My first commission...

... purchased. HA! I don't have enough hobby time for me, let alone anyone else.

For that reason, I've started farming out little projects. I've got a blood bowl team with a friend I met at Two Headed Dragon, and I also wanted to get my Space Hulk stuff done. I just got the genestealers back from the painter and I quite like them. They've motivated me to get to work on the terminators, as I'm converting them somewhat (remove some BA icons, GS) so I can have them painted up as Flesh Tearers. More on this soon. Should've said more on this much, much later.

For now I have some pics of my genestealers, hope you like them.

40K in 40 minutes @ Heroes World #2

Today was the second 40k in 40 minutes tournament at Heroes. World. I was there early enough to play a couple of testing games, in one I had an easy time killing off Matts 'nids, but got thoroughly smoked by Mike and his IG (2 vet squads in chimeras + a hydra), so I swapped a couple heavy bolters for a melta & ml. I ended up going with 5 scouts (no cloaks), snipers & missile launcher, 7 sternguard with a meltagun and heavy bolter, a razorback and landspeeder typhoon with heavy bolter.

Game 1: Unfortunate a bit I think, but I was paired against Matt again - Pitched Battle/Annihilation. He'd swapped a unit of hormagaunts for the new "reveal" genestealers. Some more unlucky dice and I was able to again focus on his hq/elites and wipe them out before his reserves had arrived. Win 1.

Game 2: Was against Andrew with his Tau - Spearhead/C&C. Some luck was on my side as Andrew couldn't get more than a crew stunned result on my vehicles all game. Still I think he forgot my razorback could contest his objective, as he blasted the rest of my army apart except for my scouts sitting on my objective - if he had focused on the rhino it would've been the draw he was playing for. Win 2.

Game3: Was against Kyle and his Space Wolves, Pitched Battle/King of the Hill. This was a tight game, but I made the crucial mistake of going for a melta shot on his razorback (and missing), putting my sternguard in the range of his flamers. We ran out of time, I had an immobilized/weapon razorback closer to the middle than his guys but it was obvious with only 2 scouts all the rest another turn would've seen him win. Loss 1

Game 4: Against Josh and his 'nids - Dawn of War/3 objectives. Quite similar army to Matt's, I began focusing on his hq/elite again. His hormagaunts charged my retreating scouts, about 5 of them got into combat. 4 wounds caused and I saved them all. Caused a few wounds in return and he failed them all. When his "reveal" genestealers finally arrived (turn 4!) it was too little too late, then did manage to kill most of the sternguard, but the rest of my army shot them to bits. Win 3.

Much better than last time. My fortunes reversed (from 1-3 to 3-1), I placed third, with the same record as Kyle & Rahul, but Kyle beat me and Rahul beat Kyle.

Another really great fun night hosted at Heroes World. I don't think there were any pics taken this time - though some people have some really nice looking armies.

WHFB escalation league @ HSG - week 3

I missed week 2 of the WHFB escalation league up at my parents cottage last week. Everyone else showed up so I couldn't make up any games. This week I still seemed behind the list curve with my Orcs & Goblins compared to the other lists there. My list included night goblin shaman and archers with nets (which I forgot to use) and fanatics, a unit of big un's with magic standard, two units of wolf riders (one has a 1 hit Wonda big boss), 3 trolls led by a goblin big boss with horn of urgok (too situational) and two spear chukkas.
After getting spanked by magic last time, I brought a banner to give me bonus dispel dice. I had no problems with people's magic, but this week it was monsters who were carrying the day - there was a dragon, 2 armies with hydra's, a stegadon, a skaven abomination, etc. I had 3 trolls now that we could select a rare choice.

First game was against a kid with Vampire Counts. Honestly if he'd dared to do anything with his blood knights he would've killed me, my army wasn't too bad on the animosity/stupidity tests this game - only my trolls failed to do any damage to his Grave Guard when they charged and we got stuck in a combat that took all game. It ended in a draw.

