March Update

Hi all,
Wow its a been a long while since I last posted! I have unfortunately gotten out of the rythm of posting and coupled with a painting comission, work and sick kids its meant a long absence of posts. I have been getting some stuff done though.

I just completed a painting comission for some Warhammer guys. Overall I am really happy with how they turned out. I got to do some modelling with some greenstuff which was fun and new.

I added a bunch of thick hair to this one and used the extra to create a broken earth base.

Added a magical whirlwind to the wizard.

Wizard and Daemoness

Wizard and Daemoness gain - The lava base for the daemoness turned out better than I was hoping it would.

Wizard and Daemoness - This is probably the best picture of the painted whirlwind coming of the wizard's hand.

Black Orc Warboss

Black Orc Warboss - I was really excited with house the leather cape turned out.

I have also been very busy working on some 3d terrain in 10mm scale. Once I get a few more buildings designed I will probably put them up for sale on Pinshape or Shapeways. I would really like to do a couple of modular buildings for use with Dropzone Commander but I haven't made much progress with that yet.

Here's a few of the buildings and storage containers I have designed so far. 

I also still need to get pictures taken of my painted Cygnar forces and put them up. I got my Caine's Hellslingers painted as well as a bunch of my trencher units. I have just been slacking in the pictures department recently as well. Hopefully that will be changing sometime soon.

On a different note there is a game on Kickstarter I am really interested in call Architects of the West.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shem/architects-of-the-west-kingdom?ref=discovery
I have backed several of this guys previous projects, (Shipwrights of the North Sea and Explorers of the North Sea), and have really enjoyed them. My family seems to really enjoy the worker placement type games so I am still debating but I think I am going to back this one or at the very least pick it up once its released.

Thanks for reading and I hope to post again soon.

The beginnings of a Kriel - Trollbloods painted & happy 4th

First off happy 4th of July!

I finished painting the trollbloods my wife and I currently own. She doesn't play much but wanted a few models for the rare occasion when she does. Surprisingly, when we started this, she picked the trollbloods to play. Further adding to my surprise she picked Captain Gunnbjorn as her warlock. My daughter wanted in on the fun initially so she picked Calandra, the Oracle to start. Since then I have wanted to start a Trollbloods army in addition to my Cygnar army so I traded her a set of Retribution guys for Calandra.

Anyways, history aside, I have taken some pictures of the recently painted Trollbloods and a few of my Cygnar guys. I am still struggling a little to put together a color palette for my warjacks. I'm almost there, hope to have a test-jack painted up here in the next couple of weeks.

The newly started Kriel. Based on how much fun they have been to play recently I will definitely be expanding the Kriel.

Calandra, Oracle of Glimmerwood - I really like the pose of this model and gypsy type clothes. She seems fairly squishy for a troll but overall is very fun to run so far. She will be renamed in the future once I get a name for my kriel.

Back shot of Calandra to show off some more of the gypsy dress.

Commission for my wife - Captain Gunnbjorn. I can't help but thing this guy looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger as a troll. Really happy with how this guy turned out.

Rear picture of Gunnbjorn - I like the rockets strapped to his wrist.

Dire troll mauler - I really like how his skin turned out and how contrasts with the red stones implanted in his skin.

I magnetized the dire trolls left fist so I can swap him between the mauler and bomber. I have tried both with good success but lean toward the bomber!

Rear picture of the Bomber/Mauler.

Troll Impaler - he looks like a hunter to me so i painted the majority of his armor as leather.

Rear picture of the Impaler - The leathers and stitching is much more noticeable in this picture.

Night Troll - I must say my first game with this stealthy warbeast did not leave the best taste in my mouth. To be fair though, I had to use him as a blocker for my warlock, he was crushed.

Rear picture of the night troll. I chose green for the rocks embedded in him imagining them covered in lichen.

The warmachine objective set all painted up. I am really excited to use these.

Cygnar Stormtower - I'm really happy with how these turned out. I chose to stay somewhat similar to the standard scheme but chose a more worn blue as their color. I'm planning to build a partisan army so they will have been in the field for a long while.

Rear picture of the storm tower.

