The Painting Pauper

Privateer Press WarRoom and Colossals

2012-02-04T15:19:00.001Z

I've just seen the two new announcements from Privateer Press in relation to the next supplement of the Warmachine game. The Colossals look amazing and while we only saw actual physical mini's of the Khador and Cygnar units, the artwork for Cryx, Menoth and Mercenaries units look great. Also the news that the "legendary" versions of many of the famous warcasters will have many gamers (even privateer press noobs like me) drooling.

But the real exciting announcement for me is the iOS and android app "WarRoom". This announcement shows that PP as a company are willing to make brave decisions to move into areas that are not traditionally associated with tabletop gaming companies. Digital decks of cards and a card marking system, instant errata and updates, what looks like a digital issues of No Quarter, card sharing during games, a company sanctioned list creator and rule references.

How refreshing to see a miniature company moving with the times and using technology that will make games more dynamic and interesting.WarRoom really has amazing potential and I'm very excited to see how it works out and what develops from it.

Kudos' to you Privateer Press.

Skeleton Base, Dark Souls and Cross Country Running

2012-01-30T11:09:00.001Z

Hi everyone,

I hope everyone had a great weekend. This will be a quick enough update. I'm just going to share a couple of photo's and one video.

Firstly I did get some painting done over the weekend and the base for my mounted vampire is nearly finished. I am thinking about giving it a coat of the Army Painter varnish to finish it off. (maybe after another highlight of the red)

So the plan is to highlight the red a little more, go back over the bone in places to tidy it up and give it a coat of the AP varnish. I must say I am quite happy with how the weathering powders worked for the metal areas. But has anyone any experience using AP quick shade varnish over weathering powders, how does it work out? It won't make a mess will it?

Secondly something I don't really cover too much on my blog as it is more focused on my miniature painting hobby but I wanted to bring up Dark Souls. I finished this game over the weekend (Friday night) after playing it solidly since it came out.

Hard? Hell yes!

I had an absolute blast playing it over the last 4 months, racking up nearly 90 hours overall and nearly 420 deaths. How do I know I racked up nearly 420 deaths? Because I kept a record! As a game who's tag line is "Prepare to Die", I certainly did!

So I was cursed once and found Obstein and Smough the toughest dying nealy 100 times at those two alone!

Finally between finishing Dark Souls and painting I also got some exercise. My first ever cross country run. The weather on Sunday was awful but here's a video of the first obstacle in the 10k run. A very enjoyable day but very very muddy.

I was in the third wave so it was fairly muddy. I'm hitting the water around the minute mark. Did I mention it was muddy?

Until next time.

40k Battle and Updated Vampire's

2012-01-24T11:37:00.000Z

Two posts in two days! What the hell is going on?

Game of 40k:

Well my regular gaming buddy Phil, sent me on a couple of pictures of our game of 40k the weekend before last. A classic Ork vs Guard match up, 1500pts each. I was playing a boy heavy Ork army (90 slugga's) supported by 3 deffkopta's, an eight strong Nob mob with a painboy and a Weirdboy, a Big Mek with a Shokk Attack Gun and a looted wagon with Boom Gun. I can't remember exactly what Phil ran, but there were definitely 3 sentinels, some snipers, a couple of platoons, a veteran squad in a chimera, three autocannon teams, three heavy bolter teams an a Leman Russ of some sort.

Phil's Deployment (with objective)

My Deployment, beginning my first turn (with objective)

We had a great game, despite the fact we were both fairly rusty with the rules having not played a game of 40k in a couple of months. I gave Phil a bit of a shock in the first couple of rounds with my Weirdboy warping the unit of Nobs up the board right into his lines. The painboy made the unit quite durable and they caused a lot of damage initially, but eventually weight of fire wore them down. By this stage two of my maxed units of boyz were almost on the Imperial Guard lines. But Phil stayed disciplined with his firing and eventually wiped out both boyz units. He eventually counter attacked in turn 5 with his veteran squad in the chimera for my objective. It would have been a drawn if the game finished on turn 6 but his chimera tank shocked the remaining boy unit to contest my objective in turn 7 and earned him a hard fought win.

I really enjoyed this game and about half way through thought I had a good chance to win it, but two mistakes really cost me. Firstly I just didn't have a enough anti-armour weapon's in my army. I had neglected to give any nobs power fists, and relied two heavily on the Shok Attack Gun and BoomGun to do the damage. While the Shok Attack Gun was decent (I managed to roll a str9 shot for 3 turns) and only rolled a double once, relying on the looted wagon with a BS of 2 to do a large amount of damage may not have been the best plan. Especially with the amount of terrain we had on the board. The second mistake was calling the Waaagh a turn too early, and not actually getting any of my ork units into CC. A rookie mistake made due to lack of game time with my boyz.

But a very enjoyable game over all and well done to Phil for staying the course and eking a win out of a hard fought game.

Vampire Counts:

So here is a quick update on the painting of my vampire counts. Firstly I did a quick basecoat and wash on the mounted vampires base. It was a basecoat of GW Khermi Brown followed by a heavy wash of Devlan Mud.

Inital work on the skelleton's

I have spent more time with the female vampire (stop snickering down the back!), focusing mainly on the reds. I have been experimenting with shading and highlighting with complementary colours.

Initial work on the red dress

Back

Currently the closest to finished part of the dress

So the recipe so far looks like this:

1. Undercoat Black

2. Basecoat Vallejo Gory Red

3. Shade 50:50 mix of Vallejo Gory Red and Dark Green

4. Darkest Shadows Vallejo Dark Green

5. First Highlight 50:50 mix of Vallejo Gory Red and Livery Green.

The use of complementary colours to shade and highlight is only something I have recently come across but I think it's a very interesting technique and something I would really like to get to grips with.

Until next time.

Vampire Counts Vampires

2012-01-23T11:04:00.003Z

Hi,

so I've had a fairly productive hobby weekend. I built the Vampire Count Coven Throne and am now worried whether I should have painted it on the spruce rather that after the building. I have kept the 3 Vampire's off of the mini for painting though. I also converted the 3 banshee's in that kit for the Mortis Engine into normal banshee's which I hope to use place in units in the future.

My main work though was the cleaning up and undercoating of two of my Vampire models. The first of these was the female vampire from Avatars of War. A model that I really love.

Vampiress Count cleaned and given a black wash for detail

Link to this mini on the Avatars of War Store

The second vampire I was working on during the weekend is mounted and comes from the great German Gamezone Range.

Gamezone Mournful Knight 1

Link to this mini on the Gamezone Store

The base does not come with the mini, but I have taken it from the Harry the Hammer limited edition release GW produced a couple of years ago.

Base without the Knight

I'm delighted with this little bit of a conversion. (Does a base swap count as a conversion) because I really think it adds a sense of dynamic movement to the model. Like the Vampire is charging over the useless ranks of skeleton's to get at the enemy more quickly.

Coming in the next post: Basecoats of the the vampire miniatures.

Current painted Vampire Counts Army

2012-01-20T10:09:00.000Z

Hi gang,

A very quick blog today to show you guys (and keep a record for myself) of what I have completed for my Vampire Counts army as of the 20th of Jan 2012. I finished off my 60 zombies last night. These were painted and based last but I wanted to magnetise them and their movement tray and give them a coat of Matt Varnish. So I did this and took a couple of pictures of the finished unit with my Ghouls, Dire Wolves, Spirit Hosts, Wraiths, Necromancer and Banshee.

Vampire Counts Army-Jan 2012

So from the list and the picture you can see that this army is missing it's title character. My next project with this army is to add not one but two Vampire Counts. A male vampire on a nightmare and a female vampire on foot.

Expect an update in relation to these soon.

Vampire Count Dire Wolves

2012-01-12T11:36:00.000Z

Hi guys!

just a quick update to show you the finished unit of Dire Wolves. Like the Ghoul unit before it I had the basecoat of the main colours done well before Christmas but they had been sitting in my 'to finish' pile for a couple of months.

So once again I gave them a good coating of Army Painter Quickshade followed by a spray of Matt Varnish once they were dry. I then added the snow to the base and called it a job.

Three large photo's when one could have done!

Once again I'm quite happy with how this unit has turned out. The Army Painter Quickshade really does take a lot of work out of getting these mini's finished and looks particularly well on browns I think. So that is the majority of the low hanging fruit painting wise finished this year. I don't think I'll be making such quick progress for the rest of the year but 31 finished miniatures before 2 weeks of 2012 is over is easily the record of productivity for me!

My next project is to go back and magnetise all 60 of my zombies and give one or two of them a repaint. As well as start on painting the first of my Vampires to lead this army.

Laters!
Vinny

Finished Death Korp of Krieg Commissar

2012-01-10T15:04:00.002Z

Hi gang,

I can today reveal what miniature I painted for the Librarium-Onine secret Santa, since Allonnairre has informed me he has recieved his package in the post. As the title may have given away it was a Death Korp of Krieg Commissar.

I really love the Krieg range of miniatures from Forge World and have a full unit of riders of Krieg that I am as of yet afraid to touch incase I ruin them with paint.

Anyway here is the finished miniature and I hope he finds a lovely home and Allonnairre will love having him as much as I loved painting him.

Vampire Count Ghouls Finished

2012-01-09T14:21:00.002Z

Hi gang,

over the Christmas break while I was at home (about 200km away from my paints and models) I really got the itch to paint. This feeling is always the same for me, If ever I go a couple of days without doing something hobby related I really start to feel a need to sit down and glue or paint something.

When I finally got back to my hobby desk I set about satisfying that itch with gusto. I got my secret Santa for 2011 finished and in the mail. (I will post finished pictures when the person who it's meant for confirms delivery) I then set about finishing a 20 strong unit of Ghouls for my Vampire Count army.

With the new army book being released at the end of this week I thought it was the ideal time to go back and revisit the two VC units I left in mid-paint, the first of these was the unit of Ghouls. Over Christmas I resolved to get more of this army painted but I needed to find a way to do this more quickly than what I was previously achieving. Eventually I remembered that I had done some previous experiments with The Army Painter Quick Shade range of products and that the browns of these shades would be perfect for a grotty falling apart Vampire Count Army.

So I broke out a used paint brush and gave each of the twenty models a fairly liberal coating. After leaving them dry for about 24 hours I then gave them a coat of Army Painter Matt Varnish. I finished the whole unit off by basing them with a couple patches of snow.

I have to say I am really pleased with how this unit turned out. It is not going to win a Golden Demon anytime soon but they are a good solid tabletop quality. So that hobby itch is being satisfied but it's not quite gone yet, but 21 finished models since the beginning of January is not a bad start to 2012.

Next unit on the painting table is my 10 ~~man~~ dog unit of Dire Wolves.

Until next time.

The New Year Plans

2012-01-03T09:53:00.000Z

Hi everyone,

I hope you all had a very relaxing and peaceful Christmas with families and loved ones and are now fully refreshed for a new year of hobby action!

The big news over Christmas is of course the leaked pictures of the new Vampire Counts miniatures and army book on Christmas Eve. My initial thoughts from the blurry scans are very positive and as a vampire player I think I will definitely have to pick up at least the Coven Throne, Wight King and Black Knights.

Of course there is nothing like a new army book to refocus your thoughts on the unpainted models in your army. So with this in mind I have gotten out my half finished regiment of Ghouls and my old long forgotten tub of army painter dip. I have liberally applied the varnish with a brush and the ghouls are now sitting around drying. I think it should be a matter of a few spot highlights here and there, the basing and I can call them done. I also have a unit of five Dire Wolves which are going to get the same treatment.

From there it will be onto the units of Skeletons. I plan to use the army painter dip for all of this painting and really hope it will help me speed up the production of the 60 or so skeletons I have to get through.

So in this very soft and fuzzy outlined plan I'm setting out my new year hobby resolutions. So expect to see Vampire Counts stuff for the first six months of the year from me. (With maybe a little Warmachine stuff thrown in for good measure.

I hope you'll be able to follow me in the year ahead.

