Week 30 - French Fleet Ready For Action

Another week down and time just keeps on ticking... So this week I have wrapped up the last 6 models in my Dystopian Wars French fleet, only a week late, no less. I have to say that I am rather sick of painting this colour scheme now, that initial coat of white spray really didn't do me any favours. The paint just tries to pool together on the primer, this was most noticeable on the black wash over the whole model, which is what causes the mottled effect on the large white sections. I just dry brushed white back over this which gives the effect on all of the models now. I'm not certain I like it but it is far too late to do anything now!

I did notice that some cool new models are coming for the French in September. I may be inclined to paint this scheme again by then, we will have to wait and see. The full size airborne battleship does look quite nice, I must admit.

To make sure I hit that minimum number of models per week I finished up the test model for my Abyssal Dwarves. But as I was sorting out all of my KickStarter goodies I noticed that I had used the wrong base size! The golems are supposed to be on 50x50mm bases, I had used a 40x40mm base. So that is why it is suddenly base-less after my last update. I am also considering changing the basing style as I wasn't completely happy with the prototype. More on that in the coming weeks.

So my focus for the next couple weeks is finishing up the terrain that the club has paid me to do, that is why I have been a little slack this week. Although I have got 6 Robot Jacks painted up for Dreadball, they are just waiting for me to varnish them, which I prefer to do with larger model counts, since it ruins a brush. I have also been keeping myself busy on lunch breaks, I can trim mould lines from about 1 golem per day over lunch. I have prepared two in the last week (I was still trimming up Robots before that.) and figure I can get about four done on average. So in three weeks I may have all of my golems trimmed and built, a solid start indeed! In the mean time I have 7 Infinity models on my table, begging to be worked on... (Yes, if you look back I only had five models a couple weeks ago... I bought two more, ok?)

Speaking of terrain heavy games I decided that I need to make/gather enough terrain for playing such Sci-Fi games. To do this I need an overall theme and a pretty solid plan. I would like to make a full terrain board set because those always seem to look better than just scattered terrain pieces. Then, if I want to go totally crazy, it would be nice to have it painted and ready for Rallypoint, as a demo table, since I doubt I will be playing Warmachine or Flames of War. With everything else going on this may be unattainable, at least to the standard of table I want to try and make. Two months is a long time, I still have to finish off over 100 models! I need a really good plan, that is for sure.

I also finally got an air compressor. Having had an airbrush for years, it is about time. Except that now I still don't have the necessary hose! Arg! The only hoses I have managed to find so far come with an air brush... I need to look around some more and talk to some other guys but I may end up having to get a second air brush just to use the one I have...

Day 209
262/209 Painted/Days passed
262/366 Painted/Target (71.6%)
50/50 Dreadball: Season 1(100%)
6/6 Mercs - Kezai Wazza (100%)
71/71 Zombicide! (100%)
31/31 Dystopian Wars - Republique of France (100%)
32/40 Blindwater Congregation (80.0%)
6/15 Malifaux - Kirai Crew (40.0%)
18/55 Dreadball: Season 2 (32.7%)
21/89 Forge Fathers (23.6%)
26/150 Corporation Marines (17.3%)
1/85 Kings of War - Abyssal Dwarves (1.2%)
0/102 Veer-myn (0.0%)
0/8 Khador (0.0%)
0/35 Protectorate of Menoth (0.0%)
0/9 Malifaux - Mei Feng Crew (0.0%)
0/7 Infinity - Haqqislam (0.0%)
0/21 Death Korps of Krieg (0.0%)
With more to come...

Immortals Convention Review

So I promised a review of the weekend, so here it is. There were some issues at the setting up stage but once we got everything in and organised the venue looked pretty good. That is about where it all went down hill. Attendance was not good. It seems the clash with Panzershrek and Board Games Round the Bays really hurt us. Many people who said they would come didn't show. The Dystopian Wars league, having mostly petered out anyway, didn't happen. Neither did the Apocalypse game, or even any real 40K games.

The Warmachine tournament was reasonably well attended and was enjoyed by those who were playing. But once it was over the players all cleared out, rather than trying other things. Both days we closed up at 6pm, despite having the place until midnight.

