Montag's Grand Opening and Malifaux Terrain!

I've got a massive update lined up for you folks!

So it was a pretty big weekend for gaming in the Houston area! One of our local (and frankly, my favorite) gaming stores, Montag's, was having a grand opening event for their new location. The new location not only offered a much bigger space it also segregated the areas for gaming and retail, which is a great idea so that we aren't piling on top of one another.

The Malifaux group was designated to have a 4x6 table reserved for demos, meaning we'd have space for two tables running. Our resident Gremlin player (now turned Resser) volunteered to host demo games throughout the day, and I volunteered to provide the terrain which is why I'd been working hard to paint up the pieces I showcased earlier on the blog.

So first up is the Garden of Morr!

I absolutely love this kit from GW

I've had this set for a while now, and have always loved the way it looks. I made sure to get my hands on it before it went out of print, since they went the direction of Age of Sigmar I worried I wouldn't get another chance - I've already missed out on their previous awesome sets and didn't want to miss this. I even painted the statue a long time ago and featured it on the blog.

Getting down to crunch time I had only primed the unpainted pieces by Friday, with the next day being the opening. So I had to figure out a way to crank these guys out to a presentable standard for the demo. I got them all lined up and quickly zenithal sprayed them with VMA Light Grey over the black primer. I then haphazardly sprayed the roofs and fencing. I mean, really haphazardly. I sprayed VGA Fire Orange trying to lay down a base for rust color, but it turned out more yellow than I had anticipated. I added patches of VMA Burnt Umber to vary the colors, but because I was rushing to get them done it was spotty. Really, though, it's just a foundation for me to use pigments later to do the rust, so it works out fine enough for the deadline.

I had left the building footprint pieces alone as they didn't add anything to the playability of the pieces and would make them harder to transport when they're glued on. I think the stone work looks well enough as it is, the only other things I'd need to do is use black pigments in certain areas that lost its shading as well as drybrush grey and white for highlights.

You can really tell the difference between my usual painting and this quick work from how much brighter the statue is from the buildings. In the statue I also sprayed white for a final highlight, although I may not do that at all for the rest of the buildings as I don't think it's necessary.

Overall though I'm glad I got the motivation to at least start this terrain, now I can use it for games and demos and they're really a very versatile set for Malifaux.

On Friday night I got a text from Mike to confirm that I had the two tables ready to go. TWO?! It was a funny moment of miscommunication, but with what I have in the hobby department works out perfectly for terrain in a pinch.

I decided that I could fill up a table quickly enough using the Battle Systems kickstarter I recently received. I'd have to be careful not to go overboard with the modern and sci-fi elements. I purchased the Suburban house specifically for its usefulness in Malifaux, so once I got my Garden of Morr painted up I started working on this.

I already had started working on a two story house that could fit into Malifaux, I just added a yard to the mix.

In the back you can see an Art Deco building I quickly cobbled together, I imagined it to be a central station for the Guild or something with the Sheriff's house right next to it.

I had made the other large building with a run down apartment complex in mind. The walkway seemed like a cool idea to add on as well. The last tiny little building was made to be a shack, I just needed some more big elements to block line of sight. Add in some trees and crates for soft cover, and fencing and dumpsters for flavor, and you've got yourself a quick table! By the time I was done it was super late and I had to get some rest for the big day.

The calm before the storm

We arrived prior to the opening to get everything set up. I had set up the Battle Systems board pretty much the same as I had at home, and Mike added some needed extra soft cover to fill the board. The painted board needed more thought as I hadn't set it up for a game before, but I think it turned out rather well. Mike had taken out his Gremlins for potential players and I brought out my Von Schill, both at 35ss. I figured that crew is straightforward enough for players to grasp, as well as Hannah being an attention grabber for the game.

Travis and I went to get lunch at a nearby Thai restaurant and came back to the store, and our tables, being in full swing.

Mike during a demo

Clay joined in and was teaching the game as well

Hannah creeping up on the Gremlins

Everyone seemed to get how Ophelia worked well enough

Clay's demo on the other table

There were plenty of other games going on as well. Warhammer 40k had a table with some cool armies to use.

The Chimera brought back some nostalgia, nothing like the good ol' Chim Chim

I really like how the Tau army was painted, well done!

The classic Dark Angels, I still have my Ravenwing army

Of course the cool Grey Knights made an appearance

It wouldn't be 40k without some Chaos!

