GrimDork wrote:


I don't mind samey poses but I wanted different weapons for when these guys rank up for KoW.

Does the chain wielding troll need anything at the end of the chains? They look a little scrawny next to the other weapons.

Chains are good. Look at the havoc the one in LOTR wrought with them! Alternatively you could try attaching a big rock to the end of a chain?

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Hooks or wrecking balls.

Ahem.

I agree with Josh - either would look good. You've also now inspired me to do something very similar to yours when I eventually paint mine up...


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 angelofvengeance wrote:

Chains are good. Look at the havoc the one in LOTR wrought with them! Alternatively you could try attaching a big rock to the end of a chain?

This is also true - and they do look quite good as-is.

I really like the completed Morex, great work. Especially the base, the transformation from slimey mudhole to interesting green pastures was most impressive

EDC

Thanks guys

I think I'll leave the chains as-is for now as it both saves time and would be very easy to change later.

Got the next couple of units queued up so I'll get to work on those soon.

Quick shot of my painting area such that it is..

Bug looks even better to me after the flat coat, also a fence I forgot to show the other day..very simple. Then the 8 gores I'm working on at the moment and maybe a surprise or two. Not everything you can see is active, the dwarfs have been there forever.

The weapon swaps look great. I personally like the chains as is. When you are that big and terrifying who needs a big stick?

Thanks. Got them primed.

Sooo... not that i have a challenge or anything... but mounted models... Even if I paint them separately once I glue them together I get to count just the one 'finished model' right? That's the number of things done standard right?

I don't mind, i'll be counting orclings separately...

Oh he has opened the bestiary!

Some people work out complicated and/or elaborate schemes for how many models a mount and rider, or a tank, or bases of troops, or scenery pieces, monsters, etc "count as". Mostly that I've seen, they base it on size - so larger models become worth many more "models".

I personally follow the KISS system and just count everything as "one" and rely on swings and roundabouts for it all to even out. One of the side projects I'm doing right now are Jersey barriers for my eventual urban table. Each one is a simple spray and weather job, and I'm quite happy to count each as "one" since they're each a discrete model. I do the same with singly-cast barrels and boxes and so forth as well
.

Yah I'm counting my orclings singly. They will balance out the dragons and tanks. Got a lot of progress on gore regiment today may have to do something else for Feb.

 Azazelx wrote:
Some people work out complicated and/or elaborate schemes for how many models a mount and rider, or a tank, or bases of troops, or scenery pieces, monsters, etc "count as". Mostly that I've seen, they base it on size - so larger models become worth many more "models".

I personally follow the KISS system and just count everything as "one" and rely on swings and roundabouts for it all to even out. One of the side projects I'm doing right now are Jersey barriers for my eventual urban table. Each one is a simple spray and weather job, and I'm quite happy to count each as "one" since they're each a discrete model. I do the same with singly-cast barrels and boxes and so forth as well
.

If I get to count single barrels, chests and the like, then my painting total just went through the roof!

As long as they're single, and not part of an attached stack.

In that case, the dungeon saga furniture counts as twenty-two.

If it's not to late I say mount orclings at the end of the chains

 Theophony wrote:
If it's not to late I say mount orclings at the end of the chains

This may be the best idea for someone else's army that I've read this week.

Bwahahaha.

I'll... consider it. I kind of want the army to be relatively serious since goofiness is a weakness (or strength, if you're into it) of the GW orcs and I'm not trying to have my guys affiliated with those in any way

I'll consider it.

@Josh, I don't think I'm going to count the book as a model, but the lectern, chests (but not the two separate halves of the chests) and so on... surely will be counted as one.

Doing it all by ones is much easier. Do I get a point and a half for an ogre? What a bout a troll, he's even bigger 2 or 3? That dragon is mahoosive....20....27? Nah 1. And then I just paint up some orclings and they feather out the difference.

When I kept my running tally last year, anything smaller than human-sized, bigger than ogre-sized, or any piece of terrain was given a separate entry, which resulted in a difficult-to-parse run-on sentence in my sig. I may do that again this year.

It's a totally serious idea . Think of the many uses for an orcling on a chain.

1. Bait. Toss the orcling out in front of some zombies and then reel him back in and bring those brain dead meatsacks into charge range.
2. Grappling hooks. When you are so big and your attacking a fortified wall you can just lob them up on the battlements and they will scurry into cover and anchor themselves. Then you just need to pull the wall down.
3. Little green gopher. When you really want to pick up something without bending over (slaanesh may not be in KOW yet, but doesn't hurt to have the orcling pick up the soap so you don't have to watch your back).
4. Cost effective. Orclings are cheaper than wrecking balls.....Tastier too .
5. Counts as a stabby/sneaky git. What else would you buy with those points. Sometimes they return, other times there's just a lump of goo at the end of the chain.

I really do think that's a brilliant idea, you could get away with one model like that even in a serious army, I think.

If in doubt, take a look at this monstrosity from The Hobbit:


Suddenly, goblins on a chain don't look too far-fetched now, do they?

Whatever that is para... It's super awkward.

I may do it yet...

One hand so little typing...


gore riders close...


more prepped orc units.


more prepped wgf+ma moderns

Spent zombicide fund on wgf original zombie kit and 5 diecast 1/43 vehicles. Coming tuesday. I know wgf zoms arent great but i want some extra variety. If they are too bad or too small i'll use them to corpse up some scenery.

 JoshInJapan wrote:

If I get to count single barrels, chests and the like, then my painting total just went through the roof!

I do. That Talos I painted? With the freehand Greek shield on the base that took more effort than a few barrels? Also one. Cavalry? Dragon? Also one each. Like I said, swings and roundabouts.

 GrimDork wrote:
As long as they're single, and not part of an attached stack.

This. An attached stack of 2, 5 or 10 still counts as one.

 JoshInJapan wrote:
In that case, the dungeon saga furniture counts as twenty-two.

Sounds fair to me.


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 GrimDork wrote:
Bwahahaha.
@Josh, I don't think I'm going to count the book as a model, but the lectern, chests (but not the two separate halves of the chests) and so on... surely will be counted as one.

Doing it all by ones is much easier. Do I get a point and a half for an ogre? What a bout a troll, he's even bigger 2 or 3? That dragon is mahoosive....20....27? Nah 1. And then I just paint up some orclings and they feather out the difference.

The book is likely going to have to be mounted on something, so it'd then become part of that model. Like a rider on a mount, or a shield on a mans. If I decided to have any standalone books, those would be one. And yes, the 2-part chest is also one in my system. Vehicle crew like drivers and gunners would be part of the vehicle as well. It'd only get tricky if you were hanging a dozen orks off the back of a trukk or something. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Probably by individually basing them or giving them a pin so they could be individually based or mounted on the trukk. Which would mean they also count as individuals.

Yes, exactly like you said Azazel , if for instance I made the crew of a land speeder storm able to attach to bases then they would be counted separately but If i glued them to the vehicle it would still be one model.


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Speaking of Space Marines... With so many people painting them these days almost got the urge to do so myself. Although.. I Have a love hate relationship with Space Marines and it's about 75% hate to 25% love.

The way I see it the count isn't that important, its just a tool to allow you to make progress. ATM I am doing it on a per base basis. So a base of 15mm models is 1 a 28mm model is 1 and so on.

Whatever works for you, of course. I'm just discussing my own methodology, which as you say - I use to motivate myself.

Boom, 8 more models for January.



Technically they need dipped and sealed, but they're still done being painted. Maybe one last bit of additions to their shields once they've been sealed. I'm going to start work on the regiment base tomorrow.

I enjoyed these guys more than I thought I would. I quite like the boars, and the orcs go well enough with them. Probably a little easier/more fun than the regular hard plastic (this kit is restic) orc regiment I did before. Not sure I'd be interested in doing a bunch more, but one nice regiment is enough for me. I've got 3 (somehow there was a spare) riders and two spare boars. I may do a mounted Flagger or two. One of those riders is destined to ride a bones monster as a Krudger on slasher. Maybe the dragon turtle from bones 2?

I've got several more orc-y things prepped and a bunch of other stuff so who knows what's next. I also managed to find some old whfb goblin wolf rider bows in my bits collection so now I'm thinking I may be able to eek out *two* troops of skulks, yippee!

BOOM, progress! Congrats on notching the count up!

Nice work, they look dead 'ard!

The gore riders are, indeed, much nicer to paint than the infantry. Yours turned out quite nicely.

Chainz the Troll looks great to me. Good to see you truly back in the painting groove, with the Morax and Gore riders now basically done you already have the basis of a nice Orc army.

reat looking gore riders .

If you don;t like the goofey idea of orclings on the chains you could always do chunks of Roman style columns, or pillars (make him a Samson or Hercules type figure).

Thanks guys Pushing to get done on the Gore Riders was a bit rough, kind of a marathon dipping all 8 at once... I've got their base prepped. I've tried a new method that I hope will pave the way for the future trays. We'll see.

I may or may not paint today, may need a bit of a break..

Looking good!

On the counting bit, I count mounted guys at 2, but then, I need all the help I can get to make my yearly goals.

For the chains, have you thought about shackles? With or without a full or partial prisoner in them?

Great work on those boar riders, they look fantastic!

Also, really love the chains on the trolls. A big brick on the end of it would be brilliant.

Wish I'd thought of that before I painted them!

They were a bit samey and I knew from the start I would use them as a regiment.

Thanks for the comments guys keep the encouragement coming, lest I get bored and wander off to videogame or comic book land.

Mini informal poll, what's next?

Orc skulks troop (archers, mixing in goblins too)
Orclings regiment
Trolls regiment
Orc krudger on foot (from dungeon saga)
Modern civilians/survivors
Small modern/fantasy terrain bits
Modern cars maybe?
Mars attacks redbrick?

Dunno trying to decide.

I vote terrain. I really like your previous terrain pieces and would like to see some more.

The boars and riders look really good. I am keen to maybe rip your Orc colours off if I ever get around to a fantasy Orc army.

terrain! you can never have enough plus it's fun heh

Two votes for terrain, one vote for skulks off-camera so to speak.

Hmm. May see what I've got scenery wise to work on. I mean I know there's the cabin but I'm not 100% sure which direction I want to go with that.

Terrain!

Skulks or terrain.

Ok pretty overwhelming for terrain so I'll see what I can do...

The base has been sealed and I'll decorate it and glue the gores down tonight if I get any hobby time at all. Here's the three removable models on their bases:




I like them, I need to decide on an army-wide shield emblem but they're good and done for now. May put a little blood on the tusks as a unit warpaint thing, bloodtusk riders or something i dunno.

Hurr... durrr... I swear I had something else to talk about but meh. I'll be going.

Nice. I think the extra details like an emblem and bloody tusks will really help them pop.

EDC

Yeah, I'll get on that pretty soon. I don't want to rush the emblem as it will go onto the other shield-having orcs I wind up doing later too. And I don't know where my Blood for the Blood God is... some zombies are badly in need of that as well.

Anyway nice crappy group shot until I can get some better photos outside:




The base isn't quite as nice as the other one but I think I've got the method down. I need to tidy it up a bit where I glued the boars down but I can do that when I fix the shields and tusks.

Your orcs look really nice. How do you do their skin? It takes the dip really well, much better than the green I use for goblins does.

I really dig your Orc skin tone. Looks like a natural colour and none of the cartoony of a lot of orcs out there (mine included). Would be interested in how you did them.

Thanks guys

I'm a big fan of less is more these days. Most of what I paint is usually white under coat --> thin basecoat (mostly use minitare, and it's for airbrushes...though I'd say you'd still wanna thin it some for using in most of those) --> dip.

Sometimes there's a highlight, but often it's not necessary. Since the dip kind of blends things together when it goes to work...you don't have to be perfectly smooth on your base coat. Usually I try to hit it with one coat that's more like a thick wash. That gives you sort of kind of two colors blended there, and the dip deepens the recesses even more in that special way it does.

So yeah blah blah it's just minitaire swamp ground over white with a dip of Tudor minwax.

Only works if you like dirty paint jobs, but I've made my peace with that. May try some other techniques some day...but for now I'm pretty content with what I'm doing.


