Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Menoth pics, and WIP/PIP shots.

Hate my camera, all the warcaster pics came out blurry so those will be redone tomorrow. But these pics came out nicely after a color fix in the image editor (can't seem to get rid of the yellow cast in pics). Sorry about the delay in posting these up... kind of got sucked into painting some other things and lost track of things.

Without further ado...

Blood of Martyrs. Minor touch-up and he'll be finished

Exemplar Cinerators. Very fun unit to paint and field.


WIP not the greatest pic. At this point I'm only roughly 60% finished, but making great progress.



Sealant disaster... picked up the flat can not the matte can... and well... for some reason the flat is semi-gloss.

Another sealant disaster, as I sealed him at the same time as the Daughters...

Revenger and Repenter. Loved working on these jacks, but I think I'll go in and add a little more paint work soon.
I'll be posting up pics of Thyra and pFeora tomorrow, as well as update pics of the Sisters of Battle (I'm 'nearly' finished with them... painted 7 tanks and 20 figs for them in the last 24 hours). At this point with the SoB I have to do the bases, and fully paint 2 converted figs, and they will be finished.

Until later!

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Post in progress... Menoth forces

I finished up Blood of Martyrs, pFeora, a full unit of Exemplar Cinerators, and I'm well on my way painting up the Covenant of Menoth. Working on these Menoth figs has given me a huge boost in my painting of late. After doing all the shade, wash, and highlighting on 60+ Sisters of Battle I just REALLY needed a change of pace, and these miniatures for Menoth have been just that for me.

At this point I have finished in the last week (pics to be added this evening):
Thyra, Flame of Sorrow
pFeora, Priestess of the Flame
Nicea, Tear of Vengeance
Allegiant of the Order of the Fist
Blood of Martyrs
Repenter
Revenger
1 unit of Daughters of the Flame
1 unit of Exemplar Cinerators

I still have the following to paint, but I will be taking a break from Menoth to finish work on the Sisters as I have the detailing on about 20 and full paint and conversion on 2 figs to finish. Oh, and 6-8 vehicles to get past their base coating of black.

On the workbench for Menoth:
eKreoss
Vessel of Judgement
Avatar of Menoth
Crusader (primed, work begun on basecoating)
Devout
1 unit Exemplar Errants (minimum size)
1 unit Exemplar Bastions (full unit)
1 unit Daughters of the Flame
1 unit Temple Flameguard (full unit)
Flameguard Precentor & Standard (UA)
1 unit Choir of Menoth (full unit)
Covenant of Menoth (all base coats finished, beginning of layering process. Roughly 40-50% finished)
Reclaimer

At the pace I've been keeping I'll likely have ALL of the Menoth forces for my army painted up inside of the next 2 weeks. I've been going with a slightly altered paint scheme for my forces, but nothing seriously different from the 'normal' scheme. Overall my big change has been using brass over gold in a lot of cases, as well as armor being a sort of NMM iron/steel over 'painted Menoth white'. In a number of cases it has been switching the sanguine with white where the 'normal' scheme has them. It makes the army look interesting without pulling it completely away from a Menoth feel.

I do admit that the first units and character figs I did were a bit less than my best effort, as I really wanted to get painted figs on the table. But I've switched to my more time consuming dozens of thin thin layers mode starting with the Covenant. This lets me use some of the better techniques like Zenithal Highlighting to help speed up the painting, while keeping the pace to a reasonable level.

I also got in a 35 point game last night against Cygnar (Constance Blaze, morrow list + thunderhead +eEirys + extras). The Daughters went through a precursor knight unit like it was tissue paper, before dying in a blaze of lightning to thunderheads AOE attack. The game ended with a caster kill win for me. I'm REALLY liking Thyra, but I also admit I'm still learning, made a number of mistakes and my win came out of a possible disasterous mistake in almost feeding my caster to my opponent.