The 40k table

Right next to the Malifaux tables was a demo table for Bolt Action. I actually took part of a demo game for it as I've always been curious as to how it plays. He had a cheat sheet printed up and I took control of ze Germans while he operated the elite British Paratroopers. We had a simple goal in mind, which was to capture a model near the center right of the board. The demo ran pretty smoothly and I understood the mechanics at play. It made me seriously consider getting into this game, if only at a small entry point. I'd definitely play 'Murrica.

There were other demos going on for Warmachine, X Wing and Infinity too. Being that I've played all of them I didn't feel like trying to take up someone's time when a prospective new player could have had a spot. I did however catch this model on one of the Infinity tables and it is stunning!

Whoever painted this, I hate you...

It is a gorgeous representation of Infinity, and follows very closely to Angel Giraldez's technique and style. It's just so clean! I'm jealous.

Due to the crowd Travis and I were left to our own devices, so I busted out a new game called BattleCON: Fate of Indines for us to play. It's a small card game that is inspired by fighting games like Street Fighter and it's pretty good.

Once it died down a bit and the second table was available Travis and I played a pick up game. Lately I had been really into Viktorias, but since I was loaning out Hannah for demos I decided to play Leve again, this time including Mad Dog Brackett instead of the Mechanical Rider to see his viability. Travis brought his Asami crew.

Opening moves, with Ashes towing Leve around

So we're officially in Q4 of Gaining Grounds 2016 (this year has flown by!). The deployment was standard and the strategy was Collect the Bounty. The scheme pool: Convict Labor, Inspection, Show of Force, Exhaust their Forces and something else. I chose Inspection to see if it could work with Leve and Convict Labor, he ended up choosing Show of Force and Convict Labor.

The well painted Asami crew take a stroll

It was certainly a pretty battle! As simple as I kept the terrain it still looked excellent, and his crew is fully painted and looks pretty cool on the table. 

The Flesh Constructs help hold the side for Inspection, their bases protect Mad Dog from engagements

The game started out fine enough, although I had to deploy a little differently than usual. Because I chose Inspection I knew that I would have no poker face, I had Leve and Ashes deploy to one side and the rest of the crew to the other so it was pretty obvious as to what I chose. I figured that if there is a chance he chose Show of Force it could actually work in my favor, as I can shoot toward the middle and had a lot of models who could stick around so any attempt to deny my VP would require a lot of commitment.

Lately I've started to have Leveticus utilize his other (0) action to teleport to Ashes and Dust. Ever since the Leve Nerf (make channel great again) I've explored his other options as now his AP is even more precious than it was before. Although it can be very risky his ability to teleport is pretty powerful. Having Leve use his Teleport has the positives of saving his AP for shooting rather than movement, and it can help Leve get out of engagements. It also adds in activations as long as you use it after Ashes has already gone, since you'll be getting the Core and Storm in there as well. The risks are that Leve can be vulnerable for next turn, as anything that can kill him will prevent him from summoning another Waif and may stop him from doing anything that turn. The other risk is making Ashes vulnerable before he becomes resummoned. The trick is to make sure you mitigate these risks by taking out the big threats on the same side before they activate, or not using it if you don't believe you can properly take the risks out before they attack Leve. Activation advantage and initiative are a huge factor in using this ability. However the pair can take on a whole flank themselves and Leve can pop up on the other side if he needs to.

Asami hunts down my scheme runner

The game was going really well for me and terribly for Travis. My deck was hitting on all cylinders and his deck seemed like it added in 5 black jokers when he wasn't looking. We ended up calling it on turn 3 as it seemed like he wouldn't be able to deny any of my VP while I whittled away his crew model by model.

What was once Ama No Zako is now an Abomination taunting the Oni

It was still a fun game though and I've been discovering new ways to utilize Leve in a tournament environment. I'm still working on my replacement for the Mechanical Rider, and haven't decided if Mad Dog is useful enough for the crew or if I should go with my gut instinct and replace him with the Strongarm suit. It all will depend on the table coverage as Mad Dog's ability to ignore cover will be powerful, but if I continue the trend of following Ashes around it may not be utilized by Leve at all and the Strongarm would be a better model to dish out damage while the Constructs anchor the waifs safely.

That was my hobby weekend! I'll update more once I figure out my next project, I've gotta knock out some priority paintjobs soon!

Statue of Morr!

I worked on some terrain last night and thought I'd post some WIP pics. Earlier last week I airbrushed this piece using the zenithal technique. Overall I left it rather light grey and decided to try my first attempt at using the dry pigments I acquired about a month or two ago. I mostly used it on the ground stones to get a feel for how they behave. Overall they're a very easy product to use and produces a very smooth blend. I used black pigment between the cracks of the stone and some of the edges. These areas needed shading but were too small to use the airbrush for. Overall a very cool effect and easy to use, it's definitely another tool in my arsenal for future projects that I plan on using often. I've also got them in white, light blue and khaki. I plan on trying to use the white/blue for OSL glows and the khaki for dirt so if I use it again I'll post up progress!

