2011 Recap

Hope everyone had a nice holiday!  Well another year has gone by and before the new year begins I thought I'd take a look back on my hobby progress.

(crickets chirping)

Hmm, I thought I did more than this.

Yeah, there were a few setbacks.  The first was work.  This year work really took a big dent in my free time.  Just way too many deadlines and way too little time off.  In fact, I don't remember the last time I took a vacation. :(   Second, was starting up a new game.  I got to tell you moving to Infinity is the best thing I ever did gaming-wise.  Great sci-fi theme + fun innovative and deep game mechanics + ridiculous minis (mostly anyway) = my favorite mini game.  Yes, that meant more minis to paint.  But, I am talking about 10-12 figures which is pretty much your army compared to one unit of 40 clanrats which is clearly not.  The last excuse, er I mean reason are the freaking video games.  Curse you Nathan Drake and your awesome hi-def game!!!  Weeknights are usually a time to paint but when you put in 11+ hours at work you just want to plop in front of the tv... and squeeze in some video games.  All those nights when I should have been painting but was too lazy were instead spent climbing walls, grabbing treasure, and shooting bad guys.  Arrgh!!!  So much stuff to do and so little time.  It's a good thing that 2012 is just around the corner.

So what's the plan for next year? 

More Ariadna!  My New Year's hobby resolution will be to paint all the Ariadna I currently have (which is around 12 I think) before I grab anymore.  There's a good chance I'll break it but I gotta at least try, right?  Stay focused!

I've been lucky to find players to game with so I can learn the rules and figure out a good list.  It seems like quite a number of gamers are 'gaming small' these days.  I've notice a lot of gamers particularly GW gamers are either supplementing their fantasy and/or 40k with smaller skirmish based games or just switching completely.  Games like Cutlass, MERCS, Malifaux, Hell Dorado, Dystopian Wars/Uncharted Seas/Firestorm Armada, and Heavy Gear all got some loving this year.  Curious to see how this trend will turn out in 2012.

My Skaven are still on the table.  Closer to the back burners but I haven't completely shelved them just yet.  The rat ogres are still in my mini queue.  I'll get around to them eventually.

I've slowly been collecting a small Koborlas/Lupine warband for Reaper's Warlord game.  I recently I picked up a couple boxes of Wolfen from Rackham's Confrontation game really, really cheap that's perfect for this.  I hope to at least get them to paint ready before 2012 ends.

Whadya think?  Can I do this?  Time will tell.  Have a Happy New Year!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Hope everyone had a nice holiday! I should've had something posted by now but I've been off to videogame land! Let me explain- I'm really late on the next gen console bandwagon and last week I finally picked myself up a PS3. I was so positive I would eventually get one that I even started a small stash of blu-rays and games way before I picked the console up. That very night I opened it and played the heck out of it. The following day I went to celebrate Thanksgiving with the family and then went back home, watched a blu-ray, and played some more. On Black Friday I bought a few more blu-rays that were on sale. Needless to say there was a whole lotta hi-def activity going on but the holiday wasn't all videogames though. I did take advantage of the sales and shopped for more Infinity minis from my LGS and bought some odds and ends at my fav online gamine store.

Yay hobby shopping!

Anyway, more news...

I had my first full game of Infinity a few weekends ago. It was 200pts., Ariadna vs. Combined Army( y'know, the alien alliance). I got pwned big time. My opponent (Combined Army) had a linked team and just stormed down my flank killing everything in its path. By turn 4 my Lt. died and I had to concede. It wasn't a total massacre but it was close to being one. My opponent was actually cool and patient with me and answered all of my noob questions and even gave me advise. We had a bit of a peanut gallery so the game took longer than it should have but it was still fun. There were key mistakes I made in the game and the big one was deployment. I had a couple units deployed way too close to his linked team which enabled him to run his team up to my guys and shoot them down on the first turn. I also had several guys in the wrong place. Another big noob mistake was not knowing my list very well. During the course of the game I overlooked very important skills and weapons that would've helped the previous turn. Hard lessons learned.

Fortunately, this weekend I'm suppose to meet up with a dude from the forums that's fairly new to the game and we're going play a small game that'll help cover the game basics. Baby steps.

ADEPTICON!!! Man, I shouldn't have waited to pre-register for Adepticon 2012. D'OH!!! All the seminars are practically sold out and now I'm going to have to settle on a Partial swag bag. I'm not sure what that exactly means but it won't be as good as a Full swag bag :( . The Infinity tournament was also sold out. It's really awesome to see people sign up for it. Hopefully my experience will be up to par and my army fully painted for the following year. :) Hmm, I wonder if they're letting open gaming for Infinity during the con? 