Did I mention that I ordered a bunch of 1/43 scale vehicles for modern/zombies and the original WGF zombie kit? I think I may have. Should come in tomorrow, I may post photos. I'm watching The Walking Dead: All out War on kickstarter right now but... Mantic is failing to impress me here. That Michone they put up... may just talk myself out of it. Warlord has a zombie game coming out in April apparently, with what looks like 3 more WGF kits to match the other 3 kits already extant. I wouldn't mind some Mantic TWD minis to go with all of that, but we'll see how the kickstarter goes. The WGF stuff would do the job nicely, though variation wouldn't hurt. I think the best way to circumvent the size/scale/style of various manufacturers of models is to get more variance so there's no single baseline to betray.

Orcs are looking great . The bases are coming along great as well. Much better than the walking dead michonne.

What vehicles?

Thanks Theo. I just... don't know what to say... that Michone is just not making me happy. The rest are kind of whatever but that one is really tanking IMO.

Photos tomorrow perhaps. Modern stuff. Mail truck, ice cream truck, police truck, fire department ambulance/rescue thingy, and a school bus.

I haven't picked up any of the comic books for TWD, so maybe the figures do look like the book characters, but I have the TV characters in my mind and these don't jive. Holding on to my earlybird for now....but unless a bunch gets unlocked they will have it back later.

I'm torn. Aw much as I dislike the Michone model, I really really like the one they did for Andrea. Kind of the reverse of his I feel about the characters...but yeah... Some things I like and some I do not.

Vehicles came in, so did the zombies but I've only got to take a very cursory look at them.






Trucks feel maybe a tad big but that police truck is very similar to the mars attacks truck. In size, the scale is still a bit off. I think it's a bigger version of a smaller truck, that is. The MA patriot silverback reminds me of an F350 or whatever brand equivalent, whereas I think the cop truck is probably a smaller size (could be wrong) but bigger scale. The other trucks are pretty big too but then when you get to box truck size there is some variance and they tend to be taller than you so that's something.

Bus I thought was a touch small but putting the children figures next to it.. may be about right. Makes the city bus look crazy big though that looks pretty good in a vacuum.

I'll look at the zombies and make some thoughts later. maybe I'll just build and paint some ehh?

The scales are probably truer than GW, and that's whats probably throwing you. They look realistic in the pics, some are maybe a little chunky, but then some trucks are. Got to say bus does look a little small, but again they vary in size IRL and looks convincing enough for terrain. I mean that's what they are really, so all good.

Oh and you need a zombie leaning out of the Icey offering a mouldy cone!!

Haha, zombie ice cream guy

Quick guys, ehat else does this roof need? Simple is good but its plain... Texture? Little turtle vent?

Chimney of some kind? A vent? A Bat-signal?

A boxy HVAC system with some blowers and some ductwork would be nice.

Little satellite dish? Old school antenna?

Sandbaged gun emplacements?

Stairwell access, trap door, or ladder on the side.

I second the AC unit, or else an airvent. Keep it simple so that minis have a stable place to stand.

I like the idea of a little pipe work. Or a simple hand rail around the perimeter.

 GrimDork wrote:
Thanks. Got them primed.

Sooo... not that i have a challenge or anything... but mounted models... Even if I paint them separately once I glue them together I get to count just the one 'finished model' right? That's the number of things done standard right?

I don't mind, i'll be counting orclings separately...

I nearly went made with a complicated scheme where different models counted for more (or less), because painting a Reaper Bones Kobold is different from a Land Raider. But... if your goal is painting armies, then most of the time minis are minis. I already ran up the score for 2016 by churning out 80 Red Goblins. Each of those counts as one. The six chariots I spent hours building: will still count as six models.

Love the blog. I dig your color scheme on the Mantic Orcs, which look better every time I take a look at them...

@Polonius Cheers! as they say I really like your Ogres and your throughput is frankly amazing. I just don't have massed infantry in me like I used to so it's fun to watch as someone else (who obviously can keep up) builds such an army.




Now it's got a railing around the top. It's...a bit much... but the height *is* good for games like Infinity that require a percentage coverage of model to get cover (I think it still does that..).

And a little yogurt cap for a turtle vent thing. May put a deadzone ladder on the back some time.

I think this may do for the build, the top is just 1mm plasticard with some mauled clips and plasticard spacers to keep it from sliding around (that second part is probably unnecessary when you put on the railing). So I should be able to make an inside for it as well

This is a 2x2x1(high) tile building. I bought a pack around x-mas that comes with two 2x3x1 buildings and one 2x3x2 building. Basically two single floor shops and a small apartment building. Doing the roofs like I have this one, I'll save some tiles (but some have integrated vents so I won't be able to re-purpose ALL of the roof tiles, except as roof tiles...) so I may be able to make one extra differently textured 2x2x1 also. Maybe make it a small workshop or something with a lot of ceiling ventilation I also have the original 2x2x1 I build when I first got this stuff.

I'm looking forward to getting to work on some of this stuff, though very possibly not all of it at once!

will the windows and doors be glass, or boarded up? I liked how they painted some for TWD previews.

Probably paint them like the battlezones box art and maybe make some bolt-on parts to board windows and doors up situationally.

I vote for Trolls, and secondarily for some scenery. The building is looking good. Do you have any rare earth magnets? You could potentially do some sort of removable boarded-up windows using those. Also, where is that Mantic building actually from? And do I have any of them?

 Azazelx wrote:
I vote for Trolls, and secondarily for some scenery. The building is looking good. Do you have any rare earth magnets? You could potentially do some sort of removable boarded-up windows using those. Also, where is that Mantic building actually from? And do I have any of them?

Mars Attacks! scenery. I think it's out on general release now that the Kickstarter is done.

Hey, I might have some then. For some reason I was thinking that MA only came with destroyed stuff.... (it's all in a tub in the shed).

The default MA stuff was all destroyed. I think I got an intact pack to go with my ruined stuff, and around x-mas I picked up a clearance 3-building town center set. During the campaign you had options to pick up additional scenery in battlezone-sized packs and could opt for ruined or intact. So you may or may not have intact pending your choices, I don't think any came by default.

I'll probably be doing trolls and orclings both this month.

I just got some spray paint to do the buildings with though, trying to decide between ruddy brown or burgundy... may use both on different buildings.

I like the look of the brick buildings, but they appear to only be three sided, with open backs. Do the sets come with enough stuff to build solid buildings?

Miniature Market has the stuff on clearance, but I haven't had a chance to really see what's in each pack to see if I want to make the plunge.

I'm about to assemble one of the larger sets... if the kids allow it So we'll see. It looks like there aren't enough parts to make the railing go all the way around the tops, but from various angles the buildings seem intact. For instance, there are wall pieces on one of the sides that has no railing in the photos.

I'll let you know if I manage to get them assembled


Got the bags out. 5 of one kind and 6 of the other... think its just two types. Both kinds have 6 3" tiles in them. So 66 tiles. I count 60 tiles required to recreate the 3 buildings shown on the box art... A 3x2x1 is 3+3+2+2+6(roof) or 16 tiles. Twice so 32. The larger building has 6+6+4+4+6(roof) or 26. 32+26 is 58. So actually just 58, leaving upwards of 8 tiles left? So that's practically another 2x2x1 building with no roof... which I'm not using anyway. Plus saving the 18 roof tiles means I may be able to make upwards of 5 buildings out of this set if I stretch it Or maybe I could use all of those extra roof tiles on the sides if I make the building a factory.. and make one larger building instead of two smaller... dunno I'm doing that last. I basically want to 100% duplicate the box art buildings, except I may need to steal a couple of windows and or doors to make the other ones. Factory makes even more sense for extra building what with a small entrance and less windows. We'll see!

You get just one pack of accessories and 4 packs of connectors. I've got 4 extra packs of connectors I bought on clearance before they sold out... so that should be 384 more..hopefully enough all told and maybe some spare for deadzone buildings...

I vote also a simple access hatch

For any building without a ladder on the exterior.. thats a good idea for sure.

Got some progress on my cabin:


Interior hardwood floors are go, as well as a bottom at all, and a porch out front. I need to add doors and do something with the interior walls... Stucco? I don't want to do more boards.

That is looking great, I can see why you would be fed up of doing boards. Stucco is one idea but could you possibly print upsome wallpaper a la your old Deadzone posters?

Yeah. That or even just treat it like a modern painted interior, just like a light cream/tan color that they painted the walls.

Cabin is looking great. I feel a cabin in the woods style battle report coming.

For speed just painted surface, for added effect put a skirting around. Could use the TP pva trick for nasty wallpaper. Or what about doing a simple panelling with card.

Looking brilliant so far, nice work on the various flooring.

The cabin looks great. More step-by-step!

@cam do you mean just thin some pva and past the wall then put TP up like its wallpaper? Or is there some lost art of which I'm unaware and which Google will not share because of common terms?


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Largely academic at this point but I still wouldn't mind knowing.

That looks perfect Grim.

And yes coat wall in PVA then lay a sheet of TP onm and I usually paste over the top, but mine usually looks a mess. I get a cocktail stick and drag some bits around to make it look worn...


One example.
I have also soaked Kitchen roll and spread it back out and hung it, even as far as cutting it into strips to make anaglipta (blown vinyl) style paper.


How did you do yours? looks spot on.

That's cool, may do that for the interior of some of the mars attacks buildings.

Mine was dead simple. I put dap crackshot Spackle on the walls nice and thin with the big brush, and more or less stippled it with a smaller brush. I buried the hinges in the Spackle and we'll see if it holds up or not. Will hot glue them if I need to.

Ok... I need door handles for my two cabin doors. Small, plain, simple. I dunno if I'm up to carving them out of sprue... but something cheap and easy. I'd like to spray this thing tomorrow but I would also like to have it properly finished first too.

Thoughts?

Couple of round beads doesn't mater if they have a hole, its for the key!

Or if you have some form of small rod, even a cocktail stick, try this...


Please excuse me putting pics in your blog, easier to show than spell out.

Maybe a thick staple if you have any? The sort out of a staple gun would be heavy enough. Or a bent paper clip?

Pic are fine Cam So short rod glued narrow end to door and longer one glued lengthwise to that. Bead thing may also work too.

Archer..thats a thought.

Alright here are the firs three models of february:


Simple and basic, I have several more of each of these to do when I get bored. My freehand is abysmal but practice makes perfect as they say..


Finally got the cabin primed, thanks to everyone who fielded suggestions and comments. Looking forward to painting it! Also make a triangular tank trap, stole the idea from the internets.


This is what I'm thinking of doing for my 20th century battlezones buildings. It needs cleaned up and the mortar done to the other side but this gives you an idea of what I'm thinking. Black glass (will add reflection/glare/whatever before it's done) with red brick (and one or two brown brick probably), and in this case grey trim. The orange will be the backing for a sign, either printed or maybe I'll get some of those teeny scrap-booking lettering stickers. Anyway, basic test run, and I think I'm cool with it.


In other news, a complete bastard (who will remain nameless, but YOU know who you are... ) just had to show me the GW 'Start Collecting!' sets. I decided they were neat but not for me until I saw the Tau one. The number of models is higher (drones) and I've always liked the Tau aesthetic. They may or may not fit into the 40k universe, but they look neat in a vacuum. Three battle suits (just enough without being too much) 10 fire warriors (same) 8 or so drones (which are kinda neat in general) and a leader who I've not seen on offer elsewhere (though I could be wrong) for msrp $85, when if you bought the closest equivalents to those from the GW shop you'd spend $140 ish. So a decent sale from GW. Can get it shipped on eBay for like $75 too. Considering it... maybe.

Those signs are neat, and the cabin in looking fantastic!

THe Start Collecting sets are great value, the Tau one is only slightly more than just the suits on their own and you get the new Fire Warriors and Etheral for a few dollars more. I've got my eye on the AdMech one, just as soon as Knight hurry up and let me buy Avengers and X-men!

Thanks Para. The signs are simple enough to paint, though I'll be choosing a different green for consistency reasons for future signs. I'm hoping the paintwork on the cabin turns out well. I'm not really planning to splurge in terms of technique so I'm counting on the paint and material to do a lot of the work and I dunno how the matboard and wooden sticks will wear the paint. Interested to see though!

