Temporary Military Command Centre

This is from Antenocitis' Workshop (AW)survival line and is described on the website as "Temporary Military Command Centre" but is also described in the kit as "Military Office". Whichever handle it goes by it Makes a handy addition to the Post Apocalypse collection. 

Shown here with Canoness Veridyan for scale this is one of the easier of AW's models to build. Its got a lot of space inside due to the magic of laser etching.  There are a lot of interior details like desks, fire extinguishers, weapon racks, computers, data storage banks, maps, and clocks but none of them intrude on the playspace. Quite clever really. It allows you to cram a squad in there without acrobatics.

Its one of AW's pre-painted MDF line and the only things I painted at all were the gray desks and server cabinets and the blue water of the wall map.  Touch up the MDF snip points with Nut Brown (Reaper) and its done.  Like all the models in this line the prepaint is pretty basic but is totally playable straight out of the box and provides a nice launch point if you want a more detailed finish.  I'll likely add some weathering and graffiti to match the themes on the AZ Mart I did earlier. 

Lots of windows and the lack of actual furniture makes it easy to see which models have access.

I love the real furniture that is available for many of these buildings but there is a certain practicality in having some frequent use structures without a lot of clutter for a travel set or a pick up game.

The exterior is complete with an Air Conditioner that serves as the handle for removing the roof and a freely rotating removable radar/satellite dish. 

A great, quick to build, addition to the tabletop!
 

Malifaux: Avatar of Vengeance

Avatar of Vengeance

 

Continuing the tidy up of models that were started but never finished,  mostly due to packing up and moving house something like 14 times in the past 25 years... but also due to the occasional attack of  squirrel syndrome, I knocked out this old metal, 1st edition Malifaux, Avatar of Vengeance. Shown above with Kirai Ankoku for scale.

I haven't played 3rd edition... not sure I played 2nd either although I did get 2nd edition rules and some of the wonderful hard plastic kits. I think the Avatar type models have been retired from the game although there seems to be some cards available to allow these to be played as Emissaries.. whatever those are! Don't hate me I don't know these rules I'm just painting the pile!

The base is sculpted from green stuff.

Whole Model primed Krylon White.

The red robes are Blood Red (Reaper (R)), layer with Phoenix Red (R), whole robe wash with Drying Blood (Secret Weapon (SW)), target wash again with Drying Blood.

Green robe detail sash is German Luftwaffe Green (Vallejo Panzer Colors (VPC)) detail and edge highlights with Verdigris Pale Green (SW) wash with Sapphire (SW).

Ghostly Avatar painted Hexwraith Green (Games Workshop(GW) straight out of the bottle. Highlights are Splintered Bone (R) and a targeted re-application of Hexwraith Green for depth of color wraps it up.

Rug washed with Sapphire (SW) dry brush with Sky Blue (R) top dry brush with Ice Blue (GW). Fringe is Brass Casings (SW) Flesh Wash (SW)

Stone is Sky Gray (R) with a very diluted Sewer Water (SW) wash focused on edges and crevices.

I'm not sure what is up next... I found a pile of stuff to be repaired after the move so I may work on that.  There is also a Military Temporary Command Post from Antenocitis' Workshop in progress and I just got the new beefier Exemplar Sisters from Raging Heroes that I'd like to have a go at.

Back to the desk!

Gloomhaven Starting Characters and some treasure chests

Being anxious to explore the enormous Gloomhaven board game it was time to knock out the characters that are initially available to play.

Also migrated into this are a couple of treasure chests from Mantic's Kings of War Strategies and Objectives set.  I think they'll make perfect replacements for the cardboard counters included with Gloomhaven so one is presented as "Gold" and the other as "silver"

I decided to do these fairly close to the box art because Gloomhaven, while ambitious for a board game, is not a full blown RPG and the characters are predefined. I wanted players to be able to identify them easily.