I know I sound harsh. But this was my event, a flagship experiment for future large club gaming days. So if I rip myself to shreds I can't get torn apart by others criticisms, right? However, overall the experiment was successful. (Experiments rarely fail in science, as long as you learn something from it.)

If I hadn't been as optimistic about the numbers, rented fewer tables, (We only set up 20 of the 40 rented and only really used 15 of those.) hired one of the smaller rooms and only until 5:30pm we would have broken even quite easily. I am writing up a report for the club exec, outlining the performance and with suggested improvements, so that we can decide if we want to run another one. The general feeling of the exec who attended was that it is still worth trying again, just with a view grounded in experience.

I should clarify: I consider the event to have floundered because of MY choices and actions, nobody else's. A big thanks to Mark One for advertising the event, along with others who spread the word. Now I am armed with knowledge and experience, the next one will be better.

I manned the door for most of the weekend, so I haven't got any photos. It also means I didn't get to play much but that is the curse of the organiser. Tune in this weekend for our regularly scheduled painting progress!

Week 29 - All Systems Go!

A quick post before the weekend, just to cover what I have finished this week. I managed to clean and paint up a team of 8 Zzor, ready for playing should I get the time. The last 2 will have to wait, I wasn't able to make much of a start on either the Robots or Judwan in time either. I have also finished up the final DW Cruiser, getting that full unit of 3 ready to go. Pictures are below.

I now have to frantically organise and pack everything for the weekend! I just hope it all fits in the car... I played a game of Warpath on Monday to get used to the rules. The game was quite fun, we really got into the swing of it, despite me forgetting how some of the rules went. I have a printout for the weekend though so am all set now. The Iron Ancestor is a very tough nut to crack, he may have to get left behind for balance issues during the demo's. Corporation seem to need to leverage their numbers against the Forge Fathers, which is hard to do with just the models at hand. It is just for demo's though, I'm sure it will all be fine.

The Dystopian Wars league seems to have fizzled out a bit, which is a shame. It has let me get most of it painted up though so I may as well try and finish it up next week. I'm thinking it is best that I try and finish up some more projects with my last 110 or so models for the challenge.

With just 60 models between Blindwater, Kirai's Crew, Dreadball S2 and Dystopian Wars it will feel pretty good to have 7 completed projects in a year. That will leave me with about 50 models to go, so I would ideally like to finish up another medium sized project. The temptation to do my Abyssal Dwarf army is quite strong, I have to admit! I have got 15 Golems and 40 Gargoyles on hand, and would inevitably want to use some of my Slave Orcs I have from earlier purchases (number currently unknown...) and there are another 11+ models on the way in a month or so. It would be the smallest KOW army I am able to field while still filling up points but probably not the most competitive!

The alternative is my Forge Fathers, who are about the right number as well. Decisions, decisions... I'm of course glossing over the two new sets of Zombicide arriving in the next month. The Toxic City Mall expansion should be about the right size too...

Day 200
255/200 Painted/Days passed
255/366 Painted/Target (69.7%)
50/50 Dreadball: Season 1(100%)
6/6 Mercs - Kezai Wazza (100%)
71/71 Zombicide! (100.0%)
25/31 Dystopian Wars - Republique of France (80.6%)
32/40 Blindwater Congregation (80.0%)
6/15 Malifaux - Kirai Crew (40.0%)
18/55 Dreadball: Season 2 (32.7%)
21/89 Forge Fathers (23.6%)
26/150 Corporation Marines (17.3%)
0/102 Veer-myn (0.0%)
0/8 Khador (0.0%)
0/35 Protectorate of Menoth (0.0%)
0/9 Malifaux - Mei Feng Crew (0.0%)
0/5 Infinity - Haqqislam (0.0%)
0/21 Death Korps of Krieg (0.0%)
With more to come...

Week 28 - Time Running Out

So here we are, just one week away from the Hamilton Immortals Gaming Weekend. With this in mind I have been busily working away on various projects. I only managed to finish up 2 of the Dystopian Wars Cruisers but I did finish up 6 more tiny fliers. This leaves me with 5 tiny fliers, 1 cruiser and the carrier for my French fleet. I finished up my test model for Kirai's Crew really quickly so decided to do another 5! This gives me a set of 5 Seishin and Lost Love ready for the table. Pictures are below.

