Flameguard Cleanser Officer

I haven't completely forgotten Warmachine. Despite spending almost the entirety of January painting stuff for SAGA I mananged to play more games of Warmachine than it. I wanted to get this guy since Wrath came out but I kept putting him off. He finally popped up on the local games stores shelf and I grabbed him. He was simple to paint as I haven't gone for much complexity with my Menites. Keeping them simple means that even though I have somehow been painting them since 2004 I can keep them consistent. They look great en mass on the tabletop. I, as seems all to common, haven't got my new model to the tabletop yet. I am playing a League at the moment and I am using my Circle army. I am hopefully getting a friendly game in soon so I can test him and his buddies out. I rarely take my menites off the shelf. I think last year I may have used them about five times in total which is a shame. Hopefully I can rectify this over the course of 2013.

Attend me Priest!

I saw this guy a number of times in the local game store and I eventually gave in. At that point I wasn't really sure what he did and if I had I probably could have resisted much longer. He joins a mercenary unit and they then count as friendly faction models. In some cases that is excellent but I can't see a unit whith whom they are really that useful. I have Croe's Cutthroats but at ten points they are expensive and adding two more points to them won't really help! I also have Sam McHorne and the Devil Dogs but I really don't se them benefitting either. It is nice to have the model painted but I guess he will occupy the shelf for a long time to come.

I did a quick paintjob on this guy. I wanted to experiment with some yellow and pink highlights. They came out much better than I imagined and I will use these colours a little more in the future. I always highlight red from a very dark base colour. It prevents the colour from becoming too orange or pink. Hence I never really tried out a red where I intentionally wanted one of these to come through. I think the rich pink I managed to get fits quite well and so I will have to experiment with it elsewhere in the army. The yellow came out fine but it doesn't really fit the models that well. I guess not everything can come out as I want it. I think I will stick with a less vibrant yellow like on my Circle army.

A Cold Dish

This is my last menite model for a while, thankfully. I have had enough of them for the moment and I am really unmotivated to do more. The Blessing of Vengeance is a complicated model and without some access to shots of completed models I don't want to think how I would have glued him together. I had no idea how the shoulders attached and I was fairly close to putting them on upside down. Sometimes instructions would be helpful! I picked up the Blessing as he was really cheap on eBay and so I could field the Tier list for Severius. I realised then that I need more models and got annoyed. Sometimes the duplication that the Tier Lists require can be a little much. So I am not going to collect the Tier list but he is still good to have especially as I use Severius a lot. He really is my go to Warcaster. The Blessing of Vengeance boosts one of his best spells, Ashes to Ashes so that has to be good, right? I actually never really use the spell much but after having some great success with it at the Irish Masters I am a convert.

 I am working on my Druids at the moment. These guys take a lot more effort than the menites do even though these are fairly simple. I have the armour almost complete now and I will start working on the skin soon. At least that means just the faces and hands so it won't be too bad. I really like painting these despite the fact they are taking what seems like ages. I am glad they are not a more detailed unit! Hopefully I cna put of some progress tomorrow or fingers crossed the completed unit!

Cleansing the palette

I live in a nice apartment in Hamburg which is one of the most green cities in Europe. There is a wonderful row of trees in front of my house and a gigantic chestnut tree in the back. These trees, which I generally like, cause no end of annoyance when it comes to painting. Spring and autumn means no leaves and the general gloom is suddenly replaced with wonderful light. My apartment isn't so dark but when all the windows are fronted by thick foliage it does tend to block a lot of light. The Northern European winters are gloomy enough that the abscence of the leaves makes no difference. I am currently tempted to move my desk to avail of the ligh but in another two or three weeks the leaves will be out and the lightt will be back to normal. A big penthouse apartment would be nice, I suppose we can all dream!

I have been busy working on my Menites and I can confidently say I will have them finished this week. I did a bit of a rush job on the Cleansers but they are done. I gave them white helmets to separate them from the other regiment I have. These are the last unit I will paint for Menoth for a while. I know soon enough something will take my fancy and I won't be able to resist but I really want to get my Circle force up to a level where I am satisfied with them at this point. I will be playing mainly Circle from here on out. I signed up yesterday for some tournaments here in Germany. The first one is in Kiel and has some funky rules. it is forty two points and infantry are restricted to twelve of those points. That really hampers menoth and so the Circle will have to come out and play. I am thinking that an eBaldur list would be good fun to try as I can easily get to tier four despite the restrictions. It doesn't really bring me much in terms of advantage but its nice to be able to say! I assembled the new Baldur model yesterday and attempted to sculpt a more decorative base. I wasn't very succesful. I can't see why the epic warlocks don't get the nice decorative bases like the epic warcasters! I will see today if I can make something more of the base.

