How do I do this, again?

Hello!

It's a... it's been a minute.

Some stuff has happened since my last post.

I mean, I went to NoVa and played toy soldiers, had a good time. Ended up coming home a day early because I'm a homebody and missed my kiddos, but overall got what I wanted out of it. I'll post in more detail below.

Between going to NoVa and now, I've only really played a few games: I've been in a consistent D&D group, I've played a handful of games of Star Wars Legion, and then I've played some various things with my sons.

Painting... eh, really I've just managed to work on a sizable Star Wars Legion commission (pics below).

Hobby in general: I made the leap into 3D printing! It's truly like just adding an entire second hobby onto the primary minis gaming hobby, though, when you consider everything that goes into it. It's quite fun though, and has consumed a fair amount of my time.

What else, what else... Oh, the Mandalorian series came out and finished season 1! It was incredible. Everything I want out of Star Wars. Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker also came out. It was not incredible. It was not everything I want out of Star Wars. In fact, it was the first time I've ever experienced that negativity I've seen so many times before in other nerds for myself. I mean I still like Star Wars, and it was fun enough to watch, but whew man was the story and pacing/editing painful to endure. You have to remember, though, that Episode VIII: The Last Jedi is probably my favorite of the 9, haha!

Oh, and the pandemic.

No, like the real pandemic. "The coronavirus" or, by its proper name, COVID-19.

As a recording for posterity and a note to my future self: March 2020 is a dark time, made to seem even darker by the heavy shadow of the immediate future. Tennessee is behind in its efforts to quarantine and order "shelter in place" guidance to the public, but many other states and larger cities have already gone that route. Aside from the grocery store and fast food places, pretty much everything is closed. No game stores, no movie theaters, no restaurants, etc. The economy is devastated, with hundreds of thousands not working in an effort to slow the spread of the virus and keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed. Being part of the "essential" services (construction), I'm still at work every day. Well, for now, at least. It's a crazy time.

Anyway, back to the game stuff... ?

So, NoVa:

NoVa consisted of two main events for me, with a bit of other games sprinkled in at night with my travel companions (namely "Betrayal at House on the Hill" board game and learning to play Battletech with a starter box I purchased), which were Horus Heresy 30k Zone Mortalis, and Guild Ball!

The area of 30k room set up for Zone Mortalis. 

My Chaplain leads some Word Bearers to their inevitable doom. But, like, gloriously. Of course.

The Gal Vorbak prove  to be an ample distraction to a Dark Angels Dreadnought before the Breachers can flank in to save them.

My Miner's Guild learning how to play the game against some Cooks.

My Miners won Best Painted for the event!

As far as painting at home, I've really only been working on a Rebel army commission for a good friend. I'm hopefully going to wrap it up this week, though. (I'm a slow painter. I really shouldn't take commissions.)

Commission Star Wars Legion piece. Yes, it's a trap. Fishman gon' snipe you.

On the gaming front, mostly it's been playing games with the kiddos. We're several games deep into a Warhammer Quest Silver Tower campaign, as well as a Star Wars Imperial Assault campaign and a few games of X-Wing.

Soon, Alec and I will get our Rangers of Shadow Deep / Frostgrave hybrid game going, where we'll be able to play the campaign together against AI. I'm working really hard to get together nice terrain for it, though, so that it's a premium experience.

I can't remember if this is merely my son putting up with my constant character-voiced narration of Warhammer Quest, or him dealing with a particularly rough roll of the dice. Probably the former. :D

Flynn's badass murderdudesman for Warhammer Quest

Alec's sneaktastic elf assassin for Warhammer Quest.

Really 3D printing should be its own blog post, but considering how long it's been, I'm going to shoehorn it in a little bit here. This whole thing kinda snuck up on me, as I'd ignored it for years as being too expensive, but then another good buddy of mine showed me something he'd printed and related how low the cost had gotten, and now I have another addiction. I'm running an Elegoo Mars currently for my resin printing, and while it's got a small initial learning curve to get things printed and into your hands, the art of perfecting the supports for a model and positioning and all that is definitely taking a while longer master.

Also, seriously, the availability of fantastic sculpts from a multitude of different artists out there is truly astounding. And so affordable!

