ChrisLS's Motivational Painting Bench

Tonight we paint!

2011-07-07T16:38:00.001-07:00

This is it. Tomorrow is the big event I've been getting ready for, and naturally I still have painting to do. I did forget to bring a larger drybrush, so I bought one from the War Store in the vendors' hall. I'm ready to roll!

I did get in a game as a warm up, against a fellow named Jim and his French Tank Company. I now see why French Tank Companies are such a pain in the ass - most of my anti-tank is AT6, and almost all of his tanks had either 3 or 4 armor, and those that didn't had 6 armor! Mind you, my Bunkerflaks were FEARSOME, so much so that he hid his Char-Bs behind hills rather than face them. But the rest of the match was a chess match of pre-positioning, since the only thing that could move and still do any kind of decent shooting were my own tanks with their mere 3 shots for the whole platoon (when moving) of AT6 junk. It was a great game, though, and a much needed warm-up.

So that's enough jabbering - tomorrow we face the foe, but tonight we PAINT!

On my way

2011-07-05T05:39:00.001-07:00

Here we are! There are stil some details left to do, and the transports and Buflas aren't completed, but the army is otherwise done. To be fair, the static grass isn't on in these pictures, but it is now. I must thank my wonderful wife, Laura, who was an ENORMOUS help, basing half the army and gluing on all the static grass. This way I was able to still attend family events during the holiday AND be ready to travel this morning. She is so wonderful! I'll miss her dearly while I'm gone.

I got the shoulder tabs and collar tabs done, and while often just a blot of paint, the effect is great. I'm going to work a little more on the NCOs rank insignia, and MAY try to get the collar piping done on them, but the collars are often slightly undefined or just plain hard to reach.

The basing material worked pretty well, though it isn't as durable as I'd like. I had one model fall out of the basing material, and it remains a little crumbly. I'm not sure if this is just a fact of life with concrete patch or if it is a problem of adding the paint to the mixture. We cut wedges into most of the bases to give the patch something more to grip onto, so hopefully that helps avoid any problems with models falling out. I did bring super glue just in case.

As always, I still have some work to do. It wouldn't be a tournament if I wasn't painting up until the starting gun! Next steps, in priority order:

- Transports and Buflas to basic level
- Detailing on vehicles, including shoulder and collar tabs for the drivers
- Highlighting helmets and tunics
- Enlisted rank insignia

Crunch day 2.0

2011-07-03T09:58:00.001-07:00

Here we go - all infantry done to a basic standard, all vehicles drybrushed to a basic standard, vehicle crew still need work, guns need some drybrushing, and everything but one platoon needs to be based.

Today turns out to be more open than originally thought (I went to the 8 am mass instead of the longer 10 am), so I'm setting a deadline of 5 pm for basing. Basing will be easier than I originally thought, since the complete lack of texture means I really only need the concrete patch to be even with the bases of the infantry, though I'd like them to be painted a color close to the dried basing material. In the mean time I'll get as much detail done on the infantry as possible. Once that is done and they are based, I'll finish the vehicles.

Crunch day

2011-07-02T09:48:00.000-07:00

Today will make or break me. I've got obligations all day long, but one I basically just have to be available at a place, so I can paint while I'm there. This does mean I have to leave my full painting station, but if I can carry a little with me I can get stuff done.

So my plan is to get my infantry as complete as possible. If I can get detailing done, great. I am currently with all of my non-based infantry (all but the one platoon I already had completed) at the tunics and pants base painted. Since tomorrow I'll have more time, but I need my bases to dry for about 24 hours, I'm going to see if I can base my infantry tomorrow morning, then put static grass on them on the 4th. While the base material is drying tomorrow, I'll finish my vehicles.

My goals in order:

- Metal and wood on the guns
- All skin
- Canteens and bread bags
- Wash (this is the trickiest - I'm not sure what I'll do while waiting for this to dry)
- Webbing and suspenders painted black (where I had to paint over it), plus cleaning up boots
- Collars and tabs painted green
- Collar and tab details (rank insignia, Waffenfarbe, collar stripes)
- Highlight tunics
- Highlight helmets
- Highlight skin
- Helmet decals (very low chance of getting here, and lowest historical priority)

I'll be ecstatic if I get through the collar details, and most of the rest can be handled once they're on their bases and I'm in Pennsylvania.

Basing

2011-07-01T21:43:00.000-07:00

I tried my basing experiment tonight, and it went pretty well, though it certainly wasn't the silver bullet I was looking for. I still think it will save me a lot of time in the long run.

I had heard that concrete patch was some pretty good stuff, so I tried that out. I used the unmixed, dry stuff, since I wanted to add house paint I had left over from some terrain I had been working on. I used the recommended mix of 4 parts powder to 1 part liquid, in this case half water and half brown paint. This mixed with the grey patch and created a very nice, smooth slurry in a medium brown color.

I put the concrete patch on the plastic bases and then placed the figures into the patch. I used my sculpting tool to slightly cover the bases from the patch on the base, or if there wasn't enough I got more from the bucket. I usually put too much on, which meant I was cleaning it up with my fingers as it went over the edges of the base.

In the end it took me about 40 minutes to base 9 stands, which wasn't bad, particularly if you consider I won't need to paint these and I didn't have to glue them all down first. There is very little texture - I really prefer the Vallejo pumice putty for that, but it dried pretty quickly and I'll be covering the bases with grass anyway. So all in all, not bad, and I'll see what paint I have that matches the base color and start painting the bases of the models in that color.

Tank platoon almost done

2011-06-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

All right! I've got my Czech Tank Platoon done with the exception of markings on the three Panzer 38(t)s. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out - I needed to use a light Bleached Bone highlight on the brown areas of the camo for the detail to really come through the wash, but I think this will do quite nicely! Next up - the trucks and motor cycles.

Test tank done

2011-06-29T11:11:00.000-07:00

Well, I decided to get one tank done to the level I'd like them all to be at, and here it is:

I've gotten the German cross painted on two sides (the door on the other side isn't quite right and has a big latch in the middle - I figured I wouldn't bother), the symbol of the 2nd Panzer Division on the back, and the commander detailed including highlighted face, insignia, and pink Waffenfarbe. All in all, I'm pretty happy. I'll get more weathering onto them if I have more time.

Experimenting with Camouflage

2011-06-29T08:38:00.000-07:00

I decided to try to get some work on the tanks done since it really will be the easiest to get looking good. Last night I drybrushed the grey up to a final highlight of white, and this morning tried some camouflage on the Panzer Is. Here are the results:

I based the paint scheme on this article from the Flames of War website. After highlighting the camo, I washed the models with Devlan Mud, which definitely toned down the brightness. I may actually go over them once more with the highlight color very lightly to bring out the edges a little more. Detail work will be next.

Halfway to D-Day

2011-06-28T20:09:00.001-07:00

We're halfway there - and here is my army. From blisters to ready to paint in about a week, plus one platoon basically painted. Now it's time to get serious.

I tried out Devlan Mud and Badaab Black, and the result was pretty much identical. The brown went a little better on the khaki, so I figure I'll go with that. I'll post pics when I've gotten the platoon done.

Them are some BIG guns

2011-06-27T19:20:00.000-07:00

The Buflas (Bunkerflaks) are built, and DAMN are they big. I'm not sure why, but I just didn't really understand how big these beasts are. Apparently they were built on a 12-ton(!?!) halftrack chassis. Keep in mind that tonnage ratings for transport vehicles are based upon what they can carry - the actual loaded weight according to the FoW website was 22 tons. That's a monster any way you slice it.

I've included a Panzer I and two Panzer 38(t)s for a sense of scale.

I'm nervous about the crew - I'd prefer to pin them with only the two tiny little feet as contact points, but the thin resin just can't handle any stress. And it would be a pain in the ass to put a pin into their legs. So one of the Buflas has the crew also glued to their guns. We'll see how secure they are.

I'm going to get the last of my models primed and sprayed tonight, then get cracking on finishing the paint jobs.

Panzers built, no dip

2011-06-27T10:58:00.000-07:00

First off I decided against the dip. One critical part of dipping is a white primer to give you really bright colors, which are then dulled by the dip. Over a black primed model it would just get too bright. I instead went with an experiment between two of GW's washes, which I've used in the past to good effect. More on that later.

I now have built my panzers, the Panzer 38(t)s (which were grabbed from the Czechs after the Germans invaded them back in 1938 to no significant opposition due to the British and French giving the Sudetenland to the Germans, which had all of the Czech defenses in it) and the Panzer Is. They went together with minimal problems, though since I was watching Burn Notice at the time things went slowly.

One interesting thing was that the Panzer Is were pre-molded for magnetization! How thoughtful! They were even perfectly sized for my large stash of "surplus" disc rare-earth magnets. I just popped them in and ready to go! The only problem was that these are pretty big rare-earth magnets. So it turns out that there was so much force holding them together that I could barely turn the turret or remove it. So I decided to put some spacers made out of the blister packaging in so they are more manageable. Still tough to separate them, though.

The 38(t)s were not pre-molded, so I had to whip out the Dremel and carve out the holes. However, this time I went the same way I went with my American tanks, with the surplus magnet on the hull and a smaller magnet on the turret. This doesn't have nearly the same excessive force as the Panzer Is, but they hold quite nicely. Took me a lot longer, and I had to be careful about the resin dust, but those are much more useable.

Next up: Bunkerflaks! I'm really looking forward to getting home from work.

First Schutzen platoon done to basic standard

2011-06-26T17:30:00.000-07:00

Well, the first platoon is done to the basic standard - block painted with all main areas covered, but no detail work or highlighting. Here are the results:

Paints used, in the order I painted them:

Tunics - Vallejo German Uniform 920
Pants - Citadel Foundation Adeptus Battlegrey
Metal - Vallejo Game Color Gunmetal Metal 054 (yes, it is a redundant name)
Wood and bases - Citadel Foundation Calthan Brown
Skin - Citadel Foundation Tallarn Flesh
Canteen and bread bag - Vallejo FoW Khaki 988

First off the popsicle sticks made a HUGE difference. I had to kind of figure out how to use them, but once I did they were awesome. The first stick I did the tunics on I painted each model on all sides and it helped, but not a lot. Then I tried doing one entire side, then shifting my grip on the stick and doing the other side. That was the trick. I cut the time I spent painting the tunics in half.

I also quickly decided to not worry about painting over the webbing suspenders. The detail is close to the model, so it was really hard to avoid getting paint on it and it was taking a lot of time. It won't take me nearly as much time to cover the straps with a bit of black paint later. On the other hand, I didn't paint over the pouches and the like. As I love to explain to my students, it is all about opportunity costs. I've got a limited amount of time to paint, so I can use that time painting base coats or detail. In the end, any time I spend on one I can't spend on the other. So if it takes me 30 seconds less to paint a model if I just paint over the straps, but it only takes me 10 seconds to re-paint the straps, then I'm gaining 20 seconds a model. With 150 models, that one change is saving me almost an hour. I can spend that hour painting Waffenfarbe (branch color on their shoulder straps) or rank insignia.