Chieftan and Guide

Finally I am done with Idrians. These two were really nice to paint up. I didn't do anything fancy with them. I kept the metallics simple on the chieftan. Mainly Burnished Gold(GW) washed with Ogryn Flesh(GW) and touched up with some of the original base coat. I didn't want to put too much into the armour as I wanted it to look brass/bronze rather than actual gold. Brass is a really hard colour to convey and I always keep it as dark as I can. The guide is pretty much the exact same scheme as the rest of the unit, Khaki(VJ) highlighted with Bleached Bone(GW). I did work a little bit more than usual on the silver metallics, especially the sword. In the photo it has really caught the light but there is some nice highlighting there. It is a little more noticable on the edge on sword towards the back. I am getting my metallic highlight mixes fine and the transitions are okay. I still have no idea where to put the highlights though. I am going to have to find a guide and just copy someone elses work.

The guide model has to be one of my recent favourites. He is really tiny and a little bit tricky to assemble. The pose though is outstanding. The chieftan is fairly standard and while the quality is very high the guide really shines. It would have been fairly simple to just have a standard enough pose for the guide but the fact he is down tracking someone is perfect.

I assembled my final unit today, a second batch of Flameguard Cleansers. The basecoat is almost done for them and I will have them done tomorrow. It looks like if I can power through the six of them I will have all of my menites complete by the end of the month. That's a strange feeling. I think it will be the first time I ever finished all of my models for an army. I know this doesn't preclude me from buying more in the future but its nice to know there is nothing more to do currently! I will need to get some form of a group shot once all is done I guess.

Allies are annoying!

Here are the Idrian Skirmishers complete. I have the attachement almost done too so I guess they will be shown tomorrow. I lost a bit of motivation while doing these as I don't see myself using them soon. Having the Masters looming and playing in the War-Torn Alliances league helped keep me focused on the Protectorate. Now that they are passed I really want to start getting my Circle force going again. So the paintjob suffered on these. They came out fine but not quite to the standard where I would have been happy. I think som of this stems from the fact that I can't actually use them with my mercenaries. I was looking forward to that and when I reviewed the rules I noticed they are only available for Magnus Tier lists. I don't want to collect a Magnus theme list so thats the Idrians relegated to the menites. At least now according to the Chief Lostie I have an awesome unit to use. Trying to figure out exactly who they work best with will be fun.

I have just started taking classes again so time for painting is going to slowly wane as I get more and more work piled on top of me. Hopefully I can keep up a decent pace. I know that my spending on miniatures won't drop so I really don't want to make my lead pile to start spilling out of its neatly stacked shelf. It is not nice to notice that the amount of still boxed Khadorans I have is greater than the stock of my local store...

Idrians almost ready

I am finally recovered from holidays and the ensuing illness! It always seems to be the way, let down your guard and relax then come home sick. I guess it may be due to the copious Beamish and Karhu that was drunk in Ireland and Finland. I did have some good company while sick at least: The Elder Scrolls IV. So rather than painting I got to play that. It is no Skyrim but as my machine can't handle Skyrim its good enough for me. AT least that itch is scratched and I can get back to painting.

This weekend I was able to sit and make some progress on my menites. The first half of my Idrian regiment are done. These were actually fun to paint and nice to ease myself back into the groove with. I didn't put much varied colour into them. I want them to look fairly muted and I think that worked out decently. They are a little different from the rest of the menites but thats how it should be. They are just allies after all. Today I will be finishing up the last four and starting on the attachment. I want to get all of my menites finished this month which is going to be tough. Five days left and thirteen models to go! I think I can manage it.

Severius again

Just like Kreoss this is my second time to paint the Grand Scrutator. I have been using him a lot in the recent Wartorn Alliances league and it is about time I painted this model up. I acquired him as part of a parcel of stuff picked up on Ebay. Its tough to get much stuff on Ebay here in Germany but sometimes I manage to get a few things. Often I have seen things selling on Ebay.de higher than retail rpice which always strikes me as odd. Anyway back to Severius. I think he is one of the menites stronger 'casters. He synergises with everything, especially the stuff I like to use: Templeguard and Zealots. Defenders Ward offers the Templeguard an effective defence of seventeen when they are getting charged. That is right on the cusp of impossible to hit.

