Tale of Four Gamers: Month 1

Well the first month of our Tale of Four Gamers is at a close, and I think overall our group are slow painters! I know I put it off and stayed up late getting the finishing touches done so I would not be behind for next month.

So here it goes, 150 points for Lord of the Rings Goblins.

 Overall I am happy with the end result, brushed the dust of 1+ years of not touching a model. The goblins of a classic case of blob model definitions when it comes to one part ending and a new section beginning so that took a little while to get comfortable with

 21 models in a batch painting session was a little rough but not impossible, I think it is the only way to get through this many goblins.

 Overall my painting style is a darker tone for all my armies, I like using the red and yellow to make the models stand out with a lot of black armor and brown leathers etc.

 Only model I did not get to is Dino the goblin horse, I plan on using him for a test paint for the larger cave drake coming up for next months commitment.

 They could be better but I will take it for getting back into the grind of painting and getting them done on time in our little competition.

Personal Grade: B-

Up for next month, a Cave Drake! This guy will double for the up coming Bilbo's Birthday Bash painting competition. I've got the dremmel charging and hack saw sharp...

The Future: War and Flashy Paint Schemes

While painting continues on the goblins of the Misty Mountains, my thoughts wander to the future, where their is only war and flashy paint schemes and our heroic space marines. Using those great marine paint generators out there I have come up with 2 potential schemes for my 10 man movie marine squad.

 These guys are going to be part of the Iron Hands chapter so I had to go with their black and silver base colors but it is way too boring without some highlight colors. Combine this with my previous post on my conversion ideas and I think this should match up nicely. 

I will need to brush up on making black highlights look nice.... and a straight chainmail/mithril silver scheme might need to be dulled with some greys or darker silvers. Obviously they will have their shoulder transfers.

 I would like to play with this camouflage style on some of their shoulder pads or maybe the assault marine conversions. Leaning towards a small sponge brush technique, will have to test that out.

With the movie marine list you can buy a rhino/razorback or use your points for stunt doubles, vehicles are of course way cooler. I love the Valkyrie model but it would not fit very well as it is Guard.

I will be building a rhino + drop pod hovercraft/flyer vehicle. Yes this statline will be a rhino, but it will look cooler as a flyer, which is what the movie marines are all about.

Check back in 6 days for our first months Tale of four gamers completion! Next month should see a big hurt on the wallet with marine box buys, forgeworld, and bitz pick ups.

Leave a comment to vote for paint schemes.

Get to the Chopper!

 Hey wait a second, that looks like Warhammer 40,000 stuff, are those space marines? While we all tell ourselves we will not get involved in another game that requires more models; a recent game of Lord of the Rings over at the bunker had me all up in arms over Space Marines.

A friend and his gaming amigos are not 40k fanboys and play a lot of Lord of the Rings, but for the sake of mixing it up and having a fun time with ridiculous hero cliches they convinced me pretty easily to join them on their quest for Movie Marine Madness.
 

 The rules put out in White Dwarf consist of a 10 man squad of marines plus a rhino that equals 1500 points in regular 40k rules. Much to the anger of my wallet I decided, hey its only 10 models.... The premise being that you convert the snot out these guys and make them 1 man armies pretty much.

I am leaning towards Iron Hands for my chapter and aim to do a mash up of these three photos with as many mini guns, dual wielding pistols, bionic body parts, and machoism that can be contained in power armor.

After Bilbo's Birthday Bash, November 5th-6th at the Chicago Battle Bunker that will be the single largest SBG tournament in the history of US based events, (shameless plug over) I will be adding movie marines to my to do list!

16 days left for our Tale of Four Gamers! Check back at the end of the month to see the first batch of goblins and next month's task! It has four legs and rhymes with Dave Stake.

Fall Classics

No this is not about baseball, you will never see baseball here.

Getting paid! And that means I can afford more tasty things than just peanut butter and jelly. I was cruising through the store about to pick up New Belgium's Fat Tire, when I went with their Hoptober. I am not a super fan of hop filled beers but this was nicely balanced and did not punch you in the face like some Sam Adams beers.

Side note, New Belgium is one of my favorite brewing companies, introduced to is while my brother was living in Fort Collins, CO.

 FOOTBALL. Football means the fall, and the fall means already having funky weather in Chicago, and THAT means more comfort food that warms you up. The store did not have any pork butt or shoulder so I went with a family pack of pork chops as my only choice for braised pork.

