The Ghouls that no one loved...

Yesterday I mentioned that I was participating in Black Knight Games Call To Arms event.  The goal is to get 2000 points painted by the end date (which I really should check into in).  The night I was invited to join I hadn't really seen the hot new Malignant models so I planned to just do a vanilla flavoured Death army.  I headed down to the store with a clutch of 20 Ghouls to paint thinking that would be a good start.  I managed to finish them the other day and then just decided to accept the fact that they're going to sit in a figure case and probably not be part of of my current/new Age Of Sigmar army.

Having said that I'm still happy to have painted 20 more.  I can always use more ghouls for lots of different games I play.

I painted these the same way I painted the ghouls I painted for my advent calendar over Christmas which is coincidentally the same way I painted my last 2 batches of Escape From Goblintown goblins. 

Depending on how things go these may turn up as allies in my Malignant force.  I'm actually also seriously considering some Dryads as allies and going with a haunted forest vibe.  We'll have to see if I ever actually make a firm decision.

-Jay

Zoe's World - Fantasy Creatures

After a long absence and a pretty substantial break from the hobby scene my daughter Zoe dove back in with both feet this past week and added a bunch of new models to her collection.  It's been a while since she picked up a brush so she was a bit rusty but ventured far more out on her own (no touch ups by me this time) and much like her previous cyber-ape made some bold colour choices.

First up we had just seen Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom and I had some dinosaur-ish lizards from an old D&D board game so she was stoked about doing some pseudo-raptors.  The first one she decided she very much wanted to look like Blue from the Jurassic World movies, and then for the second one she just went with her favourite colour (purple) and one accent colour.

I think they turned out really well and if she lets me I could definitely see myself borrowing these to use in a game.

Next up from the same board game (I think it was the Drow one?) she found a big cat model.  Zoe loves cats and dogs so I think any cat or dog models I come across will always be a draw for her.  For this one she went a bit more traditional with a panther-like basic coat but then went with white teeth and claws and red eyes to give it a bit of a pop.

I feel like this model would work really well as a cat version of a Hound Of The Baskervilles type scenario.

Zoe's final model was the one that actually got her interested in taking another shot at painting; WizKids new/current Unicorn model.  Watching Zoe paint this reminded me a lot of myself when I first started painting.  She really wanted a light and bright colour but really wasn't patient enough to do the layering and/or prep in to get her colour to pop.  She started with a brown coat over her unicorn and then went straight to yellow with a single coat.  For the most part she got good coverage but there were definitely a few places that could use a touch up or second coat.  Having said that before I moved out west in the long ago time, I had a ton of models that had the same issues with reds, yellows and oranges.

I really like the fact that she picked a pile of colours that are unique instead of going for traditional horse colours.  I've always thought miniatures were a great outlet for expression and its amazing as some of us (me included) get more serious about our hobby we can get less adventurous with our choices.

Well there you have it.  After a year-long break her first foray back into painting was cranking out 4 figures in one roughly three hour sitting.

-Jay

The first of many ghost-pants!

Age Of Sigmar's second edition just came out last week and as much as I enjoyed my time playing the first edition of the game the truth is I didn't actually play all that many games.  I liked the simplified system and thought the new background was cool but the truth is none of the new armies really 'grabbed' me.  The models were well sculpted and well executed but I've always been a fan of a fairly traditional classic take on fantasy and the admittedly exciting new direction Games Workshop was going in just didn't strike any particular nerves with me.

One of my local games stores, Black Knight Games in Hamilton, is running and event called A Call To Arms which is basically an event geared towards collecting and painting an army.  It coincidentally kicked off shortly before the release of the new box set and being traditionally an Undead player the new Malignants were the first collection for the game I was really excited about.  So here I go!

Ahead of the arrival of my new starter box I got my grubby hands on a Nighthaunt box with comes with; 3 Spirit Hosts, 5 Hex Wraiths & 1 Cairn Wraith.  I was eager to try out the new Hexwraith Flame technical paint so I decided to start by painting the Spirit Hosts which had the most ghosty bits to try it out on.

Let me start off with two product opinions.  First up whoever designed and tooled the Spirit Host models is one of history's greatest monsters.  I have built TONS of models over the last 30+ years and I genuinely don't remember the last time I struggled so much to build any models (let alone plastic models).  They weren't very stable to work with during construction and the instruction sheets provided were confusing and barely helpful.  Even though I'm basically happy with the end result I can't imagine ever building another unit of these again.  On the flip-side the Hexwraith Flame technical paint was AWESOME!  It was incredibly easy to use, performed exactly the way I thought it would  and (in my opinion) got a terrific result.  My immediate reaction to using it was to start looking through boxes of unpainted models for more ghost I could paint ASAP.  The stuff is great and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants or needs to paint any ghost models.