Until later!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Protectorate of Menoth, a new gaming experience.

I've painted a number of Warmachine and Hordes figs the last few years, even a reasonably sized Cygnar army... but until last week I hadn't actually PLAYED the games. I finally decided to paint up an army for Warmahordes, and settled on the Protectorate of Menoth. Bought the Prime Mk II book, Wrath, and finally the Forces of Menoth book. As well as purchasing templates, tokens, and the unit card deck.

Once that was out of the way I purchased a crap ton of figs for the army... Menoth Battlegroup box (early posts discuss the issues I had with that box), 2 boxes of Daughters of Flame, Exemplar Cinerator box, Exemplar Bastions, Exemplar Errants box, Choir box, Flameguard box, 2 blisters of flameguard troops, Devout light warjack, Blood of Martyr's upgrade, Thyra, eKreoss, pFeora, Covenant of Menoth, flameguard preceptor & standard, allegiant of the order of the fist, reclaimer, and Nicea.

Looking at all I bought you're probably thinking 'geeze, goes in with both feet, and a bit disjointedly at that'. Well you'd only be part right. I tend to look at a game system and set out to get a fieldable force in one shot. If I feel a need to expand, then I do from that base. With this batch of figs I was looking at possible 35 pt lists, and tournaments (in which a number require 2 lists, and no duplication of characters) so I based my purchases on 3 casters (pKreoss is on the way so technically 4 casters), and things that work with them. Once I settled on flameguard units and exemplar units it was simple to start working outwards.

Towards this end I started with the core of 2 heavy and 2 light jacks in my slightly jacked up battleforce box, and knew I could use the Blood of Martyr's upgrade on one of the crusaders to build it. Thus I found myself picking Thyra as one of my main casters to work with. This of course lead me to flameguard units and characters, which in turn work well with pFeora. But the Cinerators unit I got at a HUGE discount made me think of secondary main caster, and I looked at pKreoss (still on the way), but also at eKreoss. Exemplars look to work well with both of them, so I purchased an Errants and a Bastion box. I thought about additional blisters and the UA for errants but decided against it at this point.

Having settled on basically three casters to work with it became easy to see what units and solos would start working well with them. Choir being a good choice and a jack buffing unit. Covenant would work well with non-theme lists for the 3 casters, and I like the fluff so had to get it. The Allegiant was a pure 'stats look fun, and the fluff is pretty nice too, plus the fig looks dynamic' purchase. While the Reclaimer was a buy aimed at usefulness, as well as cool looks.

I've finished painting 1 unit of Daughters, pFeora, Thyra, Repenter light warjack, Revenger light warjack, and the Allegiant. I'm nearly finished with the Cinerator unit as well as Blood of Martyrs. A Crusader is at the initial basecoating stages, and I'm getting ready to unbox the next daughters unit and Nicea to get them run through the paint brushes.

Overall it might seem that I've been a little odd in unit selection, but my thoughts are that while I can theme list Thyra, I'm less concerned at this point about doing so with eKreoss or pFeora. I'm still learning the game, so it's more about getting a useable army together, though in my case one that should work well.

My first game was Thyra, Crusader, Repenter, Revenger, 1 unit of Daughters (15 pts total), against a Cryx list including Scaverus, Erebus,the light jack with the arc node and jaws (can't remember its name), skarlock, a smallish unit of mechanithrals, and 2 other thralls (medium base) that I can't remember the name of, big brutes with a special attack that uses both attacks as one.

I ended up going second, but that was actually a bonus for me I found. My list wasn't even a tier 1 theme list with my slow crusader, but everything else was quick. I totally misread the Daughters card so didn't advance move like I could have... but it didn't really matter.