With these done I had to work on some of the 'finished' projects, like the Corp Marines. After some research into what others had done for jungle/forest bases I decided to go a bit more muted than my original concept. Some of the research turned up some heavily covered bases making the models far less visible and could look quite gaudy. Below is an example of how I am doing my heavy weapon teams.

Of course I need some terrain for Warpath and seeing as most of mine is a steampunk or fantasy style I need new terrain. Luckily some time ago I found some papercraft shipping containers online, so a quick trip to Warehouse Stationary and some card and tape later I have some sturdy LOS blocking terrain. I still have 9 more to build before the weekend but they only take about 15 minutes each. You may like the corporate logos...

I printed 10 different styles in this size crate.

Lastly I have a work in progress of a Kings of War Lesser Obsidian Golem. I couldn't resist building one and once I got the jade colour scheme down for Kirai's Crew I made some tweaks for the golem. I went for lighter colour on the golem and added pale edges for the cracks. As jade varies in colour quite significantly it was quite easy to find references that showed similar effects. I still have to finalise how I will do the metal armour plates and fiddle with the lighting effect in the stomach cavity. (Unfortunately this isn't visible in the photo...)

As for next week, well I may get a couple models done before the weekend but then its all gaming! Next weeks blog post will likely be late. I will also try and get up some photos from the happenings and some mini battle reports. In the mean time I have to get everything organised and packed!

Day 195
246/195 Painted/Days passed
246/366 Painted/Target (67.2%)
50/50 Dreadball: Season 1(100%)
6/6 Mercs - Kezai Wazza (100%)
71/71 Zombicide! (100.0%)
32/40 Blindwater Congregation (80.0%)
24/31 Dystopian Wars - Republique of France (77.4%)
6/15 Malifaux - Kirai Crew (40.0%)
21/89 Forge Fathers (23.6%)
10/55 Dreadball: Season 2 (18.2%)
26/150 Corporation Marines (17.3%)
0/102 Veer-myn (0.0%)
0/8 Khador (0.0%)
0/35 Protectorate of Menoth (0.0%)
0/9 Malifaux - Mei Feng Crew (0.0%)
0/5 Infinity - Haqqislam (0.0%)
0/21 Death Korps of Krieg (0.0%)
With more to come...

Week 27 - Slow and Steady...

So another week down, what have I got to show you? I finished up a set of 5 tiny fliers and the two medium airships this week. There has been significant progress on another 5 tiny fliers but not much progress on the cruisers or carrier. I have revised the colour on the decking and that has been adjusted on all the finished models. Pics are below.

So the aim for this week is to finish some more tiny fliers and to try and make some progress on either the carrier or cruisers. I also lowered the height of the cruisers stands and set in the flight stands for the medium fliers above, which cracked the bases... Sigh.

I received the second shipment from the KOW kickstarter (in record time no less) and have been ogling the models ever since. My 'abyssal dwarf' army is almost completely in this shipment (less 5 gargoyles and a hero) giving me 15 lesser obsidian golems and 40 gargoyles. I have the colour scheme chosen already, I just have to get trimming mould lines and gluing models together. I also started prototyping the bases for the Corp marines. Once it dries and is tidied up I will post up pics. I also started a prototype for Kirai's crew, I'm going for a jade theme with glowy bits. The first prototype should be ready for next week, I am waiting for the wash to dry on the base before finishing up the details on it.

Day 188
232/188 Painted/Days passed
232/366 Painted/Target (63.4%)
50/50 Dreadball: Season 1(100%)
6/6 Mercs - Kezai Wazza (100%)
71/71 Zombicide! (100.0%)
32/40 Blindwater Congregation (80.0%)
16/31 Dystopian Wars - Republique of France (51.6%)
21/89 Forge Fathers (23.6%)
10/55 Dreadball: Season 2 (18.2%)
26/150 Corporation Marines (17.3%)
0/102 Veer-myn (0.0%)
0/8 Khador (0.0%)
0/35 Protectorate of Menoth (0.0%)
0/15 Malifaux - Kirai Crew (0.0%)
0/9 Malifaux - Mei Feng Crew (0.0%)
0/5 Infinity - Haqqislam (0.0%)
0/21 Death Korps of Krieg (0.0%)
With more to come...