Friday Showcase - Thane

I have to admit this isn't one of my best models, not by a long shot. I painted this guy just to say I had done him. I have maybe three of these models lying around and eventually I decided to do one. Some of the Battle for Skull Pass models are terrible and this guy is almost the worst. I can fogive the rank and file Dwarves some bad sculpts but this Thane and the Troll Slayer are just terrible. I also decided to put him on a massive, massive rock. He dwarves the other Dwarves around him! I did try out putting some designs on the rocks in an attempt to make it look more like an oathstone. It came out okay... I never attempted it again. I find a lot of models can benefit from the 'standing on rock' pose. However Dwarves don't. It really unbalances the model and puts them in general far to high up for it to be worth it. The same holds true for goblins I have noticed. I think I will reserve that pose for my Chaos Warriors. They at least are in scale enough that they don't look out of place on the rock.

As for the painting it was pretty basic. The highlights haven't really been picked up by the camera but then again they are nothing special either. The red for the cloak was a test for some red I was planning on my Quarrelers. The free hand I did on the sleeve isn't anything special either. This model doesn't see much game time at all and resides premanently on my shelf.

It begins anew

This is Warmachine, but not as you know it! I am about to embark on another annihilation campaign via VASSAL with Owen from farfaraway.org. This will be the third and biggest we will attempt. Owen and myslef wanted to play a few 'set-up' games for this campaign so that there would be a little more story to draw from. Also it would change the format a little from thestandard games we have been playing up until now. We came up with the idea of using a Journeyman Warcaster for our games rather than a fully fledged Warcaster. You can find these rules on the farfaraway.org blog or by clicking the previous link. Having these Warcasters presented a lot of challenges. It really changed the game around a lot and forced us to play completely differently. In general the 'jacks we used had the potential to be as powerful as normal as they could still get full focus. However a weaker Warcaster forces you hold back and really try to remain out of the way of any incoming damage. Theseguys are decidedly weak and can't take a bashing. While I wasn't able to play this weeek next week will see the menites attempting the abduction of a khadoran garrison kommander!

Annihalation Campaign: Death on the Border
Battle One:The Opening Shot
Battle Two:Conversion and Corruption
Battle Three:Battle at the Farm
Battle Four:The Wrath of Severius

Annihilation Campaign Two: The Battle of Orosk
Battle One: A chance encounter at Orosk
Battle Two:Noon at Orosk
Battle Three: Slaughter at Orosk

Prime: complete!

So now I have all the models from Prime done. Its only been six years in the doing. These Paladins I have to admit were done without much inspiration. I really couldn't be bothered to paint them but I wanted to make sure to hit the deadline of the end of April for the Prime Challenge. Painting white does finally get horribly boring. I had decided to not go with too much gold on these guys, a big mistake. I should have really done more. Gold is easy enough to do and is far more visually interesting than the way I do white. So I will try to get a group photgraph done of the army soon and get it put up here.

As for the Paladins these are interesting models. The first sculpt, the one on the left,is by far the nicest. The armour is much more nicely done even though it is similar to the other guy. This is especially apparent in the legs. The shield is great on both of them but it has a bad connection point and I am hoping that these will stay glued on. The interesting thing about the original sculpt is that the cloak is separate. I had to paint part of it while it was separate. However I did the highlights wrongly due to this and my vain attempts to fix it wasn't enough. I wasn't too inspired either so I didn't try to hard... at least they are done 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.

Less than a week until Prime is finished!

I have the Deliverers done. These are the last unit from Prime that I have to paint and I can really say that it is nice to have them done finally. I sadly could only get my hands on six of them. The supply shortage from Privateer Press still continues it seems. These are nice to paint up. Thankfully they are not bedecked in detail. The sculpt is simple and nice to paint. I tried to match them in with my zealots. I hate the white coats on these guys. It not only sucks to paint but looks stupid. Brown is so simple to paint too so it speeds up the whole process.

So now I just need to finish my Paladin of the Wall. I managed to pick up the standard and the alternative sculpt and with some luck I will get both of them painted this week I managed some of the basecoating already so it should be possible. I wasn't able to get my Revenger and Kreoss sent over from Ireland so they will be missing from the photograph of the army. Thats annoying! I can still show a photo of them but I would prefer to have them all together. I am not sure what I will paint after the Prime models are finished... may be I should get all my Escalation models done...