Snow Day Rucht Hour: 10 Year Painting Job Done

So, back in 2003, I first got into the hobby / addiction known as miniature wargaming. Relative to most people who read this - I suspect - I'm fairly new to the wargaming hobby. Now, I have been painting miniatures for multiple decades, most of them for D&D or other RPGs.

When I first got into miniature wargaming, I said to myself that it would be impossible to paint an entire unit. It would take too long, it would make me bored, I would lose interest and never finish a unit.

Well, that has remained true. I love wargaming, but I have a terrible habit of not finishing my units.

Interestingly enough, participating in the Warmachine tournament earlier this year changed all of that. Sitting across the field against fully painted (and gorgeously painted) armies, prompted me to roll my sleeves up and get busy. So, here's my first unit that I ever started to paint…and never finished until now. 2013.

Friday Rucht Hour: Let's Mod up a Kraken

So, as you know, I've recently bought Privateer Press's Kraken. (See my unboxing and assembly posts for more info.)  Well, it's time to mod her up. If I'm going to drop that much money on a figure and it's of appreciable size, you better bet that I'm going to have fun with it.

First of all - if you didn't know before - here's a look at the model:

                 

Now, I started by wanting to put a figure into one of the Kraken's claws. But the question was, how? If you just stick a random mini into the claws of the Kraken, it's not going to look good. The figure will be posed for something else and look stiff while being held aloft. No worries, I thought. I have some figures of dead and dying warriors from another mod I did earlier. There was one problem. Even those figures didn't look quite right and most of them were completely flat on one side, because they were supposed to be lying on the ground. Look below to see what I mean...

So, I proceeded to dig around in my bins for bits and other minis. I remembered that I had an old bag o' zombies. I had always intended on them being grunts for another game, but a zombie would work nicely for my purposes.

Because the zombies were made of soft plastic, I just used the ol' boiling water trick. I bent a zombie in half, to make it look like it was being pinched in the middle. Then I put a rubber band around it, to keep it bent. I put the zombie in boiling water, took it out, let it cool, and voila! A figure bent over as if it were clasped in the middle. Quick work with a drimmel took off the zombie's plastic base. The whole process was about 15 minutes, tops. 

Here, you can see the zombie in the claws of the Kraken. I'll paint the zombie to look more like a human on the final product. 

Next up, salad dressing! The Kraken is supposed to be this menace which rises from the sea so I crafted seaweed from green stuff and draped it all over the model. To make the seaweed, I just made long, thin strings of green stuff and flattened it out carefully. Because green stuff has a taffy-like consistency, I stretched out the strands as far as I could to make them thin. It also helped make the ends of the seaweed taper off. Because most seaweed is twisted, I just twisted the strands around before applying it to the figure. Then, I tamped it all down to give it the appearance of something wet and clingy.

Behold! The modification is 90% done! Now, all I have to do is to add some barnacles to the figure and I'll be ready to re-base and paint! 

Friday Rucht Hour: Warmachine Round Up!

So, we've been steadily playing games of Warmachine up here in the frozen north. Recently, with it catching fire in our gaming group, we've had an influx of new players. The result - lot's a brawls. Warmachine is meant to be played primarily as a one-on-one game, but you can easily make it into a game with three or more players. 

The key, as with any minis game, is to have a compelling reason to make players want to be in the middle of the board. Otherwise, the late-comer to the three-way or four-way brawl is the winner. In this game, it was a simple King of the Hill scenario. Put your Warcaster or Warlock on the stone partition in the middle of the field and you score a point on your second turn. 

In the game we played below, we had a three-way brawl. It was Circle of Oroboros, Trollbloods, and Cryx all in a knock-out, drag-out fight. There were more Hordes was on the table than Warmachine this time around, so right off - this was Mik's kind of game. 

Anyhow, this is really just an excuse for you guys to see what my buddy Nick has done with his minis. His Circle of Oroboros minis are simply exquisite and look even better when they are in play. 

