And now a Henchman!

My progress on my Slaux Graux Malifaux force continues (slowly as it were) and today I've got my Henchman who will be leading my initial force done; Sebastian!

Sebastian's a cool model who comes equipped with an over-the-top saw for dissecting cadavers as well as turning opponents into cadavers.

The weird part of my painting for this project so far is that even though I've painted 3 models I've effectively only painted 1 Soul Stone worth of models I'll be using in my first few games.  Next up will be either the Flesh Construct or the Nurses.

-Jay

My return through the breach

Tonight I played my first game of the now not so new Second Edition of Malifaux and I have to say it was really good.  The second edition of the game retains all the mechanics that made the original game so good but strips away a lot of redundant detail from the individual models leaving them with the abilities that actually get used in a game.

For my first run through I used a 15 Soul Stone force led by Sybelle with 2 Rotten Belles and 1 Necropunk.  It wasn't a bad force to learn with but it lacked real punch and by the end of the game I was in pretty bad shape.

One of my local game stores, Hobby Kingdom is hosting an event they call the Slaux Graux Malifaux league.  The idea is to encourage players to collect and paint new forces and learn the game as they build up.  My initial plan was to paint a new Rasputina crew but then I was informed that that's the only starter without a Henchman (sort of a junior leader) in it and that I would need a Henchman until my games topped 26 Soul Stones.  So I've decided to go ahead and paint the new McMourning models up and use that.  The one thing I mentioned to Jordan one of the guys I had been playing with is that I would definitely NOT be making an effort to do any painting this weekend because I have extra time to spend with my wife and daughter and I would wait to start painting until after July 2nd......so here are the first 2 models that I stayed up until 1 am painting tonight.......

I decided to do the dogs first because I thought they would be an easy start.  I still feel that element of my decision was correct but in hindsight my mistake was not really planning out what I was doing.  I might use the Canine Remains in my first few games but the Chihuahua won't be an option until I can field my Master.

I've still got some work to do on their bases but I pretty happy with how they turned out and it did give me a chance to experiment with the new Blood For The Blood God Technical Paint from Games Workshop which I have to say I was pretty impressed with.

So I guess the real question is tomorrow will I chill out or will I be sitting at my desk after midnight working on more figs?

-Jay

Critters!

I've been working a lot lately on developing a small series of adventures for use with the OGL and in the meantime I've started on some of the low level baddies I'm going to end up needing.

Today's contribution is a dozen Dire Rats.  These are once again from the Reaper Bones line and I have to say this seems like exactly what this line was developed for.  The figures are straightforward, simple and seem like they're going to be really resilient to damage.

My next challenge for this game (model-wise anyway) is that I need to either scratch build or re-purpose some small robots.  I'd like to have some steampunky robots for the group to fight but I want to stay away from Warmachine and Malifaux figures as they really are linked to their own IP.

-Jay

More fantasy steampunky goodness

One of the things I mentioned in an earlier post is that I was going to be painting alongside Zoe with figures that went along with or were similar to the figs she was painting.  During her last session while she was painting her armoured female paladin with blue robes I was painting an armoured female warcaster with blue robes.

I'm not entirely happy with how Ashlyn turned out.  I feel like the face ended up with too much primer on it and ended up losing some detail.  In any event it was really just an exercise in efficiency and from that point of view it went fairly well.  Ashlyn won't be winning any painting contest but she was sort of an "extra" figure I had lying around and I got her done in roughly 30 minutes.

The other figure I got done while Zoe was painting was this generic pulp style robot from Reaper.  I figured he would blend in reasonably well with some of my other steampunk stuff and he has the added benefit that he doesn't look like he's just for Malifaux or just for Warmachine.

While painting the Junk-Bot (that's what I'm calling him anyway) I did get hit by an idea for another daddy-daughter project that should both be fun and something that might be incredibly useful in a couple of upcoming games....keep watching this space.....

-Jay

Zoe's World: Two-For-One

A week ahead of schedule Zoe decided to sit down and paint up a new miniature to play Pathfinder with.  However she was really dedicated to the idea that she HAD to finish the half-painted super-heroine figure she had started weeks ago.  So before moving on to Isabeau she finished up her first super-heroine for Supersystem.