The Tau set seems really solid and I kind of like their aesthetic. Doesn't really fit in with 40k so well, but as generic setting aliens, they're pretty cool. We'll see, this isn't the time of year I usually spend a lot of money on miniatures but I've stuck a pin in it, as they say.

I may get an Avengers team. Especially if the models find their way to MM with a healthy discount. Probably still a low priority since they model scale doesn't play well with most of my other figures. The scenery... since the cars are slightly oversized.. will work better. If they pop up half price on a DotD though, definitely won't be able to resist


Sigh. These forums seem downright inhospitable sometimes. Well outside of the paint and modeling subforms, you guys are all champs. News and rumors/kickstarter pages, don't get me started on all of the crap 40k fans argue about... I think I'll be hanging out in the P&M solely for awhile.

Tau are pretty neat-- they are the only 40K models not slathered in skulls, in addition to having a cool, SF look about them. I had a pretty big, if mostly unpainted, Tau force that I sold off a couple of years ago. I really regret doing so, as I do with every model I sell.

Was there something specific in the forums that got you down?

Also, the Mars Attacks street scenery looks nice. I'm not sure what I want to do for my March Challenge; maybe I'll make it a month of terrain...

Any tips on that mortar technique?

Sorry bro.

Yes the tau set have tempted me as well. Need to find non 40k rules to use then with if I am to buy them though. The start collecting sets seem good value which is a surprise from gw but having to buy a rulebook and codex would remove that value for me.


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Sorry bro.

Yes the tau set have tempted me as well. Need to find non 40k rules to use then with if I am to buy them though. The start collecting sets seem good value which is a surprise from gw but having to buy a rulebook and codex would remove that value for me.

I stay well away from the rest of the forums most of the time. I just doesn't sit well with what I am trying to get out of the hobby. Especially YMDC shudder.....

@masterslowpoke all I did was prime the building in red (rattle can red is preferable to airbrush or hand brush, although applying a coat of sealer after doing those would make them just as durable) and slather some DAP crackshot (basically whichever drywall repair/spackle/whatever you prefer, I think I picked this one cause it dries fast) on the bricks and scrape it away with something straight and flat like a bit of plasticard, old credit card, cardboard, whatever. This won't get it perfect, you'll need to use your finger or a paper towel or something to get any film remaining on the bricks. Careful on that last step because you can dig 'mortar' out of the dips and make more mess than you're fixing After it dried/cured/set, I hit it with an uneven watered down black wash. The last step is not necessary, but my choice of spackle is pretty white and toning it down seemed appropriate. Applying the wash a bit unevenly and getting some spots darker just turns that last step into some amateur hour free weathering

If I walk into a gamestore in the next week or two and see those Tau... would probably buy them. If it comes to a premeditated cold blooded purchase... I can probably hold off doing so for awhile. We'll see, the Wife is planning on taking me out of town for my birthday here in a week or so and there happens to be a store where we're going. Almost never has anything I want, though 40k stuff is one of their mainstream products.

Gonna see about doing some scenery or orclings today.

nice work on the house!

did you use actual stucco?

Thanks! Not so much stucco as spackling paste. I don't think they're terribly far removed from each other though

Aha! Spackle for miniature buildings!

Work in progress.


More coats down. What should I do with chimney. I would have defaulted to the grey I used on the walls...but I used it on the walls. Roof shingles will be dark grey. I could do some kind of redbrick but the bricks are much too large to be regular bricks. Could do some kind of fancy stonework pattern with 2-4 shades of tan/brown (or greys). Could just do a lighter grey than the walls. I'm leaning towards the light grey for expediency but I dunno. What say you folks?


Oh here's this:


This is what the contents of that mars attacks 3 building scenery pack look like. There are extra clips from the previous project (I've got a lot of unassembled ruined pieces floating around yet, and bought 4 packs of extras (one of which is in the pile there).

I should have enough to make the three pictured buildings, and then one (possibly) even larger building from the spares I'll save by doing custom roofs. I may make that into a small factory/warehouse with catwalks around the second floor, so I can just do a regular removable roof. Catwalks courtesy of the scifi battlezones scenery pile .

Make it granite. Paint it dark grey, then sponge on a couple lighter shades, maybe a hint of brown or blue, finish with light grey.

Or sandstone, same but with stripes and red/brown not grey.

Or marble, bit rough hewn for marble but could be done.

Must steal storage idea for the battlezone pieces. Definitely feeling more like the cabin from Evil Dead: Amy of Darkness.

I made one for deadzone back in the day too. It works for a lot of stuff, I have my battle systems bits and pieces in one. Just hotglue strips of cardboard into a larger box.

Nothing wrong with evil dead cabin, I can do evil dead cabin. I suppose I could have made rooms instead of one big open space but I wanted it kinda simple.

I agree that your terrain box is a great idea. I have so many battlezones on sprue taking up space, but the thought of cutting them all off the sprues terrifies me. Having a sorting system would solve a lot of that. How about making one for me?

Yes, and then I'll just ship the empty box to Japan right

I think sandstone for the chimney. Make it a real feature of the room since we would all be huddled around it in the cold depths of whatever wood that cabin is going to end up in.

 GrimDork wrote:
Yes, and then I'll just ship the empty box to Japan right

Make one for him, take a photo of it, and then post it here with a note: "Stop by any time to pick it up!"

--Brian, helping

 GrimDork wrote:
Yes, and then I'll just ship the empty box to Japan right

If sending it empty bothers you, you can fill it with battlezones or something.

Brick reds for the chimney. It would contrast well with the walls, which, at least in the photos have some blue tones (which could be the lighting or something...)

That terrain box reminds me of the boxes that deck building games sometimes come with. Very cool.

Really like what you're doing with the terrain/scenery. That building with the lipped roof for cover looks great.

EDC

Thanks guys, here's where the cabin is now:





So as you can see I've gone for a kind of mixed color sandstone style chimney, even though you usually don't get such straight blocks/bricks of it... they *do* get cut that way sometimes. Windows work, doors work. Roof comes off... I'd say we're good. I'm gonna dip the whole thing probably. Some of the white that shows through is gonna have to get fixed by the dip or be there forever, my brushes and regular paint just aren't penetrating that far down. I think it's ready for dip. Almost there.

As the LoER competition ends March 3rd I have a few weeks of wiggle room. I'd like to try and push this over the top, or at least add some more scenery to go with it. The comp is about recycling, so reusing found/household items for terrain instead of their usual purpose. So far all I've included that I feel meets that criteria are the windows (from heroclix packaging), and maybe the chimney as it originally entered service as part of a portable game board. Maybe the door handles, I dunno. Anyway. I could make furniture but... meh I have so much dungeon saga stuff I could easily add and that would work well for both outdated furniture in a modern setting, and as fantasy furniture.

Not sure what else to make. I could make a small board 2-4ft square in size, adding some basic hill/rocks/trees...*might* have time for that...I'd like to do a water feature but they usually involve expensive materials, at least the ones that look nice. A stone-ringed trash/burn pile would be easy and appropriate near a cabin...not sure there's any house in the woods that doesn't have somewhere to burn sticks, branches, and leaves. Just not sure.

I could do a shed and or outhouse, but I'm not sure if I have enough time to finish many more buildings, I've still got Orc stuff to paint this month.

Chimney looks fantastic. Love the colours.

Maybe a well out the back? Definitely a couple of groups of trees.

Looking good. The cabin is made of some kind of stiff cardboard, right? Does it take the urethane dip without warping?

I've used sandstone in those colors for work but not in those shapes or for a chimney. Made sense enough to use them here.

You know... A well would be nice Archer. I have 3 from dungeon saga but I could make a nice big one for this... Good idea.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's strips of thin cardboard glued to sheets of the same, the floors corners and roof are wood. It's thinner than corrugated but its much thicker than cereal box chipboard. Maybe 1mm thick. Curing crackshot does warp two layers slightly but I think it's doing ok with the dip


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Cabin photos. Needs matte seal.

Quite the cabin for a zombie fight!

The action shots show it off fantastically. Had come up an absolute treat. The scale looks perfect as well.

great use of the Dungeon Saga stuff . The cabin looks great, now you need a crawler coming out of the fireplace and greenstuff some flames

So I dinged 30 today (you may have to have played everquest for that to make sense...not sure DING ## even survived to other MMOs honestly) and the wife took me out of town for lunch and some light shopping. I gave in to my whims of the last few days and between the wife and some other birthday funds I came home with:


Whoops!

The two technical paints are needed replacements/backups, and the leadbelcher is going to replace my dwindling boltgun so I can finish the orcs and other legacy projects (almost all scifi uses not-metallic colors for their traditionally metal parts.

The Tau... I have no idea. I guess I always kind of liked them but my primary 40k opponent had them as his second army and when your total player pool is like 2-4 guys...you tend to not play the same armies just for everyone's sake The Start Collecting! deal was pretty solid (not Seraphon/Lizardmen solid, but still) and had a nice smattering of the Tau units that I like. I may just paint up the box and be done, I may collect a couple more units before it's over... I doubt I'll ever get anything approaching a proper game sized force of Tau, and that's fine. I don't really wanna buy the codex or new rulebook anyway! I'll probably assemble these guys mostly codex legal, maybe no the right number of types of guns..probably heavily magnetize the crisis suits as at $25 a pop I doubt I'll be buying m/any more! The Ethereal...never really liked them and it's kind of a harder to get item so I may just ebay it for $15-20 bucks, scrape a few more dollars into the war chest.

I'll probably paint those guys kind of like the box art... dirty/worn white. Using my methods instead of theirs (because I'd fail if I tried to do it their way), and maybe with a different off-color. Gonna prime some old space marines white to get a feel for how I want to finish the white on the Tau stuff.

I could see myself getting select other Tau units. The Riptide is a whole lot of kit even if it does cost $85...I'd say you're getting a better deal than on that stormsurge thing for a hundred and fitty (WOAH). The Ghostkeel, however, is probably the one I'd get. Even though it looks considerably smaller than the riptide, and with only a 10 dollar difference in it's favor... it still looks way cooler to me. I could also see getting some of the newer bulkier stealth suits (but just like, three), and maybe a Devilfish transport to 'complete the look' of the force. That way everything would be in a suit or have a vehicle.

Anyhoo, not sure when I'll get to these guys. I want to perfect the white scheme before I start, though that doesn't mean I can't start assembling sooner... And I still plan to finish my scenery for the LoER comp and continue my unit-a-month for Azazelx's tale of painters challenge.

Any additional birthday funds will be diverted to the warchest and saved for "Important Hobby Expenditures". No fething kickstarters this time. I will probably want a kit or three from Warlord Games when Project Z hits the shelves, and if I actually get this Tau stuff done, I may allow myself to get more.

DZ2 should be shipping next month (in theory), so I'm gonna have a lot of that to deal with too. Having the tau at least started would help ensure that they get done and end up on the pride pile instead of in the shame drawer. It comes to mind that the Tau will be similarly numerous to the Veermyn and Enforcers (well, I have a lot more enforcers but only the will to handle so many at a time). This will make them good sparring partners, if Firefight works out or I can find another 20-50 model size game for them. The space dwarfs I ordered will probably outnumber them all...eep. Tragic decisions of my youth (see what I did there?)...

Congrats on leveling up!

I'd say more about he cabin and stuff, but since we're doing the EQ thing...


/y grats

I've been looking at that Tau box myself. And I do like their new white scheme over the old yellow color they used.

Also, happy birthday!

I don't even remember 30

Congrats sir, nice birthday loot as well.

Thanks guys

I like the white much better than the orange. So much so that I intend to emulate it.

So I clipped all the bits for the fire warriors and crisis suits out. Leaving the ethereal alone for now since he's not my favorite but is kind of hard to get a hold of. If I could sell him for 20 bucks on eBay and net at least $15 after fees and shipping, would be a nice little deposit into the war chest.

Thoughts on the sprues? Sure. I am really impressed with the vast array of options, there are a lot for both kits. I'm a little sad that they though it was a good idea to include 26 heads for 10 guys but couldn't make room for enough torsos to go with the 12 legs to make 12 guys. I guess they figured they didn't ha e room enough to add 2 more of each gun so as to include full options for each type...but now I just gotta find two more equivalent torsos in my bits box.