A fresh print!

Mandalorian Militia - converted speeder bikes for my personal Star Wars Legion stuff. 

A fantastic Arbite miniature from the patreon Monstrous Encounters, that I will use in Necromunda at some point.  "I AM THE LAW!"  

 As for what the future holds, especially with the ongoing pandemic, I'm not too sure. At least I've compiled an incredible backlog of stuff to work on should I find myself unable to continue adding to the pile of minis.  What's immediately next, though? Oh, probably just this little project of football playing frogs I've been waiting on for the past year from Kickstarter. :)

Hippity hoppity, yo.

Time is Immaterial

I don't know if I'm just really piss-poor at consistent updates, or if I'm saving up experiences and photos to make bigger blog posts. Like, I guess it would be sensible to piecemeal out this content and make smaller, more consistent posts... But nah.

So it's been a couple of months, and while I haven't gotten to play a ton of games, it's still been packed full of activities for me.

Super out of sequence (since this happened literally yesterday), but I'm going to start off on a high note:

Gaius Pallidus from Arena Rex's Legio XIII faction. That is a 40mm base (he's a tall fella).

"Da Powdah" strikes again, impressing me EVEN MORE with its myriad of uses, and has allowed me to accidentally create one of my favorite paint jobs of a human figure ever. And I mean "accidentally" quite literally. I was working on my NOVA models, knocking out both the basing of some Word Bearers and the finishing touches to some Guild Ball Miners using a custom mix of pigment powdah, when I had an epiphany about the Arena Rex models. I've always really loved them, and after assembling them and priming them white, I only went so far as to apply very diluted glazes to make the details pop and just kinda left it at that. I don't know if the models simply intimidated me, or if there was a particular look I was going for... doesn't matter. But last night I thought, "I wonder what this powdah would do to these figures, because I'm essentially doing the same thing applying it to these sculpted bases."

And now here I am, rethinking my entire painting process altogether when it comes to this hobby in general.

Moving on!

While I'm thinking about painting and techniques and all that, let's talk about Contrast.

The colors, Duke... the colors!

 So I'll just start off by saying the hype for this product, while directed at the consumer base with a different reasoning than what is pertinent to me (they advertise it as a way to paint armies quickly), was honestly well deserved. I paint primarily using washes and glazes over a light basecoat, building shadows and texture, and for that purpose these are a phenomenal product. Honestly the biggest struggle I have with them is that they cover a little too well (!!!) and I'm still playing with dilution and methods of application where I can kind of wipe off the high points to lessen the intensity of the Contrast paints' opacity. Overall I'm really enjoying using these.

Some examples:

Zombicide Black Plague figure, painted using the "Gryph-Hound Orange", "Plaguebearer Flesh", and "Skeleton Horde" Contrast paints. 

Zombicide Black Plague figure, painted using the same "Gryph-Hound Orange", "Plaguebearer Flesh", and "Skeleton Horde" Contrast paints, just in a different pattern and with a touch of Vallejo Red dabbed on the front while the Contrast was still wet so that it would dilute and spread. 

A Warmachine Precursor Knight, airbrushed with the Vallejo Metallic Gold, and then a single coat of "Iyanden Yellow" Contrast applied to the metal armor plates. Best gold color I've ever achieved with 5% of the effort I used to use on my Retribution figures using layering.

A Warmachine Stormblade figure, airbrushed with Vallejo Metallic Steel, then a single coat of "Iyanden Yellow" followed by a single coat of "Militarum Green" Contrast paints. Still not 100% sure about the result, though. It looks good, objectively, I'm just not sure it's my style.

Why yes, those were in fact pictures of Warmachine miniatures. 

So moving on, let's talk WARMACHINE HYPE!

As has been mentioned many times here, my roots in this hobby come from playing friendly games of Warmachine into the wee hours of the morning somewhere around 15 years ago. And finally, FINALLY, the story for the game and its future have come back around to being important (more than just the latest rules arguments or theme lists or whatever other bullshit the new gamers like) and they are releasing a campaign expansion alongside the Infernals faction to move the story forward.

This, needless to say, has gotten me excited.

So I went and played in a local "event" (I guess we'll call it that, small as it was) with my buddy Wargamer Ramblings. 

