A detailed account of my various commission/hobby projects.
Warhammer 40,000 – 8th edition continues to shine as my group tries playing through various size battle and themes to see what we like best in 8th. I've owned Fantasy Arc's Bug Hunt Corridors for some time now and I will eventually complete all the parts I have so i can justify picking up some of his cool new rooms and specialty corridors.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – Eighth Edition 40K still seems to be a hit with my group. Each week we've had a four player team game trying out different styles of play. This week we put a restriction of 2,000 point battle forged armies with no "titanic" models. The idea being that we'd see how things work with focusing on the more standard units. We rolled off to determine teams and then followed the rule book to set up a standard Maelstrom of War Mission.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – Having played a few games of the new edition of 40K my gaming group decided to do a large battle bringing all out big toys to the table to see how they work in this edition. Initially it was going to be 6,000 points per side but one of the players had to bail so we dropped it down to a 4,000 point per side team game.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – With the games I've played so far in the new edition of Warhammer 40,000 I'm really happy with how things have worked out so far. There's still a bit of lag mostly due to looking for things that were in previous editions. Getting you're head around the whole, "Does it say anything about that on the 8 pages of rules, or on the unit's data slate? No, then it's not a thing" can cause some minor disputes about things that aren't really a thing.
Read MoreRandom - When it gets to be over 80 degrees outside, I tend to want to hide in the basement. It's cool and comfortable and I have plenty of projects to work on. (That's not to say I don't mind being outside I just prefer the temp to be in the 60-70 degree range with low humidity.)
My hobby area every so often becomes unusable. With the number of projects I have going at any given time things tend to pile up and consume the usable space I have. Most of the time I paint on a tray in the living room so I can hang out with the family while I work, but some projects need to spread out, are stinky or are better worked on in seclusion.
In an effort to make the space more functional I moved around the drawing boards and computer which made a huge mess. The area under the boards as well as on top of them, and the shelves I put up to organize things was cluttered with so much stuff I had to start pitching things.
I tend to collect things (no it's not hoarding) anticipating that I use them in a project or I'll find a good deal while working on a project and stock up on things I need. When the project is done or I move on to something else all that excess goes into a bin and gets put on a stack. Eventually the stacks take up all the available space and things start to get stacked on any flat area. (Sound familiar?) At that point finding or remembering what's in the bottom bins becomes difficult and occasionally I'll buy more of something I know I have but I can't find. The semi annual purge should help to solve that problem.
My other issue is I cast lots of things. With a mold sometimes you just need a single part but its nearly impossible to mix up the exact right amount of resin. The other thing is with resin you get lots of miscasts that can't be melted down, but you might be able to use them for something. That might be able to use for something eventually turns into boxes of random plastic/resin bits that are so full you can't find anything. Once again the semi-annual purge helps with that. Armed with a box of baggies I proceeded to go through every box of bits and sorted them out by type and threw out any miscasts or random bits that "might be useful" he process was painful but now I know what I have.
It took an entire Saturday just to move and sort out most of the junk but the end result is a more functional area. My next goal is to set up the airbrush station so I can focus on getting some of my terrain sets completed. Once I'm comfortable with painting terrain with the airbrush I plan on modifying my painting technique to include airbrushing. From what I've seen it can help to get the base colors down quick and do some basic highlights easily, so long as you're working in big batches and not having to break it down after each model.
Board Games - After wrapping up the monsters for Shadows of Brimstone, I had four heroes to get painted up. These are pretty standard western tropes: The Gambler, The Sheriff, The Saloon Girl and the Bandido.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 - Regular readers will know I have a terrible time following my own projects to completion. Commission work I breeze through in record time and can easily crank out a massive force in a few weeks, but when it comes to my own models I have shelves of things that got three colors to get to the table and I never quite got around to finishing them (Looking at you Space Marine Chapter...)
Read MoreBoard Games - When it comes to board games with miniatures there are two – three distinct varieties. First is the pre-assembled or single piece miniature. These pass the "Christmas Morning Test" meaning you don't have to do anything other than open the box to get started playing. The second type are snap together, these models require a little assembly but not necessarily glue or filler to get them in a playable state. The last type requires some significant modeling, gluing and filling just like a standard tabletop miniature game. My current board game project, Shadows of Brimstone falls into that last category.
Read MoreMy painting table is going to be a bit of a mis-mash of things for a little while. I've had several clients drop off big jobs that hit many different parts of the gaming spectrum. In the weeks to come I'll be working on:
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 - Drones and suits; suits and drones. I've been doing quite a bit of both of these lately. The newest additions to the Tau force I'm painting for a client are a Commander, Ghost Keel, and Stormsurge (As well as the associated drones). These will be joining the other units I've painted previously.
Read MoreBoard Games - It's taken me a bit longer than usual to wrap up the heroes for Scythe. The detail on them is a little soft so it took a bit more to get me motivated to put them on the painting table to finish up. Don't get me wrong the models are great they're just smallish so the faces weren't the most fun to paint. It didn't help that in the same batch I have a bunch of Shadows of Brimstone and The Others to paint. (both of which are more forgiving and easier to paint).
