Red Kaya, whats up?

Red for me is a terrible colour! I can't seem to get a nice transition in any direction with it. I have been doing it a few different ways on individual models for my Hordes forces for a while hoping that eventually I would hit on the right formula. I still haven't. I painted this model a little while ago and for the cloak I started with Hull Red from Vajello's Panzer Aces series. It is a lovely deep dark red and it is the colour I use for the basecoat of all my reds now. I gave this a purple wash and then I shaded it with some Rhinox Hide(GW). It is really easy to shade and doesn't need much effort. For the inside of the cloak I just added back the hull red and then one more highlight and that was that. I wanted it to remain dark. In the picture you can definitely see the brown shading and a hint of the purple wash.

For the back of the cloak I wanted a much warmer and brighter colour. I ended up with a lighter colour and quite muted. I know why and I should have thought of it at the time. I used for the final few highlights Rotten Flesh(VJ) and as this has a green tint it muted the red considerably. I shaded the cloak the same as usual and built back the original colour quickly. From there I added Blood Red(GW) to brighten everything up. That went fine and I got more or less a colour I was happy with. For the final highlights I added the Rotten Flesh. As you can see here it quickly muted the red. It even seemed to kill the previous brighter colours somewhat. I am happy enough with the end result even if it isn't exactly what I intended. I think I will use this colour if I ever manage to return to the Blood Pack I bought. I just hate the PP plastic and I can't be bothered putting in the effort required to assemble the last half of that unit.

Warmachine Treffen

Last week I was luckily informed that there was an informal gathering of Warmachine players in my local store. I hastily packed an army and travelled down, easger to see what this 'Warmachine Treffen' was all about. I hadn't met many of the Hamburg players still so it is always good to get a few contacts. Some of my club mates were heading along too so it wouldn't be too awkward if I had a complete failure with my German! My local store is Atlantis Games. The shop is fairly standard in size but it is very well packed with stock meaning that gaming is relegated to one of the corners.

However soon enough after I got there four full sized tables were brought out and packed with decent terrain. I was pretty suprised they managed to fit but they did so easily. My memories of the shop from before when there were some games there was that the corner got cramped really quickly. My first game was against Blasi, the local press ganger. He was using Circle on a table packed with forests. My menites clumped together in the centre and marched forward. I was shocked at how good the druids are in this edition of Hordes. Being immune to all effects meant most of my army couldn't hurt them and the rest could only hurt them if I didn't crit! Anyway he thought me a lesson in how to play. I didn't stand a chance as one Satyr slammed another right through my army, followed him up into base contact with Feora and then smashed her too.

My second game was against Lars, a clubmate from Miniwar Hamburg. He was using his tournament Cryx list and I once again got thought a lesson. Deneghra managed to knock down the screen I had in front of Severius and two pistol wraiths finished the old man off. I thought I was doing well when I managed to take out most of the Bane Thralls and Bile Thralls. It wasn't to be however. There was a third game offered but I didn't have time as I had to go to a friends birthday party. It would have been nice to get to know another opponent before the tournament this weekend.

The biggest lesson I got from the meet up was that I am really off my game. I got easily destroyed in ways I didn't see coming. If I am to become competitive in anyway I need to really focus and start learning some of the tricks that are being used now.

The Avatar sucks

This is the worst model I have had to deal with for a long long time. I have been modelling for many the year and this was probably the biggest failure ever. I am not completely sure if it is my fault or the models. I want to blame the model. I had cleaned the model up easily as the mould lines were not so bad. I noticed the bad connection on the legs and the hips. I decided to pin that together to make it stronger. With that done I proceeded and within ten minutes I had the model glued together. Then I noticed the armoured skirt. I hadn't glued it to the model at all. Well I then tried to glue it in place. It didn't fit of course. Despite the best I could manage the piece would not go in. After many many curses I had to break the model apart. Well I only had to break the legs apart... So once I got the legs apart I carefully laid down the body and arms. Of course the arms then decided to break off too. Then the sword... more cursing ensued. Once I had all the pins extracted and cleaned I glued the model back together with the armoured skirt this time.

So sitting back to look at my work I noticed it looked terrible. I had glued the body on at an angle so that the Avatar leande back. It was the only way to get the legs on behind the skirt. So once again I broke the legs apart, managing to keep the arms on this time. Pins were once again extracted and cleaned. I dry fitted the pieces to check and well they don't fit together. I don't know if it is a complete brain failure on my part but it just doesn't go together. I had to put the legs into the joints at an angle so that the skirt could go between the legs and so the body could be at the correct angle.

