Returning to Guild Ball - Masons

Continuing to resurrect old projects, I decided I needed to finish painting my Guild Ball Masons team since I've been playing it a bit lately.  Plus, I'm signed up for an event at the NOVA Open so I wanted to have them wrapped up for that.  Here is where I left off 2 years (oh my) ago:

I did finally do the basing on these guys.  Recently...

Wow, that was awhile ago.  And look, all boys...  Not sure that was a conscience decision or not.  One thing I do remember though is those models seemed to have taken me forever.  By contrast, these seemed to fly by at a pretty decent pace (for me):

They didn't really turn out the way I hoped.  Honour (middle) and Harmony (right) experienced some pretty bad texture on the facial skin (not really visible in these photos).  And I happened to save that part for last!  Anyway, I was not going to strip everything down just to try it again, so I pretty much just decided to accept it and didn't put in a lot more work after that.  Just want some respectable on the tabletop and at tabletop distances.  Speaking of which, I still don't feel like I'm pushing my contrast far enough.  *sigh*

These are same colors I used on that original batch, so for my reference they are:  Masons Basecoat, Shade, and Highlight.  The hair was done differently than the first batch, but I didn't take notes.  From memory though:

• Chisel (left):  Very dark dark blue base, highlighted first pass with Vallejo Panzer Aces Dark Rubber, second pass with Light Rubber.  Shadows with VMC Black.
• Honour (middle):  Pretty much RMS Blonde Triad
• Harmony (right):  Very similar to Brick from the first batch, although a stronger highlight was added with something...

While doing the basing and sealing for these, I actually knocked out Marbles but I'll post that up with next group:  Wrecker, Granite, Hammer.

Vehicular Combat - Resurrecting the Forgotten

Once upon I time, I had embarked on a special project to build some vehicles for some (previously unidentified) vehicular combat game.  You can find the beginnings of that project and the first completed car build here.  Recently Gaslands has gained a bit of traction locally, so I've dusted this abandoned project off (I never got around to finishing the 3 other cars shown/mentioned in that post).

Two new cars join the original (left most)

The El Camino on the left got updated with some weathering powders while I was doing that work on the 2 new cars.  Pretty happy with how these turned out.  I regretted doing a chop top on the taxi (middle) for the longest time.  It really turned into a nightmare, but it finally came together and I'm happy with it (other than the window plates on the taxi).  I also dreaded the painting the white on the old school ambulance, but I think it turned out ok.  Just one more car to do to finish leg 1 on the grander project.  With Gaslands being a pretty good ruleset, maybe I can get motivated to to finish this leg up and tackle the next leg.  Anyway, here are more shots of the new cars:

Paints used on the Taxi:

• RMS Marigold Yellow (Shade), RMS Sunlight Yellow (Base), RMS Lemon Yellow (Highlight)
• Who knows what for the steel plates.
• Misc weathering stuff.

Paints used on the Ambulance:

• RMS Creamy Ivory (Shade), RMS Creamy Ivory + VMA White 1:1 (Base), VMA White (Highlight with excessive overspray)
• Bars and plates, no idea
• The red was just some random red I grabbed, should have probably been a brighter red...
• Misc weather stuff.

Konflikt 47 - American Firefly Jump Infantry

Leveraging off my existing Bolt Action American forces allowed me to jump straight to some of the "toys" that K47 introduces.  Since I knew even my BA American's were short on infantry squads (I just haven't had a desire to paint up more), I knew I needed my first K47 project to be an infantry squad and the Firefly Jump Infantry were the obvious choice (to me at least).  Truth be told, I actually did start first on some walkers before I realized that they were not what I should be focusing on.

Anyway, here they are:

Photo is a little washed out.

Not completely satisfied, but I called them done.  After all, I have another box of these guys.  I like these models and they were pretty fun to paint.  Except for the webbing, those details are not very pronounced and having to go over them 2-3 times (my color choice does not have the best single pass coverage) was excruciating.  Maybe hard to tell from the photo but the glow on the jet packs also did not turn out as well as I had hoped.  Still, good enough to move on, except some additional matte coat is needed in a few spots.