Secret Santa's (The best thing about Christmas)

2011-12-16T12:06:00.000Z

Hi everyone,

so here we are again, the final couple of days of 2011. I personally love this time of year. I prefer cold weather over warm, I love Christmas foods, getting to spend time with my family and friends, the pleasant feeling of dozing off in-front of a terrible Christmas movie after over eating. But one of the reason's I really love this time of year (and I'm not ashamed to sound greedy!) is the presents. Funnily enough it's not the presents themselves I love; it's the opening of the presents that I really enjoy. It's the same when I open a new boxed game or blister pack. A sense of excitement of the unknown, the expectation, the anticipation all mean's that it is one of my favourite things. I suppose in a way it's a really childhood feeling.

So when I received a box in the post this week from an unknown address, which I was not expecting I was quite excited. I had an inkling of what it was but that didn't diminish the anticipation. When I did open it I found a beautifully painted miniature from an unknown person. Most years I join up to a secret Santa on librarium-online and I've never been anything but delighted with how things work out. I know Kuffy who organises the whole thing is a follower of this blog, so if you're reading this man, thanks for all the effort put in over the last couple of years.

So here is the mini I got

Secret Santa 2011

I'm delighted with this guy, one of the reason's is it's beautifully painted, secondly I have no idea what the miniature is or who produces it. It's really is a miniature with mystery, so if anyone can help me out, answers in the comments please.

Apart from that my hobby news is less exciting, I have been painting my Secret Santa to send off, but I don't think it would be fair to post pictures on the blog before the person receives it. It does look like I'm going to miss the Christmas deadline but I should be able to finish it early in the new year. I have also assembled the Cygnar Battlebox. Nothing hugely exciting but here's a picture anyway.

Assembled Cygnar Battlebox

Hopefully between these 4 and the mini's I have for the Merc's myself and my brother might have a few games of Warmachine over Christmas.

And that is where I will leave it. I don't think I'm going to post again until the new year so a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my followers (and casual readers). Thanks for reading my blog over the last 12 months and I hope you all have health and happiness in the coming twelve.

Enjoy opening your presents.

Vincent

Eye on CoolMiniorNot No. 2

2011-12-02T11:18:00.001Z

Welcome back to the second part of my (very) irregular look at what has caught my eye on CMoN.

When I saw this miniature I really had to highlight it and bring some extra attention to it.

Azumi by Fluffy

Not only is the painting absolutely top class, but what really impresses me about this piece is how the painter has managed to impart delicacy to the model. The subtle and amazingly fine freehand flowers on the robe and shawl, the turquoise on the blades and the beautiful white face all add a definite richness. These effects added to the beautiful bamboo floor effect really makes this an outstanding piece.

A third ever game of Warmachine

2011-11-23T10:16:00.001Z

Hi all,

Phil and I got together last Saturday to have another game of Warmachine. This time we decided to push the limit out to 30pts. I can just about make 15pts with my newly purchased Mercenaries mini's, so I allied them with 15pts of Phil's Menoth. My list was this.............

Army Name: Menoth & Merc

Protectorate of Menoth
30+11 points, 13 models

High Exemplar Kreoss +5 points
* Crusader 6 points
* Revenger 6 points
* Vanquisher 8 points

Magnus the Warlord +6 points
* Freebooter 6 points
* Mariner 8 points

6 Croe's Cutthroats 7 points

Phil ran this list..........

Khador

30+11 points, 20 models
Koldun Kommander Aleksandra Zerkova +6 points
* Behemoth 13 points
Kommander Sorscha +5 points
* Juggernaut 7 points
6 Assault Kommandos 5 points
* 1 Assault Kommando Flame Thrower 1 point
4 Battle Mechaniks 2 points
Gun Carriage 9 points
Widowmakers 4 points

I took a couple photo's of the deployment but got so wrapped up in the game I forgot to take any during it. It got fairly tense a couple of times so I suppose it is only to be expected!

Overview of deployment

Sorscha with her Juggernaut and a Gun Carriage

Zerkova and her battlegroup 'Big B!' Along with a squad fo battle commando's

Oh my side of the table, Kreoss and his battlegroup; Revenger, Crusader and Vanquiser

eMagnus and his battlegroup; Mariner and Freebooter (the whole battlegroup mysteriously missing their arms!)

Croe's Cutthroats advanced deployed in the Graveyard.

And Phil's widowmakers did the same in the wood

Turn 1:

I got first turn and moved my whole army forward. I wanted to see could I get a shot off with the mariner against anything in the Khador army but unfortunately I had made the mistake of moving the Mariner before eMagnus so there was nobody in base contact to load the ship cannon. I'd imagine I would have been out of range of everything anyway. When Magnus did active he moved into base contact with the Mariner again and cast Bullet Dodger on himself and on the two jacks.

On the other side of my line everything also moved forward and Kreoss cast Defender's Ward on this battlegroup. With that my first turn ended.

Phil also moved everything forward, the Juggernaut moved into the tree's that were in front of him, the widowmakers took a few shots at Magnus' battlegroup but protected by Bullet Dodger they only succeeded in drawing the warjacks closer. The Gun Carriage on the opposite flank shot at the Protectorate Jacks but Defender's Ward negated a lot of any potential damage.

Turn 2:

Once again I moved everything forward, The Revenger running to try and get in contact with the Gun carriage. The Crusader got a shot off on the Carriage and took around 8 damage points off of the rolling fortress. Kreoss used his focus to upkeep Defender's Ward.

Magnus moved first this time then followed by the Mariner, who did get a shot off on 'Big B' knocking a point or two damage off of him.

Phil moved his Mechaniks to repair 'Big B' which they did successfully. The giant warjack then shot at the Mariner who was protected from the worse of the damage by the Bullet Dodger spell. The Gun Carriage continued to pound the protectorate force but was finding it difficult to get past the Defender's Ward enchantment. The Assault Kommando's advanced in the shadow of the Behemoth.

Turn 3:

This is the turn that I attempted to go for broke! Firstly I moved Kreoss into the middle of the board and popped Menoth's Wrath, knocking down all enemy model's in his control range, which included the Juggernaut in the wood, all the Assault Kommando's and the Behemoth. Then I activated Magnus and used Kill Box before charging the knocked down Kommando's with him. The charge I really wanted to get off though was to get the Freebooter into close combat with the knocked down Behemoth and had loaded him up on focus for just that purpose. Unfortunately my distances were just out by about an inch, even with Magnus casting mobility! Of course I forgot about the Jury Rigged special rule until about 2 turns later which would have easily gotten me to where I wanted to be. So despite all my careful planning to get rid of the Behemoth early in the game I only succeeded in killing one Kommando. The Protectorate Jacks succeeded in taking another couple of damage boxes from the Gun Carriage but they were not able to get a charge in due to the craters it's huge guns left behind.

Phil's movement was seriously curtailed as Magnus was standing awkwardly right in the middle of the table. But the Gun Carriage was out of Magnus control range so it reversed backwards towards the Mechaniks who were crabbing toward the battle machine. Phil used his focus to stand up his behemoth and Juggernaut and sacrificed his movement for the Kommando's to stand back up. The Behemoth, the Widowmaker and Zerkova's shooting did little to no damage.

Turn 4:

I knew that now was the time I had to make popping both my feat's last turn pay off as Phil could move normally in his next turn. Magnus was dangerously close to the Behemoth, but I decided to ignore him and focus on the slightly softer target of Zerkova behind 'Big B'. I charged her and knocked her down with Magnus' Mechanical Arm. Then I proceeded to chop her apart using several of his Foecleaver X's Armour Piercing Attacks. (Yes, yes I do now know that this was cheating in two different ways! Using a special attack on the charge and using the special attack more than once in an activation. Both Phil and I completely forgot/didn't know about these limiters on special attacks, it was only our 3rd ever game of Warmachine remember! But we both commented on the time how super powerful Magnus seemed to be) With Zerkova taken out, her associated Behemoth powered down. On the same flank the Mariner charged into the Widowmakers and Croe's Cutthroat's shot at the Kommando's doing no damage. On my other flank Kreoss charged at Kammando's and killed three. While the Revenger made a last desperate charge on the Gun Carriage to attempt to destroy it before the Mechaniks could get to work which didn't work. The too heavy Jacks continued to run toward the Carriage. I have to admit after this turn I was feeling confident. I had basically destroyed one flank of Phil's force and had the other side on the run.

But Phil played a blinder in his turn! He activated Sorscha, moved her past my Protectorate Jacks closer toward Kreoss and popped Icy Gaze making Kreoss stationary. He then cast Boundless Charge on the Juggernaut in the woods, who proceeded to charge Kreoss and chopped him into tiny pieces, thereby completely inactivating the Revenger, Crusader and the Vanquisher, with about three full damage boxes between them! The Mechaniks completely fixed the Gun Carriage and with that one turn Phil completely turned the game in his favour.

Turn 5 and 6:

I knew I was now in serious trouble but I was determined to go down fighting, I charged the Juggernaut (who had charged and killed the Freebooter) with Magnus and completely destroyed him in one turn (using the wrong rules!) Phil used the Gun Carriage to blow away the last of Croe's Cutthroats and slow down the Mariner. Eventually the game came down to Sorsha blasting Magnus out of his boots with her Hand Cannon and so ended the game!

Wrap Up and Comments:

That game was one of the most singularly enjoyable war games I've ever played. Down mainly to the swings in fortune. I thought I had the game wrapped up by the end of turn four, I had the majority of my force alive and kicking apart from one dead Cutthroat, while Phil had one dead Warcaster, an inactivated Behemoth and a seriously damaged Gun Carriage. But with clever use of his feat and magic and me leaving Kreoss wide open for a charge from the Juggernaut (which I honestly had nearly forgotten about hiding in the trees) Phil swung the game dramatically in his favour with one ballsy move. Completely taking out half my army in one swing of a giant axe. It was always going to be a struggle to come back from that blow but if Phil hadn't managed to kill Magnus with Sorscha, she was about to get a faceful of a very angry former Cygnar hero in the next turn. As we were using the incorrect rules it would have been quite probable that Magnus would have chopped her down where she stood.

So if you've made it through that wall of text, congratulations. If you've noticed anything we were doing wrong (apart from the obvious!) please let me know as we're still finding our way in the game and we'd love to her from more knowledgeable players.

Until next time............

Chipping the Jack!

2011-11-17T10:02:00.001Z

Hi all,

Over the past couple of days I've done one or two extra bits and pieces with the Warmachine Mariner Jack. Firstly I blocked in the major colours that I wanted to paint the armour.

Basic colours blocked in

Then. I went at it with an old paintbrush and warm water. The warm water melts the hairy spray underneath the paint causing it to flake away in natural looking ways.

Battledamaged Jack

I really like the effect this method gives. The next step is to add shading and highlights as well as 3D-ing the chipped paint effect.

Until next time............

Painting the Merc Mariner Warjack

2011-11-09T10:28:00.005Z

Hi all,

just a very quick update about what I've started working on. As you probably guessed by the title of the post it's a Mariner Warjack for the Mercenary Faction in Warmachine. I just love this Jack mainly because it uses an anchor and ship cannon as weapons!

Inital Work

So there is not much to show you guys just yet. I've pinned him together and basecoated him with Chaos Black spray paint. This was then followed by a couple of thinned down layers of Boltgun metal to get a nice even coat of metal.

What you cannot see in this photo though is the layer of Matt Varnish I sprayed over the metal, followed by a layer of hairspray when the varnish was dry.

I made the wooden planking from coffee stirrers, in an effort to recreate a ship's deck planking.

More updates as I progress.

First Games of Warmachine

2011-11-05T23:07:00.003Z

Hi all,

Phil and I have just spent the day playing our first ever games of Warmachine and what a blast we had! For the first game I went with Menoth and Phil went with Khador. We settled on a slightly unusual 16pt limit. My list consisted of mini's from the 2-player battlebox with some extra's. It looked like this.......

Protectorate of Menoth
16+5 points, 7 models,
high Exemplar Kreoss
*Crusader
*Repenter
*Revenger
*3 Exemplar Cinerators

So I deployed Kreoss fairly close to the Crusader with the Revenger on my left flank. The Repenter and Cinerators were on my right flank.

Menoth Deployment

Kreoss Deployment

Khador Left Flank

Sorcha Deployment

Over the first 2 turns both factions raced right at each other (like we had a pair!)

The Revenger blew through this unit

And charged into the Widomakers behind, leaving the Crusader to mop them up

On the other side of the table things were not going so well.

