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!

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  Eventually all of those licenses were withdrawn and consolidated back into what we now know as Forge World.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  

WiP Oldhammer Orcs and Gobbos

 Starting to think about painting again and began by tackling some projects that are lingering around the desk. I dislike having unboxed, unpainted, minis hanging about unless I'm working on them so when I came across an old Battle for Skull Pass box... stuffed with some extra bits I thought it would be a good way to knock some rust of the painting skills and clear some open box minis.

In previous, pre COVID-19 posts I knocked out the Night Goblins and Dwarves from the set... sans a Baggage train that is still sitting on the desk...

 Today I went to work on the Forest Goblin Spider Riders from the set and delved into the odds and ends that had hitched a ride in the box.

Like the rest of this project these are, in part, an experiment with painting directly on the plastic.  So far there has been no problems with adhesion but how durable this approach is remains to be seen.

The spider bases were dry-brushed Stormy Gray (Reaper (R)), dry-brushed White (Apple Barrel craft paint (CP) washed with Sewer Water (Secret Weapon (SW)), Stumps are Sunny Flesh (Vallejo (VP)) with a wash of Seraphim Sepia (Citadel (GW)) Stones are Sky Gray (R) and sky gray lightened with White (CP) tiny spiders are Marigold Yellow (R) Brushed with Sunny Flesh (VP).

The spiders were intimidating to look at but turned out to be fun and easy.

The whole model was dry-brushed White (CP) then the Yellow areas were washed with Yellow Snow (SW), the Eyes painted Hexwraith Green (GW), and the legs/carapace washed with Armor Wash (SW). These were painted on the sprue and the clip joins touched up with Sky gray (RP).

This is a fast Tabletop finish that did not involve much cleaning of mold lines etc.  The casts are relatively clean with almost zero flash.

 For odds and ends there was an Orc Chariot and an Orc Command Group.

The chariot was tricksey to build and seems to have a lot of optional extra bits... added to the bits box of course... For the Command Group one extra set of legs and a boar were in the box and would have permitted a single model to be mounted... I opted to save the bits for later and went with a foot command of Champion, Standard Bearer, and Musician.

Skin was US Army reflective green (Panzer Colors line of Vallejo) and a Thrakka Green (GW) wash, Strong Tone (Army Painter (AP)).  Blood Red (GW) eyes and Standard Horn... this Horn will be revisited for shading before being wrapped up...

Rusty metals are Brown Rust (SW), Strong Tone (AP) and a drybrush of Silver (VP) thinned with Armor Wash (SW).

Hair effects are Rust Brown (SW) Heavy dry-brush of White (CP) wash with Just Red (SW).

Blue Orc Banner... Monster Brown (AP), dry-brush White CP, Wash with Blue (SW) light dry-brush with Sunny Flesh (R).

Exposed wood of the Chariot using Monster Brown (AP) wash with Dark Sepia (SW) dry-brush Sunny Flesh (VP)

Still on the desk: Part 3 of Hab 3, Joan of Arc angels and wagons, Raging Heroes Executrix unit. That should make enough space to set about a revamp of the work space and better organizing the pile of stuff waiting its turn.

Whiskey Jacks interior

 Whiskey Jacks got a face-lift this week  as part of the big retrofit of interior resin bits courtesy of a mislabeled box in my workshop.  The unfortunate bit is that I was also expecting to find led lights for the interiors of these and they were not in the box... the hunt is on!

The main Bar area got liquor shelves a cashier station, what looks like an off-track betting interface, 2 TV Screens, 3 interactive tables, and 6 seats.

 The resin is glued in place if attached to a wall (TV screens, cabinets, showers, etc) and attached with magnets for stuff that sticks into the room (beds, tables, chairs, coffee stations, etc...) or that might be good to remove for mini placement in some games.  There is also some kind of exterior machinery or power panel with a screen and number pad you can see in the picture below.

 The office space... which in retrospect should probably have been a kitchen... got a coffee station, cashier's interface, and a TV screen.

Being a sparsely furnished area I imagine it works more like a VIP room for dancers so it got some poster-style decorations from a Haganai cel phone deco set.  Featuring Sena and Kobato.  So I guess its now a cosplay Bar too!

 There is an apartment above the Bar that is smaller than a tenement room but furnished similarly to a flat with a shower, toilet, sink, TV, environment control, and a full size bed.  It might be an owner/operator living space, a VIP room, or just a room for rent.  Of course being situated directly above the Bar would make it a pretty loud place to sleep... even for the Undertown.

Next up are the interior resins for the Data Trust, which also includes a metal model drone to park on its roof, and a pair of SleepBox small format rentable rooms that can be deployed practically anywhere... like sidewalks or parking spaces... and are self serve.

Undertown Flats, signs, scatter, a table in progress

With all the COVID-19 stuff flying around I thought it might be time to set a Mantic themed table with some Plague vs. GCPS (Galactic Co-Prosperity Sphere) vignettes.

I'm really digging into the backlog of cool Sci-Fi scenics from Antenociti's Workshop

With my wife home a lot lately I've not been able to work at the painting desk for long but its been relatively easy to sit in the living room, or kitchen, and assemble pre-painted MDF buildings.  Its surprising how quickly a viable table comes together with this stuff!

