Warmachine: Koldun Lord

This guy has been sitting nearly finished for longer than I care to admit. I'm trying to get a 35pt painted Warmachine list finally finished so I knocked out various parts I never completed and based him. The Greylord Ternion are almost done too and I am hoping they'll be done tonight. I'll post up a group shot together when they are all done.

What a Year for a New Year or FREEZING DEATH VORTEX of... DEATH? Yeah, DEATH!!!

 Tomorrow the Polar Vortex arrives in Pennsylvania and I think scientists have emphatically stated that there will be no survivors. Or it will be really cold, inconvenient and Tuesday for everybody, not sure which yet. I bet it is somewhere in the middle of both.

In any event, now is a good time to assess what the hell I am doing with the time-sucking vortex that is our beloved hobby, since tomorrow will definitely be about hunkering in, trying to get some more painting done, some more started and maybe, just maybe... finally learning to love myself at the end of it all... (or the beginning?)

OGRE Designer's Edition, now with 100% more colorful edges and Mod Podge.

Speaking of loving myself: I picked up OGRE over the holiday and so, colored all cardboard edges of the punch-out models with colored Sharpies and then glued the pieces all together with matte finish Mod Podge, which is EXACTLY what the doctor ordered there. They came out great, look great. Great! That's a Pro Tip folks, no charge.

I have a ton of Khurasan 15mm on the way, alarmingly ordered before Christmas and yet I have not heard a peep from the company about it at all... but their website was intentionally down over the holiday for them to process orders, so I am not worried, so much as I just want that stuff so I can do 15mm Strange Aeons, where the Lurkers just became 100% bigger!

I also have some forlorn Khador on my desk that I am hell-bent on tackling, with a new sage green and red color scheme. Yes, this means I have been playing Warmachine again and why shouldn't I? It's a damn good game. Still, Star Wars X Wing is a damn good game too and there is no painting required.

Ember Mage WIP will fight the Polar Vortex with her cutsie-cheeks. When I try to do the same thing people yell at me to put my slacks back on.

Finally I have more Super Dungeon Explore to knock out, I dare say I am in the home stretch there on a completed box set.

What else? I have some IG to tend to soon and probably a miniature yard sale in my future in the Spring... too much stuff to tolerate.

Stay warm, stay safe and I'll see you on the other side!

Warmachine: Khador Kodiak Conversion

Since I am in a campaign and could be facing my first game this week, I figured I better build the one 'jack in my list that I didn't have built. How's that for campaign strategy? Build the models you tell everyone you'll use? That's me, the winner.

With the advent of larger warjacks by way of updated models and the fact I am 1) cheap 2) unmotivated to trade up to new models 3) loathe to use my favorite warjack as-is (Answer: all) I decided to upgrade the "classic" metal kit.

I added Behemoth legs to a Devastator/Spriggen metal waist. I also added original Kodiak hull spikes to his fists for yup, you guessed it, MORE SPIKES. I just remember when he had Hammerfist and sorta want to honor that tradition. Good old Hammerfist.

I ordered Beast 09 Black Ivan shoulder pads too (seen in pic one before final fitting). I canted the pose a bit and cut/tilted his head. All told I think it is a good "Pathfinder" pose and while he is a bit taller and more dynamic than the original model, it isn't crazy overt. He's just more spiky and hulky while looking more mobile. Yeah, I left his right foot up, wanted to keep that tread detail visible.

More after paint.

So This Happened...

 Strange Aeons

Been busy traveling for work lately so I’ve tended to come home, kiss everyone in the house, cuddle and when they all sleep, attempt to glue things onto things or smear paint onto other things.

First, my buddy Finn got me the BONES Cthulhu… wicked fierce, that. I reposed it slightly, or really, just tidied up the pose so it wasn’t canted so forward. I’ll be using him as a Godling in Strange Aeons so I mounted his base onto a CD, which is the fashion for many things in Strange Aeons.

It gets bad from here.

Knowing that my BONES Werewolf took GW black primer but it remained the slightest bit tacky (remedied by normal layers of paint) I went to use a plastic-friendly black spray. I bought the wrong thing, used it and ended up with a permanently tacky, wet dust collector.

