into the model.  If that is not the coolest thing in the world I don't know what is."

Once again if you are on the fence or would like to know more swing by: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wildwestexodus/wild-west-exodus-sci-fi-western-miniatures-game

Here are a few more or the recent photos from Outlaw minis:

These models are updated version of previous 3d renders based on community response. In the picture there are one civilian, one Union hired hand, three outlaw hired hands, and the two outlaw heavy weapon hired hands. I love the outlaw with the .50cal on the crate.



Thursday, March 14, 2013

Very Preliminary Thoughts on Gartantuans (Trolls)

I cut my sleep a little short today so I could run out and grab my copy of Gargantuans at out FLGS so I could look it over. I gave the book a quick scan prior to heading to work and focused a little more on the trolls/minion sections. I tried to avoid looking at too many of the spoilers and forums over the last few days as I wanted to try and form my own opinions and the initial troll spoilers left me a touch flat. I am sure much of this will change but here are some of my initial thoughts:

The Hunters Grim:

I like the spell list. I think mortality is a pretty amazing debuff and a great way to negate tough. A unit of bone grinders may be a really important addition to eGrim to give that little extra range for mortality. Mirage and mage sight may be a little more situational but I also like them a fair amount. Pursuit I am not too sure of at this time but may find it has it place. Reform and circular vision granted by his pyg buddies are never a bad thing either. I think his feat is OK. It isn't an amazing feat but it isn't Gunnbjorn bad wither. I have concerns over the whole warlock unit thing however. I am worried about the potential for one of the lower def pygs getting hit with a debuff and affecting the entire unit. I like that we are now able to use both the snare gun and Headhunter in the same turn the inability to boost on the snare gun may cause problems when you really need that KD. My last big issue with eGrim is that he lost his goggles.....huh? If you had some super sexy amazing goggles would you stop wearing them? I wouldn't. I think eGrim has the potential to be pretty fun and will be in that middle ground warlock level.

Theme Force:
I like theme forces and always like to see what PP comes up with. The theme force is interesting. The first thing I noticed was the inclusion of a unit that we have no idea about....trollkin highwayman. I think the feeling is that they are the troll light cavalry but who knows and who knows when we can expect them to be released. I am not a huge fan of the units available for the theme but they are OK I suppose. Based on the minis currently available to us I don't see a great unit to be up in there and be able to mark targets for the feat. My favorite part of this them is tier two and the option to allow scout to ambush. I think a unit of scouts coming off the edge with the ability to assault could be really fun.

Night Troll:
I really don't know what to think of this guy at this time. I like the preview pictures floating around of the sculpt even if the tongue is a little out of control. It seems like he has some neat gimmicky trick but I don't seem him taking a spot from an axer, impaler, pyre, or even slag.

Trollkin Warders:
Speed 4...I hate speed 4. I had really high hopes for these guys and have to say they fell far short in my desires. I really hate speed 4. I also thought these guys were suppose to be a champion unit so I was hoping they could be added in theme forces that allow champion units but unless the wording gets changed they are not champions. The unit cost isn't bad at 5/8 and reach weapon masters are always nice. All in all these guys fall flat for me at this time. Did I mention I hate speed 4?

Trollkin Sorcerer:
The spoilers released for this guy are what caused me to stop reading any of them until the book came out. The first run of spoilers said this guy was a wa and therefor his *action upkeep removal would have been fairly crappy. His correct version make his upkeep remove far better and helps us out significantly in those match ups were debuffs ruined out day. As a one point solo I see this guy getting plenty of run. As a single wound model we will have to be careful not to get him carved off the table.

Fennblade Kithkar:
I was worried this guy was going to be a 3pt solo but was pleasantly surprise to see he was only 2pts and also FA 2. The kithkar comes in at mat 7, two reach weapons of decent strength, and 8 boxes I was pretty happy with him. In addition to being a nice combat solo his tactician ability allowing fennblades to move through each other is very nice. I can seeing fielding this gentleman on a regular basis.

Mountain King:
We know this guy move along.

OK so  those are my initial thoughts after skimming through the book once. I also threw together a first 35pt Hunters Grim list. This is what I came up with off the top of my head:

Hunters Grim (-4pts)
*Bomber (10pts)
*Impaler (5pts)
*Runebearer (2pts)
Fennblades: full (8pts)
*UA (2pts)
Scattergunners: min (5pts)
*UA (2pts)
Bone Grinders: min (2pts)
Fennblade Kithkar (2pts)
Trollkin Sorcerer: cliented to fennblades (1pt)

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Mail Time! New Toys!

I received a package today I have been waiting for since Templecon. I have been extremely excite and I am thrilled to have it in my hands finally. Lets start off with a little story prior to getting to the pictures shall we:

If you may recall day three at Templecon was spent hanging out and playing some demos. We headed to the board game room to play a demo of Zombicide by Cool Mini or Not.

Here are Cash and Nick getting ready to demo w me and Abe (Oh Buddy!)
 
After playing the demo game I was pretty excited about the game and was seriously considering buying a copy prior to leaving. I got to talking with the CMoN guy running the booth and asked about the promo characters from the season one kickstarter. I was told they are never going to be reproduced and that unless you got them from the kickstarter or off eBay you would be out of luck.....then there was a but. He mentioned that anyone buying the game would receive a raffle ticket for an abomination pack. I was unaware what that ment at the time and he explaned it came with some of those characters and some other stuff.
 
I was pretty much all in at this point until it was said you had to be there to win and the drawing was at 5pm. Seeing as we were leaving at 3pm there was no way I could be there to win. I left the booth and head to one of the WM tables were Zack and John were playing a game. In conversation it turned out they would still be there at 5pm so John offered to head by the booth to see if I had the winning ticket at 5pm. OK back to the CMoN booth. It turned out they only had 4 tickets in the drawing for Sunday so I picked up my copy and ticket then and there. While we were driving home I received a text from John saying he was the only person present at the drawing and that I won the pack!!!! He was going to leave it with a buddy of his to mail out since John didn't want to fly home with it to Atlanta.
 
That brings us to today. After I got up from my nap I headed downstairs and saw the package on the dinning room table. Here are the sexy goodies within:
 

 Custom dice....who can't use more dice?

What's an abomination pack without an extra abomination? there are also some more zombie spawning cards.

An extra tray of zombies. While this may seem like trouble I am really excited about this as one of our biggest issues has been running out of zombies and getting killed to the extra activation 

 
Now we get to the really sexy part of the abomination pack! The extra promo characters.....
 
Here is Dave the Geek aka Dr. Sheldon Cooper. He has a cool ability to make two molotov cocktails instead of one once he gets the two parts. 

Second out of the pack is Nick aka Lt John McClane. This is the first of the new characters I want to try out. He has tough as a built in ability and therefore ignores his first wound each turn.

Last but not least we have El Cholo aka Danny Trejo aka Machete. Shockingly he gets to start the game with....two machetes. How 'bout dem apples.
 
 
So here is my abomination pack I have been so excited to receive. I want to say a really big thanks to John (Moz) and Mike for sticking around to pick this up and mailing it to me. I really appreciate it guys and I have the first round next convention we make it to. Those of you that missed out on the season one exclusive and don't want to miss out on season two head over to the Zombicide season two kickstarter going on right now. They are up to nine exclusive characters right now and soon to be 10. Five of the promo characters are added to the base game when you buy it the rest you have to add on for $10.