With my work schedule I like to make a lot of something and freeze stuff for later meals. So I went about braising a bunch of pork for two missions, pork ragu and pulled pork.

Braising any kind if meat is super easy and a good way to impress if your having people over. Sear the outside of the meat, add some chopped carrots, onion, celery, and garlic. Add herbs, I used thyme, parsley, and rosemary and bay leaf here. Then simply add a liquid to cover about 3/4 of the way up on the meat.

 After 3 hours of braising, I pulled the bones out, and shredded all the pork. I then separated a portion out to take a shot at BBQ. Honey glazed pulled pork. Finished it with some red wine vinegar, crushed red pepper, honey, and butter.

Paired with sauteed sweet potato and another New Belgium Hoptober.

 After I separated the pulled pork portion, I cooked down the tomato braising liquid with the extra pork and popped this into my freezer for a pasta meal down the road. 

At the same time as braised pork, football, and getting paid! My September Tale of four Gamers saw some light in getting armor and skins done on the batch. I had forgotten how long base coats take, but my dread of doing 22 model batches is not that bad at this point.

Lots more football, painting, and game prep for Bilbo's Birthday Bash coming up in the start of November.

Pissed Pirate Peppers

 

Pissed: I wanted to try new paints for my upcoming armies and heard a lot about Vallejo paints. I did my research and through Vallejo's website picked out the colors they had. Their paints were close to $1 cheaper than Gamesworkshop's Citadel line and around 5mL more paint. 

The order came in from my internet business provider, Neal at The Warstore, always has great service and products from him. I looked at 4/10 of the colors I ordered and they were awful, absolutely the wrong colors I needed. I went back and checked the names, my order, and the original Vallejo product pamphlet on their website.

It all matched but it still remained that the photos of their paints online are not even close to the physical product. For example, livery green, online is a pale dull green, while in person looks like the incredible hulk radioactive green. On top of that some of the bottles are as thin as an ink or wash yet should be a paint consistency.

I guess I learned my lesson in that I should pay a little extra for the quality I know, instead of the hassle of the unknown. I do really like their squirt bottle design though, just needed to see their stuff in person first I guess.

 

 Pirates!: Well they are not quiet pirates but they are my starting 12 man crew for the Legends of the High Seas. These are Perry Brothers Hesse-Cassel Jaeger from their revolutionary war line. I really liked their look, the captain has an eye patch, and they will certainly be different than anyone else bringing a royal navy crew.
 

 Peppers: Got a fiery package in the mail from my parents garden. Way to many peppers to actually consume so I close my eyes, picked a handful out, and food processed them with some onion, garlic, lemon juice, and parsley.

This turned into "melt-your-face-pepper spread/salsa" that will keep nicely in the fridge for when I tempt fate and melt my insides.

 September 1st is here and that means back to school sales. No that is not it, that means football! That's good, but there was something else... ah yes, the first installment of Chicago's Tale of Four Gamers!

Having not touched a goblin model since the release of the Fellowship of the Ring boxed set back in I can't remember that far, I am returning full circle to build a huge horde of those little buggers.

I picked up these models second hand and they had already been glued and primed. thus the conversions and greenstuff looks extra funky next to the black base coat. I plan on hand priming them to avoid excessive paint build up from a 2nd spraying.

 For this months quota I went with stock troops to get back in the painting and converting groove since not having built a model in over a year. Here is the 150 points.

1 Goblin Shaman
11 Goblins with shields
10 goblins with spears

 Usually 100% of my conversions are my own creation, but I have to give credit to this site for inspiring these "karate jump" goblins.

http://www.miniwargaming.com/content/XilbJDP6lRGH

 Here are some some more variations, I want to have a good mix of hooded goblins in case in the future I have the need to differentiating prowlers with shields from regular swordsmen. In this army they make no difference.

I know goblins cannot ride baby cave drakes but this guy has been training him it was an egg.

 The axes are the first of many dwarf acquisition parts.

 And now we come to it at last, the dreaded goblin spear model. I could not live with 21 generic, stock goblin spear models so I took a bunch of archers and my dremmel and went to town. The spears are from Warhammer Ancients weapon suppliers.

That is it! 22 goblins to be painting for the month of September, now just waiting for my paint order to be shipped....

Overall I am happy with how they turned out, nothing ever comes out exactly how you plan it but I have got the feel for greenstuff again and looked forward to tackling the cave drake for next month!

Check back soon for a battle report with my Harad Cavalry.

-Jeremy