Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Dogs of War Arrive

So yesterday when I got home, had a big package sitting on my chair in my room. Yup, I knew exactly what that meant.
The Dogs of War had arrived. So far I had just been messing with left over Empire stuff or bits and bobs of models I had bought every now and then. But now, I have bolstered my forces with some new pieces.
Within the package held my Marksmen of Miragliano, Lumpin Croops Fighting Cocks (I do have 10 Haflings, but they didn't come with the command :( - Guess that means regular Haflings are go for them), Malakai Makaisson's Goblin Hewer, Box of Dwarf Warriors, High Elf Dragon box and then a few Blood Angels characters (Mephiston, Corbulo and Tycho).

So with those added to my Dogs of War forces, here is the current intention on what I intend to make.

Characters
Paymaster of course. I also have plans for a mounted Paymaster.
Mercenary Captain on Foot (Whether or not I actually use him is a different story).
Hireling Wizard Lord (I have the Mordheim Elf Mage. I also intend to do a conversion at some time to make a mounted model).
Hireling Wizards (Have a few Reaper models to use).
Asarnil the Dragon Lord (Obviously due to the box).
Malakai Makaisson

Core
Marksmen of Miragliano
Volands Venators
Duelists x? (At least 2, but we'll see how it goes).
Light Cavalry (I have a box of Pistoliers left over from my Empire project which stalled).
Heavy Cavalry (Don't know if I'll do these, but I have the models to make them).

Special
Dwarves
Ogres of some sort (Might convert man-eaters, might not).
Lumpin Croops Fighting Cocks
Halflings

Rare
Mercenary Cannon
Hafling Hotpot
Asarnil the Dragonlord
Malakai Makaisson's Goblin Hewer

So at this stage, that's all I have the models for. Once I get through my first 2000 or so points, I'll be thinking about what other Regiments of Renown and mercenary units to add to them. The Regiments punch holes in my wallet unfortunately, so I had to make a few decisions on the one's I wanted up front.
So with August right around the corner, and Eucbowl behind me (Although, still need to finish up those Khemri) I've started work on getting my Dogs of War ready. Last night I started cleaning and assembling the Marksmen of Miragliano, which will probably be my first unit to be completed (Volands Venators have been pushed back so I have some time to sculpt the head for Voland and decide what to do with the shields).

Monday, July 27, 2009

Eucbowl 2009

So, it's now Monday. The day after my very first Eucbowl. Just to say it up front, it was pretty good overall. I took my Khemri team, which I didn't manage to get finished. My new target is to get them all done before Southern Shrike Bowl 2009 at the end of August.

Basically, I went in on the Friday. I landed in Sydney around 2:30pm, and managed to find my way around due to Googlemaps and the CityRail website. So with a few quick train rides, I'd made it to Burwood where the tournament was taking place and I was staying. At around 4:30, I headed back into the central city to see the Sydney Go Club. Played a few games of Go, one against David whom I had met at the Ballina Go Camp earlier this year before returning back to Burwood and hitting the bed.

Saturday was day 1, and everything was going pretty decent for me then. I managed to scrum in a tie (2-2) a win (2-0) and another tie (1-1). The first game I think was the best game I had all tournament, possibly ever. Was a very tight game, with me getting both my touchdowns at the end of both halves to tie the game. So at the end of day 1, I believe I was sitting around 16th out of 54.

Sunday however wasn't so great. I had a good game first up, ending in a 1-1 tie. However the 2nd game my team got absolutely mauled. Most of my guys ended up in the casualty bin or the knock out box. I can't say my opponent was a bad opponent, it's just the way it happened. His dice were just on fire, and I couldn't do much to stop him. I think it ended up about 3-0 in his favour. Last match was against a guy I know from South Australia. We grudge matched each other just to have a nice last game. I managed to stop his Dwarven cage in the first half, was doing fairly well. In the 2nd half though, he managed to get the numbers up on me and a ill-timed skull on a Mummy left my ball carrier open. A dwarf managed to run through and grab the winning touchdown.

Unfortunately, with the results of day 2 I ended up down at 39th out of 54. I think perhaps the fact I didn't have a fully painted team let me down somewhat (As I don't really know otherwise why I got such low scores in the last few games). I'm thinking next year I'll take a painted team just to make sure I do the best I can in the tournament without having a handicap on me from the start (As a similar thing happened in my first Warhammer tournament, where I got a Zero for painting because not every single unit of mine was painted).

