Prime Axiom Finished!

I was really excited to get the Prime Axiom on the table and play with it. The biggest problem with this was the fact the model would paint better in pieces. So I was forced to paint it before I could play with it. I couldn't imagine trying to get around some pieces and get to some of the interiors.

Step 1. Paint my gold scheme on all the pieces. If you want the formula it's on my Convergence at Lock and Load post.

Step 2: Find where I could break up the gold with accents of silver.

Step 3: Was to make sure the silver clicked together so I would test the pieces together.

Step 4: Once I tested the pieces and was happy with the results of the silver I started painting my blue. Though unlock my other pieces I did 3 levels of highlighting for now. I still want to go back and hit the back coils and some of the larger spots with more blending.

Step 5: Not ignore the bored bulldog watching me paint!

Mochi

 Step 6: Assemble the model and start figuring out how I plan on getting him on the base.

Step 7: Actually paint the base.

Step 8: Set 3 pins in the base and drill holes in the feet of the Axiom. This is where the most painful part of the experience was. When you spend sometime with a speed 10 dremel high gauge bit drilling metal holes. Don't touch the metal! Though this picture doesn't show it, he is floating and even though I was very skeptical about it being stable it came out very well in my opinion.

More Convergence Prep

I got a few more games in with my proxy army and a few laughs this past Wednesday with my normal WM night group. So far my games have gone splendidly well. Undefeated with Forge Father Syntherion and his very synergistic play style.

I've massively enjoyed their unique style of play. They can run multiple jacks very efficiently if you can play properly. This is definitely not the faction for new players in my opinion, as the floor is higher then most factions.

In preperation for getting the nice models at lock and load I am painting up some custom bases. I have got some nice industrial bases, I wanted to do something a little different for my arcs. Does this look good? Or like a butchered bumble bee smashed into my base? Please post comments if you like it or not. Also if you think it'll be too much for an entire faction?

Ghetorix

With Ghetorix I really wanted to try something new and decided to go with a heavily white paint scheme for the skin. While staying true with my other Circle paint jobs of the armor plates, stone weapons and over all natural colors.

Front

Back

Overall I'm happy with the results. I also used the folded paper trick for back drop. Thanks for the tip on taking pictures. I am pretty happy with it over all Tell me what you think! 

Super Painting Weekend!

This weekend started off very slowly. I played a quick 35 point game of Trollbloods (look at last post for list) vs. a new Khador player. Then my wife and I had a mellow dinner Friday night and went to sleep at a decent time.

Our normal gaming day of Saturday was slowed to a crawl with one of our regulars being sick, his brother who usually comes with him didn't come by himself, we lost another gamer who was committed to finishing his Legion battle engine this weekend 

and then Mass Effect 3 claimed another. My wife and I found ourselves with a very slow relaxing Saturday with nobody over. What to do?

Paint! Nicole my wife had finished converting up her Archidon last weekend and decided to start painting it. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get some work done myself and grabbed my paint brush.

These pictures are of her beautifully painted and converted Archidon. She did an amazing job, you can't even tell that she's relatively new to the hobby with about 3 years of off and on painting. She used the new gallows grove branches to help convert her nest. I love how this came out.

With that model coming out so well she was inspired and quickly grabbed another model. She had her Razor worm since it first came out, and now finally threw some paint on it. Her paint scheme for the skorne has been blue's and purples with some great transition work. Since she had decide to commit to fully blue on the Archidon she decided to do the opposite on the Razor Worm.

I really enjoy how she uses Chinese lettering to mark the models facing.

 Next on the chopping block was the Ironback Spitter. We both love this model for it's goofy yet impressive battlefield presence.

I really enjoyed the natural color scheme she went with him. Works really well with the rest of the gators.

With him out of the way she decided to do some basing work on completed models. Gundrun is a model painted by a friend of ours as a gift. So we decided to base him real quick too.

The boneswarm proved to be the next target, and quickly grabbed a paint job. Simple bone job for the model before she moved onto the final model for her this weekend.

The final model Nicole finished this weekend was her Eyriss. This model had been started about half a year ago, but never found the inspiration to finish it. I requested her finish it though as I wanted to run the model for the new Krueger2 tier list from NQ.