The fire warriors have inset lettering to describe which sets of arms match each other which is amazing. Doing it on the sprue is good, hidden in the arms though? That's brilliant. There are several holstered pistols, strips of grenades, one each of the three gun types that's loose, and a few other bits and bobs. Since I'm planning to build these guys like a skirmish force, the added individuality will be great.

The crisis suits have a lot of sweet guns and extra bits. I like the extra up armored bits for making the experimental iridium class suit. I'm going to have three points of articulation and 3-4 hard points per suit depending how many slots they have on their backs. The arms will ball joint at the shoulder, and the heads will too. The arm mounted guns and back slots will be magnetized too. I plan to have them all standing as I prefer that look, I think. Probably. Much sturdier.

The main complaints I'd have for the kits are now jam-packed the bits are... Hard to get clippers into a lot of places for clean cuts. Will have more nubs to trim off than usual. The drone antennae are weak, it was a real task to get them off safely and at least two are broken. Minor issues though.

Looking forward to these Tau, they've always struck me as a force that lacks a certain something in terms of character/personality, but if you're aiming to make these more individual then I eagerly await the results. I'd be interested to see just what these new kits can do, the newer SM plastics are a converter's dream so it'll be interesting to see if the Tau compare.

Cabin looks superb!

Thanks

I can't decide if I want them all helmeted or not. If any soldiers go helmetless I may consider the ethereal. I may also see about giving him warrior arms and a helmet, using him as more like a ceremonially dressed firewarrior boss.

Am very interested to see how your Tau turn out. It is good that a GW product has actually tempted you, cannot remember the last GW models that you tackled.
Interesting idea on the ethereal/fire warrior boss conversion, should be fun.

Took a quick inventory of the box. I thought I had enough parts to double up on firewarriors if I just got some more legs and torsos, but turns out there are only 16 bracing arms to go with 30 guns. So probably not worth making a bits order if I have to add in spare off-hands too.

Ahh hah, continuing my tradition to more or less talk to myself while making a post... I found out that the eBay bits seller I was considering offers torsos for just 1 dollar. Probably 4 bucks to ship anything but a plan forms... 16 arms is more than the 10 that I have, and having looked them up there's at least one pose of legs that sell for a buck a pop too.

So now I would buy 5 more torsos, and 3 more legs. I would be able to construct 5 more guys. I totally have enough arms to do this


Also just discovered Pathfinders. They're like lighter armored firewarriors with the carbines instead of the longer (or shorter) ranged guns, and they get some cool/unique drone options. The really nice part? They're $35 for 10 instead of $50 for the fire warrior box. I'm assuming this is just a price hike that hasn't been passed yet, it could also have something to do with the fact that the pathfinders probably don't have 3 weapon options to feed and take up space on the sprues. Regardless, a single box would yield 10 more dudes to add to the 10 or possibly 15 fire warriors I'll have.

Just thinking out loud here... damn Tau.

Pathfinders came out a couple of years back, so yeah, they were initially more expensive than FW but the new FW kit leapfrogged them and they're now the cheaper option. That's GW for you.

The Pathfinder set does have a lot of bits, though, and perhaps most usefully for you, some infantry-portable heavy weapons, which I don't believe FW have in 40k but that would be handy for generic sci-fi gaming.

Yeah that's what I was thinking, nice dressing for skirmishy models. Gotta find a kit or two that's reasonably priced on amazon now, got some gift cards.

As I was going to say before before we got distracted by your levelling up - that cabin has turned out really, really nicely. Do you plan to do some more buildings in the same style? Another cabin? Shed? An open Woodshed? Outhouse?

Thanks! Ic thought a shed and outhouse would do well in a set with it. Another cabin on the same board is *awfully* close for the distance cabins usually enjoy between eachother. Maybe on a 4x8 or at a campground, but I figure this is a lonely cabin in the woods. So other accessories may be a burn pile, a nice big well, a good stock of wood near the house for the fireplace, etc. I was thinking of stretching it all out to fill a 2x2 or possibly even a 4x4' board, with extra features.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hmm. I forgot gue'vesa were a thing. Humans that joined the Tau empire. Got some guardsmen..maybe some armswaps and bitsprinkles and I'll have a few more skirmish level Tau support.

Your human survivors could also join the fold as they are just huimans on worlds where the Tau show up and say were in charge now and the recreationalists (tennis player, golfer, and outdoors man} say FU to the Emperor and decide living in the Greater Good has merits such as being able to not dress all grimdark all the time.

Ahh bit then you run into the scale difference..

Grats on the Ding. I know my group of friends still use that term in other games, including table-top RPGs. On the topic of EQ, what sever did you play on? I was on Erolisi Marr (probably spelled wrong, been a while.

Cabin look cool. With the roof off and being able to see into the chimney I kinda hoped to see a zombie stuck in there.

I always like the look of the Tau myself. Rules have always bugged me a bit though. That and the fact that they will always be the New Guys, and felt tacked onto the setting.

I figured it was relatively pervasive but I wasn't sure I have no idea what server, it was back in college which is like... well not quite ten years ago but it's getting frighteningly close. Community college days even. Playing on some kind of wonky Verizon aircard thing that was too expensive but the only way to get non-dialup at the parents house (well then, now they've got cable yay). Played a Gnome wizard named Seebo TheMerciless (yay for second names in an RPG lol). Only ever got to like 55, playing that game alone was rough and grouping was not nearly as streamlined as it was in WoW and similar.

Haha, nah I want to keep the cabin viable for fantasy and modern both so I left it a little bland/neutral.

The move shoot move away thing always seemed a little unfair lol. I know other units got it later but still. I don't intend to use them for 40k or even necessarily with other 40k models most of the time, so their aesthetic works quite well for yet another alien race in my expanded scifi universe They do seem to be the odd race out for 40k though.

You could always add futuristic props for tha cabin if you wish to use it for modern/sci-fi games, removable pieces that is

Yeah cabin can be a ln old throwback in the future too. Benefit of leaving it a bit plain.

First 5/13 Tau fire warriors:



Breacher team with pulse...something...blasters? Tau shotguns more or less. They also got double blast shield shoulder things because they'll be up close and personal.

Dammit, Grim, don't make be buy Tau! Stop making them look awesome and individual!

 Paradigm wrote:
Dammit, Grim, don't make be buy Tau! Stop making them look awesome and individual!

Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated. I mean, Join the greater good; we have cookies!
Heretical xenos cookies

Nice looking Tau there.

Thanks guys I'm hoping I can come up with a nice gritty white for them. If I can decide what color white armor would be under the paint... may invest in some chipping too.

Pulse rifle dudes. 3 carbine dudes to go.

Yup, Tau still look cool. What are those little dimples in the middle of their bases?

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Yup, Tau still look cool. What are those little dimples in the middle of their bases?

Just part of the casting process I expect. A lot of GW bases have em.

Apparently they're gakky new GW bases Josh. If be mad if I wasn't gonna rebase to clears like always. Probably cheaper to produce with the injection point centered like that.


Here's the whole team sans a couple of drones.

Huh. I guess the whole gets filled in when you apply Citadel Sand using Citadel White Glue spread with a Citadel Toothpick. I wonder if the old mold broke, like the old Land Raider did.

Could be, could be.

The new bases use a "hot tip" means they don't need a sprue or runner system this saving material and a little time. Sorry the tool maker in me couldn't resist. It's expensive to make the tool with one, but will pay itself off pretty quickly.

Cool thanks for the clarification. I figured that, if anything, it was done to cut costs. Definitely inferior to the classic bases, though I don't use them so its not s big deal to me.

Herer I thought they came out around the time of the Nipple armor and they were just making scenic bases to go with it.

Bwahaha.

Included below is the first shot you'll get of the crisis suits. Magnets are involved. More on that later. Just need to do 8 drones and the second batch of crisis suit guns and I'll have the set built save for the ethereal.

Back to Pokemon platinum light, some kind of hack/mod that adds newer stuff to the GBA version of the game. Supposedly good.

I am not seeing any crisis goodness. Am I missing the hidden images.

 Archer wrote:
I am not seeing any crisis goodness. Am I missing the hidden images.

Those pictures are actually stealth suits.

I’m not seeing the crisis suits either.

=\

 Nevelon wrote:

 Archer wrote:
I am not seeing any crisis goodness. Am I missing the hidden images.

Those pictures are actually stealth suits.

I’m not seeing the crisis suits either.

I thought something smelled fishy.

Meep.

Stealth suits are totally a thing I want.

And the slippery slope continues...

Many things built. Great progress.

The cabin looks great btw.

EDC

Yep, somebody greased the rails on this one Nev. I think there's a hard cap as I only like so much of the range but that doesn't necessarily mean its a low or cheap cap

Lets see... I like...
Stealth suits (I like them, dunno, just do)
Pathfinders
Devilfish (hammer head need not apply)
Broadside (but just one, and only maybe)
Suit Commander (bigger flashier crisis suit, but he's expensive so I may wait/never get it)
Ghostkeel (it's like a giant stealth suit, I love this guy!)
Riptide (maybe... I honestly don't know if I have anything else in my collection this big that would necessitate the Tau needing such a heavy response)
That... may be it. No storm surge, taunaur supremacy armor, probably no forge world suits at all. No Kroot. Maybe on their own they're ok... but I don't like them with Tau. Or Vespids. Piranhas are ok but they're almost as much as Devilfishies so yeah... not unless I see one dirt cheap. No duplication, save maybe a start collecting set some day in the far future (but probably not), or maybe a second set of stealth suits (but again in the deep future and only if I like them in person as much as I do from afar). Probably some other stuff I don't care for, but basically if it's not on the list above I'm not interested. Most likely. The Tau scenery is neat but too costly, may be a fun challenge to replicate though.


Thanks EDC, I need to add a few touches to that cabin yet...and get back painting.


Aaaand not a day or two back into the sections of the forums that aren't painting and modeling and I've been labeled a troll. Bwahahah, feth the internet lol.

Back to Pokemon, it's simple but fun

 GrimDork wrote:
Yep, somebody greased the rails on this one Nev. I think there's a hard cap as I only like so much of the range but that doesn't necessarily mean its a low or cheap cap

Thanks EDC, I need to add a few touches to that cabin yet...and get back painting.


Aaaand not a day or two back into the sections of the forums that aren't painting and modeling and I've been labeled a troll. Bwahahah, feth the internet lol.

Back to Pokemon, it's simple but fun

Really? Which forums did you visit? I try to avoid any of the GW-specific forums, but only because of lack of interest.

News and rumors (not much better than the 40k/general discussion lol). I'm honestly not sure if the guy was having a bad day or is just new to the internet or something, but I'm not here to blab about things that aren't worth the time it takes to mention them

GW gets pretty heated though it's usually because people are pretty passionate about those lines for better or worse. YMDC can get downright stupid, as can the various general discussion threads but it usually depends on the subject matter of the topic.

Looking forward to seeing some paint on those tau grim. Got the colour scheme down yet?

New Tau look pretty sweet. I got a "Start Collecting" box and have one of the old Battalion Boxes, but I guess I'll need more than than to run a theoretical army. For now, I'll be content to watch yours.

Sorry for showing you the box grim...not really. I may pick one up later in the year if get through other stuff.

You jumping upon the marvel train mate

A troll? You must be one of the easiest going, laid back members on the forums. How odd. Nice to see some Tau progress. I am with you on the Ghostkeel, it is an amazing model.

@Az/Grim: I went to my local GW today (well yesterday now) and all of the Start Collecting boxes were enticing me. Another good move in the recent GW move towards logical business acumen?

Seems like it. Most of their other sets/formations seem to still be full price/no discount, but the starter sets are pretty spiffy.

Let's see, thanks for the feedback folks, keeps this more fun than soloing the hobby all awone.

Carlos, scheme is mostly decided, I've got three brave testmarines to figure out how I actually wanna execute the scheme. Work on those ASAP.

I need to hear more about the Marvel game before I dive in. Seems neat though. With as much heroclix as the locals seem to play, may be a reasonable game to convert them to, just use their clix to start. The figures are awful high but we'll see.

