Wednesday, October 09, 2013

Campaign's End - CampaignHammer fluff


Some Dwarf vs Undead fluff over on CampaignHammer.
We decided to end the campaign at the end of year 7.

The Undead faction battles to hold the city and keep it's outright win condition of five cities at the end of a year, while my Dwarves fight only for stubborness' sake. There's no way for me to win the overall campaign with three capital cities, but I'll pay back a grudge or two by trying to stop the undead.

Check it out.


Monday, October 07, 2013

Pirate Dwarves - Black Scorpion Miniatures

Must. Not. Click. Buy.
Love the stone hammer, and the tricorne!

I have enough to be painting, and no time to paint! But they're so awesome. I couldn't find what scale they are on BlackScorpionMiniatures.com, but they look 25 or 28mm.


In fact, all of their fantasy pirate range is gorgeous. This one makes me want to start playing undead!


Saturday, October 05, 2013

long-cut undercoat

Buoyed by my previous success with army painter undercoat I picked up the barbarian skin colour of spray paint undercoat. I have a tonne of unpainted slayers, so figured I could short cut the paint time and make them skin coloured.

Unfortunately I was so busy concentrating on making sure they were fully coated -  trying to ensure each little slightly hidden armpit and crevasse has some undercoat - that I caked them in the spray paint.
My phone camera is a bit rubbish,
the colour is not the shade it appears to be.

Really, far far too much paint. It went on evenly, and didn't stipple, but I put so much on it obscured model details.

I now have two models in dettol to strip them of the paint - I hope! I'm not even sure it'll work on the spray paint, which is why I put in only two of the worst.
So much for shortcuts.


The skin coloured spray paint might still be a good shortcut if I'm much more careful next time, but I think that I'll not be able to spray enough on to ensure a proper skin coating. We'll see once the dettol strips the two models.


Monday, September 30, 2013

Miner Ranger List

Avatars of War Pathfinders are lovely looking models.
2000 Pts - Dwarfs Roster
1 Gyrocopter, 140 pts (Flyer)
1 Gyrocopter, 140 pts (Flyer)
1 Cannon, 125 pts - RoForging
1 Cannon, 130 pts - RoBurning, RoF

1 Thane (Battle Standard Bearer), 150 pts (Hand Weapon; Gromril Armor; Battle Standard Bearer)
  1 Runic Weapon (Rune of Striking x1)
  1 Runic Armor (Rune of Stone)
  1 Runic Talisman (Master Rune of Challenge; Rune of Brotherhood)

1 Josef Bugman, 155 pts (General; Crossbow; Gromril Armor; Shield; Scouts)
  1 Rune Axe (Rune of Cleaving; Rune of Fury)

25 Longbeard Rangers + FC, 375 pts
25 Rangers + FC, 300 pts
20 Miners FC, 245 pts 
10 Miners + standard, 120 pts 
10 Miners + standard, 120 pts 

Composition Report:
Points of Lords: 0 (0 - 500)
Points of Heroes: 305 (0 - 500)
Points of Core: 675 (500 - Unlimited)
Points of Special: 740 (0 - 1000)
Points of Rare: 280 (0 - 500)

Always wanted to try something like this, with a lot of the army either off the board during deployment (or being placed last as scouts). With the FAQ of scouts it means that they don't effect the 'who goes first' roll now too, which is nice.
The Gyro's are sacrificial to keep the heat off the cannon for a little while, or as backup to the rangers.

I love the fluff idea of a scouting BSB, especially with the Rune of Challenge. A lot of armies are immune to psych, but it might be useful.

The only thing it's missing is a 20 strong core unit for the Tower scenario. I should probably reduce the 25 Ranger warriors to 20.

Friday, September 27, 2013

three colours thunderer

Last night I finished the beards, highlighted three beards with Feugen Orange, and another three with Cassandra Yellow just to try and vary the beard tint. I think that the dip will darken the beards so much as to make it unnoticeable, but it's worth a try.

I also added some grass, which I realised was way ahead of when I should have added it. I still need to paint and dip the model + base before adding bits and bobs. 


I tried PVA glue and water mix on top of some of the grass tufts to try and make it look like they've been snowed on, and the they've hardened with the frost. I did it years ago and it worked because the PVA maintained a touch of the white tint, but this time it looks like it's clear. Maybe if I add some white paint to the mix...

When adding grass tufts, I picked a corner of the models base. The idea is that I can find an opposite corner on another models base so that when they stand together the grass patch 'joins' across their bases. Can't believe I never thought of that before.



Thursday, September 26, 2013

and the brush hit the models

Skin and warplock bronze. I forgot how slow a painter I am. :(


Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Spray paint undercoat

I tried spray paint undercoat years ago and it turned out rubbish. It left a textured stippled effect on the models. I've not gone back, until yesterday. Army painter do a grey undercoat (which is the colour I've been using). As these Thunderers never see the light of day I figured it was worth a punt. Stippled Thunderers? Who cares!

They turned out great. This stuff is fantastic. I'll be using it again when my ebay order of 25 slayers arrives.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Display boards & NWG

I'm playing in NWG at the weekend. It's been a whole year since I played a game of warhammer. Time to get schooled I guess!

Having a display board is worth some extra points. I've never bothered with one before, but think I'll throw (given the time constraints) one together.