For my Spirit Hosts I started by prepping the models bases by using a green stuff roller to put cobblestones across their bases.  This is the basing I've decided to go with across my entire Malignant army.  I primed white then gave the entire models a coat of Hexwraith Flame.  After that was dry I drybrushed P3 Frostbite over all the ghosty bits.  The weapons are Boltgun Metal with an Agrax Earthshade wash.  The cobbles are Skevenblight Dinge with a Dwanstone drybrush and a Nuln Oil wash.

Overall I'm happy with how they turned out and I'm looking forward to painting more ethereal models over the rest of this month.

-Jay

The Mole-Shark

The Mole-Shark is a fearsome and terrifying apex predator who's recent appearance in the wasteland has sparked speculation that there are still hidden enclaves out there practising pre-war genetics research for unknown purposes.

The Mole-Shark is blind and appears to hunt by sense of hearing.  Once attracted to prey it moves with lightning speed both running and jumping as high as 10 feet to get to it's prey by the most direct route possible.  Due to it's lack of scent and vision some warbands have been able to survive attacks by Mole-Sharks by simply going perfectly still and refraining from the use of any weapons or equipment that cause noise.  The Mole-Shark is very clearly not a naturally evolved creature as it is capable of consuming far more than it's lean body and stomach allow it store.  This frequently results in the Mole-Shark almost immediately expelling the bulk of any creature it consumes.

There has been much speculation about the origins (and purpose) of the Mole-Shark with many more questions being asked than answers being given.  The Mole-Shark's true place in the eco-system may never be known.

* The "Mole-Shark" is actually a resin Maw miniature by Hasslefree Miniatures*

-Jay

Mangrove Basilisk

This figure has literally been "the next thing I'm going to paint" for over 3 months.  I back the most recent Relic Blade Kickstarter pretty much with the goal of getting this model to add to my growing collection of 'classic' D&D monsters.

As mentioned the Basilisk is a classic fantasy monster (even you Harry Potter fans got this in one of your books/movies) that has been a challenging encounter for adventuring parties for years.

I generally think of a Basilisk as being much bigger but in the world of Relic Blade (that this model comes from) it's more of a wolf-sized attack animal for The Wretched Hive faction.  Although the model is arguably a bit on the small side that's more than a fair trade off for the fact that it is one of the best sculpted and executed Basilisk models available.

After I get a few more things done I'm hoping to circle back to my Relic Blade figures and get my 3 Iguan models done so I can start playing games with  my Wretched Hive.

-Jay

Rolf The Barbarian!

I wasn't aware until I sat down to type this that I haven't posted in a month, ouch.  I've actually barely hobbied in a month which feels even worse.  Hopefully this weekend I'll be cranking out a few different small projects.

This morning I finished a character model for a solo D&D game module I found online and hope to try out on Monday; Rolf The Barbarian.

Rolf is a Reaper Pathfinder miniature and one of the things I really liked about him is that he breaks the mould of the traditional huge hulking barbarian.  As a character Rolf's strongest traits are Dexterity and Constitution so a more Heroquesty Barbarian would have been far too big to represent Rolf.

One of the other things worth calling out is that it seems most of the 'adventurer' type figures in the Reaper Pathfinder line seem well layered with lots of bits and pieces of equipment and armour without feeling like they have a lot of decorative nonsense on the figures.

Hopefully by Tuesday I'll be able to update you on how Rolf did on his first adventure!

Stay tuned.

-Jay

Getting ready for; Last Days!

We're about a month away from the release of my friend Ash's first game from Osprey Games; Last Days.

I'm gearing up to play some games ahead of release so I'll save a review until actual release week but I thought I'd just touch on a few things as I dust off a lot of the models I was painting back when I started this blog.

First up Last Days like all Osprey Games I'm familiar with is miniatures-neutral which means you can play it with any models you already have in your collections, or you can go out and cherry-pick all the coolest stuff.  This means for anybody already playing a zombie miniature game you already have everything you need, if you're one of those collectors like me who just buys cool models hoping to one day have rules to use them with you're all set as well.

Back during Ash's first pass at the game the forces were themed (cops, survivors, bikers, etc) so I tended to collect and group my figs that way.  Now you can mix and match as each model represents a trope rather than part of a traditional 'force' of soldiers.

In addition to each player's chosen force you will need a small collection of zombie models.  For anyone who's been into the genre previously this will be a non-issue but for newer gamers there are a ton of options for easy cost-effective zombies to fill out your ranks.  Walking Dead zombies are easily available and great durable figures, Warlord Games produces the old Wargames Factory zombies, even board games have some decent quality zombie figures these days, I've personally used a bunch of zombies from Last Night On Earth.

If there's one piece of advice I would give a new modeller collecting together different zombie and survivor figures it would simply be to base them the same (or at least similarly) so they take on the appearance of one coherent collection.

This is my trip through one old figure case, I plan on painting a few new figs up this week to add in, and hopefully you'll all see a full game review in 3-4 weeks.

-Jay