Weekly War Diary- Easy Victory A-Go-Go

Returning to the good, old-fashioned motivator of falling down in public rather than waiting for perfection in private I've decided to write an actual hobby diary. First attempt, so sorry if it's dull. Anyway, starting the week out on the painting table are:

2 Lizardmen Salamanders

Lizardmen Bastiladon with a Solar Engine

Lizardmen Saurus Oldblood with halberd and shield

2 Space Orks Gretchin

5 Tomb Kings Skeleton Warriors with spears and command options

Blood Angels Librarian (conversion)

Sunday 16^th August 2015

Turned out the Skeleton Warriors didn't need much work, just a little highlighting on their shields so that I did and popped them on the basing shelf. Basing takes too bloody long so things don't stay on the painting table for basing, they go on the shelf and others things take their place.

In this case, five Assault On Black Reach Ork Boyz with sluuggas and choppas take their place. Briefly. I have a horrible tendency to start things and then get distracted so after a little layering on the browns and some touching up of the metallics they, too, went to the basing shelf.

Less than an hour into this diary and I have ten models damn near finished. This is good.

Replacing them are six Skink Skirmishers with blowpipes and hand weapons, significantly further from finished than the Boyz or the Skeletons. I'd only just started the skin tones when I put them back in the case for a game. I also slipped the Skink Priest with the Cloak Of Feathers onto the table since he's at a similar stage of progress.

I also quickly finished the metallics on the two Gretchin (or, more honestly, gave up on them because Gretchin don't deserve the effort of picking out each element of their guns in different tones) and they went to the basing shelf to be replaced by another two Gretchin. Some day I will finish this unit!

Finally, I got the last inking done on the Salamanders and they also slipped up to the basing shelf. Now, everything so far has been in the nature of easy victories, jobs nearly done finally getting finished. This is, in all honestly, because I am avoiding the Bastiladon. I tried drybrushing the black carapace with Dark Reaper and it just doesn't work. Mostly, the How To Paint Lizardmen guide has served me well but it just doesn't look right to me so back to the drawing board on that one...

Monday 17^th August 2015

A quick afternoon session while listening to Doctor Who: Return To Telos. I got the skin tones on the Skink Skirmishers and Priest layered up to completion and slapped some colours on the Gretchin's trousers.

The small, mismatched army on the basing shelf got Steel Legion Drab painted around the rims of their bases.

The Bastiladon still torments me.

Wednesday 19^th August 2015

I like Doctor Who audios for shorter painting sessions but this afternoon I discovered that Mystery Science Theatre 3000 is pretty decent, undemanding viewing/listening for longer sit downs. The following was all completed to the background sound of Operation: Double 007 (which was terrible but not up to Manos: The Hands Of Fate's standard).

I'm pretty sure I'm done with texture paints. I'm using Armageddon Dust on the bases of the Skeleton Warriors and it just isn't working out for me. I got one of those new textures spreaders from GW the other day and it doesn't make it that much easier. True, I don't have to sacrifice good brushes to get the stuff out of the pot anymore but they spread all clumpy and the spreader is far from a precision instrument. Back to the drawing board on that one, time to work out how to paint sand to look like sand, as insane as that sounds.

I finished the layering on the Gretchin and popped them up onto the self, replaced them with two other Gretchin as the eternal cycle continues.

Whilst I was painting the metallics on the Oldblood I discovered that Brass Scorpion is a very unforgiving colour. It took me three layers of Abaddon Black to cover a small slip of the brush.

Still can't decide what to do with the Bastiladon's carapace.

Thursday 20^th August 2015

The group is getting together on Sunday to play a series of 500 point games. It'll be me (Lizardmen), Matt (Orcs & Goblins), Tom (Empire or Bretonnia) and Iain (Chaos Warriors). The full quorum. 500 points doesn't get you many Lizardmen and at the moment I'm leaning towards this:

Skink Priest, Level 1 Wizard with a Channelling Staff. 80 points

20 Saurus Warriors armed with spears and shields, full command. 250 points

12 Skink Skirmishers armed with hand weapons and blowpipes, Patrol Leader. 94 points

Salamander Hunting Pack of 1 Salaamander and 3 Skink Handlers. 80 points

504 points total.

