Some WiPs

I didn't get to paint too much last week due to work but got a little time this week to work on a few mini. I didn't really focus on one faction (or game in fact) but bounced a round between a few.

The first mini to show is my enlightened grunt from Wild West Exodus. Once again you can check out the kickstarter here if you are interested. After putting this guy together the other night I primed him with grey Vallejo Surface primer via the airbrush (hindsight being 20:20 I wish I went with black).

My initial inclination was to paint the paints in a denim scheme but I was unsure of the correct timeline for the creation of denim so I elected to go with a grey cloth. On a whim (and after talking with a buddy) I decided I liked the idea of a red shirt so went with it. Here he is with most of the base coating done and the pants and metals washed with GW Badab Black.

The next minis are the sluggers for my unloved challenge army. While I am still not 100% sold these guys are going to be in a ton of the lists I run with the Family Reunion they will be in one of the first few just cause they look good and I want to try them out. I am also holding out hope that there will be a UA in Gargantuans that will make up for some of their issues. I think it is a possibility that the UA is in the book as both Legion and Circle have received UAs for medium based units that are on the newer side of releases.

Here is where they currently stand. I washed the skin and metal sections while the boys were at school today. I typically let this wash sit for a while before going back to the mini but when I get back to it highlighting the skin will be the first order of business.

The last mini I have been working on is the High Reclaimer for my FADD Menoth army. Here is the work I have been doing on the HR:

The model had already been primed and the white metal section laid down months ago. Over the last two days I did some of the yellow metal sections with VMC bronze and the cloth section. I then washed all the metals with my standard armor wash and when that dried I washed the yellow metal sections with GW Sepia wash (whatever the new one is called) While the majority of my PoM to date has had grey cloaks I was in the mood to paint some more red (not sure why as I usually hate red). I started by laying down a few thin layers of VMA fire red. I still need to do a few more layers to get the coverage perfect but I think I like the feel of the red and bronze. I am not sure I love this red and may go back to may more standard red build. I am considering using the airbrush to paint the weapon blades and add some effects but we will see.

I know this came out of left field a little as I have shelved the PoM for a while. The reasons I picked the PoM back are two fold. The first reason is I have just been seeing them on the shelf and been in the mood to paint them a little but the second reason, and most compelling, was Privateer Press previewing this guy:

I love the look of this guy (I also love the regular bastions) and the description is really intriguing to me. It sounds as if this guy is a jack marshal which has some cool potential....I think. It will all depend on his rules but i am thinking of marshaling a sanctifier with him could be pretty sweet and could be a part of an HR army. I would be looking at something along these lines:

The High Reclaimer (*6pts)
* Reckoner (8pts)
* Vanquisher (8pts)
* Hierophant (2pts)
Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Exemplar Cinerators (Leader and 4 Grunts) (8pts)
Holy Zealots (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Holy Zealot Monolith Bearer (2pts)
Exemplar Bastion Seneschal (?)
* Sanctifier (9pts)
The Wrack (3 wracks) (1pts)
Vassal of Menoth (2pts)
Vassal of Menoth (2pts)

Since I don't know the points for the senny I left a little wiggle room in there for maybe Rhoven or the book or who knows what.

OK that is that for now. Hope to have more updates in the next few days and should have a wrap up of leg one of the Thruway Cup early next week......Let's go Team Spite!!!

Sluggers Started

Started working on the sluggers Sunday afternoon. Despite Monday being my first night back to work (been off for three weeks) I was able to get some quality work done. I took about an hour on Sunday to clean off the mold lines and get these guys (and gal) ready for primer. The only issue I ran into was attaching the ammo belts where needed. The contact point for these wasn't great and I didn't have much surface area/depth to try and pin. It doesn't help that the attachment point is in a fairly tight spot and I have big sausage fingers. I fell back on a method I haven't used for some time...the green stuff and glue method. It seems to have done the trick. The addition of the little ball of green stuff held the belt in place while I moved it to the exact spot I wanted. Once I had the location locked down I gave it a little push and scraped of the excess green stuff which pushed out of the gaps.