So now the Avatar is glued together. I am not at all confident that the model will stay together despite the pins. Having pulled it apart far too much the joint has to be weaker. Normally Privateer Press models stay together quite well, far better than I would have expected for their weight. I will begin painting it soon, I guess the rough handling during that process will show if it can stand up to some punishment.

Thats a ghost fence, it's scary!

Privateer Press have a competition running this month for some terrain. I have half a mind to enter myself. The prize isn't anything special, rather it is the terrain shown in the picture above. The theme of the competition is waystones or boundary markers. As I am currently thinking about my own terrain and how I should improve it I think planning to enter is a good idea. It should hopefully provide me with some added incentive to do some terrain finally.

The theme is a tough one though. I would love to make something Warmachine related but I can't think of something good. This competition is definitely geared towards Hordes. The most obvious boundary marker is a wall. This would be great for Menoth. Another good menoth idea would be a line of abandoned and partially collapsed Wracks. Having skeletons lying around the bases rather than a body on top would be a nice touch. They next level down is a fence. Also fine but a little too agricultural. Beyond this we get into an area that rally isn't terrain anymore it is more like decoration. A row of signs saying keep out is not really going to impede the miniatures but it does adequately mark a boundary. One solution to this would be combining the fence and the signs. This doesn't keep with the modular scenery as presented in the competition. If I was to do this I guess using an aged fence would be best. Then you could break it up into smaller pieces and have it much more modular. Making it a barbed wire fence would help this too. I will think about this a little more.

For Hordes this terrain piece is pretty simple to do. Considering that Waystones and Boundary markers are a staple of the Circle forces somehow imitaiting them would be good. Considering the feral nature of most of teh societies described in Hordes a boundary consisting of the impaled heads of your foes would also be good. Once again this begins to become a decoration rather than a terrain piece. So hopefully over the coming weeks I can get something together... Once I have a good idea of course.

Details can be found here.

A return to Prime

As promised I got down to some gaming last night. I pulled Prime off my shelf and blew off the considerable covering of dust! It had been too long since I gazed through the wonderful Warmachine MkII rulebook. Privateer Press really outdid themselves in making that book. It packed with wonderful artwork and is clear and concise. The only fault I have was that there are not enough pictures of painted miniatures and the exploration of alternative colour schemes. I am guessing that the army books take care of that. I haven't picked any up as I wasn't playing. I will be visiting some of the online stores today to price the expansions!

The picture above is the aftermath of last nights battle. We played via Vassal, which if you don't know it can be found here. Its free which is great. There is no logic in the game itself so you need to know the rules. You also need to keep a clear line of communication open with your opponent as the game pretty much demands it. I used skype, finally without a hitch. I would have played more over the last year except that my opponents skype connection would constantly drop and this lead to us just not bothering to organise games. We got the problem solved and so let the games commence!

Last nights game was pretty much a warm up. I was really rusty with the rules especially considering that I haven't really played MkII. My opponents report can be found here. The game was great and although I lost rather badly it was fun. Warmachine really demands a different set of skills than warhammer, especially as their is almost no premeasuring. Judging distances on the screen is proving really tough for me. I think it lead to a few mistakes last night though I can't blame my loss on them as I pretty much forced to make them. Anyway I had better improve as we will hopefully be starting an Annihalation campaign soon...

New Year... New Game?

So I took out my Warmachine stuff finally. They have languished at the back of my gaming cabinet in Ireland happily forgotten about for well over a year. I blame it all on a conversation on New Years Eve. I was chatting about how I was annoyed with Warhammer. Eventually the conversation strayed to Warmachine and it stayed there for a while. Warmachine is a great game, one I have enjoyed a lot in the past. I never really considered bringing it to Germany as it is very language depedent. Even with the new edition I pretty much ignored my Warmachine stuff. Well now it is out on the desk and getting an update. My plan is to finish off a 25pt Menoth force and then paint a 25pt Khador force. This will allow me to teach some friends here how to play and if that goes to plan find some more people to play with. I start tomorrow though with a game via Vassal so I don't have to worry too much about the models!