But yeah, overall I enjoyed myself. The only game I didn't really enjoy was the mauling, and again, I don't fault my opponent. It's just not terribly fun when you're getting absolutely smashed, and you can't do anything about it.

As for next year. Not sure what I'll take. I've been musing about what to run in 2010 now that I'm heading into the 2nd half of the year. I don't have a 'fun' team in my collection nor a flair team (Elves pretty much). I think it may depend on what pepole are thinking for season 4 of the CCKUP (Adelaide league) as to what I take as I was thinking Elves of some sort this season before a whole bunch of them showed up. I think at this point, 2010 may be the 'fun' team year with either Vampires or a stunty team. That'll leave 2011 to be the year of the Elf (or maybe Amazon). Anything could of course change, I was intending to run Norse rather than Khemri at an earlier point, but found a few Mummies which changed things around.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Heralds of Osiris take to the Pitch

So just got back from the first game using my Khemri models tonight. This marks the beginning of the 3rd season of the CCKUP (I've only played in 2 of them, the current and last one).
I'm off to a fairly good start quite honestly, I had some really nice armour rolls during the game and managed to win the game 2-0.

I was basically up against a Chaos Dwarf team called the Hands of Hashut. At the beginning of the game, things weren't looking so great. Lost the fame, in which the Hands got +2 fame. Weather was pouring rain, which meant the already hard task of picking up the ball for Khemri got even worse. Then the opponent got an extra re-roll and the ball landed right on one of his Bull Centaurs!
Luckily for me, my Mummies managed to cause the opponent a lot of grief. I funnelled him off to the left side, and basically boxed the opponent in until I could get a mummy free to run in and blitz the poor Centaur. Things were looking pretty stalematish until 2 consequentive blocks from my mummies saw 2 Chaos Dwarfs leave the pitch to sleep in the injury box.

I eventually got the ball free, and a lucky turn of events saw my Skeleton pick up the ball (Usually a 4+, but a 5+ roll in the rain) and run down towards the end zone for a turn 8 touchdown.

In the 2nd half, the weather cleared up. I basically grinded my way up the field for a turn 6 touchdown on my behalf. The Hands of Hashut only had about 7 players left on the field, which was easy enough for my guys to hold them up and stop any touchdown possibilities. Unfortunately a Mummy managed to get smacked down by a Bull Centaur and will be missing the next game.

No skill ups for the game, but got a nice amount of gold in the sum of 60k. So all in all, a good start to my Khemri team and a good start to the league.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

This Weeks Update : Khemri

So, this is the core of my work during the week. I managed to spray paint my 13 models that I have assembled on Tuesday, which was a tad later than expected (I wanted to do it on Saturday before I left for a LAN, but it just didn't happen).
So I was a bit behind from the start. It left me with about 10 days to completely paint my team. So now that the weekend is finally coming to a close, what's my current progress?
Well, the 4 Skeletons below are pretty much completely finished. I've got my 2 remaining skeletons which are a mere few minutes away from being complete (I have to finish up on the bandages). Unfortunately, that's kind've the easy part of the team. The rest of the team probably requires a bit more detail, so I am a bit worried about getting them finished by Thursday evening. That basically gives me tonight, monday night, wednesday night, and maybe a little bit of time on Thursday night. You'll notice, Tuesday night is excluded. This is because the 3rd seasons of the CCKUP begins this week, and I have a game scheduled that night. It'll be my first run with the Khemri, so I hope that they perform well and I can get a little insight before the Eucbowl tournament on how the team plays.


That's basically it for now. Wish me luck in getting my team finished :)

This weeks update : Epic

So a little while ago, I picked up a box of Epic Armageddon Space Marine Battle Company. Figured, I'd see how it goes, give it a shot, should be interesting to paint. They certainly are. By golly there are a lot of them though. This is 5 marines, basically... not much in a game of Epic. In a game of 40k, 5 marines might be like 5 marines out of 60 or so in an army (Rough guess, don't play much 40k). In epic, these 5 marines are a mere 5 of 160 I believe.



They're certainly a little different to paint. It's like painting everything at fine detail. They probably don't take as much time though, but at the same time, more tasking on the mind as you've got to be careful as one little bump could ruin what you're doing.