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 - Eighth Edition Warhammer 40,000 is out! With the rules that have leaked out so far I've had several clients bring by units that they never would have used in previous editions to get painted up to match their existing forces. Being able to assault out of reserve is a big deal and the Tyranids have a cool burrowing horror that can do just that, it can also bring along another unit to join the party. This seems like a pretty strong option, hence I have a Terragon on my table waiting for the purple and white of Hive Fleet Leviathan.
Warhammer 40,000 - The next batch of Daemons is done. These are part of an economy commission I'm doing for one of my clients. It's a fairly simple "three color" scheme that's meant to look messy and gross.
To get the effect I start with a olive drab basecoat. I then paint any of the metal either brass or gunmetal. A quick dry-brush of an almost neon green pulls out the details and adds a interesting texture to the metal bits. I then got into the mouths, pustules and wounds on the models with a light pink, which is pretty jarring looking at this point. To tie the while model together and tone down the super bright colors I do a full wash of Crimson. This fills in the recesses, tones down the color and makes everything look infected and sore. Once the wash dries I dot the eyes with neon yellow and pick out the teeth and horns with ivory.
At this point these are done to and economy standard. If I was painting these to a higher level I'd do some pale yellow highlights, add some washes of purple, yellow and green to really bring out that infected look and probably add some Nurgle's Rot and Blood for the Blood God Technical paint. I have a feeling when my client has his characters ready I'll be taking them up a notch.
Warhammer 40,000 - Here's another piece for my mining industrial terrain set. At this point it's playable but no where near done with painting. My goal with this set was to get it together, base coated and washed as fast as possible so I could get it on the table to play Shadow War: Armageddon. Now that 8th edition has released I'm thinking I'll get back to this project after I finish the Genestealer Cult army that is supposed to match this terrain set.
I stopped working on my own armies to focus on terrain until the rule set was released and I could confirm what I was working o was still playable.
Warhammer 40,000 - I've enjoyed almost every edition of Warhammer 40,000. (with the exception of fourth when I experimented with warmahordes briefly). With every edition change you tend to have some things you miss and other things you can't understand why it didn't always work this way. You also tend to see corrections to rules that posed a problem in the previous editions. As such shooting, assault, psychic phase and vehicles have all experienced a time when they were amazing followed by a time where they were almost irrellevant. Not only did phases of the game become more or less relevant but codexs varied in power level based on when in the release cycle they came out. In addition you had lots of rules that were shoehorned into and existing game that didn't make sense. Each time you'd get a significant outcry because something broke the game and events would make up their own rules to "fix" the edition. It was inevitable that the game needed a hard reset with all armies starting out on the same floor as far as power level and points cost.
So far I'm loving the new edition. The rules are simple and easy to follow. The biggest problem I've seen is "remembering" prior editions and many of the weird interactions just don't exist. Cover being nothing but a +1 to your armor save makes it simple and a definitive "is your model infantry is is standing on cover?" is much better than arguing over if they're in or not.
The varied movement stats give each army it's own personality and feels less forced. I love the fixed BS and WS tied to each unit and the simplified to wound chart makes so much more sense. (Even though it's similar to the old one, not having a cap gives more variation).
I'm looking forward to playing more games a will probably do a series of article discussing the evolution on my lists. Right now I'm planning on focusing on Genestealer Cult for this edition. Once they're painted and I'm happy with a few list variations I'll go back to working on my Space Marines. The Night Lords are getting shelved for the moment as I'm a bit bitter about having a cool Legion book for six months and now being back to ground zero.
Warhammer 40,000 - Forgeworld makes some beautiful stuff. The chapter/legion specific doors are a great way to add some additional character to your transports and give them that little extra pop.
Read MoreBoard Games - Scythe is a new board game that features steampunk robots and cool characters with animal companions. It's set in the 1920's in an alternate reality just after World War I. One of my regular board game clients just dropped these off to me to have painted. Her primary request was to make the robots look beat up and mostly metal with chipping paint and grime.
Read MoreBoard Games - Sometimes you get the coolest effects without planning on it. My latest batch of board game bits comes from the Greed expansion for The Others: Seven Sins. For those of you unfamiliar with the game it pits Hellboy-esque agents of FAITH against the otherworldly threat of The Others. It's a bit Cthulu-esque mixed in with the traditional Seven Deadly Sins. The core box gets you two of the major sins with their minions and the other five sins are available individually.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 - This is the third part of my series about building terrain for a winter themed mining complex. My goal is to get a full table built and playable as quickly as possible to take advantage of the excitement my group has about SWA at the moment. More detail will be added to these pieces at a later date.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 - This is the second article in my series about building a winter themed mining complex for Warhammer 40,000 and Shadow War: Armageddon. You can read the first part here.
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