I painted these very similar to my American Bolt action infantry.  Instead of the RMS Worn Olive and RMS Faded Khaki (for the pants and jacket respectively), I used RMS Olive Drab instead for the jump suits.  I also limited the dust/mud weathering to just the boots given their nature on the battlefield and also because the knee pads already provide some visual interest in that area of the figures.

July Recap

Another good month of gaming goodness.  I kicked off July with a game of Gaslands at the local tap room.  We had two tables going with incredible tables by Darren over at Broken Sword Studios.

Table 1 is simply stunning.

Table 2 is not shabby either.

Both tables played Death Race with 5 players per table (a really great turn out).  Everyone had a really great time, although I believe both games were called not long after cars finally got past the first gate.  The game bogs down a bit in death race, esp with that many players.  Plus pretty much everyone was new to the game.  A week or two later, I got in another game of Gaslands where we played the zombie scenario, again with 5 players.  Definitely a much better scenario for that many players but it does still take a while to play.  All that being said, the abstractions of the game are simply amazing.  For me, it gives just the right balance of simulation and simplification.  Not only can I not wait to play again, I can't wait to see what Mike Hutchinson does for his next game.

With the Bolt Action league having concluded, we have transitioned to open play and gearing up for a short Konflikt '47 escalation league.  Having shown up one day to work on Konflikt league rules, I got pulled into playing Bolt Action with a perspective player.  I borrowed a 1250 pt Finnish tournament list (he wanted the "full" experience) and showed him the ropes.  He was sold, so we added another to our ranks.  I also ran another person through a 500 pt Konflikt game to acquaint her with the rules and to sate her excitement for the upcoming league.

Rounding things out, I squeezed a game of Guild Ball in on the very last day of July.  I really want to love Guild Ball, but I'm just not sold.  It definitely is not a bad game, although I think it should be "quicker."  It's just that the game requires very good knowledge of your opponents models and requires/rewards excessive pre-measuring.  Still, I will continue to give it a go a bit longer and finish up painting the models I have.

That pretty much rounds out July.  I made some really good progress on painting and I will post that up soon.  I'm not sure I will make either of my painting goals for the NOVA Open but I'm not sure the two events I am painting for are even going to happen due to low registration numbers.  We'll see.  Also August sees the kick off of two new leagues:  the Konflikt '47 league I'm running and a Gaslands league.  Feast or famine.  lol

June Recap

Despite my yearly family vacation eating up two of my weekends during June, I did manage to get respectable amount of games in as well as getting a full 1000 pts painted in time for the Bolt Action D-Day game (albeit a sub-optimal 1000 pts).  I had two normal games of Bolt Action, at 1000 pts, for the month.  In addition, I was one of 5 allied players that participated in the D-Day game.  Unfortunately, we had 7 axis players show up.  The reality is that we would probably have needed 4x the numbers as the Axis team.

Beautiful beach landing area for D-Day.

The nearby town, center board.

The nearby rural area.

Via roll-off, I ended up being the top allied player coming in at 8th place.  In case you have already forgotten, there were 7 axis players...  It was not a good day for the allies.

In other gaming news, it turned out that the Guild Ball group on the other side of town that I had never been able to make it out to had mostly fallen apart.  In an effort to rebuild the community, the organizer moved it over to my side of town at Lucky Dice Cafe and changed the night to one that I happen to be available for (at least for the summer).  So I jumped in on that twice in June, the first time just playing a small 4v4 to shake the dust off and introduce a new guy to the game.  The second game was a full game against an experienced and returning player.  I still want to really like this game but I'm just not sure about the game length and the intimate knowledge of your opponents team that is really required.  Ok, it is not really "required" but I don't respond well when I am caught off guard by something I flat out did not know my opponents guy could do, it doesn't make for a good play experience for me and can cause an entire turn of Guild Ball to collapse.  Anyway, I'll keep trying to give it a go as long as my schedule permits.