I tried a small cork board for size, 39cm x 59cm, see above. Everything is a bit crammed in there with the craters, but I couldn't resist. I can't decide if they look out of place. The idea would be the army is under fire.

Going to do a fast job of either spray painting the cork board grey to look like "stone", or find a cheap grass effect in the local shop I guess.

I have the GW double hill which slots into each other, and I have a bunch of trees I've based well enough (they're not done tbh), but there's just no room.

Argos do a bigger board, 60cm x 80cm, which is 1.9x2.6 foot. hefty enough but wouldn't look as cramped. Hrm.

Monday, September 23, 2013

NWG army list


I'm playing in a tournament this coming weekend. First game in a year. Exciting! Here's my list:

Stunties
Thane, BSB, RoStone, MRoSpite 140
Runesmith, RoStone, Shield, MRoBalance 127
Dragon Slayer 50
Dragon Slayer 50
Dragon Slayer 50
Dragon Slayer 50
10 Thunderers 140
10 Thunderers 140
10 Quarellers 110
10 Quarellers 110
30 Slayers, Banner 342
29 Slayers, Banner 331
Cannon, RoBurning 95
Cannon, RoForging 125
Gyrocopter 140

I made a mistake taking a BSB, none of my core will be sticking around and the Slayers don't need it. It's just automatic at this point: "I'll need a BSB!". Where am I going to put him? Behind a unit of slayers I'm thinking, where he's pretty useless. :/ He'd be easy meat in a Thunderer or Quareller unit.

As for the rest of it, I'm not confident at all, but perhaps it'll be some fun. At the very least, I hope it's different from the standard dwarf fare and that my opponents will enjoy themselves (hopefully not just from kicking my dwarves around the place).

The dragon slayers and Gyrocopter are intended for messing about, and will do their best as charge redirectors. Never having used anything as a charge redirector before, this will be a learning experience.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

the trouble with stunties

Dear GW,
Please print a copy of 'the trouble with stunties', read it, learn it, love it and keep it under your pillow.
Yours,
-Craig

Friday, March 22, 2013

Warriors Batch #2

Last 2 nights work:

About 2 hours a night.

Two dipped Dwarfs, and eight more with 3 colours - tin bitz, skin and beards (well, I have two more beards to go).

I've been trying some different colours, to compare the new gw paints with the old. I'm a lazy painter, I just want them to be the same...
Now, the two dwarfs in the front have just been dipped, so it's hard to see the differences in colour while they're so glossy.

Left Dwarf v Right Dwarf:

Ratskin flesh (left), which is the new version of dwarf flesh (right) but is actually a good deal more tan coloured. :(
Auric armour gold (left) which is the new version of burnished gold, and seems pretty much the same, with the same low pigment level and inability to cover (read: requires 3 coats to look any good).

One of the things I'm going to try and do is vary the painting scheme somewhat. From afar these dwarfs will look like approximate copies of each other, but up close I'm going to change up helmet, horn, axe haft decoration colours using different colours from the same scheme.

Get your beard on:

I'm also going to try and vary the beard shades just a smidge. I used Cassandra Yellow shade on the left dwarf above, which lightened it up a lot. Unfortunately army builder dark tone deepended it again, and it looks almost the same as the dwarf on the right.

Next time I'll try much more of the Cassandra Yellow (I only used a touch the first time) and try and hit some highlights with it which will show through the dip. I know, it's a shade and is supposed to run into the lower areas, but we'll see.

I can also try the soft-tone dip on the beard instead, which gives a much browner shade to the models.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

All quiet on the Martian Front

Spotted All quiet on the Martian Front on Hobby Horse.
I grew up on Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds, and absolutely loved the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen war of the worlds story line. I'll be keeping an eye out for what's on offer when their kickstarter goes live. Very tempted.


Tuesday, March 19, 2013

ratskin flesh base vs old dwarf flesh


Ratskin flesh base vs Dwarf flesh. GW conversion chart says These are close. I'd rather they were closer. That is all.

Update: brown rose from Vallejo might be a better match. I haven't tried it though.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Warrior Painting #2

My first painted banner!
After dipping last night, I've applied matt varnish and a gloss varnish to the helmet and axe gems. Looking pretty tasty if I do say so myself!

The warrior with the brown base on the end is a tester for green grass & snow style base, I think that's what I'll be going with except that I'll keep the bases black underneath. I also need to grass & snow up the movement tray.

10 Warriors
I'm loving the colours of the shields, and the musicians horn. I need to be a little tidier with some of those shields on the next batch.

These chaps took far too long to paint, I definitely need to figure out how to get my time down with them. Be less neat on the rear ranks? More neat in the front? Maybe, but if I'm spending the time I like to do a half decent job (relative to my ability that is).

warrior painting

It's been a while since I've done anything warhammer related, and last weekend I got my paint on big time. 
5 freshly dipped dwarves
Spent some more time yesterday on them, finishing off two more warriors and the musician and banner. The musician and banner took a good deal of time more than the warriors - a chunk more detail on each.

I'm really happy with them. I was going for a slightly darker orange on the banner than I used on the beards. It's not as different as I'd hoped, but any darker and it just looked brown. I think the banners orange goes well with burnished gold. Also, it was my first freehand attempt. Not too bad eh!

Now I just have to matt varnish then and base them up properly.

musician, banner, and 2 more dipped.