Small painting update

The end of the July and early August are busy times for me this year, and sadly has little to do with gaming. No GenCon for me this year - instead, it has been family things which have been occupying me time. No complaints about it, actually, but doing more things with the family means less time for gaming. . . .and painting.

As I said the other day, my model count when up by two, although one of them was painted, although not by me, so I'm not counting it. Tonight, I sat down at the table, and my first thought was "Now what?" I finished off the battleboxes, so I did not have an actual project per se. Rather than start on a couple of warpacks (though I intend to do them soon enough), I decided to go after some low-hanging fruit, and finish off some nearly-completed models.

I didn't finish them, but an agonizer, a pistol wraith, a machine wraith, and a minimum unit of gatormen got a little closer tonight. I might have them done by the Thursday. If not, they won't be done for a while, since I won't be able to paint again (most likely) until the middle of the month. I also got some work done on ten Ork boyz - I have decided that I should work on my 40k stuff, since I may need to play some games with the Thursday group before I switch them over to Warmachine and Hordes.

Filled out my app

Filled out and submitted my app to become a press ganger. Now, nothing to do but wait - and, with GenCon on the horizon, I figure it will be a couple of weeks before I hear aynthing one way or another.

Added two more

See, it's easy to just randomly add figs. Tonight, I went to Unique Gifts & Games because I had them holding the new NQ for me, as well as a Legion MK II deck. I took my son along, because it got him out of the house for a bit, and that way he could get some more exposure to my hobbies. Anyway, not only did I pick those up, but Targ is out, and the good Dr. Arkadius needs some help from time to time. Targ is useful now, but I think he will be more so once Thornfall has more choices than the War Hog and the Gun Boar.

The store also has some figs on sale, consignment style. I have been able to resist the Pirate-based army so far - it's expensive, but not really more than simply buying all the models anyway. I could resist the Bloat Thrall, and the Reaper, but a painted Nomad for a mere $15 got the best of me. It's not a great jack, but it is cheap, and it helps bulk up Magnus a little bit. I had planned on getting one anyway.

So, my total model count goes up by 2 for the night, bringing me to 604. If I count the Nomad as done, I would have 15 done - actually more, because I have a bunch of Cygnar and Menoth figs that are "done" in the sense of "Someone else painted them, and I haven't stripped them yet."

Random post

So, over the past couple of days, I have been thinking about this post, over at Iron Kingdoms at War. I pretty much agree with the whole thing - on the whole, I can think of many games I would rather play than 40k or WFB, but there is also no denying that it is often the only non-historical (war)game in town. So, since I must sometimes play 40k or WFB with people before I can convince them to play Warmahordes, I should probably keep somewhat up on the rules and maintain a small army.

But that doesn't mean that I need 4 separate 40k armies. Right now, I have Tau, I have Orks, I have Marines (who doesn't, right?), and I have Imperial Guard. Over on Bartertown, I thought I might have a trade going - all of my Tau for a pretty nice chunk of Menoth, enough that, while I would be missing some units (Cleansers, Cinerators, Bastions), and would have duplicates of a couple of casters, it was certainly a good deal for me. (And for the other party - I believe it was something like $750, in War Store prices, for the Menoth, and well over $1250 base retail for the Tau.)

It's been a couple of days though, and my initial excitement at getting rid of some GW, and turning Menoth from suddenly my third or fourth largest Warmachine army to my largest overnight has somewhat evaporated in the waiting process. (Never fear - I'm still committed to the deal, if the other party is as well.) If the deal falls through, I may keep my Tau, since I still have the current codex, and it's pretty playable, in theory. But my Guard Tank army isn't, since I lack the current codex. Maybe I should peel off half a dozen tanks or so, and see what kind of Warmahordes stuff I could get for them.

No pics, but they are done.

OKay, technically, not quite done. I need to finish up the bases, and then seal them, but my Khador and Cygnar battleboxes are done. Finished. Painted. Completely. Not as well as I would like, but well enough for hardcore standards, and, more importantly, well enough for me to snap some pics of tomorrow and put in an application. With any luck, my area of Michigan will have a press ganger soon. Well, soon-ish, since it is con season and all.