The light Warjack was not able to take the huge hits or break the defence of the heavy warjack and eventually was boxed

The Cinerators did not have much more luck

Kreoss makes his move while Sorcha is looking the other way!

But in the end Sorcha overpowered him despite the Crusader running full steam ahead to try and lend a hand. With that our first game ended. What the rulebook said should be a 45 minute game took us the guts of 5 hours! I suppose this is what happens when tow beginners are looking up rules and stat's every couple of minutes. Despite the length of the game we had a great time though.

From here we decided to have a second game. I decided to play with a slightly different Menoth list at 15pts. Phil went with Cryx this time. My list was..........

Protectorate of Menoth
15+5 points, 4 models
High Exemplar Kreoss
*Crusader
*Revenger
*Vanquisher

I deployed Kreoss with the two heavy Warjacks with the Revenger on my left flank.

Initial Deployment

Phil's Cyrx Deployment

Deployment and Terrain (Is that a Rhino wreak in The Iron Kingdoms?)

Things did not go well from here!

Both my warjacks were destroyed by a combination of Dynergra's Feat, the Cryx warjack and the mechanithralls. On the other side of the board the Revenger was slowly but surely making it's way through the other thrall unit before being destroyed by Dynergra. Kreoss in the meantime was assualted by the heavy warjack, the bone jack and the remaining mechanithrall. He succeed in killing them all but with only two wound boxes remaining. This left him weakened enough for Dynergra to charge across the board and finish him off one to one as the last two remaining models on the board.

This second game took only 3 hours, so we'd already knocked 2 hours off of our previous best! Another really enjoyable game with the winner coming down to a head to head between the warcasters.

Overall a great day of gaming. It's already given lots to think about. Coming from the GW universe the game definitely plays very differently. The over-aching meta-game with focus, feats and buffing/nerfing spells really is enjoyable. Added to the skirmish game feel of marking wound boxes and low number of models it really gives the game a unique feel. Obviously being a newb I have not even scratched the surface to the possible synergy between warcasters, warjacks, units and solo's. It's something I look forward to discovering in the future.

Until next time..........

New additions to CoolMiniorNot

2011-11-02T10:18:00.002Z

Hi gang,

I've added a couple of new pictures to my CMoN account. I've been looking through my photobucket account and picking out possible usable photo's. So while they are newly uploaded to CMoN there is some old paint jobs in here. I'd love if you voted on them.

Lord of the Rings Elf (Painted Approx 2004)Vote Here!

Dwarf Slayer (Painted Approx 2006) Vote Here!

Imperial Guard Pysker (Painted Appox 2006)Vote Here!

Imperial Guard Catachan Trooper (Painted Approx 2007) Vote Here!

Ork Grot Cannon Loaders (Painted Approx 2005) Vote Here!

Old School Legion of the Damned (Painted approx 2008) Vote Here!

Lizardman Sauras Unit (Painted 2010) Vote Here!

Next update will have Warmachines!

Starting Warmachine

2011-10-28T14:13:00.001+01:00

Turns out that I am very easily sucked in to new things by another person's excitment.

My wargamming buddy Phil, picked up the new Warmachine Starter box last week and in the intervening days we've been having a large email conversation about the game and warmachine in general.

My previous experience with Warmachine is very very low. I bought Prime MkI a couple of years back and never even finished reading the rules let alone having a game! I bought the orginal metal Khador battlegroup mainly for the miniatures and not in any great expectation of playing any games.

First Warmachine Purchase (can't believe I have this photo after 3 or 4 years!)

I have only ever painted one mini from that battlegroup

My first and only painted Warmachine mini

I'd say this guy was painted maybe 3 years ago? I remember being quite happy with the battle-damage and the glowing eyes. Looking at them now they could definitely be improved on. I am still quite proud of the rust effect I achieved with the metal though.

So for the last 2 to 3 years I've been happily beavering away on the great GW side of the hobby, having a look at any new Privateer Press releases that I came across online but never buying one apart from Durgan Madhammer when I picked up the MkI book.

I bought this guy because I thought he looked cool!

So Phil (and I'm sure hobbyists everywhere can recognise this) has gotten me really excited to give this game a try. So based solely on the fact that I already have one Merc Warcaster, and I love the look of the Merc Jacks (especially the marine ones) I've decided to start a Merc faction in Warmachine.

So last night I popped into my FLGS (Gamersworld in Dublin, which seemed to be running a huge MTG event) and purchased two items.

The current Warmachine Rulebook

The Mariner Warjack

So over the course of the long weekend in Ireland I'm going to sit down the the MkII rules and see what they are about, next week I hope to put together the Mariner, and on the 5th have my first ever game of Warmachine with Phil.

I am left with a couple of questions though. Having never played Warmachine before what will I get for the faction next? I was thinking the Merc Faction book, and the other Marine theme'd Warjacks as they really appeal to me. Maybe some Croe's Cutthroats and Steelhead Riflemen all units and mini's that I really like. Also where do I get the current up-to-date card for the Mariner? I think the one that came with him is for MkI.

More steam-powered adventures as and when they happen.

Dreadfleet

2011-10-10T15:50:00.000+01:00

Hi gang,

the first thing to say is that this post is not supposed to be a review. Just a couple of pictures and idea's about what happened during my first game of GW's new product.

So Phil picked up a copy of this game. He pre-ordered it from the GW website but it turns out he would have received it more quickly if he had just wandered into our FLGS on the day of release. Speaking of this, I wandered past same said store on Friday evening and they had 60 copies in the window. I really wonder will they sell them all.

I rolled around to his house yesterday and Phil already had the seascape laid out on his kitchen table. Unfortunately his kitchen table is slightly smaller than the seascape so we had about two inches of either of the long side hanging over the edge. The first thing that drew my eye was the little details within the water; ghosts, sea creatures. sunken cities. Very emotive.

We decided to play the first scenario but with three ships per side rather than the one ship outlined in the initial rules. So Phil had read through the rules a little and he filled me in briefly with the run of play. We then rolled off for the sides, I got the Dreadfleet, Phil the Grand Alliance.

After a couple of turns, the Shadewraith was engaged in a boarding action with Grimnir's Thunder. Both Captains had given each other significant damage and the dwarf ship was listing badly and on fire. The Heldenhammer then raked me with a broadside and had enough dice to role enough sixes to take me out.

The Sinking of the Good Ship Shadewraith

This was just after the Heldenhammer had hammered Skabrus to the bottom of the sea. Grimnir's Thunder eventually succumbed to a munitions explosion after it was totally immobilised having no power in it's engines.

On the other side of the board, the Swordfish had rammed the Bloody Reaver.

Sail to Port!

After the initial ramming the Bloody Reaver's shear resilience eventually wore down the Swordfish, despite Phil having a ridiculous amount of damage and special damage cards associated with it.

Damage Cards aplenty!

So it ended up in a straight head to head between the Bloody Reaver and the Heldenhammer and the writing was truly on the wall when the Heldenhammer got into a position to use it's steam hammer on the vampire's flagship. But the coup-de-grace was finally applied by the auxiliary from the Grimnir's Thunder.

My first impression of the game was that the components were very good, especially the ships and the seascape mat. If I had the money to spare I would nearly get the game alone just for the models.

I have been reading some of the critical reviews about the game and in fairness a lot of them make very good points. The game with only 3 ships a side took 4 hours, (granted we were both learning on the go) which may be over long.

The level of randomness is huge, with the Swordfish at one stage being only one card away from being destroyed on it's crew and hull damage cards. Even the Bloody Reaver at the end of the game limped on for three extra turns because I did not draw the hull damage card that was required to sink it. You can cause huge amounts of damage but if your opponent is lucky drawing the cards they can get away it it.

I have read people critisise the fate cards also. From my first play through they seem like a fun way to mix things up. Then again we didn't draw a fate card in the first turn of the game that crippled one or several ship, like I've read in other blogs. Also the deck is small and could become quite repetitive with repeat use.

Overall I have to say though, I enjoyed my first game. Myself and Phil had a couple of good laughs and enjoyed ourselves. That is not to say the game is perfect or people don't have valid concerns or criticisms. I suppose how valid they are will be determined in time.

Wheither I would reccommend it our not is a dificult question. Leaving Phil's house yesterday evening I was tempted to buy a copy. But reading some of the reviews today really did point out some flaws which may not have occured to me, not having a huge amount of experience with board games.

Movement Trays and Magnets

2011-10-03T14:09:00.001+01:00

Hi gang,

so last week I have been focused on getting work done on the ghouls in my Vampire Counts army. I have nine of the 20 man unit done and I should be able to finish the unit off by the end of this week if all goes to plan. Also involved in getting this unit done was to make them a movement tray. So I purchased some plasticard and Pollyfilla (Spackle in the USA?) and set to work using the cut off from a sprue to make the edging.

Ghoul movement tray marked off for a tweny man unit.

So I wanted to magnitise this tray, mainly to stop the models beening knocked over and after much searching in hardware and picture stores I finally came across what I was looking for in my local €2 shop.

€2 for 2 sheets of A4 Magnetic Paper

So by sticking this to the movement tray and to the bottom of the bases of the ghouls I now have a front rank that defy gravity!

Finished front rank just hanging out

The magnetic grip is relatively strong but I doubt it would do for heavy metal miniatures but for light plastic miniatures like this it's just the ticket.

An interesting thing I took a while to figure out was that if the magnetic paper I stuck on the base of the miniature does not align with the magnetic paper on the movement try it will not stick! I had problems with the ghast mini not sticking to movement try when facing forward in the front rank. But if I turned the mini 90 degrees to the left or right it would stick no problem. Obviously I had cut the magnetic square for the base out of the A4 sheet, but turned it sideways when sticking onto the base, therefore the magnetic fields couldn't 'click'. I can only imagine this is something to do with the creation of the magnetic sheet.

Until next time!

Skaven Test Subject

2011-09-20T09:39:00.001+01:00

Hi gang,

I have spend my hobby time in the last couple of days divided between painting my Vampire Counts Ghoul unit (as well as constructing their movement tray) and trying to perfect the the colours I want to paint my Skaven army.

Finished Test mini

So this is the scheme I've come up with. I have added a new page to my blog, where I am going to keep a record of all my painting recipes. This is more for me in the future rather than for you guys but hopefully someone else might find it useful. This Clanrat is the first miniature to be added to the list. (Very unlike Skaven to be the first in anything, they would normally leave that to the more brave/foolhardy races, preferring to stab them in the back when they are not looking and take their rightful place in their stead.)

I always knew I wanted to go with a blue colour with this army as it's not a colour you see many skaven forces, but I really did struggle with the skin colour. I obviously wanted it to be a quick scheme to paint and I experimented with a lot of different browns, ranging from Vermin Brown to Calthan Brown, and Beastial Brown to Khemri Brown but found that they were all too dark. The combination of the dark metal, the dark cloth tunic and the dark skin just made the mini look like a blob of browns from a distance. I eventually went with the classic Tallarn Flesh washed with Orgyn Flesh. I found this brightened the miniature up and defined the different areas of the mini a lot more.

I also like how the metal turned out, for a very simple method which can be done quickly. This fits the image in my head of a skaven horde with rusty weapons advancing under the whips of their betters. The basing is going to be simple with a grey gravel base with a couple of tufts of dead grass.

Until next time.........

Initial Skaven Thoughts

2011-09-12T11:03:00.000+01:00

Drawn by Adrain Smith, coloured by MajesticChicken (DeviantArt)

Hi gang,

I got to play my two first games with Skaven yesterday and I wanted to give some inital thoughts on them. But firstly I want to say that I am in no way a regular WFB player and in fact these thoughts should be seen as being from someone who has just started playing the game. With that statement out of the way onto my thoughts about the army.

So both myself and my regular opponent Phil have been learning WFB with the same army, namely Vampire Counts. As you can imagine while having enjoyable games they have tended to be quite magic heavy with little to no shooting or psychology. The combats have also tended to be large grind fests with neither side breaking and each Vampire respawning any lost troops in the magic phase.

The get around this we decided to start another army each, so Phil decided on Wood Elves and from my previous posts you should know I have gone for Skaven. As I have said we played two games with these armies yesterday. The first was a 1000pts game and the second was a 750pts game.

