Wednesday, August 19, 2009

A Jack of Hell Trades...

Well I know I have been a little remiss in getting updates posted...

As I had previously posted I was going to Utah to do a presentation...well due to a colossal fuck up of weather in Chicago and lack of flights to Salt Lake City I ended up sitting in the Buffalo airport for 6 hours and then going home...no trip to Utah. In the end it did not bother me that much because I don't like flying. So...I did my presentation over the phone which was really weird because I like doing presentations and that personal touch was missing.

In any event, I put my new found time at home to good use and worked on my Helljack...although not complete I am really happy about how it is turning out. I bought a new brush specifically recommended to me for Dry Brushing and let me tell ya...its great. On top of it I am becoming more comfortable with that teeny tiny little detail brush...anyway...here are some pics!!





I also have purchased some ink washes but I have learned my lessons...
  1. get all the base coats done.
  2. Then do the highlighting and color adjustments.
  3. Then fix all the little mistakes you made in step 2
  4. Then review the whole thing very very very thoroughly
  5. Then ink wash
  6. Then clear coat
As Segrig pointed out I am still a "newbie" to this whole model thing but that is the point isn't it...I share my mistakes and lessons learned so other generations of newbies can learn from it.

As Segrig has mentioned we are off to Wilbur's cottage tomorrow and for the weekend...gonna be a couple of days of rain YAY!! that means lots of board games and my wife cannot tell me to go outside and play with the kids...hahahaha sucker!

Will post pics and game reviews when we get back

Happy gaming everyone!!!

just as an update....

we leave for our little vacation tomorrow, and everyone involved is very excited. theweathernetwork.ca is predicting some rain, but that is all the more reason to play board games! (even though that wont keep us out of the lake anyways...) we are going to leave really early to maximize our time. hopefully it is not SO early that Xevs wont be able to read over the warmachine rulebook in my car. im not super familiar with the rules and we will hopefully be able to make a post about the learning process and how easy/difficult the game is to learn/play.

AND WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY:

i would like to announce that i managed to complete my own challenge: completed painting of my battlebox. (cygnar for life.)





i know Xevs was unable to do so, and i totally understand. afterall he has a lot more distractions at home and i have been off work for a week. i figured that if i was willing to issue the challenge i should put my money where my mouth is. it also kept me motivated to finish. (as my was original intention of the challenge and starting a blog) i'm also hoping that seeing my finished models will give Xevious a little motivation as well.

anyways,

wish us luck!

Sunday, August 16, 2009

game summary

so my buddy pete came over the other day and we played a quick 500pt game of warhammer 40k. i played eldar and pete used tau.

Setup
pete won first turn and setup on the hill with his fire warriors and crisis suit behind. i placed my guardians in the trenches with the scatter laser platform wide right in hopes it could take 36" pot shots around the rocks at the hill. i put my farseer and jetbikes behind the armour of the wave serpent. even though the wave serpent is the softest and cheapest tank in my arsenal i felt kind of guilty fitting it in there since petes HQ the crisis suit was the only model that could damage it. after i placed everything pete used the infiltrator rule to sneak his stealth suits in behind the rock. both the stealth suits and the crisis suit have jump packs enabling them to move 6" in the assault phase, so it was pretty clear pete was planning on jumping in and out from behind the rock to pester me.

game on.

oddly enough i decided to try to steal the initiative and won, by rolling a 6 and stealing first turn....there is a first for everything. after the buzz of winning that wore off i realized that i had deployed in a great position and first turn wouldnt really net me anything special. (unlike the last game we played, pete stole the initiative and wiped my two best and most expensive units off the board and i had no hope of recovering...) so i advanced a little bit with everything, still hiding the bikes behind the serpent, strung my guardians out a little further and took 8 shots between the two scatter lasers killing 3 or 4 fire warriors.
pete retaliated by moving his fire warriors to the front of the hill, jumping the stealth suits out and back, and doing the same with the crisis suit. the damage however was minor with one dead jetbike and the crew of the wave serpent shaken up and unable to shoot next turn...which could have been much worse.


Turn 2
with the crew shaken i decided it best to just back up to the edge and stay out of range. the farseer and jetbikes zoomed as close as they could to try to pop the stealth suits and the guardians stayed put. only two of the bikes could see enough of the stealth suits to shoot but managed to kill one. they moved in the assault phase to behind the rock as i was pretty sure i couldnt get them into combat. the guardians were unable to see the same squad but took out 1 or 2 from the other.
pete still struggling to get the fire warriors into range kept moving them forward. i cant remember if it was them or the crisis suit that killed a guardian. the stealth suits, jumped out and plugged another jetbike. knowing they would be assaulted next turn, they charged....and lost, but only by one and remained locked in combat.