If I'm honest the character models are not of the same quality of a lot of the new boardgame offerings like Kingdom Death Monster, Etherfields, Chronicle X, or even The Order of Vampire Hunters but is higher than RWBY: Combat Ready and Dark Souls (Player Characters... Dark Souls does have some very nice Boss models and Gloomhaven has zero Boss models).

I think most of the effort was put into other kinds of presentation in Gloomhaven. For example the little tuck boxes that conceal the locked characters gives a great sense of anticipation so I look forward to seeing them... no advance peeking!

I used that new basing scheme I stumbled on while doing RWBY: Combat Ready except for the Mindtheif and the Spellweaver because they were just stuck awkwardly on the base and required some greenstuff to transition.

The characters are primer white with most colors achieved via washes and layering using mostly Secret Weapon washes and Reaper Paints.

 I've finally located my actual camera following the big move and am setting up the lightbox ... so I'm hopeful that the next batch of pictures will be better quality.  These, as have been all my posts since the move, are just taken at the paint desk with the iPad camera and I've struggled with lighting quite a lot.

Back to the desk!

Post Apocalypse Military Checkpoint, Void Elf Executrix Troop, Kings of War Objective and Scenario Markers.

Busy and eclectic week! First up is the WiP tray drying off after a quick sealer. On deck is a Military Check Point in MDF from Antenocitis' Workshop, a goblin casualty from The Battle of Skull Pass (WFB 7ed. Starter set), and a double dose of objectives and accessories terrain from Mantic's Kings of War 3rd Edition Scenarios and Objectives Pack.

The objectives pack will also be handy to replace some of the cardboard counters from Gloomhaven... stay tuned for more on that!

The Army checkpoint is part of the Post Apocalypse, pre-painted, line of MDF terrain from Antenocitis' Workshop. The little guard hut is presented in its pre-painted and weathered condition but I decided that the road barriers needed a spot of paint as they were plain black out of the box.The alternating red and white striping was aided by the barrier arms being pre-scored.  A yellow work up and a red cap tops of the post.

I've been particularly addle-brained the past couple of weeks and, when constructing the barriers for the Army Checkpoint I used some included spare parts to double the size of the counterweight in spite of the instructions being rather clear that only one plate was required... the more the merrier right?

 

WRONG!

As you can see the extra bit makes the barrier arm non-functional as it impacts the support post very early in its lift... woe is me!

Since there was nothing else for it I decided to have a crack at removing the extra bit with a pair of side snips.

Cha-CHING! the offending bit popped right off and took the glue with it.  One of the advantages of having sealed the part before construction began. Fortunately this was the case with all four arms.  They came away clear and I was able to finish the assembly without further mishap.

The finished barrier arm ready to control movement on the tabletop!

An observation... this kit was more difficult for me than most of the kits from this range... The parts did not go together quite as seamlessly.  I think I needed to build a jig to help with that but part of the problem was that I had to use a different glue than I am used to.  For the other MDF projects I have been using Super-phatic glue which is kind of like the superglue of wood glues. Since it sets so fast I've been able to skip a lot of clamping, banding, and jig making.  I built this kit with Gorilla PVA.  Its a good glue and sets up reasonable quickly... about like a tacky glue... bit not the fast hard set that I was used to so I ended up collapsing the posts a few times and having to rebuild the whole thing on the fly.  Unfortunately it shows on some of them.  I started clamping after the second collapsed assembly so half of them are ok and half of them are a bit ragged.  But they are post apocalypse and have not yet been weathered so... they may yet be battered into submission!

Here is an assembled checkpoint being willfully ignored by a troupe of Void Elf Executrices from Raging Heroes.  I've been using them as Ynnari but continue to refer to them as Void Elves. 

This is the Executrix troop that completes the Executrix command unit I did about a year ago. Fortunately I had done the base coat before the big move so I didn't have to do a lot of color matching... that won't be the case going forward though!

Who said death worshiping Dark Elves have to wear black or red anyway! I mean the power weapons have that Dark Side red light-saber glow... that should cover it!