And speaking of my army here's my progress thus far... My Line Kazaks are done, for now. Until I get better lighting I won't be able to do any of the details I'd like to do on them.  Looking at the pictures I realize it's not my best work but I got to move on.

Next up are 3 skirt wearing, gun toting, scots and a vet. Until next time!

Where Did September Go?!

Wow, I can't believe it's already October! Work has been crazy trying to meet all kinds of deadlines, mostly all unrealistic. These past few weeks has been quite a blur that I hadn't realized I completely neglected my minis. It was only last week that I had the chance to go back to painting again. Funny enough, it was when I was sick. Anyway, onto the minis!

So I started painting the Ariadna Line Kazaks or 'Grunts' as what I'll be calling them in the future. Also, I was missing my rats already so I continued painting my rat ogres.

I'm about half way in and they are starting to shape up I think. I'm basing my color scheme on the G.I. Joe Grunt so they will all have basic green fatigues. I picked up GW's Camo Green specifically for them and it seems to work nice as a highlight for the Catachan Green basecoat. I think after some washes and more highlights they should be good and done. Oh, and yes, there is the Tankhunter but he's taken a backseat at the moment, sorry!

The rat ogres need a bit more TLC. They need another go of highlights and a definite rework of their bases so that may take some time to do.

This weekend a LGS will host their biannual auction and may take a peek. They tend to attract big spenders so I don't expect to be picking anything up. But, if I do luck out and sneak a buy (praying that it not hurt the wallet) I'll let you know. Later!

Air Wagons and More

A couple nights ago I downloaded the Ariadna air wagon from the Infinity Downloads section. I thought it looked fun and simple enough to do in one night.

My first pass didn't turn out great because I used cardboard which was way too thick and folding the tabs became difficult. Second time around I printed on cardstock.

Voila!

Not too shabby but I did have some trouble in the end. Like a lot of papercrafts, for me it's quite hard to get these folds even and correct- especially when they are tiny. I ended up using both types of paper. I used the cardboard for piece #1 as a sturdy base. For the rest of the pieces I used cardstock which is thicker than paper but easier to fold than cardboard.

I made 2 versions. The one on the right is the intended papercraft. The one on the left is just an alternate flat version which is basically just piece #1.

After perusing through the forums I found out the air wagons were done by this guy. What a find! I guess there will be more papercraft projects in the future!

Catch Up

Man, working late has really put a damper on my hobby! Haven't been able to write anything until now. Well, I can pretty much summarize what has happened in the past few weeks on this single post.

So I went to Gamesday. It kinda sucked. Mainly because I got there late. I missed the Golden Demon entry time as a result. Also missed out on a couple activities like the the conversion contests. I did meet up with an old friend and his kids which was nice.

I got to do the 40k make and take scenery which was fun. Everyone got a rectangular piece of clear acrylic that was used as a base for your building. Sprues were randomly given out. One wall sprue, one floor sprue, and one miscellaneous sprue. Mine wasn't quite well thought out but just getting a chance to build something new and different was a nice experience.

droooool

The minis showcased were awesome as always. The large dioramas were incredible and loved the Forgeworld Skaven Exalted Verminlord and Brood Horror monster- probably something that I'll never get to pick up. :( Check out the pictures I took here.

In other news, I got to play my first game ever of Infinity finally. I was able to meet up with one of the guys on the forums and played a game. It was more of a demo really, just learning the fundamentals and the skills my unit had. Overall it went really well. In four(or maybe five) turns we were done. By the end of turn 2 both of our lieutenants(army leader) were eliminated. Mine walked in front of his remote mech with a machine gun. What was I thinking?! Anyway, it was fast and brutal. I hope there will be many more games like this.

There were 2 guys playing a game of Warhammer Fantasy next to us at the store. Seeing all the stuff they had to bring and seeing my army in a box about the size of hard drive just confirmed how much I'm not going to miss it. :)

Lastly, I got to work on my Ariadna. Started painting my tankhunter and got my first group of line kazaks ready for priming.

Gamesday 2011

Well it's official. I got my ticket in the mail today! Seeing that the real reason I'm going is for the freaking Gamesday Skaven mini, I should probably try to make the most of the day. I am definitely not bringing an army to play. Skaven is just not a fun army to lug around. I'm just tired of it all. Instead I might do some of the activities provided.

