Grey Knight Strike Squads WIP (almost done!)

I've been using these two squads of Strike marines in nearly every game of 40k I've played since the 5th edition GK codex was released and they became my primary army. That was almost 4 years ago and I've made such a pitiful amount of progress on this army in that time. Part of the delay is that I made a decision early on to try to paint every model to the highest standard I was capable of, but that's not the reason I still have incomplete paint jobs on loads of my core units. The real reason is gamer ADD and flat out laziness.

Over the last six or so months I've really been trying to wrap projects up an I'm happy to say the end of the journey is near for these guys. I noticed a few incomplete details while taking these quick and dirty pics but I think I'll have these guys done with one more painting night. Once the last few details are tied up I'll take some better pics.

Ten reasons why I'm loving Malifaux: Reasons one through six

  The past few months I've been painting and collecting models from Infinity and my new love..Malifaux. I decided to post ten reasons why Malifaux is awesome, hopefully to win over people who are on the fence with the game and also to get in the habit of blogging again. Here are six of them, in no particular order. ..

The fluff

   Malifaux is a game that combines the Old West and Victorian Horror and then throws in kung fu and steam punk robots. Even if one or  more of those concepts turn you off it is easy to focus on the aspects that you like. This weird mix works really well. Trust me.

The miniatures

 For me, it started with the miniatures.  I've been picking up models for this game here and there for a few years now,  with little expectation of ever playing the game.  I saw Seamus's new box set in October and I knew I had to play.

 The new plastics are gorgeous. ..as gorgeous as one would expect zombie hookers to be.  And the old minis still look good next to the new plastics.  They are fiddly to put together but no more than Infinity. I'll post some pics of my crew when I can.

It's cheap to start

 Like Infinity,  the buy in for Malifaux is super cheap.  A starter box is around 40-50 (with out a discount) and the mini rulebook is 15 dollars and has all the rules you need.  The crews in the boxes work really well and you can play small games right away with them. The boxes have the cards to play with the crews inside and you can buy the other cards to minis in your faction in arsenal decks put out by Wyrd.

Table via a very talented gentleman from the Dorkamorka group in Waltham. 

The cards

  Although the cards are just another random number generator like dice, having a hand of cards gives you a chance to change your luck. If your luck tends to be shit like mine this can be huge. Malifaux lets you cheat your cards, by replacing a drawn card with one in your hand, and influence the game.

It's not all about killing

I find games where the focus is to wipe your opponents models off the board boring and a little demoralizing after a while. You have a lot of objectives in Malifaux in the form of schemes and strategies. While some are based on killing your opponents guys (or keeping yours alive) many others involve planting things called scheme markers or delivering a message to the rival crew boss.

Every model counts

  While Infinity is worlds away from 40k's minis equal hit points mentality, there are loads of times I've had to hide guys behind things to prevent them from getting their dicks shot off. A lone Moderator can take down the toughest T.A.G., but they can't really take objectives without upgrading them to a paramedic. 

     Not so in Malifaux. You don't rely completely on  your head honcho ( called a Master ) or his lieutenants and toughs (Henchmen or Enforcers) to carry the game for you. The cheapo dog or Guild guard has a chance to complete a scheme or strategy. Even models that can't plant markers, the ones nominated in the rules as "insignificant", make a difference by buffing your units, debuffing your enemies and just doing plain old damage.  Just ask Seamus' s  little buddy, the Copy cat killer, what he can do.

Seamus and the gang about to get stomped by Viktorias. 

Mysterious Lakes for 40k

During our Escalation/Stronghold Assault mega game a few weeks back I had the opportunity to play on some of Gale Force 9's Battlefield in a Box Ponds, and realized I had nothing in my own terrain collection that would allow me to bring mysterious water effects from 40k into my games. Well following that game off I ran to my friendly local game store and picked my own mysterious ponds (along with the Apocalypse rulebook).

Out of the box they're pretty nice but the tinkerer in me wanted them to have a little more depth and a reflective surface. I decided to hit the water portions of the terrain piece with some black shading to make them look nice and deep and some turquoise highlights to break up the surface a little. Once I was done I put down about five or six coats of Future floor polish with the air brush and finished with a little bit of Future mixed with some old GW blue ink. I waited a day for them to dry then gave them a hearty helping of my usual mix of Woodland Scenics turf.

I'm pretty pleased with the final result and though the blue ink sort of conceals the highlights on the water it also give the ponds a really clear deep look. I suppose next I'll need to work on my Warhammer Fantasy rural walls since they're a nice achievable goal and they'll help to round out my shrine world terrain set.

Space Marine Librarian

I've been off the painting wagon for a while, but now that I'm fully moved into my new digs, and I have my hobby desk fully set up, it's time to start putting in some work.

