Thanks guys

It's funny you say that, Para, as all I did for the pants was two light-medium coats of Nautilus blue, the dip, and the seal.

Hey Grim! Was it you wondering about a less labor intensive method of stripping models?

If so, try and find some Dawn Power Dissolver. I found it in one of the local grocery stores. The stuff is amazing. Metals came clean in 2 to 4 hours and plastics overnight. I didn't scrub any of the models, just rinsed them off.

Ahh cool, thanks for that. I've used LA's Totally Awesome but there is definitely scrubbing involved.

Got in 3 games of Mars Attacks tonight. Lost a couple but won the third when a Martian shived troy in brutal melee combat. Really fun game, and simple. The random events are often hilarious.

Going to take a break for the holidays (though I may do the new years library game night thing, pending what happens with wife's work schedule) but then we are going to try something called Pulp Alley. One of those ''more or less use whichever models you want'' skirmish games. So I'm gonna see about the rules for that and probably start dreaming up little 4-8 model gangs/bands/parties/whatevers.

Sounds like fun!

I tried out Kill Teams at the shop on Sunday. It was WAY more fun than I expected it to be. I can't wait to play again. I think we are going to try and make it a monthly thing.

I feel like this may end up costing me more than my 5 Knight plan...

Heh, kill team does sound fun. Comparatively. Spend more time building and painting maybe 5-10 dudes, or maybe 20-30 if you're guardsmen or orks Then skirmish of dooooom. Then buy another 5-20 models. Then ANOTHER. BWAHAHAH.

I'm going to be trawling through my collection of un/finished models to think up some potential groups for this Pulp Alley game. I think it boils down to needing at least one boss dude, maybe a decently cool sidekick dude, and then a smattering of helpers and mooks. One of each types fills the 10 point limit. Oooh just noticed that the leader doesn't count, that'll let you fill in more allies and followers. Maybe more like 6-8 then.

It does look like you can have a 'mastermind' leader where you use a sidekick to stand in for the leader and get 6 more points Ahh, or your leader can be a commander and get 4 more points. So you could field a horde of up to 1 sidekick and 16 mooks, or a leader and up to 14 mooks. Probably a bad idea in either case but that gives me a good 'upper limit' to be aware of.

I'm thinking Martians would be good here, though possibly plague as there are solid rules for dogs and animal-like-things. Reaper bones will probably bring some interesting units too, and one cannot discount the various MA survivors and human units.

 GrimDork wrote:
Ahh cool, thanks for that. I've used LA's Totally Awesome but there is definitely scrubbing involved.

Got in 3 games of Mars Attacks tonight. Lost a couple but won the third when a Martian shived troy in brutal melee combat. Really fun game, and simple. The random events are often hilarious.

Going to take a break for the holidays (though I may do the new years library game night thing, pending what happens with wife's work schedule) but then we are going to try something called Pulp Alley. One of those ''more or less use whichever models you want'' skirmish games. So I'm gonna see about the rules for that and probably start dreaming up little 4-8 model gangs/bands/parties/whatevers.

I have heard great things about pulp alley. I also very much like use whatever models you want games. For something that also allows you to do that pick up a copy of Fist full of kung fu. Its about a fiver if you get it for kindle or the kindle app and is designed to allow you to recreate Hong Kong action movies but they would wokr well for any action movie.

I shall have to play it at least once before I can form a solid opinion, but it looks darned interesting at the very least.

I may have to look into this other thing you have mentioned as well.

Gah I knew it. I've already made a martian league and a league (that's what they call the party in this game) out of humans from MA. I've got two potential teams lined up and I've only gone through one game system =/ Both teams are 6 and 7 models too, be really easy to paint up.

Yeah the Mars attacks stuff would work perfectly for pulp alley in fact. Do you have some kind of tablet or ereader btw? If you do the kindle version of various osprey games are dirt cheap.

Sounds like a good way to get double duty out of your models.

Seems that way.

I'll have to look into the kindle/osprey thing.

I will have to check out Pulp Alley. It sounds pretty neat.

I just started the process of transferring my physical library to my Kindle. Now I'm all excited to check out those other games!

My wife is going to ban me from Dakka...

Thanks for the Infinity cardboard buildings pictures! The stuff just arrived at Miniature Market.

You don't think they're going to have these sets for other genres? I wish I had one for HeroClix!

So here's my new moderator, going with Finn for this one, though his squad just calls him Sharky

Once we have a nice sunny day around here again I'll get a better photo of him, the lighting is too harsh and it's just a bit out of focus. I think I'm gonna do the last moderator I have primed next, and maybe get the other two ready and just finish the squad. After xmas gifts.

Very nice. Blue skin is nicely different and fits Bakunin well enough.

Thanks . I'm glad I remembered the colors.

Nice work!

How are you shirts coming along?

What are you, my conscience?

I have a couple of hours to work on stuff today but I'm currently assembling my last two moderators instead of painting shirts lol. One of the last two has letters and those are such a pain to cut out.

So, DBX came in the mail today. Well... the main box game with a couple of things. They wanted to get the basic necessities out to folks so they could be playing by xmas I guess, which is cool. My box ended up missing the free agents (with sponsors) which were kind of the cooler/more exciting bits of the shipment, but that's ok. They'll get them out eventually.

Here's what I did get, modelswise:


Kaylyshi or something. Blue space elves, call 'em what you want! All-girl blue space elf space-murder-football team, actually. I'm guessing I'll eventually get to these and use them for their intended purpose, would be somewhat difficult to find 3rd party weapons that were slender and alien enough for them. (actually dark eldar parts would work but I'm not sure I want to go down that particular rabbit hole )


Convicts! I may see about giving these guys some guns. I was thinking the plastic plague zombie guns I have spare... but they may be too big. Might be a better bet to go with something smaller from hasslefree or if anyone makes a plastic kit of contemporary weapons.. maybe wargames factory? I like them all well enough but the Grogan's went a step backwards. The Grogans from DZ have better proportioned legs (IMO).


DBX scenery. This is two little packs of bits and bobs. Several crates, 4 goalposts, two support columns for the ceiling up above, and several barrels and similar with removable plastic tops. Whoops didn't show that in the photo. The underside of the lids include an indication of how explosive the trapped barrels were. I'll put these hard plastic barrels up against my resin DZ crates any day. I think the plastic lids work better overall.

And finally:


Proving definitively that I should just stay clear of cutting foam board with anything (scissors for quasi-straight lines, the hobby knife wasn't working well for me either..), even if it's a nice design by Mr Souza. I'm gonna have to scrap the idea of following along with his spiffy scratch-built dreadnought pod. I'm simply too ham-fisted when it comes to this sort of thing.

I may still make another set though, they're perfectly sized for blocking LOS on a DZ board. May see about tailoring them to fit my desert or tank graveyard boards. Potentially enter them into the LoER fencing competition before it closes. We'll see.

Wow! You really are never going to run out of models are you??

I don't think the walls turned out half bad. Are you going to paint those up or wait til you make the next set?

I'm gonna jump in the LoER comp too. While thinking about my Tyranids this afternoon, I came up with an idea for some alien walls.

Good luck with the lettering for your shirts!

The walls need neatening up but I think they look alright mate. Add some texturised paste or some kind of polyfiller to them and it wouldn't even matter.

Cool stuff! As for the walls, the ones that are noticeably not neat, just chip/carve off the edges and bam, ruins!

Nice stuff there. Space elf models are great imo. Now that I think about it. If you paint them blue, they'll look like the female counterparts of your blue moderator. Blue, angry, spikey hair people

Maybe I'm not looking hard enough but the walls look fine to me :x. The last one is maybe chipped a bit up the top but that's ok.

@Eyeamrai probably not I've made a second set which I think clears me for the length requirement on the LoER comp, just gotta get some texture and paint down, then stuff like posters and such.

@Carlos, pretty much what I was thinking. Plasticard and I are never gonna get along well enough for me to leave it exposed, gotta cover it up a bit.

@Para, yeah, I was thinking of putting a hole or missing chunk style damage in a few of them.

@ckig They are meant to be blue from the studio scheme, but I think blue moderator has more in common with the shark team what with his gills and all They may use the same colors as him though, that should work well. Seriously considering weaponizing them with dark eldar gear and turning them into some kind of warband too All it would take is rationalizing the dreadball number plate on their backs.

Today I need to finish the last shirt, or *at least* get started on it. I should put a little time in on the wall sections if I want to get them done. Will consider painting more moderators too.

Thanks for stopping by everyone, the motivation I derive from your comments cannot be overstated.

If you want to weaponise the Kalyshi, this ebay seller is great for bits. Their Dark Eldar listings and you'd probably get the wyches blades for $1. I picked up enough bits to make a 10 wo/man Dark Eldar Dreadball team for ~$6.

How is the sculpt quality on DBX? Happy with it? I approve that it seems they are all already put together.

There's a shark team cool!

I like the idea of weaponizing the gals. If you're using wyches stuff to make them look all gladiatorial then you could justify the number as a code they're given in the arena. Just another warrior to be fed into the pits, no names, reduced to a number kinda thing. Contestant no.1 etc

@Yonan, I've seen that one before, and may well end up buying something, we'll see!

@Carlos I think it's pretty solid. Faces are more defined than MA faces. They're harder than MA. I thought I was handling restic till I went to cut/scrape and it's definitely a different beast. I'd say it's easier to work with than the best restic to come out of DZ (some of the later wave stuff was damn near tolerable too), you can even scrape it in some places like you can for hard plastic. MA is easier to slice away the mold lines but I had to slice 100% of the, no scraping, and the bendy models could feel somewhat flimsy on thin joins. DBX is in some weird place in between all of that. But not bad at all.

That all said, the faces still aren't at the level of Infinity, the Kalyshi especially would be easy to wash out with too much primer.

@ckig Yessir, the Sphyr or some such.


Gah blah didn't get much done yesterday, we'll see about that today!

That all said, the faces still aren't at the level of Infinity, the Kalyshi especially would be easy to wash out with too much primer

Yeah I wouldn't expect them to be to be honest, Infinity is £5-8 for an infantry model depending on if you buy it in a box set or blister. Dreadball is considerably cheaper so not surprised the level of detail isn't they same.

Yep! Was just a convenient comparison.

I think the convict team was my favorite part of DBX. Are you going to paint them as is or are you going to convert them for deadzone or something?

They may be getting some weapons and filling in a role on the DZ tables. I don't know that I'll convert all of them to have guns, the remaining team could be reinforced with free agents like the robots (whenever I get those). Probably still a lot of orange and white though, even if they're on the DZ field it'll be as cons.

Alright been a little slow the last few days. Gotta finish this last shirt though bleh.

I'll get back to having stuff painted sooner or later. In addition to wanting to get all five of my moderators finished sooner than alter (2/5 atm), I'm thinking I may wanna mess around with the forge fathers a little bit. May adjust the scheme moving forward, the McDonalds colors are not my favorite. Maybe more of an orange like Helga with black gear and either black or blue capes/cloths. Moving forward, I'd wait till I had the new stuff done before going back and tidying up existing units.

Also I think the space marines are back on Hiatus. I'm not quitting them per se but I need to take stock of where they are and where they might go. I think they're in a weird place on the badass/comedic scale, maybe falling short of either by trying to be both a little. We'll see. I don't have much interest in playing them, but I may still do some painting before it's over.

I think if I want to make any more shirts I need to learn to write with the airbrush Cutting out letters for stencils is kind of blah.

But hey, pictures, why not?


Finn Sharky, I think he's managed to keep up with the other Moderator alright.


And a neo/concrete barricade. Probably use this coloration for the tank graveyard board.

I'm looking forward to doing the other three moderators. Everyone but the first guy has some pretty wild characteristics more along the lines of Finn above. Finn's got gills and sharky not-hair. The female moderator in the starter has floppy bunny ears and a cute little cotton tail lol. The sniper moderator totally has a glowy terminator eye going on. And the dude with a spitfire looks like he's meant to be covered in tattoos. Neat

I always liked the Lollipop moderator best.

Blueman is looking nice. Now, finish the fence/wall. Last LoER contest of the year. Let's make it a big one

Ehh, I hate the way she holds her gun. And I already have Sharky and he's kind of a bit of a snowflake, two of those guys on the same team? Kinda off to me. The rest of the pose is ok though, just don't like the wrist breaking rifle grip.

