A New Year

Happy New Year all!

Gosh, it's been a while since I posted on this blog, but I sure as hell haven't been inactive in my gaming duties!

Mordheim settled down in December as we headed towards Christmas, so that gave me more time to do my painting. Also, I've recently been bringing some painting gear around with me to work, and then heading to my local GW in my lunchbreak to get a good hour of painting done. This really helps, because it's a good hour of focused painting. At home, I generally model or paint when I feel like it, but at GW, sitting down at their bench... well... kinda feels silly to go in there and do nothing right?

It's really been good going in there basically ever day. I don't have much to do in my lunch breaks at the moment. Temperature is generally above 30 degree's Celsius. No Go club on at the moment. No gaming either (Mordheim's done, Bloodbowl doesn't start up for a little while). So I go in there, and well... paint. I've gotten a ton done. I pretty much painted both my Duellists and Crossbowmen at Games Workshop, and have been working more on Asarnil and Deathfang lately. My Light Cavalry I basically ripped through one weekend, and yeah, that was my painting for the month. Total of 23 models, 25 if you include the cavalry as 2 each. Not too shabby.






With the New Year, I feel perhaps I should make some form of gaming Resolution on my blog.
So let's see how I go, I suppose I'll list some reasonable, and other's maybe not so reasonable.

For starters, I'd like to cut back on my buying a bit. I'll say the age old Warhammer players resolution, I'd like to paint more models than I buy. This is a hard one to keep! As it takes like a few minutes to buy something, but to paint a single model it takes a lot longer and a lot more work! Especially with Blood Angels coming out around April...

Secondly, I want to get my Dogs of War up to 3000 points, all painted. I actually have a 3000 point tournament in March, but I won't have them all painted by then. I should hopefully have 2000 points painted by then though, and I need 2500 by June. So I think this is reasonable. As long as my order from the UK arrives, I did a joint order with a friend and I think it's gotten more than a little lost (Considering it was oredered in November. Not even ships take that long).

Thirdly, paint up my Shadowforge Elf Bloodbowl team. I want to take my time, and do a good job on them. For once, I want to have a team in the Southern Shrike Bowl painting comp.

Fourthly... well I don't want to just focus on my Dogs of War. I think let's say, I want to at least get 1000 points of Blood Angels done this year. As well as some of my Warmaster I've bought a lot of now, and going back and finishing off some Lizardmen stuff I started.

So overall you can see, paint more! Buy less! Let's see how well I do.

Post-Weekend Update

So, here I am, Monday at 3pm. Bored at work, so what better to do than make a blog post.
Unfortunately for the Marksmen, the mind got a little side-tracked over the weekend. That's not to say, I didn't make progress on them. I did make progress, I just didn't finish them off. I think they're about 2/3rds of the way done. I've got the legs, shoes, and then crossbow to do on them. But hey, falling behind schedule was the reason why I gave myself a week spare. I hope to finish them off tonight for reasons mentioned later.

So how did I get distracted? Well, for starters I painted up one of my Bloodbowl models I've had sitting around for a couple of months now. This is a fabulous Bloodweiser babe called Lucy. She was sold with an esky and alternative hand/eski contents to Australians earlier this year, and will be heading to Impact Miniatures stores soon. She can be made up as a Bloodweiser Babe (selling beer) or as a bribe counter (With loot sack, and gold contents for the Eski/Chest). I made this one up as standard, as I wasn't sure about cutting into her arm for this model. I've got a 2nd one sitting around as well which will be turned into bribe counters. I'll be sure to get images of her posted sometime soon, as I think she turned out looking very nice.

I also spent a fair amount of time working on Asarnil. I spent some time chopping the rocks and stuff off of the Dragons legs. Going to have to do a little reposition and fixing to get them looking nice. For Asarnil himself, I sculpted a shoulderpad for his right arm. I think that turned out alright, it's not as nifty as what his shoulderpad actuallyl ooks like, but it had to fit with the torso. All in all, I think Asarnil is actually nearly ready now. I have to decide whether I want to do any more on him.

Next, I put some effort into my Khemri team. I fully painted up one of my Mummies from base coat to pretty much done. I say pretty much, because he's not quite done... but in a ready state for playing. I also got another Blitz-Ra to the same level. That leaves me with a Thro-Ra and 3 Mummies to have done in a little under 2 weeks (A long with Kroq-Gar, the Paymaster and the Marksmen).

The last thing I did a bit of work on was my Paymaster. I was looking through the Marco Columbo White Dwarf and saw they did his coat in a nifty way. Basically they used red gore, and added white to it. It turns out pink as you highlight upwards, but after, they gave it a red ink wash to turn it into a nice red. I tried to do the same on my Paymaster, and felt that it turned out decently.

So yeah, while I may not have got my Marksmen finished as scheduled, I'm still pretty much on track for most things. Kroq-Gar I'm just not very motivated to paint, because my colour scheme for lizards works... but to get it to better quality takes a lot of work. Just really need to sit down and put some effort into him though, because I'm running the competition at the Pyramid Vault, it'd be poor if I didn't at least man up and get in my own entry.

