Bah LIFE!!! Kill it...

As you've noticed I haven't been able to really update the blog. Things have been hectic here, we're moving into a honest to god house and painting and doing little repairs is eating up a lot of my time. I haven't even had a chance to repaint my elysian model for my test scheme.

Anyway, just wanted to keep you all up to date and no I have not fallen off the planet, just delayed in my game playing. :)

-Honor and Glory from below... SGT Trinith Mordant 13th

PlanetStrike

So it's here... well I think it's a very cool expansion, I feel like they were trying to make it very "Apocalypse" like. Sure you don't get the really cool formations, but you basically have more elites, heavies, etc outside the normal T/O. I like the expansion overall but it really didn't need it's own book.

I will have to see about doing an in store campaign incorporating planetstrike, normal games and apocalypse. Hmmm... the drawing board beckons on this. Hmmm incorporate 5-8 players, a "crusade" system, and appropriate defense/offense strategies. Each turn would be a week or two.

Will think about this more.

Painting Tricks and Tips

So a group of us were approached about sharing some painting secrets and tips. I thought "I don't really have any 'tricks' to my painting or anything like that." There I was thinking about laying down a grand article on some masterful ideas of painting. I then realized, I'm not that great, maybe a little better then average; so how do I churn out my paint jobs.

I'll have to start with the basics. Know what you're going to paint. Paint a test model. That will give you an idea of how you want the mini to look and how to paint it. Many times I'll find shortcuts to a final step by just painting a single mini. It also gives you a chance to take a look and determine that what you saw in your head is or is not the final product you painted.

Many times I've had an idea in my noggin only to find out that put down on a mini it really isn't all that. Take note of my Elysian link to the right and the test model there. I don't like it. I thought I would and have given myself time to look at it and get a better feel for it. After several days I've decided, nope. It's not what I saw in my mind. So off I go looking for the right paints again.

Another trick, be comfy. Not to the point you'll fall asleep in your chair but many of us have a restricted painting area, whether it's because of a wife and kids needing the extra bedroom so you have to make space in another room or because you're in an efficiency and have no other rooms except the bathroom. Regardless of your painting area make it comfortable.

I personally like background noise when I paint, whether it's the TV or tunes only depends on my mood at the time. To me painting is a release, not a "job" (I'll get to that in a minute). Where I paint depends also, sometimes it's on the folding TV tray table or it's at my desk with the big screen TV turned so I can see it. The point is I paint where I'm comfy and that translates to better paint jobs.

Another thing is, set time aside. If you have an hour between coming home from work and dinner. Use it to paint, then don't touch a brush again unless you really want to. This helps you stick to a schedule in case you are doing work for someone else or if you're trying to get a bunch of stuff painted before a GT or event. Don't push it though, nothing sucks more then being burned out on painting.

My final piece of advice, be ready with the assembly line once you've got your test mini where you want it. This works well for rank and file, but not so much for your special characters and leaders. Those you want time to work on seperately, but joe smoe trooper can get the basic paint job, unless you want a perfect showcase army. Granted most want that, but I find once you get your basic paint jobs on then you can always go back and keep adding to it... as long as you don't seal the mini. Of course this could cause you to have to go back and touch up your base coats after several games of handling the mini, but I find that once I can go back and do touchups I find a little extra time to add something to increase the quality of the paint job.

So there you go, it's not elegant, nothing like use your finger nail for wet blending, but I think these basics will help you get to where you want to be. Stick with the basics and build on them and you'll be pleasantly surprised. Until next time...

FOR THE EMPEROR!!!

Day 6... last day before the big game and unveiling of the bunker

So the last day is upon us. Thanks to my partner he does all the priming in the morning while I have errands to run. This is what I walked in to that morning.