I've got enough pieces of the fence textured to paint in time for the end of it. A bit plain, but maybe there will be time for tagging.

Been plenty busy I see.

Ehh, I guess. Feels like I've been slowing down. Hopefully after the holiday shirts are done I'll get into a better groove. Got a lot of things I would like to finish so I don't feel all overwhelmed next work season.

I'll probably have some fun shots of whatever I get gaming-related after the holidays, thinking some X-wing probably. Getting closer to maybe maybe doing one of those semimodular 2x2' boards. Need to get my little Pulp Alley league painted up as that should start happening in the new year. And of course I wanna finish my moderators and several other small painting projects.

Some great looking walls you have there !!

I love the warning sign. The weathering is exceptional.

That's the sad thing about the zombie warning sign, it comes that way He lives on the internet, I found him with some other signs and it's been a staple of my warning signs and posters since

I don't think I do justice to your wall design though, I'm very inelegant when it comes to cutting things so they're all uneven and even the support tabs are kind of rough.

Your barricades are assembled, textured, painted, and tabletop ready.

My barricades are assembled, sitting in a box.

But they have the potential to look better

And I only have one barricade, 3 more textured awaiting paint. 4 more on deck after that.

Good enough for me though, and I appreciate the template or they'd have turned out even more lopsided

I really like your Sharky guy!

What did you use for the texture on your walls?

Thanks

I brushed on some Dap Crackshot spackling paste or whatever it's called. Blue bucket 32 oz went for maybe 7-10 dollars. Got it at Lowes. I had been using lightweight hydrocal which I think is just hobby lobby/woodland scenics brand powdered plaster mix, but this goop is already mixed up so you just dip the brush and paint it on. Dries hard etc.

I originally got it for making bases like the KoW regiment bases, but the first one I did warped the plasticard base and cracked a tad, so I tried something else. I think I'm liable to go back to this though, there's a step or three you get to skip by not mixing it yourself. Plus it's handy to have around to fix screw/nail holes in the walls whenever you move out of a place


Finished the last shirt today.... *finally*. I heat-set and washed the first two of six as well. Minimal washout/fade, I think they'll be good to go, I'll see about saving the templates in a folder so I can easily reproduce or touch these back up someday if necessary. I'll probably take a group shot or make a collage of all of my holiday gifts this year, just the 8 of them if you count the previous Dr Who diorama.

I have some Dap something or the other. I wonder if it's the same stuff?

The pre-mixed stuff has a tendency to grow mold or mildew in it after a spell, once you open it. So careful with that. Now is it spackling or joint compound. Not sure that there is a difference, but joint compound has an adhesive in it. It will actually stick, more or less, to white styrofoam.

This one is spackling paste/compound. Good tip about the growing mold bit, as that's more likely to happen than me using up the entire tub.

The Dap stuff that I have is lightweight spackle. I dunno if it can make the cool textures that you've done.

Ehh, it works ok for these walls but they 're mostly just big old brush strokes Maybe I should try dabbing the stuff on next time kinda like some ceilings.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As a minor update, the Arbiter shirt (my favorite) has some wonky marks from me using the iron without something in between. I was experimenting to try to get as much heat as possible since the first two shirts faded a bit more than I wanted. But iron on bare design is no good, looks a bad.

Overall though, the shirts I would say are a tentative success. I'll be happier when/if everyone says they like them lol.

Here are all four of my barricades painted up anyway. I may or may not hit them with one more highlight after the wash, but this is pretty close to how they'll look (minus the sealer). Gotta do some more posters and adds. May consider a little tagging. Not sure I want to try Cam's fancy tagging method this time, may save that for some buildings... but I may do a Dreadball Xtreme logo or something similar.

They look good. I don't know what you were worrying about.

Thanks Meh, I'm not worried, and they certainly work. I just know I couldn't apply the same amount of assedness (be it half, 3/4ths, or whatever amount I used) and successfully make one of your drop pods or a nice building that didn't look too rough and misshapen

Yeah, those look fine! I need to knock some together myself (only fair since I asked for the DZ-scale ones but haven't got around to printing them yet). Doubt mine will get painted soon, but they might become test fodder for my New Year Airbrushing Endeavours.

Do Eeet! Airbrushing terrain is fun

I've got four more of them assembled. I'm trying to decide if I want to replicate the current design or try something different with the surface texture. May or may not switch up schemes too.

I certainly will be experimenting with the airbrush once the weather gets just a tad warmer (my airbrushing setup is in my conservatory which is just a little too chilly this time of year), as I have a rather nice Airbrush that I am certain I'm not getting the best from. I need to get some more thinners, but other than that I have all the stuff I'd need, other than a good kick up the backside to get going...

Excellent I look forward to your results, it's always good to see other things to borrow. Get a good feedback loop going.

Your walls look great! I can't wait to see what they look like with all the posters and stuff up there!

Walls look excellent bud.Very nice and modular too, they look like they will fit straight in with your other terrain too.

Your texture is brilliant. A note for others asking about texturing, if you let it dry for a little but, but then go over it with a damp brush or sponge, you can add texture or smooth it out, also try gently sanding the surface once completely dry, gives you that Terralene finish of cut stone. If you use a tooth brush you can get a good stipple effect, and tgry adding aggregate(ie sand) to the paste and then puting it on! Oh and mix it with catlitter (the "rocky" kind) to make the best looking rubble piles ever. Hope thats helpful. Your brushed on effect is excellent, and you have managed to get it looking to scale as well, brilliant job Grim.

Thanks

That's a lot of good information about adding/changing texture, I'm going to have to try a few of those things out for the next set of these! As far as getting it 'right', was just a case of dumbluckedly choosing the right brush for the job apparently

Am I supposed to be looking at the Moira's butt or the walls in that pic

Looks good man (both of them) hah! Merry Christmas

Well Red upped the ante with his Anyat glamor model showing off his terrain, I had to do the same

Happy holidays to yourself too

Grim, check out this thread http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/628321.page you are mentioned in it by name.

Thanks for sporting that

I knew I dumped a lot of photos but I didn't realize I was in the top percentage... and what's with the exaulted threads thing, I haven't made too many of those. Must be thanks to you guys so thanks

Now go have some nice holiday dinners guys !


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hooboy after my initial starter box and Xmas haul... I now have approximately 200-220 points of both rebels and imperials for x-wing, and that's not even counting upgrades for the ships! I also used up my amazon points to acquire the Decimator cause its awesome... unbalances things s bit but you know the rebels always were the under dogs

Also got some scissors for the hobby room finally

Xmas shirts and dio were well received, may have to do such again next year.

I'll take some photos of the new xwing stuff and what not soon.. but I think we're fairly busy here until sunday or so.

Just got my X-Wing haul too Grim. You considering touching up or repainting any of yours? Iv'e been asking around for colour matching paints with limited success.

'tis the season to be feasting omnomnomnomnom nomnom nom nom!

Yeah, food is good. I've actually been eating less at the various holiday dinners, but I usually end up digging into the leftovers the same day

I am not entirely sure about repainting. If I get into a lot of games locally and end up with potential mirror matches I may consider doing so to reduce the risk of mixing up my models with those of the other players.

I'm not really deep enough into the star wars lore to have a specific love a specific squad so as to want to emulate their colors so I dunno.

I'd consider repainting my lambda shuttle since it doesn't match the other imperial ships (white instead of dark bluish grey) but then it's a pretty white color lol... I may have to copycat the sexy decloaking phantom effect I've seen here on dakka, we'll see about that one.

I really dunno, the prepainting is pretty solid and the colors are both iconic and have an attractive finish. I may have to personalize my scum faction (whenever I get one lol) to be more snow flakey.

May consider doing some simple stuff like blood stripes or other patterns also.

SO TLDR: Idunno man...I dunno


The attached photo shows a skirmish between a couple of rebels trying to take down a lambda shuttle and his escort. Mostly testing out the maneuver dials and working out my understanding of the rules a bit in hopes of not being a n00b when/if I get to play a more experienced player. Jake Farrell managed to dodge both enemy ships and come around at just the right range to unleash his brutal proton rockets, but thanks to his high maneuverability and a barrel roll, Mauler Mithil is in place to cram several attack dice right up the A-Wing's exhausts. The less maneuverable B-wing and Lambda are trying their best to contribute

Just moving my ships around in mock battles I have to say... the YT-2400 may be my favorite. Being a large ship means even the shortened barrel rolls it can do allow it to clear a significant amount of space. Attach an engine upgrade (which I'll never have until I can find a falcon lol), or any other source of the boost action (crew Leebo who comes with the set can do it for a price), and you get even more ridiculous maneuverability. I think with access to some kind of boost and the ability 'push the limit' this thing could potentially go from close range to out of range in one round. And it handles really well too. Complete opposite of the Lambda shuttle which is one of my favorites aesthetically so far.

A-wings are also awesome, super fast especially when you consider the green straight 5 they can do to clear stress after abusing abilities like push the limit.

I stopped by the Springfield Barnes and Noble after I dropped my buddy back off (was visiting for x-mas) and managed to pick up 5 ships I didn't have. I got the x-wing and tie-fighter expansions for their fancy pants pilots and extra upgrade cards, a y-wing as I didn't have one and it has extra versatility with the upcoming scum faction, another A-wing because it vies for the position of my favorite ship (plus lots of extra missiles and neat pilots), and finally a Tie-Advanced so I can fly Vader himself around kicking butt and taking names (and two actions ).

I also got to see the Decimator up close and let's just say I absolutely cannot wait for mine to arrive, it's really huge and chunky, plus it just looks plain mean to boot.

No rest for the wicked though, I'll have to put down my shiny new starfighters soon so I can finish my LoER wall/fence entry. It's done enough to take pictures and submit in a pinch, but I've got some new posters I want to try out and maybe some tagging if I get a good chance. I've also got *another* shirt to do, I guess my niece liked her batman shirts and I have now been asked to make a Ninja Turtles shirt for her birthday on the 8th. Blerg! I'm also planning to get my Pulp Alley league done sooner than later so we can try that out...

Hopefully some pretty pictures next time instead of wall of text of doom!

Having so many other projects does kind of dissuade one from painting things already painted heheh. That Phantom stealth effect, count me in on my two... or a slacker stencil version, probably anarchy hexes The demand and therefore lack of supply for X-Wing is amazing. I should be miffed but I'm just in awe hehe.

My limited play of X-Wing shows so much of the strategy is in the movement choices, it's... different and awesome. Highly maneuverable TIEs, blazingly fast A's etc. Easy to play, hard to master - lovin' it! Very nice change of pace.

Grats on the exalts too! You're a top bloke always posting great content.

Congrats on being a top guy around here!!!

Enjoy your X-wing haul! Do you have local players for that one?

Thanks guys

The guy I recently played 40k with has a large collection and I think I could probably get it to catch on at the local store if I drop in on board game night often enough. Fingers crossed.

Having seen some more repaints while browsing I may have to look into doing some. I saw a dark grey or black lambda shuttleand it looked fuggin menacting as heck.

Also got some card storage sheets and a shirt for my niece and one for me too!

In a game like X-wing, where everyone fields the same prepainted models, a nice repaint goes a long way.

I couldn't be trusted to do it. I'd end up with Blood Angels X-Wing squadron, or some other nonsense that would enrage the fanbois.

I'd probably end up going way off the reservation in regards to canon as well That's kind of the issue, I don't have enough star wars knowledge/enthusiasm to repaint them to match preexisting things in the universe, and at the same time I'm not sure how I'd really intend to paint them otherwise.

Although, black Lambda is kind of amazing...


I may just have to do something like this... It's sexy.

A couple shots of my fleets before I attempt to get something a bit more constructive done
Also some signs I'm getting ready to add to my walls and possibly buildings. Or well posters, almost exclusively wanted, I think there is one GCPS recruitment banner.

And here the posters are in action on the walls. They're kind of all over the place but I figure in the distant space-future, advertising will have only gotten worse compared to today.

Love that Helga is on the wanted posters!

I'm gonna make another poster for her sometime that's more along the lines of 'for hire' complete with the little tabs down at the bottom with contact information

Nice X-wing haul there mate.

