A detailed account of my various commission/hobby projects.
Necromunda – When you think of Necromunda most likely the first thing you probably think of is a large man with a mohawk and big guns, which makes sense since it’s been the cover of 2 of the three rule books for the game. This burly individual is a Goliath, a vat-grown mound of muscle that serves the furnace works of the Hive. Big and brawny these guys are the 80’s stereotype bully/punk/jock.
Read MoreNecromunda – The gang houses of Necromunda all have a specialized role in the Hive, with that role they also have an ‘80’s stereotype that they’re based off from. Orlocks are the bikers. Tough as nails and in control of the caravans that traverse between the Hives they also control many of the slag mines.
Read MoreNecromunda – This year I’m going to try and focus on Necromunda. A few members of my regular group are going to get together once a month to play out a Dominion Campaign. Hopefully with getting together just once a month everyone will be able to play out the full campaign.
Read MoreBoard Games – I wrapped up what should be the last of the Zombicide Black Plague Expansions. This was a different kind of project because there were just so many models and several varying degrees of detail on the models
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – Apparently Chaos Space Marine Possessed are real good when combined with a Dark Apostle and Master of Possessions. Which of course means I have a bunch on them that crossed my painting table.
Read MoreNecromunda – This year I’m going to focus on getting all of my Necromunda collection painted. Which seems appropriate being the “Year of the Rat.” For the uninitiated Necromunda is a game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, however rather than focusing on large scale battles between armies it focuses more on the day-to-day struggle for power on the planet Necromunda. This planet is an industrial wasteland in which trillions of people live in massive Hives dotted across the toxic wasteland.
Read MoreMalifaux – It’s been awhile since I painted up any Malifaux models. Back when I started this site I was almost exclusively focused on this hor new game that used cards instead of dice.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – Incursors are one of my favorite Primaris Vanguard units. With a boatload of special rules they seem to be adapt at many roles. With concealed deployment they can push forward to grab objectives or slow down your opponent. The haywire mines let you set traps. Ignoring BS or to hit modifiers mean they can always shoot something and hit it effectively. Paired combat blades get them exploding sixes in close combat and they ignore cover. Somebody in the rules department has embraced the “power of and”.
Read MoreBoard Games – Nothing like starting the year off with a simple project. Last year I painted up several of the Zombicide: Black Plague sets. As with most games fo CMON this set is packed with a ton of miniatures (72 according to the box). The majority of those models are the zombie horde, but this set also includes some heroes and a siege engine.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – The sculpts for Blackstone Fortress continue to impress me. In the days of old push fit kits like these would have been rather flat and lacking in detail, no so anymore. Of course the trade-off for the dynamic poses these kits offer is the lack of customization.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – The Ambull has been part of 40K lore since Rogue Trader, a nasty creature that lives underground and has been found throughout the galaxy. Last year I read my son the “Warped Galaxies” book Claws of the Genestealer and was excited to see they worked the Ambull into that story.
Read MoreEvery year around this time I take a moment to look back on what I accomplish over the course of the past year and attempt to make some type of goal for the coming year. Inevitably, it’s a little bit of a let down to see that you failed in so many “goals.” The real question I ave to ask myself is did I actually “fail” or did my priorities change over the course of 365 days. What happened that I wasn’t able to complete my Night Lords, play a game of Batman, make a dent in my Space Marines or complete my Genestealer Cult?
Read More
Boardgames – I know nothing about this game. In fact I know so little that when I painted the core set I assumed they belonged to another game. But apparently it’s based off a video game that’s pretty popular, boardgamegeek has a decent summary here. The concept sounds intriguing and I might need to look into it further. These minis are from one of the expansions that introduces some additional options.
Board Games – Clank! is a pretty popular dungeon crawl style board game. As such there have been a few expansions for the game including the one I just painted for a client featuring characters from the popular web comic Penny Arcade.
The minis are pretty accurate depictions of the comic characters aside from the cleric who has this weird thing on his head. I can’t tell if it’s part of his hair, or an odd helmet, but in either case I’m not a fan. The other three look pretty amazing and I really enjoyed painting these up.
Warhammer 40,000 – Blackstone Fortress is a boxed game from Games Workshop that features some amazing miniatures. After the games release there have been supplemental rules release to include the models from this box in 40k armies as well as Kill Teams. I have not played the box game yet but the Kill Team rules aren’t bad and a few of the heroes are very good in Warhammer 40k. Having painted a complete set for a client, I’m eager to have some time to paint up my own set. The neat thing about this game is you can play it solo, which while lame to have to do it’s nice to have the option. One of the biggest drawbacks for the GW box set games and specialist games is the fact that if your group doesn’t jump in on one of the games it’s fairly difficult to find opponents. With my group there’s interest in playing but with a limited amount of time for gaming most people tend to focus on their big game.
