Malifaux Storm

Firstly - Hope everyone enjoyed/is enjoying Xmas!
Secondly - Apologies for the quality of some of the photos: I need to sort out my lighting system.

On Boxing Day I was sat minding my own business with a box of chocolate biscuits when I decided I needed to paint something. Many choices on the shelves including my Dark Eldar army for 40K but in the end I plumped for completing one of the many new systems that turned up in 2011.

Malifaux stepped forward.

The Viktoria Twins

When we started Malifaux I picked up the Outcasts and prompty painted Von Schill and the Freikorps: a total of 6 models. As happens with wargamers I obviously bought more figures than I needed and ended up with 20.

Ronin

I added the Viktoria Twins Mercenary group and then picked up figures that I liked the look of. I know shocking - fancy buying figures because they look cool without any knowledge of what they do on the tabletop.

Johann + Taelor

 I set myself a challenge to paint all 14 remaining figures before the end of 2011 just to prove that I can complete these new gaming systems!

Convict Gunslinger + Bishop

I painted them in batches to keep things quick and went for a wide selection of colours to keep things really interesting.

Misaki

I kept one colour the same throughout the models: they all have Tau Sept Ochre + Gryphonne Sepia somewhere on them. I chose this because the Outcasts colour on their cards is a deep yellow.

Hans + Desperate Mercenary

They are also all on the Graveyard bases except Johann and Misaki who come with their own bases.

Jack Daw + Student of Conflict

I have some tidying up to do on the bases but otherwise this lot are done.

Freikorp Trapper + Librarian

So that's 14 figures in 3 days which is good for me and a completed gaming system... well, until new figures appear!

Freikorpsmen

Next up I think will be Pulp City as I want to get these alternate systems up and running as fast as I can so I can then go back to my Dark Eldar.

Von Schill + Freikorp Specialist

Happy New Year!

Outcast Party

Back in the 40K groove

So whilst the 'fox is flip flopping between different forces to do next, I thought I would leap on in there and bring my half finished Grek Knights off the shelf.  Now, they were half finished about 3 years ago and so a bit of dusting has had to be done.  Also, and annoyingly, it would appear that I had inadvertantly used a silver enamel spray to undercoat the figures. This has caused me one or two issues so far, but I am getting there is curing the problem.

So first things first, I updated the key parts of the force with 2 must haves, a Storm Raven (now with turret fitted properly) and the DreadKnight.  I used the airbrush shading technique for the sword which has come out very well indeed.

Also, having read the codex, I love the idea of the dead Terminators coming back to life to defend their old boss, Grand Master Mordrak.  So I have got some of the old metal terminators done to fulfill that role.  I have acquired some new plastic ones to take their place in the troops section of the force.  Mordrak is on the painting table now.  I did try a black and silver half and half finish on one of them, but in all honesty, it look atrocious.  So white and green wash for a classic LotR Army of the Dead finish.

First games of Pulp City!

So, the Silverback and I were the only ones left standing for our usual Tuesday evening session and after much umming and ahhing over what to do, we plumped for trying out our first game of Pulp City!

The City streets are still under construction, so the encounter occurred in the Pulp City graveyard..... a pretty good choice given the proximity to halloween!

We went for a straight brawl and ignored resources to keep it simple. I was the villains and recruited Hellsmith, Tritonius and Stalker and faced off against the heavy Metal team of Dr. Mercury, Lady Cyburn and Androida. You can see my set up positions below at the edge of the graveyard (Heavy Metal all started hiding behind trees so the photos were rubbish!)


A mid game shot with all of the figures shown.....

Androida ran up the flank and then got charged by a raging Stalker who managed to cut her to pieces in a couple of turns. Lady Cyburn then turned on the flames and burned Tritonius badly and damaged Hellsmith - in a later turn she finished off poor Tritonius whose water nature made him vulnerable to her flames!

Hellsmith and Stalker then smashed her into the ground and turned on Dr Mercury..... Who promptly ripped them both a new one in very short order! He's an absolute monster who hits like an anvil (literally) and is really tough. He's the only supreme we found who was both strong and tough and didn't even break a sweat taking out 2 supremes on his own.

So, we reset and this time the villains must have fooled the heroes because it was hero on hero action! Iron Train, Cronin and Nuclear Jones faced off against Solar, Perun and Stalker (again).