Almost identical fleet to me atm Grim hahah. That shuttle repaint *is* menacing as feth. Going to have to make some stencils for Imp and reb logos, then troll the fluff for some squadrons with good fluff and paintjobs.

Still love that Ann Marie conversion she works really well for it hahah. The posters for them are a great touch too.

Oh yeah, did you do the superglue cardboard edge trick from our cardstock terrain for the x-wing ship bases, dials and tokens? I've done almost all of mine and it works really well. I don't think it's *necessary*, but I have heard from other players that they do get ratty over time if you play a lot, I think the dials are especially susceptible. Need to look into a card management solution still though.

Great walls! The posters are a nice touch, especially with the haphazard placement.

Nice fleet too. I think repainting (or at least adding to) some of them might be a good idea for when you have specific pilots and need to tell them apart at a glance. I don't know if the bases do that for you, but if not it might be wise to add some markings to distinguish certain pilots. And painting ships is a nice change of pace from 28mm stuff, I think.

Thanks Carlos

@Yonan, I had plans to glue the edges with the first counter I popped out, just haven't gotten around to it yet. I'm going to use the regular 9-card sheets like the ones people have used to store baseball cards for years and years. There are some tricks for the upgrade cards but honestly I'm just putting one each into the bigger card slots. Gonna get one of those zippered binders they make for kids to take to school so nothing can possibly fall out and end up lost. Made the decision to stack all duplicate cards rather than having a nearly-whole sheet of academy pilots

Thanks Para. I've got quite a few Ties and X-wings that I may start to experiment upon them. The little cardboard squares at the bases distinguish your pilots for you. From a really competitive perspective, painting up the aces like howlrunner in a tie swarm could actually be a pretty self-detrimental move as it helps your opponent remember which otherwise identical model to shoot It's hard to keep track of all of the bases sometimes but a bright red tie in a swarm of grey would be really easy to remember Still, may look into it anyway.

Gotta finish those walls today and then probably start in on the shirt.

Pretty cool walls. Good luck in the contest. Looks to have many entries this time. Nice way to end the year.

X-wing? Man o man, run, run away from that stuff. Too addictive. Oh dear, I see that it may be too late for you...

It can be a fun game, just wtch out for those who take it waaay too seriously.

Thanks.

Yeah.... I think I'm preeety far down that rabbit hole as it is =\
I'm definitely not above packing up my little ships and finding a game elsewhere if someone wants to get so stressed over it that they're stressing me

So here's the gallery for my finished walls and a couple of shots, maybe 13 total photos in there:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/core/gallery-search.jsp?u=70053





And included below is my current solution for x-wing cards, just a regular 1-inch binder and baseball (or whatever) card sheets. Couldn't be bothered to spring for a more expensive zippered binder, so I'll just have to be careful in handling this one for now. The stacked cards and little cards will be wont to go AWOL if I give them half a chance. But the whole rig was maybe 5-6 bucks and I've still got half of the sheets left for more cards.

Star Wars now as well! and Helga on a wanted poster, she must be a messy hunter!

Well, she does whichever job she's hired for while maintaining client confidentiality so she's the one who gets blamed for the stuff she's paid to do

Hmm yeah starwars too lol. I'm afraid I'm gonna end up falling a long way do this particular rabbit hole =/

Oooh look it's a Decimator!

Still trying to get birthday shirt worked on before I can get back to progress for here

Thats pretty badass looking Grim

It's massive and chunky and *not* the kind of thing you want showing up on your sensors in the middle of a mission or smuggling run.

It has no evasive capability without a specific pilot or crew, and even though it's got the most hitpoints outside of the epic play ships it can go down surprisingly fast if your opponent rolls well. A lot of hull to soak up crits and get debilitating face-up cards too.

You can stick a lot of weapons and crew on it though, and it's the only imperial unit to have a turret stock so far.

I fully intend to take it's maiden voyage with the guy who's got the ramming ability and load it up with anti pursuit lasers so any time it bumps or gets bumped the other guy takes a hit

I had a lot of fun with X-wing the one time I got to play it. Cool seeing some of the new ships. Are you going to repaint them or just leave them as they are?

I probably will end up doing so eventually. I have seen a repainted black lambda shuttle with a red cockpit 'glass' that looks just amazing. I could see potentially painting some other ships up to match it.

Hell, I may eventually branch out and try to find some ships of a similar (270:1) scale or even look into creating some of my own for more eventual shelf-candy... Either ships I come to admire if I end up getting sucked deeper into the SW EU or games (which is a possibility at this point) or possibly some warpath ships for deadzone/warpath-wing tie ins for campaign action

Holy Giant Ship Grim!!

If it were the middle of the summer I'd be down for the preorder on the Imperial Raider already too I'm a bit torn with x-wing overall, I think I like the way the rebel ships work and interact in the game more than the imperials... but I think I may like the Imperial aesthetic more.

I kind of want the new scum stuff, I think it would bring more to the table than just the Raider and I'd probably prioritize that stuff first.

I'm also considering ordering one of the Revel snapfit Falcon kits to have for now, and should I eventually acquire a legit falcon, if they're close enough in size I may just fashion a base for the second third party ship and use one of the official card base inserts and have two eventually

I dunno that kit is coming up a lot more expensive than it used to =/

X-Wing is a great game. I have thoroughly enjoyed the few games I have managed to played. I will probably not escape grabbing a small fleet of my own.

It's a trap!

No, seriously, Ackbar gags aside you will likely get sucked in. You'll buy the ships you like the most probably... but then if you entertain the thought of playing you'll end up buying other sets either for completion or to get upgrade cards that are rare/exclusive to certain sets. Then the Pokemoning will complete as you just go for it and buy everything you don't already have At least this is the road I fear myself traveling

On the bright side (for me at least), X-wing stuff tends to price favorably on Amazon. The prices are a little higher on average than at Miniature Market, but sometimes competition (or whatever) temporarily drives prices down for a day or so and you can nab something even cheaper (23 dollar starter set for about a day, 22 dollar Decimator for around a week). Add to this my amazon card and tendency to acquire bonus points to spend as amazon credit.. and I'll be looking at 1-2 standard expansions a month, or possibly pooling points to take the edge off larger purchases like the epic play ships.

Eventually I'll have a bigger pile than I know what to do with... But really spending my bonus points on useful/needful things just makes me sad (and isn't generally necessary) and so far X-wing is one of the best-discounted things I've found on amazon, if you watch closely and are patient. Buying Infinity minis there was gross as they were all full price or higher.

Blah more blabbing and less cool pictures, I know I know =/

Maybe tomorrow I can get that shirt done and can look into working on my Pulp Alley team. Possibly some gaming but gotta see what's going on.

Fun pictures soon, surely!

It feels like that Plague Stage 1 would just tear a hole through those walls looking at the pic there Grim

Hell, I know they're *slow*, but I still think he's as liable to plant a foot on the rectangular support and just kind of pop over the wall as he is to claw it down. He's a smart beastie, and hopping the wall is likely quicker. Not that he couldn't grind it to dust, just that there are more squishy and delicious targets on the other side to get to

Decimator looks cool. At this stage I don't find X-wing all that tempting thanks to the odd pricing on this side of the pond (pretty much a $ to £ swap) and the 'limited/exclusive' nature of the cards (and the ships are a little small for my taste), but I do have to admit some of the non-movie ships in there are awesome.

Ooh, that decimator looks like it could be a good base for some kind of small chaos fighter....hmmm.
I'm guessing the bridge area isn't easily removable?

@Monkeytroll, search for people putting lights into their ships, they have to cut pretty extensively to make that happen so probably the most knowledge is there. The plastic is light and seems of hte hard plastic variety. Not sure if it's nice like GW or more like a tamiya, most i'll probably do is repaint so I doubt I can tell you that much.

I'm hh onna get a few games of the starter in before I consider buying anything else for the game.

That's probably smart. I started with a bit more than that just because of the holidays and lack of other things to gift me. Now it's kind of gone out of control where it would be funny now if I *didn't* just get it all lol.

Yeah! Paint the things and then show us!!!

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New years resolution? Nah I don't do those. However, one thing I do *intend* to do this year is keep one of those models bought/painted tallies, to see how I do. This past year would have been a super terrible ratio but I didn't keep track. This year may be markedly better. I'll have a lot of minis come in yet (bones2 especially, but also dungeon saga and some bits and bobs from final waves of others), but those I paid for in 2014 so they don't count. I'm thinking maybe the deadzone 2.0 kickstarter and if warpath shows up... otherwise I don't have a lot of plans to buy more models.

I'll get more starwars minis but those are pre-painted so they cancel themselves out and would only bloat the total unfairly. If I repaint them, then I'll add one to both counts I guess.

If I get my current stash of Infinity minis done, I'll probably start looking into more but only a few at a time. And even the DZ2.0/warpath kickstarters I'm liable to be a lower spender this year. I've kind of hit a saturation point of having a large number of minis that I'm still actively interested in painting/playing (my dark eldar and tyranids kind of stopped counting as did a lot of my fantasy stuff prior to KoW rebasing project), so I really just had the marines in terms of anything "active" before the Mantic and Kickstarter binge. Now I'm pretty damn well sated on minis lol.

Anyway I'm blabbing. Spent the evening playing boardgames (the lame kind) with Wife and her parents, there was a game-thing at the library but I wasn't trying to put toy soldiers and 20 sided dice before the wife and family. Kind of bummed me out a little though, it's like wanting a soda really bad all day and then getting a decaffeinated sugar free Mt. Dew, that's also flat. Oh well.

I should be able to start making a stab at getting some minis done for 2015. Need to do that shirt and then I'll prime my pulp alley league so I can start getting ready for whenever the other guy wants to play. Still intend to finish my Moderators soon as well.



Happy new year folks, sorry for the grumbly wall of text lol.

Happy New Year!

The whole real life family thing is a bummer at times, but I guess it's more important. Besides too much fizzy is bad for you, they say!

Looking forward to a busy GrimDork this year, lots to paint by the sound of it.

Hey Grim... thought you'd appreciate this being on a Star Wars binge lately..

http://www.buildmillenniumfalcon.com/?gclid=Cj0KEQiA_ZOlBRD64c7-gOzvrP0BEiQAAYBndwVbQCqzxzaTm-B5BgQynfHSS_k5pCpBfWln0LasV9AaAlCO8P8HAQ

Problem I have with that website is no where does it say how many issues you need for all the parts. For all I know you could need hundreds of issues before you can finish the thing.

The FAQ says there will be 100 issues - so you know, only about £900 in total

Lol true! But it does look pretty awesome!

**Edit: It'll be £893.00 you'll have spent by the time it's done. LOL. So probably about what you spend in a year on the various minis Grim haha.

 monkeytroll wrote:
The FAQ says there will be 100 issues - so you know, only about £900 in total

If it ever gets finished that is. Very pricey though.

 carlos13th wrote:

 monkeytroll wrote:
The FAQ says there will be 100 issues - so you know, only about £900 in total

If it ever gets finished that is. Very pricey though.

Could be fun though. Made from metal and resin.

Oh and umm it's 1:1 scale movie prop size: 808mm long, 596mm wide and 192mm high. It has pre-painted hull parts, with working electronics and removable panels to view the interior.. So pretty good stuff actually.

Ehh the 'normal boardgames' were fun and all, just wish I had more time to play the 'good games' sometimes and as whiny yesterday

Lol that whole website is kind of creepy, with all of the bouncy graphics... I can't tell if it looks like it was designed by an excited high school kid or is the online equivalent of an infomercial. Plus I don't think I'm that patient...

The kiddo is still kinda sick so she's probably gonna be clingy today, but I'm still gonna *try* to get that shirt done so I can bust out so proper painting.

Well, shirt completed, Pulp Alley league primed. I almost basecoated some mars attacks wrecked cars but aren't you supposed to wash resin first? Besides I wanted a salad and Dakka break Not much to say, but I brought a photo of of the primed league and an amusing shot of too-many-battle-zones-in-a-box. I was picking up the office (still hours to go =/), and thought it was kind of ridiculous how much battlezone stuff I have laying around. The boxes shown don't even include the initial shipment from deadzone wave 1, which is either assembled or in a larger box

Left to right: Tuga, Natalya, Buck Spencer, Falco, Vasquez, Rico.

That league looks cool grim

I figured an all-american hero, a gorilla, a couple of spies, and some backup muscle seems pretty pulpy

Going to try a batch painting session, eh?