The First Game:

I used all the mini's from the Island of Blood Box set along with a 15 man(rat) unit of Gutter Runners. I placed the Engineer (upgraded to a level 2 Wizard with Skitterleap and Warplightening) in the unit of Clanrat Spearmen with a Poisoned Wind Mortar, the chieftain was with the unit of handweapon Clanrats with a Warpfire Thrower and the Giant rats with a Master Moulder were on the right hand side of my flank. Phil had 2 ten man units of Glade Guard, 2 five man units of Scouts, an 8 man unit of Dyrads, 5 glade riders and a hero of some kind with a bow that shot four arrows a turn. He deployed the 2 units of scouts and the hero on my right flank. Everything else was deployed in front of me.

So how did it go for the ratmen? Awfully! I got completely destracted by the flanking force of the scouts and hero, and didn't know whether to stick or twist and in the end fell between both stools and ended up being pincushoned by the elves bow fire.

I used skitterleap in the first magic phase to move my engineer to behind the scouts units in the hope of killing them in my shooting phase only to realise I had forgotten to give my engineer a gun! (No doubt some rival engineer had switched the real gun with a wooden dummy!) He was quickly shot to death in Phil's turn, thereby giving up the clear magical advantage I had as Phil had no wizards in his army. From there on my force was really split in half with one unit of clanrats shot by the two units of Glade Guard and the Glade Riders and the reminder running away. The second unit of clanrats with spears and the Chieftain being beaten by 1 in close combat with the Dyrads and being run down and the Rat Ogres and Master Molder falling from the combined fire of the scouts and Wood Elf hero. The only high point was the Gutter runners coming on behind the Scouts and wiping out one unit with poisoned throwing stars and the other in close combat. But by the end of the fourth turn it was all over and a convincing victory for the Wood Elves.

What I learned:

Skaven have really low leadership! Being used to playing Vampire Counts who never break in combat it was quite a shock to me how easily the Skaven broke. It was even more a shock how easily it is for the opposing player to run them down. If not in the turn which they broke but in the turn after. It really drove home to me the need for the extra ranks leadership boost the skaven have access to.
ALWAYS know what your characters are equipped with. While the plan to skitterleap the Engineer behind the scouts and hero was a bad idea in the first place as I was never going to be able to kill them all even if I had a gun, to not have a gun at all was idiotic! We did have a good laugh at my stupidity though.
Be focused. I really did get distracted by the flanking force and hesistated in my first turn. This allowed Phil to fire at me at will in his turn, as he didn't feel treatened by my units in any way. It was always an uphill struggle after the first turn.

The Second Game:

For this game we dropped the points down to 750pts. I removed the Chieftain from my list and coverted my Gutter Runners to Night Runners with slings. My Engineer Rolled Warp Lightening and Cracks Call (?) for his magic this game. Phil removed one unit of scouts, reduced the no of Dyrads and took away the command group from one of his Glade Guard. We left the table the same.

This time around I resolved not to get distracted by the flanking force (Phil used the exact same tactic) and instead marched both Clanrat units and the Rat Ogre Unit right up the middle of the board. The Night Runners scuttled up the side of the board. In the magic phase I got Warp Lightening off on the Dryads and rolled high for the number of hits and ended up killing 3. In Phil's turn he really had a hard time choosing what targets to shoot at but decided to shoot everything at the Rat Ogres. He succeeded in killing the Packmaster and one Rat Ogre. The final Ogre wandered into dangerous terrain 2 turns later due to stupidity and managed to kill himself. In my second turn I didn't move, but used Warp Lightening on one unit of Glade Guard who broke and ran off the table and hit the second unit with the Poisoned Wind Mortor, killing 8 of the ten, who also broke and ran off the table. The Night Runners on the flank targeted the Glade Riders with their slings and killed all five and finally the Warpfire Thrower killed 2 of the scouts on the right flank causing them to flee. From then on it was a mop up mission for the skaven, but not before my Engineer Clanrat unit passing a panic test on a roll of six when my leadership was a six. My other clanrat unit a turn later passed a leadership test on exactly the same score a turn later to stop them running of the table, only for their attached Warpfire Thrower to explode and wipe five of them off the face of the old world.

What I learned:

Skaven have really low leadership! The game could have been quite different if I had not luckily passed two different leadership tests on a six. It seems lots of ranks of rats is the only way forward.
Sometimes the dice gods are with you. See point 1 above. Also twice Phil rolled an inititive test to stop firstly his hero and then a dyrad falling into the crack from the Cracks Call spell, His inititive 7 models both rolled sixes.
When Skaven magic and shooting hit they are very powerful. The second game only emphasied how much I missed my Engineer in the magic phase in the first game. I never got a chance to use the weapon teams in the first game but in the second game they were deadly to both elves and skaven.
Stay focused. By giving Phil a lot of targets in the early stages of the game I forced him to make decisons. He wiped out my Ogres but that left the Engineer and the weapons teams to still cause a lot of damage. It was a lot better than dilly dallying in my deployment zone, which I did in the first game.

So two very enjoyable games with a lot learned about using skaven in WFB and I'm looking forward to using them again. I'm already planning on what to add to it and a Screaming Bell is really calling out to me! I also feel a Skaven Battalion with more clanrats/rat ogres and plague monks would be a good addition. Oh and an Assassin!

Until next time..............

Island of Blood

2011-09-02T10:58:00.002+01:00

Hello gang,

now I realise that I am very very late getting to Island of Blood, but I purchased one in my FLGS for €70 yesterday evening. This coupled with the Skaven army book brought my total spend to €91. So I thought I would give a few inital thoughts about what I got for my cash.

The army book is the army book, I knew exactly what I was getting for €21. A monochrome book, with the exception of a few pages with the strict order of background/spells/unit descriptions/colour pages of models/points costs of models/back page summary. I am happy with this layout, some of the skaven artwork is great (especially the mirrored full page spread of a human city above ground sitting ontop a skaven one underground) and while I have not studied it fully yet, I look forward to getting a couple of solid years use out of it.

At this stage I have to say though I have looked through the full colour Tomb Kings and Ogre Army books and the sooner all armies get this quality of book the better. I think gamers and hobbyists are willing to pay extra money for a hardback, full colour rulebook.

Anyways onto the actual box o'mini's

I am delighted with it to be honest. I bought it for two main reason's. The first being that I travel to any games of WFB or 40K that I have. I have the small rulebook for 40k but I didn't for WFB and hauling that huge hardback version around with me was a pain! I love the little rulebook, full colour and easily transported in an army box or bag. Full marks to GW for producing it. Secondly for the skaven miniatures. Skaven have long been a favourite WFB army of mine.

I think I have already written a blog back in the mists of time about "Gateway Models". The model that you see that gets you into miniatures. That moment where you are either walking past a shop or (in my case) a friend says "look what I have" and pulls a box from his bag with a mini inside. I can remember that moment as clear as it was yesterday and not in 1995. From my friends bag appeared the old red GW style box with a huge yellow banner and black writing which red "SKAVEN DOOMWHEEL". From that box an unpainted silverly lump of metal was drawn and passed around to the group of us there to have a look at. I am not being glip when I say, from that moment I knew I loved miniatures and they were something I was going to be interested in for the rest of my life.

Anyway I degress, but as you can see Skaven hold an affectionate place in my heart but I've never collected them before. I saw the Island of Blood as an excellent way to begin and I am delighted, the skaven and elf mini's are simple one and two piece click together jobs but the detail is a joy to behold, as are the more complicated character models including the Rat Ogres and Griffin.In fact I found myself running my hands over the wings of the Griffin on the sprue feeling the details of the feathers. I think the miniatures included are top class. The High Elves mini's while never my favourite army are just crying out to be painted and the ranks upon ranks of filthy (but lovable) skaven are amazing.

So I am giving GW a thumbs up for this boxed game. I would like it to be a little cheaper, but I say that about everything! But I don't feel let down or overcharged in anyway at all.

I was just left to wonder though, why do they insist on including these in every boxed game they produce and what do people use them for apart from whipping the life out of each other?

Whippy weapons of death!

Talk to you guys next time!

Initial terrain work

2011-07-29T22:52:00.000+01:00

Well this is a first for the blog.........terrain!

I normally don't make terrain as I don't play much games but for some reason over the last couple of weeks most of my hobby thoughts have been focused on terrain. I have been following Dampf's blog about using foam in terrain making over on his blog.

http://dampfpanzerwagon.blogspot.com/

What really caught my eye was this blog post and the way he used expanded foam and kitchen towel to make the rocks.

http://dampfpanzerwagon.blogspot.com/2011/07/working-with-foam-part-four.html

So I just had to give it a go. I want to paint my ork bases in a red desert scheme and I had a feeling this method might turn out good rocks, which would complement this basing scheme. So this is the first 'test' rock I have produced.

The Catachan is there obviously just for the scale. I have to admit I am very pleased with how this initial test worked out, considering all this is kitchen towel painted in PVA glue and then given a coating sand mixed with PVA for texture. I spray painted this with the GW orange foundation paint and give the recesses a wash with GW Red Ink and drybrushed the edges bleached bone. I didn't take any WiP pictures as it was meant to be a work through to iron out any kinks, but I was so pleased with the outcome I decided to post it up.

I will definitely be making a lot more of these, both larger and smaller rocks to place around an Orky themed board and when I do I will do an indepth step by step guide.

Eye on CoolMiniOrNot No. 1

2011-07-25T20:01:00.001+01:00

Welcome to a semi-regular addition to my blog. I plan to post links to anything I find interesting on CoolminiOrNot, not necessarily the best stuff but just stuff I find interesting and worth highlighting and comment.

So to start off here is this beautiful piece.

CoolMiniOrNot - GHOST Attack!!! detail by amon chakai

What I really love about this piece is not just the painting (amazing!), the composition (perfect) or the conversion's (flawless) but the fact it shows you can create an amazing piece of work from simple miniatures. You don't need the newest or biggest kit, just a great idea. This piece just draws you in and makes you start to wonder. Where in the Old World is this building? How did this poor bugger find himself in this horrible situation? Did that ghost just appear on the other side of the peasant's eyehole like a scene from a horror movie? If he did no wonder he turned tail and ran.

The painting is great, the strength of colour on the human emphasising that he's alive, which in turn contrasts beautifully with the cold blues and greys of the ghosts and wall and floor. The blending is perfect as is the fine detail work for the ghosts eye's and the humans warts.

Great work Amon chakai!

A little bit of everything!

2011-07-19T18:28:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

I don't have any pictures of what I am working on just at the moment, but it's a Space Wolf Rune Priest, for an activity being run on Librarium-online for charity.

http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/projects/209882-librarium-online-charity-sale-locs-2011-a.html

I have been cleaning up some hobby photo's on my computer though and I have found one or two pictures that I have not posted on my blog. I painting a Avatar of War Dwarf Slayer for a secret Santa last Christmas. I sent him off in plenty of time for Christmas but I never heard if he was received. So fingers crossed he's in a dwarf army out there somewhere seeking heroic death forever.

AoW Dwarf Slayer

I left his base untouched to give my secret Santa the change to base him as he see's fit. I did some messing with him in Picasa, mainly fixing the lighting, and creating the montage.

I don't remember too much about what sort of techniques I used painting him, but I do remember being particularly happy with how the metals turned out. Looking at him now I think I could have taken the highlighting of the skin a little bit further by adding bleached bone.

I will update this blog next week with pictures of the Rune Priest and how I am getting on with him.

CoolMiniOrNot - Flamin Pink Orc Battlewagon by RevenantDrag00n

2011-06-10T12:55:00.000+01:00

CoolMiniOrNot - Flamin Pink Orc Battlewagon by RevenantDrag00n

My holy god! After just building a Battlewagon myself I have to say that is some paint job.

Brave but I won't be trying it, I think I'll stick with the red uns go fasta rule!

Finished Vampire Counts Models

2011-05-31T16:12:00.001+01:00

Hi gang,

I may have been quiet on the blog front but I've been busy. Firstly I've finished the Necromancer and about time too, as I was just getting to the point where I was sick at looking at it and wanted to move onto something else. I polished him off in a couple of hours to get him out of the way before I moved onto something else.

Finished Necromancer

Things I'm happy with: How the purple and yellow play off each other, the skin, the warpstone and the frog. Things that need work: The contrast
Things I would change: I'd change the base if I could go back.