A very impressive structure but with much work left to do on it. I convince him to start on the muddy area as I planned to use three colors and layer it up to give it a nice churned mud look to it. Started with scorched brown, then heavy dry brush of bestial brown, followed lastly by vermin brown for the highlights. I think it turned out well and this was also my friend's first try at a heavy dry brush. He got enough practice on this terrain piece now though and is probably an expert on it now. So here is the first layer.


I didn't take pics of the complete layering of the mud but here is one more completed look at the base and also us starting on the grey colors. Namely the dragon's teeth and inside the bunker. I also went ahead and worked on the outside of one of the pillboxes. I did the right side dragon's teeth and my friend using the technique he picked up doing the mud went to town on the rest of them. He did a damn fine job with it too. Hope the close up can show that. You can also see a better picture of the mud as well in it I hope.


We got pumped and zipped through the base.


The morning of the game my partner in crime cleaned up the area around the table for some clean pics to be taken. Note the comm array, my partner is the one that did that whole thing by himself. Also note the various items on the roof to provide cover to the forces on top.


The above picture is with all the modular pieces disassembled. Below you'll see the final product completely assembled.

Finally on the table for the megabattle. We were greeted with some very nice praise from the other participants and the game moderator and the push to get it done was worth it. Here was a worthy piece for centering the imperial lines.

And so that wraps up the bunker. Just so you know we had two 5 man Marine squads in the side pillboxes, a unit of HtH Termies in the bottom with a tooled up inquisitor Lord and retinue, second level had two ten man IG squads. Third Level had one ten man IG squad and the Company Command Squad. The roof had a Vindicare assassin and an Autocannon Squad. The only place that felt "crowded" was the roof and that was mainly because of the big heavy weapon bases. Great fun was had by all and much carnage insued. The imperials won 1-0 and claimed victory for the second Lucky 13s Megabattle.

Now have to finish that Mordant 13 ShadowSword. Atleast it's assembled and primed now. Time to sling paint...

I stoleid dit....

So I grabbed the same template as FtW blog uses and I plan to implement it into this blog. So will be making some site changes soon.

Day 5

So Day 5 was a huge success. We hit the ground running and had a plan and goal in mind. Mainly to get everything assembled and based. Then primed to let sit overnight to begin the painting on Day 6 morning. We also planned to get the second and third level glued together and to dry over night. Then primed in the morning and finally painted in the evening.

It's time to get started. We gathered up the finished base and placed some newspaper underneath it to help control the overflow of the basing material.



So what is our materials list for such a massive area? Why two sturdy brushes, 3 bottles of white glue, and last but not least... lots of basing material.


We started by both of us taking the area in sections. Once that was done I went ahead and poured the sand on it while my compatriot in arms continued on with "painting" on the glue. I must stress this, if you have a massive project and a tight time line. Find yourself a reliable partner and divvy up the tasks. We managed to get a lot more done each night because we worked as a team.


Below is the final based terrain piece. We left it to dry and began working on other things.

So now comes the hard part. Making the actual modular second and third levels as well as the roof. So using wood glue and our little supports we very carefully and much cussing later (lessons learned here, make a better plan on the actual bunker pieces and add a day to allow you to be more patient) we finished up the two additional levels.


Some nifty adhoc construction frame work (this was one of the lessons.)

With the second level dried for about an hour we test fitted the first piece. It was a little tight mainly due to the first level leaning in slightly while drying that first evening. Again lesson learned. I know now a better way to build the bunkers. Also as you will see later on, we decided that we also need to use better and smoother wood. This stuff while cheap tended to splinter when sawing or cutting or even just painting.

Now it really looked like it was coming together nicely. So off to prime this beast.


Once again the time was late so it was time for me to head home and crash. Real life chores had to be done way too early in the morning but I felt happy that the priming was done on the main board and that tomorrow the final steps would commence.

FOR THE EMPEROR!!!

It's done

Well the bunker is done. Finished painting it this evening. I will post the last two days of work after tomorrow. I want the bunker to be a nice surprise to the local people that follow this blog. I'll also get a couple pics of it in action.

Stay tuned