Who me ? Nah, I just usually prime a handful of models at a time to waste less paint. I do want to bust out a bunch of models this year though. Maybe some kind of personal challenge like Paradigm's model a day thing. That may be pushing it though. If I can get a significant chunk done in the remainder of my lay-off period, I may then commit to it, but production slows down a lot in summer.

If I counted a vehicle as 10 and. 15mm mini as 1 I still would struggle to get a mini a day done.

Me too. I'm just thinking I'm sure I *do* have 365+ models laying around after deadzone, mars attacks, bones2, and others.

Unless I get a solid third of the list done by march, there's no way. I have to take a big chunk of it out now and then somehow maintain momentum over the summer months. Just a thought, I may go with something less ambitious. I definitely have to leave some wiggle room, I don't like deadlines and strict lists.

Wish I liked a model-using game enough to want to go play it at Adepticon. Not sure Mantic puts up a good enough showing to go for one of their games, and I just don't have the willpower to do 40k etc. I guess they probably have x-wing at adepticon huh? But that would be a good way to spend the entry fee to get ROFLstomped all day

Ha, I'd quite forgotten my mini-a-day idea, I should probably start a tally (got 8 done today so I'm off to a good start )

What range are those minis you're using for Pulp Alley?

Also lack of painting needed for xwing means it's the worst choice for motivation. Kings of war or dreadball would be cool grim. If they had a better showing there. What else do they play?

I'm not sure if 1/day is reasonable for me or not... but I'd like to see what I can come up with!

Those minis are all from Mars Attacks! Gorilla came with the pledge as a bonus with her handler, tunga and Craig I think. Natalya falco, are named novas vira operatives and Vasquez also came with that set. Rico is the human character that came with the escalation pack on the kickstarter. Buck Spencer is from the attack in earth set. I may or may not have changed names for some of them.

1 a day is perfectly reasonable, Grim. just make another "paint or die" list like you did at the start of this thing.

@Carlos I think it's easier to just post the event list link, too many to type out!
http://www.cvent.com/events/adepticon-2015/agenda-ec700157f5894ca891500186aec58ca9.aspx

I see they have a capsules vs clowns Infinitiy Bike gang fight, LOL that sounds hilarious.


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@Squall haha, I may have to at some point. I have even less direction and a wider variety in my collection now but I could...

Is this something you guys would like to see? The big fat graphic with blanks/silhouettes that I fill in over time?




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I mean painting an Infinity army makes sense in the time frame... I'm just not sure I could possibly learn to play competently in that amount of time, especially with no opponents.

Yeah like you did at the start mate with the mantic troop outlines. That would be cool. I should do something similar to keep my focused.

I'll tell you what I would be most interested in seeing you paint to use at adept icon


Could paint up a force for the infinity ITS, maybe you could use them in the infinity zombie game too
Kings of war force
Pulp alley

Slightly less interested but still interested in seeing

Deadzone




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Pulp alley may be the easier goal. Infinity being the second.

Shame there is no way to play online or I'd try to learn the rules with you grim.

I liked the "paint or die" list. But its up to you. Lord knows, I should do something like it myself to keep me focused on one thing at a time.

On second thought... I demand the list be brought back immediately!!

@Carlos they don't have an Infinity module for Vassal? Not that I know how to use Vassal, I just know it exists

Pulp Alley I can have done in a productive afternoon The gorilla is already done except for dip seal and a shiny new base.

Infinity Zombie game? I gotta reread that list

Infinity army is probably the easiest to build paint and transport, while still being connected to a potentially competitive and (seemingly) fun game. Kings of War army could be done too... but I'm not sure if mass battles and block maneuvering is really my thing anymore. I mean it's fun to rebase my old armies to have the *option* but I'm not sure I could get myself psyched up to drive 5 or better hours and spend money staying at a hotel (even if I only go one day, inevitable strategy/gamer headache would make the drive back miserable and dangerous) over such a game.


Ok ok that's two whole votes for ToDoOrDieV2.0. With ONE more vote TDODV2 will be brought into existence



That's another thing about the whole Adepticon trip, for what it would cost in bed/board+gas+ticket+likely event entry fees... I could buy a small or actually probably not even that small Army for a lot of systems So that, or get to play all day or maybe two days. It's actually kind of a hard call when you look at it like that. I'm really falling further into the paint over play category, partially necessity but more and more by choice I think.

Dooooo iiiittt!

Although I agree with you on buying an army or two possibly being a better spend than Adepticon.

Anywhere near by you can play mate? Yeah if adapticon is that expensive it might not be worth it.

Alright that makes three, I'll get a graphic made as soon as I can figure out what I want to do

Maybe I'll just shoot for the moon of 365 and if it looks unfeasible I'll adjust it to something else later on.


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@Carlos nah the closest 'good' gamestores are about an hour away each and neither even know what Infinity is, they were trying to sell my wife the Disney stuff one time when she asked =/

Maybe you should shoot for half of that and if after six months you are nearly finished you can go the whole Hogg.

There's a measure of wisdom in what you propose, however I feel if I coddle myself to such a degree I'll slack. If I'm to do it I have to put the big angry goal in all of it's angry glory up and beat my head against it until it dies or I do The only way to do it!

I'm gonna have to think about the graphic. I guess I'll eventually devise 365 models in various batches and start knocking them out. I'm gonna keep it modular and malleable... If I decide I'm unlikely to paint something or I paint something that isn't on the list, I'll bump things around. This one will probably be a little less matching silhouettes and more like boxes with the shadows in them and then swapped out for a shot of the finished group. May do one at a time sometimes but we'll see.

Right now I'm just planning on counting vehicles and tanks and stuff as single models but we'll see. Maybe I'll bump them to 3-5 pending timing and progress.


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Oh also, quality isn't being rated here. Infinity minis, including remotes and TAGs, are going to count for one just like the dinky little spiders and other dungeon critters that will show up in Bones2. Not gonna be slopping out crappy paint jobs with just a couple of colors for the sake of quantity either, just making some parameters for myself. X-Wing repaints will count as 1 as well. Going to keep a list of models bought/painted this year too, may actually be able to have a good ratio

That Pulp league looks like fun to paint.

I vote yes for the paint or die thing with the graphic that you fill in!

Now I have to think about my painting goals for the year...

I think they will be too. I need to sort out my priming though. Last rattle can was coming out too rough though I think it's because I got the white primer instead of just the regular white Krylon (which usually works great), but priming with the airbrush is kind of a pain too. If I could find a good brand of white airbrush paint that wasn't naturally satiny or glossy (think Minitaire has a bit of a satin going on).... it makes too smooth of a surface so the paint is a bit more wonky. I'm find with doing several thin layers but even doing it 'right' doesn't work out as well on the slicker finish. Of course... 'tis the season for it to be to cold to rattlecan 9/10 days or better too.

May research a more Matte airbrush ready paint and get a white and black in that line. Stuff I'm using on shirts is even shinier so it's out.

Gorilla is done, Vasquez is coming along. May try to finish her and get a photo up. If I manage to get them done that'll be 2 models in the first day which is a pretty good start right

/*Note that *done* means finished being painted, and doesn't include the dip and basing which will typically get handled in small batches. I probably won't take update photos and modify the counter until they do reach the finalized state.. but I still count them for personal victory points */

I agree, I think fully painted plus basing = completed model.

It's going to be part of my challenge to get to that point. I can never decide what I want to do for the bases so they never get done.

Ahh, see, I solved that problem when I fell in love with clear acrylics

So I know I said I was gonna do two models tonight, but I may just bump it to three models done tomorrow. The colors I've chosen for Vasquez are particularly runny and I'm having to put on a boatload of layers. The pro is that I got bored waiting for them to dry so I've mostly finished the knight model that Reaper uses for scale shots in their bones Kickstarters. I've not gone with the same colors though, he's got black armor and a red tabard, edged in white. Kind of hard to tell if he's a good guy or a badguy at this point and I think I like that. Should be pretty easy to finish both him and Vasquez tomorrow, with time enough to work on other models Toddler permitting.

I love the look of your stuff on the clear bases. I think they just look fantastic.

I want to use them but I don't know where. I don't think they'd look right on the WHFB stuff. Maybe the kill teams?

Your knight sounds cool. Can't wait to see him!

Ehh he's pretty basic, but a bit different which works for me. I may even end up liking clear bases for fantasy models. Not for ranked up mass combat games like warhammer or KoW, but quite possibly for the individuals I do from Bones2 and similar. Its hard to give up that 'wherever you go, that's what it looks like you're standing on' feeling once you're used to it Square bases on fantasy models may be a trend for as long as we can remember, but as far as I can tell there's no totally legitimate reason for it. Even facings can be sorted out on the round bases, and they fit just fine into 1-inch squares.

I just had a thought a moment ago... I may do a little research into using those neat scrapbooking bottlecap stickers *as* bases. It would be more work than I do now, as they all seem to come with the adhesive backing inclusive and I'd have to get something that effectively removes that without damaging the finish of the base... But considering that the bits taper off as they hit the outside edges...they're even more "invisible" than the bases I'm currently using. May actually end up working too well and making the models look like they're air-walking a bit

I don't have any to try... may go to hobby lobby soon and just get a single pack of 10 or 20 or whatever it is for a couple of bucks (yay 40% off coupon on sub 5 dollar purchases lololol) so I can start experimenting with them. Removing the adhesive without damaging the (potential) bases will be the toughest part I think. Then it'll be a question of whether or not they are indeed superior for the role.

Alright well.. they look considerably better after dip (and honestly they're all too shiny now and would look much better after even just the sealer..), but here we have the finished Tunga, more or less finished Vasquez (bandana and hair need another layer, maybe some touchups) and Knight-guy (working title). The knight still needs his belt painted in leather colors, his shield needs to look like wood on the back side, and one part of his sword needs done in a different metallic, possibly gold, not sure. Sword could also do with a metallic highlight. I'm tempted to make him some kind of evil/ghost knight with a glow coming out of the visor but I think I may just leave him more like his is so he can stay 'generic' and thus be more versatile.

I guess this leaves me clear to start some more models after I get up later on today, woo woo! I've got those moderators in progress too, the remaining three are all getting their greys done before I move on to the next step. A lot of the steps on the mods are short so if I don't 'batch paint' them a little bit, colors will get more likely to get wasted.

I am planning to set the bench mark for 2015 for me as to add 3 more armies to my crazy army plan. That means knock the Orks off quickly then I have the rest of the year to do three complete 2,000 point armies from the list. It will be Ogre Kingdoms straight after the Orks and then after that I don't know yet....

Love to see what your list will entail.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with Archer

Right now it's gonna tentatively be a bunch of mars attacks, deadzone, zombies from deadzone, will be updated for bones2 when that shows up, and so on. I'll make a graphic when I get a good chance, toddler has been sick and clingy the last week or so.

I picked up some of those bottlecap sticker things, gonna try to clear the adhesive from the back so I can try them out as bases but it's proving resistant for the moment.

I am totally blanking on the bottlecap things. I'll have to either see it when you put a pic up or go visit my wife at work.

She works at A. C. Moore which is like an East Coast version of Michaels and Hobby Lobby. I hate going in there though, because then I want ALL THE THINGS!

They're what I used to toughen/spruce up my Icestorm tokens/counters a number of pages back. Prospects for them working as bases are not looking great atm though.

Jeebus Grim, slow down! You are making the rest of us look bad.

Bwahahahahah! And just think, I'm about to unveil my TDODV2015 list as well! It's... madness!

No, really, it is

Still gonna try. Going to deploy the rough list here soon, and will work out a graphic later on.


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2015 ToDo Or Die V2.0!
Alright feth it. Gonna try to get a mini a day done on average this year. Crazy right? Yes. Likely to succeed? Ehh.. maybe. Good chance of not, but if I aim for some piddly goal of 100 models I'm gonna crush it and wish I had made a bigger goal. That, or I'll slack off and barely make it on the last day. Again, lame.

So what should I paint!?
Infinity minis, oooh yeah. Not good for making my goal, but awesome fun to paint and then gawk at later. I've got 15 from icestorm, so let's just call that one module in and of itself.. like..

Operation Icestorm (15)
-Nomads (7)
-Pan-O (7)
-CSU (1)

Infinity (10+)
-Misc Nomads
-Ghulam also

Something like that? Cool beans.