So onto the next stage of the Vampire Counts army. I decided to do all the spirit units in the army in one foul swoop as I intended to paint them all the same. The airbrush really came into its own here. A undercoat of GW Foundation Astromican Grey followed by a zential highlight from the top of PP Morrow White. Once these were dry I gave each mini a wash with GW Thraka Green and Asurmen Blue. I then added my army colour to the units by picking out one or two objects with a light wash of GW Leviathan Purple. Enough of waffle...........photo's!


Banshee

The snow on the base was made using a mixture of PVA and Biacarbonate of Soda. It's not perfect I'm still trying to get the mixtures right.

Ghouls and Dire Wolves next I think.

Necomancer WiP Continued 2

2011-05-08T13:02:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

I'm continuing slowly but surely with this Necromancer model. I really am enjoying painting him. Since my last post I've completed the yellow stoll and moved onto getting the basecoats done for the satchels and the cards that are pinned around the mini.

Necromancer WiP 8th May

I think this is the most representive picture of the mini I've gotten to date, taken just in plain daylight with a little bit of threshold work done in GIMP. There is a nice shine off of him but a final matt varnish coat should take that out of it. I'm trying to come up with some nice freehand symbols for the cards. I might have a look through the Mordheim and VC Army book for some inspiration.

Laters.

Another Nercomancer WiP

2011-05-04T12:09:00.000+01:00

I got some advice to darken the shadows of this mini over on Platoon Briticannia, which I've now done by mixing some Dark Angels Green into the Liche Purple basecoat. I'm quite pleased with how this has turned out. I must now go and rehighlight the model to bring up the contrast.

Still having a devil of a time trying to get the photo's right though.

Necomancer WiP Continued

2011-04-29T18:07:00.000+01:00

Hi gang,

I've got some further WiP shots of the work I've been doing on the Necromancer for my VC army.


Necromancer Front View

Necromancer Rear View

Necromancer Face Close Up

I fear the pictures are sort of over-exposed but I hope you can get the idea. I'm quite happy with how the warpstone on the staff turned out and his little froggy friend.

Skellie Test Schemes and Necromancer WiP's

2011-04-05T11:31:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone,

I've been messing around with the colour scheme for my skelletons and have hit upon what I think is a fairly sweet scheme. So I painted up my test mini last night and here is what he looks like.


Test Skellie Front

Test Skellie Shield

Test Skellie back

I'm very happy with the bone colour I've achieved. I didn't really want a brown bone colour as I think that should be left to the sun dried Khemri skelletons, this more blacky/grey colour suggests to me more the peaty wet bogs of Sylvania. Purple as my main scheme is a colour I choose mainly because it's not a colour I get to paint very often and I think it suits VC even though it's not a scheme you see very often. Finally I was extremely happy with how the two different metals turned out. Both the coppery metal on the shield and the tarnished dark metal on the spear and ankle chain were techniques taken straight from the painting masters series in different WD's and I think they worked quite well.

I also have been working on the first Necromancer I will have in this army. At the moment he's very WiP with only the purple of the robe and bone areas finished. As you can see I've spent quite a lot more time on the purple of his robe than on the skelletons, but I only have one of him to paint.

Necromance First WiP

So that's it for the moment. I have the different recipes for the skelleton written down so I can put him to one side and focus on finishing this necromancer and the Imperial Guard Diroma I start last month.

Catachan Demolition Trooper

2011-03-20T16:27:00.000Z

Hi gang,

this is the first painted miniature for the diorama I am making and outlined two post ago.


Combined picture of Catachan Trooper

I'm quite happy with how's he's turned out. There is a shine from the picture taking process on the mini which is not present in real life. In saying that I haven't given him a coat of varnish just yet. I might wait until all six of the Catachan's are painted for this diorama.

Brains!!!!!!!!!!

2011-03-14T13:00:00.000Z

Hi gang,

Finally it's done! I have painted all 60 zombies ready to be unleased upon a gaming board in a shambling hoarde of brain lust.


Full unit view

Close up

Close up 2!

Not much more to say really only thank God they are done! I'll not want to paint zombies for a while now! Next up for the VC army is a nice Necromancer to put some life in this horde and generally order them about. I like rewarding myself with a one off mini after grinding through a large unit.

Laters!

My first Diorama

2011-03-11T14:35:00.000Z

Hi gang,

So after nearly 20 years being interested in this hobby, I have never created a diorama. I thought it was about time to change this. So I floundered around for an idea or concept that really inspired me and I finally hit on this picture of the Catachans.

Catachan's advancing through jungle

This is a classic Catachan image as far as I'm concerned, a lone squad advancing through heavy foliage surrounded by enemies. So this is the image I want to try and capture in my diorama.

The first step was of course to find something to base this diorama on and I found just the thing. One side of a box which originally held a set of oil paints.

The diorama base

I had to clean this fella up, this included removing the hinges (which you can see) and sanding the sides down. From here I then used expanding foam to build up the ground level within the base.


Foam ground work

This foam was then cut back to underneath the rim of the base. From here I then went outside and did some scouting for diorama foilage. And I found the motherload! A couple of years ago I cut down ivy from our house. It provided me with great bendy tree like forms.


Ivy to the rescue!

So I broke up this ivy and went about securing it to the foam in a hopefully pleasing and dramatic way!

I also have gotten out the mini's I want to have in this diorama.

Catachan Squad Assemble!

More updates as I progress.

Irish Miniature Painting Group

2011-02-22T00:11:00.000Z

Hi gang,

only a short post this time around. I wanted to advertise that I've started up a forum for the Irish miniature painters, to try and get like minded people together.

If your an Irish (or not!) and a miniature painter (of any skill) we'd love to have you visit us at

http://irishminiaturepainters.webs.com/

Vinny

Malakim Phoros PtII

2011-01-18T15:30:00.000Z

Now I have a confession to make. When I was posting my last pictures I was going through the Imperial Armour entry for Malakim I realised that the weapon entry did not say just a "two handed, master-crafted power weapon" but a "two handed, master-crafted power glaive". This meant I had to do some last minute conversion. Luckly I had just the right piece to replace the right arm. So a quick pinning job later I came up with this.

I'm quite happy with how it turned out. How I've just to paint it obviously.

I've also done some intial work on the base for Malakim.

Inital basecoat of Sorched Brown, with a wash of Brown Ink. I then basecoated the concrete grey and the metal Boltgun Metal. Using some forgeworld weathering powders I 'rusted' the metal. I also basecoated the space marine helmet half red and half yellow, the colours of the Lamenters hated enemies The Minotaurs, who more or less wiped out the chapter during the Badab War.

More updates tomorrow I hope!

Malakim Phoros

2011-01-17T13:14:00.004Z

Once again I've moved onto another project I'm working on in my usual hobby buffet style of doing things. Why oh why can't I focus on and finish one thing at a time!

At least it's the same general type of thing, that being Lamenters Space Marines. In the new Forgeworld book (IA9) there are rules for the chapter master of the Lamenters; 'Malakim Phoros, Master of the Lamenters, Lord of Ruin, Watcher of the Deeps'.

Obvoliously I'm not going to give his stats but his wargear consists of Artificer Armour, an Infernus pistol, a two-handed, master-crafted power weapon and an iron halo. Of course as a Lamenter player/collector this is an oppertunity I couldn't pass up to convert a miniature. This is what I've come up with.

So it's the old Emperor's champion model with a Deamonhunters sword and converted pistol. This is very early WiP though and I've only really done work on the talbard and the models left leg, so the right leg as we look at it.

The model is being undercoated with Iydanden Darksun and shaded by adding successive amounts of Scorched Brown. It was then highlighted with Golden Yellow, but I think I might need more highlighting at this stage.

Lizardmen Finished! (For the time being)

2010-10-14T14:00:00.000+01:00

Hi gang,

well as the title suggests I've finished up painting the Lizardmen Battalion I purchased years ago, but which I only started painting maybe a month and a half ago. I had left the Cold One riders to last as they seemed like the most complicated unit, and thats what they turned out to be. I really struggled with finding a colour for the Cold Ones that I was really happy with, and eventually settled on the colour I had used on the skinks for their skin, and a grey colour for their boney crests. The riders were painted in exactly the same manner as their footslogging collegues, the only difference being that I went with red on their shields as I felt that the shields would blend into the Cold ones otherwise if I stayed with the blue.

Cold One Riders Headlong Charge!

Cold One Riders Profile Shot

That unit polished off the battalion, but I did have a Lizardman hero which I wanted to paint to make this mini army at least playable if the situation ever arose. I did not spend too long on him and painted him to the same standard as the rest of the Lizardman army. He was taken from basecoat to varnish in a single day.

So that mini finished off my Lizardman experience for the time being. I took a couple of photo's of what I've painted over the last two months.

Overall Lizardman Army

Hero and Cold One Riders

Skinks with Blowpipes and Sauras with Hand Weapon and Shield

Skinks and Sauras with Spears

I'm very happy with how they have turned out, I really like my Sauras colour scheme and think they look very unique and striking.

Next project? Vampire Counts, starting with 60 zombies!

Large Scale Marine Update

2010-10-08T15:14:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

its been a couple of weeks since I updated this blog, but I have got quite a bit of work done on the large scale marine mini from forge world. I undercoated the mini with army painter black, used vallejo masking fluid to block off the face and airbrushed the whole head with boltgun metal.This was then followed by spraying the helmet with matt varnish and when dry, sprayed with hair varnish. When that was dry I then airbrushed the helmet with Iydanden Darksun.


First Iydanden Darksun Basecoat

Then using a brush with warm water I set about "distressing" the helmet, the warm water melting the hairspray underneath and removing the yellow paint in an organic sort of way.

Battle damaged yellow

I then set about adding details such as highlights to the scratches and colours into the recesses using forgeworld weathering powders.

Battledamage/weathering effects

I then scraped off the masking fluid from the face and set about painting it.

Finished Face

I also finished off the working eye with green.

Finished Eye

Overall Head

I've started the legs, I wanted to add rivets to the legs and set about this by cutting the heads off of some nails I found in the garden shed and gluing them into holes in the legs which I created with my drill bits and knife. I also masked the knee pads with the Vallejo masking medium. All set for painting like the helmet.

Legs Front

Legs Back

So lots of photos! I'm looking forward to getting these legs painted, adding the rivets turned out to be really time consuming. and it will be nice to get some paint on them.

In the mean time I have also been working on the Lizardman Battalion but I am having trouble trying to find the right colour scheme for the cold one riders. Once I get that sorted I should be able to finish off the unit fairly quickly.

Until the next update, keep painting.

Large Scale Marine Sculpt

2010-09-08T11:06:00.000+01:00

Hello gang,

I am also working on construction of the large scale FW marine which I got last christmas. I wanted to show some battle damage and as such took a knife to the helmet and started gouging away.

Space marine head

The black marks are just general guidelines where I want the cheakbones, eyes, nose and mouth to be. I broke out the milliput yesterday and did my best with the sculpting.

Sculpted face

Its not going to get me a job sculpting anytime soon, but I'm happy with the result. More updates soon!

More Saurus

2010-09-03T17:13:00.000+01:00

Hi all,
just a quick update to let you guys know I've finished the second unit of Saurus that came in the battalion. I've equipped this regiment with spears.


Second Saurus Unit

So this is what I've painted from the battalion so far.

Two Saurus and one Skink units

Next on the list is the final Skink unit from the box set, and then finally onto the cold one riders. I also am after getting an email from forgeworld announcing their next IA release. They are only going and releasing a Badab IA! A definite purchase for a Lamenters collector like me. Here's hoping for Lamenter models/upgrade packs/shoulder pads and more indepth fluff.

Until next time keep painting!
Vinny

Skinks anyone?

2010-08-29T16:42:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone.

I started a unit of skinks on Wednesday. Firstly I got rid of any visible mold lines and then blue-tacked them onto a piece of cork-board, and undercoated them with Choas Black.


Undercoated unit of Skinks

From here I broke out my new airbrush. Then with a mixture of Vallejo Touquoirse Blue I gave the whole unit a basecoat.


Basecoated Skinks

I then drybrushed the whole unit with Vallejo Dead Flesh

Drybrushed Skink Unit

Then I gave the whole unit a wash with GW Asumeran Blue.


