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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3 more zombies done, yay!

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



Woot!

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What say you!?

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

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

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

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

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

I dunno... HALP!

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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Initial progress on the bridge of DOOM, or whatever.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for weighing in guys.

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

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

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

May be biased toward the first one myself...

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

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

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

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

Looks like a decent enough pattern/scheme to me

Excellent. Can't beat that folks!

New Enforcer color scheme
Barzam tested
Shasolenzabi approved.

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

New Enforcer color scheme
Barzam tested
Shasolenzabi approved.

Go for it!

Love the scheme, go for it is my vote.

Do you prefer the restic or plastic enforcers?