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
A troll? You must be one of the easiest going, laid back members on the forums. How odd. Nice to see some Tau progress. I am with you on the Ghostkeel, it is an amazing model.

@Az/Grim: I went to my local GW today (well yesterday now) and all of the Start Collecting boxes were enticing me. Another good move in the recent GW move towards logical business acumen?

I buckled and ordered another one this evening. Khorne Daemons. I'm also sadly tempted by the Space Wolves one and the Lord Heldrath's Chaos Deathtide box. I also want to get another Skitarii and maybe 2 more Tau... <---Sucker

The starter boxes are better deals then most, and more importantly a lower cost. It’s nice that we don’t need to spend $150+ just to get a decent bargain. Generally the GW deals that come in a box give a discount. Often a good one. But if you just look online, they hide among the one-click, zero-saveings “deals”. I still think "Caveat Emptor” is something that should be on the back banner of a Space Marine. It’s real latin, rather then GW’s fake high-gothic faux latin, and sums up GW nicely.

While Dakka is generally a civilized place, particularly the Painting section, don’t forget that we are still on the internet here.

Looking forward to seeing some paint on those Tau.

Is it me, or did they bulk uop fire warriors somewhat? I still have an army in a box of the original runs stuff plus some of the FW add ons, not the XV-9s or such.My Broadsides would be small by present standards

 shasolenzabi wrote:
Is it me, or did they bulk uop fire warriors somewhat? I still have an army in a box of the original runs stuff plus some of the FW add ons, not the XV-9s or such.My Broadsides would be small by present standards

Yep. Can now be built in 2 ways- Tau Fire Warrior Strike team (pulse rifles) or Breacher teams (pulse shotguns/pistols). Plus they get a diddy little support turret that they can deploy for some missile firepower.

I double shoulder padded my breacher guys too, which makes them look a bit hulkier.


Also my minwax dried up :( I couldn't find any in town so I ordered some more but its a couple of weeks out. Checking my hyperbole at the door... still fees like a long time after being used to 2 day guaranteed Prime shipping.

I may just wash my orcling base with brown ink so I can still finish those, but basically everything else including the Tau Colorscheme Test is on hold. I'll dig up some figures that look like they'll do well with a blackwash and work from there. Le sigh.

Ok so I messed around with my test marines as I'll be waiting to get my dip for awhile. The grey on the legs isn't necessarily what I'd do for marines, I just wanted to have some sample grey to see how the changes would show on some Tau (who would have grey cloth etc). Came up with these:


Forgive the harsh light, here's not quite so green in person. It really is closer to a light blue than some kind of aqua, but it isn't like straight blue either. I think I want to paint *something* this color. I dunno if it works for marines or if I think it would work for Tau either. But I do really like how it looks and it was easy. I think it would need to be scuffed up and dirty though, even with the acrylic medium the wash/glaze still dried a little less smooth than an airbrush woulda done.


So this really could be a marines color scheme. I know how to paint clean white, I just really don't want to. This may be a little dirty for the tau (and again, color balance is a bit off here... it's more brown in person than it looks, not very, just a touch) but I kind of like it. Orange could easily be blue or red or yellow, and not necessarily the same per unit. Anyway it's white with a brown wash/glaze and then some nastiness worked in. White on the edges and in some scuffs and such, where the grime has been worn 'clean' by the armor being rammed into yet more hazards. Then add some scratches and bullet chips that went down past the paint, leaving a white area surrounding the metallic bare metal. Some may get black in the center if they were actually punctured fully. Also note that the chipping is not finished here, just a few sparse examples. I'd probably hit this with that smog/grey weathering stuff too, especially around the feet and high traffic areas.

The second one may be a touch grimy for Tau but I dunno... I kind of see my guys as an advanced scouting force that's gotten isolated from the main body of their army. Within the 40k lore a warpstorm separating Tau could leave them stranded indefinitely (no psykers, no FTL... as far as I'm aware), or they could have gotten dumped into my generic sandbox universe away from most things 40k where they would still be cut off of supplies. I just am not in a place where I paint clean models right now. I think if I'm gonna do that I need to start on something that's just a single model, and I already have like 20something Tau

Almost got the Orclings done, I'll update later when I do!...May be a bit later than I thought. Tried out some 'scenic spray glue' I picked up the other day, but it's made the flock soggier than regular slightly watered down white glue would have. So I think it'll just take a little longer to dry. But pictures when I can.

Yay!

So those are done. And I've got something like 17 painted Orclings left so I'm gonna knock together another base. I may or may not need to paint some more to fill it out, though I have a feeling a couple of bushes or rocks would do the job. It's not super dense but it doesn't make sense to just stack them on top of each other. They were a bit of a rush job but I think they fit in with the other two units just fine.

Nice

Tau do have FTL but they can't do Warp jumps cause there's no psyker to navigate the Warp. Their FTL sort of skims on the Warp. Takes much longer to get around but there's less risk of being deaded by a big ugly daemon.

Nice work on the Snotlings, Grim! They look pretty damned good. The thing with Tau is that they look good in that middle ground between Marines and Guard. Kinda realistic, but a bit bright, but a bit more weathered than marines, but less than guard. So... I think that scheme would work for Tau.


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I almost thought you were painting Space Marines for a moment there!

Honestly, I think the best Tau are the ones in what was originally a nice, clean colour (be that grey, white, grey-blue, ochre) that has then had some weathering applied over it. This project might be a good one to play around with some sponge weathering if you've not done that before, it looks great in black over bright armour.

Those bases of Orclings look excellent, very, very characterful and the regiment basing really helps to set them apart.

I am with Para on Tau colour schemes, I think grey works really well as well as a greyey(probably not a word!) blue colour such as GW's Dark Reaper/Thunderhawk Blue.

Ahh, AoV I knew they were slower somehow. Thanks for confirming.

@Az I considered finishing those marines but dunno where I put their bolter arms or backpacks

Re: orcling comments, thanks

Re: Tau scheme... Honestly I just dint do clean ATM. Without more time to sit down and figure it out... Don't see it happening. I think the Tau wi get by being dirty in a way that would probably fail on eldar.

I may try one firewarrior like the white Marine and see what j think. Though being fair, doing one will greatly incline .e towards bulling through and finishing them that way even if not 100%

Been gone a bit, Tau are looking great, I never finished mine and wound up selling them because I couldn't get the color that did it for me, so I know your pain. I always liked the white with orange and black accent that Chapterhousestudios.com did with their giant walker, or even thought about doing a robotech skull squadron white with yellow and black trim (Roy Fokker ).

The white on the Space Marine looks great, I think it would work on White scars really well, especially with the red that you've chosen for the shoulder pads. I'll go dig out my Insignum Astartes book from the black library and see if there are any other white space marine chapters of note that you might like. Edit in a few.

Edit:





The little text blurb on the side talks about company and squad markings for the chapters. You mentioned doing a different color on the chest eagle, and some chapters do various colors on those as a way of showing which company the marine is from and then do a accent color on a knee pad or helmet stripe to show which squad. Other chapters have no color variations and just use numbering systems with company numbers on shoulderpads or the knee to display those markings. Of course you could alway make the "Rebranding" marines and go stark white everywhere. Their Chapter Master has died during the death of their home system and they are looking at relocating and getting a new image in the process. Because after all, who would want to have a chapter of space marines defending them that failed to protect the last galaxy from an Orc or Tyranid invasion. (Now I'm thinking of making them and writing "this space for rent" on their shoulderpads )

Oooh and NASCAR style tanks

The omega marines look cool. Reminds me of that classic star trek episode (something last battlefield...or something) involving a society destroying war between white/black people and black/white folks. The halving...is what I'm getting at lol. Huh, Omega Marines are basically described as loayalist little known. Basically a color scheme + blank slate. I shall ponder this...

RiP Roy. Don't make me cry Theo.

Fixed previous post as I had linked two of the same pics .

The best thing to do is either your own chapter from scratch, or a little known chapter. I tried the little known chapter twice....both times GW then released little snippets about them getting wiped out to a man . SO then I created my own chapter, and then got sidetracked by the Scythes of the emperor.

The orclings look great all bunched up like that. What size base are they on? There seems to be a lot of empty space around them on the movement tray.

Cool Orclings. The basing is great.

EDC

The orcling regiment base is 120x40mm, 3 40mm bases. The piles of orclings from dungeon saga just fit onto 25mm bases. I probably could have squeezed some more in but I didn't want to be breaking them off every time I wanted to remove the DS orclings.

Thanks for the comments, the orclings weren't my favorite to do but they're useful for the army and they fit right in.

@Theo, I have my own chapter but I've kinda lost interest in doing more, at least for now. I may have to copycat Paradigm and do a bunch of different marines from different chapters. They'd need some kind of common thread. Kind of like deathwatch but backwards, rather than have one shoulder pad to remind them where they came from, they'd just get one new shoulder pad to show they were all in the same club. But I'm not *too* worried about painting space marines atm.

Built some wee tiny furniture for my cabin, but not much else today.

Well Marine chapters that fight in a joint crusade usually have army badges that they wear on parts of their armor. Some will place them on the forearms, some on the greaves, or even on the helmet. You could duel purpose your marines and Tau once you paint up the Tau they can be the antagonists against multiple chapters of space marines. Have the marines from the different chapters all fighting in the crusade against the Tau''s next sphere of expansion similar to the Damocles Gulf Campaign. The symbol could be a fish with a spear through it .

Hah, that works. I think if I paint any more marines going forward its going to be like 5-20 guys per scheme tops. I can't get behind entire coherent armies of marines any more for whatever reason.

Did some little bits for the cabin, gonna paint a DS bookshelf to go on the empty wall and probably call it done.




I thought I had a lot of threats to my wallet this month but most of them have priced/quality/otherwise talked me out of them. No Mantic:TWD, no Project Z (maybe a box or two from MM but down the road, and only maybe), and no Deathwatch:whatever because $165 is too much for one thing at this point for me. May hunt the cult down on eBay after it's in the wild, if affordable.

So that's cool, save some money lol.


Second snotling unit soon. It's half done, but I realized that without the big DS bases taking up room that I'll need 6-10 more orclings to fill it out.

Orclings will be in route soon, sometime this week. I haven't gone down to my hobby space in weeks since we had water damage and moved everything around. Every time i look at the space i cry a bit (because of the mess really, no other reason) and then turn around and go upstairs because I just don't have the time to mess with it. I'll dig the Star wars stuff and orclings stuff out, I think I have them together on the desk for you and then hopefully tomorrow morning i can take them to the post office.

You really don't need to but if you do, I appreciate it . Did I get you the proper current address? Did I hear you say something about a katana?

Lme know if you need any bits yourself, certainly have a bucketful of them.

PM me your address again to be sure. Yes, there may be some Katana in their from the WGF Samurai sprues (as long as I can find them). I just found out we may be getting considerable snow tonight/tomorrow, I still hope to ship that stuff out soon though. soon as in soon and not SOON. Wouldn't want to infringe on any copyrights or IPs

Lol. Anytime it's convenient, doing me a favor I'm not gonna be pushy

If you're looking for katanas (or any samurai weaponry), you can get them from Dixon Miniatures. I picked up a bunch of stuff for a Space Marine project years ago, and I still find uses for them as bitz even now.

The prices seem fine but are there photos? My browser didn't seem to be loading any.

Hm. If you do a Google Image search for "dixon samurai no-dachi," you get a lot of images of Dixon models holding the weapons in question (also some photos from my Dakka gallery). Katana are pretty small for 28mm minis, so no-dachi would probably work better.

If that's not enough, I can put up some photos later after work.

In sure i can google it once the kids are down.

So I randomly discovered This is Not a Test after somehow missing it for awhile. Seems pretty neat. I got a little inspiration to do some converting (still need to get the rules but I'm waiting on a couple of kickstarters/projects, basically to confirm I won't be backing them etc) and this is the WIP of my first effort:




Which is pretty much a space marine with a lot of carving done, with a few extra eisenkern bits thrown in for good measure. I liked their rifle as it looks sturdy enough to survive the apocalypse but was still more sensibly sized than the bolter. I think if I do more of these I'll totally give a few WGF survivor guns, yes they'll be small and almost toylike, but just because they build giant meaty power armor hands...doesn't mean they made assault rifles bigger to go with them. Especially not if you're scavenging the guns.