Stormsmith grenadiers - I have used these guys and really enjoyed the amount of aoe damage I could put out. Modelwise I really enjoyed the clocks they are all holding and the crazy hair! 

Rear picture of the Grenadiers. looking forward to getting some more of my Cygnar army painted and posted.

Thats all I have today. I'm currently working on a Dystopian Wars commission but otherwise I am slowly paining away at my Warmachine forces. I'm slowly making some terrain for use with Warmachine. I have discovered the wonder of high density insulation board for making terrain and I am really enjoying building them. Currently, I am finishing a small woods. I would like to make a couple of buildings, a second small woods and some scatter terrain. Hopefully by the end of August I will have the terrain in better shape and painted.

I will post again once I have some more guys painted up. Have a great 4th and thanks for reading!

Warmachine and Planetfall continued progress

The last two weeks I have made some progress on both my Planetfall Sorylians and Warmachine Cygnar. I have made some painting progress on them, finishing my Stormsmith Grenadiers and Stormsmith Tower. I have also put together a squad of Stormblade Infantry but haven't been able to get any pictures of them yet.

I have also put up some pictures of the painted Sorylian Core Helix. I really like how these guys have turned out. Because of how much I have enjoyed painting them I picked up a Heavy Armor Helix.

The beginning of my Mercenary/Cygnar Partisan Warband.

Sorylian Core Helix

Close picture of the Ka'Kun recon skiffs and Kul'Vok heavy infantry bases.

Close up of the Bol'Vak medium skiff transport and upgraded Mul'Kat light infantry cadre

Close up picture of the Huk'Ka heavy walker.

Overhead picture of the Hu'Ka.

Close up picture of the Sor'Ka medium walkers and a second upgrade Mul'Kat light infantry cadre.

Second picture of the Sor'Ka medium walkers and Mul'Kat infantry cadre.

Picture of the Core helix from a different angle.

I have absolutely loved painting these guys. I like the greyscale armor and contrasting orange armor plates. Add in the blue light sources and these guys really pop. I have not had any further opportunity to play a game with them but I am hoping to playing one within the next week. My son and brother-in-law have been pretty excited about Warmachine, with good reason. It is an awesome game and a lot of fun to play so I may be playing that for a little while yet before getting too many games of Planetfall. :) At least we are playing games so I will enjoy whichever one we play. I am taking some vacation time this week so I am hoping to post my pictures of the Command Helix and painted Cygnar guys.

My wife and I have recently split purchasing some Trollblood units for Hordes. I'm pretty psyked that she is interested in trying Warmachine/Hordes and very much looking forward to getting the Trolls painted up so she and I can play a game.Its going to be awesome. Until next time I hope all of the dad's out there had an excellent Father's day and a good week.

Until next time!

Sorylian Progress - Weekend Update

I have made some really good progress on my Sorylian Planetfall forces. So far I have completed the Core Helix, a Command Helix and half of an Assault Helix. While I don't really need any more miniatures for this army, the new found flexibility of 2.0 makes it harder to resist having more options. I am considering a Heavy Armor Helix and an Aerial Interceptor Helix. The extra heavy walker certainly wont be a bad thing to have for my army, but really I would like to have the long range, pinpoint Sor'Ka's from the Heavy armor helix. I debated on the Aerial Helix but the Jor'Mak'Ta is an awesome looking gunship that I find hard to resist. The pod racers are steadily growing on me and I think with the right paint scheme could look really cool on the table.

Core Helix, Command Helix and the mediums from the Assault Helix.

Second Picture of the Sorylian Outer Sphere 1237th Expeditionary Force.

These guys have been a blast to paint so far. I have really liked how the orange and greys contrast with each other. The blue light sources are not showing up in my photos unfortunately but also add a lot to the models in my opinion. For this scheme I basecoated everything in black. Painted a layer of Vallejo Grey-Black over that. Certain armor plates I drybrushed Vallejo Neutral Grey over to create some depth. I then used Dark Vermillion for the accent armor plates, hatches and little standout spots. I then went back and found little raised plates, latches and similar spots and painted sky grey to provide further definition and contrast. The blue light sources are multiple layers of blue starting with Dark Prussian Blue drybrushed with electric blue. I then washed the area with fluorescent blue and drybrushed with light sky blue. Finally I drybrushed a little white in the center of the source.