Some magic (I'll decide what lore on the day), some combat power, some speed and some shooting. Only real flaws of the list is that everything will be moving at markedly different rates so dispersal is going to be a nightmare and I've never liked taking a wizard as a general. Still, it isn't as if anyone else is going to be playing with ideal lists.

Friday 21^st August 2015

Too tired to get anything substantive done after work so I just finishing the basing on the models that have been accumulating on the shelf this week. Given that I haven't painted anything in months and now I have sixteen models sitting on the shelf just waiting to be varnished I'd say this diary idea is paying off!

In other news, the ink and drybrush layers make the Armageddon Dust on the Tomb King Skeletons look amazing so I'm definitely going to have to keep using it. Hopefully, practice will make using the texture spreader easier.

Completed Models This Week

#1 - #5: Tomb Kings Skeleton Warriors with spears and shields (command rank)

Here's a “better” look at the bases I'm so enamoured with now. Terrible photo, I know.

#6 - #10: Ork Boyz with sluggas and choppas.

#11 - #12: Orks Gretchin

 #13 - #14: Lizardmen Salamanders

#15 - #16: Orks Gretchin

Progress Bar

Model finished this week: 16

Models finished so far: 16

Hobby Diary #1

The last few weeks I've been getting back into gaming. The whole End Times and Age Of Sigmar mess sapped my enthusiasm but now I'm having fun again with my Lizardmen taking on all comers. Last night I was packing up my Lizards for a game later today and the army, to be frank, is a mess of bare and half-painted plastic and I came to a realisation:

I don't need to paint this, I want to. I'm having fun and I want to present my opponents with a nice visual as one of us stomps the other into the ground.

I want my lumbering behemoth of a Bastiladon to look cool. It has only once lived beyond Turn Two because everyone is afraid of it but I think the model looks fantastic but half-painted it just looks average. I want Matt to not just fear my Saurus Cavalry (and he really does) but to appreciate them. I really want to make my Skink Priest's Cloak Of Feathers as insanely technicolour as possible.

So, yes, pushing on this now.

On the 40k side of the street I'm resurrecting my Blood Angels army, the Blades Of Sanguinius. I've bought a plastic Librarian and a Blood Angels Tactical Squad. The Librarian went together like a dream but the new bolter assembly on the Tactical Marines is hell on toast.

They had this cracked! Dark Angels Veterans and Death Company have the bolter already attached to one arm, it worked fantastically. It was the solution we had all been waiting for. 

The inspirational power of losing a game

Last night, after work, I went over to my friend Matt's house and we had a game of Warhammer. It was an 8^th edition game because neither of us are bowled over by Age Of Sigmar (to put it politely for the sake of a quiet life) and, contrary to what the internet at large seems to believe about 8^th, the game was fun, interesting and only took about three and a half hours.

2000 points, my Lizardmen versus his Orcs & Goblins. I lost as it happens. I spent the first four turns utterly dominating the game, helped more than a little by Matt fluffing endless Fear tests and having the laziest Fanatics known to man. They just didn't want to go anywhere, I think someone subbed out their madcap mushrooms for weed. He had nine of the buggers, they all got activated and the complete butcher's bill for them was two Saurus Warriors and three of his own Squigs. Also, as always seems to be the case with his Orcs & Goblins, his warmachines promptly destroyed themselves when fired.

On the plus side he totally obliterated my usual MVPs the Saurus Cavalry when they utterly fluffed their attacks on his Big 'Uns. My two previous games with Lizards have given this unit something of an inflated reputation, I feel, but a useful one from the psychological point of view.

It all turned on me in the fifth turn. I compensated poorly for some failed charges and my Saurus Old-Blood and his Temple Guard were surrounded: Black Orc Warboss and Black Orcs to the front, a gigantic Squig Herd to the flank. It was all over from there, the Temple Guard were obliterated, my right flank dissolved and I spent the remaining turn impotently victimising Night Goblins for want of anything constructive to do.

And it was really fun. Yes, part of what killed me was chance but it was also partly my own poor decisions. There were genuine learning experiences that will help me in future games, most particularly that Fanatics are not necessarily as horrendous as I previously thought. From now on I'll be a little more confident in charging Night Goblins. Equally, my Saurus Cavalry are not as hard as any of us believed, they just did well in the previous games and I need to be more cautious about charging them into ranked units.