Lastly, to make a busy month even busier. Champions Online beta starts tomorrow (Well, it starts on US Monday, which pretty much means Tuesday to me). It looks fairly cool. I haven't played any of the previous super-hero MMO's (They were at a time, when I didn't really have money to afford such things) so it should be an interesting experience. Just gonna be tough to choose what kind of super-powers I want! A lot of them sound very cool. Usually in MMO's I like to be a hybrid fighter/support/healer type class. I love Shamans and Paladins in Warcraft for instance (Not necessarily related just to WoW, but like Warcraft 3 as well). So hopefully the game does not punish those that like to hybrid. We shall see, more comments on that at a later point.

Slight Update

So as mentioned in the previous post, I had almost finished the 5 Marksmen I was working on. In the time between that post and this, I have finished those off so I took a picture of them. So now that 6 of them are done, I'm almost 50% of the way through this month (6 out of the 13 models planned). I've really enjoyed painting them so far. Eventhough they're all pretty much in 1 or 2 poses, each one is unique in appearance. I think my favourite so far is the one with the bandage across his forehead. He's got this nice bird tied to his back, and painting the bandage was a treat.

Also I took pictures of my Kroq-Gar conversion before I start painting him. This is pretty much the first time I've shown him. I have wanted to show him before, but there honestly hasn't been much to show. The last time I took pictures, it was just the upper body attached to the legs, which isn't exactly impressive (Chop them in half, glue, fill in gaps). So here he is now. I wanted to do more with the spear arm, but I just couldn't get it to sit right. With time running out, I had to go with a somewhat boring pose.

Current Projects 2

In general, I have lots of little side projects going on at once. This is so I can generally work on what I feel like. Doesn't always work out, sometimes I just don't feel like doing anything, but that can't really be helped.

For Warhammer Fantasy I have lots of little things going on, and moving onto a big thing. In general, my Temple Guard Saurus, Engine of the Gods and Kroxigors are all work in progress. I personally love painting Kroxigors, because they're really nice miniatures and I can put a lot of work into making a good looking piece.

I also have a Kroq-Gar on foot conversion in progress. This is for the Pyramid Vault Character conversion competition. It doesn't look like much at the moment, but it's actually nearly there. I just need to convert the spear holding arm into something more maneable for a foot slogger and then I can just glue in the head and right arm.

As you can see, it's a fairly simple conversion. I chopped Kroq-Gar in half pretty much, and plonked the torso onto one of the new Temple Guard bodies (Cut that in half). So now I can have Kroq-Gar on foot, as well as a regular Saurus Oldblood for the Carnosaur. (Of course... I actually have to assemble my Carnosaur for that to have any merit).

The next big thing I'm working on for Warhammer Fantasy, is a Dogs of War army. I generally love converting. It's interesting to make figures different, and is generally very rewarding. I have just slowly collected some of the Dogs of War figures, never really sure whether or not I'll make an army out of them. I have some Rugluds Armoured Orcs blisters, some Halflings, a Hot pot, Lorenzo Lupo, Hengis the Druid, Marco Columbo. So I figure maybe it's time I actually sat down and created an army out of these guys. I'll probably paint them for the Warseer Tale of Fantasy Painters 2009-2010, so for now I'll work on converting them. Converting and painting at the same time I think is part of what made me fail in the current Tale. It's a lot of effort when you have big ideas, and you're torn between making them come to life or just sitting down and painting.

I think I'll keep my army in the same colour scheme as my Mercenary Pikeman. This guy was created a fair while back now for the http://www.dogsofwaronline.com/ Golden Pike 1 competition. I love how this guy turned out, because I really think he embodies how a mercenary pikemen would look like. He's got a dagger in his hat, carries along some of his belongings, he just has a kind've rough appearance too him.
As of more recent for my Dogs of War, now that I've decided to actually collect them, I've been doing a few more things. I've started work on a Mercenary Captain on foot. I hope he turns out well, at the moment he isn't too much of a looker, but hopefully when I get too sculpting a cape on him and fancying him up a bit he'll start to look the part. I've also been working on a Small Cannon. I was able to get some bits fairly cheap, and while I couldn't get Cannon chasis', I had to make do with Helblaster Chasis' and cutting it up a bit. The great thing is, even adding the cost of two cannons together, isn't as much as a regular cannon from Games Workshop. So bits are win win, as I only get the stuff I need. Since the time of the image, I've lengthened the chasis a bit as I wasn't happy with the look (The barrel lookeed too big for the chasis, so either had to extend the chasis or cut down the barrel).

So yeah, that's a humble beginning to my career as a Mercenary. Should be more to come as I work on my cannon, Mercenary Captain and others in the future.

The stuff I collect - Other

So here's part two. Warhammer Fantasy is my main system that I collect, so that got a post of it's own. The other systems I really only have 1 or 2 armies in, so they can all go in one post.

