One stone at a time.

Sorry for the late post, but at least I am tossing up a post. I have just about finished up all the Dragonforge bases. All the tile work is done, the three different colors the drybrushing to ‘age’ the stone and then just need to finish painting the rims of the bases black. I am going to leave the arc markers off of the bases until I glue the mini onto the base and get it all positioned up. Then I will paint in the arc markers.

Well it doesn’t look like I will be getting much painting done this week. Had an outpatient procedure prep yesterday, the outpatient procedure today and for the rest of the week I am working 16 hour days at both jobs…joy. I have decided to keep this one short and sweet because I really need to catch up on some sleep.

Soon I shall begin painting up the Army of Light...soon.

Square Cut MADNESS!!!!

It has been a week now since I have started working on the bases that I purchased from Dragon Forge. The clean up on the bases was done as soon as I got them, they had been washed, all the flash trimmed off, and ready for primer and so I did exactly that as soon as NorCon was over.

I have been putting in a few hours each night on the bases, primer’d the bases black, then painted them with a super thin coat of black to fill in any of the spaces that got missed in the cracks and crevasses (and man are there a lot of them). Just for chuckles, I even washed all the bases with Devlan Mud.

I then went in and separated all of the bases into two categories: ‘broken’ and ‘whole’ and then separated them again into like bases for the 20mm sizes. I did this so that I could avoid having each tiled base look the same. Well…I did this after I figured it would be a good idea to do this so that each tiled base wouldn’t look the same. Ah the joys of hindsight. There are a few bases that have the white tile (which is actually Astronomican Grey) that are in the same place but once the figures get put on them, I doubt anyone will be able to see them or really care. Once that got sorted out I just started the batch painting.

On the dirt sections of the broken tiles I went in with a basecoat of Bestial Brown, applied a heavy Devlan Mud wash, did a Graveyard Earth drybrush, and then the final layer was a light drybrush of Kommando Khaki.

All of the bases follow a similar pattern. Each of the 50mm bases have four ‘white’ tiles and four brown tiles, the 40mm bases have three ‘white’ tiles and three brown tiles, and the 20mm bases have a minimum of one ‘white’ and one brown tile but no more that two of either color. The rest of the tiles are painted with Adeptus Battlegrey and then a final highlight/drybrush of Rainy Grey (part of the Master Series Paints by Reaper) to add the weathered look to the tiles. I haven’t painted any arc markers on the bases yet but for all intents and purposes I have finished one base. I do need to go in and put down one final coat of black before I paint on the arc markers. I am pretty pleased with the results.



1 base down…46 more bases to go.

It is actually going pretty quickly. I put in two hours last night and finished putting down the Adeptus Battlegrey layer on last 50mm base and on all five of the 40mm bases. Once I am done posting to the blog tonight, I am going to try and finish at least 10 of the 20mm bases and then the real fun begins.



To say that this is a vast project, for me, is pretty accurate. It is fairly daunting but I plan to see it through to completion. When I have finished all of the bases, including arc makers; I get to work on Constance Blaize and her battlegroup. Now that has me excited.

I switched up her list a little bit since my initial post/announcement of what I was planning on doing. I still have Gallant in her battlegroup but I removed the Centurion (waiting on the plastic kit to release for this one) and have replaced it with an Iron Clad and a Lancer. Gallant is fairly focus efficient due to his Accumulator and on most turns will only need one or two additional focus to be fed to him The Iron Clad is a cheap-Cygnar-version-Beatstick Jack and with three focus just run it in, Tremor special attack, and then scrap something quick. The Lancer is in the battlegroup for the occasional use of the arc node and the much coveted reach weapon for the Sword Knights.



I am still deciding on how I want to paint up Constance and her battlegroup. Constance has this alabaster white armor…which while it looks great in the art work, I don’t think I am going to really like it on the fig, I am still up in the air about it and I may decide to challenge myself by trying something new again like I am doing with the Lamentors Space Marine Army. I am also debating on doing the brilliant silver look for her and her warjacks. I’ll start out with a darker metal like Boltgun Metal and then follow up with a Chainmail and have the final highlight of Mithril Silver. In between the Boltgun and Chainmail, I’ll probably toss in a Badab Black wash, thinned down of course, to add an additional layer of depth. I may or may not attempt the white on the warjacks but I am still having issues getting the whites to look smooth and not so chalky. As of this moment though I am leaning towards the gleaming metal look for the entire army; I did just watch Excalibur(1981 edition) and their gleaming suits of armor looked really damned sexy and have really gotten me psyched about doing this ‘knightly’ army.