Game 1: Played against young lad Richard's Legion, which apparently had a theme and a list composition common to these modern events. I dunno. I took Cygnar with a Morrowan "theme" (aka story) and was wrong.

Game 1: Here's an action shot of me successfully combating the strong Legionmans yet simultaneously losing because of objective zone rules about what counts and what doesn't? I honestly don't know. This isn't the game I used to play.

Game 2 (of 2, told you it was a small event): Played Wargamer Ramblings' Crucible Guard in the loser's bracket. Same scenario as before.

Game 2: Shot right before things started getting really ugly. The next turn or so would see the entirety of the Precursor Knights die, the colossal to be wiped out by some angry dwarves, and his jet packers to get messed up by some Gun Mages. Essentially my left flank and his left flank simultaneously crumpled, but he came out the victor in the struggle for the middle...

Game 2: ...UNTIL HE DIDN'T BECAUSE EPIC CAINE GETS THE ASSASSINATION!  IT WAS ALL A PLOY.  THE ARMY IS EXPENDABLE!  IT'S ALL ABOUT THAT CASTER KILL BABY!

So, if you couldn't tell from the commentary on the pictures... I'm not super crazy about what Warmachine has become in the more recent years. The Warmachine I used to play, mind you we're talking basement Warmachine with a small group of people, had 3-d terrain, with some scenarios rarely filtering in, and we were very interested in the who's and why's of the characters and the world itself. Granted, these fond memories of mine end somewhere around 8 years ago when that well dried up, but they're damn strong and frankly make this modern version of things pretty unplayable to me.

And now, we have a further complication:

Thanks to the local gaming store getting rid of their stock, and the genuine interest of my son, he has bought himself into the realms of Caen. (OMG EXCITED DAD RIGHT HUR!!1!11!1!!!)

After some talking to old friends (namely the friends I began playing the game with) and discussing the myriad of changes to the game system that we don't like (which can, and likely will, be the subject of an entire blog post), we're going back in time to the harried days of MKI. A harsher game, but one we always had more fun with because of friggin' everything in the game being dangerous, it's what we've decided to have a bit of a renaissance with and what I'll be teaching to my son. 

"But wait! What about the many many models released after MKI? Like, for example, the entire faction your son has picked?" you-probably-aren't-but-I'm-going-to-imagine-you-are asking yourself.

So yes, this is going to take a bit of work on my end. Namely figuring out the original formulas for model point costs, so that I can retrofit things into it. But dammit, I'm determined now. I may actually do it. Largely because that would also enable me to retrofit any of the new Oblivion campaign model releases/updates. Which basically all excite me QUITE A BIT.

Look at that gorgeous artwork, those super cool Morrowan Precursors battling the forces of evil to literally save the souls of humanity. 

The artwork for the amazing Morrowan Archon.

SO COOL!

Wait a Menite one, too!?

Oh... oh no. This could get expensive.

IS THAT A THAMARITE ARCHON THAT WORKS IN TANDEM WITH ITS REVERSE TWIN MORROWAN ARCHON TO BATTLE THE FORCES OF THE ABYSS? 

...there are 8 Archons in total. This one is the Void Archon, which shows obvious connections between the Skorne and the Retribution of Scyrah, as well as the Convergence of Cyriss. This is very exciting, from a fan of the game itself AND a fan of the narrative.

And finally, the thing that actually has me the most excited... Cygnar Morrowan heavy infantry. This has been the top of my wishlist for more than a decade. I honestly can barely believe it's going to happen. So, so excited for this.

Privateer Press has fostered Warmachine into a game I'm not crazy about playing in its current form (which may largely just be because of the community that plays it) but damn if they aren't making some super cool stuff for it. And, they teased something entirely new for next year!

Is the logo very good? Nah, not really. But in a way that makes it kind of amazing at the same time. 

Rather than make this blog like 4-5 more subjects long, I'll cut it off right here with an update on NOVA prep. 

At this point, my 30k Zone Mortalis stuff is at least all assembled, with it roughly 50-55% painted.

The Guild Ball team is done with the exception of the goal marker.

Haven't even started the Aristeia! or Infinity models. Feeling a little nervous here.

My customized Centurion.