So I like the gun alright, I like the trimmed down marine parts. It's a little sleek for fallout style apocalypse but it would get a really dinged up color scheme. I like the gas mask, different marine helmets would get different combinations of gas mask parts and some of them would go w/o helmets, though I would probably want to include the helmets on their person as it adds that little bit extra touch. Not sure about the power plant. I like the eisenkern firs aid kit bit as kind of a mini glowy reactor, but does the space marine exhaust port work? I could just put the glowey bit but it almost needs something else to help take up the back space. These guys would also get a bunch of ammo and pouches and what not to help add to that armored human look, as opposed to armored super human without need of kit.

Thoughts? Still pretty early in the design stage though I'm moderately pleased with the rough draft.

Looks brilliant. I was going to say smooth out those cuts on the helm. But to be honest. They add character. His helm is abit dented and worn. Kinda like that for the theme.

Only real thing is those shins. His lower legs look so far out they need some carving down.

You probably already got both those points as it is early WIP.

Like i say he looks brilliant. Gun looks right. Gas mask looks right. Good job on the pose. Great work.

Cool conversion. Space Marines bits with those smaller weapons actually look great. Makes you realise how big the bolters actually are.

EDC

Thanks guys. Hmm yeah he does have megaman legs cam. Fear I may mess it up but I think it's certainly worth a try trimming them down.

Got a break and made some hobby time, worked on finishing up two power armored Reclaimers for This is Not a Test. Ostensibly. I don't actually have the rules yet nor do I know if these guys are valid gear configurations. But they're meant to be post-apocalypse reclaimed/maintained power armor from before the fall.




Probably 70-90% modified space marine parts with some extensive shaving in certain areas, weapons from different ranges (eisenkern and tau guns), some eisenkern and wgf survivors pouches and canteens, and maybe one or two other bits or bobs. Tau backpacks looked about right to me. I think the helmet-less commander guy has an imperial guard head. I liked the yelling into the headset look of him.

I kind of like the regular PA trooper better, in some ways. He fits the theme a little better, with the gasmask helmet and a bit more kit, also a more subdued less OtT pospe. I did want the commander to be somewhat of a badass with a power fist and laser rifle, I just wish space marine legs weren't so squatty. He'd probably look better with assault marine running legs, and given that I'll probably only ever do half a dozen of these guys.. I may order some and switch him before paint.. we'll see.

Yeah so I remembered i had a single set of running legs.


I think it's much better.

The pared-down legs look much better. They would probably look good on regular, non-kitbashed Space Marinesas well.

Yeah. Megaman legs have their place. On megaman. That's about it.

I need to find some models in my collection to use for the light armored squires or seekers or scribes or whatever they're called. I think if I actually end up using these guys for this is not a test I'm gonna need at least as many of the lighter guys as the power armor dudes or the team would be badly outnumbered.

So I'm thinking about making some simple wooden garage style shelves to go in my game room primarily to hold terrain. Once I have a good place to put it, I wouldn't mind cranking out a bunch. Some scenery pieces are intricate and very detailed, a lot of it is pretty straight forward and just materializes when you think about it..if you've got somewhere to put it when you're done

Would you guys like to follow along as I source materials and try to build them (I am *no* carpenter, not even close) or just see the terrain sitting on them when they're done? I think I can get a nice rack of 4 24x96" shelves for possibly under 50 bucks. Maybe a little more, but probably not much. Still money in the war chest what with all of the kickstarters I've been avoiding so I think I may make a more mundane hobby investment.

Nice looking work on those guys. You just use wire for the cables?

I’d be interested in following a game-tangental carpentry project. I’m sure a lot of us out here could use some inspiration in organizing our hobby spaces.

Cool. I'll take a few photos. If the shelves work out and my confidence is rolling, I may make a tougher table than I currently have as well...someday.

The cables are more or less braided wire. Well, twisted, I can't braid anything.

Wouldn't mind seeing your shelving in progress. I have to rebuild my area as well.

Twisted cables look better than if they were braided.

If you don't want to make shelves, Consider these... http://www.target.com/p/adjustable-5-tier-wide-wire-shelving-unit-chrome-room-essentials/-/A-17156833#prodSlot=medium_1_24&term=wire+shelves Wait for a good sale though. I have a set for my pantry, on sale at ~$40, and I have been really tempted to get some for the hobby. Get' em with the casters too. Very convenient. and a thin piece of plywood or hardboard on top of the wire solves the worry about things falling through the wire. They also come in 3 shelf form too.

I've looked at and considered those. I think for a similar price I can knock together something almost twice as big from wood though, and it'll be good for me to do some junior carpentry. Remind myself that I'm no good at it

Caved and bought the This is Not a Test rulebook. Very nice. Wasn't a cheap PDF but it's pretty quality, especially for something that more or less has to be considered Indie.

Hit a snag already, my running power armored guy can't technically take three relics and his armor and weapons all count as one. I'm in between downgrading the rifle to a machine pistol and making his focus melee, or counting the fist as a regular melee weapon. I think in campaigns you can eventually have a larger allotment of relics.

Wow, just a bit of trimming really changes the look of those Marines. Very nice job. Can't wait to see how you paint them up.

I was impressed with how different they wound up looking as well. I've always considered the marine shoulders to be large enough without the massive shoulder pads, but with giant bolters and feet it makes sense. Cut down they're a little leaner and meaner, I'm pleasantly surprised with how they've come out.



Didn't have any black undercoat. I was thinking of doing a fallout3 brotherhood outcasts color scheme which is black with a lot of paint scraped and chipped off to the bare metal, with a couple of red lines... but now that they're undercoated white I wonder if they wouldn't also work like that. Really grimy nasty white, like that test marine but with even more wear. Then I was thinking in addition to the white, they could have a single grey stripe vertically down their armor, so basically in line with the nose of the helmet and down the middle of the chest and back. Kind of symbolic of white/good/prosperity then a divide/fall/badness and then back to the white/good/prosperity on the other end sort of symbolizing the mission statement right there on the power armor.

Two slight mods since that photo, I got the rulebook and determined that there's no way to start even the leader out with three pieces of ultra rare relics so I ditched the laser carbine and replaced it with a cheaper and more legal machine pistol. I also magnetized the leader because if you're gonna use magnets anywhere.. may as well be a 5-20 man skirmish game with a progressive campaign. The laser arm is magnetized to so he can always upgrade it back. I chose to give the other reclaimer a bayonet for his rifle because it's like having a light melee weapon out all the time, giving him a distinct advantage over someone who doesn't have a backup or doesn't want to waste the action point to swap to a spare. Looks cool too. I'm counting his rifle as having the large caliber upgrade which makes it a bit deadlier. It runs the same cost as an assault rifle now which can potentially dish out 3 attacks in a round, but the rifle has slightly longer range and hits harder with the upgrade. The AR can only shoot more than once if you sit still to do so, and I figure the added punch from single shots couples well with the bayonet to keep this reclaimer versatile on the move. He *can* also focus for an aim bonus instead of moving, and sometimes 20% accuracy is totally worth it.

These two are all the power armor I can fit into a starting warband, I only have just under 1/4 of the points left to fill with mooks. Can't decide who to use. They have next best thing to slave labor miners/diggers which could easily come from DBX convicts or WGF survivors, but I'd like at least one lightly armored seeker to represent fresh blood loyal to the cause. Maybe even a warpath corporation marine, I may have a spare laying around unassembled.

My principle TT/wargaming opponent may also be somewhat interested in the game as it would allow him to exploit his eclectic collection of minis, so I may actually get to play this one

I really like those Reclaimers you've converted up. Great use of SM bits.

EDC

The not Marines/BoS look very nice with the modifications.

Those guys are looking pretty great! I don't know the first thing about Fallout beyond 'there were some nukes that went BOOM', but aesthetically those guys definitely a) look good and b) don't look obviously Space Marine, so good job on both counts there!

Really like the power armour guys. You have managed to make them look far more grounded and sensibly scaled than Marines normally are.

I'm on the edge of buying TNT as well. I've just never played any fallout games, so the lure isn't as strong for me.

The shelves RedHarvest linked are the chrome versions of the ones I made a table out of. Or at least the base of the table, until we dismantled it and redid the storage area of our basement. The shelves are really nice, but you then have to lay something on each shelf as they are just wire tops. Not an issue if you are storing books or boxes on it, but if you are displaying figures it can be a pain. When my wifes great aunt passed away a few years back I inherited 4 cherrywood bookcases from her Condo. They hold a lot of stuff, wish I could get a few more like it though.

Thanks for the kind words everyone

Depending on the lowest price I can find for 2x4s I'll either be getting a steal building the shelves like I mentioned or I'll just barely be saving money. The two 8x4' sheets of OSD are only gonna be 20 bucks but I'm going to need nearly 20 2x4s. I was looking at the ones used for studs, dunno if there's a cheaper variant or if I can source a better price than at lowes, I don't really need amazing material for bearing heavy loads or anything.

Alright my reclaimer Warband is now ready to be primed (a couple are but still) and then on to paint! Everyone will get names and backstory blurbs (not too much, on account of they will probably die permanently ), but for right now I'll just refer to them by their jobs.


Someone's got to do the digging and the two models on the outside flanks are called excavators, or diggers. Obviously the armored dudes are the Reclaimers with the running open faced guy as the Lord Reclaimer. The kneeling fellow is a seeker, a grunt/junior reclaimer.

That's all I could get for 400 barter scrip, the Power Armor and fancy gear got expensive quick, the poor miners could only afford weapons and those were on the short list of things to get rid of first to make points.

I've got models sources for raiders and peacekeepers (police/rangers basically) and the caravaners I'll probably make mostly out of WGF with some mods. For now I'm gonna focus on just the three I have models ready for, with the raiders coming next. I've got a 400bs list for them drawn up and models lined out for the most part. The lawmen are midway through list generation and most of their models are covered unless I pick something unusual.

The game will provide a lot of random hobby goodness if I manage to talk my primary opponent into getting into it... there are 10 types of freelancers (mercs) that can be hired/found in the wastes, and 30 or so types of critters the warbands may encounter (plus zombies/ghouls, but I've got that covered at this point). Add in some purpose-built terrain and hazardous condition markers/scenery and it'll be a lot of work to get through. Eventually. Over time. And only if it picks up. I'll paint the warbands for fun but if nobody else wants to play the game, the game aids will probably get left behind.

You're lucky you have a group you can talk into playing. Since there isn't really a scene around here, I'm pretty much stuck with immediate family.

It's an interesting group of figures you have there. Those WGF bits fit rather nicely on the Mantic figures. It looks like you're going for WYSIWYG, huh? I'm surprised you aren't using your infinity and Mantic stuff.

Well, I don't so much have a group. I have one guy and we manage to get together to play 1-3 times a month pending work and stuff. He's the one who got me playing Pulp Alley so I think this is pretty much up his alley tangentially.

With more time I may be able to convert some of the magic/heroclix players at the small yet apparently thriving fairly new game store in town...but I haven't got it.

I think the WGF/gcps marine mix looks a bit small, but hey, there are small people. I'm trying to WYSIWYG as much as I can, half the fun of converting them. Now, when it comes to upgrade time in a campaign...may just have to deal with sticking bits on the base or referencing the paper. Should that ever happen.

WGF survivors were the roughest/poorest looking figures I could find and that's what the diggers are: somewhat downtrodden manual labor, sometimes they're even press-ganged virtual slaves.

The next two warbands will be eating up a lot of DBX and Deadzone models, don't you worry

nice progress with these guys. I wish I had the time to develop a group to play with, I'm not spoiled for possible players with so many game stores near me.

Yeah, a campaign with at least 4 people would be nice, oh well. I'm sure other dude and I could always put together a couple of bands each.

Raiders are coming right along, photos later if I make more progress.

These kitbashes look pretty bloody nice. Let us know how TNT plays. I shouldn't be tempted by another ruleset since I've got oo much I already don't play, but still...