This was the second time I've used Lizards against Matt's Orcs and we're starting to create a storyline around it with the Lizardmen trying to stop the Orcs colonising a series of vital nodes in the geomantic web. His Warboss keeps escaping me, as well, so I feel my Old-Blood So'Kar is going to be pursuing a cold-blooded and logical vendetta against the creature that keeps defying the will of the Old Ones by surviving.

So I'm feeling inspired to write about this game. I'm also feeling inspired to get some painting done, which is useful because the painting table, thanks to my experiments in white spray, is getting seriously over-populated. Currently sitting on or orbiting the paint station on various surfaces are:

5 Ork Boyz with slugga and choppa

5 Ork Meganobz

5 Tomb Kings Skeleton Warriors with command options

Lizardmen Saurus Old-Blood with halberd and shield

Lizardmen Skink Priest with Cloak of Feathers

1 Lizardmen Bastiladon with Solar Engine

5 Lizardmen Saurus Warriors with spears and shields

2 Lizardmen Salamanders

Wood Elves Shadowdancer

This is too much and, frankly, inspiration is probably for the best. I suppose that what's making me happiest is that, after weeks of annoyance and being told that my opinion is somehow objectively wrong, I'm rediscovering the actual joy in my hobby. Long may it continue. 

Testing Corax White Spray

I usually prefer to paint over a black base coat. It helps with shading, if you miss a bit its more forgiving and, of course, Skull White spray is crap. It has never worked, twelve years in this hobby and it has never worked: it bobbled horrendously and even if it didn't it never covered consistently. The Ceramite White base paint was somehow worse. I've tried to game the system by going up to white through grey and through blue but it takes so many layers that I lose the detail of the model.

And now I'm painting Lizardmen, whose bright blue skin tones are so arduous if you start from black. Having painted a dozen Skinks like I finally broke and decided to try the new Corax White spray.

And it works! Miracle is miracles it bloody works: it covered flat and consistent. I did a test Saurus and then a few other things that had sanded bases to make sure the thing actually worked and I hadn't just got lucky. Yet four more Saurus, two Salamanders and a Skink Priest not one came out of the experience badly. I even tempted fate to make sure! The Skink Priest in question is the one with the cloak of feathers, which is my favourite of all Lizardmen minis so if it was going to fuck up it would fuck up good and hard on that one.

Just about the only flaw in it is guessing whether you've covered the whole of a Finecast model since the spray is inconveniently resin-coloured. Still, Finecast is not long for this world so that won't be a problem for long.

So, yes, finally I can paint from white which opens out the options rather. I imagine this'll be especially useful once I start painting Bretonnian Knights. 

Hobby Projects: female Company Command Squad, Saurus Oldblood

Jute Loyal Company Command Squad

I've had a nice little break and its time to get back to it. For a start, now I have both the Heroic Scale Female Heads from Statuesque Miniatures and the Kilted Legs from Victoria Miniatures its high time I made some of these female Imperial Guard I've been banging on about for months. Hence:

Yes, the officer is shorter than everyone else because my snips slipped and I had to cut off the bottom of the torso. Sadly, this is the only officer torso with boob-concealing flak armour so my officer gets to be a bit on the short side. I like that, though, the image of this stocky middle-aged woman in charge of a Guard regiment. I sort of imagine her played by Miriam Margoyles or Sandy Toksvig.

I'm leaning more towards Toksvig because of the no-nonsense voice.

One Week Model Challenge

Saurus Oldblood

Yeah, my big mistake was trying to do whole units in a week so, from now on, its going to be single models. This week: the Oldblood from the Carnosaur kit, who is fantastic even if my shitty photography doesn't show him off to best effect.

Weekly War Diary #3: Build-A-Lizard week

Given the run-up to the election and the slump of ennui that followed I got little done this week. Still, something happened yesterday that made me want to jump back into my hobby head-first: I went round a friend's house and watched some games.

My gaming group has mainly been playing 40k since February for Dave's map campaign but yesterday some of us got together and had some games of Fantasy. I didn't even play, I was shattered from work and was on rulebook duty (which, by the way, is not only a great way for someone not playing to feel useful but really helps prevent rules-flicking from disrupting the flow of the game).