Back shot.

Normal squad with their converted heads.

The full list. Not a ton of models, but I'm taking my time and enjoying the effort of painting them.

First finished regular marine. Just need to put the black around the base edge.

Group shot while working on the bases.

First completed Gal Vorbak model! Might still go back and make his shoulder pad black, but I haven't decided yet.

Back shot.

And finally the Miners' Tank Girl herself, plus the Moley Mole:

And now, back to serious business.

DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA! (Me on the deck of the U.S.S. North Carolina)

Mostly just minis this time

Yeah, fewer ponderances on life and attitude and all that, just gonna talk 'bout some minis this time.

Unless something creeps in, anyway.  It's a gamble.

First, I managed to finish off the trees that were the custom-build ones! Now all I've got left to finish are the... 9(?) smaller armature trees. I didn't get the other one I had completed out of the storage bucket for this pic, so it's the five I completed over last weekened with two of the finished armature ones in the middle for scale.

Overall super happy with how they're turning out, and they should help make a woodland/forest/ghur style of board really have some character without being cumbersome.

The metal washers worked out surprisingly well and the trees are quite sturdy!

Why yes, I did say "ghur" up there, glad of you to notice! My good buddy Dingar (who started his own blog called Mininomicon... check it out!) has been pretty amped on Age of Sigmar for a while now, and his joy and positivity has proven infectious to myself and Wargamer Ramblings so now, of course, we're working on armies for yet another game.  I actually already have a fully painted (well, like, almost fully painted) force of Ogor Gutbusters who reside in the Realm of Beasts - aka Ghur - but I've decided on painting up my forces of order now as well. I have some Stormcast Eternals that I am going to play as the Astral Templars stormhost chamber, as they also reside in the realm of beasts and thrive on honorbound battle with gigantic monsters and all that. 

I will probably take some liberties on the paint scheme once I get started, but overall this is their scheme.

Otherwise, I've been continuing to spend some time on NOVA prep, working on the beginnings of my 30k Zone Mortalis force and my Guild Ball Miners.  

For my 30k force, I've concretely decided on a Word Bearers squad with Zardu Layak, the Crimson Apostle, as its leader. A hardened taskforce of breacher marines and the Apostle's private retinue of relic reclaimers (a typical marine strike squad I am converting to look more cultish) accompany Zardu and his blade slaves and a Chaplain-in-training (run as a simple Centurion with the WB special rules to make him a psyker) to comprise the majority of the force, with the final piece being a unit of Gal Vorbak intent on screaming through the corridors and killing anything in their path. I'm trying to keep it very fluff-driven, so I don't think the list will end up varying too much even if it doesn't fair well in test games. I've also just learned a few days ago that summoning in 30k events is completely legal, so I'll need to get a unit of Pink Horrors painted up just in case I pull off a successful summoning in game.

Laying out all of the pieces for the Breachers and getting them organized. Yes that's a Monsterpocalypse mini in the background. Yes I have an addiction problem. 

Partially assembled; I was really surprised at the detail and number of pieces, kind of blowing my time estimate out of the water for their assembly. 

After several nights of assembly (about an hour each night) the Breachers stand ready for paint!

Airbrushed basecoat completed with the color Vallejo Air "Fire Red"

Now on to the Guild Ball Miners.

So.

Let's say this is a... mini review. 

As someone returning (though even that isn't a fair term, since I never really got off the ground in the first place) to the game of Guild Ball in general, this faction's release is difficult and frustrating.

First of all, this thing is only available to order directly from Steamforged games, even for gaming stores (at least as I've been lead to understand). And those gaming stores, when ordering it direct, are not given much of a discount on the item, which means they are not able to discount it from the "suggested" retail price of a steep, steep $80 USD. After resolving myself to spending the money on the box and having seen the quality of the miniatures in the Kick Off! starter box, I went to Steamforged's website to order. Nope, sold out. Too bad so sad no team for me. I began to look for options of sellers here stateside, and found only a single one (Discount Games, Inc.), and the price was still the non-discounted $80 USD. Gritting my teeth, I clicked the "Confirm" button and waited on my order to arrive.

