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I really like the tree on that guard, and how he kinda has camo gear on.

Had an interesting gaming experience on Saturday that I thought was worth mentioning. Played escalation for the first time. Friendly game with a bloke at my FLGS (who had the rule book). We were trying to get a group of people together to try it, but in the end there were just three of us (myself & Thing1, and Mark). Thing 1 and I shared his Necron army with an ork "ally" stompa, while Mark played a necron army with a tesseract vault. We set up an AMAZING table... twice the size of a normal one (at the time we hope multiple people would show up). See pic below.



We had a rompin' good time. The super-heavies blew up within a turn of one another... actually it was the exposion of the one that facilitated the explosion of the other. The only D-weapon on the table was the close combat stompa weapon, so they weren't blowing everything up around themselves (actually, I'd say their overall impact was quite muted). That... and all the gauss warriors on the table (70 total) were glancing EVERYTHING to death. Pic below is a shot right after my old Epicast stompa blew up the tesseract thingie (nothing quite as fun as titanic explosions).



It was... a LOT of fun. Not having D-weapons all over the place was a huge factor in keeping it fun. We eked out a narrow victory by a late-game gambit (running two shot-up squads of warriors into his deployment zone) coupled with some lucky reanimation protocol rolls to keep the squads alive. I'd play it again in a heartbeat... though I don't think I'd want it adopted for a major tournament such as Adepticon.

Just thought I'd let you know my experience.
Gits

Sounds like it was a great time, and I love the fact that you get to share those with your Things (Cubs for me, but then again, I don't live near the Great Lakes, so no passions aroused by that!)

Nice Stompa, though the paint job doesn't seem to quite match that of the rest of your armies yet

Thanks LT.

I just primed it yellow. Haven't gotten around to painting it yet. I need to convert one of the guns into a giant killie chainsword-thingie first.


In other news: GiraffeX just finished a 200 pt Mantis Warrior kill team. Thought I'd re-post it. They're beautiful!

Wow, they ARE beautiful! I love the finish on the sword and the muted greens! bloody nice work right there from GFX!

Cheers guys glad your liking them.

See Nerdy Kill Teams is the way forward you can do loads of different ones without having to paint an entire army

 GiraffeX wrote:
Cheers guys glad your liking them.

See Nerdy Kill Teams is the way forward you can do loads of different ones without having to paint an entire army

Do you really need to encourage me!?

The escalation game looks awesome and very cool to see you spawning other Mantis Warrior projects, Gits! If I am right to assume that GFX was inspired by you

 RiTides wrote:
The escalation game looks awesome and very cool to see you spawning other Mantis Warrior projects, Gits! If I am right to assume that GFX was inspired by you

Yeah blame Git's, that what happens when you paint one for the paint a MW competition

I think MY best snow effect was achieved as follows...

- apply GW snow effect (which is much too large to be really convincing as snow)
- apply layer of baking soda (this gives you the right look at the surface but doesn't build up proper depth as easily as the GW stuff)
- gloss varnish (gives it a bit of a shine if you want it)

Thank you Gitsplitta, that gloss varnish was the extra ingredient I was missing!

GiraffeX wrote:See Nerdy Kill Teams is the way forward you can do loads of different ones without having to paint an entire army

I agree. Kill Team is an awesome way to experiment and "play" with other armies!

RiTides wrote:The escalation game looks awesome

It was great fun. I'd like to do it again sometime. I think a bunch of D-weapons would ruin it though. Giant S-10 blast markers... no problem. "touches you and you die automatically"... not so much.

GiraffeX wrote:Yeah blame Git's, that what happens when you paint one for the paint a MW competition

There will be another after Adepticon. So keep those brushes warm!

chrisyella wrote:Thank you Gitsplitta, that gloss varnish was the extra ingredient I was missing!

My pleasure chris!

Painting-wise I've been noodling around with some necron objctive markers for our Adepticon team. I thought I'd finished them but then everyone whined that they weren't specific to each army, so now I'm re-doing or modifying 3 of the 4. No marines this week... though I did unbury my airbrush station... which means Mantis Warriors could happen at any time.

Yeah.
I need to figure out what I want my Angry Marine Kill Team to be.

Also - a comment above reminded me - when's the next Mantis Maker Challenge going to be?

Awe man...I would be super excited to see you tackle something as mammoth in scale as a stompa!

That kill team is pretty sweet!

Ovion wrote:Also - a comment above reminded me - when's the next Mantis Maker Challenge going to be?

(see below)

Gitsplitta wrote:There will be another after Adepticon. So keep those brushes warm!

wyomingfox wrote:Awe man...I would be super excited to see you tackle something as mammoth in scale as a stompa!

Well, I will eventually get to that epicast stompa. Just need to replace and/or convert his right arm so he's legal. (or at least meets the standard configuration in the rule book) I'm half way done with a squiggoth... and have an ork mega-dread in the bags... Those a big, but not quite modern stompa standard. Unforunately there's nothing marinish large scale. I'd had great hopes that they'd issue a SM epic knight with the new dex (to match the eldar one). Unfortunately... no such model was forthcoming. :(

So may/june time?
Ohman.. that may be tricky to do my original plan with then...

Yeah. Now, if that doesn't work for folks... I can shift it. But I'm usually kind of burnt out after Adepticon, so the competition is a good way to keep the blog active while giving me a break, as well as really pumping me up so I can dive into another year's worth of painting & modeling.

Oh for me, it's more... I was going to do something big, and I'm not sure how well I'll be able to do it atm, so may have to come up with something else.

I still have to decide exactly what I want the competiton to entail. Do I leave it wide-open or should I focus on a specific concept? Limiting the subject matter might turn some people off, but it does make the judging easier and levels the playing field a bit.

Oh that kill-team is flash as! The Raptor/warptalon head fits the Mantis Warrior theme superbly.

I vote for concept specific. Interpretation is key, and forces folk to push themselves.

Hmmm... maybe set points for varying levels of paint with the real points to be earned in creativity and such.... or perhaps objects categorized by paint job (so that's a wash across a category), then scored on their creative merits.

Not sure... have to give it some thought.

Just as long asthe competition is detailed out, anything would work!

Actually, graven gave me a fantastic idea. Will take some serious work on my part *before* the competition starts though. For now... relax... things will become clear in due time.

Ooh what? Another comp? Ok then I'm in.

Not for a while! I'm just kicking around ideas.

Hello!
I've been following this blog for I think... years now.
I made my first posts on the boards today.
I love this blog. I enjoy seeing the new projects and the fun conversations that you guys are always having.
Can't wait for more!

Hey, Git, can you run a competition I won't get disqualified from?

@EyeamRai: Welcome! I'm so glad you've finally decided to post! Sorry the blog hasn't been very exciting as of late. Have been very busy trying to tie up some old loose ends in other armies so my poor Mantis Warriors haven't gotten a lot of attention. Won't be that way forever though. Please don't be a stranger. The blog is always far better when new people drop in & say "Hi". Fresh eyes and opinions are always so critical... keeps this place from becoming a musty reverberation chamber.

@moonpie: Do you have any idea how bloody LONG it took me to come up with some kind of lame technicality so that I could DQ both you & Ice after you'd worked so long on that project!? That was a lot of work! (Actually, I do feel bad about that... and there will be some of Mrs. Gits cookies coming for you both at Adepticon.) This year, it'll be different... I promise.

Lovely work there from Giraffe. Also good to see someone having fun with Escalation. It's not as bad as people make out, so long as D-Weapons stay off the board and both players bring along a Super-Heavy.

Agree with you on the tournament point though. Escalation is not fit for tournament play in the slightest.