Second game against Michael's Dark Elves. I thought I had this game in the bag after my fanatics killed four dark riders and then four cold one riders, and I had his hydra in fleeing in charge range of both my general + trolls and my wolf riders with 1 hit Wonda big boss. Well the trolls failed their stupidity roll (I forgot about moving up 3" but I think they were outta range anyways) and then my Wonda big boss hit 3 times (at S10) and I rolled triple 1's to wound. Turning point of the game and Mike's last couple cold one riders wiped out nearly the rest of my army while his Hydra took out the trolls and wolf riders.

Third game against Dave's Skaven. Dave had the abomination, and my army pretty much just failed to do what I needed at the right time (animosity, yay!). Had a very fun game against Dave, I think I had the most laughs from my armies ridiculous-ness out of any WHFB game I've had there yet. My spear chukkas were stars, one shooting a spear that pierced every rank of his clanrat unit (5 ranks!). Fanatics failed to do much and animosity struck with the Wonda big boss led wolf rider unit yet again (they squabbled at least 6 or 7 times that day - obviously the rest of the mob knew that big boss wrn't nuthin' spesul)

So.. a draw and two losses. Back to the drawing board with the list, since it's escalation and your armies are supposed to be painted (or at least progressing) I plan to stick with my foolhardy Orcs & Goblins and I'll get a win with them yet!

Necromunda in the New Year

Saturday I had my buddy Mike over to get started on Necromunda in 2010. I suppose it had been nearly a month since we had played so I was definitely itching for some action. Here is the main board section, including the firebase I've recently gotten assembled (will get some nicer pics of the firebase when I get it based) and I tried to make that a focal point of the table.
Because.... I'd read on Eastern Fringe about an idea of using Space Hulk tiles in Necromunda, so we decided to give it a go. To keep things nice and simple, we counted each square as an inch and every square of a section hit by a template weapon counts as a hit. Here's a close-up of the firebase and the "access points" (2 "escape hatches" from the Imperial Strongpoint box I picked up recently, and the 2 card/bulkhead entrances)
This is the Space Hulk layout we used. Added four ladder counters to mark where the "access points" from above were. For simplicity we just said it cost 3" of movement to get down the ladder, same as any other ladder on the surface.
Decided since the Space Hulk tiles added complexity and also (mostly) because my camera battery was dying to not record pics for a battle report. I'll try to give you a gist of the two games though.

Game 1 was scavengers, we each started on an edge away from the firebase and the underground. I got pretty badly mauled in this game, none of my gang even made it into the tunnels, so Mike made off with all the loot (straight creds for his outlaw gang) and a huge bonus for my gangs massive gang rating. Everything went perfectly for Mike except that he rolled "captured" for his leader's serious injury. I had a wandering doc as my event card so my gang mostly escaped with minimal injuries.

Game 2 was the rescue mission. A bit of a grindhouse for both gangs. I started with his leader underground. He ended up freeing his leader, but I shot or carved up the rest of his gang as they tried to make a getaway, so he bottled. My gang still took a bunch of serious injuries, but I decided to risk my Archeotech Hoard with 4d6, and rolled 3, 4, 5, and 6. I had to sell a couple items but ended up with enough creds to pick up another Heavy armed with a Plasma Gun. A juve died, but another was recruited from my two settlements so I now have 16 models in my gang and every single Escher mini I own is in use (WYSIWYG too, except for a single model with chainsword/plasma pistol who really has a sword/needle pistol). Mike's been getting some good advances, but had to save all his creds because he's going to have to re-host his daemonhost after the next game for sure.

Week 2: Tristan - Dwarf (warhammer quest) painted

Here finally I am done with the Dwarf for warhammer quest (except for that blob of orange on his boot - how the hell did I miss that?!?!?). It was challenging picking a colour scheme that wouldn't tie him with troll slayers, especially once I ended up using the same key colour - however I think I've succeeded as he looks very distinct next to my troll slayer. I'm pretty happy with the way he turned out. What do you guys think?

30 wargs, ready to paint.

I've been threatening to get started on these for a while now, with the new WHFB escalation league at Heavy Support Games, I've finally been motivated to hunker down.

