TAKE THAT OBJECTIVE SOLDIER!

Welcome, Today I wanted to show some easy objective markers that you can make with some left over models you have sitting around. 

These first ones I'll show you I made four of for $5 + the models used. You start by going to Michaels (or other craft store) and getting some wedding cake pillars, you want the smallest they have as they will still be tall enough to tower over a rank and file model but more importantly you can put a 28mm round base into the top of them, thus allowing you to place a model on the pillar. From there it's a simple matter of choosing what models you want to go on top (if you don't glue the base in you could have multiple "statues" and replace them when you get tired of looking at them.) But enough talk lets take a look at the four I made today (the sister of battle one was the first I did almost 3 years ago).

To get the models looking like they did I primed them white and then for the newest four, I applied vallejo's rich gold alcohol based paint and then went over it with a sepia wash. (for some reason the marines that I primed gathered snowy build up of flat primer which can happen when the humidity is high, just another reason not to prime models right before it's about to rain.) 
For the sister I used green gold of the same brand and then hit her with a ton of badab black wash (nuln oil now).

But my last objective marker is by far the biggest and usually the one people like the most. Considering that I originally made it as an Infinity "set piece" and it got relegated to the realm of interesting projects on my desk, I thought it was time to try and finish it. 


"Now wait just a minute." I hear you say. "I've seen plenty of test subjects and even people in tubes in miniatures...What's so special about this one?" 
Well if you notice the tube has a hole in the bottom. There is a reason for this. Several years back laser cut crystals were "Hot-shit" and came with semi-large bases which would light up and show off the laser cut images.

Can you guess what's underneath her tube now?



And yes. it does change colors, the unit I recieved even seems to flicker when it tries to shift to yellow or red, giving the tank a nice look of "low power"















That's all for today, Gonna have some dreadball stuff up later this week, as I'm painting a commission for someone. 

~SWL

From the operating table.

So I kitbashed another couple of miniature for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunatly no painted wargame stuff this week, holding off to see if an acquaintance at my LGS wants his Blood Angels painted, that way I might get all the red I have waiting done in one swoop.

So, first off lets check out the Haemonculus.

As you can see I used the scourge body with the kablite officer sword and wych pistol, then attached two talos vestigial arms (oh how I wish the scalpel one would have fit.) They syringe needs fixing after an unfotunate accident, but it should be easy with the talos spines I have lying around. 

Moving on to the wracks. 

Now I really like these guys (and gals) using the scourge chests along with wych legs gave them the first "medical experiment" look I was going for, and then I was amazed to discover I had almost enough right and left dagger arms to give the entire group their two weapons. I wound up chopping some of their tanks, and replacing them with talos vestigial limbs, to make them even more twisted, and I'm sure you can tell the "Liquifier gun" is a Tyranid devourer.  I think giving this entire unit the masks was a good move, hiding their twisted and pained faces. 

There is one that I like above the rest though, I've nicknamed her "The mantis".

 Next up, converted hellions/beastmasters. 

Now I like the hellion models, quite a bit, Almost enough to make me want to take a full unit of them with the baron that makes them a scorning unit....But I don't like them quite that much. That being said I also love the beastmasters, and considering I am committing to the bird theme I really want to have a full unit of beastmasters with as many razorwings as I can fit into the unit. (so if you know of a good razorwing flock proxy or conversion idea leave me a comment below.)

Finally we have the archon whom now has his helmet with large horns, though I have yet to decide what I should do for his base...considering either skulls or ruined scenery. 

As always feel free to leave comments, ideas, ect. and I'll see you guys on friday.

~SWL

It's superjail meets adventure time's wizard battle!

It's Epic spell wars, or rather Epic spell wars of the battle wizards: Duel at Mt.Skullzfyre is a game that came out around February of last year which I actually recently picked up about a month ago.

I'm tempted to cut this post short with the words "Buy it" but I feel that wouldn't be a good way to convey just how fun the game itself is. It wins points right out the gate at only being an investment of $30 US, and the  Superjail! styled artwork (though that itself is based on the old creature feature artwork robzombie would make popular in the '90s so I'm not sure what I should be calling it) really really works in the game's favor.

The synopsis of the storyline and gameplay is this: You and up to 5 other people are wizards (There are even  8 different oversized cards for whichever wizard you wish to play, though they don't effect the game unless you wanted to roleplay as your character like some people do with games like red dragon inn.)  and Fuck all wizards that aren't you!

Each spell consists of 3 parts of a spell which can be mixed and matched preforming different effects as it goes off in time. There are six different glyphs that can make up a spell and each that matches makes the dice rolls on the spell stronger. Now obviously because it's one deck and you all share the cards you don't have to set up the spells to match glyphs, in fact if you do that you are usually going to lose, and there isn't strictly a "best" glyph, but there is something satisfying about slinging a flaming chicken into an opponents face and winning the game.