This Weeks Update : A Voland Venator

This week has been fairly busy really. I've got to get my Khemri team all painted for Eucbowl as mentioned previously. I'm not doing too bad I feel, but the simple part is over, the difficult part to come. I'll comment more on that in the Khemri post

For this post, it's all about the Dogs of War. Since last time, I've finished my Captain with Pike. I've also sculpted a little key onto my Paymaster. But more importantly, my order from Games Workshop (small order for bits) has come in. I bought 3 packets of the Empire Shields, not realising you get 8 shields per packet! I thought there was only 4, so figured I'd get 3 packets to round it out to 12 (5 Venators, 5 Heavy Cav, 2 for mounted guys). Now I've got a whopping 24 shields! But what can you do

For the shield, I have tried sculpting something similar to the artwork in the old 5th edition Dogs of War book using one of the shield icongraphy provided. Not sure if I like it or not yet, I think I'll paint it up before making my decision. At the very least, I want a fancier looking shield for Voland himself. Whether this means the regular Venators get just V's, and I have a 2nd shot at the shield or not remains to be seen.






Also, here is a good look at my first Venator. I've decked him out a little bit. He's got a bandage around one leg to show how the Venator's always get into unruly undisciplined fights. He's also bringing along some alcohol, the Venators are always getting drunk and such.




And that's it for the Dogs of War update. The plan is to get a whole unit of Venators assembled before August so I can paint them up for my first 200 points of the Tale of Fantasy Painters. I'll also be painting my Paymaster next month so I can enter him in the Golden Pike 2 painting contest at Dogs of War Online.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Poor Poor Wallet

So, in preparation for the Tale of Fantasy Painters at Warseer(And somewhat, Tale of 40k Painters as well) I have made purchases for my armies.
For the Dogs of War, I have purchased
Marksmen of Miragliano
Lumpin Croops Fighting Cocks
Malakai Makaisson's Goblin Hewer
High Elf on Dragon
Empire Shield Sprue's
Dwarf Warriors
With those being bought, I should have enough to get my army up to 2000 points (Even if it does run over in the characters department). Still, just took a huge chunk out of my order in total cost me about $450AUD! Ouch! I didn't even get Rugluds Armoured Orcs to go with the blisters I have for them. They'll have to wait until I get all of this done, as I don't really intend to use them even if they are pretty funny.

Also, since I signed up Blood Angels for Tale of 40k Painters, I got some Blood Angels characters. Never really got them the first time around with Blood Angels, so got pretty much the lot. Mephiston, Corbulo and Tycho. I've got Dante sitting in a box at home, and decided to skip on Lemartes. I also purchased some Eagle Warrior shoulderpads to convert for my Veterans (Something similar to Tycho's shoulderpad) as well as a blister of 2 Assault Cannons. I have a plastic predator tank at home, and I just can't see why the Baal Predator costs like $25AUD more. This generally wouldn't save me much (only like $10) but since I already have the plastic predator, ends up saving me a whole lot.

But yeah, wallet just took a bullet. Gotta restrain my purchases now that I've got what I need pretty much. No more splurging...

In modelling land. Not much progress since last time as I was at a LAN last weekend. I've fallen behind schedule on my Khemri bloodbowl team now, as I didn't get to undercoat them before I left. I have assembled one of my Venators though, I think he looks pretty good. Probably going to work on them after finishing the Khemri so I can get them done and out of the way (As after that, it's pretty much just Asarnil and the Dwarves that require any meaningful assembly).

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Couple of things

So been doing a couple of things since the weekend. In a sudden bout of inspiration, I decided to start working on my Paymaster. I originally got this model as I thought it might make a good one. Then decided against it, to use him as originally intended as a Cannon crew member. Originally I wanted his hand to be facing 180 degree's upwards, and he'd kind've be non-chalantly jingling gold in his hand. I had a 2nd thought about this, and didn't think it worked with him looking out in the other direction. So then I decided to have him holding a cane, which I think works for him. The cane for now is just blutacked in so people can see what it looks like, but he is basically finished. I'm going to greenstuff in a ring or two on his fingers, and then do something more with the cane, but he's pretty much done! Was a very easy conversion in the end, and I think he looks the part.
One other thing I decided to take pictures is something that has been sitting around for awhile. I'm making an Ogre for the South Australian Legacy Bloodbowl Team. Basically it's a team South Aussies are building and painting to raffle off I believe. Anyway, he usually sits on my desk and every now and then I decide to do a bit more on him. He's almost completely assembled now, basically a matter of glueing the arms on and then painting him.