What else, 'cause that is *damn* far short of 365 =/

I need some padding till bones gets in and I can start substituting those...

Deadzone zombies (80)

How's that for padding?

Good Gravy! Are you telling me I'm still not even 1/3 of the way done? /cry...

Well sounds like we better dig into Mars attacks!

I'll just bet that I've got at least 10 miscelaneous characters, so lets do that..

Mars Attacks! (76)
-Mars Attacks Misc Heroes (10)
-Us soldiers (10)
-Science Division (10+)
-5 giant bugs and handlers (10)
-Martian Marines and Stealth martians (10+)
-Novas Vira (10+)
-Tiger Company and Corus+Bounty Hunters (10)
-6 Wrecked cars for scenery (6)

Alright baby, now we're talkin!

How about this too, while we're at it...

Dreadball Xtreme (20)
-20 misc DBX figures, either for DBX or DZ conversions.

But I feel like I'm forgetting something... almost like an old friend..

Oh I know, what about deadzone? I've only got middling strike teams for two factions secured, howabout we do something like this...

Deadzone (60)
-Enforcers
-Plague (Doc's lab team of doom)
-Marauders
-Rebs
-Forge Fathers
-Asterians
-Misc Mercs

Assume ~10 models per faction to ensure a strike team for all.

Maybe the rebs get 10 and I only need 8 more for the Marauders. Maybe I only do 5 more enforcers but I finish most of the available mercs. Make sense? Good, 'cause we ain't got time to slow down now!

How about some Fantasy? Lets do:

Kings of War (91)
-Two or more blocks of dwarfs (26+)
-Two or more blocks of undead (26+)
-Three or more blocks of Smurfs (39+)


Wheeze, pant.. are we there yet? I kind of lost track, better pad this out a bit more just to be safe:

Scenery (25)
-5 Small (3x3 or 3x6") Deadzone Structures at 3 each (15)
-2 Large (multi-floor 6x6" or larger footing) buildings at 5 each (10)

I've lost count, how about one more batch just to make sure?

Tyranids!? (20)
-20 Misc tyranids for use as generic scifi threats and monsters... Maybe even paint them like the shasvastii?

Alright... good lord... I'll count later surely we're close enough now? Once I get a tally and sit down and confirm all of this... I'll go ahead and start working on the graphic. Also consider that Dungeon Saga will be coming in some time, and bones2 should be here way before that and I *will* be padding the hell out of my numbers with stuff from bones 2.



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Alright so there are actually 397 up there... Just consider the spillover as 'stretch goals'

Holy ...

Holy gak snacks grim thats a lot of models to paint. You have inspired me to do something similar but a lot more restrained though.

I'm liable to fall well short without some kind of cheating/embellishing... gonna try though! Graphic about 1/4 done lol.

I think mine is ambitious for me and its less than half of yours.

Mine is reasonably ambitious. Without cutting corners or outright cheating it'll be a big stretch to get it all done. I'm sure I got a hundred or more models done last year, but this is quite a bit more than that.

Wow, that's a lot! Good luck with it.

Part of me thinks I should draw up my own list and make a race of it, but you know what I'm like with jumping from one project to the next, I'd never be able to stick to it. Still going to go for 365 though...

Well see that''s the trick. The only really tangible list is the 365 model count. I'm gonna make a list but I'm fully liable to stick 5 random empire heroes in for where I was going to do 5 scifi zombies. This is a quantity tracker more than a specific do or die list.

Some things are on there for sure and have specific components, such as the Infinity stuff. Other things are more nebulous like the 10x of each DZ faction. Some things are blatant padding like the Tyranids, possibly the DBX minis, and some stuff like that.

Bones 2 will introduce a *lot* of singles and/or 4-5 similar models, and some large minis I'm gonna have to count as several. Or at least paint a large mini and if it counts as 1 then I get to count a bunch of tiny smurfs and dungeon critters as 1 etc.


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But sure, I'll race ya if you want, I'm pretty easy to out-do and I'm generally a good sport about it too

Grim, like myself has an ongoing and growing backlog of stuff to build/paint

Hmmm... How many models should my Knights count as?

If you're a real man?


One.

 EyeamRai wrote:
Hmmm... How many models should my Knights count as?

In the words of Gimli, 'that still only counts as one!'.

Hmm that's a good question. Maybe ten or more pending on if you use an airbrush or go in by hand. I'm gonna keep my numbers pretty low for my list as it'll feel like cheating otherwise.

 GrimDork wrote:
If you're a real man?


One.

The most true statement I've ever read on Dakka.

 EyeamRai wrote:
Hmmm... How many models should my Knights count as?

Depends if the say Neee

Well that's just the worst thing ever.

Bwahahah.

Pros *and* Cons to having a 5 model army right?

True story.

One model it is.

Any progress grim?

Gah. Gonna pick on me aren't you Well it's the 4th and I technically have 4 models done... Snuck in a Marauder Mawbeast last night and did a little work on a commando... but between my daughter just now getting over being sick, and myself now seeming to have some kind of crappy sinus issues... bleh.

I was going to hurl motivational abuse at you but you seem to be keeping up so far. I think your goal is made harder by the fact at any moment your daughter could strike and prevent you getting anything done all day.

Yeah it's a thing but oh well

Just makes it more interesting.

Grim, I have seen you accomplish a lot, so I think you will continue to greatness

You take all the stuff with your kidlet in stride though, which is awesome.

There are a few people around the shop that act like their families are such a burden to their gaming. I find that really annoying.

Yeah I mean I like painting tiny toy soldiers, but wife and kiddo come first.

Keep calm and continue commenting,
Your continuing support wins the war

Seriously though, the extra motivation from your comments can't be overstated, and it's appreciated!

Not having a family attached, I can do my modeling and painting pretty much un-molested, however, the roomies have a 9yr old lad who does like to sometimes bther me when working on things, oh he may initially ask questions regarding the model works, then he starts on what has his head stuck in obsessions.

Got Rico/Esteban done, kind of copycatted the studio scheme.

Still technically on target but I've gotta be banking extras now not barely scraping by

On target is on target mate.

Damn phone ate my message. Got dz wave 3. Seems to be all there. 10 more enforcers than I had expected. Unbox later

Looking forward to that, I have yet to get a good look at the Forge Guard and Peacekeeper plastics.

Even if you painted a model a day it still wont keep up with what gets to you from kickstarters grim.

Yeah just added, what, 53 models to the queue?

Still, if I get the model-a-day done... I'll be one *hell* of a lot closer than before

Gonna take some snaps of sprues and maybe what they look like in their organizer. May bluetack some together but I'm thinking to maybe go with ball-socket joint magnets for the enforcers so it may be awhile. Before assembly.

Yeah progress is progress. Cataloging what I have to paint this year though has made me very reluctant to purchase much new this year.I have such a back log that I think that I will give myself a max allowance of 50% of what I have painted in purchases.

So I have to paint two flames of war platoons if I want to buy one. Or I have to paint 2 infinity models before I buy one. Don't want to get into a situation where I am buying loads of stuff that doesn't get painted.

Yep sounds like a good plan.

Whenever they restock the falcon and slave1 I'll have to get each of those. And I rather like the look of most/all of the scum stuff. That should be stocked for a while yet as it's still not even out in the wild. I'll consider the X-Wing stuff as incentive to get my list progressed. And actually some of it may come in on my birthday in a couple of months

If I get anything else, it'll probably be along the lines of some more Infinity stuff but I dunno. I'm pretty sated on models overall. Even though there are some specific minis I want, I just have so much laying around to do I'm kind of in that 'meh' zone as to wanting more. Playing with Bill (library guy), I'll likely be able to stuff I've got laying around for whichever various games we end up doing.

Still at 5 models for the year, unboxing the deadzone wave 3 stuff is eating up my evening, and I've still got icky sinus stuff going on. Getting images into the gallery slowly. I'm gonna see about doing ball joint magnet shoulders for these guys, sounds fun

So here's how the enforcer and peacekeeper stack up with some other familiar models. I think the new plastic enforcers are a bit broader than the restic ones, but they don't look too different and the parts are probably reasonably compatible.

I think this gives me even more cause to toss out/sell/shelf my space marines. Each 5 enforcers comes with bits enough to make a 5 man squad of either rifles, combat blades, an option for a squad leader, a heavy weapon, and an assault weapon. They might need something extra to convince a 40k player/fan that they have jump packs but honestly one of my favorite uses for assault marines is to get extra transports in the FA slot (to saturate drop pods, or whatever, plus a 5-marine plus flamer assault squad is one of my favorite things to drop in a pod, and cheap).

Anyway, pictures below.

Also, notice the total solution, one enforcer, 4 poses. With more readily available. I gotta wait for the greenstuff to cure before I can really play around with the pose-ability, but I'm liking the ball-joint shoulder and neck sockets, even for all the extra work involved.

Mini update:
Natalya and Falco are done (but not finished), marauder commando is pretty far along. Puts me up to 7 minis with 8 pretty close on deck. I'm gonna make a push to get Buck Spencer done soon too so I'm ready for Pulp Alley just in case.

Whatever I get done in the next little while I'm going to dip so I can finish them tomorrow and get you guys a progress update.

The image is still coming along, it's hard to edit it while the kiddo is sitting with me and when I've got a good chance to work, I prefer to spend it painting


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Commando has one or two more layers for teeth and nails and then maybe just a teeny bit of touch-up.

Trying to decide how I want to paint Buck.

Cool looking models!

So far so good on your progress.

I'm looking forward to seeing your Pulp Alley league.

Hope your sinus stuff doesn't keep you down for too long!

Get well soon grim.

I'm working on the last guy for the first league now. I haven't been feeling inspired to greatly change the MA color schemes for a lot of these guys, but I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I'm not really sick... just out of it. Hate sinus stuff. It's slowing me down a little but not terribly. I'm hoping to get this guy finished and dip everything tonight so I can maybe squeeze in some photos tomorrow.


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Ok spencer painted up quick. Still like him though, probably got the best eyes of the bunch. That whole 'paint the black first, then fill in around them with white' trick really helps sometimes. Sometimes it's harder to do it that way. Also doing the eyes before you get too much detail onto the face. Like maybe the base color but not all of the highlighting and such. Not that I've been doing much highlighting on faces for the last few projects.

Got nine models ready to dip, *may* get them done tonight not sure.

Nice mate. Some serious progress going on here.

Though the sinus pressure was steadily increasing in the cold garage... I got all nine dipped. As usual, impressed with how much nicer the dip made things come out.

I'll get them sealed and based tomorrow and share them with you if I'm not feeling like poop.

Sounds like you have got the new year rolling. How did you find the Enforcers? Easy/fun to put together? Well detailed? Plenty of options. I like the relative bulkiness of them.

I've just done the one guy so far. I don't really like having to keep track of which legs go to which torso, but it's a relatively minor complaint. The legs still have ball-ish joints so I think you can pitch the torso back/forward a little, so you really don't lose much compared to, say, a space marine. The arms are all pretty interchangeable.

They lend themselves well to ball socket magnetizing so I'm doing that

The details aren't bad. They aren't quite up to space marine standards, but they're solid enough for me. You don't get quite as many gubbins as some kits, but you do get rifle and close combat options for all 5 guys, a leader upgrade weapon, and a special+heavy weapon.


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Got those guys dipped, letting them get warmed up in the house so I can seal them later.


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Ok they're sealed. I'll give them a bit to dry and start working on bases weeee.

Are you dipping and sealing within the same day? I thought you were supposed to wait a full 24 hours after dipping for the stuff to fully dry?

Pffft. I've sealed them a few hours later without noticing a difference. I'm sure it's not recommended but it's worked before. I'm not advocating it either, I'm just impatient.

I dipped these guys last night around 9-10 maybe. And sealed them just a few minutes ago. They had a good 14 hours at least.

Kind of like people keep saying superglue fogs clear acrylic bases and I pretty much exclusively use superglue for mine with no ill effects. I can't say it'll work for everyone... but I don't seem to be having the problem.

Hell, you're probably supposed to let your paint dry for a full day or more before you even dip or seal it, but I tend to not do that. My paint jobs generally aren't so amazing that I feel the need to be that delicate with them, and so far it's working out alright.