A little about my brushes. I have three "go-to" brushes for almost everything I do with 15mm infantry. I have a Citadel Standard Brush and two Vallejo kolinsky sable brushes, a 1 and a 2/0. The kolinsky brushes are amazing - they are incredibly precise, and seem to almost be able to read my mind, getting paint where it needs to be without even trying. On the other hand, this precision can be a bit of a pain when I want coverage. That's when I pull out the Citadel brush. That's made of cheaper squirrel hair, which doesn't have as much spring in it, so it flows around other detail more easily, and tends to get into deeper places that are hard to hit with the more precise kolinsky brushes. So most of this work was done with the Citadel brush, though the skin was with the kolinsky brushes, and I'll pretty much be using them for everything on the infantry but drybrushing from here on out.

Oh, and I won't use them for the next step - I'm going to try "the dip" for these guys. For those who don't know, that's using a polyurethane wood stain on them, which gets down into the crevices of the detail in a very even way, creating great faded shading. I'll try it on one stand of these guys, and report on the results. In the mean time, I've got all the infantry built and primed, so I think I'll start building my tanks!

And the difference is...

2011-06-25T17:51:00.000-07:00

Not a hell of a lot.

The model on the left is one I just painted using the German Uniform color I bought earlier today, along with the pants being the same Adeptus Battlegrey I had used as the basecoat for the other model. There is no highlighting on the left model. And it's kind of hard to tell the difference.

So I'll definitely go with the left model's paint scheme. I'll think about some kind of wash or "dip" after I've gotten everything looking decent, but that's getting into the "nice if I can get there" area. But with how easy it was to get this level done, I foresee getting a lot of these guys done to this basic level within a few days.

Testing with mixed paints

2011-06-25T09:55:00.000-07:00

Normally I hate mixing paints. It's a huge pain to try to get consistent colors, and if you can't get everything done in the time your paint dries on the palette you're making a new batch. But since the store isn't open and I wanted to see how this would look, I decided to try mixing Feldgrau with Orkhide Shade, the bluish-green I'm using for the collars and shoulder loops, to try to approximate the feldgrau green-grey of the early war. I then added some Grey-Green 886 to the mix for a highlight.

I think it came out pretty good, and I like the overall effect. I'll see how closely it resembles the actual German Uniform color, and I'll still get the German Uniform paint, but it's good to know the look will work.

Reset!

2011-06-25T08:41:00.001-07:00

OK, I'm already glad I'm on the Interwebz. Thanks to Dave Ripperda, a fine upstanding fellow Finn player from Sac, I now know that Battlefront screwed up its colors in the painting guide in the Blitzkrieg rulebook. I need to buy some paints, specifically Vallejo German Uniform 920, since while the color was called feldgrau the actual composition of it changed over time. It was a fairly deep green in 1940, while by 1943 it had become almost a grey-brown. The Vallejo color of the same name is closer to the latter. So I'll be picking up the actual paint later today. For one thing I like the new color because it is brighter, so my troops will look more interesting on the table. The helmets I'm a little less clear on. I might go with more of a dark grey highlight, like Chardon Granite, but I'll have to see how it turns out with the new uniform color. In the mean time, I'll get started on the pants if I have time while I'm taking care of Maike this morning.

Test painting done on basics

2011-06-24T22:52:00.000-07:00

So I tried it out, and first off, DANG these guys could end up being dark. I definitely want to avoid that. So here they are with just block painting.

I left the helmet, boots, and webbing the German Grey Armor, painted the tunic Feldgrau, the pants Adeptus Battlegrey, the bread bag and mess kit Vallejo FoW Khaki, the metal Vallejo Gunmetal, and the rifle stock and bases Cathayan Brown. I mostly did the base to contrast the model, since they were so dark.

However, they were SO dark I decided to try lightening them up, so I went a step further and did some highlighting and a touch of detail.

I did the collars Orkhide Shade (they are described as being "bottle green" in the reference materials I've found), and highlighted the tunics with Vallejo FoW Grey Green. The pants were highlighted with Codex Grey.

After doing this, I can see a small amount of wash, but I don't think dipping these guys is a good solution. They're so dark already, unless I'm going to really go overboard on the bright colors I'll just end up repainting them. I'll wash the faces and khaki bits, but otherwise some highlighting should be plenty. I'll just leave the darker colors showing for shade effect.

Infantry prepped, ready to start painting

2011-06-24T20:20:00.000-07:00

I've got my infantry filed and put on the sticks, and about 2/3 of the models primed and base coated. Boy, the "German Armor" is almost the same as black, but when viewed under a daylight lamp it IS actually a grey instead of black.

I still need to build my armored vehicles, but that should go pretty quick. I'm now ready to start doing some painting. I figure I'll do my anti-tank rifle team as a start since I have additional models if I screw it up. Time to get painting!

Second Schützen platoon done

2011-06-23T10:49:00.001-07:00

My second Schützen platoon is cleaned, along with my MG platoon, and man was that a pain. The trucks were a snap (even if with the resin sculpt you can see where the drivers legs should be, so the entire company will be driven around by dual amputees...), but the casts of the infantry were abysmal. Tons of gloopy flash, semi-lined up molds, just a mess. I also got it all done this morning, which I had slated for priming. Ah, well, I'll probably just prime all of the infantry and the like at the same time, that's not a major time consumer.

Next up: mortars and AT guns. I'm kind of dreading the mortars, since they're from the same batch of casts as the Schützen, but my AT guns are all Old Glory, so there shouldn't be the same level of suck. I'll start my tanks once I've gotten my infantry to a basic level painting wise, then once everything is based I'll work on details. With luck and effort, I'll be ready for the tanks next Monday.

First steps

2011-06-22T10:45:00.001-07:00

Well, I'm a little behind by not by much. I spent a lot of time last night planning, so ironically I didn't get done what I had planned to do. I figure I've got two times to really get stuff done: before I go to work (I leave around 11:30) and after Maike goes to bed. Anything involving drying or spraying I'm going to do in the mornings and let the summer heat take care of that for me, and building and the like I'm trying to do in the evening.

Or that was the plan. Instead, the fiddly bits slowed me down considerably. But as of 10:30 this morning, I have this done:

The field cars and motorcycles are built, and the first Schützen platoon is ready to paint. I decided to try a different technique for painting and basing after some research. I'm putting the cleaned infantry models onto popsicle sticks with a dab of superglue, and I'll prime and paint them there. After they're done, I'm going to mix up some concrete patch with some brown house paint I have left over from terrain building I did a while ago. Put that on the bases, stick the models in, cover the bottoms of the models, and there you go! After that dries, I'll cover it with static grass instead of my usual drybrush and bits of grass.

The biggest issue I had were the fiddly bits. Specifically, the motorcycle drivers were a PAIN to put together. I'm still probably going to have to clean up around their arms once they've set. It took me a lot longer to get that done than I'd thought. Secondly, I was really disappointed with the quality of the casts of the Schützen platoon. There were a lot of heavy mold lines where the mold clearly didn't completely match up, plus big boogers of flash that would obscure some of the detail. When you've got to file off mold lines that heavy in a scale like this, you're losing detail, period. I actually can't use one of the MG loaders because the entire front of the model is only semi-cast, with no face and the arms melting. I sent an email to customer service about it - they've been good about replacing stuff like that. Sadly, I don't know if it will come in time to do any good.

I finally just figured I'd do the obvious and easy stuff like the helmets and the larger glops and leave the small mold lines alone. I had hoped to get all of this primed today, but I'll hold off and prime it tomorrow with more of my infantry. That's it for now! Off to shower and go to work.

Gotta get motivated again

2011-06-21T20:30:00.001-07:00

It has been way too long since I've updated this blog, but I figure this is a time to do it. I've got two weeks until I am in Pennsylvania for Historicon 2011 and the Early War Nationals for Flames of War. I figure I'll completely get my butt kicked, but I really want to play, and that means I need to get my army ready! And here it is:

Yep, it is almost completely in blisters. Nothing is built. It's a German Schützenkompanie, and I want it playable by the time I leave. Time to get cracking! I'll track my progress here.

Oh, and here is the list:

HQ:
CiC SMG, 2iC SMG, 2x Motorcycle and Sidecar

Combat Platoons:
Schützen Platoon: Cmd MG, 6x MG, Light Mortar, Anti-Tank Rifle, Kfz 15 Field Car, 4x Kfz 70 Truck
Schützen Platoon: Cmd MG, 6x MG, Light Mortar, Kfz 15 Field Car, 4x Kfz 70 Truck
Schützen Machine-gun Platoon: Cmd SMG, 4x HMG

Weapons Platoons:
Schützen Mortar Platoon: Cmd SMG, 4x 8cm Mortars
Schützen Anti-Tank Gun Platoon: Cmd SMG, 3x 3.7cm PaK36

Support Platoons:
Anti-Tank Gun Platoon: Cmd SMG, 3x 3.7cm PaK36
Czech Panzer Platoon: 3x Panzer 38(t) B, 2x Panzer I
Bunkerflak Platoon: 2x 8.8cm FlaK 18 Sfl

Points: 1750
Platoons: 8

Review of LOTR in Da Grand Waaagh 2009

2009-10-08T20:39:00.000-07:00

Last year, the gaming club I belong to, Da Waaagh Mob, decided to put on an Independent Grand Tournament in Alameda, CA on the USS Hornet, an aircraft carrier that has been turned into a museum. Originally, we were planning on running just two systems, Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000. But a month ago, I was asked to add Lord of the Rings to the tournament. We’d originally thought to add it next year, but we had the space, so what the heck!

With such short notice, I knew we couldn’t get a huge turnout, but I did manage to scare up five players, which made for a very interesting tournament – every player would get to play each other. There was no Swiss system, but instead a pure round robin where the winner would be determined with almost no consideration to pairings or early/late placement. I also knew I’d be playing the ringer, since we had an odd number.

I also wanted to make sure that there was a variety of scenarios, and I wanted them to be different than other scenarios they had played. I took some inspiration from the Legions scenarios, changing them around to account for a time constrained environment and the army favoring characteristics of a few of the scenarios. I also hate random scenarios – I’ve lost games just because of a few bad rolls (the number of times I’ve failed to get a Major Victory in Domination because of that stupid “game ends!” roll…) and I know that just sucks. So I tried to limit the randomness. I’ll detail the scenarios in my battle reports.

One thing about being the ringer is that you’re there to provide a service only – make sure everyone gets to play every round. After all, that’s what the players are there for, to get in a game. The ringer isn’t supposed to be highly competitive, though they’re not supposed to be a pushover, either. I flatter myself in thinking that I’m a pretty good player, so I decided against going with one of my first string armies. After DundraCon last year with the “Oh, so it’s your turn to get beaten on by Gandalf” comment, I knew that the Errand wouldn’t fly, and I thought that even the Shadow list from Vegas would be pretty nasty. Of course, I haven’t painted a full army of anything else, so I used those armies for my basis.

To make things more enjoyable for the players, I decided to come up with multiple armies and let them choose the list they wanted as ringer. I also wanted to try playing with models that I normally wouldn’t consider using in a tournament. My first was pretty simple – I swapped Gandalf for Aragorn on a horse in the Errand, downgrading Ecthelion to a standard captain. The second list I came up with was a variant on the Shadow, where I dropped all of the Morannon Orcs and upgraded the wraith to Khamul the Easterling on an armored horse. I wanted one more option, and decided to go totally goofy. I called it “So Boromir picks a fight with a Balrog…” and took four models; Aragorn, Gandalf the Grey, Legolas, and Gimli. 600 points right there.