Slower start for my heroes as perun called on the power of the storm to charge himself up and the others went forward. Solar and Perun started flying and Solar called upon the power of the sun to touch his friendly supremes and give them +1 to all opposed rolls (nice!).

Cronin ran forward and flurried on Perun who took a couple of points of damage and Solar and Nuclear Jones chucked sun rays and nuclear missiles at each other - comic book heaven :)

Iron train just huffed and puffed down one flank whilst Perun smashed up Cronin and Nuclear Jones dropped nuclear fallout and eventually detonated himself to cause Stalker and Solar a fair number of wounds. Iron Train then put the kitty out by spooking Stalker with a ghostly train bu the combined might of Solar and Perun were enough to finish him off and win the day. Pic below of the fight in progress.

So, what did we learn? Pulp City is good fun! The basic rules are simple and the exclusive actions really give each supreme their own flavour. There's plenty more for us to learn about combos and the like and getting into the streets to chuck cars about will be fun :)

Most rolls end up causing between 0-3 damage so careful plannng is needed, but when boosted though (or just if your name is Mercury) you can cause more (7-8) which can be a real game changer, taking out supremes in a punch or two.

Looking forward to a few more games, so expect to see the street scenery move up the to do list!

Through the Sea Mist they came...

What's this? My blog posts are just like buses: none for ages and then 2 in rapid succession.

I finally found some time to crack on with my Prussian Fleet for Dystopian Wars. Now those of you who have been following the blog for a while will remember that I painted the fleet quite a while ago. Unfortunately when we used them on the table they were too dark and could not be seen.

Back to the drawing board then! Drawing inspiration from Eddy's and Silverback's fleets I added sea bases and set about lighter colours.

Now the room was a bit dark for these pictures but hopefully they come out all right! The sea has been painted Regal Blue and is to be finished this week with some highlights and washes to bring out the stormy conditions.

The Fleet set Sail

 They all have to be named yet which is my next challenge. I shall delve into the DW backstory for the Prussians and also look back to history itself to gather inspiration. I shall not be naming the battleship Bismarck!

Squadron of Frigates - 3x3 Squadrons in the Fleet

The hulls and steel plates are Codex Grey, the "wooden" effect decking is Mechrite Red, the metallic pieces are Boltgun Metal.

Battleship Ho!

Battleship with Shield Generator

I think they look a lot better than the old dark and dingy ones! Now I need to get them into action again.

Cruisers - 3 of them in the Initial Fleet

So that leaves me with the Bombers and Little Planes to do before next weekend. The Airship will have to wait for now until I've at least had a couple of battles.

Next weekend the Necrons are released and I suspect the lure of the shiny will drag me away again so all hands to the pump this week!

Was that the sound of an Alarm Clock?

They're back...

PX-0967 Army of Necrons

 Sorry couldn't resist cos, y'know, resistance is futile.

Flayed Ones - Happy I have these as don't like the new Finecast ones

 I'll stop now. If not then feel free to Delete...

Wraiths & Tomb Spyders just added

Ahem. I love Necrons. Have done ever since I got a free metal Necron on the cover of a White Dwarf a long time ago (2nd Edition?). I used an all metal army during the first "Codex" which I think was in White Dwarf again and consisted of Lord, Warriors, Immortals, Scarabs and Destroyers.

Then came the first real Codex and I bought the army box so that I could get the Codex early. The army you see in these pictures is the one that was awakened from that Codex. All except the Wraiths and Tomb Spyders which have been painted this weekend: well they were in a box and looking forlorn plus I need the army for Spoils of War Campaign at the end of November!

And then they went to sleep again. They were not too interesting to play at times because the Phase Out rule meant that your opponent usually ignored the mission and just tried to kill enough Necrons to make you lose.

But now they're back. Remember, remember the 5th of November because that's the day the Universe will shake as a thousand billion alarm clocks go off and the Necrons finally awaken from their slumber...

The Dark Eldar challenge continues......

So, I thought an update was in order as to the feasibility of getting the DE done by the weekend.

First up, the unit of wyches and bloodbrides - not much left to do on these, the ones on the left have all had the jade highlight added to the green armour, so probably just the final 5 or so to finish, some touch ups on the Guard equipment that they're leaping over and that'll be the first figures finished.... With 4 evenings to go. Gulp.