The infantry were Dark Vermillion drybrushed over black and washed with Secret Weapon Ruby wash. I then colored the shoulder pads a contrasting color, grey, blue or green. Their weapons were black drybrushed with sky grey and washed with Secret Weapon Armor Wash. Finally their visor/eye spot was lightly colored Yellow-Green.

Other than the painting I played a game of Warmachine against my brother-in-law. My Cygnar Partisans versus his Convergence. It was a hard game which I did lose. We realized shortly before we ended that the app had miscalculated the value of his army and my 17 point army was playing a 28 point army. I had taken out 1 of his two heavy warjacks all of his solos and half of the health of his warcaster before I lost so I felt pretty good about that considering the point differential. Overall it was still a blast, I am looking forward to playing a few more rounds and getting the game figured out. Other than that I am hoping to get a few games with the Planetfall 2.0 rules and feel out the new unit stats. From what I have read and played I really like the new Sorylian statistics.

Hope everyone had a great weekend, thanks for reading!

Painting & Terrain Progress

Things have been pretty quiet around here. My brother-in-law has been unavailable much over the past few weeks so I haven't had much opportunity to play anyhting. I have managed to paint and build a second town for Dystopian Wars as well as the harbor set and half of the airfield set I purchased last year.

Trying to a get a layout put together for the second town.

Re-laid the town out after getting the board and roads painted.

First couple coats of paint on the buildings. Really like how the brick looks on the buildings.

Final picture of the town and research campus. Really happy with how this turned out!

First bit of the harbor districts painted. I was pretty excited when I got these painted up. I am looking forward to seeing this on the game board.

Just a picture with the new town and the two harbor sections together.

A final pictures showing the airfield I painted and the center harbor section. 

I hope you all enjoy the pictures. These have been a lot of fun to paint and build. I am really excited to get a couple of games in with my brother-in-law once his life calms down a little. I have already started a new project for some additions to my Armada collection. I hope to put some pictures or teasers up soon. Still have a couple of models left to finish before then, Thanks for reading!

Relthoza Ground Command Helix - Painted

This helix was a little different to paint up. I debated for a long while on what colors to do the spire in as well as how to do the Salamis bodyguards. In the end I ended up doing the Salamis in a very similar scheme to what I had done in the core so I could use it with my core sometimes.

The first piece of the helix I painted was the Spire, of course! This thing is awesome in my opinion and much taller than I expected it to be.

Javi Command Spire - I am really happy with how this has turned out! I thought the blue glow effect I tried to create contrasted nicely with the red and sand scheme.

Second picture of the command spire.

The Narissa Gunnary nodes.

Salamis Honor Guard - I like the sand/brown color I used on this pair as opposed to the scheme I used on the original pair.

Second picture of the back of Salamis Honor Guard.

The Relthoza Command Helix.

Sorry it has taken so long to get these pictures put up. I haven't had the opportunity to play a game utilizing this helix yet but I am very excited to. I can certainly see a lot of possibilities for this helix to improve my current forces. Aesthetically and play style these guys continue to hold the top spot for me. I will try to post a report next time I get to bring them out.

Ba'Kash Aerial Helix - Painted

It has been a long time coming but I finally able to get some pictures taken of these guys. I am thrilled with how the color scheme turned out. I wanted something a little more rusty and run down looking. I think the effect worked out decently, they could be a little more muted color wise and potentially a little more rusty but aesthetically I love the how the colors came out. I debated between a green glow and a blue glow, obviously the blue won, I thought it would contrast better with armor colors.

I haven't had a chance to utilize these guys yet in game but statistically they look like they hit pretty hard. I am hoping that we can get a game or two soon with these guys.

Ba'Kash Aerial Helix. I really like how the blue lighting effects contrasts with the dirty yellow and red armor colors.

Novian Heavy Gunship - Overhead view

Novian Heavy Gunship side profile.

Novian Heavy Gunship rear profile.

Varuko Heavy Attack Flyer - Overhead view.

Varuko Heavy Attack Flyer - Rear view.