That's pretty much all for now. In some sense, it's been a bit slow as I didn't feel like doing much last night. But hey, I got the Paymaster pretty much done, so that definately counts for something.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Progress with pictures

Yeah, so I went ahead and took some photo's tonight. No natural light, so you'll have to live with the dastardly light of my room. Still, the pictures aren't so bad, some did turn out a bit blurry/grainy though. Anyway, here they are.

First up is my Mercenary Captain now with a cape and some plate greaves. You can only really see the greaves on one leg in this image, but the cape you can make out in full! I'm really enthusiastic about how the cape is turning out. I went ahead and layed down some metal paperclip parts to act as a guide for the greenstuff for the cape, and it worked wonders. Made creating the cape so much easier.


Next up are the new and improved members of my Bloodbowl team. I've got 3 more skeletons to show, as well as a brand new Thro-Ra. The Mummies are there to show how I converted their arms. I've still gotta work on my fine detail (The arm bands on the Mummies and the hand on the Thro-Ra aren't exactly great) but I feel like I'm making good progress.


So my Khemri team is pretty much done at the moment as far as assembly goes. That's a full 13 models assembled. I don't know if I am going to take a 2nd Thro-Ra to Eucbowl though. Don't even know if I can get another one done and paint everything befor then, but we'll see. Basically after the next Thro-Ra, I have a few more plans.

2 more Skeletons to fully flesh out the team to full 16 players. 1 is going to be a journeyman. The other is going to be a kicker who is either kicking his head, or the journeyman's head (no wonder he's a loner and can't use re-rolls if he aint got his head!).

As far as star players go, I also have some ideas. I'm definately converting Humerus Carpal, one of the new star players from LRB 6. I think I may convert Hack En Slash and Sinnedbad as well. I have ordered a Setekh miniature, so he's covered. Ithaca Benoin is a pansy elf! So not sure if I'll end up doing him. Ramtut I think I may leave alone, as I really like the figure for him and will just hope Games Workshop find it in them to re-release his model (As well as Zara the Slayer).

That's pretty much it after that. Might do some coaching staff. I've got the drummer from my Tomb Guard command as a cheerleader. I'll probably have already moved onto another team than do the extra miniatures, but we'll see what happens.

As for the Grey Knights. I didn't take photo's of that unfortunately. I think I'll take one once he's complete. If I'm happy with how it turns out, may end up doing a tutorial on how I made him.

Progress

So, unfortunately no pictures. I did a fair amount of work over the week end on various projects. But didn't want to move them around too much, as most of the time greenstuff was setting so I wouldn't want to ruin my work with fingerprints (or more fingerprints... dunno how careful I've really been).

First off, I achieved pretty much what I wanted too over the weekend for my Khemri team. At the moment, everything apart from the Thro-Ra's are fully assembled, all green stuff work complete. I've got 1 Thro-Ra almost done as well, just a little bit more work and he'll be fully aseembeld as well (Basically I have to glue him together, and greenstuff any parts that don't look right due to positioning of limbs). So basically painting time for the team, and I'm on progress to get them done before Eucbowl.

Dogs of War hit a slightly slow point. I did lots of work on my Dogs of War! Just only on one figure. So my assembled range isn't expanding at all. This could be a problem, as I want to paint my Dogs of War for this years "Tale of Fantasy Painters" run on the Warseer forums. Last year, I didn't complete my Empire and I think part of the reason is once I got through the simple stuff (little to no conversion work) I was having to convert and paint at the same time, which just didn't sit well. Luckily I do intend to include a few Regiments of Renown in my army which bump up the costs of even rank and file models.
Anyway, basically on the weekend I did more work on my Mercenary Captain. I personally feel that he doesn't look special enough when you looked at him. Even with a cape I was a little doubtful, still, I have progressed on. Basically I put some plate greaves on him, which helped a bit. But what really helped, was the cape. I'm still working on it, but just having something that looks like a cape behind him really adds to the model I feel. It's exciting to see how the model looks, and I really want to post images of him (But restrained myself as I didn't want to ruin the greenstuff work). I will try and get a picture of him up sometime during the week.

Lastly, something I've wanted to try for a while. I like the fluff and look of Grey Knight Space Marines. Always thought they looked cool. Same for Sisters of Battle really, but that's another story. However, they're expensive. Damn expensive. So I've always wanted to try converting them from plastic space marines. However, regular Marines don't have the arms for it (Holding bolter arms aren't exactly dynamic and would require a lot of work). Enter bits services, I bought a whole lot of assault marine arms (And various other space marine things) cause I was thinking about rebooting my Blood Angels. But at the same time, Assault Marine arms are perfect conversion points as well for Grey Knights.
A while back I tried to make a Grey Knight Terminator from an Assault on Black Reach Terminator. It turned out alright, I don't think the arms are dynamic enough though for Grey Knights. One thing that was difficult to get right though, was the shoulderpad since it has that medieval kind've looking shoulderpads (With the raised section on the pad nearest to the body). I got an interesting idea on how to do that simply and figured I'd give it a shot.