Upon arrival, I found a very small box waiting for me. Like, Infinity miniatures boxes small. Confused, because I've seen the production quality of their other newer products, I pulled the sleeve off of the little cardboard box and popped it open to find a handful of unassembled minis in baggies. I'm clearly no stranger to assembling miniatures, and honestly I enjoy it quite a bit, but I will say the presentation was lacking for something I just dropped eighty-frigging-dollars on.

Pulling out the baggies, I found each miniature separated and including a resin base. 

Quality of the resin aside for a moment (but I'm coming back to it, don't worry) let's just say this to be clear: the included bases are bullshit. They're weirdly flat/low compared to normal lipped bases, they have no interesting or uniquely sculpted detail, and they have little depressions in them for the models to fit down into during assembly. That last part is only a problem because the models themselves have little bits of extra height attached at the bottoms of the feet and the tank treads to sit down in those depressions, and it's got to be addressed before using a different base. At least half of mine were warped and would have required me to heat them up and bend them to make them sit flat on the table, had I found myself willing to use them. You'll find this to be a common theme here, but lemme just say it one more time... this was an $80 box! That's U.S. dollars, not AUD. I understand price comparisons between companies in this hobby is a fool's errand, but a box with six models and tiny piece of terrain or two that costs eighty dollars should have sculpted bases. 

So, back to resin quality. I'm going to give it an "It's Fine I Guess" out of 10. It's not as great as, say, Privateer Press's resin, but the detail is still pretty good. Is it $80 good? No, not even a little bit. It's soft and reminds me of a #2 pencil eraser, and it has a lot of flash and places where the gates need be trimmed delicately so as not to destroy the cool details. Mine had a couple of ugly mold lines, too, which I found needed to be cut down (eww) because the resin did not take well to being filed. I have concerns about the lifespan on the smaller, thinner models, too. At least it was relatively bubble-free.

I really wish they had just kept their nice metal models if they weren't going to make something in the awesome plastics from their other (cheaper!) box sets.

Okay, some pictures:

Super irritated that this little ball of joy is sculpted into his shitty base. Look at that terrible mold line around the lip!

His base isn't perfectly round, either. I've done no trimming whatsoever here, it came that way. 

The Word Bearers champion might look like he's engaged in a fierce battle, but he's actually just being a bro and holding the weight of the drill in place while the glue/greenstuff dries.

Oh neat, look at this cool wood detailing in the prominently visible shoulder piece on the coolest model in the set... and the big mar in it from the resin gate being in the fucking middle of it. Who thought that was a good plan when designing the mold!?  

I mean let's be honest, I still love the set. I'm excited to get to playing Guild Ball, and these guys are definitely the faction for me aesthetically. But this should not be an $80 box. $50 would be a much more reasonable price point for the quality/quantity presented here, and $60 would be pushing it. At $60 I'd need to see like a couple of cool custom dice in the box, or maybe some friggin cards (yeah I know, I know, available online, but that just means I have to print them and cut them and deal with it and that frustrates me), hell maybe an art card, I dunno. Something more than just a cardboard box with baggies in it.

Overall super rad models, but would have much rather had them just be metal.

Oh, that reminds me. One more thing, while this rant train is a-rollin'.

Look at this badass thing:

Oh hey there coolest model for the Miners that isn't actually in the starter box.

So that's Colossus, one of the existing players for the Engineering Guild, and one of the two players that can be used with the Miners. That is an alt sculpt for him, designed to go explicitly with the Miners... and you cannot buy him. That's fucking stupid.

If you're a diehard Steamforged defender and you're reading this, please don't be offended or take this to mean I don't like Steamforged, or Guild Ball, or even just that model. Quite the contrary, actually. I love the shit out of that Colossus model.  It's actually one of the reasons this faction interested me and was able to pull me back to Guild Ball in the first place in this article reveal of the faction!  But he's only available, I'm told (as per the Facebook group), in the OP event kit. Seeing as this game has no scene in my area, no stores around here sell it at all, and I only have one other friend locally I can play it with... I cannot get this model without significant travel and effort. That is super frustrating. Do not like.

Okay, so bitching aside, that's pretty much the last couple of weeks for me outside of mega busy life stuff. Looking forward to trying to get more built and painted in the days to come, lord knows I have a lot to work on!