But it doesn't stop at winning, once a wizard has defeated all his/her opponents they gain a "last wizard standing token" (which they need two to win) and the game begins anew after new hands are dealt. With a twist, see while the last wizard was killing off his opponents the defeated foes of the last round have been drawing Dead wizard cards, which can give them certain things like more spell component cards, treasures or even more life to start with.

Gameplay is fast, very easy to explain, and unless you have a person who can't make up their damn mind in the group very quick to play, with an entire game only taking about 20-30 minutes.

Got some good stuff coming up this week, Most likely the wracks that are now assembled and maybe the dark eldar will get a little paint on them. Friday I got a treat in the form of an objective marker, so check it out.

~SWL

Kabal of the scarlet shrike. (beginnings)

So as I said in the last blog post that I started on my dark eldar stuff, now time to show off what's on my operating table. 

So lets start with the thing that actually irritates me the most about current dark eldar. These guns. THe rules for them are great, but the price tag on each is 7-9 bucks on bits sites before the shipping, luckily I have 5 when I bought the army.  Now all that being said I converted up some blasters that I like better from the PLENTHORA of blaster pistols that you get building an army of Dark eldar. 

The entire conversion is a simple cut and glue of the blaster pistol onto a splinter rifle. I like it better than the standard blaster. 

And now I have enough for all my units and Trueborn. 

So lets talk raiders....old raiders specifically. Been doing a little conversion work on mine with the bits from the newer ones, The first is one that I'm using for the wrack pimp-mobile. The second is one that I've converted into a ravager, considering I had the two warriors carrying darklances I thought it was the perfect fit. 

Moving on from the raiders, I'll show off the archon and save the beastmasters for the next update (hopefully then I'll have a good idea on what to replace the razorwing flock models with so they're cheaper.

This archon is being converted from a scourge model, with bits from the finecast archon and the scourge box. when my bitz show up he is also going to have a massive horned helm from the black dragon kit for dark elves.  Right now I'm simply calling him "The archangel"

And last but not least for this Wargame Wednesday. I finally finished Throgg the troll king. 

I still love this model, and I must say I'm really glad I went with the pale icy blue for his skin tone. really makes him pop when you set him next to the other trolls...who knows I might finish up that 13 man squad soon. 

Thats all for now, See ya'll friday.

 ~SWL

Pray they don't take you alive.

Welcome to my sunday night chat (Bleh up later than it should have been, I blame the internet), just a weekly update where I talk about stuff I want to usually games I played that week, this week I wanna talk about my new dark eldar army, of which after only two games is hilariously fun to run.

While I'll be posting pics of conversions and maybe a paintjob on Wednesday I would like to talk about how I see Dark eldar as a force right now after playing two games with them.
As everyone knows Dark eldar armies are fast, and nothing shines in them more then their plethora of cheap skimmers holding their crew, Raiders are as good as they have ever been and rapid fire gunships (1 raider, 10 warriors, 1 with a blaster, and splinter racks) give me an almost perverse glee as I watch foot slogging units take the brunt of 18 poisoned shots to the face. Venoms with splinter cannons, are a joy to throw 12 shots into somthing, even if only 3-6 will actually cause wounds before saving. Even ravagers sport three great guns, and honestly hold the spot in for best "Gun platform" in 40k in my humble opinion.

The amount of AP2 a dark eldar player can field through blasters and dark lances is almost criminal and their massive amount of firepower is truly amazing.
All that being said their assault leaves something to be desired  maybe assaulting plague marines and terminators with 4 incubi and an archon with a huskblade (as well as a phantom grenade launcher and shadowfield) but assaulting with a unit after I spent two others entire phase shooting at it, and NOT killing it after I spent the most amount of points on that unit, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The unit's problem doesn't stem from it's inability to hit it actually stems from the inability to wound, with the low strength of dark eldar in general and the lack of a poisoned weapon in the incubi squad means that they are at space marine strength and the archon while the huskblade is really cool, really doesn't seem to be worth the points at his current strength. But...giving him a venomblade, and sticking him in a unit of wracks is not only cheaper than a smaller unit of incubi, but they also allow him Feel no pain if he sticks with them and their dual poisoned attacks.