I arrived at the tournament in the early afternoon of Friday to set up. After my experience at the Necro, I wanted a really interesting skirmish game with LOTS of terrain, and there was a pretty good stash to raid. Only having three tables to fill made it easier. I set up three tables.

First was a small highland village, surrounded by small, steep hills. I wanted to use several buildings to get in the rules for fighting inside the fortress – doors, defended obstacles, stuff like that. The effect was that the center could be full of choke points if it was actually defended, otherwise it would be fairly easy to move through.

Next up was a pretty typical wooded area, lots of trees and areas of undergrowth with a few hills thrown on. The hills on both this table and the first one were slab sided – no slope at all. I made the call that it was WYSIWIG – lots of jump and climb checks were involved. It made it interesting for cavalry forces, that’s for sure.

The last table was inspired by the fact that several large pieces of fortress and the like were ignored by the other systems for being cumbersome and difficult to fit units onto. No units in this game! I tried to go for a kind of “ruined fortress” look with the four large pieces in the middle surrounded by a few large hills and individual trees.

So with that, I sat back to wait for check ins. As it turned out, we had something like three people actually play a game on the ship Friday night. A few other people checked in early, but apparently some of the ship security people turned some of our players away. That night cost us a lot of money for pretty much nothing. I doubt we’ll do that next year.

The next morning, I was raring to go. The five LOTR players showed up with plenty of time, and I presented the briefing and the options for the ringer army. A couple of people immediately said they didn’t want to see the all heroes army (if they drew that force on a couple of scenarios life would be very, very difficult), and the two people who voiced a preference chose Easterlings, so that was my force – Khamul and crew. The list was as follows:

Khamul the Easterling on armored horse (I think I forgot about paying the extra points for the armored horse during the games…)

Easterling Captain on armored horse with shield

6x Kataphracts
18x Warrior with shield
7x Warrior with shield and spear
12x Warrior with bow

Total Models: 45
Might: 4
Bow Armed Warriors: 12/43

I knew this was a suboptimal force when I took it. I particularly love Nazgul for their spell casting, and Khamul has the hardest time casting spells of any of the wraiths. With a Fell Beast, at least you have the chance of getting Will back to compensate for the extra dice you have to throw at spells. On a horse, the best you’re getting is usually staying at the same level of Will. I also knew there were no nutcrackers – D6 would be a major problem for me.

But hell with it, I wasn’t playing to win anyway! That doesn’t mean I’d try to make it easy for the people I would play…

That's it for 2009 - now for 2010

2009-08-01T07:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I've wrapped up all of the tournaments I can play in for 2009 for Lord of the Rings, now it is time to consider 2010. I've definitely decided to go with Mordor - I've got an absolutely huge stash of Mordor models, so I am hoping to create a "buffet" of options I can pick and choose from and use different forces for each tournament. Some of the models I really want to use:

- The Witch King
- Orc Drummer
- Orc Shaman
- Mordor War Catapult with Troll Loader

I've put together my first list, which I may use for the Gathering, depending upon how it play tests.

Nazgul

The Witch King of Angmar (2/10/0)

Cirith Ungol

Gorbag with shield
Orc Drummer

20 Orcs with shields
8 Orcs with two handed weapons
11 Orcs with bows and spears
Mordor War Catapult with Troll Loader and extra crewman

Points: 600
Models: 47
Might: 5
Bows: 11/44

I'm thinking of this force partly because of the experience at the Gathering last year. There were a lot of horde forces, particularly with high defense. Anthony's Uruks (which have appeared two years in a row, so I think I can count on them being there again) and Sean's Minas Morgul are examples of this. While I can try to go horde as well, I really like playing with models that people don't normally see in tournaments. Yeah, the drummer is becoming de rigour these days, but when was the last time you saw Gorbag, the Witch King, or a Catapult? These guys can definitely be used well, and I can see very bad things being done with all of them.

One other thing that I'm doing is modifying all of my plastic archers. I want to be able to use them as both trackers and spear carrying orcs, so I'm adding small magnets to their quivers, which I'll then use to hold paper clip spears. I've only got about 30 orc archers together, so now I can do both without having to buy any more models, and still be able to field a horde of trackers or spear/archers if I want!

Pulled a win in Contest of Champions

2009-07-20T23:34:00.000-07:00

I played a warmup game with Wyn today - the Errand vs. a Dwarven horde list with Balin (no axe), a Dwarf Captain with shield, and 46 other dwarves, including a few Iron Guard and a scattering of Khazad Guard. The scenario was Contest of Champions, Gandalf vs. Balin. The board was the old pre-molded Fellowship of the Ring demo board that GW gave to stores carrying the very first game - no cover, but a few rocky patches.

Things started rough - I killed two dwarves with archery, but Wyn in turn gunned down Ecthelion on TURN 1!!! Remember, always put heroes a couple ranks back, always put heroes a couple ranks back... I caught up quickly once Gandalf was within Blast range, racking up two kills with the wizard in short order. As the lines closed, I also managed to kill a couple more dwarves with archery, picking on the D6 archers. I found the numbers starting to equal out, and more of my troops were in the fight than his due to spear support. The turn the lines hit, I decided to use Gandalf to Immobilize Balin - I threw 1 die and got lucky with a 6! Wyn chose not to resist it and Balin took a little break.

The game fell into the lines crashing into each other, with both sides suffering occasional casualties, but nothing amazing. Balin shook off the Immobilize and won a Heroic Fight to kill off one of my Rangers and Gandalf with lots of support was shoved back by a shielding dwarf. We were running out of time, so we decided to just skip everyone else and fight out the champions' combats. Wyn played for the win, with Balin calling a heroic combat with his last point of might against two spear supported rangers and Gandalf blowing his last point of might to bump the die roll of a Blast up to a wound, thus scoring his third kill. Alas, Balin had an attack of the rubber axe syndrome, getting defeated by the rangers, and Galdalf failed to slice up his opponent, so the game ended 3-1 in Gandalf's favor.

Main lesson here: Never, EVER put your hero in the front rank of an advance! Being able to be picked out by bowfire SUCKS. Also: Gandalf is the bomb. Boom.

Highlights on Ecthelion

2009-07-20T06:44:00.000-07:00

I finished highlighting Ecthelion, taking a different tack from what I'd done with the Warriors. With the Warriors, I had done some pretty subtle stuff, then washed them, and found that I couldn't actually see the results as much different from a single basecoat and a wash. Too much work for not enough return.

So here was Ecthelion before the new work. I had done a similar technique to the Warriors with the cloak, but you can see the rushed single highlight on the black tabard. This picture was taken using my daylight bulbs.

The first thing I did was go over the top of the cloak's ridges with a straight Blood Red. The cloak was built up from several layers of thinned down Scab Red and Red Gore, then I washed it with a light black wash. The Blood Red highlight really popped out the cloak. The pictures below, taken with my halogen lights, don't show this really well - it has kind of pixelized the paint job.

Next I laid two stark highlights onto the tabard. The first highlight I think was Adeptus Battlegrey, so the second and third highlights were Codex Grey and Fortress Grey respectively. You can see this results in a very stark highlight, almost making the black look striped.

While this did make the model pop, it was TOO over the top to fit in with the rest of my force. So I decided to give the black a heavy wash of Badab Black. When I first put it on, I didn't really see any difference. But when I came back and looked at it this morning, it had dried and smoothed out the stark highlight very nicely. So I think I'm going to stick with this method for the Guards of the Fountain Court's cloaks as well.

The main thing that this experience is showing me is how much I already miss my daylight bulbs. I need to figure out some way to jury rig my lights for the dining room table area I have to use now.

All of the warriors cloth highlighted

2009-07-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

So there is the cloth of all the warriors highlighted with one more level. This layer really makes the models pop, and brings the number of layers to five. This one is less subtle than the others, but it just works better. Now I can make out fingers, folds in the cloth, and the fact that there IS cloth in some less obvious places.

The lighting is a little different - earlier I had daylight bulbs in two task lamps which attached to my painting table with C-clamps, but now that room is the nursery and the table has been folded up and stored. So now I'm at the kitchen table and back to my halogen desk lamps. They have a different color light, so that's why the pics look different.

Next up: highlighting the cloth of Ecthelion, then I think I'll do the Guards of the Fountain Court. If I've got enough time after doing them, I'll base and prime five more rangers to replace the metals.

Bright is beautiful

2009-07-08T12:12:00.000-07:00

I keep coming back to the basics that I learned back in the day, and they hold up over time. In this case, don't be afraid of big, bold highlights.

With this army, I really wanted a realistic, subtle look. I wanted the cloth to clearly be black, but highlight it with a tint of blue to match Gandalf. Plus all of that grey and silver would be really boring.

Sadly, I went too subtle, and you couldn't see the highlights outside of highly exposed web photos. So I went back and put a bold highlight that finally accomplished what I wanted.

On the right is a model that I haven't touched since the Gathering. This was one of the ones with the most obvious, bright highlights. Yeah, I'm not sure that either of those terms apply there. The middle one is a model that I've black lined, which did help a little, but didn't make up for the dark highlights. The left is one I just finished highlighting the cloth with Shadow Grey. MUCH better. Don't let the chunkiness of the highlights fool you - when they aren't in the bright light and up close, those highlights really make the model work.

This back picture is a much clearer one of how well the highlights work. Notice the blacklining I put in place around the hair, armor plates, and between the armor and cloth. Combined with the bright highlights, that really works.

And here are all of the warriors of this pose highlighted with the new cloth highlights and blacklining. I currently have the lights off in my work area and am looking at the models with ambient light, and the difference is striking. The unhighlighted models are flat and dark, while the highlighted models, while still kind of dark, are much more dynamic.

Oh, and I figured out why my new camera wasn't taking bright pictures. Since I don't have a manual shutter speed setting, it was taking an overall view of how much light was coming in. With the background being white, that told the camera it needed to have a much faster shutter speed! Now I feel dumb.

Let's get cracking - Update paint plan

2009-07-07T23:12:00.000-07:00

Time is started to get tight, and I need to get my plan on paper if I'm ever going to get this done. Ur, well, on screen, blog, disk, whatever. I need to write it down.

The two weakest areas are highlighting and details. The basics on all of the models are strong, but that isn't going to get me into the top 5 painters. The weakest models are the rangers, and the slight mix of the two styles isn't helping anything. So here is my general plan:

Rangers:
- Shadow and black line models
- Add two layers of highlights, ending with a 50/50 mix of Snot Green/Dark Angel Green in the green areas, still need to figure out colors in the browns
- Highlight skin, including fingers

Warriors:
- Black line details
- Highlight details (belts, hair, etc)
- Add top cloth highlight in Shadow Grey - if not light enough, add another in 50/50 Shadow/Space Wolf Grey
- Try to highlight obvious parts of face (chin, cheeks)

Guards of the Fountain Court
- Add two levels of highlight to cloth, ending in Fortress Grey, then wash with black
- Highlight details
- Add designs to tabard
- Add trim and design to cloak
- Add gold trim to helmet

Ecthelion:
- Add two levels of highlight to cloak, ending in Blood Red
- Add two levels of highlight to cloth, ending in Fortress Grey, then wash with black
- Highlight face
- Paint then highlight details like scabbard, belt, horn, helmet

If I get this stuff done before the event, I'll paint up five new plastic rangers to replace the metal ones with the slightly different painting style. I'll see how far I get on the warriors tomorrow - I'd like to have all of this done by next Wednesday.

