On the workbench

I started working on another batch of LoTR minis. I'm still working on a Gondor force. First off, here are some Warriors of the Dead. The riders have to be one of the best sculpts in the range. I've painted plastic and metal ones before but haven't seen the Riders before. They have a great feel to them and the quality of details is amazing.

I started by giving them a grey basecoat, followed by a very light touch of Skull White spray so that the details would be better visible. I do like the grey basecoat (Army Painter Uniform Grey) and I'll probably continue using it for other minis that are paint and that don't have too much armor/metal elements.

I also prepared a set of movement trays for the Warriors of the Dead. I ordered two boxes and hope to get them soon. I used larger pieces of rubble along with regular stones. I also added a few skulls here and there. I guess the skulls are a bit too big but I will improve it by adding more static grass around them so that they aren't fully visible.

I also started some Knights of Dol Amroth. I bought them a while ago painted. After stripping them off the paint I noticed that they were two shields short so I went ahead and made them from GS.

They look pretty much the same and after painting the difference won't be noticeable.

And here are a few more. I basecoated them using Army Painter Plate Mail spray. They were glued to the bases afterwards.

And that's pretty much it for now, I'll post an update soon.

Laminating Malifaux cards

I thought that instead of writing another blog entry I'd make a short video. Hope you like it!

And BTW I have a quick question. Unfortunately, many of the cards I currently have are v1. I know that there's a pdf with ready to print versions at Tabletop Geeks but it has only some of the available cards in it. I know that I can also easily get the cards I need at the Wyrd Store but I was wondering if there's an easier way to do that. Is the V2 Stat Card PDFs and Card Replacement Program still on?

WH40k Web Exclusive SM Sergeant

Time to clean up the hobby backlog. This time I'll show pics of a mini I painted for the last part of the Iron Painter Painting contest organized by Wyrd Games. The theme was "LAST ONE STANDIING".

Warhammer 40k Web Exclusive Space Marine Sergeant was a mini that GW added as a bonus to big orders once it's launched the online store for Poland. I'd had this mini for a while and I thought that this might be a good opportunity to paint it.

It's actually the second SM mini I've ever painted. I think that SM look best when airbrushed and highlighted smoothly to bright, vivid colors. Still, my style of painting is different so I thought I'd give this one a go with more battle-worn look.

Battle #2

I had another game today. Once again I played against with my LJ crew (with an addition of one Austringer) against caen's Viktorias that had the help of Freikop's Trapper, Librarian and Misaki.

The Austringer isn't in the crew photo as he''s still unpainted - I'll improve that soon. 

The strategy was A line in the Sand. I was happy with it as it enforces a more offensive play and doesn't leave much time for sneaking around. We both had Hold Out and Bodyguard schemes.
The description of this strategy states that dynamite markers should be placed along the centerline of the table. Did we do it properly or should they be placed slantways?

I won the initiative flip in the first turn and quickly moved the Judge and one of the Marshals to the center area, hoping they could cause some damage and prove enough distraction to let LJ and the rest of the crew work from the right side. I was quite lucky as I managed (mainly thanks to the Judge's Bullets and Blades) to reduce one Viktoria to just one wound and caen's use of his Librarian proved very ineffective (at this point cards were against him).

Unfortunately for me, my forces were too much spread to make the killing blow and soon afterwards Viktorias took down both the Judge and the Marshal. Added to that, three of the dynamited have already been armed by caen. Killing one of the Viktorias at an early stage of the game would have given me an edge as their Sisters in Spirit action enables them to cause a lot of problems.

I managed to charge the trapper and LJ killed him in a single blow, making him pay for disemboweling her brutally in the previous Scrap we played. Soon after that, Misaki entered the fray by LJ's riposte and a successful attack proved too much for her. Thing were looking up but in the meantime caen managed to successfully heal his Viktorias.
At this point I was faced with a dilemma. I could either try to run and reach caen's deployment zone (and he could have tried the same thing) or try to disarm one dynamite (in both cases hoping for turn #6 which never came).

In the end I activated the Austringer, made sure he successfully delivered orders and found an opening to strike at Viktoria, wounding her. Following that, I made one last desperate move and placed LJ so that she could fire her paired pistols at the wounded Viktoria. Unfortunately at this point I didn't have good cards in hand and the Soul Stone didn't help too. In his next turn, even though caen tried to take down LJ, she managed to survive the ranged attacks and he ended up killing the Austringer in melee.

I suppose I should have focused more on taking control of the center of the field, making sure the dynamite there remains unarmed. The distraction idea wasn't a bad one but I didn't have enough force there to make enough impact. LJ proved her worth in melee but shou would have shown more if I had managed to put her into the combat at least one turn earlier.

In the end more Dynamite remained armed, which gave caen a narrow 7:6 victory. I was a fast, offensive game with many situation requiring thinking ahead and making difficult choices. I'm beginning to really enjoy these dilemmas - use a Soulstone or cheat Fate ? The answer is never obvious and for me that's one of the reasons the gaming experience in Malifaux is so enjoyable.

