We can do it!

From what I understand, Johan is near-universally accepted to be one of the better models for his point cost – even if you have to pay an extra soulstone outside of Outcasts. What’s even more important to me is his ability to remove conditions; especially as I’m playing a campaign against my brother’s Guild crew, which loooves to set things on fire. As a consequence, I always knew that he’d be one of my first additions to the crew.

I’m not really that big a fan of the model, and I’m currently rocking an all-female crew anyway, so I picked up the female version (Johana) last at the Black Friday sale. 

I don’t know why, but she always reminds me of Rosie the Riveter.

Here’s my take on her:

I’m trying to stay fairly close to the “original” colors, so she’s a bit dark, but I’m fairly pleased none the less. The leather pants did give me a bit of trouble as my usual “quick” method didn’t work out (leather brown followed by washes of brown and black ink), but I think I managed to fix it up fairly well in the end.

After three games with her, I’m not all that impressed, but it’s likely because I’m playing her way too aggressively. I have to earn to hang back a bit more, and not rush in like I sometimes do with Cassandra (who is harder to kill and is better able to disengage if things get too hot for her).

Croaker

Those who can, do…

So… It’s been another month with no word, and like so often before, it’s partially due to life conspiring to fill all my spare time with things other than painting and playing (the other part usually being a lack of motivation). This month, however, I have actually been painting playing stuff (Malifaux and other games), which simply didn’t leave me a lot of time for writing.

My brother came by for an extended stay and we got started on a two-man Shifting Loyalties campaign. As I said last month, I really needed a Silent One and a December’s Acolyte to round out my crew, so I had to get my painting station set up again. Here they are:

I’m quite happy with the Silent One (though the cape could have turned out better), but I’m not all that pleased with the Acolyte. The flowing grey robes were especially tough to get right. I’m currently working on another one, which might turn out better.

We managed to get four games into the campaign and I’m currently at two wins, a loss and a draw. Not too bad.

Hopefully it won’t be another month till the next post. At any rate, this month has invigorated me quite a bit, and I have a few ideas for posts…

Croaker

Happy New Year

I’m not getting any points for originality with that title, but I wanted to get back to the blog.

For most of December, I’ve been suffering for a total and complete lack of interest in painting.

This has been the state of my hobby-gear for the past few weeks – unceremoniously stashed on a spare couch in the office

The only hobby related thing I’ve really done is trying to fill in the gaps on my Snowstorm figure using the “Liquid Green Stuff” that Games Workshop put out a few years back. I’m “happy” to report that it’s exactly as useless as you’ve been told. After applying about five layers, I’ve barely filled in the gaps, and it’s left some grainy patches I’ve yet to sand off. Don’t bother.

I do have to get back in the game, as I’m going to play in a Shifting Loyalties campaign in a few weeks and I need the Silent Ones and December’s Acolytes. Best get painting.

Croaker

Faces and bases

I’ve felt entirely uninspired the past couple of weeks (not helped by getting quite sick over the weekend), so progress on my painting has been extremely slow. I did manage to finish the latest batch of Bugman’s Rangers:

In the past I’ve experimented with a variety of techniques for painting flesh – from normal layering to wet-blending. While this has produced some nice results, it’s also slowed me down a bit, so I finally caved and bought a flesh wash. It’s not as smooth, but it’s quicker.

This brings me up to something approaching an actual unit (and it only took me a year!):

I think I’ll paint up another three troopers and then move on to the command unit.

For my next project, I’m going to paint some (seasonally appropriate) December’s Acolytes and Silent Ones for my Arcanist Crew. I’m hoping to play some Malifaux over Christmas, and I need a bit of punch.

The first step (after assembly – a non-trivial job when dealing with Wyrd miniatures) is getting the bases ready.

I use a texture roller from Green Stuff World, which works quite well. Just make sure to keep it very wet, or the green stuff will stick to it.

Afterwards, I make a light impression of the model’s feet. This does distort the texture a bit, but it helps with gluing the figure to the base afterwards.

Croaker

The gang

I’ve finished Cassandra.

Even though she isn’t the master of the crew, she’s supposed to be the flashiest personality, and the one most likely to be up in your opponents face, slicing it off, so I wanted to save her for last and make her really stand out. I’m not entirely sure I accomplished that goal – the red on her dress could have been better for instance – but it’ll do.

I’ve now officially painted my first Malifaux starter crew. Yay! 

As much as I enjoy my other little projects, it feels really good to actually finish something.

Croaker

Not dead – not dead

Uh – It’s been how long since I last wrote something? This time I can’t even blame some new Battlefleet Gothic-related product; I just never got around to writing anything.

I have been painting a bit though and am almost done with my Colette crew. I’ve already started a few proper Oldhammer figures (more dwarves), so if you’ve been holding your proverbial nose through all this new stuff don’t worry, normal service should be resumed shortly.