Another thing of note: I tried a slight change in how I painted skulls for this piece. Normally I have a bleached bone look but decided to make it a little more stained for this one. It appears more brown than it really is since it's placed next to a light gray but I really like it. If I can remember it I think this is how I'll do bones in the future.

Anyway, it was a fun and quick piece. I'm thinking of just doing one piece of the terrain at a time (it comes with several items like this statue) in between other models to keep my interest without burning out and slowly getting one of my favorite terrain purchases done.

Works in Progress: Viktoria of Blood and Garden of Morr; New Trollblood List

Hello all!

I've been slowly chipping away at my paint log, although I'm still keeping in mind my mantra for 2015 and only painting what fancies me in the moment. Last week (or was it the week before?) I started painting Viktoria of Blood. I don't know what struck me, but I really wanted to paint some skin tones and do more work with Non Metallic Metal. I did, however, realize why I always put her off on the side - because I have some big plans with her model. I don't want to give it away, but it's something I've never tried before. I'm eager to take another step in my painting and modeling knowledge, and hopefully it doesn't prove too difficult or impossible to pull off. If it turns out the way I hope, then it's gonna blow minds. Or just look cool. Whatevs.

Anyway, here's my work in progress. I'll post a sort of step-by-step of how it's gotten here.

I started with my airbrush of course. After priming black (airbrush primer is one of the best things in life) I got a dark blue-grey and worked in my blocks of color for the NMM silver. I've always liked the way a blue-grey worked for metal, and when the model's fully painted you can hardly tell the blue tone is in there. It's a pretty versatile color as well. I've used it to shade white, I've used it to lighten up olive, and in this case I've used it for a blue tone of grey. It's a great way of achieving a neutral color like grey but making it visually interesting. It's one of my go-to colors, much like red or olive is now.

Once I block in the dark tones, leaving some of the darkest shades black, I lock in the highlights by airbrushing a light grey-blue mixed with the basecoat. Although airbrush can afford to paint light colors over dark and create a smooth gradient I still find it best to mix your steps together so you don't create an extreme change, although that technique also has its place. I wanted her shine to be more subtle. Once that highlight was in I added white to the mix and did a fine spray line where the light source would hit the armor directly. I took the basecoat grey-blue and lined the shading using blacklining techniques to create a deeper contrast where the overspray from the airbrush went. Then I edge highlighted with the lightest shade mix followed by pure white. You always want your edge highlight to be brighter than your highest highlight if you want to achieve a "pop" quality to your paintjob. You also want to use your mixes to create a gradual edge highlight, so the grey-blue basecoat highlights to edge the black, the midtone to edge the basecoat, etc. This helps with a realistic reflection of your light source.

I also experimented with the brown pants. In all my years of painting there are two things that always stumped me: black cloth and brown everything. I've still got to figure out black cloth. I joke with a friend that every time I've painted brown it has been a completely different recipe, and I've yet to find one I truly like. Well, this one is close!

I did a GW Doombull Brown basecoat, leaving no black. I gradually mixed in Elf Flesh and highlighted until i was at maybe 50/50. Then I did a heavy GW Devlan Mud wash. I like it alot, but I fear it will only work with heavily folded cloth, I don't know how it will look on any flat surfaces as I don't like to end with a wash too much anymore. I'm still searching for that perfect brown recipe, because I'm always running across leather on models!

At this step I've blocked in the colors for the hair and vest, and finished the skin tone. The vest is going to be a lot brighter, and I don't work with blond hair too often. The skin is my usual recipe that I have developed over the years. Over a black basecoat I use my GW Foundation Paint of Tallarn Flesh to get a good even coverage. The old Foundation Paints are some of my favorite in the range and it's a shame it's out of production. Because my skin tones are really light and I thin the paints very much I use this step to eliminate tedious layers of painting my actual tones. I usually have to do the same over a white basecoat as well, as flesh is one of those colors that goes on patchy and you can see all the overlapping layers until you've done about 3 coats.

Once that coat is on I paint about 2-3 coats of old GW Dwarf Flesh until the coverage is even. This is a kind of peachy/orange skin tone, like a sunburn or something. I then gradually mix in GW Elf Flesh to work the highlights until I get to 100% Elf Flesh. I then start adding in small amounts of white to get a good amount of highlight.

