Painting ADD... i.e. Fiona painting update!

When I got home last night, I looked at eMagnus and the Renegades... then looked at Fiona... then back to Magnus and the Renegades... and promptly picked up Fiona to start painting :p

So this is just a few hours of work, but I'm really happy with the face! Something that never ever happens.

First of all... Eyes! I never actually manage to make them work, but this time I did okay.  Second, Tattoo! It also helped to cover up the uneven paint on that cheek of hers.

Anyways, ummm, yah, purple robes and reddish cloak... I don't always paint the same colors, I promise *shifts eyes guiltily*  Next time I'll be sure to get more work done on Magnus' group.

epic Magnus and his Renegades

So I did a bit of work on eMagnus tonight, in addition to getting Fiona primed as well.

We'll start with Fiona:



I began with zenithal priming as is usual for me as of late.  She also has a slightly different post than is stock, partly because of her base.  Beyond the slight staff position change, I'm also going to be doing water effects on the base to have waves crashing up onto the "cliff" that she's standing on... should be exciting.

Next up, eMagnus and his 2 trusty Renegades.

Primed:

Here they are again with a little bit of paint:

I wasn't sure initially what color I wanted to paint them in, but I took Dave Henry's suggestion of "Traitor Blue" since it would be nice and fluffy.  I'm not sure how close I am to actually hitting the PP colors, but with a bit of mixing and layering, I think it's looking pretty good so far.  I'm also going to try and do a bit of the metallic shading that I mentioned a few posts ago, but we'll see.  I don't want to experiment too much here.  Also, still pleasantly surprised with how much detail there is in the press mold on the base.  I was aiming for a brighter Cygnar blue on the wrecked Ironclad, but I may have to turn to the "Fort Faulk" scheme there.

epic Magnus super epic base!

So I got eMagnus and my 2nd Renegade off of Bartertown, but eMags didn't come with the epic base that he normally does. However, I do have a plastic Ironclad sitting around waiting to become Gallant, as well as some instant mold.

Voila! Super epic base! My eMagnus isn't on some light warjack, he's standing on top of a heavy warjack that he just wrecked!

So I just filled in a few of the gaps in the base after I took these pics. I'll post pics of him and Fiona after I get them primed.

Fiona is all buffed out!

So Micah sent me a link on painting metals better earlier this week, which turns out is a really awesome walk-through on a really nice looking technique. Anyways, the author also showed what he thinks is a well prepped model. He sands the model with some sand paper and files, and then uses stiff dremel brushes to buff the model up. Since I've had a brush lying around from when I bought my dremel, I figured I'd give it a try with Fiona, since she's one of the other Merc casters that I wanted to try soon. Me being the total idiot, I forgot to take the before picture. Anyways, I'm hopefully going to paint her soon, and I'll let you know whether or not I feel the buffing makes a difference. She does look pretty cool though.

The greatest lightbox on earth

Ok so maybe the thread title is a little deceiving but I had a major photography breakthrough last night and it was all thanks to two of the greatest things on earth, the internet and milk. I can't remember where I saw it but someone recommended using an empty plastic milk carton as a light box. Since I had a nearly finished gallon of milk in the fridge at home I thought it would be a good excuse to drink some milk and take some photos.

After I polished off the milk I cut off the top, stuck a piece of white paper inside and pointed a desk lamp over the top of it, like so:

And here are some of the results:

Not too shabby for something made from common household items. The only problem is I can't fit squads or larger models in there. Really anything more than a single medium based mini is a stretch.

Almost fully painted for KingdomCon!

So with just a week left until KingdomCon, I only have to finish painting Snapjaw and a Bull Snapper and paint Wrongeye to be fully painted (aside from reinforcements).

So I finished sealing the Eliminators this morning. I'm not too happy with them because their faces look terrible, but they're freaking tiny! One thing I do like is their bases. I glued half a champagne cork to each base, and then cut it down and ripped out chunks to get the big rocks. Then I glued on some sand, and primed everything. The other thing I like is my new way to do snow. Mix up gloss varnish (I used Liquitex Gloss Medium/Varnish) with some baking soda. If it's got too much varnish in it, it won't look right when it dries, so err on the side of too dry. So I mixed that up and glopped it on.



I also finished up the last 4 Assassins earlier this week, but I did put snow onto all their bases since I was doing that to the Eliminators anways. I also cut off Disco Steve's raised arm and green stuffed something else terrible for a bicep, but at least he's not Disco Steve anymore.


I also finished up Rocinante for Ashlynn's list, and the Mangler and 2nd Nomad for Bart's list. Eventually I'll actually order a new sword for that Nomad from PP, but for now, the green stuffed version works.



Anyways, hopefully I'll be able to do well in the Saturday tourney at KingdomCon and have something to report here.

Canine Cancer 2012

I just wanted to take a little time to promote a charity cause I'm working with. Dawnlord on the PP forums is painting a 50 point eKaya tier list to auction off to support canine and feline cancer research. Being a big animal lover I have volunteered to paint a couple models for the cause. You can follow the action on the PP boards or on the Canine Cancer 2012 blog. Look for some WIP shots here as well.

Things I've learned in practicing for KingdomCon

So I've been trying to get in as many games as I can to practice my lists before KingdomCon, usually with timed turns. Bart doesn't usually have any issue with timed turns, but Ashlynn's can be a little rough. That said, she usually does okay, especially now that I've got a few more games in with that list.

On to the stupid little things that I've learned (and the mistakes that I hope to not make in the tournies):

• DEF 17 on Ashlynn is hittable by ranged armies. If Ashlynn is going to be exposed, even on feat turn (unless the models will have to be in your control to shoot her), Quicken should be on her to take her up to DEF 19, which is outside the range of most things to hit even with boosting. Also, kill Rangers and support early if possible to further enhance her survivability against the ranged assassination.