-Armies on Parade could have been fun but I'm late on that and should have started months ago.
-The Monster & Vehicle conversion contests are too expensive to make anything worthwhile I think. The Warhammer/40k conversion contests where they provide the supplies, on the otherhand, sounds like fun! Plus if you've got a conversion idea already in your head but unsure if if will work, this might be a good way to find out. Never done this before so I'm not sure what really to expect.
-I guess I could enter the Golden Demon just for the hell of it. Just to say I participated in one is something right? I do have a couple that I'm pretty proud of so why not?
-I am somewhat interested in the Battle Board Paint & Raffle. I wouldn't mind winning a board actually.
-If I'm confident enough and if I have a pretty good surplus of creative juices I might give the Art contest a try.
-Seminars are also an option.

Hope to see you guys there!

A Couple of Minis

Okay small update. Two whole minis done! Can you believe it!

One Infinity mini down... many more to go.

Reaper bat swarm. Done.

Here We Go...

Well here's a wip of my first Infinity mini, SAS. There are still quite a few details that need to be done like the camo pattern on his pants. The details are intricate and small and strained my eyes sooner than expected. I really need better lighting to do this. It's a good thing I'm painting those rat ogres at the same time.

  

I call him Beachhead. :P
Haven't started on the Tankhunter yet. His assembly is a little more complicated than I thought and had to ask a couple questions on the forums.

Skaven Update #32

Quick update here:

 

Well, I was going to say that I was finished with these guys but as soon as I uploaded the pictures I noticed a couple details that were overlooked. I'm gonna have to touch those areas up.
Started repainting the next batch of rat ogres.

Potpourri of Sorts

I've been working on different things this past week. Here's what I've done so far in my ADD-induced state:

All finally based. A couple need some green stuff loving but the rest are ready for priming. Also threw in Throt in the mix to get the Moulder groove going.

Painting-wise this was it for the rat ogres unfortunately, which was part of the reason I chose not to include it to my usual Skaven Updates.

The bottom half of the rat ogre on the left shows the original coat. The top half is coated with Elf Flesh. The rat ogre on the right shows the final look. It has been painted with a coat of Elf Flesh then a generous wash of Gryphonne Sepia. Both still needs work though.

One morning I stopped by my workstation and had a sudden urge to magnetize the captain, anticipating that I could swap him for another knight or something. I had planned on this for awhile, but it was just weird that I had to do it that moment. Made me late for work too! Hahaha, ahem...

 

Worked on a couple of Reaper minis intended to be Warhammer proxies. First is a Reaper Thug that I wanted to use as an Empire Militia champion- I'm pretty sure they have champions, right? I got stuck working on the shiny metal. Second, I thought this looked to be a perfect proxy since GW's is just simply terrible. Not much to this, added a VC coffin shield and worked on the base a bit.

Last but not least are the start of my Infinity collection! These are wicked minis, but my only gripe is these are very delicate pieces. The handle bar for the Tankhunter is really soft and has flash. I'm really hesitant to do any fix on it. The knife arm for the SAS is also soft and I'm worried in time after much handling it might break off. It maybe just these particular minis but they are definitely not for kids. Still I can't help but think how cool these minis will be once I get some paint on them!

Oh, I even did another sprite. That's now 2 and counting!

To Infinity... and Beyond!!!

In light of the recent GW news- phasing in resin products in place of metal and another price hike- I've noticed quite a bit of players switching to other game systems. Some finding a fall back and some just completely bailed. Games like Warmachine/Hordes and Malifaux seem to be the popular alternatives. I too will be switching but Infinity will be my game of choice.

I've been lurking the Infinity forums for a couple years now admiring their miniatures and even picking up a couple minis on coolness alone. It wasn't until Beasts of War had an Infinity-themed week that I started to seriously look at the game. After reading the GW's current announcements, it pretty much sealed the deal.

What lead me to Infinity besides the cool minis were the rules. At first I was really overwhelmed with how different it was from the other games I've played. But as soon as I got my head around it I realized this is a great game. And I'll give you three reasons why:

1) Miniatures. Minis are wonderfully sculpted. Even if you aren't into the heavy anime style there are a couple factions that aren't. You don't even need a lot to start playing. A couple of starter boxsets for you and a friend is all you need. One can even buy as little as a few blisters to play a small skirmish game.

2) Rules. I had always hated the down time you'd get from the typical 'you go, I go' sequence. Infinity instead allows you to react to your opponents' minis whether its running away, shooting back, get up or go prone, or just plain dodge while it's their turn. Can't think of other games that do this. Can you?

