Rasputina and Friends: Family Portrait

This week sees Rasputina and her gang finished, crystals included! Sadly though her win record is less than impressive going 0-2 against Phils Viktorias list... need to work on my anti-assassination plan. Perhaps it is time to hit the Malifaux forum and look for the newbie guides.

This weekend though I'll be putting putty on a pile of Italian infantry in preparation for the Iron Painter Event at FlamesCon next weekend (more on that next week).

In the meantime - Raspy and friends...

Now I guess its time to add C. Hoffman and co. to my WIP list....

Rasputina and friends.... Done!

Finally managed to finish my December Acolyte - could not get the eyes looking anywhere near right so I have to admit I gave up a little, but I am happy with the overall finished result.

I also managed to base up my GF9 Crystals - these will be used as Ice Pillars for Rasputina to drop down in the game. I still have a couple more at home, I just need to scrounge up a couple of 40mm bases to put them on... perhaps I should hunt through my Warmachine stuff as I am bound to have a couple spare in one of those boxes.

I'll endevour to bring the whole gang into work tomorrow so I can take a nice "family" shot of them finished.

Next question is what to add to the painting table as the replacement for these guys.... I am thinking a C. Hoffman or Kaeris gang would be quite a bit of fun....

WIP Week - The Results

So last week I made an effort to look through all my "In progress" projects and see if I could push each one of the forward and reignite the interest that made me start them in the first place. Surprisingly it was a success... so much so that I think next year I will do it again. Whilst some may say that splitting my attention over a bunch of projects meant that nothing with finished, to my mind it meant that something got done, and in a couple of cases I either came dangerously close to finishing the projects, or found the impetus to push on with them in the near future.

I thought I would show off two of my "successful" WIP Week projects:

Rasputina and her Malifaux gang - I've previously shown photos of her "friends" and over the weekend I finished the lady herself. I have 1 figure left to do and then 100% of my Malifaux stuff is painted. With a bit of luck I'll get that done over this coming long weekend.

Force on Force US Marines - as I mentioned before I have some cool 20mm figures from Elheim and thanks to the painting guide in one of their books, I managed to knock this test Fire Team out in an hour or two over the course of a couple of nights. They are a little rough in places but they are perfectly good for my needs... and given I need to paint another 30-40 Marines and a bunch of opposition guys I'm pretty happy with the final result.

Where too from here? I need to work on an Italian Garrison force for our Iron Painter event at FlamesCon 2011 in a month, so I need to get them cleaned up and based over the next few weeks. I am going to order the rest of my Marines today or tomorrow... and now that I know how quickly I can do them I am pretty inspired. Lastly I am going to make some Ice Columns for Rasputina, I just need to buy a set of the GF9 Battlefield in a Box Ice Crystals and away we go!

WIP Week - Force on Force: US Marines

I've been sitting on these really nice figures from Elheim for a couple of months now and slowly amassing some diecast 1/72 pre-painted vehicles that I thought it was about time to put some paint on the figures and check out how hard they would be to paint. One of the Force on Force books has a quick method for painting them that I am trying out this weekend, just need to pick up some GW Devlan Mud tomorrow (why is it that every paint guide you read these days recommends Devlan Mud... is it this decades GW Chestnut Ink?) and give the figures a quick wash before moving on to some of the detail work.

The figures themselves are really nice (although the editing of this photo is a bit rubbish) and I have mounted them on small washers, with rare earth magnets glued in the hole of the washer, to make storage and transport a little easier.

Marine Fire Team ready for undercoating.

Mike has set me the task of getting Rasputina and the December Acolyte ready for a game at lunch on Monday, and I would like to get this first team finished as well. Normally this would not be a big problem but I understand that there is a 5x XP weekend on World of Tanks... :)

WIP Week - Rasputina and friends

A few of the guys at work have been playing a bit of Malifaux and whilst I am not sure if its quite my thing, who can pass up on some interesting figures.... I picked up a Cult of December box set, and a few extra bits and a pieces. All the finished items were quite quick to paint, only taking a couple of hours as they were very drybrush-able, with a little work to do some extra highlights etc. I've got Rasputina and the December Acolyte still to go - that might be a weekend job for when I have a little more time on my hands.

Without further ado, Rasputina and friends...


December Acolyte and Rasputina (undercoated and magic washed)



Ice Golem and three Ice Gamins

 

Three Hoarcat Prides and a Wendigo



WIP Week - The Prussians

So I am starting with my Dystopian Wars stuff, mainly because I have the largest percentage of it painted over all my projects, however with the arrival of reinforcements my painted vs unpainted is sitting around 40/60, but a concentrated effort will get the rest finished quickly.

Sitting on the painting table are a couple of Dreadnoughts, a Battleship, three crusiers and a small pile of destroyers (plus some robots, planes and other odds and ends). Other than adding magnets to my growing stash of turrets and fixing a couple of broken guns on a Metzger, the lot is ready for undercoating..

Ready for magnets

I've also finished a prototype paint job on an island I bought from the guys at Ameria Plastic Mouldings. These things are super cheap Vac Form plastic islands that make our games a little more fun as ships will be able to use some terrain to get away and hide...

Pflicht Class Scout ships check out the new island

Last but not least my swanky new decals from Dom's Decals arrived yesterday - tiny Maltese German crosses for my destroyers and aircraft.

WIP Week...and a Coin

This week I have decided that I will review all of my projects that I have underway and try to determine a plan for what I want to achieve by the end of the Christmas break..

