Result! Man-o-war shocktroopers completed

I spent a handful of hours over the last three days pushing to get my Man-o-war Shocktroopers finished. Minus a few touch-ups, base markings and some ash waste over the sand, they are complete! I’m pleased with how they came out, though I’m still trying to figure out how much or how little to highlight, and where. I was much more judicious in the application of the purple wash over the reds, so it doesn’t look quite as slapdash as Llama the Ramma’s red areas. Next up in the painting queue is a jack, either a Juggernaut or a Spriggan. I’m leaning towards the knight in battered armour, but I digress. As usual, the photos are taken with seemingly random settings to ensure that none of them come out perfectly, but at least they’re not cell-phone snaps, right? Check out the results:

I think I will celebrate with a scotch (runs off to raid the stash). Ended up with Caol Ila 12 year. It has the brininess of all the Islays but with some of the sweeter notes I expect of a Highland malt. The finish is an odd blend of peat and some lingering flowery taste. This particular bottle has already scared off some non-scotch drinkers, but I find its hybrid nature growing on me. Cheers!

The long road to a painted collection

I’ve seen this going around on those internets, among the other warmachine bloggers, like @Gingerk1d on his blog GK-Workbench (post: http://gk-workbench.com/?p=3069) or @oconlan on his blog FarFarAway (post: http://www.farfaraway.org/blog/2011/03/23/painter-or-gamer/). Check out their painting progress – it’s impressive. Both of them are very skilled hobbyists so make sure to check out their old posts too. @oconlan posed the question “Painter or Gamer?” See if you can figure out which I am:

So…. yeah. I will use this as a badge of shame to drive me to paint more than my usual 10 models a year – I’ve already hit that this year between Blood Bowl models and Warmachine / Hordes stuff, maybe I’ll even hit 20 whole models! Painted! IN ONE YEAR! Start looking forward to 2037, when I finally catch up with my model-buying proclivities.

In other news, I put a couple of coats of red on the Man-o-war shocktrooper leader, as well as getting colour on his head and the chest emblems. Some washes and highlighting are all that remain, I’m going to try and get to that tonight. A pic will follow once he’s finished (and his savagely removed arm reattached, of course).

Cheers!

PS: The above image was generated using http://www.forwardkommander.com/. Great online tool for list building and managing your collection! If you haven’t checked it out, you owe it to yourself to do so.

Painting update: Shocktroopers WIP

Hey there internet. I know it’s been a while, but I want you to know I don’t hold it against you.

I have been engrossed in Dragon Age lately (first finishing Origins, then Dragon Age 2 that I received as a gift for my birthday) and this has detracted from my efforts to paint. Finally guilt overwhelmed me and I decided to spend a couple of hours paying attention to my semi-painted man-o-war shocktroopers. I have finally finished the base coat (with the exception of the head and emblems on the leader). Woo, progress!

I noticed that I had missed a few parts in crevices, particularly around the leader’s shoulder. In a fit of rage and superhuman strength, I tore off the offending arm and happily fixed up the wide missed swathes. Mental note: when I get to my second unit of shocktroopers, who are waiting patiently in their box, I will prime and paint them partially assembled. Things will probably go much faster!

Enough blathering, here are two cell-phone pics I snapped:

I always feel better when paint covers most of a model, but the dull red of the GW foundation red doesn’t really look great. You can see a fully red section on the shields to contrast. Hopefully I will find time tomorrow or this weekend to work on the red overcoat.

Until next time, internet. I’ll try not to leave you alone so long this time.

Spectating at Connection Games

I went down to Connection Games after work today to try and find an opponent for a league game, but I ended up the odd man out just when I arrived.  I got into spectating a game between Lawless Monk and a new player who had recently picked up some Skorne. As I got wrapped up in their game, I let a few opportunities to find an opponent slip by, so I was obviously content where I was.

The lists were a Skorne warpack (Morghoul, Titan Gladiator and twin Cyclops Savage), a Cyclops Brute and a unit of Immortals vs  Lawless Monk’s Borka, a Dire Troll Mauler, an Axer, a unit of Fennblades with attachment, Fell caller and a scribe-guy.

Lawless Monk very kindly put up with my repeated coaching of the new player (Craig…?  Crap – I got him to tell me his name twice and still forgot.  We’ll call him Mr. C), as he was having a few issues with the order of things.  Even though I wasn’t playing, it was actually pretty cool to watch someone pick up the mechanics and even some of the subtleties pretty well in just his second game.  Obviously Mr. C was no rookie gamer, but still, he was directing order of operations pretty well mid-way through the second turn.  Lawless Monk played pretty loose, such as popping Borka’s feat early when he was pretty sure things were at the limit of his range and just generally running models into the middle to make it a big hairy mess without worrying too much about getting the most out of his surprisingly nasty list.  Side note: Holy crap!  If I end up facing Fennblades, I’m going to remember they are crazy-go-nuts fast.  Particularly with Borka’s feat.