Thanks Az, though it may be awhile before I get the chance. I've sort of sold my opponent on trying it but we may as well finish the current pulp alley campaign book and at the rate of one *maybe* two games a month, that could take awhile yet.

These raiders are *close* but I don't want to rush them.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-70053-50535_Loer-recycle%20Of%20Life%20Final%20Gallery.html

Finished cabin, yay.

Very nice. Did you make those little chairs, or are they from some dungeon dressing set that I don't know about?

Yeah from scraps left over from a bag of random balsa bits, they were a pain and I do not intend to make more

Now I just need a couple of smaller out buildings and some woodsy stuff and I could have a convincing 2x2 or 3x3 woodlands area.

Cabin has come up really well. Would love to see a zombie survivor battle report. Everyone knows in a crisis a cabin in the woods is the place to hang.....

Great action shots in the cabin!

EDC

Thanks guys.

@Archer yeah, that's in the works but I probably need a few more woodland elements before it's worth doing.

Now for something a bit different from the cabin:


Reclaimers Warband


Raiders.

Haven't really decided on the fluff for everybody yet. Obviously with permadeath in campaigns I don't feel compelled to go into paragraphs per character

The angry excavator with power drill used to get by on her looks but she got older and had to find what work she could. Working for the reclaimers is tough but its keeping Lettie (well) fed.

The seeker in the back is a fairly new recruit to the Preservationists in general and this band of reclaimers in specific. Rogers worked the caravans as a guard for a time but was separated from his group and nearly died of exposure. Lord Reclaimer Grimms offered him a choice and the beleaguered wastelander took his chances for something better. Dedicated service has earned him the right to some pre-fall body armor and a weapon in decent repair. Maintaining this gear is one of the steps toward becoming a reclaimer himself one day.

Chuck has had a lot of jobs over the years, and for a wastelander he's getting on in them. His irritable nature and gruff attitude usually see him coasting on before more than a year has passed. Been that way for awhile, and Chuck doesn't much seem to care. He mumbles and grumbles while going about his work, using his cut-off saw to help the senior Reclaimers to clear excavation sites, or plying it's spinning blade at any foolish enough to imperil himself or his current employers.

Lord Reclaimer Grimm's title may be impressive to the uninformed, but what it ultimately amounts to is middle management within the Preserver's hierarchy. Grimms has autonomy and authority, but he also has a chain of command to which he must answer. He has earned his ancient power armor and laid claim to an actuated gauntlet found on one of his earlier excavation expeditions. Grimms is probably more at home in the (battle)field than in any friendly settlement, his thirst for achievement, notoriety, and rank keeping him restless. He is not a s ruthless as some Lord Reclaimers, and will only draft willing workers to be his diggers, and actively promotes the worthy into the seekers.

More later, I think the baby is waking up.

Looking really good so far, Grim. Keep it up.

Merci!

I hope to paint them soon. I consider the reclaimer armor as a test for Tau scheme etc . Raiders should be fun too.

Fun batch of minis there.

Like the TNT bands. I'm gonna start on my own soon. I assume you will be doing the KS on the 8th?

It is..possible. Depends on what they have on offer. I already have the PDF and while I like physical books my Tabtop makes reading the digital version pretty acceptable. If the physical book is the right price, or maybe if they have some new models on offer. Or if there's a competitive shipping/pricing on the peacekeepers they already have. I'm not expecting crazy value from such a small outfit, but given the size I'm also more willing to be generous with a pledge anyway...but they'll have to have something I want or *need*


Was at the local K-Mart and saw this pack of cars that I'd seen before. I had dismissed them in the first place because they are too large/toy-like to work for moderns. But then I looked at them thinking half-buried wrecked cars and covered-in-scrap-armored-plates trucks for the post apocalypse and I decided it was worth buying.

$7 for 10 vehicles, even if none of them are precisely the right size and they all look a bit like toys. Paint and conversion will help that somewhat.


The cars are too wide and scrunched to not look like toys if left alone. The SUVs and trucks are a little more believable, and I think if I go all Mad Max on them... they'll do ok.


Quick demo of the thought, I think if I buried the car a little further and added some junk in and around it... could pass well enough as scenery. Then I just have to extract the tires from the bottom half and I can start making tire piles

Are they plastic or metal? If they're metal, take a hammer to them, get some nice dents on them. Should help make the scale issues less noticeable if they're all beat up and there's no flat surfaces that'll look obviously out of scale.

They are plastic, very cheap and flimsy plastic which makes converting easy in it's own way. If I want fully junked/wrecked/pressed cars there's a method for casting them where you wrap a properly scaled vehicle with tinfoil and press until you get all the details right then carefully extract the original. Then you can crumple and dent the new tin-mold before adding your material of choice. I'm not sure if the mold survives the process as tinfoil is awful fragile at the best of times, but even if you had to make a new one it's pretty doable. Been meaning to try it.

I bought a couple cars from my local goodwill a week or two ago for 50 cents each. Not sure what to do with them but I was thinking along the same lines as you. Hopefully you can come up with something awesome and I can just steal that.

I don't have the PDF yet for TNT, as I have a hard time spending "real" money on digital items. I can do a dollar or two, but not 25. I would much rather spend 30 or 40 on a hardback, so I will probably just wait for the KS to ship before I get the rules. Doesn't mean I cant make a few models while waiting though.

I prefer buying physical goods usually.... but the book is really top notch, I'd put it over some of the recent mantic rulebook offerings. Lots of painted examples of things, solid art, haven't noticed m/any typos etc. If you're wanting to make something and need to know if there's a rules equivalent for it just ask I've got the book on all of my devices.

Alright here are the first 12 models of March, 11 orclings and a regiment base to allow for the completion of the second regiment of orclings. These guys put me at 12 models in March and 96 models for the year. Yes, there are over 40 orclings in that total, but consider that there are also 22 orcs (8 of which are on boars!) and 10 USARF infinity guys along with some other randomness... I think it's pretty fair. And a pretty strong start for the year. Of course, I'm not going for numbers this year exactly, but I'm certainly glad to have them.

Anyway:



Orcling Regiment #2. 28 orclings and their base. Honestly could probably pack more in but given the poses they have I didn't want to. If some of them were up on the shoulders of others or what have you... but I'm happy with the density here. Thanks for a mini supply drop from Theo, I should have enough orclings left to sprinkle along the other orc infantry bases as well!


Here's the two orcling units arranged in Horde formation. Not sure which is more desirable in the game, but I have both options now.


They don't look as good from the side (the way the units join is more obvious), but I think they work out well in any case.


And here are the orcish hordes so far, a nasty block of troops, fast hard hitting cavalry, and a couple of screens to help the main units get to combat. I think the force could use a leader to help it look more complete, if still small.

Thanks for looking

Good stuff! Yep, those Orcs need a boss, preferably something big, killy and with a suitably (or unsuitably, depending on how you look at it) large axe!

The Dungeon Saga orc boss is ready, he's a bit feral and doesn't closely match them but he's tough enough to boss them around. I'm also considering up-arming one of the boar riders and slapping him on the back of a Reaper Bones dragon turtle as a regular slasher.

4 days into the month and you've already done that many? I'm jealous. I'm really dragging my feet on my actual monthly challenge models. I've been working on other stuff, including the stretch goals.

Well remember they are done based on Azazelx's scheme of count them when they're finished so half of their painting was done in Feb. I may be done with tale of painters stuff for now, gotta do those bands and work some terrain and Infinity in... I've been pretty bad at avoiding the infinity DotDs... Did you see that you can now queue up mm orders w/o shipping them instantly so you can buy DotDs and hoard them till you hit free shipping? Very cool.

That's not a temptation I need. Lol. I managed to resist the Batroids for now. I really shouldn't be buying right now since my birthday is coming up. We'll ignore that FRP order I just made though. .

I really need to pick up the pace on my challenge stuff though since I'll be house sitting again later this month, and it's going to be at least a full week, so I really have less time to complete my challenge this month.

Ahh yeah, better get to it then!

Ok guys be brutally honest here, I'm no Paradigm so how is this dingy not-a-marine for you?





Remember he's for not-Fallout so dingy and scratched up is intentional but.. still pretty rough. Thoughts?

Overall, looks pretty good, just those eye lenses bud.

Very promising start though, nicely grubby and beat up.

Clean up those eyes.....!!

Yeah was rushing too much. They don't look soxbad from a distance but its on the things to do..

Still trying to decide if I like the dingy white or if I should switch to scuffed up black.

It almost looks like he has a wintrr camo on him. What I would suggest is using a sponge to apply the filth and grime. If you have any infinity blisters or boxes around, I would say to use the bits of foam from those to sponge on the dirt.

Also good advice. I like scratches but the ones I have are too thick, sponges are often pretty consistent.

I like the dingy white, although dingy light grey might work better.

Paradigm-approved weathering there, not that I can claim to be an expert! I'd second the sponge suggestion, and cleaning up the eyes, but as a proof of concept he's great. How about various armour colours, if you can't pick between black and white? Not familiar with Fallout, so I don't know if that steps on any fluff-toes, but it could look good!

Typically your fallout guys match but that doesn't mean mine have to as the fluff is not meant to match fallout.

Maybe mix/match will work. Thanks.

I quite like that dirty white armour, as others have said it has a nice winter camp feel.

Love the Orcling bases...they look so good together.

Thanks.

I'm trying to 'neaten' the first white armor guy, and I'm gonna use some different techniques on his boss.

I'm thinking that this is too dirty overall for the Tau so back to the drawing board there.

Hmmm...I meant camo rather than camp. Tau do seem like a bit of a pain to paint, it will be great to see what you come up with. The most endearing thing about your blog is the sheer variety of miniatures, terrain and game systems that you Showcase.

Stand up way to tell me I have no focus

Thanks also

You could look at some of the many "grime"-type washes out there to bring it all together?

He had a pretty gross wash already. I'm gonna see what I can work out for the boss and see if it's different/better enough to warrant repainting the minion.

Bit of scenery:

Bit more on the reclaimer guy, fixed some of the thickest scratches and added soot/dirt weathering stuff everywhere appropriate.

Well he definately looks dirty now!


Looking great bud. Looking at the scculpt it has a great balance now. Like it. Mmm should i go back and carve all my SM legs down!

He does, indeed, look suitably grimy. I wonder, though, if you might want to provide a stronger contrast on some of the accessories? At a distance, all the earth tones might just blend together into one blob of color. A darker brown on the pouches might offer more definition to the model. Just a thought...

Yeah that's possible. I finished the boss earlier and am happier with the result. Sponge and stippling I think generated a better look for the armor wear and I used water instead of acrylic medium with the brown wash which fainted the original white less. I didn't have to go as heavy with dirt/grim to compensate so it's mostly on the lower area.

Also finished the wrecked car, pretty happy to have 3 pieces done today though the last two are still airing out and the boss needs his base.

I think I'll need to further refine the technique but I'm considering the filthy white 2.0 for Tau again.

Got everything sealed and based. More and better photos when I can. Car piece needs a little scrub brush added too.


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Starting to wonder if my phone camera has some little micro smudges on the lens or something, photos just seem blurrier lately.

I like that wrecked car.

I'm pretty happy with it for the time involved. A few of those could pretty readily fill up a boring empty board corner.

Plus, even if I itemized the paint and materials the whole thing still probably weighs in at just a buck.

Nice terrain piece. Might have to swing by Kmart and shop smart .

There are two variants of the 'tube o cars' that I saw. Both had 5 cars like that one. One had five 'work trucks ' along the lines of utility/garbage/whatever trucks but they looked fairly off and unrealistic. I was gonna pass when a second look showed me the other set had the SUVs/Jeep's/what have you .

All of it's probably too big to use without modification but cutting the cars down like so seems to work. I think I'll go all madmax/ork trukk on a couple of the trucks with armor panels and the like.



Man... Genesteer cult would yield perfect models for a mutant warband heh...

Reclaimers are looking good. The car scenery works well too.

EDC

Looking very good. The sponge technique can do wonders. I think I would second the suggestion of picking out the equipment with a brighter color though. Maybe just use a deeper brown or something so that it stands out against his armor a bit more. Do you have any of GW's weathering technical paints? There's one called Typhus Corrosion that works very nicely for adding a mud effect. It's a slightly grainy, textured paint that gives a surprisingly nice muddy look. Stipple a bit of that on the model's feet and around the lower parts of the legs and you'll really build up the used look to the armor.