I think tomorrow I will start on a couple of the Hordes warpacks. Probably trolls and either Everblight or Circle. Nothing against Skorne, but I would have to fix two of the savages, or assemble two savages (yes, I have four of them - my Skorne army is unpainted, but unbound material nonetheless), and then get my gladiator back together. Fixing a couple damaged figs doesn't seem as easy as putting either a warpwolf or a carnivean together, although that may be famous last words.

Oh yeah - getting those 5 models finished (the entire Cygnar group plus Sorscha) will bring my total number of painted models to 14. Only 588 to go. (But see another post about that.)

Battleboxes are almost done

They're almost there. Close, so close. With any luck, and a bit of work, tomorrow night, I can wrap these up, with everything done except for the clear coat. The Khador jacks are already done, of course, but the Cygnar jacks are down to detail work and touchups, and both casters are actually pretty close to being done to tabletop standard. It's not my best work, but they're not something I'm planning on stripping down as soon as possible either.

No dice at the demo

Well, yesterday's demo was a bust. I was there, talked up the game to people, but id not do a single demo game. Meh. It happens, and since the store is still working on getting some PP items in stock, it's admittedly a little harder to get people interested. I am thinking that, once my battle box armies are done, I will leave them there, in the display case, along with a copy of the quick start rules, so that people can look at them.

I know it can take a while to get a group going, so I am not disappointed yet. And I did get some stuff assembled, and next time, I will be bringing along paints, so I can't call it a waste of time.

Thursday gaming

So, last night, instead of making the drive east, I headed west. The goal was to stop by the closer store on a Thursday night, aka "Warhammer Night" and see if I could start peeling any players away.

I did manage to run one demo game, playing against someone who had been a Menoth player in MK I, but had switched back to Warhammer before MK II came out. He managed to kill Sorscha on a lucky hit - truly so, he had to have Kreoss charge his own Crusader in order to get close enough to pop his feat, and then he spelled poor Sorscha, whacking her with Immolation until she died - which she did, on a roll of boxcars just as he ran out of focus. Had it failed, Kreoss was going down on the my next turn, but that's what the game is all about.

He and I talked about the changes in the game, and I have offered to loan him my MK II Menoth deck whenever I am there, if he wants to play beyond the battlebox. With any luck, we've picked up another player for Saturdays, which gets us a little closer to the day when we have a regular Saturday group of 6 to 8 players.

Quick Khador and Circle pics

Took these in a hurry, so the quality is low, but it's proof that I am doing something.







I'll take better pics tomorrow, but my Khador battlegroup is almost done. Sorscha is better than half done - I hope to finish the skin tones, the hat & hair, and maybe the cloak tomorrow. Heck, if the kids play in the basement (thank you heat index of 100+), then that means more painting time. I would love to have Sorscha done before the weekend - it would mean that I have a pretty good chance of getting both battleboxes done before the end of the month, as my Cygnar jacks are almost done, and Stryker is at least started.

The shifting stones were just to get them out of the way, as I said. They were low-hanging fruit. I also started the base colors on my shredders, and did some assembly on the carnivean.

While the batteries charge. . .

The batteries in the camera need to be recharged, so no pics until later tonight, but I actually finished some models yesterday!

Yes, it's true. It's also not too impressive - I finally finished off the unit of Shifting Stones that have been 75% done or so for oh, I don't know, two years? But, they are finally done, based, and sealed. I go from four completed models to seven, which is a huge improvement, in terms of raw numbers, but weighed against the unpainted? A scratch.

I still have 595 models to go.

On the plus side, I might actually get my two Khador jacks done tonight, and possibly my Defender and Lancer as well. Even if I don't, I will be taking pics of them and posting them, just because. I really, really want to start knocking at least battlebox armies out of the way, and not just for ulterior motives.