The current short list has the following items on it... of course I very much doubt that I'll get any more than a few of these things done.

• Dystopian Wars - Prussian Fleet
• Dystopian Wars - Islands
• Malifaux Gang - Cult of December
• Force on Force - Marines & Opposition
• Force on Force - Built Up Area Terrain Squares (12"x12" bits of MDF with buildings permanently mounted on them)
• D&D - new figure for Tabitha Jones
• Flames of War - US LW Tank Company
• Flames of War - finish off my Hungarians (Hetzer and German PzIV L/70 platoons)
• Flames of War - French EW Mechanised Infantry Company
• Napoleonics - 15mm Prussian Brigade
• Warmachine - this is the longest list and somewhat depends on Domination brings, but I see eBaldur and Harkovich (plus friends) in my future

and

• Flames of War - Italian Garrison force from Burning Empires (for the FlamesCon GT in a month)

Phew...

Last, but not least... Chris (our organiser from GuardCon last weekend) had our coins... this will probably be my one and only Steamroller coin... but its still very cool!

Guardcon Day 2

Day two of Guardcon started off well. Since we were playing a Battlebox event and got through 6 rounds on day one, we had a late start (which was a new thing to me... a nice cooked breakfast and a sleep in whilst friends playing Warhammer and Flames of War had a much earlier start!) and a relaxed morning.

I played Gorton, Madrak and Gorton. Each of the games were great fun, but I was putting myself under some pressure as I was floating near the top at the start of the day. In the first game I made a couple of reasonably crucial mistakes resulting in three Gunners turning Sorsha into a fine mist. Against Madrak it was a more even contest (although Chris B did have to point out that we had misread the mission).... Madrak found himself on the end of a Wind Rushing Sorsha who put him down with her last attack. The last game of the day was against my old nemesis Victor who had already mentioned that his weekend would be complete if he could beat me! We had a fantastic game where once again Chris needed to point some obvious parts of the scenario... This time Sorsha made her Wind Rush but fell 1 point short of killing Gorton (that will teach me for leaving my dice at home and borrowing Victors!). Gorton tried to put Sorsha down and failed, however a lone Gunner casually wandered over to the flag and scored the final point required for a scenario win!

In the final wash up though I managed a very respectable third which was significantly higher than my placings in the previous four events I'd played.... mind you top half would have been significantly higher too!

Check out ThrallBlacks for more photos.

Sorsha Wind Rushing fake Sorsha on Day 1 (thanks to Chris B for the photo)

Guardcon Day 1... and the People of Southreach

Its been a great day at Guardcon with Sorsha and her two friends coming out with more wins than losses! Thats a new experience for me at a tournament... With one loss to Lylith, but wins against Sorsha (obviously not the real one), Kaya, Stryker and Gorton (thanks to some tips from Victor who is also running Gorton this weekend).

On an unrelated note, we had a great DnD session this week with our characters taking a short break since James is off in Australia (hopefully winning a Golden Daemon), instead taking over a group of people in the town of Southreach during a zombie attack. Barman Humphrey was particularly adept with a frying pan!

Sean (our DM) also has a cool online comic where he showed off our characters this week.... (check it out... its pretty awesome!)

Sorsha goes to Guardcon?

Okay, so many many weeks ago I thought I would paint up a Menoth Battlebox to take to Guardcon (which is a Battlebox tournament) but things conspired against me and a general lack of enthusiasm on the brushes (at least for anything bigger than very small ships - more on that later) resulted in the Kreoss and his boys being assembled, undercoated, and some base colours put on before I decided to call it quits. So up stepped Sorsha.... given the fact that I have a Juggernaut and Destroyer already done this was definitely the easy option and I completed her over the course of a weekend. I'm not happy with how the face turned out so I will have another crack at that next week, but for now she is heading to Guardcon.

Sorsha in her natural environment

Meanwhile I have also been distracted by a pile of little ships (although this turned up in the post today!). I am just waiting for some decals to arrive from Dom's Decals so I can finish off my first batch of Dystopian Wars ships (that an I need a favour from a friend with a laser cutting machine!), but I'll have pictures of them up next week assuming the decals arrive. 

Metzger Class Robot

I also played a very quick test game of Force on Force yesterday. Predictably the US Marines played by Phil managed to clean up the small unit of insurgents hiding in the town, but a lucky burst of fire caught one fire team moving in the open, killing 1 marine and heavily wounding another. It was a good lesson in how quick and nasty the game can be... definitely enthused to get some figures painted over the Christmas break - although there are way too many things that I am planning to paint over this period already so it might be a bit of a rough time on the paint brushes.

Pictures from Call To Arms 2011

Scott (over at Thrallblacks) put up some great photos from Call to Arms 2011... and I shamelessly stole the "best" ones.

Kara lines up a shot, trying to kill Thyra with a little help from Reinholt.

Triumph introduces Haley to his little friend (sadly my only caster kill of the weekend).

Possibly the words coolest Warmachine trophies!



Prussian Fleet WIP

I've been a bit behind on painting since the run up to Call to Arms, but I managed to get some test models completed over the weekend for my Prussian Empire Fleet (for Dystopian Wars). Pretty happy with how they turned out, although I need to put them on the back burner for a few weeks whilst I paint up my Menoth starter box for GuardCon in a few weeks time.

Battleship

Cruiser

Frigate

Still trying to work out a good plan for how to base them, although I think I have an idea, I just need to get a little help from the crayon wielding team at work....