Updating the Errand

2009-07-02T16:30:00.000-07:00

I recently got a new digital camera (primarily to take pictures of the baby with!), but I decided to see how it works for photographing minis. Not bad, but I do kind of miss the manual settings I could use on my old one. Of course, I don't miss the old camera's far left hand tripod hole (ALWAYS drooping on the tripod!), and I really like the macro settings on the new one - The pics of Gandalf and Ecthelion were taken from a couple inches away, something I couldn't do with the old camera.

Without the manual shutter settings, it does mean it's harder to make out contrasts and the like. However, I am also noticing that the pics look more like the models do in real life and on the table, where my earlier pics were so bright and clear that they sometimes looked better painted than they really were. So for my purposes today, the new camera works better. Also remember that each picture can be clicked on for a larger view.

So this is the overall army. My general painting style tends to be subtle, and on the whole I think this looks pretty good on the table. The earthier tones holds it all together, and there is a lot of black and brown. The individual groups definitely tie together - green for the rangers, a blue/grey for the warriors, white for the Guards, and red for Ecthelion.

Where this starts to fall apart is in the details. OK, that and I didn't put enough time into painting last time. I'm afraid I'm going to need to step the highlighting up - believe it or not that is three layers and a wash on the cloth, but the low steps in color make it all wash together, resulting in a less highlighted effect. I also need to highlight the details like the belts, hair, and possibly even the armor and hair. Some blacklining of details wouldn't be a bad idea, either.

Back shot of the warriors - the cloth is a little clearer, but you can see the unhighlighted belts and hair.

Here are the rangers. There's a little inconsistency here - I painted the metal rangers on the left some four years ago while working for GW. I don't remember the exact colors, and the foundations weren't available yet. But you can see there is better highlighting, the skin is better, and there is a broader range of colors within the palette. The browns all wash together on the newer models instead of having a more noticable line. I was really, really rushed on these guys.

It's a little more obvious how rushed I was on the back. The old models have nice highlighting on the cloaks, while the new ones were just block painted and washed. I also didn't use any highlights on the quivers.

These guys look pretty sharp from the front. That white was a pain, but the blacklining works nicely. I think I'm going to use a Micron pen to add a design on the tabard edge, and possibly put a decorative yellow and black edge on the cloak as well. Some gold details on the helmets might also work nicely.

The cloaks are another story. Single grey highlights that look slapped on. I'm not sure if I should go down from these highlights, adding a midpoint between them and the shadows, or go even higher.

Without question, Gandalf is the best model in the army. I put a lot of time and care into painting him, particularly his hands and folds of the robe. I even highlighted the belt and swordblade.

I do have a little chip on the end of the hat, but I'm a bit afraid of fixing it and causing more damage by not getting the same effect as before.

In contrast to Gandalf, Ecthelion screams "rush job". While I put some time into the cloak, it still comes off too subtle and dark. The rest of him is single, sloppy highlights, drybrushing, unpainted details, and general blah. I've got a lot of work to do here.

So I'm mostly wondering how much I should play up the highlights - I've always gone more subtle with my LOTR models, but I am starting to think I need to really spice it up with brighter highlights. Any thoughts? Tim K, I'd particularly appreciate your insights on this, since you scored this army at the Gathering.

Thanks a ton to everyone who has bothered to read this!

First projects planned

2009-07-01T07:42:00.000-07:00

I managed to pare down what I really, really wanted to get done over the next year. I'm having a very hard time making massive cuts in what I have, but I was at least able to decide what I want to work on the most.

First up will be getting the Errand up to a competitive GT standard. I'm budgeting the rest of July (pretty much up until the dice start rolling at the Necro) for this one. Expect pics and such soon for this.

Second, I'm going to get started on my army for next year, which I think will be back to the Evil side for me. In totaling up my models, I have more Mordor models than anything else (possible exception of Empire for Fantasy), yet I don't have a painted army for it. So that is going to change. I'll run a Barad-Dur list with lots and lots of Orcs. More on that later.

I'll probably finish my Trafalgar minis next - I've got one more to build, then a total of five to paint.

After that, I'm going to get some Legends of the Old West done! I tried to start a gaming group up around this system right after I left GW, but some people moved, school started, and I never got terrain built. I'm going to start simple - get my Lawmen finished, then do some Outlaws and Hired Guns. Total models - 22. It will be nice to have something smaller to work on.

Following LotOW, I am going to get really historical. Many, many years ago, I decided to get some Revolutionary War models. This was what actually started me into model painting. Alas, these lovely 15mm models have been sitting in a box since I discovered 40K back in December of 2001. I've got enough models there to do the Battle of Cowpens, and its time they all got some paint on them.

Then it will be back to Lord of the Rings, but in a smaller scale - Battle of Five Armies! I was hired at GW back when Bo5A was released, and I got the special deal of the boxed set plus all of the expansion models for something like $80. It's a beautiful set, and I'd love to get some games in with it.

Somewhere within all of that, I'd like to get some more terrain built and painted, plus paint up Gandalf the White (just to torment people), and Saruman the White. I'll need to plan out how I'm going to do all of this time wise, but I figure that will keep me busy when the baby isn't doing so.

Deciding what to get rid of was tough. I managed to come up with over 200 models to sell (out of 2650 counted so far), including my entire planned Dwarf army for Fantasy. I'll be putting it up on eBay, and probably do some "mystery bag" type stuff for $1 or so. I can't imagine what I'll have to ditch next - it might be my Flames of War stuff, which I've played about three times.

Sigh. Next up is getting my Errand out and photographing it so I can get some feedback on what to improve.

Ignornace. It is bliss.

2009-06-30T21:33:00.000-07:00

Well, the school year has wrapped up, the Necro is less than a month away, and with the month ending we decided to close our storage account and bring all of my gaming stuff back into the house. In accordance with my earlier plan, I went ahead and inventoried ALL of my uncompleted miniatures so I could set up a priority list of projects and the like.

The horror... the horror...

I decided on a completely rough-stick estimate of 1 hour per model or stand of models, figuring that the drybrush specials will balance the big models and showpieces. I also figured I could reasonably put in about five hours a week with a new baby coming up. Optimistic, I know. So given that, I figured out how many weeks it would take me to work through my stash of models.

10.2 years.

Oh. My. God.

Note that does not include the Minas Tirith models that I need to touch up after my piss-poor painting showing at the Gathering. Oh, or the rest of my Dark Angels company that still needs to be done. My baby will be getting ready to take classes from me in middle school before I'm done!

The scale of this is almost completely overwhelming. I have no idea how to start prioritizing. I need to just cut sling load on a bunch of this stuff, but I don't even know when to begin.

I'm almost depressed. I need to get my brain wrapped around this before I can really proceed. Well, and get cracking on the improved paint jobs for the Necro.

Just don't look at the huge pile of mini boxes...

Disappointments and new doors

2009-04-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

I was all excited about getting the new house in time for the new baby, but it seems that something else was in store for me. My wife ended up losing her job, mostly because it just wasn't a good fit for her. This shot the house deal in the head, so we're going to be staying in our condo for a while to come.

On the surface this should be terrible, but I've been at peace with it. This gives my wife the opportunity to find a job for which she is better suited, and frees up all of the money we had slated for the house for more investments. That may end up with us having a much larger down payment available for the summer, so perhaps it is not all for ill on the housing front.

The down side of this is that without knowing that our housing situation will change, we need to get our little condo ready for a baby. This will likely preclude me from bringing all of my gaming stuff back into the condo for the foreseeable future. I'll be getting enough LOTR stuff back into the house for the Necro in July and continuing to work on Trafalgar, but that's going to be it.

Finally, spring break is wrapping up for me, and I'm finally getting over this cold/flu that struck me down last week. Thus the long delay in actually getting something done with Trafalgar despite not moving. Sigh... why did I have to be sick over a holiday?

HMS Guerriere done without rigging

2009-04-19T11:01:00.000-07:00

Finally finished working on the Guerriere, with the exception of the rigging. I really should have done some of that before I based it, but I got impatient. I'll try to do that once I've primed the other three ships I've constructed.

The most interesting aspect of all of this was the base. I was kind of torn on this one - the directions in the Trafalgar book give a method that produces a very blue ocean, like what I'd associate with the Pacific or the Mediterranean. I wanted an Atlantic color, though, which would be more grey. So I went with a thinned basecoat of Adeptus Battlegrey over a black primer, followed by an overbrush of Fenris Grey, and finally a light drybrush of Space Wolf Grey over the peaks and around the area the hull would go. I may try white instead of the SW Grey next time, but overall I like the effect much better than the rich blue that the rule book uses.

I also finally got the other three ships built and ready to prime. I'm going to do the US ships with a black primer and the other British ship, along with the sails, in white. I'm trying to leave the masts in the British ship, while putting the other masts into a Starbucks' cup sleeve (putting the masts into the corrugation) for priming.

I also learned an important lesson in construction of these ships - build them one at a time, and don't do it when you're distracted. The masts and sails are just too similar to each other - I ended up putting the wrong sails on masts something like four times while building the USS Essex and my British sloop, and when I finally finished I found I had actually SWAPPED MASTS, and trimmed the mast to fit already. Well, crap. Fortunately, they don't look TOO crazy off, since it is going from a ship-sloop rig to a small frigate rig. But from now on I build one ship at a time, no more.

Moving on in several ways

2009-03-29T08:41:00.000-07:00

On Thursday my wife and I got the long anticipated news that the house we had put in an offer for had finally cleared the lenders hurdles (it is a short sale - the two banks are probably taking about a $250K loss on the sale). It's exhilarating and a little stressful - we want to close by April 10th so we can move over Spring Break. We've got to budget our time in the next couple of weeks very careful as a result.

One thing that we're doing is "pre-moving", or staging a bunch of stuff that isn't vital to daily operation into a storage unit we've rented. Naturally, this includes almost all of my miniatures stuff. For one thing, I don't trust movers with it, and it also gives us a chance to look at all of the things that we don't regularly use and make the decision as to whether or not we actually want to bring it into our new house.

Stacking up all of the miniatures and related material that I possess is a truly daunting task. I've already moved about half of my stuff (that which is still in the original packaging for one reason or another) and I've still got a pile that blocks the doorway. While I'm fortunate enough to have a room in the new house that will be a dedicated "hobby room", which I'll be using more than my wife, I'm committed to keeping the volume of stuff I have in there under control.