This is the next unit of wyches. All washes done and just the red, brass and armour to highlight. I really want to get the wyches all finished because I'm sure I won't get the green armour highlighted on the rest of the army and I think it might just be a tad disheartening if I have to go back and add more paint to everything after the weekend.

Talking of not getting things finished, these are the 20 warriors + Archon. Still need to finish the armour washes on about half of them (on the right) and then highlights to do.

And finally a quick shot of some of the vehicles (there are another 4 in addition to these). My current approach to getting them painting is to stick my fingers in my ears, close my eyes and hum loudly and hope that when I take them out of their cases, they'll magically be finished. Always works that way, right?

I'm still really enjoying painting them and it always seems to be that I have to drag myself to the painting table when I just feel like slumping in front of the TV, but really enjoy the painting once I start. The tournament is definitely having a positive effect as there have now been hours of painting that I just wouldn't have done without the motivation of this weekend. I just need to make sure i don't need a new army every month :)

New Sarissa Stuff

I'd got it into my head that this new laser etched stuff might be good for some other, non building, sorts of terrain. The primary thought was carts for Wild West games as the metal ones I'd seen were too small for scale or too expensive in metal.

HDF would seem to be perfect!

I was right as the nice man at Sarissa Precision kindly responded to my email with this lovely little teaser picture! Nice!

FoW Buildings

I've been rather distracted of late what with the arrival of 'Shell. This is the Gog nickname for my firstborn child so named by the Gogs. Seemed fitting for the offspring of Mr & Mrs Artillery!

This said I have managed to grab five minutes here and there to do a (very) little hobby stuff. I've set up my airbrush finally and used it to undercoat a load of figures and to put the base coat onto one of the laser-etched buildings that I'd brought at Colours. Once dried I finished it off with dry-brushing.

It is a bit dark so I will make an effort to make the next one a lot lighter. When I get round to it.

Foxy Lady

Hello.

Some of you may remember me from the Solo GoG Blog during the first six months of 2011....

.... and then I disappeared. I won't bore anyone with the details but suffice to say that I'm nearly, almost back but not quite yet. Once MAD (40K tournament alluded to by the esteemed Urn) is out of the way I'll have some more time to paint.

Expect November onwards to involve me hopefully getting my mojo back!

In the meantime I have been painting 1 figure and she's nearly done: highlights and the base to go.

Viktoria - Queen of Blades

Meet one of the Viktoria twins for Malifaux. Her sister has been started together with other members of the initial gang (Convict Gunslinger, Taelor, Ronin & Student of Conflict). Once done Von Schill will join them to make a 35 point gang.

Viktoria's Rear

She's usually painted blue but as my goal is to include the Ochre colour in all my Outcasts I eventually settled on using it as her base colour. It has merged a little with the flesh so some highlighting required. I think the blue armour has come out quite nice: very simple Boltgun metal with a Azurman Blue wash. I like simple...

Painting Progress

Ok, so I have been slacker than a slack thing that has been repeatedly stretched when it comes to posting my pics of painted stuff.

Anyway, to make amends here are the latest bits of output.  I always wonder why the figures don't look as good in the pics as they do in real life.

So, in order of precedence, are

Dystopian Wars reinforcements of a couple of Scout Gyros, Big Airplatform and the sexy Ika Submarines :)

Pulp City 4 lovely little figures (can you tell I had just watched the Watchmen with the Harrier figure?)

Hell Dorado - a Female cook that could come from any fantasy novel.  A great figure to paint and looks stunning in the flesh so to speak - very happy with her.

My Dark Eldar tournament challenge

Right, in the picture below you'll see the scale of the challenge that I have set myself. Do you remember those 19 basecoated wyches who were cast asside in favour of painting some malifaux and Pulp City figures a couple of months ago? Well, they're back.


I've entered Nick's tournament and with it looming large on the horizon, I was trying to work out which army to use from the many I have available. Imperial Guard? Too cheesy and disappointing for opponents. Sisters of Battle? new WD codex is totally uninspiring. Dark Eldar? Not painted....


But then it occured to me that they should be painted. They've been sitting around for ages and I've been using a combination of unpainted, old and undercoated figures when playing recently, which frankly is a disgrace to the hobby (unless you're actually painting as you go so each time you play something else has advanced.... Which wasn't the case for me(.