Personally I think it's turning out well so far. It's a bit messy in places, as I'm doing it as a prototype but I think it's coming along really well. The legs are done, the chest is nearly done (gotta finish the Book and sword symbol). Left shoulderpad, same deal with the symbol. Right shoulderpad I haven't started on yet. Force weapon and the Storm Bolter arm I've bother started but have to finish. Then finally, gotta add purity seals to the extreme of course.
It won't have all the cool inscriptions and stuff on the armour, but I think it will still look pretty nice and won't cost me a fortune if I decide to do this on a full scale army kind've effort.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

During the week...

So, during the week I've been a busy bee. I've been working on a few things at once, as you can only do so much green stuffing before you start ruining other parts that need to dry. So I've been doing various bits and pieces for both my Khemri Bloodbowl team and my Dogs of War.

First up is my Khemri. I have been working on both my Mummies, and building up a few regular Skeletons. The mummies I have been making replacement arms, and you can see one here.
That one is currently attached now. I've done the arm band, and the wrappings around the hand. So now I've got to finish the wrappings on the rest of the arm. The other mummy is in a similar state, just a tad progress wise behind (Started him later). I've done the arm band for the other mummy, but need to do the wrappings on the fist before attaching the arm and finishing off the wrapping.
Skeletons are a bit different, as I need to build up seperate parts. Generally I do the ruined cloth as one stage, a belt to hold it up as another, and then finally a big round belt buckle to display the skeletons number. The upper torso is generally easy, as I just make a scarab shoulderpad on one arm once the arms have been glued on.

Next are my Dogs of War. The first thing I have to show, are pictures of my Mercenary Captain that I've been spieling on about. He doesn't look like much more than a foot soldier here, but his pike has a different style pike head (I'll take a picture of it later) and he'll have the mandatory cloak of course when it comes down to it. I think I may end up giving him boots as well to make him more impressive, but I'll decide on that after I make a cloak. Of course, I do love the look I've given him. I think he looks pretty cool chugging down that alcohol.


Next is a little piece I've been working on. The Voland Venator miniatures cost an absurd $95AUD for 5. That is utter baloney for what I assume is part plastic, part metal miniatures (I'd be surprised if the horses were metal). Considering the Venators look almost the same as Empire Knights, just with different helmets. So I took the suggestion of M4C from http://www.dogsofwaronline.com and started chopping up and greenstuffing the Knights Panther helmets.
I think they look alright, especially when I paid probably $30AUD for my Empire Knights I'm using for the Venators. Quite a price different to $95AUD ;). I'm gonna try custom sculpting Volands head. I've done a few scratch sculpts before, a Witch Hunter or two. Not saying I'm brilliant, but gonna give it my best shot! If it coms down to it, there's a moustachio comb-over State troop head which could probably pass off for Voland if it comes down to it.
Finally I've got a more up to date picture of my cannon now. The chasis has been extended, and gaps have been filled, etc. I think I'm almost at the point where I can glue the end on (I don't think I'm gonna extend the Chasis anymore). Just gotta finish off the barrel now, then aside it goes until I start painting my Dogs of War.
The big thing I need to do I think on my Dogs of War though, is come up with a game plan. What do I want to include? Make 500, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500 point armies building upon each other. At the moment, I've been making what I have. But at some point or another, I'm gonna have to actually decide what I want to fill my rare and special slots up with. What about my core, heroes, etc. I have a few wizard models, so I'm set in that department. But since I have a cannon now, leaves rares open for Asarnil, Giant, another Cannon or a Hotpot. It's a hard decision, as I would like to make both Asarnil and a Giant (Well, 2) but to keep focused and getting a useable army, rather than mix-match of unuseable stuff I need to pick one and stick with it.
Tough decision, eventually of course I want 2 Giants because I want to convert them into the Giants of Albion (Already have the Hengis model) which would be awesome, and of course, can use them as regular Dogs of War Giants as well.
So yeah, decisions to make. But for now, Volands Venators, my Captain and of course, the Khemri team that needs to be done should see me through a bit.