When I left the Army, I went to work for a company that, prior to employment, gave their prospects a personality test. It was a pretty intense test - I take tests fast and it took me about 90 minutes to finish this thing. Later, I had a chance to look at the results. It pegged me pretty much exactly - I look at the big picture, seek to understand how things work and then apply those concepts to the execution of tasks. But I have a focus problem - I tend to get really excited about a particular project and dive into it, but completion is a real problem - sometimes I can get so caught up in my desire to understand the task that I don't actually DO the task. I also have a bit of "ooh, shiny!" syndrome, where if something else catches my attention I will jump onto that, abandoning the earlier project(s). Thus one of my biggest challenges is actually FINISHING what I start.

That is one of the reasons I started this blog. Taking stock of a project, publicly committing to completing it, and feeling a compulsion to post SOME progress is a very good thing. Of course, sometimes life intervenes, and I need to try to keep my motivation going to actually FINISH the projects.

For the time being, I'm going to have to put pretty much all of my projects on hold. The only minis I'll keep out of storage for the next few weeks are the Trafalgar minis, since I only have five of them and they are really easy to move, plus I'm finding that painting them goes really quick - when I actually do it. Everything else goes into storage.

When they come out of storage, I'm going to try a new tactic - giving myself a self-imposed deadline to complete projects. The idea is to encourage myself to finish my projects while eliminating projects that just aren't that important to me. When I pull these models out, I'm going to inventory them. ALL of them. I'm then going to divide them up into projects of about 20 hours each. I'll then prioritize my projects. That's going to be a heck of a project in itself. But once I've done that, I can get started. Each month, I'll try to FINISH one of those projects, from cleaning and building to table ready, including basing. If I do manage to finish a project, great - I move on to the next one.

If I DON'T finish, though, I get rid of the project at the bottom of the list. eBay, Bartertown, give it to a friend, whatever, that project goes. To deal with my problem of taking on additional projects, if I add another project to my list, then the project at the bottom of the list goes. While eventually I'm hoping to be able to avoid that and just add it to my list without dropping others, I know that with the volume of projects I have right now it will be a long time. Maybe once I get down to less than a year of projects.

Another problem is actually being able to PLAY with these projects. So I'll include terrain projects, and if I don't have the terrain I need to play the game, then I can't do any of the minis for that project until I finish the terrain. This way I'll be able to play any of the games for which I'm actually painting.

All in all, this should be a real eye-opener for me. It is way too easy to just shove all of the extra models I have into a closet and forget about them. If I have them all on a spreadsheet with a running total of how long I think it will take to finish them, I think it will help me to keep my hobby sane without turning it into a job. After all, a hobby is supposed to be fun, and if I'm feeling obliged to do it because of the ridiculous quantity of minis that I have on hand, I need to do something about it.

Ah... report cards behind me

2009-03-21T08:24:00.001-07:00

I have finally sent off all of my report cards, so the mass of grading is behind me. That means I can spend more time on my hobby! Well, not really, since I'm juggling trying to buy a new house for my wife and unborn child, buying rehab projects to fund said family and house, and preparing for the move, not to mention other business related things (you mean I need to have bookkeeping?!? And pay taxes?!?!?).

However, I am taking some time out today to help plan a Indy GT for the Bay Area, which we're looking at holding on the USS Hornet, an aircraft carrier turned museum in Alameda (that's in the East San Francisco Bay Area). We've got some great ideas, and having experienced the GitD, I have some other insights into GT organization.

Anyway, I've also got some more work done on my Trafalgar fleet, though it's not photo ready yet. Once I've graded my tests that I gave on Friday I'll get some work done there.

Time to fly!

First ship for Trafalgar!

2009-03-14T18:24:00.000-07:00

I am really excited! On Thursday, I received my shipment of four 1:1200 Age of Sail ships from Langton Miniatures, and I could hardly wait. Well, school was interfering, and so today I finally got a chance to put one together. Here is a French built 36 gun frigate that will be used to represent HMS Guerriere, the first British frigate that .

I've still got three more ships, incuding the USS Essex, a ship-sloop, and an oceangoing schooner. But I am thinking that I'll paint the Guerriere before I get rolling on other models.

I'm really excited about playing Trafalgar, so I'm going to getting to work on these ASAP.

Crazy insane-o list idea

2009-03-09T21:04:00.000-07:00

I was really happy to get Gandalf the White as a prize for getting 2nd General (is that like 2nd breakfast?) at the Gathering, and I've been vaguely considering how to actually use him in a list. Well, my wife and I were watching The Two Towers tonight, and I had an idea hit me - what if I were to take all of my pre-existing notions of what makes a good army and just throw them out the window? Go with an entirely themed army with a completely different philosophy - mobile destruction!

So here is a random possibility - "Dawn of the Fifth Day"

Gandalf the White on Shadowfax

Erkenbrand on horse
Captain of Rohan with heavy armor, shield, and horse

4 mounted Rohan Royal Guard (3 w/throwing spears)
9 Riders of Rohan (4 can shoot bows)
1 Rider of Rohan with banner

600 Points
Total models: 17
Total Might: 8
Bows: 4/14 29%

I have absolutely no idea if this list would work in the least, but damn I think it would be fun. Screw all this surrounding your opponent, outnumbering him and outmaneuvering him - this list is all about charge into the teeth of his line, blow the Horn of the Hammerhand, break through with a Heroic Combat and lay waste to his squishy bits! With a horse mounted Gandalf-bazooka! The only thing I'm really tempted to do is put in ANOTHER mounted Captain of Rohan instead of some riders.

This will require some thought...

Sigh - so much for Adepticon

2009-03-07T07:18:00.001-08:00

I'm sad. I was lining everything up for Adepticon - I had a partner for the Team Tournament, I had a reservation for the hotel, I knew which flights I could buy, and I was planning my list. The one thing that I thought was a sure thing, though, bit me - I couldn't get the time off of work. That is the week of standardized testing, and it was seen as too important to have me miss proctoring one segment of the test out of about fourteen. Well, crap. So no A-Con for me.

I did manage to get everything set for The Necronomicon, though. My hotel is paid for, I've gotten my frequent flyer mile ticket out there (first class! - ironically the cheapest seats available), and I've registered and paid for the con itself, which as always is the cheapest part. I've even sent in my list, which is the same one I used for the Gathering. It served me pretty well there.

So now I need to improve my paint jobs. Some of the highlights - I'll need to get all of the details painted and then highlighted. I'll improve the level of overall highlighting, particularly on the rangers and Guards of the Fountain Court. After all of that, I'll probably do some extra details, like edging on the Guards cloaks and battle damage on the shields.

So now the clock is reset, with the countdown ending on July 24th. I'll get myself a paint plan going in a few weeks, after I've finished my grading.

The year ahead in gaming

2009-03-02T19:35:00.000-08:00

I've got some serious thinking to do. First off, with a strong performance at the Gathering, it makes sense for me to get some other LOTR Circuit events in. With some extra time, I can definitely improve my paint scores, the low part of my performance at the Gathering. The bigger question is how I can work in actually attending given some of the challenges I'm facing.

The first challenge is this - my wife and I are expecting our first child this year. Hooray! I'm definitely looking forward to being a daddy, and I know that though my life will forever change, I seriously doubt I'll be getting out of the toy soldier hobby. However, the due date is September 18th. No problem, right? Oh, other than the anticipated date for the Vegas GT being a week ahead of that day... With the accuracy of due dates being in the 5% range, my wife is NOT excited at the prospect of me leaving town that close to birth. Her fear is that I fly out, she goes into labor, and then has no support at the hospital. OK, a small possibility, but a very valid concern. The consequences of hitting those low percentage possibilities is awfully high. OK, it is now clarified - there is no way in hell I am going to Vegas. I don't know if my wife as ever actually kicked me before this... Ah, well.

So this leaves other options. One possibility that I might be able to swing is going to Adepticon. Of course, if I do that, I'll need to find a partner for the team event... Second, I can go to The Necronomicon in Orlando. The cool thing about both of these is I can probably weedle out free hotel stays with my parents' time share through Starwood. So those are relatively inexpensive for me. I may even be able to swing a trip to one of the other official GTs, probably Baltimore. So those are all possibilities.

Birth of child also means we're going to get a house, which we will be moving into in April as well. The really cool thing about this is that I'm going to be able to get enough space for a gaming table. Now I can get some terrain built for the house, and I'll never have to leave home to game again! OK, maybe that's a little extreme, but it does open some options. One of those options is for playing Trafalgar, the new Warhammer Historicals game. The models, Langton Miniatures 1:1200 scale ships, are totally awesome, and with my own gaming table I can make a seascape pretty easily and game in my house.

So those are all things on my mind... I'll need to make some decisions pretty quick about those.

AAR of Gathering in the Desert 2009

2009-02-25T15:44:00.000-08:00

The blood has cooled, the paints are put away, and the results are posted - it's time to reflect on the Gathering that is past. Well, my part in it, anyway.

First off, I can definitely call the tournament a success. Having gotten 4th Overall and 2nd General were both achievements I can be proud of in that field. I understand how the army works pretty well and it showed in my battles. I had a great time playing and did my best to make sure my opponent had a good time as well. I did pretty well in Sportsmanship - if Brent gave me #1 on his opponent ranking (which I think he did) then I earned the equivalent of one #2 and three #3 rankings. My downfall (if you can call it that) was my rushed painting. I only had a higher score than 4 other players, and was well behind 2nd and 3rd Overall. If I got the score I'd earned in Vegas I'd have gotten 3rd Overall and nearly taken Best Overall (since #1 didn't paint his own army).

I had about as good an army design as you can get with a big burly character in the lead. I was light on numbers but still had the survivability to avoid being laid to waste. The Guards of the Fountain Court, as suggested by Brent (I think), were a fantastic addition to the list. Ecthelion, using the King of Men stat line, was a great combat hero, overtaking most opposition with his F5 and two attacks plus spear support. The rangers also earned their place, softening up the opposition before rushing into help out via trapping and spear support. Gandalf definitely made the list what it was, though - all the tricksy stuff I could pull with him was awesome. I really enjoy playing with magical powers, partly because so few people actually have encountered them it leaves a significant imprint on them. I'm not sure how the army would have performed on objective holding missions or mobility missions (like Reconnoiter), but the missions given suited the army well, except for those darn Uruks.

Sportsmanship scores are always something of a quandary for me - I can't deny that I play to win and that I understand the rules very well and will let my opponent know when they are doing something wrong. However, I try to be nice about it and will readily point out when they could do something advantageous or bad to me as a result of a rule they don't understand. The biggest problems come when I encounter someone who thinks they know the rules but really don't, or someone who conveniently forgets rules when it doesn't suit them.

One brief point of conflict in my last game that troubled me was when I trapped a Morgul Stalker between the edge of the long hill we were on and a combat. It was on the Angmar table, and the hill had started against the edge of the table (it was flat along one side, clearly designed to sit along the edge). However, when this combat happened it had gotten bumped, so there was about a 1/2-3/4 inch gap between the actual table edge and the edge of the hill. My opponent brought up that he could retreat down the hill, and I pointed out that it had started against the table. He had been leaning over this hill to move his models in the center, and I'm thinking that was when it got bumped. He gave me this snort, and when I asked if it was a problem, he replied, "Oh, no, it's just one model", with a subtext (to my mind) of "You're an ass for pushing this point, but I'm going to let you have it to keep my sportsmanship score up". He wasn't obnoxious or anything, but I'm pretty sure that because I didn't back down there I got a lower ranking on the final sportsmanship sort. I'm just not sure how to deal with this, as I don't want to be walked all over, but I also don't want to lose a potential advantage that the rules say I have.