I also came to the conclusion that I never painted an army unless there was a tournament looming to make me do it, so if I didn't do them now it could be years until they were done. So, with a week off in hand (although most of it would be spent with the family) I went for it! The picture you see below is the state of the army a couple of weeks ago near the end of my holiday. There are 19 wyches basecoated with 9 undercoated, 2 venoms with the glue still drying, 20 warriors (3 undercoated) and 1 Archon (I couldn't resist building one after I liked the pose of one of the warriors so much that I had to do a quick weapon swap and promote him!). There are also 2 ravagers and 4 raiders to spruce up to match the new figures.


I'll post more updates as I go along as there's only about 10 days left now...... Yikes!

Some more Pulp City

So, here they are, the latest Pulp City figures to roll off the production line The flash photography doesn't do them any favours, but such is life!

As I mentioned in my last post, I needed more level 1 supremes, so here are two more with 1 unique minion (the zombie wolf).

The sculpt of Red Riding Hoodoo is one of my favourites of the PC line. I also couldn't improve upon the standard colour scheme and I like the light bandages contrasting with the dark skin. I'm pleased with the final figure and the detail is really nice, she's holding a little voodoo doll in her left hand for example.

The Zombie Wolf was.... average. Lots of green stuff to fill the large gap where the left and right side went together and a quick paint job to get it done. 'Nuff said.

Stalker was an interesting decision for me. Technically, he/she is a black panther. But I hate painting black. I tried and really didn't like where it was going, so took the decision that she was now a she-lion as I had some colours I wanted to use which would work for that. Mostly pleased with the final result, although the wash colour was a little strong (but looks fine at tabletop distance). A word of thanks must also go to the Silverback for painting the mailbox which was originally intended as street furniture. The Stalker figure comes with an Incan column to be climbing off, but I decided that might look a little silly in the streets of PC, so I used the mailbox which was the perfect height and the rounded top fitted the leg shape perfectly :) I see it that she climbed up there for a recce and is climbng down to move in for the attack.

Building No.2

I still need to finish the rear side of the roof (out of shot) but other than that I have nearly finished the second building. I used this one to experiment with the roof as some of the other things I am planning have more detail in the way of roof windows etc.

I'll get this finished, hopefully soon, and start painting this and the other one.

A very quick post on buildings....

Scratch building for Pulp City is great fun. I'm really enjoying doing a couple of shops and a skyscraper, but I thought I'd take the plunge and buy a couple of the Sarrisa precision buildings as they'd be fairly useful for bulking out terrain and giving us different buildings to fight over.

And you can colour me impressed. The one below was dry fitted in around 5 minutes and all I need to do tonight is break it down and glue the various floors together. There are tabs to keep the floors and roof in place during play but you can also then take them apart to move figures around the different floors. And you can see the windows & door detailing sitting next to them that will get glued inside the walls to complete the look.

I got this one and a slightly larger one as testers and I expect they'll both be built tonight ready for some painting.

Finally, some spandex clad heroes!

So, these guys (and 1 gal) took me a little longer than I anticipated. I know, I know, it's because you think I was working on other weird and wonderful miniatures, right?

Well, yes and no. Yes because there were a few Malifaux figures, etc. that have been painted, but no because I found myself wanting to try new things with them. When painting this few figures I found myself wanting to highlight them much more than I normally do. And with all the colours required when painting spandex, I spent a little more time thinking about the colours that I'd use to make sure they only looked as brightly coloured as super heroes should be and hopefully not too garish or dull.

So, the first two are my flying supremes. I wanted a different scheme for Solar and the red and green came to me when thinking of an old school DC hero whose name escapes me. I went with the blond hair to give a splash of something different in him.

Perun is a super hero harnesing the power of storms, so I wanted to paint to those colours. But I didn't want him to seem cold, so I gave him a warm flesh tone and hair colour to try to balance out the grey, blue and silver. Lots of layered highlighting on this one and I really enjoyed it! normally I'm a base colour-wash-base colour as a highlight painter, which works for armies, but I found myself taking more time with these and really enjoying it.

Next up is Hellsmith. he's a baddy and again, I wanted to mix the warm flesh and warm accent colour (red) with the cold silver weapons. Pleased with the result and multiple layered flesh highlights as I'm trying to improve my flesh colours after being given some advice that I couldn't paint flesh properly....