It gets better from here. Reading up in these here interwebnets I come find the consensus that Simple Green will do the trick. It totally did. The only paint it didn’t remove was what had properly dried and had stained into the plastic. Did not attack the BONES plastic and cleaned up really well.

A few coats of GW Black and we were back on schedule. I’ll post up a How-To for old squiddy when he’s painted.

 

Star Wars X Wing Miniatures

I’ve spent weeks to months on individual miniatures and terrain and never once did those posts come close to the tally-crushing popularity of a post about me chopping and regluing a pre-painted plastic space ship for 20 minutes. So I did it again. Now there are 2 B Wings in the stable. Also, picked up the Imperial Shuttle and yes, painted the engine glow. And straightened the top wing, factory glued wrong. And painted the guns. Cough.

Super Dungeon Explore

Concocted another water based stain to help speed paint the Dark Counsel for Super Dungeon Explore. Here is WIP, just need some highlights on the kobold skirt and to finish the basing.

Khador

Totally stuck with my Khador. A lot to paint and I’m not doing it. Built a ton of models recently, including 3 warjacks, two of which are Kodiak conversions and the last, a modified Devastator. More soon.

Warmachine: Khador Mechaniks WIP

So, campaign starts October. I'm betting mechanics will finally be useful enough to warrant taking them in many campaign games. Starting a damaged warjack in a game because you have no choice and having mechanics rushing to fix it while the game starts sounds like the level of stress I enjoy in my games. Not kidding.

Anywho, thanks to the generosity of my buddy Finn, I now have a unit of Khador Mechaniks. Thanks Finn!

Yes, I converted them. And yes, I actually like the sculpts a lot but not the repetition. So, I lopped off their heads (save the leader, who is awesome) and replaced them with Maxmini heads I had laying around for my Valhallen IG. Adds just enough visual variety to make them more interesting and still let me get it all done in one sitting.

I'm planning on trying some urban camo on them. We'll see how that goes.

With greenstuff blending around the neck...

Warmachine: Practice Games

Got in a pre-campaign practice game with my Khador today. I hosted, playing Trish's Menoth while Pete had Cryx, who played Finnegan's Skorne. All games were 35 points. I think we're all committed to our present forces except for Finnegan, who said he'd bring Retribution to the campaign but may now be considering Skorne. It might be useful to be the only Hordes army in the campaign.

The Jugger on my left flank takes a drubbing by the Menoth 'jacks and Bastions. A turn later, Butcher feats and everything here dies to the almost-wrecked Khador 'jack. Jugger eventually goes down. Butcher comes in to free up some engaged Widowmakers, gets over extended and is caught and killed by Amon Ad-raza's forces.

Pete's Denegrah list hits Jon's Skorne list. If I heard right, Cryx caught Skorne with a feint and sealed the deal.

Khador: Man O War WIP

More work done today on the Man o Wars...

Added textured wallpaper to bases. Leg pieces glued in and back filled with greenstuff 

Added pins to leg pieces

Trimmed shoulder nubs and tapped holes. Added 1 piece wire straight through holes. Glued both torso halves around green stuff core, pressed together.

Glued torso onto lowers, smoothed greenstuff overflow.

Khador Ulhans: I hate you. Plus: Gamillions of other things I'm trying to do at once...

 So I'm planning on running Ulhans and Markhov together at some point in the upcoming Fall campaign since I eventually want to have an all pike, all lance army under Vlad. you know, something for the kids. I brought the 5 unassembled Ulhans on vacation with me, to knock out some pinning/gluing and building.

Fail. What the hey-hey PP? The fulcrum for the model is the lower half of the IFP rider, supporting the upper IFP and telephone-pole pike on top AND the weight of the giant horse on the bottom when you pick it up and move it.  You make the IFP’s waist 2 pieces, split down the middle from front-to-back along the thinnest part of those pieces? You suck. You could have easily made this one piece. 

But you didn’t, so now I have to pin two separate pieces of lap to the horse. When? I dunno.

Still reading? In other news, this stuff is underway. My converted Vlad, a pinned Doomreaver unit attachment and Drago's murderously thin bicep reconstruction are all underway. I also fired up the Man O’ War assembly line with 2 units of Man O War Shocktroopers and one 3 man Demo Corp unit. I have the option of adding one Man O War to either the Shocktroopers or the Demo Corp. Prolly go Shocktrooper.