On the flip side of the painting coin, I have decided on the 15pt list I am going to field for the Slow Grow Campaign I will be hosting down at the Armory and the Blindwater Congregation will be represented in all of its glory by Bloody Barnabas, a Blackhide Wrastler, an Ironback Spitter, and a Bull Snapper. Should be pretty fun and all I have to do is finish up the Ironback Spitter (which is already half way finished) and the 15pt list will be all painted up and ready to play!

So until next week folks…

A Tale of Two Tiers

So in a remarkable fit of self-restraint, I have chosen NOT to purchase a Khador Army for a Tale of Two Tiers. What I have chosen instead is to work with the models I currently possess and work on painting them up instead.

Don’t get me wrong, I will have to purchase a few models here and there but currently I pretty much own at least 90% of the models for both Armies.

But Grant, you are all saying, WHAT is ‘A Tale of Two Tiers?’

Pretty simple actually…I am going to work on painting up two 50pt Tier 4 Lists.

I have always liked the fluff that Privateer Press puts out. It is one of the main reasons why I love the game…it isn’t a static story line that gets ret-conned every time a new edition/codex comes out to make it all fit together. Privateer makes all their stories flow fairly well and the continuity between books is amazing. The figures are generally pretty damn beautiful (there are some I look at and wonder), plus I like the rules-set much better than Warhammer 40k.

Being the Fluff Whore that I am, I have been itching to put together a Tier List and I have really been itching to play a ‘Knight’ Theme list with Cygnar. With the release of Wrath and Constance Blaize, I can play that fluffy Knight themed army with her Tier List. Admittedly, her Tier List is okay and like most tier lists you lose out on a TON of options and/or versatility for your Army (Pssst…when I play her in a High Bourne Covenant List, she will have a few Nomads to work with), but you do however get a pretty sweet Theme to work with. So here are the two lists I will be working on.

Tier List One: Army of Light
Battlegroup:
Constance Blaize, Knight of the Prophet
- Gallant
- Centurion

Units:
Precursor Knights x10
- Precursor Knight Officer & Standard
Precursor Knights x10
- Precursor Knight Officer & Standard
Sword Knights x10
- Sword Knight Officer & Standard
Field Mechanics x4
Field Mechanics x4

Solos:
Journeyman Warcaster (Alt Sculpt)
Archduke Alain Runewood
Harlan Versh, Illuminated One

Thoughts on the Army of Light:
I own all of the figures except for those figures that have not yet been released and one unit of Field Mechanics. I am not entirely sold on including two units of Mechanics and I can go one of two ways with them. I can either field a full unit of 6 Mechanics (with 1 point left over) or I ditch both units and include a minimum unit of Sword Knights. Any way you look at it, I will have to buy one more unit to make the 50pts

Tier List Two: Apex Predators
Battlegroup:
Bloody Barnabas
- Blackhide Wrastler
- Blackhide Wrastler
- Ironback Spitter

Units:
Bog Trog Ambushters x10
Gatorman Posse x5
Gatorman Posse x5

Solos:
Croak Hunter
Croak Hunter
Croak Hunter

Thoughts on Apex Predators:
I will have to purchase a full unit of Gatorman for this list…and seriously who doesn’t love some Gatorman!? The Ironback Spitter is optional and can be swapped out for some Bull Snappers; still kind of one the fence out this one thou.

Now, not to contradict myself here, so I am going to just toss this one out there:

I do remember saying that I didn’t like Hordes or the Fury mechanic very much (I am still not a big fan of it), but after seeing my Gators on the field the other day when I let a friend borrow them so we could play a small 15pt Mangled Metal/Tooth & Claw game, it made me really want to finish painting up the Minion figures I have. I currently own Bloody Barnabas, Calaban the Gravewalker, 1 Gatorman Posse, a Full Unit of Bog Trogs, 3 Croak Hunters, the Feral Geist, 2 Blackhide Wrastlers, 2 Ironback Spitters, 2 Bull Snappers, the Swamp Gobbers, Alten Ashley, Victor Pendrake, Wrongeye & Snapjaw, and a Thrullg. Might as well get them all painted…eventually! Hey I am only human and therefore fallible. Plus I may have mentioned it once or twice, before I have Faction ADD pretty bad.

That being said…this project is by no means going to be a quick project. I am not the fastest painter in the world and some of the units are going to take a bit longer than the others. Most of the Gator figs are screaming to be drybrushed and honestly they look pretty good on the table. The majority of the ‘Knights’ are done with Metallics and so should also progress along at a fairly decent pace. Other figs are going to need a bit more love and attention to work with, yes I am looking at you Croak Hunters.

So there you have it. Two 50pt lists to be painted one figure/unit at a time till they are all done. Looks like I need to order those bases from Dragonforge.com after all for the Army of Light, you know, since my Gators all have spiffy bases…I hate to see one Army get jealous of the other.