The final two are aliens, so I decided to go with livid green skin and torquiose/jade clothing as I could be as bright as I liked and hopefully it would all tie in. Really enjoyed the painting again as I think the extreme highlights suit the genre well. Happier with the big chap, but then his sculpt was a lot nicer IMO so that probably both helped and influenced where I spent my time. The big chap also got a shock of blond hair as he is half human so I wanted to play to that ancestry too.

So, 5 painted and only 1 level one amongst them. Oops. I had to go where the paintbrush led me, and it led me to brightly coloured spandex and pseudo Greek gods. Love it :)

Couple more level ones on their way to round the figures out and then it'll be on with the buildings.

A.R.C membership is growing

Guerilla reporting for duty! I'd seen the figure behind Guerilla on Westwinds website and decided that I'd have a look at it at Colours and once I saw it I knew I wanted it. HUGH!

Still only a 40mm base but he must be three times the mass of the Guerilla! Want will I use him for? Well I thought he might become an alternative to the Guerilla figure or a level 3 Supreme once some Hero design rules are released. A.R.C. are mising a Lvl 3 big hitter and this fella would seem to qualify!

I would challenge Urn to a game of Pulp City but he hasn't painted any of his figures yet......still.

;-)

This an appeal...

Please take the time to read all of this appeal. By the end of it, you just may just have changed somebody's life......

At this time of year, with Autumn closing in, there is a neglected species who can suffer greatly if attention is not paid to them. Yes, I speak of the Lesser Blogging Silver Fox (which may, or may not, look like the picture above).

The LBSF has kept this blog going through some tough times, including about 6 months ago when the only blog posts came from the LBSF and the blog was kept going almost single handedly.

And now? Nothing seen from the LBSF for a number of weeks, hence the appeal. So please, take the time to look behind your sheds, underneath leaf piles in your garden and in the middle of blackberry bushes to see if a LBSF has taken residence there. If one has, please coax them out with some bread soaked in milk and put them in a quiet spot in your house with a painting table, some shiny figures and access to the internet. Only then will the LBSF be coxed back into it's native habits of painting and blogging the results.

Please. Your help may be all that a LBSF near you needs.

Here come the girls!

I also got these two young ladies at the Colours Show to be civilians for Pulp City. They were from the Crooked Dice stand and are forr the 7TV game. They are lovely sculpts and whilst being sold under slightly different names they look strangely familiar. A certain Doctors companions perhaps?

;-)

So it has been a week and I have put together two buildings that I got at Colours and also painted seven figures. How you getting on Urn?

Urn? Any figures painted? ;-)

Look out for the civilians!

I picked up some civilians for Pulp City at the Colours show in Newbury. I saw them and they grabbed my eye because the sculpts have quite a lot of character for simple bystanders.

Anyhooo. Here are the first five.

JUNT is mad.

One of our followers on here is an old friend. He is mad. The photo is evidence enough as it depicts the first 19 of his buildings currently under construction.

Juntsville appears to be very close to the painting stage. This is good because I think some softly spoken gentlemen have turned up outside Junt's gaff with a sedative and a new long sleaved jacket for him!

;-)

Malifaux Scenery

Just a quick up date on my progress with my test house for Malifaux. Quite a simple one really but it has giving me the confidence to try adding extra details like loft windows etc on the next one.

The roof is time consuming but quite relaxing to do.

Just the windows to stick on and it will be ready to paint!

Another new gaming system? Yes please!

Quick update to show the Immortals that I got for the Hell Dorado game system at Colours. 10 figures for £15, as they were selling off the old French boxes so I decided that you couldn't really fall off!

Turns out the old boxes were set to be 200 points, which is the recommended size for the game, so looks like I'm all set and don't need to buy any more for it....... Reckon that'll stop me? ;)


Overall they're really nice little figures. True scale, so tiny little arms and hands which made some of the sticking fairly perilous, but hopefully the super glue will be super as pinning really wasn't an option for most of the joins.

Getting excited about buying these and sticking them together did mean the Pulp City heroes were put to one side, but I'll hopefully be going back to finish the first few of those this week, although I do now need to get some more of the GW wash now I got some good advice on doing the bases from Pulp Citizen.

The rulebook also looks very professional and with only 40 odd pages of actual rules, expect the Silverback and I to be getting in a game at some point.