Warhammer 40k
Blood Angels - I started off Warhammer 40k with Blood Angels. I bought a big lot of models from a guy at school, sold off the stuff I didn't use and went from there. So really, it's a bit of a mish mash of stuff I have for my Blood Angels. Personally I think I intend to sell off all my old models and restart them soon, as I'm not really that fond of my old painting (Given most of it was over a coat of paint already).

Space Marines - With the advent of Assault on Black Reach, you could get Space Marines super cheap. So I decided to do so. Originally I wanted to convert stuff to plastic Grey Knights, but... the whole idea of getting them was to have a side project that didn't require much conversion in the first place (Doing it alongside my Empire, which required lots of conversion), so I just paint them really. I like how they look, and generally have almost gotten a proper army done (Commander, Terminators, Tactical Squad, Rhino, Dreadnought, 2nd Tactical squad just needs basing). Next I plan to add an Assault Squad and Land Speeder to the army, as well as some Heavy Support sometime down the track.

Mordheim
Witch Hunters - I picked up Witch Hunters box back in 2002 I think. That's basically my only entry into the system. I like the idea and design behind Witch Hunters, so I really enjoy the warband. Unfortunately I really only have the warband box + warrior priest for my warband. Since Specialist Games support is minimal, I can't really flesh them out by getting more hounds and models.

Misc - I have a few miscellaneous Mordheim models that I intend to use either in my Warhammer Fantasy armies, or I just bought becaus I liked the look of them. This includes Aenur, the Sword of Twilight, Kislev Ranger, Elf Mage, The Female Vampire persona.

Bloodbowl
Orcs - I started off with an Orc team. Why? Because Games Workshop were out of Chaos Marauders when I went to buy the box. Still I don't mind that, I had a lot of fun converting and painting the team. They're almost completely done as well! Only have to paint 2 more Blitzers, finish the Troll, find 2 suitable goblins and finish another Thrower. These are the guys I took to Southern Shrike Bowl 2008 and came last! (It was pretty much my first time playing, and I took some silly skill choices).

Lizardmen - Had to have a team of Lizardmen of course. Since they are my warhammer fantasy army, it just makes sense. Had plenty of models lying around, so I just did. These guys have served me well, and I think they ended up looking fantastic.

Khemri - Currently one of my work in progress teams. I hope to get them ready for Eucbowl in late July. Not sure if that's going to happen, but I need them done by then for both Eucbowl and the next season of the Adelaide Bloodbowl league I'm a part of.

Norse - Got some Marauders cheap, so decided to go back and do them. I've started, but have not gotten far on them. Got sidelined until my Khemri are done.

Epic Armageddon
Space Marines (Blood Angels) - Well... not really. I bought a box that has the Tactical and Assault marines in it. I'll see how the painting goes, and how much I enjoy it. So yeah, just for painting at the moment and we'll see how they go.

Unchartered Seas
I don't know much about Unchartered Seas. I'm getting a few fleets and the rulebook. Don't know if I'll end up playing, but I chose fleets that I think looked kind've nice. I like the look of the Dragon Lords, so they were a must. I got the humans cause they look kind've good, and should be a good guest fleet if anyone else wants to play. Bone Griffons I think looked pretty decent as well. These are currently on order, so I don't have these models yet, I'll definatly be posting when they come in though.

The stuff I collect - Warhammer Fantasy

So with my introduction post just out of the way. I figured I'd lay down what I actually collect in the various wargame systems. Sounds like a good idea too me.

Warhammer Fantasy
Lizardmen - Started off the hobby with Lizardmen, and still collect them to this very day. Once upon a time, my entire army was painted. Maybe because I didn't have too much cash and back in the days of 56k internet meant I spent more time on it, who knows. Nowdays I've got a lot of stuff tucked away under the bed, but can still field a plausible 2500-3000 point army.

Ogre Kingdoms - I picked these up back in 2005 as I wanted something to do, but didn't feel like getting the remaining expensive metal models for my Lizardmen army (At that point, I was really only missing Temple Guard, Kroq-Gar and Lord Kroak from my army). It's just the batallion with converted characters. It's kind've interesting to look at them, as they have some of my first conversions in those two characters (Two-headed Bruiser and a Butcher). Don't know if I'll come back to these guys, maybe when a new book comes out for them.

Empire - I had a really nifty idea. Witch Hunter army. Lots of rabble, lots of flagellants, crossbows, warrior priests, little to no warmachines. It was coming together alright, but as soon as it came too the militia and crossbowmen my interest started waning. I think it's because the models are too 'busy'. Lot's of little details that need to be picked out. I don't mind that on a few models like characters, but I guess it was too much for me. I'd like to come back and finish them off someday, or at least bump them up to 1000 points.

Dogs of War - My latest entry. I like converting, especially when my conversions turn out well ;). I'm hoping the diversity in the models will keep me enjoying the army. So far I've got the bits to make a few cannons, a few characters, knights, rugluds armoured orcs and some pikemen. We'll see how it goes.