Mantic's Kings of War objectives... Dragon Egg, Weapons Cache (dead gobbo by GW! 'ow did that git in 'ere ennyway!?! ohh cool static grass)

Runestone and messenger/courier bag... against a stump... with a pistol and a musket... that looks to have ended badly...

Supply crate and ammo pile for a cannon.

Thats all for today...

Next time the Gloomhaven initial unlocked characters and the Kings of War objective treasure chests that didn't make it into this post.

Back to the desk! 

 

RWBY: COMBAT READY!

 RWBY: COMBAT READY is a board game that I have not played... it looks super abstract but I'll eventually get round to giving it a go.

I am enamored of the RWBY anime and totally bought the game to mine it for minis... forgetting that they *might not* be in a useful scale...  

The models are in a soft plastic and are a little bit larger than GW Heroic scale. They come mounted on a 38mm-ish beveled base .... awkward! We can see Penny is a bit taller than Sister Veridyan.  I *may* re-base these later and mix them with the Kingdom Death: Death High series but maybe not... some of the models actually use all that base-top real estate.

Penny is my favorite model in the set:

She is a fun character and the least flash ridden of the set.  The models themselves are of relatively low detail and the faces are a poor match to the original art for several of them.

I did find a fun way to paint the base that I'd like to remember how to do...

Black wash

Cloudy Grey (Reaper) blobs (diluted) in a rough cobblestone pattern.

Base White (Reaper) stippled on the grey blobs.

Sewer Water (Secret Weapon) washed thinly over the whole base.

The Sewer Water wash wash attracted to the black washed base and blended the edges of the gray blobs without any help from me.  The White stippling added subsurface highlights giving everything a nice feeling of depth for very little effort.

Moving on from Penny to the natural pairing of Blake and Yang

These had the roughest of the faces but, since anime is so color coded, it all works out in the end.

Other groupings... sisters Yang and Ruby.... and Ruby and dreamy mean girl Weiss

These really use all that base...

Finally the Villans!

All in all I'm reasonably happy with the project.  The characters are easily identifiable and will be fun to have on the tabletop.  I'd have liked them to be a little more in scale with regular tabletop models but they are not so egregiously scaled as to be unusable with Heroic scale models.

Thoughts... Board Game Kickstarters as sources for cool models.... 

I'll be doing a lot less of that unless the models are presented in a scale that is useful to me. So far RWBY: COMBAT READY!, and Darksouls: The Board-game have been in funky scales while The Order of Vampire Hunters and Chronicle X have been in standard heroic scale with bases.  Excluding the board games that are made by war-games manufacturers, like GW and Mantic, or Board-games that are intended to function as, or compatible with, tabletop wargames... like Joan of Arc (15mm) I have to be aware that my idea of proper mini scale is not universal.

With that said... I wonder where Etherfields is gonna land for figure scale?

Next time I finish up some Void Elf Executrix troops that I started working on before the big move and have relocated.

Back to the desk!

Epicast Stompa revisited

While unpacking the workshop I rediscovered an old friend from 40K 2nd Edition... Its from Epicast back in the bad old days when GW licensed a few outside companies Like Epicast, and, later, Armorcast to produce stuff that occurred in the fluff but GW itself was not producing.  Eventually all of those licenses were withdrawn and consolidated back into what we now know as Forge World.

These early models came with rules in the form of Data Sheets so they could be played, with the consent of your opponent, without any new rule books being required.

Second edition was the high water mark of the cartoon style for 40k and my Orks were as cartoon-y as they come. These first couple of pictures are of the Stompa appear (with the addition of the beginnings of some lining that I started before remembering to snap a photo) as I played it for decades.  Bright primary colors and almost zero weathering, highlighting, or shading.  The roof tiles over the rear assualt doors were perhaps the only attempt at weathering.  

This was not entirely a sacrifice on the altar of speed.  The cartoon style really relied on mass color coding with a very small number of spot details as focal points... much like Anime does even now. I wanted to update this old can a bit so it didn"t look super incongruous with my current Orks but retained its 2 ed. roots.

Below is the result.

As you can see I chose not to start over from scratch and just continued on over the old paint.

