Wyrd Stuff: Dead Doxy 2

The painting continues apace. As these were half completed an aeon ago it hasn't been too hard to get them finished off. I went with purple for this lady. It is another colour I hate. I guess though that the only way to improve it to continually expand our repertoire. The camera issue hasn't been resolved so the picture is a little poor once more. I have a Rogue Necromancy to complete still so you can expect him over the coming days. Beyond that there is a Punk Zombie to do still and a Death Marshal. I have been avoiding the Punk Zombie as I really hate that sculpt. Let's see if I am brave enough to actually paint him.

Wyrd Stuff: Dead Doxy

My camera work is getting worse and simply because I changed the room I am taking the photographs in. I will try to figure out a better way to take them in the future. I have had a few of Wyrd Miniatures products lying around only half done for a year now and with the holidays I thought it would e a good time to get them finished. I don't really know if I have ever used Dead Doxies in a game before but the models are nice so I picked them up on a whim. They are definitely fun to paint and I kept them colourful like the Rotten Belles I finished a long time ago. I wasn't able to keep the traffic light theme but blue is a good enough colour and I have been using it a lot recently. It is a colour I dislike painting as I can never get the blends to work the way I want. I am slowly improving that however.

Stormcast Triumvirate Completed

Three done and a lot more to go. I am actually starting to enjoy painting these more. The blending of the blues is a little annoying but it has started to go faster. It still takes an age to get a single model done. The sheer size of the models means I can only do one at a time as otherwise my paint mixtures would dry too quickly. I don't know if it really effects my speed but I am unaccustomed to painting single models like this for regiments and it really feels wrong.

I am really happy with how the bases are coming along. The ruined temple theme gives me good material to work with and here I did a small broken pillar. It is a little thin and I only realised after I had finished it. I don't really mind and it still looks fine. I might however bulk it up when it comes to doing it on another model. I am going to stop doing the smaller flag stones on the bases and go with larger surfaces before breaking them up. I think it is more realistic, especially when considering marble and of course it looks better. I have tried it on the other bases I have been preparing and it is an improvement.

Celestial Vindicators

Very slow progress is being made with my Celestial Vindicator Brotherhood. I haven't made any changes to the scheme and I dont intend to really. I do have a few decisions still to make. I want to work on my silver a little more to make it pop. I am pretty boring when it comes to silvers and stick with washes mainly. I think I could improve this if I went with a darker basecoat and then a wash, finally I would build it up as I do gold. Usually when I do this I don't get the results I really want. Practice is needed I think. I also need to decide what exactly is going to go on the left shoulder pads of these guys. I just can't seem to get a freehand scheme I like at all and it is driving me nuts. I may well go with the basic design on my previously completed model but I don't know. I shall have to admit that I am coming back to these guys in the future once I have figured a few things out.

A Year of Malifaux

It didn't seem like a busy year of gaming but while chatting post-game last week I came to the realisation that I have played thirty games of Malifaux this year. You can read a lot about them here. I even managed to play through two campaigns using the beta rules. Despite SAGA making a late resurgence it would seem that Malifaux has won out as the game of 2015. I am still really enjoying the game and the VASSAL module makes it really easy to get a game in. I probably played a slightly lower number of games of Malifaux in 2014 but I still guess around twenty. It also has to be said that this was with a very limited variance in crews and always against the same opponent. It is very intriguing as to why a game would be able to hold my interest for so long.

So what is it that makes the game so enjoyable for me? It is the asymmetric victory conditions I think. The game also rarely focuses on the killing of enemy models. There is a huge amount of replayability and often quite a lot of tension generated by this asymmetry. It is definitely something I would like to see more games embrace and I do believe that Warmachine is bringing out a system for this soon. That would definitely respark my interest in all things Privateer Press. I would definitely consider such a system as almost required for skirmish gaming at this stage and Age of Sigmar would benefit strongly from it. It does require a flexibility in army composition and by determing the Strategies and Schemes in Malifaux prior to building a crew allows this. It would have to be included in games featuring asymmetry and this is where I think Privateer Press will fail. I look forward to seeing what they come up with though.

A Desperate Escort

I have definitely been playing a lot of SAGA recently. I have managed the odd game of Malifaux via VASSAL also but my club nights are dominated by the early medieval period. We will probably move onto some Muskets and Tomahawks after we conclude this phase of the campaign. I need to consider if it worked out as I imagined it would and to make some changes to improve upon the gameplay aspects. I want to have weather factor into the next phase for instance. It is set in winter after all.The deployments are shown above. I wanted to use the river to split the Norman forces. With the positioning of the fords I could get my pigs back across easily and block the other ford to stop the Normans redeploying which is exactly what I did. The battle is the second in the Harrying of the North campaign. After the Norman success in scattering the bulk of the villagers defenders they set about scattering the herds and burning the food stores around the village. The defenders attempted to bring the animals under the shelter of the forest to the north but were intercepted. Once battle was truly joined I was outflanked completely. Retreating back across the ford did indeed slow the Normans but with some fast movement they circled by blocking force and surrounded me. I also gave away my cows far too easily and as such I was therefore always struggling. As the noose tightened I tried to force a hole in the Norman line which I almost managed. We were once again limited by the terrain selection of other tables in the shop. As we tend to start a little later than the other games we get the left overs and a few pieces we can scavenge from games in progress. The river turned out to be an excellent piece to use and made for an interesting encounter. The Normans ended up surrounded me and I had to attempt to break out along the line of the river. However I hadn't factored in a small unit of Hearthguard across the river. These duly thundered across the ford and forced my baggage to retreat out of the defensive position and then they were pounced upon.

The Last Halfling

I have had this model for quite a while. He was even painted. However when I found him hiding at the back of my shelves I decided that this halfling deserved a new look. I didn't even strip the old paint. I don't have a good medium to remove paint with anymore and while Biostrip 20 has been recommended I haven't been able to source any here in Germany. I painted him in Averland colours as there has been talk of replaying some events from the World That Was, centered around Waaagh Gorbad.