I was retaught this lesson in one of my games against Siege. I managed to kill all his Rangers, most of the Nyss, and most of the Gun Mages. He still had 2 Defenders and his support with Siege (i.e. Reinholdt and Arlan). One doubleboosted shot from an aiming Defender ended her since it was outside the feat. Siege missed, etc, but 4 shots with boosted attacks at RAT 6 and 8 have the ability to hit DEF 17. DEF 19 is a little better. Engaging the shooters is best. This leads in a bit to the next point.

• Models need to be in Ashlynn's control to be affected by Roulette. Don't run Anastasia to the very limit of her control, rather stay 2" inside with her.

This was from a game against eMadrak. I think I won this won by gaming the scenario (Guidons before they fixed it in SR2012 v. 1.3). I ran her up to the edge of Ashlynn's control, about 8" away from eMadrak. He had enough Kriel Warriors plus eMadrak there to easily end her though.

• Anastasia di'Bray doesn't have Acrobatics, she has Parry. You have to open a hole for her to get through. Also, she turns into a 14" threat with Quicken. It's worth the 3 focus if you can get Espionage off.

I found this out in a different game against a strange Siege list, but it turns out you can't just walk her over both armies :p. Regardless, I did manage to hit my first Espionage. It's ridiculous and awesome.

• eAlexia is good for reinforcements. Make sure to get her into melee with something, and bring her in on Ashlynn's feat turn to protect her.

DEF 15, ARM 19 (with 3 souls) is good, but if they have a ranged army, you gotta try and get engaged to take it up to DEF 19. It's going to be a lot harder to take down, even for Siege. Lucky for me he flubbed 2 of his damage rolls (and the fact that she has 10 wounds).

• Flank Deployment is rough with 4 squads of infantry. Be sure to deploy the Steelhead Cav where they will be able to charge the things with the highest ARM.

Nothing particularly of note here other than a lack of familiarity with Flank and Radial scenarios. I just don't have a good idea for how to deploy initially here.

• On scenarios with Reinforcements, don't put any support over there, or they'll get picked off.

A hunter and Aiyana and Holt coming in on Reinforcements just killed eEiryss and Rhupert dead. Can't be having any of that.

• Block LOS to Bart! If he is on a hill, his jack wall needs to be up there too. DEF 13 or 15 isn't out of range of shooting, and ARM 19 is good, but good rolls can make the rest of the game really hard.

I was playing a game against Macbain, and forgot that Bart was standing on a hill. I had him in a pretty tight spot thanks to my feat covering all of the control point (which I think only needed two points to win for scenario). But Bart was on a hill. I was on ARM 19 at this point, so dice -5 there. Good thing he rolled 6,5,5 for 11 damage. He also popped his feat turn and surrounded himself with unkillable Kazazy and flooded the zone with the rest of them. His unit of eliminators sat in the zone and was unkillable too. So since I dropped Rocinante out of my Bart list to put it with Ashlynn, I didn't have any good ranged attacks to drop into Macbain. I killed all the KD kayazy in the zone with my assassins, took his eliminators down to tough, and then ran Bart with 2 focus + BDtH + Spiny Growth (ARM 23) to hide by a wall.

• Bart has tough, and if you make the tough roll with Batten down the Hatches up, you aren't KD!

Same game as the previous point. Rocinante managed to trample to the opposite side of the wall from Bart. Needed 8's to hit, so he bought an attack and saved the last focus for boosting damage. Of course he rolled the 8 on 2d6 to hit, then boosted damage with his last focus (at dice - 6), took me down to 1 health left. 3 jackhammers later, Bart got hit once, and had to tough. I played it as KD because I totally wasn't thinking of BDtH, but he'd still be standing here. Then he took a potshot with Macbain, which missed the DEF 7 from cover and the -2 DEF from BDtH. He would have needed a 12 here, but it's always worth a shot, especially with how his dice seemed to be behaving this game. 2 Eliminators later, Macbain was dead, but I still had a Nomad or two depending on the range, Snapjaw, and some Assassins left to seal the deal.

• Once you've popped Bart's feat, the only reason for him to be at all forward is for his jacks to benefit from BDtH. Other than that, he needs to stay back to avoid being assassinated.

This was a game against pKrueger. He didn't pop the feat early, so my Kayazy were able to wreck a lot of face, and Snapjaw killed the Feral (who had killed the Nomad that his druids dragged across the table. Bart moved up behind his jack wall, but the druids opened a big enough hole for a Stalker to charge in (taking 2 free strikes along the way thanks to reach on all my heavies and no KD from BDtH).

• Beware casters with control wide debuffs and sprays (like Deneghra, Grim, etc) because they can kill Kayazy dead.
  

This was from a game with Bart against Grim Angus and Scattergunners with UA. Even though I had popped Bart's feat, Grim's feat can cancel this out in addition to preventing the Kayazy from charging on the next turn. Scattergunners aiming are RAT 7, to DEF 14 or 15. If the Scattergunners are outside Bart's feat, they can be effective RAT 8 or 10, which isn't too hard to get to 14 or 15. It might be useful to keep back a unit or two of Eliminators just to be able to jump in after the feat turn to engage things and kill others.


Anyways, that's just some of the random thoughts that I've had with my past 10 or so games with my lists (Ashlynn and Bart now if you hadn't caught on that I've dropped Durgen from the lineup). As for painting, Ashlynn's list is all done aside from Rocinante, and Bart's has 14 models left to paint: 4 Assassins, 4 Eliminators, a Nomad, a Mangler, Kell Bailoch, Wrongeye, Snapjaw, and a Bull Snapper. Most of these have some form of paint on them, so I'm hoping to get it all done in the next 2 weeks. KingdomCon here I come!