Watching (and coaching – sorry Lawless Monk!) also reminded me that while I’ve been frustrated with playing Hordes, Morghoul with a whole whack of beasts is pretty awesome. The game was a lot of back and forth, plenty of tough rolls were made – I think the trolls were running about 60% success near the end… Even with two units with vengeance on the table, there were plenty of whiffs, knockdowns etc.  A highlight was when the mauler charged from outside Morghoul’s feat area into it, hit the Gladiator with both attacks and the chain attack and successfully heaved the hephalump at Morghoul who was chilling by a rock column.  Another was when two cyclops with three fury each still made their frenzy checks despite Morghoul screaming at them to get angry.  Lots of chills, thrills and spills.

As I didn’t get a game in, I ended up leaving the store a little early and getting home in time to put a little work in on the Man-o-war shocktroopers.  I have the two grunts almost fully basecoated with just black trim on the shoulder pads and cleanup to do, then I can get to the red overcoat.  The leader needs a bit more work to get up to the same state as the others, but the unit is progressing all right.  The models will end up being pretty rough in some areas, but any colour on the models is better than none, right?  I mave a lot of bare metal to cover before I worry too much about the quality of my workmanship.  However, I have convinced myself to paint my second unit of Shocktroopers while they are still in pieces.

I’m thinking I will try and get a game in on Saturday. My itch to roll dice has not yet been scratched this week and the urge to order soldiers and warjacks to die for the motherland is rising.

Painting update – Shocktroopers

I had a busy start to this week, but I did manage to get some time Thursday to get a little painting in.  I sat down for an hour and put some red undercoat on two of the three Man-o-War Shocktroopers.  When I was at GottaCon I had two of the three Shocktroopers weapon arms come loose…  I wish I had waited to glue them back on.  Painting the crevices under the shoulder pads is tricky.  I also changed my mind on what colour I wanted to do the ends of the shoulder pads in between model 1 and 2.  It should be easy enough to fix though, as the colours I want to paint on are darker than the GW foundation red that went down yesterday.

On a mildly related note – I had something happen to me that has not ever happened before.  Hours after I had put the brushes down and seen to dinner, I was finally settling in on the couch with my PS3 controller in hand.  Despite having done some painting earlier in the evening, I still had that itch to do more.  I may have finally caught the painting bug for real…  We’ll see if it lasts. :)

This weekend I’m hoping to get some shattered grounds league games in at Connection Games.  I’m not sure if I’ll aim for Saturday or Sunday (maybe both???).  Hopefully I will also find time to put the red undercoat on the leader of the Man-o-War unit and fix up the colours on the other two, then snap some more work in progress shots of them.  While I am looking forward to getting the Shocktroopers done, I’m also eyeing my partially assembled Devastator and itching to get some colours on it.

Painting Update – Llama the Ramma finished, Shocktroop still in progress

As promised, I put in the few finishing touches on my marauder, “Llama the Ramma”.  I was experimenting with the macro close-up on my digital camera, there may be some pics that are a little strange, with a really shallow depth of field.  Also, I don’t have a light box, so the lighting is less than ideal.  But who cares!  I finished a jack!  Here’s what I did to finish up Llama.

• P3 Pig iron on the ram pistons wedge surfaces.
• P3 Quicksilver on the ram piston wedge leading edge.
• P3 Quicksilver on the rest of the rivets on the legs and shoulders.
• P3 Menoth white base then P3 Morrow White for the direct facing indicator and name.  Needed a couple of coats because of the purple underneath.
• Ash waste flock in patches on the base.

The shocktroopers just got pig iron on their feet, and I did the stacks, arms and piping of the third unit member.  I should also note that I picked up a second unit of Shocktroopers from Strategies Games.  Strategies was featured in a Groupon deal on Saturday, so I used the coupon I picked up on a new unit.  I’ll have to figure out how to differentiate the units visually.  I don’t want anything drastic, as I’d like to be able to run a full unit without the two extra grunts looking out of place, but if I’m running two minimum units with Butcher it would be good for my opponent to be able to easily tell the two apart. I suppose I should concentrate on finishing painting the first unit, though.  I’m getting ahead of myself.  ;)

Anyway, enjoy the pics.