But you know, grain of salt, results may vary.


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Shoot, that's part of the reason I use Krylon... spray primes are ready to paint in 12 minutes if you work in a well ventilated area, at least theoretically. I'm sure it's supposed to be left to cure but it's dry to the touch... I often give my freshly sealed minis barely half an hour (it's also Krylon) before I remove them from their painting prep base/nail/whatever and move them onto a clear acrylic.

I'm probably a Bad Person though, I would not follow my advice


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Also, if I'm coming across today as a Little Weird, I blame it fully upon the 4th day of head-cold/sinuses/whatever this is =/


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Alright I think everyone is securely glued down to bases now. Just letting those dry a bit more and then I'll rush outside to snap a few shots before the sun disappears completely. I left the reaper bones knight on his included base as I'm not sure exactly what I want to do with fantasy models at this point. Everyone else got a clear acrylic.

So, here are those photos I've been promising:


Everybody


Just the League


And two new minis for my Marauders team (commando on the left, mawbeast in the back).

Ehh, ehh?

May paint some zombies next as they're primed and prepped. Maybe a couple of mars attacks scenery cars too.

May get better photos at some point too, it's extra cold today and the sun was pretty much already past the point of useful light =/

That League looks great, ready to kick some ass on the tabletop!

Thanks Now to line some more models up, I've got a long way to go to catch you up on this whole 365/365 deal!

I'm kind of counting on bones, honestly, for a lot of variety and things that will paint up easily yet still look nice.

Oh I had a thought. Instead of forecasting what I *might* paint...

What if I just make a graphic with 365 blanks, and fill it up as I go? So that way when bones gets here and I start painting random stuff nowhere on the list, I don't have to overwrite things and waste the effort/ add to confusion?

Sounds like a good idea, a nice way of tracking what you've done and leaves you free to change things up.

And if Paradigm likes it, then I like it! Good idea whoever came up with that, ONWARDS!

(yes, editing the other graphic was getting annoying )

Those are some sweet looking minis!

I think the 365 blanks sounds like a much more hassle-free way to go.

Hope your sinus stuff goes away soon! I think the flu is finally starting to relent over here.

Good to hear it ER, you've had it way worse than me from the sound of it!

I may just edit that photo up right now. I need to dive into the next batch of models but I'm still kind of snotty.

Seventh day of the year, and I'm pretty sure Grim has already past the number of finished pieces I did last year. Think I'll create a graphic with one blank for my own needs

League look pretty cool, good job. They were all MA figures, right?

Yep! Some of them probably aren't out in the wild yet beyond backers though.

First post graphic update and mission statement imminent.

Nice if utterly insane and electic league grim.

Any idea what's next?

Not sure. I mean I've got three zombies primed white and on nails so.. probably those to start. I may do some mars attacks cars just because... I dunno.

Kind of drawing a blank, wish bones 2 was here already..

I have more marauders primed and those three Moderators too. So that's possible. Kind of waiting to get over the headcold to try the mods though..

Kind of want to try a new scheme on the new enforcer but I may as well wait till I have a few more of them made.

Hmmmmrmrmrmmmm...

Suggestions folks?

Well I would say ice storm personally.

Or dip your hand into your box of bones and see what you pull out. Like a painting lucky dip.

Well its bones2 and it's not here yet sadly =/

I've got 4 or 5 primed Infinity models out, if I get those done, then I'll start prepping icestorm.

I thought maybe you backed bones 1 because you already have a bones knight.

In that case I vote for one of the infinity guys you have primed. A moria or a morlock would be cool.

Sadly I only have the one Moira, still on the fence about getting the box set. And just haven't gotten around to Morlocks, but I want to, they're cool.

I have three barely started Moderators and a Sin Eater.

Sin eater would be my vote then. Hopefully it doesn't turn out he is missing a head or has melted because I'm not voting again. :p

Oh yeah about that... it was never really an option...

Nah just kidding he's ready. I'm trying to think of something good to help him do the nomad snowflake thing... but I could always start. I got into a zombie groove though so I'm working on those three at the moment.

Sorry the sin eater has been launched into space it's a no go.

How about giving him a black cloak? Instead of the standard studio white?

That's possible. I've got two and snowflakism dictates that they must not match. I was thinking I could rob some kind of lettering for the back of one of their coats. Something Japanese sounds hip enough for the nomads right? Hmmm.... I *had* been planning white cloaks but you've got me wondering about black now...

Pretty sure nomads have a Latin American influence (maybe that's just corrigator) but maybe something in Spanish could be cool.

Japanese seems too yu Jing.

Could go for a different Asian language like Thai.

โชคดี

Means good luck

Or

ฆ่า

Means kill

กรรม

Would be perfect and means bad karma/ sin/ wrong doing

That's kind of cool.

What the hell though, how are you supposed to write that, looks worse than cursive

Hmm food for thought!

Speaking of Yu Jing...still really need to do a capsules and or possibly clowns biker gang

Hm.. almost got one of my zombies done, since there are 80 or more, I'm not taking especially long on them. They do have a reasonable amount of detail, it isn't as sharp as CB metals or GW plastics, but the price sure as hell was right, and they should look nice when finished.

League looks nice

How about halved cloaks on your Sin Eaters. One with black left and white right, and the other one reversed? Ties them together but keeps them unique.

@Shas thanks

@Para huh, that's possible. Or even paint inverted colors one light one dark. I figured they should get sin-themed names like Wrath or Envy or whatever. Wrath for the sniper rifle, Envy for the Mk12.

Well I got the zombies dipped. That brings me to 12. I may seal and base them later, I may also wait since they'll probably take longer to cure since it's so cold. Too stinky to let them dry inside past the garages which are almost as cold as the outside.


I brought in some prepped marauders too. I dunno, I've been in what.. I dunno... I wouldn't call it speed painting... but maybe a 'fast' painting kick. I kind of hate to work on the Infinity models while I'm quasi-rushing.

Wrath and Envy. I like it.

The fluff for sin eaters kind of reminds me of that crazy albino guy from The Da Vinci Code, so I figure they'd take dramatic names like that.

Three of my 80 deadzone scifi zombies:

The scientist/hazmat, the soldier, and the civilian. All parts from the new kit except the hazmat suit guy's head which is from a mantic ghoul.


Buck and company found more than they bargained for in this seemingly abandoned underground facility!


Buck and company huddle around makeshift defenses and a power-transfer conduit as the zombies close in!

And that's it for me tonight. Well... we'll see I may paint a *little* more, but I don't anticipate getting anything done, and certainly not sealed and based.

Great photos!

Thanks

I'm gonna have to do some cleaning and priming soon... running out of models that are ready to paint! While I guess this can only be seen as a good thing, it does mean I'm gonna have to step up production in areas besides painting to keep the flow consistent.

THE SPICE MUST FLOW.

Random, but chuckle-worthy

Oh, wait. THE RESIN MUST FLOW.

Errr.

Nevermind.

I find myself in a similar situation. I need minions to prime my miniatures for me.

Right? Especially when it's this cold out =/

I am building a new terrain table, while watching "The Longest Day." I am, in all honesty, afraid to go into my basement to paint.

Why for make of afraid?

It is very cold here in the greater Boston area. The same goes for my basement.

Oh ok ok that makes sense. Yeah I couldn't bring myself to go and hobby in the garage. I mean I run out there to dip models but I'm not there for more than half an hour.

 GrimDork wrote:


Kind of like people keep saying superglue fogs clear acrylic bases and I pretty much exclusively use superglue for mine with no ill effects. I can't say it'll work for everyone... but I don't seem to be having the problem.

Same here, I use some gel superglue and no fogging at all, even if I do get some on the base.

Looking forward to seeing your magnetized enforcers! Been thinking of doing the same with mine when they arrive.

Looking good! Those zombies are very cool.

My furnace is in my basement, so no temperature problems for me It can be a bit loud though. The furnace I mean.

One of those radiator style portable heaters-- the oil filled kind-- would work wonders in a space like a basement. I suspect that the other kinds might work too. Worth looking into.

Now is Buck the one with his foot on the rock?

I hope Buck and company have plenty of bullets!

 Red Harvest wrote:
My furnace is in my basement, so no temperature problems for me It can be a bit loud though. The furnace I mean.

One of those radiator style portable heaters-- the oil filled kind-- would work wonders in a space like a basement. I suspect that the other kinds might work too. Worth looking into.

Now is Buck the one with his foot on the rock?

Having used oil filled radiators a lot myself, I'd have to disagree. They're gak and about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. Fan heaters are better IMO.

@SS Right? I'm running out of primed minis, so some enforcers will probably be on the table soon.

@Para Thanks

@Red Yes, Buck Spencer is the one with foot on rock. Not sure if that will be his Pulp Alley name or not.

@Shas, well they'll probably run out of amo but they have lots of Plot Armor as I need them next week to try out Pulp Alley, so some kind of Deus Ex is in order

So basically Tune in next week, same zom-time, same zom-channel!

Hah probably! May even bring my camera and get some shots of the game if that works out.


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Alright decided to fix my eventual supply chain problems and get some more models prepped and primed. I kind of scraped a couple of barrels to get some of these guys, there isn't a whole lot more to work on (that readily comes to mind) without doing some building/cleaning/priming. I kind of nabbed the easy targets this time around. I may or may not have also focused on some easier to paint things

Don't forget to save some of the easier things for when you're back to work and have less painting time!

Your project is a pretty crazy one, but you seem to be well on track. I love your action photos as usual. I really need to take a leaf out of your book and do a few action shots of my own work.

@Eyeamrai don't worry, I've got a bunch of smurfs that'll paint up fast in a pinch, old metal gw snotlings each taking up a single infantry base with greenstuffed caps. They're super simple and I'm still going to count each as one since they are. Even though I've resolved now to count vehicles and buildings as one model, the smurfs and similar fantasy models will help balance things out.

@Archer thanks, I think your ongoing project is still crazier overall I should like to see your action shots too! Some people have a better natural or practiced ability to make neat compositions, I'm still struggling with making the set-ups look cool and both realistic and dramatic. Having a nice photo setup would help I'm sure but oh well.

Oh, I did get a wizard finished today, and 9 other things primed, so go me! I've got another mawbeast, goblin sniper, and ripper suit in progress as well.

You are ambitious, but look well on track bud.

All looking brilliant.

Nice to see some completed Zombies, really great choice of colours for them too. They really give off the feeling of a rag-tag bunch of civilians and infected corp personnel. So how many models done 10 days into january?

Thanks Right now I've got 12 totally finished and one more 'done'. I figure I'll get some more done before I dip them in a batch. I spent more time prepping models yesterday than working on painting them. But I've got a few models progressed to where they should be somewhat easy to finish, and 9 more models on deck.


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So in addition to the wizard I've got a goblin sniper and another mawbeast done and ready to dip. The Rainmaker ripper suit is coming along and I may try to bust out my druid/nature priest tonight too just to speed things along.

13, 14, and 15 good to go. The wizard will get his base sorted out whenever I figure out what I'm doing with fantasy models.


And the happy Marauder family. 4 more models before the strike team is done.

I'll probably get the ripper and one more commando done soon, and then wait to finish the other two commandos for awhile so it doesn't feel like so much of a chore. Tonight, I shall try to finish the ripper suit and maybe a nature wizard to have something of a different color and a bit simpler. After that, who knows.

It's the 11th and I have 15 done, still ahead but not as ahead as I'd like to be!

Nice work! It's a little different to what I am used to from your updates, but that Wizard is really cool and nicely painted. Would fit right in with the KoW Basalien aesthetic, or in Dungeon Saga as an alternate PC or NPC.

Thanks Para.

@Briancj LOL

Very nice! Was the wizard dipped too?

Yeah. Its not as obvious cause the dip effects those really dark colors less than the rst. He looks cooler from behind too since you can see more of the stary cloak thing.

Clearly I need a pic of this starry cloak thing!

Bah alright I'll work it in After having done the samurai, I could probably do it better now. I did that part of the model yeeeeaaaars ago back when I was still actually playing fantasy somewhat, but most of the rest of the model wasn't past the undercoat so I finished him.

Daughter fell asleep a bit earlier tonight so if I can tear myself away from this gloriously ridiculous RWBY show I may yet finish those two models. I should have more time tomorrow to hobby as well, and I don't think it'll be possible to clear out my freshly primed queue... but by heck I'll try


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Alright got those two done. Still feel like I'm rushing a bit.