Turn 3
not wanting to risk anything, i had the guardians run up to join the combat. a couple more fire warriors dropped with the rest running for their lives under the hail of wave serpent starcannon fire. the stealth suits crumpled, with my bikes and guardians rallying behind the cover of the rock.
with all my troops out of range or out of sight, pete essentially did nothing but watch his fleeing warriors run off the table.


Turn 4
on this turn you can see my girlfriends skull slipper signalling the end for pete. i pelted the last of the remaining fire warriors and left myself in good position to make a run at the crisis suit. pete scooped knowing he would be unable to survive and wanted the crisis suit to return any and all data of this loss to the mothership for future calculations.

In the end i think the tsn turning point was being able to gang up on the stealth suits. pete sort of left them out for the dogs and they got beat down, leaving me in a great position with minimal casualties. that and the fact that i brought a tank.....haha
all in all it was a good game and one of my few victories against that wiley greek bastard.

until next time.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Painting Update

Well...I am just about done the 3rd Bonejack...I know I said that before but this time I really mean it.

I finished painting what I can only describe as the "penis gun" (forthcoming picture and post will explain) this evening...looked at and enhanced my highlighting on the legs. Finally I did all the correctional work to make everything look good!

To summarize the damn thing is done...I have decided to wait until the light of day to examine the paint job and begin the clear coating.

I do this...***and note to model newbies*** because there have been a couple of times when I put the clear coat on too quick and realized that there were "a coupla little things" that I would have liked to fix...so the lesson tonight is....finish the painting and highlighting and then give it a day to re-examine before putting the protective coating on...it is worth it.

Well that is it for tonight...nothing really exciting but progress nonetheless....Happy gaming everyone!

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Challenge regretfully declined....


GAH......I hate it when work interferes with play time!!!

I had hoped to be done my battle group by the time the Wilbur's cottage vacation rolled around...alas that is not to be the case. By way of explanation...I have been working on an hour long presentation that describes my work growth strategy over the next 3 years...sucky boring crap....I am flying out to Utah on Monday and returning Wednesday night...we are at the cottage Thursday evening....so that leaves me 5 days to paint and put together ..... the MOST COMPLICATED model I have ever seen...12 freaking pieces????? honestly?!? Really, really?!?!

That would be my Helljack....ahhhhhh....well sorry to disappoint but the Warmachine premier will be delayed. However....

We will be sure to document out other gaming expeditions...Memoir for sure (probably the best 2 player game ever created) and Settlers of Catan...maybe even a game of Empire Builder.

Looking forward to it....


PS...I am almost done my 3rd Bonejack...I really need to get some pictures done!

Happy gaming everyone!!!

Monday, August 10, 2009

forward progress.


today i managed to find an old digital camera to start taking pics and documenting some of the stuff i (we) get up to. ...and when i say "i found", i mean i delegated my girlfriend to do it. and the charger. :)

AND THEN.....

i made a little bit of progress on my heavy warjack the Ironclad. im just gonna keep chipping away at him. i believe i will use the aforementioned camera to document some of that process.

IN OTHER NEWS:

our long awaited trip up north to our good friend Wilbur's cottage with the whole cast and crew is quickly approaching. at this time i would like to make formal and public information of my challenge to Xevious:

The completed painting of our Warmachine battlebox models for our first battle royale.

we are going to try to smash out a couple of games up north and i am really looking forward to it. having nicely painted models will make it that much sweeter. it will also make our first attempt of documenting a game of warmachine look nice.

i would imagine that everyone at the camp will play several other games aswell. we can do some entries with that as well. a little variety to our posts? not bad!
could be some memoir 44, perhaps settlers of catan, maybe even citadels! who knows?!
im also looking forward to making an entry about liar's dice, a great game that only requires 5 dice and a box of lies.

later.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Breakthrough!



After many hours I have completed the body of my next model....used a lot of color and highlighting.

I think it looks really good...I guess the tale of the tape will be in the morning.


Will post pics of my first attempts and my current model tomorrow...

All of this for a miniature model war game...love it!!!!!