After letting the green stuff cure it was time to beak out the air brush. I primed with my standard black Vallejo surface primer. I used the airbrush to basecoat two different section on Northblade's Grogspar and I was happy with the results. As an aside I will be posting photos of the finished Grogspar coming once I hear the mini has been delivered and Northblade has seen it in person first. I was determined to basecoat as much of the minis with the airbrush as possible. I felt even if I had some over spray this would be easily corrected and worth the time saved not having to hand brush everything. Here they are after the basecoating stage and prior to cleaning up any of the edges that had over spray issues:

I painted the pants with P3 rucksack tan (by far my favorite color for light leathers), the boots/gloves got hit with P3 bootstrap leather, the skin with my standard troll blue, and I did the green of the tartans with Vallejo Game Color Russian green. I would normally try and spray the metallic sections as well but seeing as there wasn't too much metal and I wanted to avoid metallic over spray I decided to pass on that for the time being.

I started tinkering with a 50pt family reunion list. I want to try and keep the sluggers for the first few lists and not go right to the trollkin champions. I also want to try and get the war wagon in as many of the lists as possible. Here is what I came up with the other night:

Borka Kegslayer (*5pts)
* Rok (11pts)
* Pyre Troll (5pts)
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (Boomhowler and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Trollkin Sluggers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (8pts)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)
War Wagon (9pts)

I previously mention my concern over running into heavy armor. I decided that Rok and pyre troll should be helpful to this end. I have the two damage buffs here in primal and flaming fist. I also have some fun knockdown shenanigans with the war wagon and mosh pit. This should aid the sluggers in hitting their targets. Once again I don't think this list is optimal by any stretch of the imagination but it sure looks like it could be fun. I am not sure when I will be able to grab a game again but I plan to bring this and the 35pt list from the other day to the the store and kick the tires on my unloved challenge.

Northblade's Unloved Model Challenge

Those of you that listen to Lost Hemisphere Radio may have heard Northblade mention his unloved model challenge he is running out of his home store Heroes World. This challenge has also been picked up on the Lost Hemisphere forums. Well for those of you that have not heard the podcast here is the gist: there are three basic levels to the challenge and they are as follows:

1. Select a model from your faction that sees little table time and is generally believed to be subpar. Then paint that mini up and play it on a regular basis and see if you can make it work.
2. Let Northblade or 'Gdaybloke select the mini
3. Let the guys select a theme force (since it is LH what would you expect?) and play that at tier 2 or higher. Try to play it to >.500 win percentage

Despite not being part of Mr Bell's meta I shot him a text message and said count me. I need to keep painting and this will be some motivation. I figured I'd get something like Gunnbjorn which would be good since he has been partially painted for nearly a year now. Mr Bell surprised me by selecting Borka's family reunion theme force from NQ #38. Those of you that follow along with the cave know I love the family so this isn't too out there for me. I still need to finish painting parts of it so sounds like a win/win for me. It also can be a reason to get the newly painted war wagon on the table more often. Trying to keep with the spirit of the challenge I have decided to throw in an unloved unit in my first list. The unit in question would be sluggers. I didn't own them at the time of the challenge and I have never seen them played (I did just see them on a tray at Templecon masters).

I picked up a box of sluggers Tuesday at my FLGS since I knew they would be in stock. I am pretty sure they have been on the shelf at the FLGS since the release date. Right off the bat the unit is already fighting me as the box was miss packed. Here is a photo of the unit.

You may be saying there are five minis there what is the issue? Well maybe it is not a big deal but I got two unit leaders and three grunts versus the one leader four grunts it is suppose to be. I am missing one of the lady sluggers. Like I said maybe not that big of a deal but it always bugs me when things aren't what they are suppose to be. On top of that the card was mangled in the box and will need to be replaced.

I have been brainstorming on some lists and while I feel it plays better (trolls in general) at the 50pt level I am toying with a few 35pt list:

Borka Kegslayer (*5pts)
* Pyre Troll (5pts)
* Winter Troll (5pts)
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (Boomhowler and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Trollkin Sluggers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (8pts)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)

This list ends up having two unloved models/units. the winter troll and the sluggers. After taking care of my tier requirements I only had room for 10pts worth of 'beasts. The pyre was an easy choice the winter was included because I don't own a second pyre or storm troll. I suppose I could go slag/swamp....swarm on an iron fleshed/stumbling drunk Borka could be fun (for me). I will have to play around with it some. I will probably have some issues cracking serious armor but this is a start. If I can win the roll for initiative I think I maybe able to get some solid use out of the sluggers. Use the advance deploy from the tier to move them and Boomhowlers then run the sluggers into a good firing position and hopefully aim and take advantage of full auto for a few turns. Once again all good in theory but we will have to see how it plays out on the table.