I have been attempting to improve my red blends and here is a terrible shot of what I have been doing. Using Vajello Hull Red and mixing it progressively with Blood Red (GW) I have managed to get some really nice transitions. Its good practise for my Khador even though I think I will do them as the 5th Border Legion.

Gdaybloke's fault

So having listened to how good the Idrians are for what seems an age on the Lost Hemisphere podcast I crumbled and bought some. Gdaybloke sings their praises and who am I to argue! The models are nice enough. They split between cloaked and uncloaked which gives the unit a little bit of an odd look on the table. I prefer the cloaked ones. They have a better scout look. The others don't fit quite into the same image. As far as painting goes I am keeping these simple. I don't need to have them fit into the level of painting that my Mercs have. I do want them to look good but not to stand out too much from the rest of the menites. I am going to keep the colours subdued. The sample above shows what I am going for so far. I am really annoyed however that I can't use these in a Mercs list except with Magnus. I should have done my research first so its my own fault. They do seem to be really restricted however which seems odd. I was sure that the Allies would appear more often in Merc lists.

A pair of Guardians

During a crazy phase of Ebay purchases I picked up a Guardian Warjack. The problem I didn't realise at the time was that I already have one. I had completely forgotten as I had never fielded it before. It sat on a shelf in my old home in Ireland and when I was back there last I noticed it and brought it back to Germany. I painted it up last week fairly quickly. It needed some reassembly and pinning but it was already basecoated so it didn't take long to do. The white is not as flat as it appears as usual. I added the weathering chips by hand this time rather than using the salt or hairspray technique. I had to do it this way as the model was already base coated. To be honest it came out as good and maybe I should keep doing it this way? I have some wreck markers that need to be painted and I will use the salt technique on them.

The Guardian is a neglected Warjack. For nine points it really is expensive especially when you consider how effective the Reckoner is for only eight. All that the Guardian offers is an arc node, reach and critical pitch. The Reckoner offers a whole lot more. I really wonder how the Guardian got so mispriced. I think eight would be reasonable and seven too cheap. Maybe the problem is more that the Reckoner is far too cheap! I have been trying to think of a list to use the two of these in. I really can't find one that they would fit in. Arc nodes aren't really as effective as they were in MKI. Reach is good at least, especially on such a slow 'jack. The critical pitch is just an unreliable bonus and I wouldn't figure it in my plans too often.

The Kreoss Project: part 6

It has been a long while since I made any progress with this project. However in my recent fervour to complete my menites I have pulled out the Grand Exemplar and painted him up. Everyone tells me that he is great but I just don't see it. The same upkeep abilities don't present themselves and I will really miss Lamentation. He doesn't boost his force to the same degree that pKreoss does. The Castigate spell stops arc nodes but not channeling so things like the gallows grove and spell martyrs ignore this. Chasten removes enemy upkeeps on the models hit. Again not as effective as Lamentation. The feat is good, especially with such an effective melee army. It really seems to be his shining ability. I guess I will have to try him out more often on the table to see how he works!

This week I am having holidays in Ireland so plenty of Beamish/Guinness will be drunk. The Irish Masters was great fun and once I get back to Germany I will write up a report.

Kreoss for the Masters

I already have a Kreoss model painted but as I am missing his staff somewhere I decided to use that as an excuse to paint up the variant pose I had picked up. I also need this fellow for the Irish Masters I am attending over the weekend. I won't do well in it as I am just not that competitive a player. It is still going to be fun. Kreoss is one of my staple 'casters and I want to stick with what I know. The list is also one that I use a lot. I don't think it is especially brilliant or anything but I am familiar with everything contained within. I guess that there are a few changes I could make to improve the competitiveness. The zealots for instance could be exchanged with deliverers for instance. The list I will use is:

High Exemplar Kreoss (*5pts)
* Revenger (6pts)
* Reckoner (8pts)
Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Holy Zealots (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Holy Zealot Monolith Bearer (2pts)
Knights Exemplar (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Temple Flameguard (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Temple Flameguard Officer & Standard (2pts)
The Covenant of Menoth (2pts)
Vassal Mechanik (1pts)

Aanyone got suggestions for change?