I set up with Repenter on the left, Crusader in the middle with Thyra on its heels, then Daughters followed by the Revenger on the far right. Scaverus was behind a lowish hill with skarlock a few inches away, the thralls on on my left, his light jack on my right, and erebus in the middle. Initial moves had his light jack advance on my light jack to the right, the thralls all piling forward on the left towards the midfield. I moved my Repenter to block the thralls, my Revenger into the bonejack, and the daughters moved forward towards Erebus, while the crusader and thyra moved forward as well. He used the skarlock to put more range into his casting, but his spells didn't really do a whole lot. I cast at his stuff with similar limited results. Around turn 3 the fights really got going, thralls on jack, the jack taking a fair amount of damage but killing one of the big guys and a little thrall. The bonejack tore into the other light jack, but didn't disable it and it replied with some damage back.

About this time Scaverus started moving forward, while the Duaghters got charged by Erebus and the thralls ended up blocking Thyra and Crusaders movement... that would end soon, thyra is a beast in melee. The Daughters died left and right, but did a little damage to Erebus. Finally the thralls all died, with a nearly boxed light jack were their corpses lay. The bonejack died around turn 4, but the light jack on that end of the battle was basically out of place and wouldn't play a part in the end of the battle.

The Crusader let Erebus have a taste of Inferno mace, doing quite a bit of damage, while recieving only 8 boxes total the entire fight... but Thyra, oh she did wonders. Killing 4 thralls (including a big one) then 2 hit killing Scaverus for a caster kill win.

At the end of the battle Thyra had taken 5 boxes of damage, Crusader 8, Repenter had 3 boxes left, and Revenger had 9 boxes left, and the poor Daughters were down to 2 remaining. But my opponent had Erebus at 4 boxes, and nothing else. For my first game it was small points, but exciting and fun. Nearly tabling an opponent that has been playing since Mk I was a bit shocking to say the least.

Until later!

P.S. I'll be posting up pics of the Menoth figs I've completed by Tuesday, fixing some issues with my camera before I can get more pics done... fiddly settings are a pain.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Updates, and a cause for delays this week

I've painted up Thyra, a unit of Daughters of the Flame, a Repenter, as well as a Revenger over the weekend. Luckily I did, and I'll get pics of them up soon, but today... well... lets just say my luck hit again and suddenly I have some delays.


This is a pic of the cause of my delays for this week. While helping my father out today with removing some old flooring from an apartment he's remodelling... well... this nasty sucker of a splinter bit me in the thumb. Yes it is 3/4 of an inch long, a touch over 1/8 of an inch wide. Took 2 hours in a prompt care, a local anesthetic, as well as a needle, tweezers, and a #15 scalpel to remove it from my thumb. This bad boy was clear into the muscle of my thumb and just wouldn't come out.

Needless to say, having a BIG splinter deep into the thumb of your painting/writing hand is just not at all fun. But add in being on blood thinners and it becomes a huge hassle to deal with, because I bleed like crazy. So I have doctors orders to not do anything with pressure or lots of movement in my thumb for a few days so it has time to start knitting up.

Luck, I have it... usually the bad kind. Oh well, I'll post some pics of the Menoth work soon though, only have to get the static grass on the bases to finish them. That should be easy enough.

Until later!

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Complements on customer support

Having purchased some Privateer Press product in recent months, I finally opened the Protectorate of Menoth battlegroup box, and a Exemplar Cinerator box. Now, up until today I have had nothing but awesome come out of PP packages, unfortunately today I had the misfortune of some weird luck.

The battlegroup box is supposed to come with: Kreos, 1x Crusader heavy warjack, 1x Repenter light warjack, and 1x Revenger light warjack. To my surprise my box came with 2 Crusaders, 1 Repenter, and 1 Revenger, but no Kreos. Though it had all the correct cards for a normal Menoth battlegroup box.

The Exemplar Cinerators were all there, card as well... but 3 of the 5 figs swords looked like someone had decided to bend them into new interesting shapes. Decidedly odd in my opinion.