Skinks after wash

All these steps took me only an half an hour to an hour. From here I then worked on adding the details.

Scales: Vallejo Dead Flesh, Wash of GW Devlan Mud
Metals: GW Tin Blitz
Eyes:GW Iydanden Yellow
Base: Scorched Brown Basecoat, Drybrush of Bleached Bone, Scorched Brown Grass Flock
Teeth/Weapons: Dhedeb Stone, Devlan Mud
Head Crest: GW Mechraite Orange, GW Baal Red Wash, Mechraite Orange/Dwarf Flesh (50:50) highlight

So I finished up a full unit of skinks in 3 days, which I'm fairly happy about.

Finished Skink Unit

So the second unit of the Lizardmen Battalion polished off. Going to start the second unit of Sauras warriors today or tomorrow. I have to say I was delighted with how the airbrush worked out, it really took a lot of the donkey work out of getting the inital coats of paint down on the models. I'm going to use it in future to get this time consuming section of regiment painting done.

Until next time, stay painting,
Vinny

My first Painted WFB Regiment

2010-08-22T20:12:00.000+01:00

I've done it! As the title of the blog says, I've managed to paint a WFB regiment for the first time in my life. In fairness though I wasn't trying too hard previously, this being my first proper attempt at it.

So two post ago I had outlined the constructing and basing of the Lizardman Battlation I had purchased a couple of years ago. Well I got the colour scheme down, and over the last week got settled down and painted it up. The scheme is easy enough to allow me to paint fairly fast.

Skin:
GW Foundation Macharius Solar Orange, followed by a strong wash of Baal Red
Scales:
GW Foundation Fenris Grey, drybrush of Game Colour Dead Flesh, followed by a strong wash of Baal Red
Metals:
Tin Blitz
Sheilds and Totem:
Game Colour Falcon Turquoise, drybrush of Game Colour Dead Flesh, strong wash of GW Asurmen Blue
Bone/Teeth/Weapons:
GW Foundation Dheneb Stone, strong wash of GW Devlan Mud
Base:
GW Scorched Brown, drybrush of Game Colour Bonewhite

So as you can see absolutely nothing fancy whatsoever in terms of technique, but I am very happy with the way the unit turned out, and God knows if I am to make it through painting the whole Battalion I need a quick and easy painting method. Anyway onto pictures.

Next up Skinks!

New Toys

2010-08-09T18:18:00.000+01:00

Just a quick update to show you guys what arrived in the post for me today. Purchased from Maelstrom for around 100euro.


Whats in the Boxes?

Vampire Counts thats what!

From left to right, the army book, Avatars of War Vampire blister, the battalion, Mantic Undead box set, Avatar of War Necromuncer blister and Gamezone vampire knight blister.

Now to juggle these with the Lizardmen I started in the last post.

I'm Back!

2010-08-02T19:31:00.000+01:00

Hello gang!

Yes I'm back, I apologise for the lack of hobby updates for the last three months, but I have a very good reason. I went on a trip. Myself and the girlfriend had just finished college, and we decided to head off for a couple of months. So after a trip through Russia, China, Australia and New Zealand, I'm back looking for a job, and doing hobby related stuff again.

While I was away I did pick up the new edition of WFB, (turns out the rulebook is more expensive in New Zealand than home) and got inspired to get cracking at some of the WFB models I have hanging around here. Maybe it was the long lay off from hobby related stuff but I've been working flat out on mini's for the last two days.

The first thing I did though was move all my hobby gear out of my tiny bedroom at home and took over a spare room. I figured I might be home for a while so why should I be hunched over a fold up desk in my sleeping cupboard? Why not have a place with plenty of light and space, and somewhere to chill out and read and practice guitar?

My new hobby desk/table with plenty of storage and display shelves

Chill out/reading area

A clean hobby table!

So the first thing I set eyes on yesterday when I sat at my new hobby table was the Lizardmen Battalion I had bought a couple of years ago but had done nothing with. So I broke out the clippers, superglue and hobby knife and got gluing.

A couple of hours later........a full lizardman battalion + lord choice.

This morning I got up and spent an hour or two basing them in a nice little conveyor belt system I set up.

The silver pot contains 50:50 mixture of PVA and water, which is brushed onto the base, then the model dunked into the sand, the lose sand removed and left to dry on the tissue. Once the whole battalion was based I went back and gave them all another coat of PVA to seal the deal so to speak.

I have a colour scheme worked out, which you can see in the second to last picture. Tomorrow I hope to get started on the painting.

Until the next update, stay painting,

Vinny

Inital Airbrushing Impressions

2010-04-08T16:27:00.001+01:00

Hi all,

So i've been playing around with my airbrush and so far its been a fairly steep learning curve. The pressure setting on the compressor was the inital varable I was focusing on. The compressor seems to be able to give me anywhere between 5 and 60psi, which from my reading online is more than what I need for hobby airbrushing. From there I have been focusing on the gravity feed airbrush, this airbrush has a 0.3mm nozzle. Some blogs and forum topics have recommended a 0.25mm nozzle, but I'm happen enough to use this size for the time being to get some experience using this nozzle.

I practiced airbrushing by basecoating the base of the forgeworld large scale marine with black.

I think it worked pretty well. The main thing for me it seems is that I need to get the proportion of paint to thinner right. I've had problems with the paint being too thin when I applied. I pressume this will come with time and practice. The red marks were used for the pinning of the feet to the base, while the resin showing through happened when I was doing said pinning. I'm going to continue doing the ground work with the airbrush, next up some brown paint.

Finally I came up with what I think was one of my greatest idea's.

A piece of wood with holes in it you say? I was having a problem with holding my mini's in between painting, so one piece of wood which had a quick run in with a drill later.............

So once a mini is pinned and when I want to use both my hands, in the mini goes to the piece of wood.

Onward and upward from here!

My New Airbrush

2010-04-05T21:04:00.000+01:00

Hi all

I got a brand new toy today! What I got inside the cardboard box.

The gravity loaded double action airbrush.

The second airbrush that came in the pack, a suction double action airbrush.

Unpacking the compressor.

And when its fully unpacked.

So as you can see its a nice compact compressor, not even taking up a full A4 pad. I've turned it on and its lovely and quiet. I won't be bothering anyone with it thats for sure. I've had a go at getting both airbrushes connected to the compressor and did a little spraying with water to get a feel of the double action. I also figured out how to change the pressure on the compressor, after a little bit of panic, when a spring got lost! Tomorrow I'll have a go at airbrushing in earnest by starting with some paint on plasticard.

Grot Tanks!

2010-03-30T09:22:00.001+01:00

Damn you forgeworld! Damn you............

Painting a White Horse

2010-03-26T00:32:00.000Z

Hi gang!

I am really sorry about the quantity of updates I'm putting up here. I did intent to have more posts, but it turns out you can only post to a hobby blog when you do hobby related stuff, or more accurately "interesting hobby related stuff". Browsing CMoN does not a hobby blog post make! As I've said before,I've moved home, but I'm actually spending weeks at time at my girlfriends, hence only dribs and drabs of hobby content.

So I've been very slowly working on the horse which I showed pictures of in my last blog, this included a couple of green ink washes on the barding and the inital basecoat for the gold detailing on the armour. The most serious work I have done though is on the horse's coat. This is only the second time I've ever made a serious attempt at painting a horse. The first worked out ok, not great, just ok (I'll post a picture some time, as I also have to finish that mini!). Painting this horse is cheating really though as he's mostly all legs and neck, none of that tricky stomach/arse area.

I begin with a basecoat of GWF Astromican Grey. This was followed by several thin washes of Vallejo Cold Grey applied to the shadow area's (under the armour), inside the knee joints and the depths of the leg and neck muscles to build up the shadow.

The first highlight was achieved by mixing 3 drops of Vallejo Cold Grey to 1 brush load of Privateer Press White and 1 drop water and painting onto the definied muscles. When this was painted a second brush load of PP white was added to the paint mix along with a second drop of water to keep the consistency. This was layered onto the muscles. White paint and water in the same volumes were added a third time and once again layered onto the model. A final highlight of pure PP white was then applied.

Ah! Thats about it for the update really. I would love to hear from anyone who might have a suggestion on how to improve the white. To date its probably the smoothest and nicest white I've managed to paint, but I'm always ready to hear tips on how to improve myself as a painter.

Horsey Bases!

2010-03-15T14:33:00.000Z

One of the thing I've decided I need to work on is the basing of my mini's. Up until now they have been the standard PVA/flock combo, which does not really cut the mustard for the display mini's I hope to paint at some stage in my life. So I need to get practicing on improving my basing techniques. To that end I've attempted to make a start on the base of my Empire leader, which I showed pictures of when I first started this blog.

So these three pictures show what I've done. I'm trying to show a grassy overhang on a rocky slope. The rock was made out of some cork board, and the slope created from standard milluput, with a skull pushed into it. Hopefully by paint and the placement of flock will make this look a little more interesting than a normal base.

I've moved!

2010-02-15T18:21:00.000Z

A couple of weeks have gone by without a post. I'd like to apoligise for this but I've moved out of my house in Dublin which I've lived in for 5 years and moved back home. I didn't think it was possible but I've actually managed to move into a room that was even smaller than the one I was in for the last five years. All my hobby work will now be done on a fold out table.

Hopefully updates will be more forthcoming now that I've settled again.

Small Huntsmen Update

2010-01-13T12:11:00.000Z

A small update on the painting situation. I took a few minutes off last night from finishing up a presentation for my viva, to get a few coats of Thraka Green Ink onto the armour. I wanted a nice emerald green colour for the armour and I hope I've achieved it. Instead of taking pictures of every single mini on the team again, I will focus on the blitzers from now on when I'm updating as its just easier for me taking pictures. Don't worry all other mini's in the team are being painted too.

Blitzers

Close-up of the armour at the moment

There might not be any more updates until next week, busy time this weekend!

My first game of Bloodbowl

2010-01-10T13:00:00.001Z

What an awesome game Bloodbowl is! Myself and my mate had a barrel of laughs last night. I had never played before and Phil hadn't played in about five years so the game was a slow one as we conventially ignored the four minute a turn rule so I could pick up the rules as we went along. I must have picked them up fairly fast as the Huntsmen recorded their first ever victory 2-0 against Phil's Orc team. I might never play again to keep that 100% record!

The second score clinched it for me halfway through the second half as Phil was experiencing an injury crisis with two orcs stretchered off and one sent of for a particularly brutal play off the ball. The ball was knocked lose in a cruching tackle made by my blitzer against his catcher, it proceed to be fumbled by three pairs of hands. (A black orc, an orc linesman and my second blitzer) before it landed in the bread-basket of my catcher who was lurking dangerously, which left him with a short run in to the line. Phil promptly conceeded.

I only took too pictures as I was having so much fun I forgot the camera for the majority of the evening.

A general shot, the ogre provided a rock solid backbone to the centre of the field

An in action shot of the only pass I threw all game, which my catcher in the distance promptly fumbled. He redeemed himself the following turn by picking up the ball and running in for my first touchdown after some sterling blocking by my linesmen and blitzers.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-07T19:11:00.000Z

Hi guys,

I hope everyone had a very peaceful and happy holiday season. The primary gifting period was quite good to me, with my brothers giving me the large scale forgeworld space marine. I already have plans afoot for that bad boy.

Having taken a break over the christmas period from any hobby related activities I jumped back in yesterday and started painting my bloodbowl team. I have decided to go with a green and white colour scheme, matching my home town hurling club and county teams colours.

Pictures away!!!!!!!!

Throwers

Catchers

Blitzers

Linemen

Ogre

So as you can see still some fairly early WiP pictures. Updates as they happen.

Ogre Blood Bowl player

2009-12-16T16:12:00.000Z

Two posts in the one day!

Here's what I've being doing for the last couple of hours since I last posted.

I replaced this orge bulls arms with a tyrants to give an impression of bulked up armour for the match. By removing the belly plate and replacing with some green stuff hopefully makes him look a little more "match ready".Finally I completely sculpted the helmet, which I'm the most pleased about.

Next step is a blackbase coat and then an airbrush with astronomican grey as a basecoat for the mainly white colourscheme. All armour will then be painted red. Maybe the addition of green here and there will give me the colourscheme for my own Bloodbowl team, "The Hochland Huntsmen". I was thinking of having crossed hochland rifles as their team symbol.