Dropping Vindictus

More menites painted and this time another 'Caster. Vindictus appeals to me but I just don't see how I can get him to work. I have two units of Zealots and realistically I think I would need another full one to do his list justice. I like the Zealots but I don't really want the hassle of a third full unit. Its not like they are that hard to paint or assemble but I would only ever use them in his lists and nowhere else. If I was going really hardcore playing him maybe it would be worth it. However I tend to change 'casters with slightly less regularity than my socks so I don't see myself sticking with him for long.

At least now he is painted and so he is an option to play with. I think I will have to redo the red though as it sucks. I have been practising blending reds recently and I wasn't putting in much effort when I painted Vindictus. I think it was due to the fact I broke him six times while painting him. I just kept dropping him which is uncharacteristic for me. Every time he fell something else broke so I got sick of him. Maybe I will wait a while before I go back. Knowing my luck the second I take him from my cabinet to redo the red he is going to hit the floor!

Silent and Stern

I want to get as many options viable for my menites as possible and as such painting up more Warcasters is the best way to do this. I really like how in Warmachine and Hordes your force is completely changed by swapping a single model. This of course can lead to problems with some 'casters having very bad match ups but it is nice. I am in the middle ground in the local Wartorn-Alliances league and I am using it as a excuse to get more menites done. The Testament is a great model. I really like the image they have managed to capture with him. He looks tough. My wonderful trusty ten year old digital camera has once again washed the white out so you can't see that it is decently shaded. I shouldn't blame the camera really as I should put together a light box. I didn#t put any special effort in here. It is a quick job just so I can get him onto the board as soon as possible. Not many people have faced him before and maybe I can suprise a few players and climb into the higher ranks of the league. I haven't used him either but he can't be that hard to learn right?

Menoth's Magic

Here is a rather quickly painted Vassal of Menoth. There isn't a wealth of detail to the model even though there is a wealth of character. This model is one of my favourites as it really captures the atmosphere of the concept artwork. I did the metallics simply with a Hawk Turquoise (GW) wash followed by a Skull White (GW) wash on the gold. I find that this really works well on bronzes. This isn't a shining example as I spent about half an hour doing this model. with a little more care I guess it would have come out better. The silver has some rust pigment added and then sealed with matte medium. It seems to keep the richness of the pigments whereas varnish washes them out a lot. I should have been a little lighter in my application of the pigment but it is fine. I am looking forward to dropping this guy on the table a little more regularly as he is considered pretty powerful.

I am devout

Rome: Total War is a horrible thief of time. I have spent the last few days playing it almost non stop. So there was no hobby time. I love that game. It really reminds me of Warhammer Fantasy except on a wonderfully large scale. I am going cold turkey today and if I am brave enough I will uninstall the game. The little hobby time I have had consisted of me repainting some 'jacks. I have four of them in my old style and I want to bring them into line with the rest of the army. Fisrt up has been the Devout. I am playing eagerly in the local War-Torn alliances league and I was expecting to have the upgrade available to me rather soon. However one win and two loses in a week have hampered that plan. The league has been good fun so far with a nice mix of players. We have filled the twelve opening spots so for Hamburg thats a good turn out. Only one Cryx player and two Legion players so not too much nastiness! Three guys with Cygnar bizarrely enough but the rest is an even spread.

I will be playing in the Irish Masters next month so I am viewing the League as a warm up event. I have three lists I am messing around with and I am considering if I should use the devout or not. There are a few things in the game that make it difficult for aggressive 'casters like Feora. One of them is the Ravagore and the other is Rahn (could be wrong with that 'caster name) They can pretty much shoot you from anywhere regardless of LOS. I need something that can intercept those ranged shots and allow my Warcaster to sit near the front lines. The devout seems to offer that. I do think that five points is a hefty enough price to pay. It is almost a unit of Temple Flameguard. I will be testing these fellows out in the League and seeing if they are really worth it.

