On the Painting Table ... The Tyrant's Legion Returns

Warhammer 40,000 – My client the previously had me paint up a Tyrant's Legion Army in his own custom color scheme has recently come across a great deal on a Catchatan Jungle Fighter army. This included not only a boatload of troops but several tanks, sentinels and a Baneblade. The amount he paid for them is pretty ridiculously low (let's just say only double digits).

So he has asked me to paint these up to match his existing force so he can mix and match the models creating a very ramshackle look and feel to his army when he needs to. It also will give his two unique forces that can be paired together for Apocalypse games.

The first batch he's given me is a unit of Ogrun and command elements. These are pretty fun models to paint. I'm happy with how I've worked his existing color scheme into the jungle fighter uniform. I think if he mixes these models in with the great coat models he'll have a force that looks uniform enough to be a cohesive force but varied enough to play up the chaotic bent that the Tyrants Legion has.

Once these are finished I have several tanks that need to get a fresh coat of paint.

Water, Water Everywhere ...

Random – If you've ever had a water heater fail on you then you know my pain. Recently I came home to find my daughter complaining about no hot water in the house. Thinking the pilot light went out I made a trip down to the basement to check things out. 

Much to my dismay I heard a gushing sound and noticed a large pool of water creeping under my entertainment center and gaming table. I quickly turned off the water and began the tedious task of shop-vaccing the and toweling up the mess. 

Luckily several of my friends are handy and own trucks and tools. (Something I should probably invest in at some point, pin vices, exacto blades and dremels don't get you far with real work) After a few frantic texts and calls I was able to recruit my buddy Dan to help me out. 

After two trips to Home Depot and several trips up and down the stairs with a dolly. My home once again has hot water. The resulting mess has however caused a delay on several of the commissions I'm working on and has necessitated a reimagining of the layout in the basement to get the electronics away from the drains.

On the painting table ... Nurse

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Malifaux – The final portion of my trip back through the breach is to paint up two nurses for a McMorning crew. These are pretty simple models that are easy to assemble as they are one piece sculpts. And while I like them they do look a little manish and I'd be keen to take a look at the 2E plastic versions if I every got back into playing the game.

I did sculpt and cast a pair of tile bases for these which is nice to have another 30mm round lip base set available that will fit into multiple systems. 

On the painting table ... Stompy Robots

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Warhammer 40,000 – Thump, Thump, Thump stomping onto my painting table is a "standard" Dark Angel Dreadnought. This piece should be about the end of this commission as I believe my client has just about every option he may need built and painted for this force.

It looks like he built this using a few parts from various kits. Painting Dreadnoughts is always interesting because so much of the model is gunmetal. I like painting these parts as it's really easy and looks great when it's done. I've just started blocking in the colors on this and will follow the same process as I've done in the past with these Dark Angels models.

In other stompy robot news I did have a chance to pick up and assemble one of the Knight Titans. This is a very impressive kit, however I won't go on and one about it as every other blog on the internet has already beat this one to death. It's a shame there weren't more options in the kit but for what you get it is a pretty substantial model. (Although my Reaper Cthulu is the same size and signifcantly bulkier than this and it only cost me $15 ... so your mileage may vary)

I'm working on a base to match my space marines as this particular unit will join up with them more often than not when I need access to a Rapid Fire Battle Cannon and Strength-D Close Combat option. It fills a unique hole in my forces and I'm looking forward to trying it out first hand on the tabletop soon.

I'm not sure if I'm going to opt for one of the Studio Paint Schemes on this to match up with the decals included with the kit or if I'm going to develop my own Freeblade Knight with his own backstory. With all the other stuff I need to wrap up it might be a while before I can make a decision on the paint.

Building Droppods

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Warhammer 40,000 – So for Christmas I received six drop pods up until now they sat safely tucked away in their shrink-wrap. During a brief lull in my commission work (while waiting for the primer to dry) I sat down and tried to build one of these. 

Back when drop pods were first introduced as a transport option for marines I had built a bunch of paper models out of cardstock and foamcore. These have served me well up until this point as they serve their purpose and are about the same size as the plastic model. Of course the doors don't open and they don't look quite as nice but during games I was more concerned with function over form. 

Now that I'm slowly completing this army I decided I should have the real model. 

Assembly for these was pretty simple and the first one I built went together well. The doors do seem to be an issue so I'm going to look into how to make them stay shut and only open when I want them to.

I still need to add the Raven iconography to the exterior of the pod but over-all I really like how they look and can't wait to get the rest built up to use in my games.

It will be nice to have the official models on the tabletop finally. Although I will miss my fourth edition paper stand-ins.

Deadzone ... Model Building

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Deadzone – After such a stretch of 40K I need a break on the hobby end of things so I decided to start putting together the contents of my Deadzone Strikeforce bundle. All the little plastic baggies in this remind me of the original Super Dungeon box set. The models go together the same way round peg round hole, weird t-shaped peg weird t-shaped hole; so putting them together is pretty easy if you only open one bag at a time (a lesson I learned from the Super Dungeon Box).

Clean-up on the other hand is a pain. The mold lines and sprue pegs on theses models are pretty nasty, even those most of them come "de-sprued" you're still going to need your side cutters and x-acto blade. I started meticulously cleaning these models and got frustrated enough that I just glued some together. It's probably going to be harder to clean them up post-assembly but at least I was able to see some progress.

Other than the weird placement of some of the mold lines (really the middle of a dude's face is the best spot for this?) the models are pretty nice. The details look a little soft in some of the models but I have a feeling once paint is applied they'll look really nice. I haven't decided if I'm going to go all out with these or treat them more like a board game. The rules and size of the play area seem to lean more in the board game direction so I might just get them to tabletop quality and be done with it.

When it was all said and done I was only missing one arm and had a few broken arms/blades. Which isn't too bad when you consider that the models were just packed in plastic bags thrown loose into a giant box and shipped from China or wherever they were cast and packed. 

Metro League Updates

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Malifaux – The metro league has been in full swing. Currently wrapping up week 4 and moving into the final week of the league. 

I tried something different with this league, making a 3 game max with your average determining your score for the week. This system allows players to play multiple games but doesn't penalize players that can only get in one game per week.

To encourage the story driven aspect of the game, players that submit a write-up with photos can earn an extra league VP to be added into their average. Players that do this can put in a little extra effort and are rewarded for it. In the battle report section you can read some of the stories/reports players have submitted.

Special thanks to Jeff E. [mrhobbito] for snapping some photos of Lord Chompy terrorizing the showgirls.