We actually got three small games done that afternoon: Matt's Orcs & Goblins vs Tom's Empire; Tom's Empire vs Iain's Chaos Warriors; and Iain's Warriors vs. Tom's Empire. Wins: Orcs & Goblins; Warriors; Empire.

It was fun. God, we were rusty, though and the rulebook got a good workout.

Anyway, I've got a week off and not many plans since no one's around during the day. I want to play Fantasy and I feel the Vampire Counts have run their course so I want the Lizardmen up and running. Working from the army list I posted up a week or so back I've already got the 12 Skink Skirmishers and the plastic Skink Priest done plus the other Priest and the Kroxigor from the box of stuff Matt gave me.

Plus it'll give me something to do with my hands while I catch up with some audios. 

Weekly War Diary #2: Complete Lack Of Progress Report

Well, not actually zero progress but nothing really worth commenting on. I ended up painting the Skinks in a very, very crap way before breaking, paint-stripping the lot and investing in a copy of How To Paint Citadel Miniatures: Lizardmen.

I have to say that I like these ebook How To Paint guides a lot more than the paper ones. The stage-by-stage images are a lot easier to follow when you can press the “next” button and the image changes before your very eyes. In the paper version its more like a comic strip and sometimes the subtler effects can be a bit hard to distinguish, especially since layering is used to describe about five separate techniques.

Anyway, the purchase is paying off. Although the guide seems convinced the Citadel Spray Gun was a good idea it didn't take me long to work out what base paints to use since my spray gun went in the bin months ago.

One Week Hobby Challenge

Okay, so my second attempt to complete a unit in a week resulted in a second failure so let's streamline this down a bit. Its 40k's turn on the Challenge so I'm going to paint my copy of Kaptin Badrukk, aka my Ork Warlord Kaptin Thunderguts Snarla. 

Summer Project 2015 army list

To start the month off right here's the army list for my Summer Project, a good chunk of which I want to get done over the course of May. Just a little something to work to, at least to start with, based on the following considerations: (1) what's in the Battalion I already own; (2) what's in the box of miscellaneous stuff Matt sold me; and (3) what looks pretty and I want to paint.

Lords

Saurus Oldblood armed with hand weapon and shield, wearing light armour and the Talisman of Preservation. 205pts

Heroes

Skink Chief armed with hand weapon and shield, wearing light armour. 44pts

Skink Priest, Level 2 Wizard using the Lore of Heavens. 100pts

Skink Priest, Level 1 Wizard with the Lore of Beasts. 65pts

Core

20 Saurus Warriors armed with spears and shields, full command. 250pts

24 Skink Cohort armed with hand weapons, Lustrian javelins and shields, 2 Kroxigor and Skink Brave. 230pts

12 Skink Skirmishers armed with hand weapons and blowpipes, Patrol Leader. 94pts

Special

Bastiladon with Solar Engine and 3 Skink crew. 150 pts

5 Cold One Riders armed with spears and shields, full command. 200pts

1 Stegadon and 5 Skink crew armed with hand weapons, Lustrian javelins and giant bow, Sharpened Horns. 235pts

20 Temple Guard armed with halberds and shields wearing light armour, full command. 310pts

3 Terradon Riders armed with hand weapons, Lustrian javelins and rocks, Sky Leader. 115pts

Total: 1998 points

I think this just about covers all the bases: three rank-and-file infantry units; two fast units; a combat-oriented general; some magical support; a Skink Chief because nothing else would fit in the points; and, most important of all, plenty of the big dinosaurs centrepiece models. What's even better is the Battalion is a huge chunk of it so there's not much more financial outlay to be had (until I inevitably want to expand, of course). 

Weekly War Diary #1

One Week Hobby Challenge

I did not get the Meganobz finished. There are still a lot of metallics to do. Life got in the way, oh well. Getting the whole unit done in a week, a week when I knew I had stuff on as well, was overambitious and the only answer to being too ambitious is to be even more ambitious!

This week's challenge is to paint twelve models! Twelve tiny and much simpler models, to be sure, but still twelve models: the Skink Skirmishers from my Lizardmen Battalion. I want to get decent head start on this project and these are the smallest, simplest models in the box. They're mainly skin and scales, in fact the only complicated component on them seems to be the blowpipes which have little bits of detailing along them.