While on vacation, I also had a chance to duck into Mrytle Beach Games, which was a nice little game store.  They had a good selection of board games and as well as your typical Magic the Gathering selection/support.  They had a smattering of Warmachine, Guild Ball and Reaper Bones miniatures as well as selection of hobby supplies.  Nice clean store and bit spacious.  I don't know the history of the place (new?) but it did seem like they were still in the process of figuring out how to utilize their space.  I think I will definitely swing by there again next year to see how it is coming along.

Lastly, right before my vacation I linked up with a local guy I had spotted on facebook that was doing incredible stuff for Gaslands.  I tied him in with some others I knew were interested, a bingo they all hit the ground running.  And I subsequently missed 2 games of Gaslands while I was on vacation!  I did eventually get a game in but technically that was in July, so more on that next month.

Bolt Action - Americans

Mentioned in previous posts, I jumped in on a Bolt Action escalation league a few months ago.  The scale (as in the number of figures) and subject matter (WW2) is not the most appealing to me but I really wanted to support some kind of miniature league at Huntsville's new gaming store, Lucky Dice Cafe.  Bolt Action was the first opportunity and I decided to roll with it.  In retrospect, I am really glad I did because it has turned out very well and has been a lot of fun.

Rolling through the first month, I left myself in a bit of bind for trying to get my painting points in for the month.  I managed to get 250 pts of veterans assembled very quickly so I could play but before I knew it I only had one week left to paint them.  So a very interesting challenge presented itself to me:  14 figures in 7 days, something I have never even come close to accomplishing.

The first batch, 14 figs in 7 days.

I'm not really the biggest fan of Warlord's miniatures, so this left me a lot of freedom to really try to push my painting speed since I was not overly concerned how good the final product looked.  I just wanted them painted.  It also forced me to really see how much "messiness" Army Painter's strong tone was could cover up.  Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the results given the time investment.  The figures above eventually had some weathering powder applied to the base to shift the color a little bit.  I also placed the weathering powder randomly to knees and elbows, as well as some other areas that "seemed" to make sense.  All in all it was pretty interesting exercise but was a bit of painful, especially since my sweet spot for batch painting to be limited to just 3 figures!  

I also tracked the actual hours for the figures above.  All said, from not primed to sealed each model came in at about 2 hours.  I was really hoping for a sub 1 hour mark.

Between the initial 250 pt mark for the league and the 1000 pt mark for the D-Day game, I really only managed to paint my Chaffee light tank and get some more guys assembled.  This caused me to not get my painting points for the league for a couple of months.

I may have over chipped it.

While I did not completely rectify the previous mistake of waiting till the last minute, I did at least realize more than week before I needed to knock out another significant batch of models.  And my Greyhound scout car.  So I didn't have 14 models to paint this time, I had 19!  Plus the Greyhound!  And only 2 weeks to do so.

Ugh, so many!

We'll skip an up close shot of the Greyhound as I am not pleased with it currently.  Like the Chaffee, it is also not completely "done."  I'll eventually post some stuff up for them when I wrap them up.

Most interestingly, here I am at basically the half way point of the year and I've painted up 33 Bolt Action infantry figures.  Combine that with the Menoth models I painted for Company of Iron and I'm at 43.  My total for all of last year was just 36, so that has me feeling pretty good.  That is until I  think about all the other projects in the queue...

Anyway, the paints used for these guys:

• Pants:  RMS Worn Olive (Base); No highlights
• Jacket:  RMS Faded Khaki (Base); 1:1 RMS Faded Khaki:Bronzed Highlight (Highlight)
• Webbing:  RMS Terran Khaki (Base); RMS Kahki Highlight (Highlight)
• Rifle-Steel:  1:1 RMS Pure Black:AP Gun Metal (Base); AP Shinning Silver (Highlight)
• Rifle-Stock:  RMS Blackened Brown (Base); RMS Intense Brown (Highlight)
• Skin:  
• Batch 1:  RMS Bronzed Highlight (Base)
• Batch 2:  RMS Bronzed Skin (Base)
• Helmet:  RMS Olive Green (Base); 1:1 RMS Olive Green:RMS Pale Olive
• All shading was with diluted AP Strong Tone all over the model, some wiped away on highlight areas of the pants.  A second application was done (after the first dried) in select/deeper areas.