What you see here are my zealots. I collected and painted most of my Warmachine stuff over many years. Strangely I got into Warmachine the second it became available. How we managed that in Ireland is strange as we wouldn't normally be on the forefront of game releases. The community is small and we really just concentrate on Warhammer and 40k, or at least we did back then. The first picture above shows my first unit of zealots and the the second shows my most recent. I have put some effort into matching them this week. I repainted the coats so that they are the same or similar. The main problem with these models is that I never really gave my Menites that much attention. I pretty much just painted to have them done. So they are sloppy, really sloppy. Anyway I will be tring to bring them all up to standard and hopefully I can. A start with standardising the bases would be great.

The entire force needs a uniform basing scheme. When I first saw the style of Privateer Press bases I knew that these would be great for swamps. They have a slight lip, just enough to hold some resin or varnish to act as water. I didn't really plan what I was doing though and it shows. The 'jacks with their much larger bases aren't so bad but with the standard infantry achieving a realistic swamp effect is tough. At least I don't need to take much remedial action with the water as it came out fine. The main thing I need to do is repaint the brown as I have about three different colours across the army. Then gluing more static flock over the various shades I applied should have everything looking the same.

So you can look forward to a few guides soon as I will be buying and painting all new 'jacks. I didn't dare transport my old ones from Ireland as I doubt I would have ever managed to keep them together! I also look forward to seeing the new plastic ones.

White Horses....

Three days.... twelve horses.... not finished! Like I said before I don't know how it is possible to spend so much time on horses. I now have twelve in total almost finished. The spray painting doesn't take so long, laying the basecoat over the white does take some time, some highlights and mettalics.. whooosh three days vanished. I have them to a stage wherew I just need to finish the skin. The shading is finished and hopefully subtle. I need to build up some highlights which with white is never easy. I will have the horses at least finished this week and my schedule is pretty much free in the evenings. Painting white is something I have tried a few times. My first model that was fully in white was a Warp Wolf from Privateer Press:





Its not an easy colour to paint. I really haven't figured out a decent way to do it. I often find that the pigments in white paint seem to leave a very chalky effect once you build up highlights. They even do it if you are using white in a wash to lughten the colours. I have heard of a white ink which I intend looking up but I haven't found anywhere in Hamburg that sells Windsor and Newton Inks yet. I am not really sure what white ink consists of but it sounds like it should do the job. In fact the art shops here in Hamburg are pretty poor. Maybe it is an unfavourable comparison with Dublin where I have ten years of experience in rooting out the best art suppliers! I am not looking forward to having to find jewellery chain for my Warshrine thats for sure. It was tough enough to find that in Dublin despite the shope almost being beside the Games Workshop store! I haven't really started work on the Warshrine yet. I would like to have it pulled by hounds but I am not sure if they are convincingly large yet. I have a box ordered so once I get them I can line them all up together and then I will see.

Currently with white I lay down as solid a white spray as possible. It is much easier,in general, to lay down white evenly in a spray. It depends on the angles of the models. For my horses for instance the underbelly was impossible to reach with a spray. Painting on white as a base coat leaves streaks. With a solid base coat down I generally paint on a light coating of white. Its important to not water this down too much as it will pool and leave really strange vibrant white spots in the recesses of the miniatures! A grey wash over this provides a lot of definition. Then its simple enough to go back and highlight the white. Well sort of White is tricky and if it was as simple as above then everyone would do it. A couple of hints though:

1. Clean Water! Your water really cant be clean enough for white paint. Any time you wash your brush and there is a colour in the paint you will end up with it on the model. Get a clean water jar and dedicate that to cleaning your brushes when using white
2. Clean Brushes! Notice a theme? Your brushes need to be clean just as much. I have a few times managed to apint a model obeying rule one and when I come back I notuice the model is an odd light shade of pink. A lot of paint can build up in your brush and it usually waits until you are doing a nice white model before leaking out just a little. Some painters use separate brushes for white. I don't but I make sure that the shampoo comes out before I begin.
3. Patience! You really need to take your time with the highlights on white. A wrong streak somewhere and your model is literally ruined. Its easier with other colours to hide the mistakes but with this one it shows straight up. Water down your white until it is aptly like milk and apply a few thin coats.... most definitely do not apply a strong undiluted white except to the highest and most defined areas. It really stands out and ruins a natural look!

Meanwhile I have been busy with Fool Moon and Summer Knight. These are books two and three of the Dresden files. They are warming up! I like Harry Dresden. He is an interesting character and the books are funny. Make no mistake it is light entertainment here but fun. Check them out! I also finally picked up Name of the Wind but it will be a while before I get to read it. Once I do I will pop a note up here.