 GCPS troopers in 3 man teams containing a Plague outbreak in the Undertown while the news boards report.

The quality of the photo print components supplied with these kits is amazing and for the 'small signs' set pictured above you get a set of two triangular signs each face having a different graphic... and there are 9 to choose from in the kit so you have options right out of the box.  With a little effort you can make signs from practically anything so the possibilities are pretty cool.

The Flats are a 3 level structure with a single, full floor, elevator serviced, apartment on each level.  I've not yet done interiors for these so what you see is the kit with no additions.

The rooftop is also accessible via elevator which is shown above.  I've made the top most roof removable and may retrofit lighting to this area... and many others... the better to show the cool acrylic doors and interior graphic details that so many of these buildings sport.

 More views of the sign scatter... large enough to obscure most models and fun to look at.

The acrylic tops and rods are meant to be held in place by pressure lugs but these quickly get knocked off and go missing so I've put a tiny dab of glue on the lower part of the lug to convince them to remain in place.

Likewise the acrylic rods are meant to fit tightly into the base without glue but just slide right through so I glued some of the very good paper left from trimming the photo-prints to the bottom of the sign so the acrylic rods have a floor to rest on.  The acrylic needs careful handling during construction to avoid getting glue on it and ruining the effect.

 The benches are resin components that require a little paint which was as simple as spraying them with Rustoleum Hammered Metal, giving them a wash of Secret Weapon Armor Wash and a quick drybrush of any silvery metallic.

 The Undertown starting to take shape on a small table we usually use for card games.

Lots of scatter elements like street lights, info kiosks, adverts of various sized, vending machines, mail boxes, dumpsters and recycling bins.

The Plague erupted at lunch time with a move on the Spicy Pupniks food cart parked outside the Neo-Tiki Motel Office.

 A GCPS team clears the main building of the Neo-Tiki Motel and moves to assist the situation developing at the office.

Red Oni Sake has a location right next door to the Neo-Tiki Motel and also provides vending machines and mail drops.

 A view across the plaza.  The Game Mat is the small Undertown Mat from Antenociti's Workshop and is printed on mouse-pad material.  There is also a large version of this mat that joins nicely with the small mat for an even larger set up.

Plague taking cover behind the various bins. 

 The Undertown is relatively free of graffiti at the moment but will get tagged up... possibly during games!  I think it would be fun to put a blue tack marker on a spot to be tagged and do the actual application between games.  I mean what gang war themed game would be complete without turf and tags?

 I just managed to finish up the set of Large signs.  These are tall enough to obscure Knight Class vehicles or even low level flyers.

 A set of two, triangular, signs with 6 different graphics in the box.  You don't get the extra couple of choices that came with the "small" signs but they are really large prints with great, high quality, art so I'm not complaining.

 They even have a Sci-Fi Nun on this one!  On my table they are chronicling the adventures of the Sisters of Eternal Mercy! Although any Space Nuns would fit in.

I'm working on the Stepped Tenements today and whatever else pops out of the big box-o-MDF!

Joan of Arc core set terrain and some accidental Night Goblins

 One of the things that really got me hooked on the Joan of Arc (JoA) Kickstarter from Mythic Games was the amazing visuals they created with the terrain elements of the game.  My 15mm terrain collection is a bit dated and I thought, if the game was awful, I'd still be able to use a lot of the components in other 15mm games.  Fortunately the game is actually pretty good... maybe even very good... maybe even awesome! 

 The core set comes with a church, a large farmhouse, two small farmhouses, a ruined church, a well, 5 low walls and 7 defensive stake lines, 5 bushes, 4 rocks, 10 trees, and a small shrine.

I've managed to knock out: Church, houses, walls, trees, bushes, stakes, and rocks. 

 All of this was painted directly onto the plastic models without trimming, cleaning, or primer. I wanted to paint these fast and leverage the pre-colored plastic where possible.

Paint adhesion was excellent and I think they'll hold up well to use.  They were sealead with Krylon Satin Clear Coat but I'll probably zap them with a final light coat of Dead Flat.

 To get the variegated roof tiles I used three basic colors and rolled some dice to decide where they went!  A fun little exercise that turned in a good result.

The trees were pre-colored green and brown So they got some highlights and some Secret Weapon Washes.  I wanted to mix some green highlights and blew my color theory check and made a large batch of a totally wrong green....

... which resulted in a frantic look round for something to use it on... I located a box of "Battle for Skull Pass" which I think is something like 5th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles and set to painting up the horde of Night Goblins it contained.  The sculpts are actually very entertaining and really marked the beginning of GW's shift in hard plastics from were awful to very good.  Now, of course hard plastics are amazing and the sculpting takes full advantage of the material's properties to give us things very dynamic posing and flying/levitating models.






Not being able to let the pile sit I finished up the spear, bow, and character models from the set all the while thinking about Night Goblins as the poster children for keeping serious religion and greenskins separated.  The Night Goblins have created a society that does not need orcs! They are successful in their own right and field armies that are a potent, and all too successful, adversary to the powerful Dwarf Kingdoms. 

Back to the brushes!