Warmachine: Khador Underway

I knew it was bound to happen. I graduate college, start in on a huge backlog of projects both game-related and no, start a rhythm of painting, prioritizing and sorting what the hell needs to be built. I kept wondering if I would let myself be drawn into some painting and playing that had nothing to do with the work I most lamented not doing because of life (eg. Strange Aeons).

So now I’m in a Warmachine campaign. I already planned a Fall of Strange Aeons but instead I’m dragging out all the Khador I neglected to paint in Mk i.

Campaign starts in October, and we have a meeting tomorrow night to run out our charter, ways and means, that sort of thing. Between us we have a ton of terrain so the pics on Sarcophagi should look pretty good around Halloween.

So, stay tuned as I dust off my old red paint mix batches… which are all dried out. And GW changed their color formulas… great.

The Wall of Shame or What I Could Paint for the Campaign Since I own it Unpainted:

Warcasters:

1. eSorcha
2. Vlad
3. eVlad
4. eButcher
5. Strakhov
6. Old Witch

Jacks:

1. Destroyer
2. Devastator
3. Spriggen
4. Kodiak X2
5. Drago (definitely painting him)
6. Marauder (already converted it)

Units:

1. IFP
2. Doomreavers
3. Greylords
4. Man O War Shocktroopers
5. Man O War Demolition Crew
6. Widowmakers
7. Great Bears
8. Uhlans

Solo:

1. Koldun
2. Kovnik
3. Fenris

Where the frig to begin... more as I decide and progress.

In the meantime, pics of what I already have painted, Not much!

Terrain How-To or Talkin’ Trash: The Final Paintdown

See part two here.

After trimming the odd Gorilla Glue growths and adding texture to it, I painted the bases and Dullcoated them. When dry, I hit it up with my snow mix.

After that, it's just a matter of setups.

A single setup holds a 10 man squad on 2" bases if you jam them in there.

Two side-by-side holds a full 10 man squad+ with room to spare.

Switch it up for different fortifications.

I have another 6 to finish up. After that I have a large scratch-built bastion that I'm hoping to knock out for the IG.

Terrain How-To or Talkin’ Trash: The Killing Floor

All of the bunkers are texture painted and ready for floors.

See part one here.

So the next detail to deal with on these defense line pieces are the floors, since the bunkers themselves are painted. I painted the bunkers all the way to two texture coats because I'll base them next and controlling the over spray would be problematic with the other parts already on there; I suck at masking.

I transferred a 3"x3" square via pencil rubbing to the foam core and cut up 6 squares of foam core. Once cleaned and trimmed, I painted the foam sides with brown acrylic paint, readying them for texture spray. After that was dry, I sprayed the squares with 2 coats of texture paint. These would be the floors of the bunkers.

Once the textured squares were dry I sprayed some smaller, textured plasticard squares with brown spray paint. There is some sheen on them but I’ll be using Dullcote on them after the painting is finished and before the snow is added. I crazy glued the plasticard squares to the textured floors and set them to dry.

After they dried I glued them together and BAM. Defensive structure.

 After gluing the floors down on the bunkers I traced the footprint of each onto some wax paper, one outline for each bunker. I am using Gorilla Glue, a common household expanding glue, to create the bases for each bunker. I poured out glue on each template and put the bunker in it. I misted the bunker with water since the glue foams when it contacts water and expands out in cool ways. It adds something organic to the thing, one reason why you may consider it over the usual foamcore/MDF bases, though the latter is more consistent. I just like material that works for me while I'm not looking.

Pour glue out into footprint. After it dries it will peel right off. I developed this technique years back when building my Khador terrain set and I keep finding it a fast way of basing things I build.

Spray so the glue foams

All lined up in glue

Added some weight to keep the foam from taking the floors out of plumb

Foam all expanded and dried. Anything crazy you don't like? trim it with a razor knife. You'll just need to watch after you peel it off. Some uncured areas will be exposed to air and foam out. Just trim that down with a razor knife.

Here it is all pealed off. Interesting but perhaps too much... I'll trim in back. Easy peasy.

Up next: The Final Paintdown