 Before I talk about the models I painted this weekend I had finished up this troll during the week. Real quick job, but I like the scheme and matches the rest of the troll army.

The first model I decided to paint was a pair of gallows groves. I like how they play with Baldur2 and have been looking forward to them coming out. I painted up a 3rd, but during the pictures the last one was missing some dry brush work.

Then I grabbed my Gorax. Now I really don't like this model. I was going to buy the rescuplt but didn't like him either, though he was an improvement.

I decided to experiment on him with a painting transition. I did a simple grey base coat across the model then applied 3 different washes from the base being brown to black to blue. In the future I should really water down the washes. Then I applied another grey dry brush and picked out the details.

Didn't come out as well as I hoped, but the paint job was clean and out of the way.


Baldur2's list being almost completely painted now with the gallows done meant I needed to get to him done sooner rather then later.

I miss the epic bases they used to give models so I did a very simple conversion with his base to call out his rock manipulation abilities. The rock comes from the Earthborn model. I was happy with the quick conversion and still think he's a great model.

I had really hoped to get a solid list ready for strategicon but ended up with running Baldur1. I do feel confident in taking him to Kingdom con though.

At strategicon I played Morvhanna for 3 rounds of the tournament. I really enjoy her unique play style, and just need to avoid upkeep removal lists. Her list is getting close to painted and decided she has earned her paint job.

I wasn't sure how to paint her and decided to use her name as inspiration. I went with yellow and orange autumn colors to stay true to an Autumn theme. I really enjoyed how vibrant she came out.

I haven't painted this much so quickly in awhile. I really enjoy putting painted models on the table and can't wait to field my newly painted models.

Troll Mauler

When I first got into trolls I purchased an army from a buddy of mine. His army was cool looking, but didn't fit my theme. I've started to repaint some of his models and his preference to not fix every little bit of the model is obvious on certain spots. Overall though I think the paint scheme came out really cool. Let me know what you think!  Experimental paint schemes seem to be my thing lately, so much fun.

Troll Bomber

This is easily one of my favorite beasts in the troll faction. Thematically he is hilarious with the concept of a crazy torch wielding whelp is hanging for dear life just to light powder kegs so the bomber can hurl massive explosive devices. On the table top being able to throw two pow 16 shots is amazing, especially in a faction with so much knock down.

I experimented heavily with this guy, so please let me know what you think. I don't typically repaint anything but advice will influence future models.

Troll Battle Wagon

I received a great gift Wednesday from my good friend Steve. He purchased me the troll battle wagon. I've been on a circle kick for awhile and felt very successful in the painting depeartment with them. When I got the Battle Wagon I struggled with the concept of moving on to Trolls again.  But my hobby ADHD kickes in. I cracked this amazing model out in 4 days. I normally don't have that much drive but I knew I wanted to paint the crew separate from the wagon and I don't like playing with incomplete models and above all I really wanted to place 5 inch pie templates that knock everything down.

My first game with the battle wagon was vs. a good friend of mine Roman. Roman brought a very nasty Vyros list that included 2 mage hunter assassins. My first shot of the game being the first  time I've ever used the wagon I got a lucky scatter onto both of them and blew them to pieces. After that beautiful display I am now left wondering if I have a new favorite model in Warmahordes.

Troll Battle Wagon Photo's

I really enjoy the look of the battle wagon, the crew have great character and the impressive cannon on top is very cool too see on the table top.

As with most of my painting I tried something new on this model. I decided to try and rust out the metal. The results worked out really well and I was quite happy with the ease in which my idea which was a variation on the technique Steve uses worked well. 

1. I simply applied a coat of cold steel, washed it with devlun mudd. 
2. Then applied a stippling of mecharius orange then washed it was devlun mudd again.
3. Then I stippled vermin brown onto the mecharius orange following it up with an ogryn wash.

Get ready for some pain!

Tharn Blood Trackers

Finally finished painting up my Blood Trackers.

They are easily my favorite unit Circle has because of their crazy versatility. Rules wise they are very unique with having ranged weapon master attacks something that is very uncommon in Warmahordes. This is coupled with prey, movement 7 and stealth makes them a very mobile deadly force.