30 wargs - cleaned, assembled, green stuff'd, glued to washer base, sand glued to base, primed.

I took 2 from each group and gave them light mists of both white & black primer.
I will take a further 2 from each group and give them drybrushes with which & black.
That will leave 2 grey for each group - hopefully removing some of the uniformity of the models.

glued to bases
sand glued to base
primed & misted
Two posts in a day :O Well I had a long hobby day yesterday so it's not unjustified.

40K in 40 minutes @ Heroes World.

Heroes World had it's first 40K in 40 minutes tournament last night. Basically it's Combat Patrol, 400 points, no 2+ saves, no models >2 wounds (except 1 hq could have 3W), vehicles armour (front + side + rear) <=33, no special characters.

It was a total blast, we had 14 players, everyone played 4 games. I fielded 5 tactical marines, 6 sternguard w fist and heavy bolter, razorback w tl heavy bolters and a landspeeder typhoon with heavy bolter.

1st game: Was against Cameron and his wolves; pack of grey hunters (2 x meltagun), rhino, pack of 3 long fangs (2 x ml), razorback w tl heavy bolters and a landspeeder typhoon with heavy bolter. A tight fun game, won by Cam with his field repaired rhino (immobilized from dangerous terrain). "Start dammit!!"

2nd game: Against Raoul with daemons; His two horrors squads deepstriked, I blew one squad to pieces, his hounds came in, I blew them to pieces, his bloodcrushers came in, I left them with 1 wound. He was cagey and shot up my sternguard the whole time, really missed those hellfire rounds. Conceded at his turn with my lone sternguard heavy bolter left.

3rd game: Was against Sean, a newcomer (bought the box last week!), with Orks. Pretty merciless and let him spread out/over extend while I blasted a unit a turn. Pretty sad for my only win of the day.

4th game: Against the accursed Simon and his 'stealer swarm. I blasted his army to bits but couldn't take down his broodlord if my life depended on it (needed that heavy flamer!) and it single-handedly destroyed my entire army! But, but, everything was going so well!

A great night of fun, I think one of the guys took some pics. I haven't yet found out who won, but I suspect Cam or Mike. I had to book out early to finish up my other task for Wednesday evening that kept me up to 2am. Stay tuned... (a two post day?!?)

Week 2: Tristan - Dwarf (warhammer quest) progress 2

I've almost gotten all the basecoats done on my Dwarf for warhammer quest. I ended up going with orange just to go with the dark green of the dragon cloak. You'll notice I stayed away from orange hair though. Now it took me a while to realize but it's not a full covering helmet on his head, so what looks like a horsehair plume is actually his hair. Which hair colour should I go with - all grey so he looks a little more grizzled or blonde? Also what colour for his shoes? A neutral colour?

Week 3: Tristan - Wardancer (warhammer quest) plan

I have a few more models I kept to build up a collection of all the warhammer quest characters. I plan to try and use lots of greens without losing detail. I think I have to do something interesting with his huge hair as well.

I've got another old high elf model but I'm going to see if I can pull out something different after two weeks of warhammer quest models. I'm also looking for cheaper mfgr's mini's I could use for the following characters (barbarian, wizard, brettonian knight, chaos warrior, imperial noble).

2009 tidbits pt2

Here's the last couple bits I did in December last year.

First up is my Pit Fighter for warhammer quest. I decided since I wanted to paint his clothing a very beige colour that maybe it would be a good idea/opportunity to paint him with a darker flesh tone. It was only then that I realized this would make my only "black" mini a slave :\ not good! Since then I did the pyromaniac "shaft" character to balance things out until my Salamanders get some paint.

Second is an objective that I had built a while ago, and was primed black. I decided one day to quickly just get it painted. I ended up basing it to match my Crimson Fists bases. I intend to have three (20mm, 25mm, 40mm) objectives for each chapter.

WHFB escalation league @ HSG - week 1

Heavy Support Games started up their WHFB escalation league today. Started at 750 points, I brought my Orcs & Goblins, a large unit of night goblin archers, a large unit of orc big un's and a couple spear chukkas led by a night goblin shaman.