Here's the setup. Points are scored if you can get your Warcaster or Warlock (your controlling piece) onto the stone pavilion. Over on the right is Rob's Trollkin faction, heavily proxies by D&D minis. As Rob is new to the hobby, we are being fairly forgiving with his proxies. 

Check out the Gorax! The halberdiers look good, too! Note how Nick's painted a green stripe on the base to indicate the model's facing. The stripe is put on with an air brush so that it has a nice gradient of color. 

Another shot. Check out the teleporting tree on the left. The nice basing of that model really adds a lot.

 A great perspective shot with a halberdier in the front while warfare wages on in the background behind him. 

All for now, guys! Catch you on the flipside. 

Friday Rucht Hour: Assembling the Kraken

Well, here she is!

What I've done with the model is to prop one of its legs up so that it appears to be stepping up on a rock outcropping. On the rocks, I'm going to use the same dead and dying figures that I got from a historicals site that I used for my Wraith Engine. The Kraken eats bodies (the rules say that it collects corpse tokens), so the dead men are supposed to suggest this garish ability.

It's not shown here, but eventually, the Kraken will eventually have a dangling a figure from one of its claws. Speaking of its claws, that's probably my favorite feature of the model. It's arms are really, really long and stretch off of its base in a real menacing way.

It's reaching out for you! 

Here's an upclose shot of the dead figures on the rock. They aren't glued to it, yet. 

Here's a rear shot. Note all of the steam valves! 

One of the remarkable things about the model is the Kraken's long arms.

Sunday Rucht Hour: Unboxing the Kraken

So, recently, I saved up some money for Privateer Press's Kraken model. It's one of their Colossals line, which features massive models for use on the battlefield. Their Hordes line features the Gargantuans, which are their massive warbeasts.

Since Cryx is my main faction, I saved up for this one. I'm showing you guys an unboxing. When I get it assembled, I'll show you guys that as well. And then, of course, the final product once it's paint. As a 100 dollar purchase, I'm taking my time with this one.

 There's the box! 

 All pieces laid out

This is a neat feature they've started to include with all of their warjack models - wreck markers. When a warjack is slagged on the field, it becomes rough terrain. 50% of the time, we have to scramble to proxy in a wreck marker. Finally, they've included one in the kit. It's made from thick cardboard, too. Nice!  

The resin appears to be high quality. 

The model itself, as you can see, is both resin and metal. The resin mold for the Kraken appears to be much better than the resin mold was for the Wraith Engine, which I also assembled. The Wraith Engine resin mold had a bubble in it and was bent so that I had to dip it into boiling water to make it fit. I have had not such problems with the resin this time. I did need to clean up the model with an pen knife, but that's par for the course for any model.

That's all for now - I'll post more of this baby when I get it put together.

Sunday Rucht Hour: The Warmachines

Some time back, I bought the Skullvane Manse: the Lair of the Astromancer from Games Workshop. It's made a nice addition to  the table top for a variety of reasons. I was able to use it as a backdrop piece for our Pathfinder game. However, it's seen the most use in Warmachine. The Astromancer's Tower is a gorgeous piece of scenery. I need to probably do a write-up on it by itself. But this is more of quick and dirty battle-report.

So recently, we played a three-way game and used the old 40k terrain as a way to separate the three factions on the table. The white counter in the middle of the field is an objective that must be picked up by a Warjack, solo, or warcaster. In this battle, it was Cryx vs. Cryx vs. Khador. 

Casey (playing Khador) actually had some snipers climb the tower and fire down upon us. I know that these figs are commandos - he made them Winter Guard by proxy. The strategy was sound - he got to fire down on us from on high.

In the end, however, I was able to win the scenario. The large wraith engine that I've displayed here was key to my victory. The wraith engine floated up front, shut down my opponents' charge lanes and essentially blocked off the objective with its massive girth. Because it was incorporeal, and no one had a cure for it, it just became a massive obstacle. This allowed my warcaster to sneak up, grab the objective and make off with it.

Yeah, that sucker's big!