Completed models this week

Model 2015.8: Inquisition Psyker Junko Antioch

I'm so stupidly happy the white on the Ultra came out this well its genuinely pathetic. Anyway, this is the second member of the Inquisitorial warband: the Ultramarian Sanction Psyker Junko Antioch. If his fatigues look overly simple its because they're meant to be. Psykers are a pretty disposable resource in the Guard and I imagined he'd just be handed a boiler suit-esque uniform when he was enlisted and sent on his way.

2015.9 and 2015.10: Orks Gretchin with grot blasters

2015.11: Typhus the Herald of Nurgle

Typhus is absolutely one of my favourite models ever made and he was a joy to paint, even if I was constantly finding new metallic details on him that needed going over before he was done. The green on the armour is the same green I've been using for Ork flesh and it works surprisingly well on armour plate. Death Guard are one of those armies I've always wanted and maybe I'll pursue that after the Orks are a bit closer to completion (by which I mean having significantly more than seven small figures finished). 

2015.12 and 2015.13: Orks Gretchin with grot blasters

Lord Mazdamundi cometh

Funny thing about Warhammer is that once your hobbyist friends hear you're starting a new army its only a matter of time before someone tries to offload their abandoned projects on you. I started my Lizardmen army less than a week ago, I've only just finished building one small unit (12 Skink Skirmishers, as it happens) and a Skink Priest, I have nothing painted and already my friends are lining up to sell me their Lizardmen at dirt cheap prices.

I don't mind. Absolutely, I do not mind. I even got a nice compliment out of the exchange, as my friend Matt told me he liked the Lizardmen but he'd never got the colour scheme to work but I'm “better with bright colour palettes” so he thought I'd do better with them.

So in addition to my Battalion and Skink Priest I now have 26 additional Saurus Warriors; 3 unbuilt Terradon Riders; 3 Kroxigor and one broken Kroxigor; the old metal Saurus Oldblood (a model I hate but it was chucked in for free); the 2003 Army Deal limited edition Battle Standard Bearer; and most of a Slann-Mage Priest.

Its the “most of a Slann-Mage Priest” that I'm most enthusiastic about. Its just the Slaan, Matt's lost the Palanquin he's meant to sit on and there's only one thing you can do with an unmounted Slann:

Convert Lord Mazdamundi!

What I like the most about Mazdamundi, in all honesty, is the visual. Where most Mage-Priests glide serenely along on their Palanquins, Mazdamundi rides into battle on top of an Ancient Stegadon. He has some nice rules but to be honest I'll likely only be making him for fun more than for use in-game. He's a 780 points Lords choice so not terribly practical, especially considering my massive bias towards having legions of infantry about the place and spending as little as possible on character classes.

Still, it will be fun taking a Stegadon and making it as ornate as possible, as befits the chosen mount of the one of the holy Mage-Priests. 

2015 Summer Project Begins

The reason I've been so keen to get back into miniature painting is because I wanted to resurrect an old personal tradition of mine: the summer army project. I used to start a new army in the summer when the light was good for painting and the air was dry for undercoating so I'd have it ready for the cold, dark evenings of winter when our gaming group gets most of its playing done. I wanted to do it again this year. There's also the fact that, with all this uncertainty surrounding the future of Fantasy, its probably a good time to get around to an army I've been forever on the verge of starting.

Lizardmen. Aztec dinosaur men, many of whom are riding other dinosaurs into battle and who view the world in terms of pure mathematics (no, seriously, everything is equations to them).

They're also blue. I like blue, its a calming colour even when its on giant dinosaur mathematicians.

Yesterday I dropped into Games Workshop and picked up the two kits that have usually started me off on these projects: a Battalion box set and a character model. So now I have a plastic Skink Priest, 12 Skinks, 20 Saurus Warriors, 8 Saurus Cavalry and 10 Temple Guard waiting to be built. Its a solid core to build the army around and I'll probably splash out on a second Battalion at some point since between them they'll have with all the Core troops I'll ever need (okay, maybe more Skinks) and then I can concentrate on getting the cooler monstrous stuff like Stegadons and Trogolodons.

Yeah, I don't care if the Troglodon “is weak in the meta”, it looks amazing and monstrous mounts for Lords have never really worked for me.

Now to get started building this Battalion.