Thus came my call to Privateer Press customer support. And let me say I've never been so impressed by CS from any company. I was on hold all of about 3 seconds before I was talking to a CS representative. Explained my issues with the product, and was informed that the Cinerators were likely from the initial run as that run had some issues. No problem, he gave me some ideas to fix the figs without need of replacement (which I will be trying out tomorrow). Then he was as baffled about the no Kreos but extra Crusader as much as I was. So after getting my address, he let me know a replacement Kreos would be shipped to me soon.

Overall I have to say that the experience with the PP Customer Service department was above and beyond. He was helpful, polite, and willing to go the extra mile to help make sure my experience with their product was great. It's experiences like this that give me a smile, as some companies have very bad CS (not going to name names on companies, everyone has run across it from time to time).

This has definitely made me an even bigger proponent of Privateer Press products and services.

Until later!

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Red red red red... and black... and white... and flesh tones!

I've gotten all the armor and tabards finished on the Sisters, and the flesh and eyes and lips. Of course, my best tiny tiny spotter decided to curl on me tonight... after a year of sporadic use... I shall lament its curling..... right up until I get a hobby knife and cut the curl off! Mwuahahaha!

At this point I'm debating how what way to go with the symbols. I know they will be grey, but I have to figure out which greys. Should be finishing up the symbols tonight after class, which reminds me I have a chapter to read this afternoon (silly instructor is giving us a 'quiz' on the chapter, for her first class, go figure). But at this point I can honestly say (if I don't count the rhinos, immolators, and exorcists) that I'm roughly 75-80% finished with them.

Now that is a lot of Sisters...


Three different skin tones, though the picture really makes the 'african' based one look all wrong


The Mistress for the Repentia unit. Details on the strangeness below.

WIP on a Sister Dialogis. I hate the GW fig for the Dialogis, so yon Seraphim shall become one
When I purchased my SoB infantry I used the great and powerful eBay. Of course when you use that tool, sometimes you get some 'odd' figs. In my case a seriously chopped up normally bolter toting grenade pin pulling sister. Plus the Seraphim Superior missing her power sword. I looked at them and thought 'Mistress for the repentia, and that one will work great for a dialogis... after I do a little work.'

Digging into my insane clutter and bits collection, I pulled out a pair of Dark Eldar agonizer bits, and got to work getting them to work as neural whips. I little snipping, a bit of glue, and presto we get an interesting looking Mistress.

With the Dialogis I pulled out the pin vice and got to work, added a bit of brass rod, and decided to hold off on finishing the fig for a bit. I'll be creating some kind of speaker or microphone for the hand held rod, the foot based one will be used to fix her to a custom base.

Until later!

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Monochrome Sisters of Battle WIP

As my last post covered, I've decided to go monochromatic with my Sisters of Battle using red. Overall this color scheme is coming out very striking, and different than many SoB armies I've seen over the years. At first I worried that it would all end up blending together, but the contrasts have helped keep it from happening.

I got more work done today on them, and here are some more WIP pics.






I've decided to continue with this scheme throughout the army, and I've also decided that the symbols, buttons, and other things will be in greys. And that I'll be doing several of the sisters as non-caucasion (though I haven't decided on any one racial type). It's obvious from the pics that I'm getting pretty damn good at skin... have to admit I enjoy painting female figs, and I've been practicing a lot on skin. I'll be using this army to practice a few skin types I haven't really worked on much, namely asian and African based skin tones.

All the 'leather' for the figs in this army will be black, with grey highlights (very very very dark grey). I'm still debating putting in some metallics, possibly brass. OSL for plasma pistols and the vent coils on plasma pistols I believe will be in a green. I find that green for plasma coils and the OSL for them works very well.

Power weapons, like the cannoness has in her pic, are definitely a work in progress. I haven't settled on exactly how I'll do them, but I only have a few in the whole army (that happens when you buy lots off eBay to build an army). I think I may go with a marbling effect, as I do have natural sea sponges to work with, but I'm not 100% set on that. My typical way of doing things is to paint up from a shade to a highlight, then line in 'lightning', then wash the weapon a few times not always with one wash color or ink but usually 2-4 different ones and stick to the 'formula' throughout an army.