Operation Varnish

I bit the bullet. I am rally lazy when it comes to varnishing my miniatures. I rarely do it and only if it is a metal model. Today I pulled out all of my menites and got to work. I managed to get them all varnished when I realised that I hadn't been using varnish. Nicely Vajello have black lids on all the pots of things that aren't paint. Well I just grabbed the first black lidded pot and poured it into the airbrush. I do remember thinking that it was a bit thick. Now all my menites have been nicely coated in matte medium. I don't know if this will protect them at all but at least it isn't shiny. After my small loss of temper when realising this I got down to basing the models. I have been doing swamp bases for this army but I haven't really done the water part. I double checked what I was using this time and thankfully got the gloss varnish correct. This shot shows a decent proportion of what I have in my entire collection. Anything that's not shown doesn't have a little pool on its base. I have done about three thick enough coats now and I am annoyed. Its wrking fine but takes a long while to dry... At least by tomorrow all should be ready as I am playing my forst game in the War-Torn Alliances league. Legion is my first opponent, never an easy match up for me. Fingers crossed all goes well.

Feora's Wall of Fire

As I often use Feora I thought that I should finally make a decent Wall of Fire. Normally I just use a bunch of dice to mark out the area. Thats not really great as they tend to get mixed up with other dice on the table.

So rather than a massive flaming wall I thought I would go for something smaller. The wall does't provide cover so I went for some burning coals. I sculpted some flames on a spare piece of plasticard. I did it like this as it is easier than doing it on the rocks. Once they were cured I could take them off the card and then place them on the rocks.

Once I had the flames on the rocks I sculpted some more just to join up the pieces. I also had to get them to look like they were coming out of the rocks rather than floating above. I am not great at sculpting the flames but well it is a start! I will try a little more and see if I can refine the shapes. I think it would be pretty cool to be able to add flames to wizards hands or along weapon blades.

Painting was easy enough. I just painted everything orange. Then I overbrushed the stones in progressively darker colours eventually getting to black. All I wanted to do was leave the cracks between the rocks showing the heat while the rocks themselves were coated in soot.
I then concentrated on the flames darkening them along their height. Finally I washed them in yellow around the bases and the rocks so that it gave a better glowing effect. Sadly the varnish I coverd it in afterwards really killed the yellow so it isn't that visible.

I was thinking that this could actually make a nice terrain piece for a future project. A large area of burning coals would look awesome and be terrible to cross during the game, easily be dangerous in WFB or causing fire in Warmachine. Anyway today between painting Tharn Wolfriders I intend doing a rock wall for Epic Baldur.

Snake Eyes, Again?

I had an interesting Mangled Metal tournament at the weekend. There are sadly not enough tournaments for Warmachine here in Hamburg so it was nice to have one finally. I decided to bring Kreoss along backed up by a Reckoner and two Redeemers. I was hoping that a nicely placed knockdown would enable my Redemeers to cause havoc. It didn't really work out as I had expected. The game format was four players per table deploying in the corners. Between the deployment zones and the centre there was rough terrain or a forest. In game one I played cautiously and only managed to take out a Leviathan. I had everything still alive and directly in the centre of the board by the end of the prescribed six turns. So for all my cautiousness I mananged to score only ten points. On the other table people were already on forty to fifty points.

So the second game came around and we mixed the players up. I was still on the same table but in joint last place overall. So Mulg and Doomshaper came directly towards me in turn one. I obliged him and moved up feating. Nicely enough I mananged to catch Doomshaper and knocked him down. The eckoner then got him with the Consecrator, setting him on fire and causing flare. So thats Def 5 for the round. Six redeemer rockets came in next needing only a 4+ to hit and well only two hit. Still they were effective and managed to leave Doomshaper in bad bad shape! However this was a sign of things to come and depite my best efforts I managed to leave both Mortenebra and Kromac on fire and with only a few hitpoints left.

So while it was great fun and I guess will eventually become one of those stories that is oft repeated amongst the gaming crowd here, I came last. Over the entire tournament the Leviathan was the only model I killed. So I am hoping that the Domination event that is coming up will be fun but slightly more succesful for me!

I want your soul

So I am a little spoiled at the moment for painting. As I brought so much back to Germany I have a huge amount of half finished projects on my painting table. The first model I pulled from this was a menite Reclaimer. I have had him since he came out and I only ever half painted him. Aa few hours the other day finished him off. He is not really up to standard but thats fine it suits the rest of my menites. I am looking forward to using him in battle, the extra focus always helps. I am assuming that they are as useful in this edition as the last. I have checked out the High Reclaimers theme list but having thress of these on the board just doesn't make logistical sense. I could be wrong but on paper at least it seems like they will be getting in the way of each other and I won'r be getting full effect from any of them.