Got completely smoked!! First game was against a tzeentch daemon army, 30 flamers & 2 heralds. Game over by turn 3, and regardless it probably would've been over anyways, I failed every animosity test so my army stood there and got wasted. Second game was against Ogres. My fanatics caused some major damange, but I screwed up a rule and chose not to charge, pulling defeat from the jaws of a draw. Game three was against a lizardman army, a stegadon and a ton of skirmishing skinks. My shaman killed a ton of skinks, but then his regiment fled off the board, I even killed his stegadon, but his last unit of skinks kept circling and double-tapping my big un's.

On the plus side with all the spare time I had I finished up a couple handgunners for my mordheim talebheim warband. +2 painting points... woot!

2009 tidbits pt1

A few pics for you of the models I finished up last year but haven't taken pics of yet.

first up i'll do the underhive scum. he's been around forever primed black but forgotten. had always planned to keep most of his clothing black (the first matrix movie had recently came out) so it was only when i decided to try out a technique for black that i gave him a go. it's basically a grey drybrush over black followed by multiple coats of badab black wash. the lighter the grey the sharper the highlight, but multiple washes really smooths the tone. in the end i wanted to give this guy as many cheesy cliches as i could; so his face is horribly scarred and he carry's two gold plated bolt pistols. finally i decided i would give him a light wash of the wood stain, which worked really well and makes him look all dusty.

next up is a couple minis my brother had actually finished painting before i ended up with all his wargaming stuff. they were pretty clean but mostly just basecoats, so i decided to work my way through any painted stuff i have (not painted by me) and decide to strip or not. these two ended up in the "not" category, both needed a few minutes to touch them up and they i gave them both a light wash of wood stain, a coat of dullcote and they look amazing for next to no effort. one is a telekinetic wyrd, the other is a goliath juve. i changed the colour of the juves pants to grey so he would match my genestealer cult models a bit more.

and finally, a couple necromundan giant rats. these suckers had started to crop up through event cards in our games, so i decided i needed them painted. took no time at all either.

Week 2: Tristan - Dwarf (warhammer quest) progress

I got my dwarf ready for painting over the last couple days, wanted to get a head start on him since I figure he will be one of the most involved models I'm painting for my set of warhammer quest characters. Most of my others I finished in several hours painting in either a day or two. I fully expect this guy will take longer. Sorry for the crappy pictures, I found it hard to get good focus with all the white.

This required gluing on his dragon cloak.

As well I had to do some green stuff to hide the gap.

I'm going to try to get at least a couple progress posts up per mini now, as that's kinda the fun bit - seeing it progress from pewter to painted. :)

first painting point for 2010

A pyromaniac wyrd for necromunda. I've joined a bunch of local guys at a blog called Weekly Minis. We're going to attempt to fully paint at least one model per week, this is my week 1 complete, I'm already noticing an increase in motivation. I'm going to attempt to specifically paint each weekly model as a one off, so this will be on top of my other painting goals.

Week 1: Tristan - Pyromaniac Wyrd (necromunda)

Here is week 1 complete. I went in a completely different direction than I was originally thinking, in no small part due to the fact that the first mini I painted with dark skin was the mordheim pit slave model - thinking this could appear offensive I decided I needed a 'cool' negro mini for equality - when I see this model now I think of "Shaft".Also I decided I didn't want the big hair or jacket becoming the focal point of the mini, so I kept them very basic and simple, usually just a base coat, wash, highlight (except the flesh). Meanwhile I did a long blend from yellow to red for the flames on the sword to try and draw the viewers eye. Next up, the dwarf lord. The only thing I know about him right now is the dragon cloak will be green and he won't have slayer (orange) hair.

Week 2: Tristan - Dwarf (warhammer quest)

Here is my mini for the second week. I've had this dwarf lord kicking around since my friend gave me a bunch of GW stuff. I'll mount him on a round base as I've done with all my other WHQ character type models. He will make 6 painted characters so I'd even have some selection for a four player game.

Not sure what techniques I'll try with him. As with most of these single mini's I will just start painting and see where it takes me.