Until later!

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Sisters of Battle WIP, Deathwatch HQ WIP, and random painting

(Note: My camera is ticking me off, I take no pride in the quality of the pics here... gotta figure out how I borked the camera, now onto the post)

Taking a break from the buildings. So here I am looking at my semi-worked on Sisters of Battle and decided to get back to work on them. At the start of yesterday they were all black primed, and some had blue tabards. But today after about 10 hours of work on nearly 30 of the sisters I decided to go with a somewhat odd for me choice, monochromatic.

All the blue tabards will be gone, but possibly one may stay on the Cannoness (haven't decided). And they will all be monochromatic using red. I'd already decided to do the armor as chaos black>2x Baal Red washings>Gore Red highlight>Baal Red wash>Blood Red edge highlight>Baal Red wash. This gives the armor a somewhat similar affect as the White Dwarf article on how they painted up the War Sphinx a few issues back (maybe 4-6 issues, can't remember).

Now I've decided that the monochrome effect will be used, so I'm using gore red on all the tabards, edge highlights and spatial highlighting with watered down blood red, then a baal red wash, then a gryphone sepia wash. The sepia wash really helps to bring the color back to a more muted 'cloth' like color.

Here are some work in progress pics (I'm not even half done with all the Sisters infantry figs yet...):








I also took the time this week to put together the first fig for the Deathwatch charity project, a Blood Angels Watch Commander.




and on top of that got to work on a fig from Mad Puppet Miniatures, Bellatrix. Overall I don't like how it's turning out, and I'll probably give it a soak in Purple Power and start over. But it won't hurt to get some comments on the current state of the fig.



As you can see in all the pics, I have a TON of figs on it, vehicles, hobby stuff... basically my work space is a horrible mess of 'I'll get to this project next'. Hate how that happened. But as I get the Sisters done I'll get more organized, it's been kind of a hurdle for me for the last 2 months.

Until later!

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Oriental Village Building Basing, WIP

The basing of the buildings is coming along well. With the only real hurdle being the time it takes for the glue to dry, as well as shaping hills and such. But during the 'downtime' I decided to start work on some walls as well. Pink insulation foam I had from a previous project was cut up and used to form the hill. I filled the gaps with wood putty.

I realized that the hill wasn't quite the size I needed a bit late, but fixed that with some 'stones' as well as the addition of a patio/porch made with various scale wood I have. Overall this project is turning out even better than I had thought it would initially.





More WIP posts and pics should be up during the next few days.

Until later!

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Village work continues, WIP pics

A few days have passed since my last post, and today I got a lot of work done on the current oriental village buildings. Detail work finished, and painting finished.

At this point I'm thinking of how to base each of the buildings, and I keep thinking of putting the 'tea house' on a small hill.

Overall this has been fun work, and when it came time to paint them I decided to keep to a very small palette.

Primer: Krylon Black Primer, The Army Painter Rat Fur Primer
Base Coat: FolkArt Burnt Umber
Mid-tone: FolkArt Bark Brown
Highlight: FolkArt Linen





Keeping to such a small palette of colors kept the buildings all tied together in their look. Do they look rough? yes, intentionally. These are for play, not for extreme detail and precision. Plus, it has been years since I'd built and painted buildings, so I'm fairly rusty on techniques and had to relearn them on the fly. I like how they turned out, detailed enough to look good from arms length (wargaming range of looking in general).

This project isn't finished, but I will probably scale it back a bit. I'll probably do a couple more houses and some scenery like walls, well, etc. I have to get back to work on other projects, so I'll have a lot less time to work on this project for home use. Though this did actually help me realize there are a few projects of this type I will be doing soon enough.

Until later!