Here’s what I’ve done over these past weeks:

Now I just need to do a few finishing touches on Cassandra. That doesn’t mean that I’m entirely done with Malifaux though. I’ve played my first match with the crew, and even though it works reasonably well as it is (as long as you don’t have to kill too much stuff), it really needs some extra units to round it out.

In other (and much more Oldhammer-relevant) news, I saw this up for auction some time ago, and I just thought I'd show it to you:

It’s Sigrid from Death on the Reik!

I think I’ve mentioned it before, but this figure is so rare that I’ve never even seen a picture of it before, outside of the official flyer. I did place a bid on it, but the price reached a level I simply couldn’t justify (though not quite Kemmler-levels).

It’s a shame, ‘cause I really wanted it for my collection, and I’m not sure I’m ever going to get another chance, but that’s life I guess. At least now I can use the money to round out my Malifaux crew instead.

Croaker.

All dolled up/Leviathan

I finished the first mannequin of my Malifaux crew yesterday.

As with the performers, I tried to stick fairly closely to the color-scheme on the box, but I weren't able to mix a purple/pink that was as vibrant as the artwork. I’ve ordered a Vallejo “pink” (along with a bunch of other stuff), but I didn’t feel like waiting for it to arrive, so the figure ended up with a dress and leggings in a much more muted shade of purple.

Combined with the grayish “skin”, it looks slightly faded-out besides the much more colorful performers, but maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. It is, after all, supposed to be an assistant.

If you look at the date of my last post, you might be led to believe that it took me about ten days to paint this figure, which isn’t the case. For all its tiny details, it was actually fairly easy to paint and has a simple, but attractive, three color paint-scheme.

No, the delay was, once again, caused by something related to Battlefleet Gothic, though this time it was the new(ish) mobile game Battlefleet Gothic: Leviathan.

For some reason, it seems to have flown under the radar; there aren’t many reviews out there at any rate. I’ve been aware of it for a while, but until recently it was only available on IOS (I’m an Android person myself), but I finally got started on the campaign last week, and immediately lost 20 hours to it.

It’s basically a near one-to-one adaptation of the board game to mobile devices and it’s actually very good. If you like BFG, you should like this as well, even if you will spend a bit too much time fighting the interface in addition to the enemy. It usually works though; once you learn what all the buttons are for.

The main part of the game is a campaign where you try to defend a star system against the advance of (surprise, surprise) Hive Fleet Leviathan. It’s very tense, and you’ll constantly be struggling to make your (painfully sparse) fleets be at the right place at the right time. I’ve only just gotten my first heavy cruiser, so I’m probably not even close the end, but it already feels like an epic adventure.

If I do have a criticism, it’s that you’ll spend all your time fighting Tyranids (though you can play skirmishes against imperial forces). The ‘Nids have a very specific playstyle, which in turn means that you’ll have to adopt an equally specific style to combat them (torpedoes… lots of torpedoes). It would have been nice to see some Chaos or Ork raiders to spice things up a bit. Maybe even some Imperial rebels (‘Stealer cult, anyone?), which wouldn’t have required creating new assets for the game.

Fighting all those Tyranid drones has made me reevaluate the value Cobra Destroyers however. Sure, those puny guns are utterly useless, but the ability to fire off a torpedo salvo (almost) wherever I want to is simply invaluable against escort-heavy fleets.

Croaker

Dressing up

I’ve finished my second Malifaux figure. I spent way too much time on this one, but I simply couldn’t get the color of the dress right. The end result is acceptable, but not really my best work. If I ever go back and redo any of these figures, this one is probably the one I’d start with.

Here’s the finished figure:

I made another mistake in that I didn’t paint the black parts till after I’d done the dress and skin. Since they are such light colors, each slip with the black took several layers, and a lot of time, to cover up.

One thing that did work quite well was the legs. To give the impression of nylons, I painted them black, and then highlighted with black mixed with more and more flesh tone. I think the result if fairly life-like, and it didn’t take too much time to do.

Last time I mentioned that I’d had a lot of trouble painting the (very small) eyes after I’d done the skin, so this time I followed some advice from the internet and paint the eyes first. Doing what people on the internet tell you is usually an awful idea, but in this case it worked out very well, as I could get the pupils to look right first and then slowly define the shape of the eyes. It was much faster than the other way around, and I think that the end result looks better.

A few pictures of the process:

Croaker

Putting on a show

Welcome to part two of my little Malifaux project. I’ve already (It’s quick for me – ok!) finished my first model, so I thought I’d give a brief introduction to my crew and then show off my work so far.

Crews in Malifaux are build around named characters called “masters” (unless you play smaller games, in which case you can use a “henchman”). Masters are the most powerful units in the game, and often quite specialized, so your choice of leader has a large impact on the way you play. I went with Colette Du Bois – an ex-pickpocket turned theater owner and secret master smuggler for a magical underground crime syndicate/rebellion called The Arcanists.

Colette is a bit of a “control master”. She’s very difficult to kill (if played correctly) and capable of teleporting all around the board, but her main forte is getting the best out of the rest of her crew.