One of my many outstanding tasks was to complete the Space Marine Librarian I picked up when the new codex came out. I put a solid few hours into him during a painting day at Gunzhard's Attic Wars mega man-cave (not to be confused with the gay porn of the same title). Since then he's languished in a box, waiting patiently for me to get my shit together.

First of all, the new plastic librarian kit is tits. I know, it comes with a weird, creepy diaper-less robo-baby sidekick. I'm not sure what the deal with that thing is. It's still sitting in my bits box if some registered sex offender/gamer has a pedo-mechanicus army they want to kit bash together (I may beat you up before I give you the bit, FYI). Aside from that, the model has fantastic detail, and is in a cool pose. It is clearly intended for use as a potential Tigurius stand-in for anyone who doesn't already have that model. The old version is showing its age, in my opinion the new one is far superior.

I tried two experiments with this dude: (1.) using Caliban Green as the base for the blue librarian armor, and (2.) creating a glowing skull on his force weapon that uses object source lighting (OSL).

The green base for the armor looks great. In the past I used reds or just black as to create a shadow that contrasted with the blues that make up the rest of the armor. I think the green works a little bit better, and ties him in with the scheme for the rest of my marines--although my army is painted as Dark Angels I've use the Space Marine Codex since I started with the army back in the beginning of 5th edition (except for a short period after the new 'dex came out, before I figured out that it is a total piece of dog shit).

I'm pleased with his force weapon as well. The glowing effect is one I've wanted to try for some time. On the skull I blended pure white, to ice blue, fenris gray, and finally black. It took a bit of back and forth to get the effect I wanted, but that is usually the case with wet blending. The glow itself is pure white. I may expand it a but further down the weapon shaft and onto his armor.

Escalation vs. Stronghold Assault Mega Battle!

Checkout a great writeup of our recent Escalation vs. Stronghold Assault mega battle! The most fun I've had playing 40k in a while. To all the haters: don't knock it 'till you try it.

Here are a few more pics from my phone:

 4,000 points per side and the game ran about as quick as most of the attic beer-hammer games we usually play. I ran 2,000 points of Dark Angels (Codex: Space Marines), Mark piloted a Warhound Titan, and his Grey Knights, and we pitted ourselves against Vin and his massive collection of fortifications and Blood Angels.

It. Was. Awesome.

We also forged a little narrative in the process: The sneaky Blood Angels found some evidence of ancient Dark Angels treachery, which they stashed away in a nigh-impenetrable fortress monastery. The only way the boys in green could every hope to keep the information from being disseminated to the High Lords of Terra was by convincing a contingent of Grey Knights that it was the Blood Angels who were corrupted, and in need of a Nemesis Force spanking.

Check out Attic Wars to find out who won!

Citadel Woods ready for the Battle Field

After being so productive, and completing the Arcane Ruins I posted about a few days ago, I decided to keep true to my word and get the Citadel wood completed. This was in base-coated in the same manner as the arcane ruins, a earth colored brown Krylon spray paint that's very comparable to GW Steel Legion Drab.   I airbrushed on some GW Charadon Granite as shading then some GW Snakebite leather mixed with a little GW Charadon Granite. The trees were painted with GW Rhinox Hide then got a little bit of the Snakebite Leather mixture for hightlights. Then I Drybrushed the whole thing with a pair of the GW Dry paints whose names I don't recall, and finished with a bunch of spots of various Woodland Scenics turf. 

The trees are bare right now because I was completely underwhelmed with how poorly the plastic leaf pieces from the kit failed to stay attached and I've decided to make a mixture of various basing turfs to add some spotty foliage for them. I think it'll be faster, and make them easier to game on, but also the plastic leaves just kept falling off and made the trees difficult to handle. Now that the paint job is done I need to pick up another color or two of turf and get these guys completely done.

The Arcane Ruins are ready for the battlefield

I've Had the Games Workshop Arcane Ruins model kit sitting around with a brown base-coat for literally years, so today I decided to check it off the to-do list. Here are a few shot's of the finished product with a nearly completed GK Strike Marine for contrast. All told it only took about 3 hours to finish up, so I feel kinda stupid to have ignored it for so damn long.

I used a Krylon spray that is almost an exact match for the old citadel Graveyard Earth for the base color (I don't remember the new citadel color equivalent, maybe Steel Legion Drab?) followed by an airbrush shading with some Charadon Granite (perhaps my favorite GW paint color ever). I then airbrushed some highlights with a mix of Bleached Bone and Steel Legion Drab, and ended with a light drybrushing using Citadel Dry:Terminatus Stone with very pleasing results. I really didn't think I'd find the new Citadel Dry paints very useful but they seem to work great on terrain for my purposes.

I think I'll try to give my Citadel Wood Kit, that's been sitting around for the same amount of time, some TLC while I'm on a roll.