Gonna take a break while the last of the paint dries a bit and then try to get myself to dip them so I can finish them up tomorrow.


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And got them dipped.

If nothing changes overnight, I'm actually quite pleased with how the nature priest came out. More of the colors I used there were dip-friendly. The Rainmaker shed the excess dip so well during the spin process that it may have done so *too* well. We'll see, I'm mostly glad he's done. I think the model overall was a bit too busy. I think the Mauler, or whatever the other variant is called, might be a bit easier to do but we'll see. Someday

So for tomorrow I'm not sure of what to do. Ahem, excuse me, later on today . I've got a big stompy robot I could do... I'm only gonna count him as one, but since the pilot is separate and more or less entirely different colors and what not... I'm probably going to count him for one as well. I've also got another wizard, kind of a medium wizard... err how do I put it... Kind of reminds me a bit of gandalf the grey, sword and staff plus epic beard, classic pointy wide brimmed hat. I think he's asking to be painted grey and that would go well with the dip... but he could work out as blue too. Maybe a lighter blue so the dip has more room to work it's magic...
Also have 3 more zombies, a bigass chaos something.. maybe the foot version of Archaeon? No shield though, no idea where that even got off to, and I sculpted little screaming faces all over his armor sword and cape for... reasons... back in the day. Oh plus he has a big metal skull mask, I think it was a banner topper from some tomb kings kit or somesuch.

And I've still got those 4 infinity models prepped too... maybe I can take a slower approach and do them up right. I guess time will tell!

Progress sounds fantastic. Twelve days into the new year and what 15 models completed? Excellent work to boot too. Especially since you have a solid queue forming of prepped models to keep you busy.

The Wizard you describe sounds like a Grey Wizard, seriously (that is if it is a GW model) so Grey would be the most appropriate color.....

17 if you aren't picky, 15 totally done with bases, though those last two will be caught up in a few hours. Planning on knocking out some more this week as well. Google quite possibly agrees with you on the nature of that wizard, the tricky part will be painting the beard a different enough color of gray. Perhaps mostly white.

BIG STOMPY ROBOT! ahem... I mean the robot might be cool if you like that sort of thing...

It's more or less done

I probably went a bit too simple, but it's not like I can't repaint it in the future if I end up not liking it. Working on the pilot now, as well as a batch of 3 zombies. I'm gonna have to do an assembly session soon as I'm really liking the zombies! It turns out that my least favorite head is no longer my least favorite head. What I had assumed was either very confusing or derpy is actually pretty cool, just took some paint for me to see the details I was missing.

Not sure what I'm gonna do with big stompy... The paint is going to scrape of super easily so I kind of want to dip him. But the dip will barely affect his black with grey highlights. Maybe I'll just give him two coats of matte sealer instead and jobs a good un?

I need to get some more sealer too... may do that once I start getting uncomfortable from too much sitting... Been having trouble tracking down the exact matching can of sealer and it's probably my favorite so I'm not trying to find a substitute!

Sealer sounds like a good plan.

Looks like you're on quite a roll. I've gotten four models done so far this year. You've more than tripled me. Looking forward to whats next.

But most importantly, I'm looking forward to the paint or die 2015 graphic. Or did we decide against that while I wasn't paying attention?

DOUBLE SEALER IT IS!

I really like how tough dipping leaves the models, but it just seems a bit pointless on so dark of a model.

Nature Priest and a Rainmaker Ripper suit.

Looks like I got into a hurry and forgot to do the teeth and blacken the at least one of the barrels on the ripper suit.


17 minis done on the 12th. Gotta keep up the pace though, hopefully I'll finish painting these 5 today...

That's a grumpy looking nature priest! I like him!

What about my starry cloak thing pic???

Awww don't cry...

Now I'm sad too

There we go, totally forgot

It really isn't that fancy, I hope you weren't planning on seeing something awesome!

That's actually pretty cool. Subtle, but a noticably nice effect

Thanks, I liked it so I left it there and painted some other stuff around it, instead of stripping and starting over.

I think that looks pretty cool!!

That cloak is cool.

You know what else is cool?


Biiiiiiii'iiiiiiig MAC!... or something

Click it to zoom, it's quite large!

Like I said, pretty lazy on this one, but I still like him. Magnets in the shoulders and torso, the arms kind of fit snug-ish at the elbows so I've just left them alone. I need to introduce some bluetack to hold on the dome, I probably won't glue it since you get a pilot version of Joe the mechanic who can take over the big stompy or flying saucer in certain scenarios.

Zombies too late tonight to post, or possibly just tomorrow.

Counting big stompy and his pilot as one, because its the 'right thing to do' , which puts me at 18.

Hmmmm, gotta love giant robots with friggin' deathrays!

He's got the freeze ray on now. I've lost track of the heat ray. I'll see about finishing that and the shrink ray at some point.

BIG STOMPY ROBOT!!!!! YEAH!!!

I still have to get me a BSR, just seems like such a big and fun kit for the price.

Awesome stuff, that model is so cool!

Gotta love the big stompy

Also is that a mould line on the leg I can see there?

Ahhh you've done Mr Stompy, nice work!! Simple but effective.

Also:

Thanks guys.

@ AoV the Big Stompy doesn't have moldlines so much has misaligned-at-the-factory/warehouse-lines. They were noticeable but not enough for me to want to file that heavily or do some kind of freezer shenanigans to forcibly separate the parts.

@Yonan, yep, up to 18.

Blerg, maybe I get some zombies done today.

An ambitious project indeed. Love that Mars Attacks model.

My goal is to finish more than one model this year, lol.

It's very likely that I'll fail, but in trying I will have gotten further than if I didn't make a goal

The big stompy is one of my favorites, almost wish I had ordered a set of 3!

Ahh, but you have really neat space marines that should look quite excellent with paint, which will make it more worthwhile if you succeed I've tried to mimic those but I just don't have the patience and sense of design/aesthetics to duplicate your results.

Man. i wish i had the kind of time to even think about attempting 1 model per day...a remarkably ambitious project. good luck with it.

Well, remember. He's working on blocks/groups. So, if he sits down and knocks out 7 models, that's a week's worth!

Yeah I'm definitely not painting a model a day, sometimes it's three, which is why I'm ahead but I'm kind of temporarily laid off at the moment and will likely return to work in march since nobody wants to hire you for a couple of months

More time to paint, but it's annoying. In the summer I'll be lucky if I can keep the pace as I'm often exhausted after work and shaky hands (physical job, being tired makes hands shaky some days) tend to ruin painting sessions. As such, I'm trying to capitalize on my time now to get ahead.

I've got some old gw snotlings I've been singly basing and slightly modifying to make them into Smurfs, those will go quickly whenever I get around to them. And some of the bones 2 stuff once it shows up.


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Blerg. Got the zombies finished and dipped. I'll get them sealed (if I don't run out of sealer!!), based and photoed tomorrow. I guess I'll see about updating the front page image too, since that will bring me up to 21.

Yep unless you're doing something like a unique character, bulk lots is deffo best. Doing 11 stormtroopers and 4 royal guard from Imperial Assault atm, BTW, painting so much white !@*$@!! ; p Prime 1 day, wash second, airbrush 3rd, detail 4th, 5th, 6th, varnish 7th. Something like that.

Lookin' forward to dem zombies! Really need to ook into dipping as washing of all kinds is hit and miss for me. My current favourite is prime > acrylic wash > (optional drybrush/rehighlight) > airbrush which results in a smoother shade for me than prime > airbrush > wash. Your dipping has great results for bulk models, but getting the same products you use can be difficult down here.

 GrimDork wrote:
It's very likely that I'll fail, but in trying I will have gotten further than if I didn't make a goal

The big stompy is one of my favorites, almost wish I had ordered a set of 3!

Ahh, but you have really neat space marines that should look quite excellent with paint, which will make it more worthwhile if you succeed I've tried to mimic those but I just don't have the patience and sense of design/aesthetics to duplicate your results.

On the docket right now are Tau and Orks. Im hoping a change of pace gets me fired back up. I'm especially excited to make some traitor human auxiliaries for the Tau.

One of these days I'll be satisfied that I have models "completed" and I'll paint them. My biggest worry is painting them all up and then finding something about the model I don't like and have to tear it down, lol.

Oooh yeah, I'll have to come check those out if you're posting them. I like the idea/what ive seen of Tau human units.

I'm less of a perfectionist than maybe I once was... once it's painted I rarely go back and fix anything unless it's just a glaring error.

3 more zombies done, yay!

Now we're up to 21, by the 14th, helped along by these six zombies:



Woot!

Zombies are looking really good. I need to get back to working on my horde. Maybe you'll inspire me to get back to them.

Woot! Thanks Maybe you'll inspire me to work on some dwarfs or perhaps some Infinity for once

Actually, I just started working on my Brokkrs last night. Got them all assembled and one painted. The mining drill is tonight's project. So, depending on how much I get done tonight, I may have some pics tonight.

Oooh cool. I'm still trying to decide exactly what color to paint mine and then I'm pretty eager to get to work on them as well.


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Alright got 7 more zombies assembled and up on nails ready to go... may not paint them tonight, Kiddo is taking a late nap and I'd hate to wake her up early... and after that I probably won't get a chance. May either daub some paint on that enforcer, the couple of fantasy models I've got left or... not sure.

I think I've also decided that the smurfs are gonna get airbrushed for maximum cheatmode list padding. Plus why not, spare my brushes and save a little time.

Got a game of Pulp Alley tomorrow apparently so I had better study the rules a bit!

Progress/thoughts
I added 3 basilean men at arms, a nature king Loka piece and a couple of mantic elf extra models (dead elf and sabertoothed pussycat) to nails and got them undercoated today. Meant to yesterday but didn't have time/opportunity, so I probably won't try to paint any of them today. Gonna work 6 more elves into the rotation too, for a troop of archers (other two troops will get more like 7, was just odd numbers).

So here's a couple of questions for you guys..

In terms of reaching my goal... should I be cranking out models right now as fast as I can, blowing through the smurfs and some of my other simple/easy models... Or should I just paint whatever right now and save the smurfs (probably half an hour of painting by hand a piece, if that) and other similar units to subsist on during my busy season?

I've been thinking this whole time that I should try to get as far 'ahead' as possible before returning to full time make-me-tired-with-shaky-painting-hands work... but now I'm wondering if I should really be saving the easy and simple stuff to do while I'm in a less advantageous position. Another benefit of painting the easy stuff later is that I can spend more time now getting certain things done in good order, like strike teams, leagues, and portions of games (like the full box game of MA, or DBX, or so on).

What say you!?

Enforcer Color Scheme
Another one... I'm thinking of black/white for my enforcers because I guess I like black, and... white? Well white comes out really well after being dipped usually, with virtually no work. The trick is which parts of the model to paint white? Should I have white 'soft' parts like the abs and not-plates of the enforcers, while the armor plates (most of the model) are painted black.. OR should I paint the recessed areas black and the armor plates white?

Corporation troops and mars attacks human soldiers (also usable for corp marines i figure) come out about 50/50 between black armor +guns and white fatigues, whereas the enforcers will probably be slanted 75/25 more likely, in whichever direction I choose. If you guys remember my big mech, or hell the big stompy robot... I think that's how I'm gonna paint my corporation vehicles, predominantly black. I may work a little red/white spot color in but armor plates are black so far for my forces.

This makes me think the enforcers ought to be done in black armor plates with the lighter color on the softer/thinner parts. The only thing about that is it seems foolish from an armor standpoint as you're kind of highlighting your weakest spots for the enemy! Should I eschew white entirely and use more of a medium/light grey?

My first six enforcers are the reverse of this, lighter plates and darker 'softs' but I'm not gonna slave myself to a scheme that only has 6 models. They can be a separate unit.

What do you guys think? Do you need some pictures to help you decide? Not sure I have time to get them before I take the plunge on the colorscheme. I'm thinking if I go with light/medium 'softs' then I'll probably just base coat the model in that color and then pick the black out. Well.. wait. That was the plan with white because if a model is gonna have *any* white I pretty much have to undercoat with it... But if they're gonna be 75+% black with a medium grey tone beyond that....... Huh.