I had a lot of funny moments while helping Zoe with this figure.  The first one was that after seeing some of my friends' miniatures she commented that my bases were "boring" and that she wanted something fancier for her figures.  This resulted in my chopping up some old wall sections to give her 3 super-heroines some textured bases to run around on.  She also wanted to go with a bright colour palette on this fig which ended up with something that should fit in well with any supers games we end up playing.

And at this point I have to ask my now obligatory obscure knowledge question; can anyone guess what B-list Marvel character this figure was before Zoe re-painted it?  This one is extra tricky because this character has been depicted in both animation and live-action but for some reason in both of those appearances the character's appearance was altered RADICALLY from their comics look.

Next up Isabeau.  This gives Zoe a classic (and statistically survivable) character to play her first Pathfinder game with.  A heavily armoured fighter with a sword and shield Isabeau should be a good first character choice.

This figure is one of the Reaper Bones figures and I have to say it did present some painting challenges for Zoe.  The Bones material is a soft vinyl which although I think is adequate at holding detail when you have a young or inexperienced painter who tends to put their paints on a bit thick you can lose detail very quickly.  Luckily Citadel Washes were up to the task of bringing most of the details back.  I expect the Bones figures will be fantastic for her to actually play with because they should be quite durable, we just need to slow down a bit (honestly not my forte either) when painting them.

Painting Isabeau from start to finish and painting her super-heroine's skin and hair took Zoe a total of about 2 hours and until we hit the washes it was with little to no interference from me.

-Jay

Hobby Grab Bag - Works In Progress

The last little while I've been splitting my time somewhat evenly between painting and playing Warhammer 40,000 and finally getting to actually play some Pathfinder.  This has meant that I've been a bit back and forth on projects and more than usual I've become one of those people who starts a lot more things than they actually finish.  With that in mind I thought I'd show off the next few things I'm working on in no particular order.

First up is my almost finished Assault Marine squad for my Blood Angels army.  These guys are about 90% done, basically I need to do their weapons and markings (and a few blingy bits for the sgt) and then I can call them done.  The only hold up is that I will need to free-hand the squad markings and to be honest I've never been completely enthusiastic about that......

Next up I'll be filling in the biggest gap in my Blood Angels army with this Dreadnought with Multi-Melta, generously donated to the cause by my friend Dave Switzer.  I've barely started this model but given that it's a single fig and none of the things that need to get painted are all that fussy I'm sure I can paint it in one solid session if I just get to it.

Isabeau Laroche isn't for me.  This will be Zoe's next figure.  Zoe was very interested in watching my recent Pathfinder adventure so she is excited again to get an appropriate figure painted so we can play a game.  Isabeau is a heavily armoured figure so I'm hoping that Zoe and I can get her done in an hour or two of painting.  Right now it looks like this might be something we do together on Father's Day.

Last up is Ashlyn D'Elise (I think that's her name?).  She is a mercenary warcaster for Warmachine, to be honest I don't have any use for her at all but Zoe seems to do better painting-wise when her and I are working on similar figures together at the same time and I didn't have a lot of other heavily armoured female fantasy figures on hand so she was the logical choice.

That looks like it for now, but I'm also considering some appropriate baddies for my first Pathfinder game with Zoe and will probably look at adding some Death Company to my Blood Angels when the Dread and Assault Marines are done.

-Jay

What do you mean I can actually PLAY Pathfinder?

So after running a lot of Pathfinder games over the last few years I finally got a chance to play in one tonight.  My friend Darcy ran me through Blackfang's Dungeon, which is the introductory adventure in the Pathfinder Beginners Box.  The funny thing is I know I ran that adventure myself two or three years ago when the Beginner Box first came out but I honestly couldn't remember it (beyond the fact that the final baddie was a black dragon) at all.

For this game I played two characters; a cleric of Gorum represented by my trusty Redgar miniature and a Rogue that I painted up specifically for the game on the spur of the moment.

I've had this rogue model for awhile but I seldom play myself and I can't remember the last time one of my players actually played a rogue so I hadn't needed to paint it.  I decided I needed to add a new model for the game so I knocked this out in about 30 minutes.  He took a base coat of Cryx Bane Base and then I picked out details, gave it a couple of washes and called it done.  Nothing spectacular or earth shattering but it's another type of character I didn't have in my collection before so I'm happy with that.

The other thing is Zoe spent most of the night hanging around the game table watching what we were doing and showing off her painted models so there might be another instalment of Zoe's World on the horizon.

-Jay