The game is also supposedly unbelievably balanced. No faction is better than another and there are no specific list that wins. All lists for the most part are actually competitive. That is unheard of! I really hope this is true but I'll find out soon enough.

3) Free. Rules are free to download so if you're still on the fence you can proxy those Imperial Guard or AT-43 figs.

I still love my rats. In fact, I'm still planning on attending Gamesday. It's just looking more and more that my fantasy army will be 99% hobby and 1% gaming.

Skaven Update #31

I was expecting to get some good quality hobby time these past couple weeks but that was not the case. The little time I did find I...

...expanded!

Since I'm working on rat ogres at the moment I thought it'd be a good idea to open up my 2 unopened Moulder boxes that's been collecting dust and to finally start on them as well! They've been on the shelf for a long time. I picked one up way back during the Lustria summer campaign (remember that?) and the other one when a LGS went out of business shortly after. Aside from a single packmaster everything else is assembled and most are based. Y'know, I do have a couple more rat ogres that are still in their packages- the more recent Boneripper and the Mordheim Skryre rat ogre. I wonder if I should assemble them as well. This project just got a little bigger.

Rat Ogres!

Okay, it's official. I'm committing myself to paint this hulking bunch next.

Looks like they're almost done but let's take closer look...

The packmasters have obviously not worked on. They don't even have their bases sanded yet.

At the time, I rushed these dudes to have them tabletop ready (for an entirely different game system no less) and in doing so, prematurely added the static grass when I clearly wasn't finished. I need to brighten the skin tones a bit and finish the smaller details. Also need to paint around the grass to finish the base. Well that's the plan anyway. I may need to strip the grass all together.

These guys look about half done and need some serious wash and highlighting. These earlier models clearly look different from the others so I wanted their paint scheme to reflect that a bit. After seeing them within the unit I may have to tone down contrast just a tad to have a more uniform look.

The old Boneripper is now my master bred. Still needs some painting to do but what it really needs is special treatment on the base to have it stand out more.

Well, there you go. We'll see how long this project will last.

Skaven Update #30.1

Quick update, the Warp-grinder is done. Yay!

It's a shame it doesn't have a nightrunner unit to accompany it. :( A couple things I may have done a little differently. First, I should of planned the base a bit more. The intention was to make it look like the weapon team was emerging from the hole they came out of. I pretty much winged it and the result is just okay. Secondly, I wish I picked out a thicker guitar chord for their hoses. A bit skinny.

I do admit I like how it came out despite it all. I think it's the most extensive conversion I've done to date. I even like the periscope counter I made for it. Personally, I thought it was... GENIUS!

I haven't committed to anything yet and just did whatever I felt I liked doing. So, I started basing a few different minis including a 40mm x 60mm base for my old Screaming Bell. Next update I hope to nail down which batch of Skaven I'm doing next. This 'one unit + single model' approach seems to be working for me so I'll continue to do this. Until next time, thanks for looking!

Skaven Update #30

Okay, here's what I've accomplished so far...

gutter unit #1

 

gutter unit #2 with a deathrunner These Gutter Runners have been a real chore for me. I thought that these would be a quick paint considering they are mostly black. But, the longer I painted them the less motivated I became. Part of it is the sculpt; difficult to paint around. I think this is as far as I'm willing to go with these guys. I'm happy with the simple color scheme so let's just call them done and move on shall we? I doubt I will ever field 2 units of 10 gutter runners- maybe 2 units of 5 at most. I just wanted to build as many as I could. Still painting the Warp-grinder. Hope to get this done soon. I'm not quite sure what's next on my Skaven plate. The night runners were suppose to be next but seeing how long these gutter runners took I might have to take a break from the models. My 'to do' rat list is always growing but on the top of list are:

1) Screaming Bell and unit: Originally I was going to update this clanrat unit by repainting the whole unit and then updating the bell by adding the large 60x100mm base. I even had a couple of ideas to fill up the enormous base that the bell would be on. It would've have been a nice project to work on but after seeing the great armies at Adepticon especially the Skaven in person I started having second thoughts. Right now, I still want to repaint the whole thing but instead keep the old 40x60mm base and officially retire/shelf the entire unit.

2) Rat ogres: Varying degrees of completeness. Where to begin? The old Boneripper mini would be the master bred in the unit but I need to make a special base for it. Not sure what though.

3) Giant rat pack: Another unit with varying degrees of completeness. I do want to add a unit filler in the unit, hence the empty 40x40mm base.
Decisions, decisions.