Finished Spartan

2009-12-16T11:17:00.000Z

I finished the Spartan mini from Tale of War during the week and posted it up on Coolminiornot. Currently averaging a 6.2, which I'm a little disappointed about, but maybe the pictures are leaving it down a little bit.

Next project a human bloodbowl team.

Ork Truck

2009-12-09T11:09:00.001Z

After a couple weeks off due to real life work pressures, in which I didn't get any hobby stuff done, I really jumped back into it yesterday with both feet straight into the deep end! The brighter amoung you might have already made the mental link between this blog title and what I am going to talk about. :)

While I may not have done any physical hobby stuff, I did pick up the Imperial Armour Model Masterclass Volume One, on recommendation from a couple of different blogs.

I have painted a couple of tanks, and have never been happy with them. I found the wide open spaces on tanks difficult to manage and found it difficult to transfer any knowledge from painting human size mini's to the larger tanks. This was the reason I picked up this book, and after reading through it I found it amazing, some really great painting tips, all well described in a fully colour top quality book. I would give it two very definate thumbs up.

So naturally, when I got back to painting I wanted to give a few of the tips I'd gleaned from this book a go. I do not have a nice forgeworld tank, but what I did have is what I think is the awesome ork truck. I gave it a standard black undercoat.

Not content to try out some new techniques, I thought it was time to break out the airbrush and give it its madien voyage. From the IA-MM book, I first airbrushed the whole truck with GW Tin Blitz followed by a blast from a hairdryer to dry it quicker.

For my first airbrush ever I think it worked out fairly ok! The next step was an a boltgun metal application step. Not having any GW Boltgun metal, I used Vallejo Gunmetal metal, and I think I got my mixtures slightly wrong. The gunmetal was a little too thinned and ended up running slightly. This in itself was not too bad as it only let some tin blitz come through and made it look a little more ramshackled which for orks is not a bad thing. Once again a quick blast from the hairdryer.

The next step was the major technique I wanted to try from IA-MM. I wanted to give a weathered and chipped red paint look to certain area's of the truck. This was done over several easy steps.

1. Give the model a coat of purity seal. (I didn't have that, so just used matt varnish) This was to seal the baseline colours.

2. Once the varnish was dry (Once again I used hairdryer to speed up the process) spray the model with common hair spray. I used a Tesco Value brand which I bought for €0.95. Once again dried the model with the hairdryer)

3. When dried I airbrushed the area's I wanted with GW Mechrite Red and then hairdryed.

4. The final step involves rubbing and rolling a large brush with some warm water over the area's you want to look distressed. This will cause the hairspray layer to dissolve and make the red paint lift, creating natural looking wear and tear. The more pressure and rubbing you do, the greater the amount of paint removed.

For a first attempt at this method. I think this turned out great. I now realise I should have tried to mask some of the area's I didn't want to have red, to save me some repainting work.

The next step I have planned is to clean up mis-sprayed red, and then have a go with another new technique, weathering powders. This is a real learning model for me, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

This is Sparta!

2009-11-05T15:22:00.000Z

This mini, if from the Tale of War range, which I really like. I picked him up a couple of years ago after the movie came out to paint. Its been sitting half finished in my "to paint" box for the last couple of years.

Over at a website I'm a member of, they have set up a secret santa. The person I got gave me on guidelines about what to paint only that he has a "DIY space marine chapter". This did not really help me with the painting of a mini for him.

So putting one and one together and getting five, I decided now was the perfect chance to finish this guy off and send him off as my secret santa. How could anyone not be happy with a kick-ass model coming through the post? This is my current WiP

The skin is the closest to being finished. I've maybe one or two more highlights to add and a couple of washes. Instead of the normal flesh wash, I've gone with purple washes and I'm very happy with how its worked out so far. The red needs a couple of touch ups too for it to be finished. The metals are still quite a way off, as I've only done the basecoat.

Finished Space Hulk Nids

2009-10-31T19:40:00.000Z

So they are finally done!

It took me about a month to get these guys done. Working in dribs and drabs, but in the end I'm fairly happy with how they turned out.

I'm quite happy with the pink of the skin. The grey is unusual but I like it none the less. The army painter soft tone really helped me finish these guys off. I might hold off on space marines for a while.

First ever attempt at Army Painter Dipping!

2009-10-26T15:10:00.002Z

As I posted previously I picked up the army painter strong tone quickshade. I am in the middle of building up the ratmen, put I really wanted to give this quickshade a go, ahh............really quickly!.

So my nid's from Space Hulk are still to be finished and it came to me, that the quickshade would be perfect! This of course would mean that the the purple shade would have to be cancelled, but if I could quickly get these nids done it would be all good. So back to my good old test nid and quickly finished off the base.

I have to have a pre-dip picture don't I?

Then I dipped. In my stupidity I decided to try and video this! So video'ing in my left hand, dipping with my right hand. So excuse the shaking and weird camera angles.

So despite me losing my grip on the mini, half way through I think it has worked out fairly ok. I've given him a couple of more sturdy shakes when I had both hands free to get rid of the excess shade. I have now placed him still to one side until this time tomorrow, and we'll see how he turns out.

Army Painter and Skaven Gutter Runners

2009-10-20T14:50:00.001+01:00

So I caved in today and bought my first ever box of Skaven. I picked up a box of Gutter Runners from my FLGS. (Gamersworld in Dublin). I am fairly sure these guys are not being changed or replaced in anyway in the new army book. (fingers crossed!)

I had a quick look at the sprue, and they seem like nice models. A box of twenty for €25 is fairly good in my book. Good knows for a skaven army I get the impression that I need a lot more than twenty!

And speaking of lots of models, I have been looking at some way to paint all these rats up in a quick and simple way. I know of the army painter range of products just by seeing them in my FLGS but have not talked to or read of anyone who has used them. So I took it on myself to have an experiment.

So today I also picked up two Army Painter Colour Primers and the Army Painter Matt Varnish.

I picked up the primer matt black as a general basecoat spray, which can also be used as an actual black colour. As I was going with the ratmen, I did pick up a brown colour too, ideally I would have liked a darker brown, but this colour might not be too bad with the shade. The matt varnish is vital for the Army Painter process, to remove the glossiness of the shade. I hope to also use it to finish off all my other painted projects.

The most important step in all of this of course the Army Painter Shade.

I bought the standard middle of the road shade, (Strong Tone). This smells and looks exactly like furniture varnish, but at first look it seems slightly more "runny".

I think it will be interesting to see how quickly I can get these twenty ratmen painted up using the Army Painting method.

New Legion of the Damned!

2009-10-18T13:30:00.001+01:00

Fresh into my inbox from GW, new metal legion of the Damned marines. I know there was green's of these guys previously shown at a games day somewhere, but seemingly they were offically unveiled at Games Day Italy.

This guy is looking good. They do look like a slightly updated old school Legion of the Damned. I'm looking foward to seeing the rest of the squad.

I won't be buying this squad though. Why? Because I already have an old-school squad which I painted up during the year.

Skaven Awesome Sauce

2009-10-16T14:55:00.001+01:00

Thats it, i'm done. Games workshop have left me a broken man. I cannot resist these models anymore. There was some grainy scan's before of the Screaming Bell and Plague Furnace, but GW have new clear ones on their blog today. These two mini's are the icing on the top of the skaven cake. The level of detail on these two mini's is amazing, but its the just general weirdness of them that appeal to me.

Skaven Seer riding a screaming bell hung from a door arch (and foundations!) , being rung by a Rat Orge sitting on top a giant platform? Check!

A giant censor, also hanging from a door arch, being swung by a tide of plague riddled and hooded man size rats? Check!

I see for us euro users, its priced at €45.50, which I think is a good price point. I for one can't wait.

Painting with Mates

2009-10-13T16:48:00.002+01:00

Hi all,

I spent a very enjoyable evening yesterday doing some painting at a friends house. After doing nothing much hobby wise for the last week, it was great to get at least a little bit done. In saying that I managed to completely destroy the broodlord by not obeying the first rule off painting mini's! I used a thick layer of ink, and as such caused weird pooling effects, as well as darkening the mini too much. Nothing for it but to repaint the basecoat and start again.

The major point I wanted to make was how nice it was to have someone to paint with. I had not painted with anyone for about six or seven years, since my brothers lost interest in the hobby. So for me painting has been a solitary hobby for a long time.

So as you can see in a quick snap I took, we had paint, mini's, beer and music. We sat around had a good chat and painted some mini's. The evening flew, and four hours passed really quickly. My mate, was painting GW's witch hunter Inquistor. I got stuck into the Hockland Elector count for the first time in about a month and a half, painted up an eldar guardian in a colour scheme I am thinking about. (I should post this in the future and see what people think!) and of course got through basecoating about seven Space Hulk nids. It really is a great way to paint, and I could not reccommend it highly enough.

In my last post I talked about Skaven, and how the DoomWheel was the first mini, I ever saw. The more of the mini's from the new range I have seen, the more I am thinking of starting a small skaven army! Their weirdness and the quality of the models really appeal to me. Incase you have not seen the made DoomWheel and the charater models, here they are. Taken from other blogs that I follow mind!

Look at them! Amazing stuff GW. After only average stuff for Space Wolves (IMO) they really have hit some major highs. I haven't been this impressed with a new range of models since the Vampire Counts were released.

So expect some new Skaven from me in the future, I fear.

On introduction miniatures and Plastic Doomwheels!

2009-10-06T14:04:00.001+01:00

I don't know about you guys, but I can remember clearly the first mini I ever saw. It might not sound that important, but if you think about it, this mini is probably the most important model you'll ever see.

Now I would imagine for the vast majority of people the first miniature they would be introduced to is a Space marine. No problem there at all, and indeed a kick-ass space marine miniature, is probably the 'perfect storm mini' to entice prepubescent/teenage males into the hobby. (No offence to prepubescent/teenage males intended I was one too!) Space marines are consisently the largest selling model range GW have, and this is down to a very strong imaginary, which is easy to explain and understand. Superhuman warrior monks in space sums their background up and its an image which appeals to pretty much everyone. God knows I've enough of them around to know that they appeal to me!

But my first mini was completely different. It was not a superhuman soldier, it was not even a normalhuman soldier. In fact it was not human at all! You may have guessed by the title of the blog it was a humonid rat ontop of a giant wheel with spikes. This is a classic mini in my book, and one of the weirdest mini's in an army that always throws up weird mini's!

My friend brought this mini into to school unpainted. With heavy old metal mini in my hands, the weighty feel of it was perfect. The little details like all the rats running in the wheel to provide the power, the unusual seat on top, and the questionable ability of the seer to actually control the thing. It all sucked me in and I was hooked. Hooked on everything about mini's, and I fear now after 13 years I'm going to be hooked for ever. What it says about me that the doomwheel burst my mini cherry, I do not know.

Unfortuanately newer people to the hobby may have never even heard of this old classic. as it was not in the previous army book. Browsing the GW site this morning I see that they are releasing a plastic version of the doomwheel for the new army book!

Despite all my eulogising of the old school mini, I never actually owned a version. So here we go again, the old mini collectors guilt. Even though I have no intention of collecting skaven, (even though I do have soft spot for them) I intend to pick up a Doomwheel. Games Workshop reach into my pocket and take my money because of nostiliga. The worst thing? I love them for it.

So? Can you guys remember the first mini that you ever saw? What effect did it have on you?

Quick Space Hulk update

2009-09-29T14:17:00.002+01:00

I know in my last post I said that I had painted nothing over the weekend as I was away from the paint and brush. I did have the inital coat of pink on the nids from the space hulk game done before I left, which I had not shown before. So here they are.

There we go! Only a very quick update today. Looking at these guys I will have to do another one or two layers just to get the pink perfectly smooth. As you can also see, I did get the inital basecoat of red on any marine armour they have ripped up.

Weekend Trip to Killarney

2009-09-28T17:53:00.001+01:00

I did no painting for the last couple of days, as I went to the south west of Ireland to Killarney town. Its a really beautiful spot, carved by glaciers in the last ice age. Amazing lakes, right against beautiful mountains all combine for a unique area in Ireland.

Myself, my mother and my girlfriend spent three hours yesterday walking the Gap of Dunloe.