Wyrd goes plastic

Wyrd has officially announced a change in the casting process of their miniatures. They're switching to plastic, digitally designed models. EricJ has stated on the Wyrd forums that the plastic they're made of is very hard and even suggested using clippers instead of hobby blades for cutting them from their sprues.
Below you can see some examples of the creative process behind the new models:

And an example of an entirely new crew:

And a comment from Wyrd:

You've been wondering, pondering, even hollering about what we've got coming up and it's about time to let folks know what we've got going on.

Wyrd has traditionally done all of our models the old fashion way, sculpt, mold, metal .. good to go! And it hasn't been bad for us at all. Unfortunately these last few years we've had to deal with rising metal costs as well as a horde of other issues that have for one reason or another caused us a bit of trouble that necessitated our move to plastic.

We found a fix to that and in doing so, we feel that we have seriously upped our game when it comes to quality, product and model options. 

If you like our artwork, then odds are you're going to love the miniatures, as we've moved from traditional sculpting to digital sculpting and from metal to high detail hard plastic (this isn't your bendy stuff!). Below we've got a couple of shots to show you the progress from art to finished plastic product. 

Oh, and the best part ... we're not raising our prices to do so. Better quality, more model options (heads, arms, weapons) at a better price. 

WYR4056 - $40 - Dark Debts Box Set

WYR4057 - $11 - Mr. Graves

WYR4058 - $11 - Mr. Tannen

WYR4059 - $21 - The Depleted (3 pack)

WYR4060 - $16 - Beckoners (2 pack)

WYR5072 - $18 - Lazarus (this guy is more an action figure than a model I tell ya!)

Just a few of the things that'll be making their way to Gencon with us next month. More to show off next week!

For more pics of new models check out the official website here.

The army of Minas Tirith

I've been working on this batch of minis for a while now. I actually started at the beginning of June. It wasn't the best time for painting as I was very busy at work and then left for two weeks for holidays. In fact, I did most of the painting during the last two weeks.
Batch painting is a good solution while working on armies or larger units but it's a tedious work. Painting many miniatures simultaneously can be an effective way of getting the job done though.
One of the reasons it took me so long is that I wanted to maintain a solid quality throughout the whole force. As a result I would spend hours working on the same elements, making sure they all receive at least a few highlights, washes where necessary and glazes for the extra depth effect.
First off, the Warriors of Minas Tirith:

They're the core of every MT army. The quality of the sculpts is generally OK but there's one thing that bothered me a lot while I was working on them. The helmets are nice but their faces are sculpted in a very uneven way, they are slightly deformed in the area around their eyes, which makes painting this element very tough. And getting both eyes look right is sometimes a challenge here. One of the warriors with sword and shield in the front line has this bad look that just screams: "I am constipated!", so after taking the pics I repainted his mouth.
And of course no army can go on without leaders so here's a pic of the command (with a special guest appearance by Boromir):

They have more details that make them stand out from the rest so I paid extra attention to make sure they pop at first glance. 

And some cavalry, 12 of them in total. I used three different shades of brown for the horses. Looking at the pictures, I can see that I should have taken more from a different angle to show that properly. Another thing I noticed was that the tree symbol on Boromir's chest plate is a tad too dark and his lance is a bit crooked. I highlighted the tree better but left the lance untouched. This one has a long journey ahead of him so it's probably better to leave him like that and let his new owner do that - the metal parts can be bent pretty easily but they tend to break easily too after they've been touched too many times.

 

 The riders aren't glued to the backs of their mounts as this would make packing them into a parcel tricky.
I was hesitating whether to follow the official color scheme completely or make some minor changes and in the end did the latter. I painted the saddles using brown instead of black. I think it played out pretty well as otherwise the riders' tunics would blend in with them.

And last but not least - the main hero in this force - let's give Boromir some spotlight.

Really great mini with excellent details that make him stand out from the crowd as the leader, while at the same time with enough characteristic elements to keep him tied well to the rest of the force. The banner was a challenge. It's a big, entirely flat surface so filling it with details painted with freehand wasn't easy.

And that's pretty much it as far as armored Minas Tirith army is concerned, at least for the time being. I am going to paint some more miniatures soon (Army of the Dead and Knights of Dol Amroth) and will be posting an update once I start working on them. I also still have some unpublished pictures of the minis for Gondor that I painted a while ago - I'll post them here soon.

Being a lawyer...

Well in theory yes ;) After long absence I'm finally back even if it's half-time presence ;) I've done my share of reading and writing and got my Master of Arts degree in law ! So now only couple of horrifying exam next three years of something you can call "law school" in anglo-saxon law regime and I'll be officially a lawyer ;)

In the meantime long forgotten pics I dug up from chasm of my hard drive. Some Forces of Good heroes done in NMM ;) Two version of Aragorn (RotK and Fotr), Theoden (TTT), Boromir (Fotr) and Gamling (TTT).

I'm still thinking about jazzing up Boromir a bit ;) With some additions on sleeves and maybe a freehand on the shield...who knows.

        

 

                                    
 

     

And to sum up this joyful post a compilation from Scrubs (hillarious seriesby the way) consisting best of Ted clumsy, loser lawyer of theirs ;)