Currently I've only practiced on two flavors of marine, with the first being Nurgle marines with daemon allies, Nurgle princes are a pain to deal with, but after realizing getting rid of troops would only make them slightly worrying. Simply the first lesson I learned. The second of which was that the vehicles available to us have a massive range, and not taking advantage of that is stupid I lost this game but learned a lot.
In the second game I played against vanilla marines, in which I learned how amazing ravangers can be when they have something to focus fire and pop in the first round of combat. Two rhinos and a dreadnought bit it in the first turn, With the tanks busted and the devastators pouring out, unloading blasters and raiders full of shots into them left me with a score of 12-5 with warlord, first blood, and linebreaker.

I'm sure with more games under my belt I'll be back to talk about Dark eldar more later, and as I said there will be an update this week filled with at the very least some of the conversions I've been working on.

(None of the pictures used in this post belong to me, if asked I will remove them.)

Back with with a plan, and some super dungeon explore!

Just to warn those that check this blog things will be a-changin' in the coming weeks, Probably starting with the layout and finding a more streamlined design, if you have one that you recommend please don't hesitate to tell me. 

Further changes with be more frequent updates, most likely written on sunday evening with the purpose of updates being wed, fri, sun. One will be Wargaming related, one will be random (board game mini or otherwise), and the last blog will be talking about games, movies, or something I did or enjoyed that week, usually as a wrap up. 

But enough about that. Lets get to the Super dungeon explore models I've been working at. 

As you may recall I worked on a Candy&Cola figure months ago:

After looking at her enough times and hearing what a good time some people at my Local game store were having with it I decided to pick up the full game including the expansions Caverns of Roxor and Von Drakk manor, I have fallen in love not only with the miniatures but the game itself, and I have yet to have played a bad game. 

Anyway I painted some other heros, not all of them but the others only have a little bit to go before they get their time in the sun. 

I like 'em all but lets start off with the one which started as the most boring and became one of my favorite paint jobs, The Ember Mage.

Ember Mage

When I started with this model She was plain and boring to look at, I had only done purple trim on the robes because I didn't want to go with gold or some metallic, and the main color of her robes started as that bluish black color you see there, without the flames easily the most over-looked, bland model in the back. but after I saw a warjack painted with some hot-rod flames while looking over /tg/ I knew what I wanted to do. the hot colors went well with the light green hair I gave her, overall I think she came out well. 

Sister of Light

Now I really wish the sister of light didn't have her mouth open on the model, it makes it really difficult not to make look strange while painting, and even harder to not make it so when taking a photo....oh well. I really didn't want to do her hair blond so I opted for brown, and reversed the clothing colors from her artwork but I feel she still captures the old spirit of the cleric. (Most players avoid choosing her though probably because they don't want to be dubbed party healer. Which is why I have a model later to replace her.)

Celestial Herald

I really enjoyed painting this model, It was cute, kinda easy and the couple of mistakes I made on her were quickly fixed. She's also really good on the tabletop, makes me really wonder why no one has picked her as a character yet.

Royal Paladin

Seeing as I don't paint knights (well good ones anyway) often I actually thought about how I wanted to paint this guy for a while before I actually started, eventually going with a cream/bone colored armor and my green inked "Irish" cloths for him over of the steel with blue, and blond hair/blue eyes combo which has been done to death. If I ever get another though, he's going to be a painted up as "Bear" to complement the next character on our roster.

Claw-Tribe Barbarian (Black rose)

What can I say, I love Dot.Hack//Sign and Black rose is pretty iconic, I just wish she had a sword, and I had a little more space to work with to do her "Tattoos"  not much else to say really. 

Deeproot Scout (Link)

Link he come to town! It's hard not to paint this model up as link, I only wish I had greenstuffed the bird part from the minish cap onto this model. Which might happen if I buy another caverns of roxor, that one gets a bird, and if I like it this one will get a "Shadow link" a la Water Temple color scheme.

Princess ruby (Princess peach)

It almost boggles my mind how it's difficult to paint this model something other than pink. It seems even Sodapop miniatures couldn't get over that and instead of giving her a red dress, as ruby might imply. They gave her a pink one and made her look like a princess peach clone. So fuck it, Peach clone it is. If I get another I might do daisy, or maybe a black or blue costume.

Star Guild Sapper (Luigi Mario)

This was another model I really enjoyed painting because of the space I had to work with and all the little details I could add. The POW! block being my favorite part of this miniature, I did notice that after I painted him a whole bunch of Luigi's started to crop up in place of mario, so I'm kinda glad I'm not alone in preferring Luigi over Mario. 

Plague doctor (sister of light replacement) 

Though not from SDE this plague doctor is from the Warheads series, and is a close enough match to their proportions I am considering buying more to use as bad guys down the road. Will be painted soon, just wanted to show him off and give him a plug.

Woo! well that's all for today we'll return to SDE next week with some monsters and maybe a couple more heros.