Ah, my painting. I knew it wasn't up to snuff, but the full impact of the rating did make me sad. I completely deserved it, though. I was painting on the plane, had minimal highlights on most of my models, and used a lot of quick and dirty methods. I need to significantly step up the detail painting and do another layer or two of highlights all over the models. That could earn me 6 more points on painting without a huge expenditure of effort, and possibly even 8 if I really impress the judges. 6 would have put me less than a point behind Brent and Best Overall, 8 would have given me the tournament. I can see adding some detailing to the cloaks and trim of the Fountain Court, plus maybe some battle damage on the warriors shields to get that Hand Painted Details level.

So I'll definitely put some more time into painting. I'm going to have to skip Adepticon - some day I will definitely have to go there, though. However, I can see doing the Necronomicon and GT Vegas, and might even be able to squeeze in a Games Day or something. Of course, I'm going to have to be very, VERY nice to my wife, and hope our child doesn't decide to be born while I'm playing with toy soldiers...

Thoughts on next army

2009-02-25T05:59:00.001-08:00

Boy, I had a great time with the Errand. I'm probably going to improve the painting on that list for a little while, and I might still use it for the rest of this season. However, I am starting to think about my next list.

I do have a problem - I love playing challenging armies, but I also love winning. One force I really like is the Army of the High King, but those guys are just inherently inefficient against everyone but Isengard Uruk-Hai. The main point of the army is making it an Elendil delivery system, and as good as he is he isn't as good as Gandalf, who is worth the same number of points. Oh, Gandalf is such a dirty old man...

Speaking of Gandalf, I was thinking about going with Gandalf the White, which I won at the Gathering. However, the Errand was already pretty thin on the model count, and adding 50 points to the wizard would mean losing Ecthelion in favor of Damrod (wow, that's a bad deal) or seriously dropping my model count. There just aren't any Good horde armies apart from Hobbits, and Gandalf can't fight with them.

So I'm thinking about a Mordor army. I can throw 60+ models into most of the armies I am developing. Each one I came up with had a "gimmick" which I'd like to play with: shamans and a drummer, Shagrat the Warleader, the Witch King, a catapult with a troll, all of them look like fun. Maybe I can also come up with one using a Fell Beast. I know many of these aren't the most efficient in the world, but these are some of the models I've always wanted to play with. I'll think more about it.

Last battle report for Gathering

2009-02-23T20:55:00.001-08:00

Round 5
Opponent: Sean Ramirez
Table: Angmar
Scenario: The Last Alliance

This scenario was a straight-up kill ‘em scenario with the emphasis on killing valuable people – it was based upon victory points, which is the points value of the stuff you kill. This is, in my opinion, not a very good mechanic for LOTR. The game is specifically designed to be based upon numbers, and while individual models can be very expensive, the most expensive are the ones that affect other models and help their fellow models. Heroes are good on their own, but their real value is in holding other models on the table via Stand Fast and doing Heroic Actions. Some heroes just aren’t that hard to kill (Gandalf not being among them, apparently), but can be very valuable – Gildor Inglorian being perhaps the best example of this. After all, a Half-Troll is way more effective in combat than a Captain of Minas Tirith, but the Captain costs more than twice as much. So I didn’t like that aspect of the scenario. Another fun aspect of the scenario was that it was 12” deployment zones, and if you had any of your own models in your deployment zone at the end of the game the best you could get was a draw.

Sean had the army that I least wanted to play in the tournament. He was running 30 Black Numenoreans backed up with spear supporting orcs, some trackers, and three Morgul Stalkers thrown in for fun. This crew was led by The Dark Marshal and a Black Numenorean Marshal, which meant that all of those terror checks I’d be taking would be at -1 Courage. The Nazgul could also effectively neuter Gandalf, which really irritated me. On top of this, I was outnumbered by 10 models. I knew this would be a rough game.

I lined up in my left corner, hoping to give the rangers a clear bunch of shots as the enemy closed while creating a bottleneck in the center. I hoped I could hold off any support coming from the sides while I demolished anything that came down the middle of the table. Sean’s deployment seemed to support this, with significant contingents taking his flanks and a big group around the heroes in the center.

The first round of shooting was awesome – I killed three orcs, two Numenoreans, and a Morgul Stalker. Sadly, that was the most my shooting did for the rest of the game. I think I got a couple of small kills, but between the short distance between armies and getting stuck into combat, I didn’t have a chance to shoot much more.

The bad things started happening with Gandalf right off the bat. After getting up Terrifying Aura and Blinding Light, the Dark Marshal closed to within range of a Sap Will. The next couple of turns was me trying desperately not to lose any more will, with one big Sorcerous Blast thrown at the Marshal in a high stakes gamble to kill him – I even blew all of my remaining Might to score a wound, but Sean easily made his Fate roll. Finally there wasn’t anything left, and I was limited to Gandalf’s one free Will per turn and the Blinding Terrifying Aura of Light went out.

We got stuck into combat and I started learning just how incredibly annoying Numenoreans were. I was failing a bunch of my Courage tests, so I started moving pieces that could block routes to an inch away from enemy models to channel them or provoke a charge (and I didn’t have to take a Terror test). I also had small blocking contingents holding off a chunk of his army that was trying to turn my flanks. The Fountain Court Guards were a HUGE help here, since they could charge without testing their Courage and could take abuse from S4 hits. I started to whittle down his force, but I’m losing people as well. Ecthelion in particular is doing a great job of killing Numenoreans.

There isn’t a lot to tell after that – we just ground away, though Sean kept using the Nazgul to try to do bad things with spells, usually not succeeding. I did manage to punch a hole in the Numenorean line and run a Fountain Court Guard into the Dark Marshal, getting rid of a point of Will. Finally the turns are drawing close to an end, and it’s obvious we’re tied. My Fountain Court behind his lines is occupied, but I pull one last trick out of Gandalf’s sleeve – I cast Command on the Marshal, who at this point has only one point of Will remaining. This allows me to move him into combat with my Fountain Court Guard. This is awesome! As long as I get to fight, the Nazgul will go pop at the end of the turn.

Sean shoots into combat with all of his trackers, and manages to kill my Guard on the second shot!?! DAMN IT!!! He then proceeds to mow down another 40 points of troops that the trackers also hit. OK, so the first round of archery went to me, the last roud to Sean. We ended up drawing, with Sean ahead by about 50 points, but needing 60 for the win. Interesting thing about the game – I won each and every priority roll. Sean did not have priority the entire time.

I can see now that the way to win this fight would have been to punch a hole in the line of Numenoreans and rush through with my Guards to engage the Nazgul directly. That is what I should have done with my Sorcerous Blasts, not trying to wound the Nazgul. That would also have saved my Might for Heroic Combats and anything else that would have helped clear a path through the Numenoreans. On Sean’s side, I would have put my Black Numenorean Marshal on one of the flanks to assist in crushing opposition there and get into my rear area faster. Other than that, I can’t see any major mistakes beyond forgetting to move Gandalf after several of his casts.

Result: Draw (10 points)

My overall result was a little confusing – if you include the painting points from the guy who didn’t paint his own model, then I was 4th Overall and 2nd Place General. Our tie combined with a victory on Brent’s part gave him Best Overall, and Anthony, who played and beat some of the best players in the country minus Tim Hixon, clearly got Best General. He would have gotten Best Overall if he’d just PAINTED HIS OWN DAMN ARMY! Ah-hem.

Anyway, I’ll do a review of the tournament itself and my own lessons learned tomorrow night.

What a great event - Gathering in the Desert 2009

2009-02-23T00:08:00.000-08:00

I’m on my way back home after a fantastic tournament. The Gathering in the Desert 2009 was perhaps the single most enjoyable gaming experience I think I’ve ever had. It was in large part due to the incredible hospitality of Tim Kulinski as well as the great community of players who came together for this event, both local Phoenix area players as well as us “out-of-towners” who came to participate in the first LOTR event of the 2009 Tournament Circuit.

So first off, I really could have been better prepared for this event. I wasted a lot of time that could have been better spent painting my models to a higher standard. I was highlighting Fountain Court Guards on the flight to PHX, painting until midnight the night before the event with Tim, and then even more painting the morning of. I even squeezed in painting the belts of my warriors black after the first round while waiting for lunch to arrive… I really want to get some more layers of highlights onto all of the models, detail out the Fountain Court, and give Ecthelion a serious paint job. Alas, it will be a while before I am able to make that happen, since I have GOT to catch up on my grading – I won’t paint anything until I’ve cleared my backlog of tests.

I was happy to recognize a few of the folks there – Tim Hixon was the only other California resident there, and I recognized Brent Sinclair from the Las Vegas GT. The store where the event was held was co-owned by Kyle Kinghorn, a great hobbyist and manager who I knew from when he managed the LA Battle Bunker for GW. It was great to see him again, and he did play – we also got a chance to catch up on gossip about GW and what he’s been doing with his store, Empire Games. I want to throw this in about Kyle’s operation: Empire Games is probably the best hobby game store I’ve ever been in. The environment is clean and orderly, there is tons of great looking gaming terrain, and it is well stocked. Kyle ran a great store in the LA bunker, and I think he’s outdone even that with his own store. Now if only some of the tables were lower…

Anyway, on to the games.

Round 1
Opponent: Robert Brightwell – Angmar
Table: Emon Euil
Scenario: Bilbo’s Treasure

This was a neat game where you could earn three extra battle points by searching for Bilbo’s treasure but was otherwise a “wipe ‘em out” game where you wanted to reduce the enemy to a quarter of their starting models. There were six markers spread across the table, under each of which was a number. We rolled to determine which number marker it was (turned out to be #6. I deployed my rangers in the middle of my deployment zone with a clear view across the table, then split my warriors on either side of them. I put Ecthelion on my left and Gandalf with the rangers. There was an objective in the crater in front of me, and another one up on a large rock pile in front of Ecthelion’s force.

Robert put his wargs on his right led by the Warg Chieftan, and after some consideration put Burduhr in the middle with a clear path down the center of the table. He spread the rest of his force out across the table with his Shade behind Buhduhr.

I rushed my models forward, getting Blinding Light going with Gandalf and approaching the two rockpiles to my front. I did move half with the rangers, since I figured I’d be able to range Robert’s wargs. Sure enough, the wargs had a couple in range of my archery and I managed to down one of them. I started climbing the rocks in front of me on either side, on to check the objective and the other to provide a defensible position. Robert was sending his wargs to check on one of the objectives to my left, but I saw the main engagement was going to be in the center. Most of Robert’s army was pounding down the table straight at me behind Burduhr. My rangers decided to do something about that. One round of shooting saw Burduhr lose a wound, and a second round saw him dead. The rangers continued to pick off orcs after that.

We had collectively turned over three counters when I managed to find the treasure, which oddly enough was on top of the rock pile on my left. I pulled the chest back and formed up Ecthelion’s crew to go after the wargs and protect the treasure. As the chieftain hit my troops, I brought out Gandalf (who had gotten a Sorcerous Blast off to some effect, but nothing major) to Immobilize the Warg Chieftain, then dogpiled him with Ecthelion and a bunch of other troops. The warg fell under a hail of sword blows.

