Hallow's Eve

While I should have been painting my painting contest entry for this weekends event, I decided I needed to strive for fame and fortune and carve a pumpkin for the contest at work first.

I was going to go with a carving of the Colosseum, but decided I should keep it simple with the pumpkin medium, I will save that inspiration for table top terrain and armies.

Here is to winning first place and getting some cool prizes.

Don't Follow the Lights!

It is almost Halloween and nothing better than dead stuff! Here is a sneak peak at the Dead Marshes, ONLY available to play on at Bilbo's Birthday Bash this weekend and Adepticon next year!

Many thanks to my friends Kyle and Chris for use of their homes and great resin product! I will be making the switch for future terrain projects.

If you want to follow the lights you are going to have to come on down to the Chicago Battle Bunker this coming weekend to check out all the watchers in the water in person. Or wait for coverage posted after the event here.

ciao

The Rule of 2s

Two. 2. II.

Recently the rule of 2s has been making it's presence known. The rule of two is the lessor known brother to the rule of 3s in which stuff sometimes happens in 3s; good stuff, bad stuff, sneezes, etc. This just seems to be happening in 2s recently.

It has been real busy at work and I have just been scraping by with my painting quota and terrain builds for the upcoming Bilbo's Birthday Bash event which, again, is under 2 weeks away.

Last week it had been my 2 month anniversary since starting work and to celebrate, my boss and bosses boss gave me a promotion. That was fun.

It is also rapidly approaching the 2nd month of our Tale of Four Gamers and I figure I will give you all a sneak peak at the cave drake.

It is so life like isn't it? I know it is not the actually model, but that is the paint scheme I am using.Some real solid work has been done and I am looking forward to getting this model finished, it paints up pretty easy so far although I have not gotten to the belly and underside yet...

So please stay tuned for a bunch of super cool updates in the next week or so as well as full coverage of the largest Independent Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game Tournament ever held in the US.

ciao

Fright Night

With October comes all those edited for TV slasher movies; so I decided to get my fright on and broke out the hack saw for some slicing and dicing.

 Most of my center pieces contain dwarves getting the snot beat out of them... its a mocking of their defense stat...

 This guys neck really gave me some trouble. The entire model needs green stuff obviously, but I should be able to make the neck look better than a wrung out towel like it is now.

 This is a preview of the goblins "Super Sturdy Travel" Display board. The pillars use magnets, and each of the sides is hinged that collapses like those old micro machine play sets. Place your orders while supplies last!

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.