The good lady and myself just below the Gap. While we did get up on the rock for a picture, this one was not posed I swear, my mother took it without my knowledge. The staring into the distance was not planned. I infact was looking at sheep just down the road.

And my mam, at the actual Gap. I love the sunlight on the mountains at the back but we were in the shade.

So all in all, a lovely weekend, with plently of Guinness drank too.

First Space Hulk Game

2009-09-22T14:15:00.001+01:00

I played my first game of Space Hulk during the weekend. Had a great time with the game and played the first and second mission's in the mission book. Both these missions seemed really tough on the marines, as they lost all four games. I hear the mission's go a little easier on them when they get the extra squad.

A little in action shot, with the only painted nid I have facing down the storm bolters of the Blood Angels.

So yesterday, I decided to continue with the painting of the nids, and went to put out a little bit of pink paint, which turned into a complete disaster.

Fecking pink paint everywhere! I made an attempt to try and scoop the excess into the pot. I got the majority of it back in I think and got the rest of the nids basecoated in pink. I'd have wanted to with that amount of paint!

New forgeworld ork stuff

2009-09-18T12:35:00.004+01:00

I just had to post and comment on the new ork mini's that have just been previewed on the forgeworld website.

Awesome sauce, absolutely awesome sauce. Orks being one of my favourite armies, I am delighted to to see forgeworld add some new mini's to their range and what absolutely beasts these guys are!

I have also just spotted these guys! I know they have been designed to sit on the back of the battlewagon, but I think they would be great as the heavy support free standing guns also.

Now if i only had the money!

Space Hulk Nid Continued 2

2009-09-15T11:19:00.002+01:00

Hi all,

From my last post you can see that I was not that happy with the chitin and how it was turning out. So i just decided to go out and give a couple of different colours a go and see what i liked.

This first chitin colour was the previously shown GW Hormagaunt Purple.

This second colour was GW Fenris Grey

This third colour was GW Mordian Blue

And the final colour was GW Astronomican Grey, with a Purple Wash

I actully really liked this final colour, especially when I had give it a wash with GW Leviathan Purple Wash. I think this will be my final colour scheme, as it has everything I was looking for, simple to do, with just three colours, followed by a Leviathan purple wash and striking. Hopefully the next post with nids in it will have all the Space Hulk Nids painted up like this.

Space Hulk Nid Continued

2009-09-14T16:01:00.001+01:00

Ahh the wonders of a test mini! Having painted the carapace of this guy in Hormagaunt purple and given it a wash with both Leviathan purple and Badab black, I was not happy. The "greyness" of the Hormagaunt purple was not deep enough for me, so I decided to change tack and decided to give GW Liche Purple a go on carparace. It turned out a lot better I think, but I'm always one to give a bad idea a second chance, I decided to try out the Hormagaunt purple on the claws, which once again I'm not happy with, so I think I might give the Liche Purple a go on there two.

I am also very happy with how the Vallejo Warlord purple turned out on the tongue. So as a paint scheme checklist goes I am very happy with the pink fleshy bits and tongue, reasonably happy with the purple carapace and not happy at all with the claws. I still have one or two idea's to play with colour scheme wise, so don't be surprised to see this poor test model back again.

I am just trying to keep my goal of a simple paint scheme foremost in my mind! A black basecoat, two or three solid zones of colour and then then addition of a wash to finish is the aim. Of course it has to look some way half decent too!

Space Hulk Nid WiP

2009-09-12T14:24:00.002+01:00

It seems that like most people in the world who have any interest in the world of GW and 40k especially, I got very excited about the limited edition release of Space Hulk. Now the 2nd edition of the game was the very first game I bought from GW and myself and my brothers put down a great summer playing around with it. Of course I caved in and bought the game even though I had initially tried to hold out. I think everyone agrees that while its basically the same game as the 1st edition, the really improvement is in the quality of the miniatures they supplied in the box. I still use and have the original terminators from the 2nd edition of the game, but the new ones are a real generation leap forward in terms of detail and craftsmanship. Both the terminators and genestealers are just crying out for a nice paint job to set off the quality of the sculpts. Having painted alot of space marines in the last year or two, I was first drawn to the genestealers and decided to try and come up with a paint scheme slightly different from the box version but not too different. I always liked nid schemes that suggested the soft squishiness of the nid under all that hard chitin armour. This is what I've come up with.

Firstly a undercoat with Black

I then went with a basecoat of Vallejo "Squid Pink" for the fleshy bits and GW "Hormagaunt Purple" for the harder chitin on the arms, legs and body

For the first wash I gave the whole model a light wash with GW "Leviathan Purple" and left to dry

Thats where I've gotten to so far. The Leviathan Purple wash has not shown up great on the chitin area's so I'm thinking of hitting that with a Badab Black wash. I think I am going to leave the flesh as is for now though. I want to transfer this scheme to the rest of my nid models. I have a battleforce here somewhere and I don't want a time consuming highlighting method if I have 50 gaunts to paint. Next update will hopefully have this test mini finished off.

Inital work on an Inquisitor Band

2009-09-10T15:24:00.002+01:00

A friend of mine, suggested that we give the game of Inquisitor a try. Now not willing to shell out money on a load of new 54mm models, we decided to give it a go at 30mm. So I went rumaging about in my bits boxes and unpainted mini's to see what sort of models I could find. I was mainly aiming for characterful mini's that really display some character and these are the guys that I came up with.

Grand Redemptionist Arin Lova.

Born a high ranking member of the Cawdor house on Necromunda, which is known for its loyality to the redemptionist cult, Lova was in the postion where his firey zeal was noticed by the Inquisitor Lord Marku Joback. Taken under this senior puritian Inquisitor's wing he quickly moved up the ranks in the Inquisition. This dispite his extreme puritan views have lead him to butt heads against many in the Inquisition, who would have more 'open minded' views when it comes to dealing with the taint of mutation especially. Like all members of the redemptionst cult he has an unhealty obession with the cleasing purity of fire, and strives to clear any planet he arrives on with flamer and multi melta.

Captain Ivan 'Three lungs' Forrest of the Catachan III

An experienced career soldier, Ivan has seen action in almost all theatre's of war, from deadly zero g battle's on the moon of Kord IV, to the subterranean fighting on Dulma'lin with Colonel Straken of the Catachan II. He earned his nickname after being severly injured in the chest with a autogun slug in a bar-room brawl on Necromunda. A metal replacement lung allows him smoke foul cigar's accured from a Rogue Trader who assured him they were all the rage amoung the 'Wild Races' in the Halo Stars, but prove almost fatal to human's causing them to collapse into a coma. When waking from his surgery he found himself looking into the buring fanatical eye's of Inquisitor Lova, who had witnessed the brawl where despite his injuries it required five men to actually pin Ivan down and throw him out.

Private First Class Kirk Lam

Kirk is a recent recuit to the Cadian Army. He became attached to Inquisitor Lova, in unknown circumstances during the 'Eye of Terror' campagain. Neither man talks about what happened the night Lova introduced Lam to the other members of his escort, but it is widely rumoured that it might have something to do with a long running, seemingly friendly set of bets Lova has with Ursarker Creed.

Pysker Regius Krumb

Another member of Lova's escort which he has aquired from Ursarker Creed. Krumb has an ability to see true into the hearts of men, for even the slightest hint of corruption. A skill Lova values most highly, even if it strays dangerously close to hersey itself. Maybe because of this Krumb is a quiet man, saying little and smiling even less.

Continued Inquisitor Band

2009-09-10T14:34:00.000+01:00

Sorcha Ikald

Sorcha was freed from a death warrent put out on her by the Enforcers of Necromunda Hive Primus after a particularly brutal shoot out between Gang Escher and themselves. It was rumoured that her heavy stubber accounted for five enforcers and an equal amount of cyber-mastifs. When pushed on the matter, Sorcha just says that "she's more a cat person"

'Wild' Joe Johnson

A freed slave from the pits of Necromunda Hive Primus, Joe has a wild temper and an eye for the ladies, something Lova does not particularly agree with, but is willing to overlook due to Joe's ability with his pistol. One of Joe's tasks in the depths of Necromunda was keeping the rat population under some measure of control, combined with the darkness in the depths and his razor sharp hearing, his ability to aim true is almost supernatural. He's latest target though is Sorcha, something she's not too happy about.

2009-08-04T13:59:00.000+01:00

Finished the gold.

It was basecoated with scorched brown, followed by a highlight with 50:50 scorched brown:burnished gold, followed by 50:50 burnished gold: mitril silver. The gold was then given a final wash of Leviathan Purple

The skin was given a basecoat of Vallejo Game Colour Dark Fleshtone.

2009-08-01T09:59:00.000+01:00

An updated picture of Aldebrand. I gave the metals a second wash with Badab Black, followed by some Orygn Flesh, and finally some Thraka Green. Highlighted a second time with Boltgun Metal followed by Mithril Silver.

I made a start with the headband, just adding the green banding, as well as adding the basecoat to the hawk with Chardaon Granite.

Detailing of the metal next, must come up with a good gold recipe! And I still can't make out with the detail on the right shoulder paint or the breastplate is! There is a scroll on the breastplate but whats above it i don't know, maybe a cherub?

Aldenbrand Ludenhof WiP

2009-07-29T14:02:00.000+01:00

Inital metal and red work on the Hochland Elector Count

Lamenters army Progress

2008-06-29T16:09:00.004+01:00

I haven't posted an entry on here for a while, and I must counteract that a bit.

The Lamenters army is proceeding at pace, and I have most of the army painted now. Its currently standing at 1400pts, so only 600pts to go and with only three units left to paint I can see the 2000pt finish line. So onto some pictures

This is the unit I painted this month, a ten man assualt squad.
and when this unit is pictured with the rest of the army, my army currently looks like this

The limit for this competition is 2000pts as I have said, but I did a little bit of a stock take of my current amount of models and I do have enough models to reach about 3000pts. I also have my eye on the upcoming 5th edition 40k box set which gives a huge amount of mini's for a reasonable price, both marines and orks. So I will pick that up in the future.

Now onto the next Lamenters unit which I think is going to be the second devastator squad, and I must also continue to paint my madpuppet gobbo for the swap with Andre.

Thats it for the moment, I'll hopefully post again soon.

Knowing me thepaintingpauper, knowing you............

2008-01-28T23:26:00.000Z

This is the leader of my Lamenter Space Marine Army I am painting up at the moment. I am currently taking part in a competition on LO to paint a 2000pt army in 10 months. This is the third month of the competition and things are coming along nicely. I'm happy enough with how he turned out but with all deadlines he had to be rushed a bit to be finished as I don't have time over the next couple of days to finish him of fully. I think he is a perfectly good tabletop standard and have just given him a coat of Testors dull coate. For the moment thats it! I'm moving onto a squad of Devastators for next month as well as working on some Tomb King skellies for the WoM competition, a human bloodbowl team member and an Ork Warboss.

All this and having to start to focus on the writing of a transfer! Am I mad or what? Answers on a postcard please.

The Start!

2008-01-22T00:12:00.000Z

So here I am, internets!

Its not my first blog but this is something that I will hopefully continue for the foreseeable future. My life my not be hugely interesting, and for people who may stumble across this little part of the Internet it may not hold a lot of value. I can see in a couple of years (if I continue that long!) that it may be interesting for me to come back here and have a look at what I was thinking and feeling at the time of writing.

Now, its quite late at night and I don't want to stay up to late as I'm going to Limerick tomorrow for an exhibition my brother is taking part in. It's his first ever public showing of his art and we are all really excited. I hope it goes well, no doubt I will update this blog with the story at a future date and hopefully with pictures!

So finally Vincent, what do you hope to achieve and do with this blog? To maybe write down interesting stories and thoughts that happen or occur to me. Keep a diary of video games I've been playing with maybe a review post of each one I've finished. But mainly I think (and the name of the blog might give this away) is to post the work I am doing on whatever miniature I might be painting or working on at the time, along with thoughts, paint schemes, techniques and anything else that comes to mind.

Mind you I hope to link this site to other websites that I frequent to maybe generate some traffic through this places dusty halls. But even if that does not happen I think as a resource for me to refer back to, it will hopefully serve a purpose.

Right that's it for now, the first blog post over and done with!

Vinny