The masters come in boxes with a small thematic crew and as you can see Colette’s crew is mostly made up of ladies and magical/mechanical dolls in pretty dresses. These are all part of her smuggling operation (as well as being performers in her theater), and though they are quite capable of handling themselves, the crew, as it is out of the box, is slightly light on heavy-hitters. Cassandra (the lady in the red dress holding a giant sword) is widely regarded as one of the best units in the game (too bad you can only have one of her), and she can certainly kick ass, but I’ll probably still add a few more “killy” units to the crew at some point, to balance it out a bit.

I’m honestly not entirely sure why I was drawn to this particular crew. Maybe it’s because I always used to play blue/black or blue/red control when I was into Magic the Gathering, and this crew is kinda like that, or maybe it’s simply to get to paint something completely different from my usual dwarves and skaven.

Anyway, onwards to the painting…

I thought I’d begin with one of the “performers” – Colette’s basic minion.

I decided I’d stick fairly closely to the paint-scheme on the box, which led to a surprisingly heated discussion with my wife over whether her skirt is blue or green – it was a veritable blue dress/gold dress situation.

Coming to the conclusion that my wife is obviously color-blind (and what do women know about colors anyway), I ended up painting it blue.

I’m fairly pleased with the end result, though I did make a number of mistakes. For example: Wyrd’s figures are closer to realistic proportions than Citadel’s, which means that their eyes are quite small. Much to my later chagrin, I stuck to my usual procedure of painting the skin first, and then painting in the eyes. This proved to be extremely difficult, and I only achieved an acceptable result after an hour of painstaking work. Next time I’ll do the eyes first and paint the skin in around them, which should be much quicker.

Croaker.

Going off the reservation

I’m not quitting oldhammer – honest! But sometimes you have to go where the games are, and in my case, that place is called Malifaux.

For those of you who aren’t aware of it, Malifaux is a skirmish-level miniatures game set in (and I’m not kidding here – it’s on the publisher’s website) a magical, Victorian, horror, steampunk, gothic, Wild West inspired alternate earth. Whew.

As you might infer from that description, it’s a game of wildly swinging moods and themes.

It is a game where a group (“crew” in the game’s terminology) of Lovecraftian horrors might theoretically face off against a crew made up entirely of pigs. That’s not a metaphor; I’m talking about actual pigs here.

Despite this “everything that was cool in 2010” approach to world-building, the game’s background is remarkably coherent (certainly more so than Age of Sigmar’s), which has a lot to do with the (often) quite excellent stories that make up a large part of the rulebooks. You can listen to them for free on Wyrd Games’ official podcast, The Breachside Broadcast.

To illustrate just how good these stories are (IMO), let me tell you that, though I’ve settled on collecting a single crew (for now), there are at least five more that I want at some point; three of which I only became aware of when I read a really engaging story about them.

Malifaux has a couple of other good qualities (from the perspective of someone who’s got an infant, a wife and a house to take care of in his spare time).

Most importantly, you only need about ten (relatively inexpensive) figures to play, depending on which crew you choose. This means that, even though I only get about half an hour’s worth of painting done each day, I might conceivably finish a crew before Christmas, which is more than I can say for my dwarf army.

Secondly, Malifaux plays in one to two hours, only requires a small table and a bit of scenery and has an active community in my area, so I may actually get to play it once in a while without having to travel to Bring Out Your Lead (not a realistic proposition for me right now). I was always a gamer first and painter second, so this is very positive.

Game-wise Malifaux is very modern, for lack of a better word. It’s build around a familiar core (you take turns activating a model, each of which can take 2-3 actions), but has some interesting twists.

For starters, you don’t roll dice, but instead draw from a deck of playing cards to randomize results. Wyrd sells custom decks, but you could just use a normal poker set.

Each turn you also get a hand of (usually) five cards you can “cheat” in, if you don’t like your draw. As you can keep cards in your hand from turn to turn if you don’t use them, this lets you do some interesting things with probability-optimization and hand-management. For example, do you keep a really low card in hand, so you won’t draw it randomly, or do you discard it to, maybe, draw something better next turn? Does your answer to that question change if you want to do something important at the beginning of your turn? What about an average card, do you keep that? And so on and so forth…

Another feature is that all models have several special abilities – some of which can be combined into powerful effects. As I said above, a model usually has 2-3 actions each turn, but under the right circumstances, you can get as much as seven or eight (or even more, I’m sure). This sounds broken as hell, but when everyone can do stuff like that, it’s just what you have to expect and plan for – and remember that you only have a few units, so you really need to make each one count.

There’s a bunch of other stuff, but if you’re really interested, you can download the rules for free here.

In a way, Malifaux feels a bit like a cross between a miniatures game and Magic the Gathering. Now that may sound appalling to some people, but it speaks to the board-gamer in me, so I like it.

I personally have very little patience with blogs that go veering wildly off-topic for any length of time, so I won’t bother you too much with all this newfangled nonsense, though I’ll probably post some pictures of whatever I paint up, if only to avoid going totally silent for the next couple of months.

Croaker