Currently on the painting table

On the painting table: Batman Miniature Game!

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Storm Troll

Ut oh better look out guys that's two post in a row with a finished mini..... Here is my storm troll all finished. The mini has been nearly done for some time now just needed to pick out some details such as nails and teeth. You can see some previous shots of the storm troll here: http://nogspaintingcave.blogspot.com/2014/03/pluses-and-minuses.html
 

I had plans to pick out a few layers of highlights but after I washed the arcane blue sections with P3 turquois in I was happy with the results and called it a day.

 
I haven't put this gentleman on the table yet but I hope that will change soon.
 

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Two Day Tatzylwurm

Last week I spent two days to paint up my Skarath and here it is. As I mentioned previously I am registered and preparing to play in the 96 player Southern Ontario Open in late May. I picked up Dahlia and Skarath a few years back when one of our FLGS was having a big sale and I finally decided to get them table ready. The use of Dahlia and Skarath is 100% borrowed Flanzer tech but hey we all borrow idea in list building from time to time, no? Here are some shots of Skarath all ready to spray and consume the enemies of the kriels:


Skarath was assembled by Rob and here are the "naked" snake photos 




 
I have wanted to try out some pink colors for a while now and if I were ever to pick up and paint a Retribution army I am pretty sure it would be in a pink and grey scheme so that is where I went with Skarath. the fleshy inner section were painted with P3 carnal pink and murderous magenta via the airbrush. they are different mixes of the two and then it was washed with a thin glaze of murderous magenta to pull it all together. The carapace was painted with one of my favorite sets of colors the Reaper Master Series dusky skin triad. I use this triad on all my elemental trolls and if I were starting trolls now I might consider painting all of the skins this color. I am debating what to do with the eyes. I'm not sure if I should just leave them black or paint them a yellow or green to make the "pop" more. This was a pretty quick and dirty mini but I am fairly happy with the results.

I was able to get two practice games in with one of my three lists last Saturday as Scudo and Tim met me at the store to start our prep for the Southern Onatario Open. Scudo and Tim were both playing lists that were very light on units but I still put the lady and here snake on the table in a Grim2 list to try and get the feel for their movement, spacing, and fury utilization/management. I am not 100% sure she will stay in the list I am working on but there is a decent chance. I still need to practice a lot (with all of my lists) and get the feel for them in the right situations (against actual units). As of right now the only list I am nearly 100% sure will be traveling with me to Canada is Doomie1: Runes of War. I was originally planning on leaving runes at home and maybe coming up with an alt Doomie1 list but I decided I was not going to try and be a unique little snowflake and play a tried and true list that is really solid. I am leaning towards Grim2 and Grissel2 as my other two lists but who know I have been all over the damn place with list builds lately.

I'll leave you with some quick WiP shots of Dahlia. I've just blocked in pink skirt and the grey armor sections. The grey on her was painted P3 greatcoat grey and the pinks with the same colors as Skarath. The skirt will need a wash but should be ok after that. The rest of the mini obviously has a ways to go.





Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Southern Ontario Open (Going, Not Going, Going, Not Going, Going...)

Early in the year a buddy, Tim, mentioned there was going to be a 64 player masters event and Warmachine Weekend qualifier (Southern Ontario Open) about 3 hour away over the Canadian boarder. I've never had a bad time playing Warmachine and hanging out when I have road tripped to Canada so I looked at the work schedule and saw I was working...bummer I'm not. Under normal circumstances I could put in for some time off and it wouldn't be too hard to get coverage but since work is rolling out a new computer system they have implemented a freeze on time off for the months of April and May. While I was disappointed I wasn't going to be ale to attend I kind of forgot about it and by the time I came up with a possible solution for work coverage I figured the event was full. I'm not going.

A few months back I was listening to my favorite Canadian Warmachine podcast (Lost Hemisphere Radio) and my man Northblade was talking with the organized of the Southern Ontario Open. During the 'cast they mention the field was now opened up to 96 players and was going to be run over two days. I figured now that I knew there were spots available I started working on my plan to get coverage. Looks like I'm going! I had everything all lined up with coverage when the basement flooded and I started hemorrhaging money to fix that situation (as I type thing I have people jackhammering the basement floor to truly waterproof the basement). So I decided I'd be better off not travelling and all that goes with it.....I'm not going :(

Last week after going over it in my head and discussing it with the wife I decided I was going to try and make arrangements once again. I contacted the guys at the SOO and found out there were four slots remaining. I quickly contacted my co-worker to see if we could still do a weekend for weekend swap and she was in. When I got home from work that night I registered and now I am officially going! (I hope).

In the process I picked up another Team Spite member who would like to invade Canada with Tim and myself. Canada beware I will once again be bring the angry hobbit himself Mr Scudo :D

I have month to finalize my lists and get some practice games in. I have been on War Room all the time over the last few days tweaking lists and trying to come up with new ones. I know one of the standard competitive trollblood lists is Doomshaper1 Runes of War but I'd like to try and avoid taking it and if at all possible try and take a non-theme Doomie1 list :o  As of writing this post I am think I am leaning towards Grissel2, Grim2, and Madrak1 but I have been soooo back and forth already who know what I will settle on. The key thing is I will be going! (knock on wood)

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Dark, Yet Sexy

I received this box two Wednesdays ago. I initially passed on the Kingdom Death: Monster kickstarter as the was ending right around Christmas and I didn't feel right dropping that much coin at that time. I was also concerned over the plastic sculpts and molds (still very worried about Relic Knights and this same thing).
 
