Madrak Ironhide, Thornwood Chieftain

I'm putting together a 15pt Trollblood army starting with the battlebox and Madrak is my caster.  These are also the first photos I've taken with the new light box setup.  They turned out pretty nice.

 

Madrak Ironhide

Madrak Ironhide

What I've Learned about Painting - Part I

I've been painting Warmachine/Hordes miniatures for about six months now.  I thought it would be a good time to stop and capture some of my learning process.  I don't consider myself  a great painter, but perhaps a decent one.  The yardstick I'm using is whether I'm able to achieve the results that I set out for myself.  I'm at the point now where I can do this more often than not.  So, personally, that's a milestone.

In the past six months, I've watched videos, read tutorials online, and scoured the "Forces Of" painting guides.  In that time I've painted 30-40 models.  During my limited experience, I picked up a lot of tips and tricks that helped me work faster and more accurately.  Here goes:

• Thin your paint - forever and always.  Even if it's just a drop of water, or a slightly loaded brush of water.  Thinned paint flows better and dries slower. 
• Don't thin your paint too much - whaaaat?  There's a happy medium.  Too much water and you don't get good coverage, the paint runs off the brush and pools everywhere in addition to where you want it.
• Use flow-aid, especially with metals.  Flow aid reduces the surface tension of the paint and helps it flow off of the brush easier.  It also "smooths out" the paint on the mini surface and helps get more even coverage.  It's also supposed to retard drying time, but I may not use enough to make a difference.
• Surface tension sucks - the only time it helps  is with washes, when you want the paint to settle in the cracks.  This is another reason to reduce it with flo-aid, or other means.  
• Who decides how much paint is on the brush?  I do! - Deliberately load the brush with just the right amount of paint.  I've learned that the amount of paint on the brush is just as important as how thin the paint is.  Too much paint and it runs everywhere, too little and it doesn't flow onto the model and tends to dry on the brush.  I load my brush, then wipe off excess on my palette.
•  Ceramic palettes rock - ceramic palettes are soooo much easier to clean than the cheap plastic ones.  Soak them in hot water for a few minutes and the paint sloughs right off.  I use a ceramic palette for making washes now.
• Wet palettes are neat  - I use it for everything but washes now.  The paint won't dry on the palette as quickly, which is a real big deal.  It also means you don't need to put as much paint on the palette to keep it wet - so I save paint too.
• Making washes is hard - I've constantly struggled with making washes that do what I want them too.  I've tried to emulate the wonderful GW washes, with limited success.  I have seen some improvement lately, when I backed off on the amount of water and leaned towards a darker, but thinner, paint. 
• Brush ferrules hate paint - don't get paint in the brush ferrule! 
• Synthetic brushes are good for metals and drybrushing.  I find I get better results with synthetic brushes and metal paints.  I suspect it's because the bristles are thicker and there's more space between them to allow the metal flakes to flow.  When using natural brushes, the flakes don't flow out along with the pigments as well.  Also - use flow-aid!

This is just part one but I think I've covered the fundamentals that I've learned in the last six months.

I finished my first Trollbloods last week.  I think they're my favorite models I've painted so far.  This is my first attempt at a rusted look.  The armor came out a little over the top, but I got the result I was looking for on the axe.  For the trolls I'm going to use foliage for basing.

Troll Axer

I really love the Pygmy peeking out of the sack.

Troll Axer

 The Impaler's food of choice is processed turkeys.

Troll Impaler

Troll Impaler

Domination Event

This past weekend was the first time we played Warmachine/Hordes in a public forum.  We traveled to our NLGS (not-so-local-gaming-store) about 50 minutes away to play in a Domination Release event.  I had a great time and got to play with some new people with different styles of play that I hadn't experienced yet.  I also faced some new factions that I'd never seen before.  Up until now, I'd played my Circle and Cygnar with Protectorate, Cryx, Legion, and Trollbloods.  I went into it expecting that we were playing for points and needed a 35pt army, according to modified Domination event rules.  However, due to turnout and people's army composition, the event was changed to a 15pt tournament.  This had some impact that I'll get into below.  Overall, it was a blast and I'm planning to go back in two weeks for some more casual games.