Overall, pretty happy with how they turned out.  The highlight's on the helmets are sometimes really off and also do not transition well but I'll try to correct that on subsequent figures.  I should have been more careful in applying the Strong Tone wash.  But, they are done.  Eventually I will need to add my MMG teams and 1-2 squads to have a more robust 1000 pt list but I can at least move on to other things now and revisit this at a more relaxed pace.

March/April/May Recap

Ok, so I haven't done a good job of regular posts on the blog, let alone getting caught up on things I wanted to post or have meant to post.  On all fronts, things have just been busy but luckily that includes hobby stuff and managing to play games!

March - I'm a bit fuzzy, but I think I managed to get 3 games of Bolt Action in for the month for the escalation league.  Smaller games, only 350 pts, but as I recall them they were very enjoyable.  I also got several games of different things in at Adepticon, along with a few seminars.  More on Adepticon at the end.

April - The Bolt Action escalation league jumped up 500 pts for this month and I got 3 games in.  As a point sink (and out of fear my opponents would do the same) I managed to sneak a light tank into the list.  Again all the games were very good, even the game when I managed to get screwed by any unit having just a single pin on it, despite the units all be veteran.  I also got in a game of Company of Iron, with Mike.  You can find Mike's write up here.  I'm not quite sold on the game yet but I willing to give it another go or two.

May - Ah, my typical hell month because almost all the birthdays in my family are in May and that coupled with the end of the school year chaos, I only managed to get one game of Bolt Action.  I also queued up a bunch of new figures to fill my list out to a 1000 pts for the June D-Day game and got some paint on my light tank and greyhound scout car.

As for Adepticon, it was a great convention as usual.  As usual, I mostly played one-off participation games where the materials were provided and along with a couple of demos.  This included:

• A Jetbike race using some modified Deadzone rules which turned out to be pretty fun.
• A Mecha arena pit fight game using modified Deadzone rules.  This one did not turn out so great since it got dumped into someone's lap unexpectedly and he was not familiar with the modifications.  I basically ended up with a Mecha that was configured in a way that couldn't damage other mechs.  Afterwards I think he managed to get it sorted out for the next batch of players and kudos to him for trying to press through as best he could.
• A 3 round mini-tournament of Eden for beginners.  They did a really great job of introducing new concepts every round and having plenty of people to help out (I think there were at least 3 of them for the 8-10 of us playing).  The game seems a lot of fun and apparently plays out very well with more than 2 players, which is nice.  I may have picked up a starter...
• Played a Shadows of Brimstone custom scenario which was really great and a lot of fun.  We lost the boss fight horribly but it was still a lot of fun.  The game mechanics can certainly end up stacking the odds against you though.
• Having re-read through the rules before the convention, I decided to skip out on my game of Fistful of Lead.  Not that the rules are bad, but they just didn't seem that interesting.  Which was why I did not back the kickstarter for their Sci-Fi ruleset.  
• And then my hobby seminars.  They were good but I'm strongly considering forgoing them in the future.  Between the high costs, poor lighting conditions and other factors, I'm just not sure it is a good investment for me.  In fact, I really wonder if it would be a better investment to just hang out in the painter's lounge working on stuff with fellow painters.  We'll see.
• I've also got a great demo of SAGA and have been really itching for it since.  All my other projects have taken priority though and so far I have "behaved."

Rounding all that out, in this period of 3 months, I've gone and double the number of kickstarters I backed in 2017.  Of course, that was only 1 so it is not that bad.  I succumbed to the Godtear kickstarter and I also had to go in on Dave Taylor's book.

Well, that sort of gets me caught up.  Next I will hopefully get some pics of my bolt action guys up along with my notes on how I painted them (before I loose them).  I've still got a lot on my plate to be ready for the NOVA Open though, so we'll see...