There’s not a ton to say about these models they speak for themselves for the most part. The heroes are pretty amazing and the grunt models as just as cool.
Warhammer 40,000 – Space Marines, you seem to hear about them no matter what you listen to or read - which in my opinion is a good thing. As the iconic army of Warhammer 40,000 it’s great to see them getting the bump in power and subsequent bump in popularity. While the internet may cry foul and lament the fact that their force doesn’t get the love … I am reaping the rewards with my own army and loving just as much as my clients.
This time my Raptor client has embraced the current meta and sent over some new models for his force. The Raptors if you are unfamiliar are a successor of the Raven Guard. They got a special character in the Badab War books that used to make bolters sniper rifles if they stood still. With the indexes Lias got extra sneaky and able to make up to three mini-marine units deep strike with him. The go-to choice for me was Veterans squads with combi-weapons. Fast forward to the Raven Guard supplement and you now have multiple ways to set up turn one charges with any unit in your book. Suddenly my client needed some new models.
Assault Centurions, Jump Pack Chaplain, Jump Pack Librarian, Smash Captain on Bike, Chaplain Venerable Dreadnought and some bolter sergents/sternguard round out this batch. Between Warlord traits, prayers, Psychic powers and stratagems there are multiple ways to put those Centurions in someones face turn one. Even more fun is casting Shadow Step to dump a character into their lines, oh look at that Chaplain Dreadnought is a character, guess he doesn’t have to worry about walking across the board. Mixing this batch in with what I’ve painted for him previously is going to make somebody sad.
Painting on these guys is pretty basic olive green, wash and several highlights to take them to a higher end tabletop finish.
Warhammer 40,000 – Ultramarines are one of the solid choices when looking at the Space Marine Supplements. As the poster boys for the the last codex they were really one of the only competitive lists available from that book. Obviously when you’re the only faction to have a Primarch you’re going to have a slight edge. The new book toned them down in some aspects and beefed them up in others so they’ll still see plenty of play even if the other books have some more specialized power builds.
This time around my client picked up a Repulsor eExecutioner and some Phobos Marines to add to his ever growing force.
Warhammer 40,000 – My Death Watch client has nearly finished his army, at this point he’s sending over little bits and pieces to fill out what he has. That is until they give Death Watch access to all the Phobos stuff, is my guess.
This time around he sent over a Redemptor Dreadnought and a Razorback/Rhino. He’s one of those guys that loves his magnets so the tank can run as either the heavy bolter or lascannon variant as well as transforming into a humble rhino. I personally don’t have the patience to do this but it probably makes more sense than have a bagilion rhino chassis vehicles. Fun fact, he even magnetized the rear door – so yeah that meant painting the inside.
These follow the same process as the rest of his force, dark gray paint, black wash red casing details. For the tank I opted to paint the interior with a green glow. I did this for two reasons, first being painting the inside of an assembled tank sucks to get into with a brush. Second is that it looks cool.
Warhammer 40,000 - I’ve been sitting on this model for a little bit as my client opted for my no rush squeeze it in when I can option. This is mostly reserved for friends or long-standing clients. If there’s no rush and I can squeeze the models in when I’m working in a similar color scheme or when I need a break from a grindy job I offer a slightly discounted rate. Of course lately it seems every client has been in a rush so many of these “when you get to it” jobs have been pushed to the back of the line. As I expect a flood of models in the last portion of the year I’m trying to grind through this backlog before the next wave crests.
The Knight Castellan has seen some ups and downs since its release but in my opinion it’s still a huge threat. Especially in less competitive friendly games this thing can be the bane of many forces. I’ve painted a number of models for this client and he has a custom logo that he’s worked into all of his Imperial Forces. THe background he has for his force is loosely based on the Astral Claws/Red Corsairs. This gives him a great excuse to mix forces and try out different house/doctrines/traits having a custom color scheme he’s unlikely to get flak for his personal backstory. Essentially a Chapter Master declaring his own little fiefdom in the Imperium Nihilus, wich has happened many times in the official fluff so it’s not to far of a stretch.
Kingdom Death – Slowly but surely i’m working my way through all of my clients expansion packs for Kingdom Death. Once you’ve played through the core game there are a ton of expansions that add new monsters and encounters, most of them slot into a particular Lantern Year and replace one of the core monsters. If you manage to defeat the monster and harvest the right materials it gives your settlement access to some new tools and gear you can craft. It’s a pretty elegant system for incorporating new material.
I haven’t personally played with this monster yet but based on the model and accessories that come with it It appears the Flower Knight may have some type of musical theme. As with the other knights there is also several weapons included on the sprue to deck out survivors with new gear.