Event Prep:

Here's a picture of the additional guys I painted for the event.  The plan was to add another 20 pts to the 15pt army I already had.  Most of the painting took place the week between Christmas and New Year's.  I had the whole week off and painted for a good three days of that.  It was a luxury that I won't have again in the for-seeable future and I really enjoyed it.

It turned out that we only played 15 point games.  Of the guys above, I did get to use the Gobbers and Shifting Stone UA.  Also, I won't have to stress about getting to 35 pts again... in this faction.  

The event also called for some bring-your-own terrain in the form of boulders.  The ones below were made from 3 pieces of 1/2" insulation sandwiched together with construction adhesive.  I covered them with spackle, then epoxied them to the 50mm bases.  A little dry-brushing after that and they were done.  Total time, about an hour.

 

The Army:

I ended up bringing mostly the Circle starter warpack with a few exceptions. 

[00] Kaya the Wildborne (0 / 6 WB)
[09]  >> Feral Warpwolf
[04]  >> Argus
[04]  >> Gorax
[02] Shifting Stones
[01]  >> Stone Keeper
[01] Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew

I replaced an Argus with a Gorax for the empty hands and added the stones and UA, and the gobbers.  The stones and gobbers worked out well, but I didn't get much more utility out of Gorax.  I never used his animus and there was nothing to throw with his hands.  I should have brought the other argus for his paralyze spray. 

The Games:

We played three 15pt games using the Domination event scenario.  Instead of using the deeds to score points, we played a standard tournament. I played Cryx the first game, Legion the second, and Skorne for the last game.  I won out against Cryx by scenario points but lost to Legion and Skorne from caster assassinations.  Legion, running non-epic Thagrosh, pelted me with ranged attacks from his winged beast.  Skorn, running the new Domination caster, ran into melee with Kaya and spent 7 attacks killing her. 

 

Learnings:

These games were really good experience.  Many mistakes were made, but they were valuable lessons.  I will remember to use Spirit Door to slingshot my vulnerable heavy beasts (I'm looking at you, Feral Warpwolf) back with Spirit Door.  I'll remember not to fill up a warbeast with fury if I hope to transfer damage to it.  I will remember that stealthed models do not block LOS and that Shifting Stones, while immovable, can still be trampled over. I will remember that when faced with heavies, that I should focus enough firepower on them to kill them if I can't disable them another way.  Don't send a light against a heavy and expect to kill it.

Lord of the Feast

What a great sculpt.  I love this guy.  The antlered helm, the raven perched on his arm, the severed hand hanging from this bag.... what??  Yeah, he's that kind of guy.

His assembly really challenged me.  At first I didn't bother to pin anything.  However, his sword arm broke off while painting him so I added the pin there.  It was a pretty easy pin job.  The horns, however, took me about 20 minutes to attach.  It felt like longer.  I couldn't figure out how they were intended to line up.  Eventually, after some filing, I found a position that seemed to work well and it glued surprisingly easily.

As usual, I tried to follow the studio painting scheme.  The part where I winged it was the antlers.  I'm not too happy with them, but overall I think he turned out okay for a tabletop standard.  I'm in the midst of trying to crank out 35pts for an event in two weeks, so I don't have much time to spare for the details.

Lord of the Feast

Miniatures album

This is a link to my painting album.

35pt Domination List - update

Here's an update to my domination list.

http://geeklyminis.blogspot.com/2012/01/35-pt-domination-list.html


Wolves of Orboros (6 man) - complete
Woldwarden - complete
Lord of the Feast - complete
Swamp Gobbers - complete (late addition)
Grayle 
Wolves UA
Morraig

Making some decent progress.