The units table top performance only gets better by adding Nuala. She brings reform and quick work to a unit helping deal with the 7 inch range on their spears.

Celestial Fulcrum part. 1

I've really enjoyed the addition of battle engines to Warmachine/Hordes. The one's I've personally used are the Cygnar battle engine and Circle battle engine. They've both impressed me much more then expected. The new flavor they bring to the battlefield is a welcomed asset to the game.

I find the Circle battle engine a little less versatile in lists it can still offer a really solid punch to the army.  It's currently found it's home in my Baldur2 list because I believe it synergizes well with his roots of earth spell. With it's immunity to the elements plus being able to throw +3 armor on it getting it up to armor 21 makes it a very hard to take down shooting platform that can remove swathes of infantry while still throwing boostable pow15 shots at harder targets. Here is the list that I've tried a few times to very high amount of success.

Baldur the Stonesoul (*5pts)
* Woldwatcher (5pts)
* Megalith (11pts)
* Woldguardian (9pts)
* Woldguardian (9pts)
Celestal Fulcrum (9pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
* Stone keeper (1pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
Blackclad Wayfarer (2pts)
Blackclad Wayfarer (2pts)
Gallows Grove (1pts)
Gallows Grove (1pts)
Gallows Grove (1pts) 

I had planned on taking this as 1 of my lists for orc con on Febuary 17th, but since the release date of the Gallows are on the 22nd I'll have to devise a new list. I currently think Baldur2 needs either a few wardens/megalith or some gallows groves to support his non upkeep support spell.

I have started painting my battle engine and am relatively happy with it. I still need to do the druids and the rock stands they are on then attach them to the rest of the model. I am not incredibly experienced with doing gems but I am pleased with the one's that I did for the orbs. I also played around with a painted rock scheme instead of dry brush for the base. It was a fun experiment and took a very long time. I probably won't repeat it, but I might experiment with variations on it for smaller trinket style rocks. The 3 layers of highlighting on the green runes was probably the most tedious part of the project.

With the battle engine and a lion share of my warbeasts done, it's time to finally start painting some infantry. I love Circle infantry models, but I keep shying away from them. Running out of alternative paint projects!

Pureblood Warpwolf - A test of painting shading

My major test for this model was to try and paint the shading instead of creating it with washes. My major motivation behind this was I rely too heavily on games workshop washes for most of my painting and wanted to break out of the box.

To start I base coated it with Khemri brown(gw foundation). Then mixed thorwnwood green (pp) to Khemri brown to create a shading color. Once I applied the shading I went through and highlighted it with Khemri brown and bleached bone. Applying a little more bleached bone for a few layers. The trick to prevent too many brush strokes from showing is to keep the paint wet on the model while you highlight. Once I got the skin where I got the highlights where I liked them I did another layer of shading. This one was a lot more subtle. 

Overall I really enjoy the hand painted shading technique. Typically in the past I had just highlighted up from a dark base color. So starting with a medium color and creating a shade and a highlight I feel like I have more control over all with the look. Though I do find it more time consuming.

Stalker - painted and opinions

My opinions of the stalker.

As I've been playing lots of games of Circle of Orboros lately doing my Warlock Rumble(playing every warlock twice to understand the faction better). I've found what I consider amazing in Circle.  This isn't some amazing insight that other players aren't aware of, but the Stalker is a really high quality Warbeast.

To go over him really quickly. He has reach pow16 attack and a claw attack. Some amazing warpings in strength, prowl and berserk. Allowing him to hit hard enough to threaten heavies, great infantry clearing capabilities in berserk and prowl which lets him get up field without the worry of shooting. They are effectively a complete tool box of destruction. I still stand by the most simply powerful ability in the game being reach. It is incredibly powerful. I should probably write a blog about reach in general at some point.

His biggest con is that he's a 10 point beast with only 25 boxes at armor 17. Yes defense 14 will allow him to survive non elite units, but still dies fairly quickly if your opponent knows what he is doing.

Now for painting!

Stalker Front

For my paint scheme I started with the skin using codex grey + thornwood green mixture then slowly added more and more codex grey then started to add some Menoth white base. Got about 7 very thin layers onto his skin. I used the chuck norris of washes with Devlan Mud but very watered down to paint the model and bring down the brightness. I went through and shaded it with thornwood green.