Saturday, August 8, 2009

here i am!

lets all welcome me, segrig, to the best destination for gaming!

i feel there are a couple of issues with that statement.
1) "lets all" -> this assumes anyone will ever read this other than Xevs and i.
2) when did we become the best?

as youve probably already surmised this blog and my first post are to be self fulfilling prophecies.

now just sit back and watch the magic happen.....

ps: im just here to meet chicks.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Update: Model Envy

Well in the light of morning, those 2 panels did not look so good! I was really trying but it did not work out so well.

So today instead of working...I spent some time covering over the work I had done last night. THEN...I took another try at the highlighting portion of the painting.

I have to say that today it worked out a lot better than last night...it isn't perfect mind you...but it looks a lot better overall.

Pictures forthcoming...

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Model Envy!


Went to the tattoo shop today which is in Toronto....My brother asked me to bring down the models I had recently completed (yes...I know there are some gaps in the posts...will try to rectify) and so I did.

I was, and still am, pretty proud of the way the first 2 turned out...however when my brother arrived and whipped out the 2 he had completed....let's just say mine looked sorta crappy!!! Not horrible mind you...

Anyhoo...the challenge is on...I spent an hour tonight working on just 2 panels on my latest little model...I need to work on my colour mixing and shading/highlighting.

Gah...so competitive...can't wait to field test these babies!! That will be one heck of a post...

PS: I have been really happy with my tattoo artist for some years now! He has his own shop that has been open in downtown Toronto for almost 2 years now. The name of the place is Imperial Tattoos (http://www.imperialtattoos.com/) located on Ossington just North of Queen in Toronto, so if you are considering getting a tattoo and want the best quality.... go and see anyone of the guys at this place...very friendly and a talented bunch of artists!

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Some small success....

Well I ordered a bunch of miniature models from a local distributor. There was a sale taking place and I was able to bypass the shipping charge by doing a local pickup. SWEET!!!! So of course I bought much more than was required...I now love miniature gaming models right?!?!

So I went and got my new models...what the f$@#$ these are the smallest most complicated little things I have ever seen in my life. WOW...I looked at them all and then put them on my desk to sit while I pondered how I would ever get my money back!

I came to the conclusion that I was not going to get my money back so I set about researching just how exactly to paint these so this little investment would not look like a piece of crap! As a side note, this is why I like Collectible Card games...no painting and the good cards just go up in value and all you have to do is put them in a sleeve :)

Getting back to those intricate little beasties that are my new models...I dragged my wife all over the place to get some accessories that I thought would be necessary...of all the stuff that I bought I would highly recommend the following:
  • A weighted set of alligator clip hands (Purchased at Source by Circuit City for $16.99 CAD)
  • A plastic mixing tray of some sort (Purchased at Michaels for $0.99 CAD)
  • A very good quality set of paint brushes, including the smallest one you can find...even if you think it is too small it is probably not in the long run. (I actually got my brushes as a promo item from the distributor that I purchased from and it turns out they are some of the best quality you can buy. I forget the name but look for white tip on the end of the brush and white tip on the end of the brush handle)
  • A good art knife to trim some of the casting imperfections off the model.
  • A set of files to even out the imperfections and file down the lug that forms the base of the model itself. (I bought a set at my local Home Depot for $3.98 CAD)
  • A good super glue. (I bought the loc-tite super glue at Home Depot for about $10 CAD...I have used it before and it rocks...just DO NOT get your fingers glued together!!!! You think I am kidding but I am really not...
  • Finally get a Latex Varathane...it doesn't tell you to do that in the instructions but if you are going to devote enough time to work on these little models than why not get a coating on them that will make them look great and protect the paint job??? Seems like common sense to me....
Well that is it for today...I will say that I am very pleased with how the first 2 Models turned out. I will post a description of painting them along with some pics on the next post.

Stay tuned....

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Here we go....

So my brother finally convinced me to get into a game that uses miniature models. He has been playing Warhammer for a while now and invited me over to play with him and a friend. I have to say it was a lot more fun than I anticipated...but I didn't feel like spending the hundreds upon hundreds of dollars it would take to build an army that would be competitive with the rest of them.

Flash forward a bit and he has discovered Warmachine. It is like Warhammer but has some different elements to it (which I will be discussing in other posts) however the nice thing for me is that none of us own any models yet. So the 3 of us decided to give it a go....

This is my first experience with building and painting these gaming models and so I thought it would be kinda neat to blog about it...at the same time we are always trying out new games etc so then I thought why don't I just create a general gaming blog and talk about all my gaming experiences.

So this will be be all about gaming....I will be discussing all aspects including new game reviews, strategies and experiences.

If nothing else I will enjoy documenting it and hopefully along the way someone will enjoy reading it.