Yeah I slathered a bunch of typhus corrosion on the car. May give it a bit of a go, reinforce the grime that's already there.


Gonna see if I can steal a few moments to work on the rest of the gang today, but we'll see.

Did you see this imagefrom the front page? This guy's Tau seem to have a similar look to the one you have been talking about.

Those are nice. Looks like there's some kind of layering or successive drybrushing going on, not sure I could get myself to do that for a white-like color.

So I got the second half of my reclaimers warband done:





Dunno if I've shown these two from the back since they were finished.

So there you go, a 400/400 pt This is Not a Test Reclaimers warband. The new models are meant to represent a seeker in the middle (like an initiate/journeyman reclaimer, still kind of a grunt but a 'knight' in training) flanked by two Excavators (diggers) with some gnarly power tools (heavy weapons) and little else.

The colors on the diggers are a little samey but I wanted them to have kind of a uniform and I figured dying everything gross grey would achieve that and in lore it would be a color less likely to openly show all of the awful grime they plunge through to get to tech. I think I may need to go change the colors of the ball cap at least, give that particular digger some spot color. The seeker's colors kind of blend together too but so be it, it's largely an effect of the weathering and if that's what it did, I'm fine with it.

I dunno if I'll get time today, but I'll be starting the raiders soon so these dudes will have some opposition. While technically in lore/theme/whatever this raider group would have more against my band of Peacekeepers, they're all gonna be fighting eachother eventually

Excellent stuff, they've come out really nicely!

Nice looking gang!

Thanks guys, now they need some opposition and a place to fight. I'm scheming up a broken arcology dome as another piece, the dome has broken up nicely although I need to sort out a good way to mount it to a base so there's somewhere to put the broken glass and dead plants.

I like the chick. Is she from the war games factory survivor sprue?

Also, TNT KS starts this evening. I assume you already knew that and we'll see you there.

They look really good, Grimdork. I still think that Seeker turned out really good. I agree that just a little bit of spot color would look nice on them as well.

Have you shown the Raiders yet?

They look good mate. Very wasteland

Thanks guys

@Squall yeah she's from the WGF sprues same as the other digger (well different sprues...but you know what i mean, the survivors).

Looking forward to KS but still unsure as to if I'll back it or not. Just depends on how much the hard back will cost (considering I spent $25 already for the PDF). I could print the whole thing out in b/w for 20 bucks, or less if I just focused on the rules bits. More like 10. So we'll see, also depends on what else is offered.

Don't think I have Barzam, I'll come back with a shot in just a few minutes.

So maybe I did once.

Left--->Right: Brute with 2h weapon (poorly welded axe), Raider in scrap armor with shotgun and bayonet (well sort of), raider in scrap armor with assault rifle and bayonet, Wrecker (melee focused raider, same grunt tier) with metal armor and two handed weapon, Wrecker with two light melee weapons, Raider Warlord with power armor, actuated gauntlet, and large caliber machine pistol.

So much goodness. I really like the variety of minis you work with.

Thanks . I like the precision you bring to the table, some of your buildings may as well be architectural models . I can't cut straight to save my life

The reclaimed have a wonderful dirty look to them of too many days in the dirt. Really interested in the Raiders though. Such a wide variety of load outs. I take it the grunts are really low level cannon fodder in this game?

The difference isn't as bad as it is in, say, Pulp Alley where the leaders are practically untouchable by anything save their own tier. Well it's not that simple but it's a big gap.

But in TNT the leaders make me thing if everyone was a guardsman, the leaders are more like commissars. An extra wound, maybe their stats are just slightly better, but not as much as a difference as jumping up to a space marine captain. Given that the game is D10 you also get a little bit more granularity, rather than everything having to jump 16.66% per increased score, it's 10% per, so elites that specialize in fighting are probably as good/better than shooty leaders, and vice versa. It also comes down to gear. The power armor the two reclaimers are wearing is more expensive for a single suit than it costs to by both the miners and their power tools. The seeker costs more than the miners together as well.

But grunts can totally gun down leaders, it's one reason I've been favoring power armor on my leaders so far, losing one is bad for the battle but can be devastating for the campaign, especially if you lose one when you're too poor to afford to replace them!


TNT kickstarter is live, $45 for the hardback book, 15 dollar shipping to US and $20 to RoW. Not cheap, not crazy expensive. I want it, but we'll see where my bank is sitting in 30 days.

Doesn't help that I slipped up and have more Infinity goodness on a Hold Order at MM, just need to order some more stuff (bad logic in there somewhere!) till I hit $100 and get it all shipped free. I figure the next couple DotDs will do the trick, but I'm in no big hurry. Once I get the raiders done though I really need to switch gears and hammer out some Infinity. I know I got the USARF guys done in January but that feels like ages a go and I have a massive weakspot for Infinity on Sale, gotta keep ahead of the riding tide of white metal!

The Reclaimers look excellent Grim, really fit into a a near future setting.

And congratulations on 150 pages of blogging, just imagine the amount of paint and glue used and hobby hours spent in creating all of the pages.

The finished Reclaimers Warband look great. Nice work.

EDC

Thanks guys, hoping to work on the raiders soon.

Still alive guys, working on the raiders and making pretty sound progress, just nothing really to show off yet. More plans in the works, have a mutant warband drawn up that will include a 'giant floating psychic head' as the boss, think MODOK kind of, as well as all kinds of mean and gribbly mutants. May take some time before that and after the raiders to do some Infinity minis. I have soooo many now and I really need to cull the herd a bit. Of course those Tau need painted too.

Think I may try to make a Fallout style vault door/entrance set into a hill as a piece of scenery and use it for the current LoER competition. We'll see though.

Hopefully raiders done soon and I can show them off.

Nice work on those Marine/Reclaimer Kitbashes! I have been plotting a TINAT warband (or collection of warbands) for a while after a binge of fallout 3 not long ago. Planning on using GW Chaos Cultists as quick and easy Raiders.

Also good work on those orclings - it's a pain doing so many but they look great done up.

I'm impressed at how fast you got all of this done.

I uhh... wow.

I don't know how I forgot about chaos cultists. They're perfect raiders, ramshackle, post apoc, gas masks, crazy, flamer or heavy machine gun for a gunner... damn. Not to mention less than 2 dollars a pop on ebay still. May have to get a pack some time just for more conversion goodness. Them, and those genestealer cultists... Oi.

Also thanks, I had fun doing them

The orclings are tedious but I like having two units of them now. Theo sent me some spares so while I don't have enough for a third regiment, I can totally still sprinkle them onto the bases of larger orc units.

And now I proudly present to you Leena's Lambs:





And a group shot with the Lord Grimm's Excavation:



Pretty happy with these. I could have spent a little longer on the details in places but overall I'm happy for now. The hazard stripes are pretty rough but I didn't spend a whole lot of time as I knew I'd be weathering those surfaces pretty heavily anyway. There was a slight roster change and the large dude with a shield has been swapped from a Brute (elite kind of raider second in command) to a mutant raider with the Big mutation (extra wound, strength, better at fighting normal sized guys, kind of a catch all for ogre sized stuff and he's totally that big, just wide stance) as noted by his large base and he got the shield. Now he's more of a defensive tank that can hold a line and allow the rest of the gang to get the job done.

I'll try to get some better photos when time permits. Need to work on some Orcs, Infinity, or Tau next...

Also considering building that vault entrance in a hillside for LoER. It would, of course, necessitate a Caravaner band with some Vault elements.

That little group looks ace Grim, nice mixture of minis too. I think a ramshackle look really suits them and the setting and the orange and yellow accents really help unify the group.

I still have loads of Chaos cultists to paint...such great sculpts for the price.

Good stuff, you're nailing this whole post-apoc thing... really tempting me to try something similar too, and it's not usually a genre I care much for.

Thanks guys

I don't usually go for P/A except for maybe fallout. Warming up to it fast though for the wide range of conversion opporunities and being able to cover my weaker paint work with the models being dirty

No time to blab unfortunately.

Fussy baby...





Brown wash instead of Dip. Slight white edge highlight on most edges. Simple. But I think I like it. White looks a bit grittier with the wash instead of the dip, I think. I believe for this model I prefer that. Decided against chipping as that was probably going too far for Tau. Now they just look dingy. Works for me.

I think I can stamp this successful and paint the rest of the squad when time permits.

Got another model done, dipped. Just needs sealed. I'll try to get photos of that and more of this tomorrow. But we'll see. Getting busy with Work again as the temperature's are staying higher. Gonna start being exhausted when I get home. Fortunately both of the schemes I tried today are fairly easy so I hope to continue work, albeit likely at a reduced pace. Still wanna get my Peacekeeper patrol squad built and painted, and those ideas for the mutants are gonna be really fun to execute if I can find the time.

I've done better than a hundred models so far this year, bit ahead of the curve on a per month basis, but now we'll see how much production slows down.

I like the dingy white. It feels a little like Star Wars-- dirty through use, not neglect. The lights/indicators on the backpack are a nice touch, as well.

Thanks, I basically did the same thing on the pack as the reclaimers. The lights won't help the wearer but they work in teams so buddy system and all.

Agree on the white. I think it's gotten that way through lack of proper cleaning facilities. Like some things are in spaceship cities in certain shows/movies/etc. Not like you're gonna spend water you could be drinking to polish your armor.

Your scheme matches the one on the box (Vior'la sept) pretty well even if it was not intended, and has a very rough 'n ready look. I like it! Making white look good is hard, so kudos on doing it right!

Thanks . The box art is half of what convinced me to finally pick up some Tau and I was going to actively try copying it at one point. Instead I just went with my comfort zone and I feel like it's working OK.

Fortunately the TNT enthusiasm has weakened my Tau lust s bit and I haven't been checking for deals on Tau all over the net lately. Maybe at some point.


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Oooh I need to retouch the shoulder around the insignia. That's got some orange where it shouldn't be.

Need another lamp or two in my hobby dungeon. Photos were a bit dark so I had to adjust the exposure up with the phone edit, works for now.

This guy had been sitting on my painting desk for weeks if not months almost done except for his sword+arm and some details and finishing. He's the prototype for a new Panoceania scheme. The black scheme is cool and all but I'll *never* get even 10 of them done like that. I'm gonna leave that guy alone, he may get repainted but I may save him as kind of a multinational black-ops/deathwatch kind of dude. He's the odd duck out when playing with his own faction, but there'll be a few guys from my other human factions painted to match for y'know whatevers.

Anyway, the Father Knight is a bit dingy and rough for the typical Infinity aesthetic but this is me we're talking about. I need to research the glowy-hot power weapon method and come back to the sword some time. I also intend to get the urban camo pattern down better as I paint more of the faction and eventually retouch his as it's very samey and therefore not as camo-y as it should be. Currently painting up the other two Icestorm fusiliers, slutty and beardsworth. Sigh, can't believe she has the same outfit but can't be bothered to have the backpack or y'know a shirt under her armored/flack chest piece, midriffs 4EVA! I guess she's more of a poster girl for PanO recruitment. Oh also working on the Akalis or w/e, just the ones I had primed.

More later, if work doesn't destroy me tomorrow.

I like the mottled blue green on the armor. Also like the tau warrior too.

Great work on the Tau and the Knight.

EDC

Looking good on both counts!

I do think the Father Knight could use some brighter colour somewhere on the body, though, the odd white/grey panel or marking just to break up what is at the moment a big block of blue/green even with the camo.

A little bit of paint chipping would be fine on the Breacher, but do it in limited quantities, on places like kneepads, the big shoulderpad, and maybe part of the helmet, like he got knocked around some.

the urban camo turned out fine!
great work mate!

Lovely job on the knight!

I like the knight quite a bit. I'm also more for a dingy weathered aesthetic than super cleancut, so I like what you did with him.

Thanks everyone

I'll be taking suggestions on board for future work. If I weather the Tau I will probably wait till I have several done so I can compare and decided what works best for me.

As for the knight, we'll see about some spot color once I know what everyone else is gonna look like with the scheme.