I dunno... HALP!

Pulp Alley!
Also.. currently working on making a 1x1' square bit of scenery for next weeks (if things pan out) second Pulp Alley game. I'm trying to make a bit of a bridge over a perilous ravine which seems a bit tough to do well as a stand-alone, but we'll see! I'm taking pictures so there's that.



Also... Pulp Alley! Quite fun actually. Buck Spencer led his intrepid freedom fighters against 'Da Boss' and his brutal Gorilla Gansters. My favorite part? Both sides had gorillas fighting it out Lets see if I can remember the neat features of the game...

A league apart...
Building leagues is quite fun. You get a pretty powerful leader character for free and then 10 points to build your group. You can take one 3 point sidekick, and as many 2 point allies and 1 point followers as you like. We decided pretty quickly that followers are more or less trash, I'll get into that later on. Each league can also spend some of it's roster slots on league perks. Each league-wide perk tends to affect the whole league and they come in varying points costs. A free perk lets you trade out your powerful leader for a less powerful sidekick (closing off some of the most powerful individual abilities) but gains you 6 more league slots which is great for running more of a cult or horde build. Another perk lets you take a second sidekick (I'm using this one) at an additional cost so you can have a less numerous but more elite team. A couple of other perks involve buying your team extra support. Each scenario has 5 objectives which can each earn you a reward. 3-4 of these rewards are points of gear/contacts/tips/something else which can be cashed in before or during future missions for bonuses like extra helpers or tricks to spring on your opponent. For the slot cost of an ally, you can buy one of two league perks to take a chance at your leader generating more of these points before each mission, basically trading out guaranteed backup for some potential versatility.

In Character...
Character building is fun, the points cost for each of the 3 types of character (leaders are free but you only ever get one) are very simple/logical as is picking abilities. The default amount of league points gives you a lot of choices to make because you can't necessarily take *everything* you want. I call them tiers, 4 for leader, 3 sidekick, 2 ally, 1 follower. There are 4 tiers of abilities, and you can only pick from your tier or lower. Leaders get 3 abilities to start, sidekicks 2, allies 1, and followers 1. The characters have increasingly better stats depending on their tier. Leaders get 4 scores with 3 dice and 2 with 2. Go all the way down to followers and they only get a single dice in all of their stats. Leaders also get some d10s and d8s to use while allies and followers are stuck with d6's (more on that later). There are some really neat perks and combinations thereof, and you can easily get stats to match most any model. No gun or ranged attacks? Pick the tier 1 perk 'animal' and get a bonus to two stats at the cost of no shooting score. You can increase the number of dice you get for any stat, get rerolls, force conditions on opponents, and lots of other stuff.

You can also use xp gained during the scenarios to boost your characters. Each character is limited to learning new abilities based on their tier, so leaders can learn a whopping 4 but followers only 1. The abilities cost more based on tier as well, you could have two allies learn an ability each for the same cost as a leader to learn one. Xp gain is based on completing plot points (objectives+) during the scenarios. For instance, I got the primary plot point and two others, my opponent got the remaining two out of five. I ended up with 5 xp from the plot points and 1 bonus xp from the xp reward card, my opponent got 2xp. I chose to give new abilities to both of my sidekicks, whereas my opponent can skill up one follower or save the points for later. Pretty neat, without adding a crazy amount of power to a more seasoned league.

It's all about the mechanics...
Basically the game works with opposed rolls most of the time so if you're familiar with a mantic game/xwing/ or infinity, you know what's going on. I think the overall feel of the shooting is maybe closest to Infinity. You roll a number of dice based on your stats, with the type of the dice also coming from your stat bar. So a basic mook may have 2d6 for brawling but only 1d6 in all other stats, whereas a melee-focused leader might have a whopping 4d10 dice for brawling. Any roll over 4 is a success so you're basically looking at 50% for d6's and what 70% for d10s. All characters have a health dice too, leaders get a d10, sidekicks d8, followers and allies get d6's. To attack you roll the appropriate dice and your opponent can shoot back or dodge (why I think it's like infinity) and then the player who initiated the attacks (or the player who dodges) gets to 'match dice'.
If we rolled these two batches of shooting successes:
4,5,7 defender
4,5 attacker
The attacker gets the OPTION to CHOOSE how defensive he wants to play it. You can use a success to cancel out an opponent's die of equal or lower value, meaning our attacker could decide to cut his losses and play it safe and only take one hit to try to save (roll your health check dice and try to beat 4), or he could be aggressive and push both dice onto his opponent while also taking 3 health checks of his own. That isn't always a bad idea, you can only get hurt once per action regardless of how many checks you fail.

If you fail a health check you move your health to the next lowest die type, unless its d6 already and at that point you go Down. Getting injured sucks for leaders and sidekicks, you can only roll dice as high as your current health die type, meaning a leader dropped to d6 health die doesn't get to make use of his sexy d10s anymore. At the end of each round everyone gets to make a recovery check. For models who are simply injured this is a chance to get you dice moved back up one type with no negative effects for failure. For Down characters, however, passing means back up at d6 health die, failing means going Down and Out and no longer contributing to the game. Followers never get to make recovery checks are are Out as soon as they go Down the first time. So while allies cost twice as many slots as followers, they may get up over and over again during a scenario. Followers are also in a good spot, they never get shifted down dice types, just knocked down and then they get back up. Makes their performance reliable, unlike injured sidekicks and leaders who pay more points and have more trouble getting back to full power after injuries.

What I'm gonna call Fatigue...
Another really neat aspect of the game doesn't even get it's own section, but it has one in my head and that's called Fatigue. If your character is in multiple combats (uses their first 3 combat stats for more than one action in a turn) then they get a cumulative penalty to further actions. If agent falco shoots at Da Boss now, and gets shot at again later, his ability to return fire will be hampered by this rule and he'll lose a dice. If he gets shot at AGAIN later on, he'll be down two dice! This means weaker characters can usually try to wear down stronger individuals by ganging up on them. One of the tier 3 perks is called hardened veteran, and negates the multiple combats/fatigue rule. Two of my opponent's guys had that last game, and it made them hard to handle, since you couldn't wear them down but you could wear yourself out trying. The Dodge move contributes to your fatigue, but I believe you can always dodge with full dice which makes it an attractive choice if your character is taking a lot of heat.

Plot points and fortune cards...
Plot points are basically objectives but to secure them you must pass a challenge. Either a random one from the deck, or one your opponent plays from his hand. All of the fortune cards (the main game deck) have two parts. The top half works like a buff/debuff card and those can usually be played at various points during the turn. The button half is a challenge and those are used to resolve perils (think difficult terrain test), plot point challenges, and the like. I may try to take the objective with my beefy might-centered gorilla, but my opponent knows her stats and plays a challenge on the plot point that requires her to pass a finesse check to claim it.. oh noes! The cards work a lot like in mars attacks or deadzone otherwise, with various buffs/debuffs to throw around and mess with eachother.

Taking the Initiative...
One of the more interesting things got put last somehow... The initiative is a thing both leaders roll off for at the beginning of the game. There are a couple of ways to seize it during the turn. The player with the initiative gets to direct the action, he can move his guys or direct his opponent to move one of theirs. Whenever a character 'clearly wins a fight' by injuring the opponent without getting hurt, his player can take the initiative and keeps it until his opponent can get it back. Completing a plot point also allows a player to take the initiative IIRC, and there may be a couple of cards for swiping it. It seems like you're generally best off going first if you can, while your guys are fresh without any fatigue built up, but there can certainly be times where you want your opponent to act first and wear his guys out (perhaps if you have multiple hardened veterans who can take advantage of worn out opponents).

All in all... it's a pretty neat game. There are a couple of expansions that add more abilities and some depth but supposedly not too much complexity. The game plays with whatever minis you want really, but a 3x3' table is the norm and most people seem to use 28mm figures. You can move 6 inches at a time walking, can run 12 and still fight or shoot (at a penalty) and ranges for shooting are 6"(bonus) for short and anything over 24" is long (penalty). I've only played the first scenario so I'm not sure how those change things up, but I'm sure they're story based and fun. Anyway, glad we gave it a shot, looking forward to butting heads with the Gorilla Gangsters next week (hopefully)!


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Initial progress on the bridge of DOOM, or whatever.

I didn't realize I forgot to crop the extra out of the image before uploading =/

Epic post Grim. Not sure I could sit and right so much without bulking it out with pictures.

On the colour scheme front I am seeing a Star Wars storm trooper with the White armour over a black body suit. I like the idea. Largely because I really like a huge contrast between armour and bodysuit so white and black could look really cool.

The bridge over a chasm is looking like a strong start and I agree that as a stand alone piece it will be hard to pull it off but eagerly await for the results.

League sounds like my sort of game. Where can you get the rules? Would love to have a read through.

Lol I was kind of getting tired of it.. I wanted to do the Pulp Alley write up but I had other questions/thoughts to get through first

It's called Pulp Alley, wargamevault should have PDFs cheapish and you can go to the official website to order physical books (I think).

I like the idea of white/black enforcers. Painting them like storm troopers is definitely an option, but it will be at the cost of them doing their gear backwards to the rest of my corporation forces. Not a horrible thing necessarily, just thinking on it.

Alright so here's the question in pictorial form. Current enforcer scheme which I don't really care much about, corporation marine, new plastic enforcer with the proposed mostly white scheme.

Remember that the guy on the right isn't finished. He needs another layer of coal for the 'black' armor parts, that would be drybrushed a bit, the black for the weapon bits would get a contrast highlight, better sword/visor/jumpjet effects also. Does it work in theory and considering it's just basecoats? Remember the white gets a *lot* of help from the dip, it'll come out a little dingy but all of the creases and panel lines will be filled in. I may even go back over before the final seal and edge-highlight the armor panels a bit.

But the amount of white and black, and the relative placements mostly, do you guys like it?

Looks about fine to me. Oddly enough, though, now these plastic Enforcers are showing up, I find myself preferring the look of the restic ones. Can't put my finger on why, though.

I think the restic ones have a a teeny bit more detail. And they're pretty much angular everywhere, they don't have nearly as many smooth/curvy surfaces as the new HP guys. Especially noticeable around the armor-muscles on the torso.

I am cranking through mine, because I have SUCH a backlog, I need to just GET THEM DONE.

Not sure if this helps you, but when I crank through a bunch of stuff, it really builds my motivation, AND reduces my shame spiral.

Well, you have seen my Enforcers scheme, everyone paints their guys different, but yeah, darker under plates to lighter outer plates to cross cut as even corporate troops are going to have different schemes per their corporate owner's decisions as to how they want their troops colored up and also brand recognition.

Enforcers always serve the Council, so I figure, different colored units of Enforcers will exist based on any number of reasosns, Batches, training creche, unit individuality, and so forth, so have fun and go for it!

The only criticism I would have would be to add some of that grey you're using to the top of the foot. As it is, it's hard to see the separation between the greaves and the boots.

Now, my suggestion for the color scheme would be to add a splash of color to him somewhere. That's a bit biased considering how I did my Enforcers, but I think a bit of color will help them stand out just enough and not look quite so monochrome and generic. You gotta have a little bit of flair somewhere.

Thanks for weighing in guys.

Spot on about that Barzam, I've checked and there *are* a couple of spots that need the grey/black.

To keep it in the family I pretty much have to do red. Which combination of spot colors? (or where would you put the red).

I could do some kind of bloodstripe but seems almost not professional enough for them.

May be biased toward the first one myself...

First one, yeah. Though I'd move the strip from the shin to the knee pad.

Hm theres a part that sticks up there that I was gonna hit but the top of the knee *does* make a more noticeable spot and better matches the shoulders too. I'll have to try it when i get time.

Now with red and a couple of tweaks. Again, not everything is as finished as it eventually will be. Looking better?

 GrimDork wrote:
Now with red and a couple of tweaks. Again, not everything is as finished as it eventually will be. Looking better?

Looks like a decent enough pattern/scheme to me

Excellent. Can't beat that folks!

New Enforcer color scheme
Barzam tested
Shasolenzabi approved.

 GrimDork wrote:
Excellent. Can't beat that folks!

New Enforcer color scheme
Barzam tested
Shasolenzabi approved.

Go for it!

Love the scheme, go for it is my vote.

Do you prefer the restic or plastic enforcers?