The fight on the left ended pretty quickly with the wargs being slaughtered, but the center was proving a little harder. The reason? That damn Shade. I hate Shades. I have no idea how to really deal with them other than just take the -1 to all my die rolls. I tried to blast him and move him with Gandalf, but the blasts didn’t work and the Command ended up moving him so he was only 5 inches away from all of the fights instead of 2 inches. Suck.

One redeeming feature for me was that with all of his archers in the backfield, I was outnumbering the orcs, and despite the damn Shade, I was taking them down. After a few turns, I had managed to get the treasure off of my own side, then broke Robert’s force. That was effectively the end of the game, as his troops evaporated. I was pretty stupid, though - I cast Command on the Shade to get him out of the way of the combats, but that left him on the table! I should have just let him fail his Courage 1 test and run away.

This was an enjoyable game, but Robert did play into my hands by charging the center. I expected the wargs to split off to the left, and Ecthelion handled them masterfully. By running into the teeth of my archery, Robert lost the game. With Burduhr down and his numbers thinned by archery and hanging his own archers back I was able to corral him into the center, turn his flanks, and devour him. I would have kept most of the troops to the flanks, particularly Burduhr, who could have gotten around a lot of the rock piles without any problem. This would have reduced the impact of my archery, and possibly allowed him to hit one of my own flanks, reducing my number advantage. But Robert was very easy to get along with and does have a good grasp of the game, so I enjoyed the experience.

Result: Major Victory plus bonus (23 points)

Round 2
Opponent: Anthony Pigati – Legion of the White Hand
Table: Amon Hen
Scenario: Light the Beacons!

This was another kill ‘em scenario which had bonus point for lighting the beacons in a diagonal line down the middle of the table. The catch – if you get a 1-2 while trying to light a beacon, you light yourself on fire!

Anthony was playing a very rough Uruk-Hai list - two captains, five berzerkers, twelve crossbowmen, and the rest in swordmen and pikemen. He outnumbered me by two. I knew in order to get him, I’d have to isolate part of his force and destroy it to even the odds.

I tried to do just that by starting off rushing towards the beacons. Anthony followed my lead by splitting his crossbowmen to go for the corners and sending his mass into the center. He won priority the second turn and did the same. However, now I sent everything I had towards my left. He ended up splitting his force again to send some troops around the Seeing Seat, and I pounced. I put Ecthelion and a few more troops on my right to delay reinforcements and then tried the ole’ “Come hither” with Gandalf – I throw a 2 die Command on the Uruk Captain on Anthony’s right, and get a 6. Oh, he is so dead… What do you mean he rolled a 6 with his one point of Will?!? Crap. I shoot at him, and manage to get a little bit, but nothing that will turn the tide.

The second turn I commit. Gandalf is still failing me, getting only 1” off of a Sorcerous Blast that should have knocked over some 5 models, and then I commit. My troops pour into him, lining up to get 4-on-2s and trapping. I’m turning his flanks – this will only be a matter of time. I kill on berzerker off with a lucky roll against a lone ranger, and then the Uruks go on a killing spree, taking something like a quarter of my force off the table. It’s a devastating blow, and the next round isn’t much better. Now I’m really in touble, and for all of my efforts, I just can’t get anything to happen. I finally manage to isolate the Uruk captain on my left, but with only Gandalf and three other models against him, I’m not able to finish him off – I just don’t have enough models. A few turns after the butchery, I fall below a quarter and the game is over.

This one was really frustrating. I did everything right, Anthony screwed up big time, I capitalized on it, and a tear of 6s not only saved his bacon but turned the tide in his favor. Anthony admitted that he was sweating bullets when he saw what I’d done, and that his dice alone saved him.

Result: Major Loss plus bonus (6.5 points)

Round 3
Opponent: David Bishop – The Serpent Horde
Table: Spring Thaw
Scenario: Look to the East

This was a straightforward kill ‘em scenario with a catch – half of your army starts on the board, and the rest comes on in a random turn from the “east”, your right hand table edge. David’s Harad was a good horde list – a cavalry contingent of raiders and Serpent Guard led by Suladan, several archers with another captain, and some 30 regular warriors with spears. He outnumbered me by almost 50%.

I put Gandalf and all of my rangers on first with a few warriors to back them up, setting them up towards my right behind a hill. The rest of the warriors and Ecthelion are put into reserve. David puts his archers and a chieftain on his left, while putting his cavalry with Suladan near the center behind a hill. His spearmen are all in reserve.

David starts off by riding his cavalry right into the middle of the table. My rangers come out 3” and let fly. I manage to cut down four of his cavalry in a single round. My reserves come on turn two, and I decide to bring them in to support my rangers. David’s reserves also come in, heading along my rear table edge towards the rangers. I position a few troops up on a hill to slow down the spearmen while focusing on the cavalry. Gandalf tries to Immobilize Suladan, but he manages to shake it off with Will. I’ll give this to Suladan – he doesn’t go down easy. Ecthelion and some buddies were desperately trying to take him down and while I knocked a wound off, I couldn’t do better. The next round I did manage to Immobilize Suladan, but could still only put another wound on him. I’m doing better with David’s cavalry, catching them without a charge, trapping them, and killing them. I finally manage to take Suladan out, and he is the last of the mounted models to fall.

In the mean time, I’m throwing blocking detachments out against the archers and the spearmen. David decides to split his spearmen in two, and I see a chance to eat another bite-sized chunk of Haradrim. I go after the part of his spearmen that are going left around the hill, filling them full of arrows with my rangers, then sending Ecthelion and several warriors over to help out from the cavalry fight. I manage to turn his flank and his warriors drop like wheat to the scythe. I’m also tearing apart his archers with Gandalf’s Sorcerous Blast and warriors while holding off the second contingent of spearmen with shielding warriors.

David’s force finally breaks, and this is the last straw. With no hero to hold them, half of his spearmen flee, and a few more kills reduces him to a quarter. We talked about this afterwards, and a few things were clear; 1) David made a big mistake by feeding his cavalry to my entire force. Between the archery and getting picked on by Ecthelion, Gandalf, and all of my warriors his cav didn’t stand a chance. He would have been much better served keeping them behind the hill until I closed with his archers. 2) He probably should have deployed his archers on his right as well to make reinforcing them with his spearmen easier. As it was they had to run across the entire table before getting to the fight, which by that point was almost over. 3) Gandalf is a very, very bad man who needs to keep his hands to himself. 4) My dice karma, which had been swinging in my opponent’s favor against Anthony, was back in my favor this time, particularly with the round of shooting that saw four of his cav killed. David was a heck of a lot of fun to play, kept a good attitude the whole time, and made sure the entire store knew that Gandalf was a dirty old man.

Result: Major Win (20 points)

Round 4
Opponent: Brent Sinclar – Harad
Table: The Shire (home field advantage, Brent!)
Scenario: The Artifact

This is the oh-so-abused scenario Seize the Prize with one itty, bitty alteration: you have to take the artifact off the enemy’s table edge. Let me tell you, this changes the entire game. Brent had a mean, mean list, with lots of Haradrim including cav, supported by a contingent of Mahud from Far Harad, including two Camel Riders and two Half-Trolls. I knew his mobility could create serious problems for me, but I was counting on my archery and Gandalf to negate that little advantage.

I planned on getting the artifact and running up the right flank, so I sent a large continent of warriors over the hobbit hole on my right to prepare the way while keeping my rangers in the right-center with a clear lane of fire and Gandalf to shield them with Blinding Light, and Ecthelion with all of my Fountain Court Guards behind the trees in the center. Brent had a typical cavalry/infantry deployment for Seize the Prize with four raiders in the center surrounded my his troops. His young Suladan with cavalry support, including his Camel Riders, were over in his left corner behind another hobbit hole.

Things started pretty typically – I moved everyone forward, starting up Blinding Light, and then moving the rangers 3” to shoot, while Brent rushed his cavalry toward the objective chased by his infantry. The rangers loosed their arrows, and I was disappointed with getting less than 50% hits. I rolled for wounds (we’d randomize hits if they wounded the D4 models), and scored 4!!! Two raiders were slain and the other two were unhorsed, including one which failed his thrown rider check and face planted. Sweet!

Unfortunately, they were still pretty close to the objective. We both continued to close, and my second round of shooting couldn’t hit the two forward deployed infantry. At this time, Gandalf tried to get Terrifying Aura going, but I rolled a 1. I finally decided to burn the might – I thought I’d need that Aura up and I wouldn’t get another turn where there wasn’t something more pressing to cast.

The next turn Brent won priority and had both models in contact with the objective. While he was finishing his move, I was doing my best to keep a poker face – I saw a golden opportunity. Once he finished, Gandalf threw a three die Command to bring one of the Haradrim out of the forest and towards me. Ecthelion and three Fountain Court jumped him, supported by more Fountain Court. I could almost see Brent blanche when he realized what I was going to do.

But when it got to his turn, Brent did not despair! No, he thought of a way to deal with this problem – volley fire and choose to hit his own guy! He launched his 12 arrows and… only one hit! Which I promptly allocated to an unengaged Fountain Court Guard against whose armor the bolt bounced off harmlessly. One Heroic Combat later, Ecthelion and his buddies were very up close and personal with the lone Harad warrior, who was duly dispatched, and Ecthelion dug up the prize.

Brent then threw his army at Ecthelion. We wasn’t able to get too many guys into combat with Ecthelion, but a Mahud supported by a spear made it. I really, REALLY wanted to get the heir to the Steward out of there, so I did another Command on the spear supporting model, which created a channel through which I could squeeze in a Fountain Court to help out Ecthelion. I blew his last point of Might in another Heroic Combat, which killed the Mahud and allowed me to run him through the channel. Controversial call here – Brent decided against challenging the Heroic Combat with his Mahud Chieftain, which would have resulted in the closure of the channel if it had worked. He felt it was more important to use that Might for later Heroic Moves.

The next turn Brent wins priority, but I call a Heroic Move with Gandalf. I think Brent challenged this one, but I managed to go first and get Ecthelion over to the warriors who had just crossed the hobbit hole and hand the objective off. I then throw Gandalf and the rest of the troops over there into combat to hold Brent’s group in place. Brent starts shifting his archers left to cover the area in the corner. While both forces are getting ground down in the center, the mass of warriors, including the one carrying the artifact, dash for the corner with Ecthelion in hot pursuit. Brent gets there first and goes into a prevent formation, intent on stopping me from carrying the piece off. First turn I succeed a little in breaking through, but not enough.

At the end of this turn, my force is broken. The Mahud and Half-Trolls in the center of the table have been busy killing my troops off and now I need to make courage checks. I get incredibly lucky and Ecthelion’s Stand Fast! keeps most of the Warriors of Minas Tirith in place. I take a careful, careful look, and see that there is a corridor and a courier for the artifact if I can remove some vital control zones. I manage to put just enough of my soldiers in to allow the carrier to run up, hand off the artifact, and for the recipient to thread the needle and carry the artifact off Brent’s table edge. Holy moly, I managed to do it! I didn’t get the major, because I was broken, but I’d take it.