As time progressed I regretted missing out on this kickstarter more and more but was able to get in as a super late backer on Black Friday last year. There was a recent kickstarter update in which the creator of Kingdom Death was selling some plastic version of their pin up models via the Kingdom Death webstore and at a reduced price. I wasn't drawn to Kingdom Death because of the sexy pin up minis but a few of these are just so cool I couldn't resist (since it was before the flood).  
 





Cards for in game play when the game releases



Twilight Knight my favorite of the group


Forsaker my second favorite


White Speaker

You can see the mold line on the leg

Rubbed off nearly perfectly clean just by using my fingernail.
 
I am not sure when I will get a chance to start working on the minis but they are very very nice and the plastic quality seems to be fantastic. If this is the quality we can expect I cannot wait to get my hand on the full game release which should be sometime Q2......man I wish PP did plastics this well.

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Sturgis, The Corrupted

When I got my kickstarter minis two days ago I would have told you that you were crazy if you thought dead Sturgis would be the first mini I assembled......and I would have been wrong. As part of the Vengeance release we have been having 25pt tournaments every Friday night with coins available every night. While this is not the traditional way people do book releases it has kind of become a tradition in our meta and in the past has turned into some large events.
 
I played my trolls Thursday night at the other FLGS so I wasn't planning on attending the Friday night event but after receiving a few texts from Les and Adam I talk with the wife and decided I was in. I picked up my Khador coin the first week (have the Khador coin from every book release) so I needed to decide what I was going to play. I jokingly said dead Sturgis to Adam and he convinced me I should and that I could borrow some of his stuff. Here is what I came up with:
 
Sturgis The Corrupted (*6pts)
* Ripjaw (5pts)
Bane Riders (Leader and 4 Grunts) (11pts)
Bane Thralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Bane Thrall Officer & Standard (3pts)
Pistol Wraith (3pts)
 
I am sure I could have come up with something better but I really wanted to try out Adams Bane Riders and giving them stealth is never a bad thing, right? Ok I decided I was going to play now lets get assembling:
 
Parts all laid out ready for cleaning/ assembly. The mold lines were not that bad but as you can see lots of tiny flash from vents (I assume)

The Corrupted all ready to roll. The left wrist connection point is very tiny so I highly recommend pinning this. I didn't pin due to time restraints and it has broken off at least twice already.
 
So you may be asking what do you mean time restraints? Why didn't you have time if you were just assembling the mini to play and that's it? Well...... I was texting with my Canadian buddy Mr. Bell AKA Northblade and he convinced me (didn't take too much) that I should try and get him fully painted before heading to the store. I had maybe two and a half hours before I had to leave for the FLGS but said what the hell lets give it a go. Due to the basement flood I have paints and supplies all over the hous right now so I had to scramble to find everything. It looked like I was going to be grounded before the flight even took off as I couldn't find any of my primer but I came across some grey Vallejo Surface right when I was about to throw in the towel. I'd say it took a good 30 min of my time away finding my supplies and get set back up.

Sturgis primed grey and standing next to a Dragonforge Designs Lost Hemisphere base (for motivation)

Corrupted metals basecoated. I did a mix of VMA gun metal and rust (metallic) to achieve this color. As this was drying I had to leave the house to go get my son off the school bus so that cut another 20min or so off my time.

Drybrushed the metal with VMA steel, then added some gold trim accents with VMC brass, then filled in some plates with the original corrupted metal base color.

Painted the pants with P3 Rucksack Tan and the boot covers with P3 Bootstrap Leather. As you can see the weapon hand snapped off (this was #2)

The last thing I was able to do before I packed up and headed out was basecoat the cloth in the mid-tone from the Reaper Master Series muted purple triad. I forget the name of the color at this time.
 
It was a decent effort and I am pretty happy with the progress after about an hour and a half of paint time. As you can clearly see there is a bunch left to do still but I should be able to bang him out pretty quickly once I sit back down with him. I think if I had an hour more before heading to the store he would have been "finished". I ended up going 2-1 at the event. The game I lost I tried to assassinate Butcher one. I tried to shoot him with the pistol wraith and missed. Tried to hit him with a boosted parasite (needing 8 on 3d6 since he wasn't iron fleshed) and missed. then charged him with 4 bane thrall grunts and two axe and missed all six attacks :o Well guess that wasn't meant to be. I know people don't think Cryx Sturgis is very good but I have to say I had a blast playing him. Playing Cryx again may have had something to do with it but I really like Sturgis and had a good time. I'd say the highlight of my night was in game one Les jammed mini-feated zealots into my army. I teleported Sturgis into the middle of them and feated killing ALL but one of the zealots! It was glorious. OK that's all I have for now hopefully I'll have a finished Sturgis for y'all to see soon.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

PP's Unexpected Package

When I got home from y part time job today I had a package waiting for me. I received a shipping invoice from PP on April 1st but couldn't remember ordering anything so I kind of disregarded the email. I have also been so preoccupied with the flood in the basement and getting everything taken care of that I completely forgot about the email. Well when I picked up the package I was even more confused by the size of the box and the weight of the package.....I certainly didn't order this much from PP recently. Lets look at what we received shall we?

Completely forgot I pledged War Chest!


Coinage!









 
There you have it my little surprise from PP. OK off tot he store to play some trolls.