When painting skin it's important to do a very gradual succession of highlights. Skin doesn't reflect light like most surfaces do. It already has a tone itself, light just reveals it in different ways. So you cant just block in parts of the skin, which makes it look like an anime or cartoon. I see this a lot, especially around the faces or muscles, where it's essentially a blackline. Now, I still do this from time to time (see my Killjoy as an example) so I'm the first to break my rules. But I find that a subtle blend tends to be more successful than only using 2 or 3 layers.

Here I started doing the hair. I won't talk much about it, as I hate it. It looks like a porcupine. I think I'm going to paint over it. In the next step I tried fixing a spot on the bangs and got my color mix all wrong and now it haunts me. I hate painting blonde!

Here's where I'm at right now. I've painted NMM Gold on the sword and scabbard. I've painted the hilt with a purple/blue mix. I originally painted the scabbard with the same purple/blue mix, but I didn't like the way it turned out so I painted over it with my olive mix standard, which is dark olive gradually highlighted with light grey in the mix. NMM Gold is kind of like my new Brown and I haven't painted it the same once since I started it. I also painted the white cloth flowing from the hilt and on the scabbard.

I've got a few tidbits left for her, including my new technique, but I'm holding off on her right now until I get the mojo back.

Another WIP:

The Garden of Morr!

I've had this terrain piece for a while, and the kit is beautiful. It's pretty versatile too, and the modular footprint is good for several games. I started painting it on a whim, and just airbrushed grey over black and drybrushed white. The roof was basecoated a dark blue the I added white for a light blue, I may add more for a highlight. I stopped there, but really it's about done. I just need to pick out some details and paint the rust on the metal.

Well, that's about where I'm at in the hobby life. I'm still working on more things creatively, including some Malifaux-centric videos. I've been playing a lot lately, mostly Warmachine with a few buddies. I've made a new Trollblood Beast list on accident when I played a few weeks ago and I'm discovering that it's actually really good. Out of 5 games I've played with it I've gotten top of turn 2 assassinations twice, and I've won all the games with it so far. I'm sure it has some glaring weaknesses. 

• Epic Doomshaper
• Mulg
• Earthborn Dire Troll
• Dire Troll Mauler
• Troll Axer
• Champions
• Min sized Krielstone
• UA
• Whelps
• Janissa Stonetide

I'm sure it's been tread before. Essentially it's a Mulg Delivery System - or Mulg Missile. eDoomy can get him a minimum of 12" charge with reach. If Mulg gets hurt, 14". If he charges something and kills it, 16"+ per fury. I've gone over a lot of it in the much earlier log of beast tactics.

What I changed was putting Janissa in it with the EBDT. Troll players love this combo, I had just never done it yet due to not having an EBDT. Well, this is actually the first time I played with it even though I got one months ago. It's awesome.

The beasts are in the front blocking most fire to the brick with Armor 22, and Mulg Armor 23. If the wall is in front of them then their def gets a bump up to 14, not too shabby. Behind them is Doom with a bodyguard of Arm 20 Champs. I usually keep Doom on the side behind Mulg to bait out Protective Fit, but also so that when he needs to pop his feat he is free to go first without screwing up the order of operations, and usually the feat turn is on turn 2 when the opponent is caught off guard thinking he's safe. I've done a permutation of this before, but adding Janissa really changed things up for me.

In a list like this it's easy to get dependent on the one trick pony. This one is a turn two assassination. Most of the Meta is going to be ready for it, it's just that if I go first it will be hard to avoid - much like the Molik Missile lists out there. The turn two game ender is mostly there for those who don't know about Mulg and eDoomy together. But for those that do, Janissa can be the wrench in the plans for them. People can block tramples with big bases, or hide their casters out of range. Janissa can open up those lanes as well as provide cover and armor. I played a friend in 3 back to back games, and on the last one when he thought the trample was completely blocked by two Khador jacks, I cleared a way for Janissa and she popped in the gap to slide those jacks over and Mulg trampled past them to the caster. It was beautiful!

Problems with this list: It's tiny. I will be outnumbered. Hopefully the high armor and sheer amount of wounds will mitigate incoming damage, but I've played a game where he killed my axer first and I lost a lot of speed because of it, not to mention pathfinder. I'll have to make sure he's behind the three heavies now. Also, people who ignore LOS can target Janissa and the stone bearers, which is no bueno. Lastly, slippery casters like Ashlynn or Caine may stop Mulg in his tracks. We'll see how this list pans out.

One last negative, I no longer can have Janissa in my Madrak list, so my def 16/18 arm 20 champs got knocked down a peg to just def 14. I also have to fill that gap. It's a problem for later.

Well, this post went in all kinds of directions. Hopefully I'll finish Vik soon and post the pics!