I then went through and did a very simple cold steel base coat on all the silver metal locations. I proceeded to wash it with Ogryn wash, then high lighted with cold steel, then a tiny highlight of mithril.

The bronze armor was a base coat of dwarven bronze. I gave it a highlight of shinning gold, washed it with Ogryn wash then highlighted it again with shinning gold. This last highlight is only on key locations.

Stalker Back

The claws are a base of charadon granite + beast hide then you add dheneb stone slowly as you add highlights until you get the brightness level you wanted.

The fur was very simple with beast hide then devlan mud washed then dry brushed with beast hide again.

The hood is painted with bootstrap leather highlighted up with bootstrap + beast hide. Then washed it again with devlan mud.

The basing is simple umbral brown, dry brushed with vermin brown (which gives a wet earth feel which I love) and static grass.

Three Posts in One

Took a short break, but I'm back


Running the journeyman league was a lot of fun but also caused me to grow tired of playing constantly.  The spell didn't last long and I'm craving to play once again! Another issue I think that killed my drive was the Farrow Faction though beautiful models with hilarious puns and all be it effective models doesn't give me enough options to suit my tastes.

The painted farrow at the end of the Journeyman League

The Thunder Hog and the piggies are being benched for one of my old favorites. I'll be going back to Circle for at least 7 months.  I plan on focusing on them practicing up to get familiar and comfortable enough to take them to Lock and Load.

I also can blame the slowness of blogs to a bit of fever I caught recently.  Though the fever isn't of the medical nature. It is more of the cardboard nature, the Magic The Gathering fever and though I find it very enjoyable I have curtailed it's advances on my gaming health and have resumed it's normal course.

The end of the Journeyman League!


The journeyman league was very successful.  Lots of models got painted, lots of games got played and it recruited a few new players to the group.  Which I personally consider the biggest bonus.

Greg's creative and bizarrely painted shifting stones and mannikin's

The Journeyman winner went to Paul one of our Cryx players.  He snuck in at the last minute with 20 points painted in the final week. Fantastic job Paul!

I won the Destroyer award, with Nicole winning the creator award. Fantastic job!

Creator goes to Nicole for her beautifully painted pirates

Back into Circle!

As I've started writing up my Circle lists and enjoyed the newer releases in Domination I picked up and dusted off the old models.  Built some of my more recent purchases and painted up a unit of Stoneward and Woldstalkers as well as the UA for my shifting stones.

My plan to get ready for Lock and Load is to lock in which warlocks I'll be practicing, so I aim to narrow it down to roughly 4, then 3 as we get closer to the event. The best way I see doing this is playing a few games with every warlock to get a feel for them again. I also need to look at the weaknesses of casters and try to pick warlocks that can be an answer for each other's weaknesses.

So far I've played both the Baldur's (pBaldur is still my personal favorite), pKrueger and Grayle. With Christmas coming up the next game will probably be in a few weeks. I'm looking at taking pKaya and Cassius next, if I can ever figure out the list I would take with him.

Caster Stats since I've come back:

pBaldur 2-0 - He is such an amazing tool box hard to really argue with him. My first warlock that I have probably over 100 games with. He's almost a certain lock for getting into the top 4.

eBaldur 1-1 - I really like him, he lets you play an attrition battle which I find interesting.

pKrueger 0-2 - One really close game vs Harbinger(only the Harbinger was left on the table) and one stomping by Rasheth. I have learned he is amazing at removing infantry and spell assassination runs on casters with weak stats. Depending on how my warlocks are looking if I need a hard counter vs infantry spam he might make the list. I do think he'll need Ghetorix to help counter his lack of armor punch.
*side note: Rasheth strength vacuum lists are nasty!

Grayle 2-0 - I really think he brings a very fast and aggressive style. I also realize that errants cancel everything his army tries to do. He definitely has the potential to make one of my lists thought he would probably be competing with eKaya for a spot.

I hope everyone has a good holiday and I suspect my blog will get a lot busier once everything settles. Lots of theory crafting and table top testing ahead!