I started with a lot of Brown Rust (Secret Weapon(SW)) to move the nearly monochrome green into a two color scheme, jazz up the freehand chevrons, and to make the iron jaws of the skull a bit more fearsome. This was all large brush stippling.

Following the Brown Rust I did a full model Drybrush with Silver (Vallejo(V)) followed by a full model wash with Armor Wash (SW) and then wiped away the excess wash with a paper towel.  

Orange Rust (SW) was stippled in the central areas of any Brown Rust areas, Phoenix Red (V) stippled over red areas. 

Brass Casing (SW) was used to touch up and shade gold areas and Engine Metal (SW) touched up and highlighted all metal areas. The battlecannon barrel mouth got some thin coats of Orange Heat (SW) fading into Purple Heat (SW) fading into the base green.  The entire model then was lined with Rust Shadow (SW) with extra effort directed at establishing a more detailed impression of a blade track for the chainsword.

The model has always been unsteady on its feet and prone to falling over so in a final omage to 2nd ed., and to play with my newly rediscovered static grass applicator, I  grabbed a big oval bass and loaded it up with 2mm static grass.  In 2nd. ed almost all the armies I encountered, including my own, were straight up flocked unlike the more significant efforts expended on modern bases.

Here is the completed model with some Ork Burna Boyz making their wicked way into the Undertown... gonna be a bad day for someone!

 Back to the desk!

Cheers

Joan of Arc 15mm Core Game, GW Forest Goblin Spider Riders, an Epicast Stomper Tune-up in progress and fun with static grass!

The Joan of Arc game is so ambitious!  Its a board game, a Tanletop Mini Game, its a Historical Game, its a Fantasy Game. It has an RPG and its almost an action RPG right out of the box... It even has aerial combat because.... Angels and Dragons... whew!  Its gonna be a fun ride!

From the core box: The Tarasque, The Unicorn, The Archangel Gabriel, 4 Angels, 2 Bullock Wagons.

As you can see you can go full on fantasy right out of the starter box... I think one of the scenarios is a werewolf hunt even... or you can stay with the historical scenarios. Its a great transitional game.

These were all sprayed a dark camo green primer (Rustoleum), damp-brushed with white craft paint and washed with Secret Weapon (SW) Washes.  The wagons then got a dry-brush of Sunny Flesh (Vallejo(V)) to make the wood pop.

Below is the tray ready for re-interment in the game box... In this Golden Era of Mega-Games I'm going to have to put some thought into how to condense the numerous expansions.

The angels got sky themed bases to go with the sky tiles in the aerial combat portion of the game.  Sky Blue (Warpaints) Stipple with white, wash with Blue (SW).  White robes are layered Graveyard Bone and Splintered Bone from the (Reaper) Bone Triad.   Gold is Brass Casings (SW) Flesh Wash (SW) dry-brush Silver (V).

 Being easily distracted by shiny things... I was unable to simply put the static grass applicator back into its box and decided to fix a long standing problem... namely my ancient 40K second edition Epicast Stompa!  Its never stood well on its own and is heavy enough to take out models it happen to fall on...doh! So I thought I'll just slap a base on it and its "problem solved!" ... 

...then I noticed that the old second edition paint-job looked really, really, dated so... doing something I very rarely do... I decided to do a bit of an update.  These are the pictures of its original state except for some black lining I started to do before remembering to snap a photo.  I'm going to preserve some elements of the original and bring it up to date without starting from scratch.  Well, that's the plan anyway!

The completed Forest Goblin Spider Riders. Ready for an Oldhammer rumble!

Speaking of a rumble I literally hate this new Blogger interface!  Its more primitive than its predecessor and seems specifically designed to be rigid and unwieldy.  For example I'd like to put this sentence at the bottom of the page... but I can't do that without actually removing the picture below... fabulous improvement... This update would normally have taken be about 15 minutes to compose on the fly but I've been at this now for three hours and still can't get the words and the pictures to go where I want them.

MADE
  OF

 FAIL