This was about the best, most enjoyable game I’ve every played. It was challenging, thoughtful, funny, and very friendly. Brent is a fantastic player and painter, so our struggle looked really good on the table as well as looking really, really hard to deal with.

We talked about it a lot afterwards, and we agreed that I got lucky knocking down all of those riders in the first turn and that there wasn’t too much Brent could have done about the Command to facilitate the Heroic Combat. On the other hand, Brent’s decision to not challenge my second Heroic Combat cost him, since it meant he had to chase the artifact. He probably also should have brought Young Suladan over to the rear corner with the rest of the prevent defense to call Heroic Moves when he loses priority, which happened all three of the last turns.

Again, this was an incredible game and I’m really looking forward to playing Brent again.

Result: Minor Win (15 points)

I’ll update the last report as well as formatting and pictures tomorrow. Probably.

Packing up for the Gathering

2009-02-20T05:31:00.000-08:00

Here it is, Mithrandir's Errand!

I still have some details to get done (skin and eyes for Ecthelion and the Fountain Court, other bits) plus a good deal of highlighting on cloth, but this is a playable army now. I'm going to pack these guys up now and get my stuff ready to go so I can leave directly from work. I will take the opportunity to show off my models to my students, so maybe I'll get a little painting done at my desk this morning...

Main parts of Fountain Court done

2009-02-19T05:53:00.000-08:00

I wasn't able to get pics taken yet, but I've gotten all of the basecoating done for the Guards, and now just need to get detail and highlights. They're looking pretty sharp, though I probably could have done a better job with more time. I'll get Ecthelion and a couple of Dunedain with spears primed this morning to see if I can get them knocked out tonight.

I hate painting white...

2009-02-19T04:53:00.001-08:00

OK, I just spent a little over an hour to get the white onto these five models. Figure about 22 minutes a model to paint the feathers and the tabards from black to brown to bone to white.

Ugh, what a pain in the rear. There just isn't a lot of options - a white undercoat wouldn't have worked, and from my experience it is harder to get a really good shadowing on white base coated models. It's great for set pieces, but for speed, I prefer black priming.

Of course, then you still have to deal with white.

Ecthelion Conversion Done

2009-02-18T19:15:00.000-08:00

OK, Ecthelion is done apart from the shield, which I'll put on later. OK, minor conversion, but most LOTR conversions are simple anyway.

I green stuffed the gap in the neck and created longer hair to cover the shelf in the back of the model. All in all, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

"Bro, that ain't cool."

Heh heh heh... Well, now it's time to sand that guy's base and maybe get a little more painting done on the Fountain Court guards.

Bro, I'm gonna rip your head off

2009-02-18T17:53:00.000-08:00

OK, it's time to do Ecthelion. I've decided to use the following models of the brothers Boromir and Faramir. This is particularly appropriate since Ecthelion is their grandfather.

I really like the Boromir model, but between not having a shield and the misaligned mold it just didn't justify building. On the other hand, I HATE the Faramir model, since it is about as non-dynamic as it gets. He does have a nice helmet on, though. So I decided to chop off their heads and put Faramir's helmet onto Boromir's body. Here is the implement of decapitation!

Boromir was pretty straight forward, particularly since the model doesn't have much of a neck. I just chopped across the top of the shoulders. With Faramir I went in a V to preserve something of the neck, then wiggled the head loose.

Next I checked the fit of the two pieces and filed them down to they fit, and just glued them together. I did have to trim the hair a little bit to make it look somewhat natural, though I'll still need to use Green Stuff to make it look better.

I'll be readying a Minas Tirith shield that I'll probably slap on after I've painted the model. Well, I'm going to let the glue set and get some dinner.

First Fountain Court done to minimum standard

2009-02-18T16:54:00.000-08:00

OK, so my test model for the Guards of the Fountain Court is done. I am pretty happy with it, but I'm going to have to determine how to do it more quickly than the hour and a half or so that it took me to do. Assembly lining it should help, but some parts are just going to take a while.

So I started off with a coat of Khemri Brown, a tan Foundation Paint, covering the areas that will be white. Nexxt I put down some Bleached Bone - I had to put a couple coats down on the flatter areas - keeping light colors smooth is a huge pain. I tried to keep the darker Khemri showing in the low areas.

Following that, I put down Skull White, again in some cases having to put down a second, more watery coat of paint to smooth things out. The feathers on the helmet did take a significant amount of time here.

I then put down Dwarf Bronze on areas that would be metallic gold, including on the edges of the shoulder plates. I then put down Shining Gold. The Bronze is a key element to put on first, because without it the Gold looks thin and streaky. I'm going to have to pare this back - the armor edges were a huge pain in the rear to get right, so I'll probably just stick to the helmet and the tabard. I also had to put some Ogryn Flesh wash on the decoration on the helmet then flat highlight with Shining Gold, since the texture wasn't very deep and the paint was thick. Next time I'll just put down the wash over the Bronze. I also put black paint into the areas along the gold to separate it from the white cloth.

Next came putting black on the shield, including taking the time to put some black between the branches on the shield. This does make the shield look nicer, but I'll only do that on all the models if I'm flush on time. Not bloody likely at this point. I also put a black wash over the chest armor, which brought the tree out nicely - it kind of looks like a Spiderman symbol while painting it...

Finally, I highlighted the black cloth with a mix of black and Shadow Grey. This was the hardest decision for me, since I really wanted to black to look black, but in the end I thought tying the highlights into the rest of the force would work. I then painted the skin inside the helmet with Tanned Flesh, painted the eyes white, dotted the pupils with black, and highlighted the flesh with Dwarf Flesh.

At some point, I want to improve the highlights on the cloak, highlight the metallics, and put a design into the gold trim. Oh, I need to paint the spear shaft brown as well, but that's a must do. I'll probably do that later tonight or tomorrow. I think next up will be converting Ecthelion.

I'm way behind...

2009-02-18T05:52:00.000-08:00

Well, the great push I planned over the weekend ended up being a flop. I did get the following done:

So I've got all of my basic troops done to a minimal level and my Fountain Court are getting started, but I still need to convert Ecthelion, and I'd really like to get three more rangers converted with spears. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm contemplating calling in sick Friday... OK, I almost certainly won't do that, but I can see forgoing my sacred sleep to get some more done.

Well, at least I had fun

2009-02-15T20:47:00.000-08:00

I ran a tournament at DundraCon today, and I had a lot of fun running it. Unfortunately, I also didn't get very much painting done, which I had counted on actually getting a significant amount done. I did manage to tank brush the troops and wash them, but no more than that, and I got a few of the Guards of the Fountain Court base coats on their armor. Uh, and that was it. Alas, I had to play as the ringer for two of the three rounds and then help the new ringer out a bit in the third. So crunch time is rapidly approaching. Maybe tomorrow I can do another painting marathon in the morning.

I did manage to get a total of 6 players into the tournament, which is pretty well attended for LOTR tourneys in this area. I deliberately played against Wyn in the first round, which was a slightly modified To Kill A King where if the kings aren't killed then it goes to killing other heroes for Minor Win determination. We got some terrific houses that you could remove the roof from, and I managed to pop Gandalf (my king - it had to be the highest point model) into it supported by other troops. Wyn, who was playing Dol Guldur, pretty much wrote off cracking that nut, and instead ran a budget wraith up and Black Darted my other Hero, Damrod, out of existence. I went running after his now fleeing force, and managed to break his army but failed to cap any of his heroes (wraith and a Spider Queen). So the ringer army took a Minor Loss the first round despite losing three models the whole game.

The other two games were both wins for the Small Errand, with Gandalf making huge contributions to both wins and becoming a bit of a joke in the room - "Oh, it's your turn to get beat on by Gandalf?" to whoever was playing the ringer army. Hey, that's not fair - Gandalf almost got crushed by a dogpile of Uruk-Hai, including a captain, which laid three wounds on him in one round - the first three fate rolls all failed, but the rerolls saved two of the wounds.

Anyway, that's it for now. Bed time.

Building for Must Do done

2009-01-28T19:55:00.000-08:00

OK, I've gotten the last couple of Warriors built, plus they and the Guards of the Fountain Court are based. So at this point I've got everything on my "Must Do" list constructed, cleaned, and sanded. Next up is priming and basing. After that, I'll probably just bring the Warriors up to the standard the other Warriors are currently at, and then shade them all together. I also need to get cracking on making the rangers I have now appropriate with shading and highlighting. The last step in this list will be to paint up the Guards to fully done.

I'm hoping I can get all of that done by the end of the weekend. Don't know, though. I've also got the plastic rangers and Ecthelion to do after this, so I need to get cracking.

New priorities

2009-01-27T19:04:00.000-08:00

Well, while watching some more Firefly on DVD, I finished these fellows.

In the Army, there was a saying: "No plan survives contact with the enemy." As it is here. I've got an opportunity when I finally got these models, and now that they are converted and built, there really isn't any reason to not move them ahead of finishing the Citadel Guard. So these six boys are moving onto my "Must Do" list, and I'll be getting them based, primed, and painted before the Citadel Guard.

Cutting in line

2009-01-26T20:42:00.000-08:00

One of the things that my wife likes to do with me is to snuggle together and watch DVDs in the evening. It's nice together time, and it's fun to watch TV on our time. However, this does distract me from working on the important stuff, like models. I'm kidding, of course. Particularly since my wife just saw that.

I've noticed that it's pretty much impossible for me to paint and watch TV at the same time. The light sucks, there isn't a good way to brace my hands, and I just am not focused. However, I have found that I can build stuff and clean mold lines and the like while watching TV. Well, I got a wild hair up my butt this evening and these guys decided to cut in the priority line:

The biggest pain in the rear was freeing the shields from their former hosts. I managed to ruin one shield in the process as well as stab myself in the thumb with an exacto knife. So if you see red on one of the models, yes, that is my blood. I give to this hobby.

Status report on the Errand

2009-01-25T21:13:00.000-08:00

OK, so it's time for me to evaluate where I am compared to where I need to be. The Gathering is now less than four weeks away, and I still have work to do. Not surprising. If anything, it's surprising just how far I've actually gotten towards my goal. So here it is:

MUST DO

This level includes construction, basing, and painting through at least three levels of color on the models (shade, mid, highlight).

~~Gandalf~~
~~6 Rangers~~
8 Rangers with Spears
6 Citadel Guard (2 bare, all need highlighting)
~~2 Warriors with shield and spear~~
22 Warriors with shield (incl captain) (4 bare, half need highlighting)

LIKE TO DO

This level includes conversions and construction, basing, and painting with at least four levels of color, preferably five.

Ecthelion conversion
5 Guards of the Fountain Court with shields
2 Rangers with spears
6 plastic Rangers
2 plastic Rangers with spears conversion
1 Warrior with shield (probably just include him in earlier batch)
Touch up models to a higher standard of highlighting and shading

MIGHT DO

This level includes construction and painting to at least three levels of color, with the character models painted to display quality (entries into Red Dragon).

Mounted Ecthelion conversion
Rivendell Gandalf
Warriors with spear converted to using swords
6 Knights of Minas Tirith
New display board

As things stand, I can definitely see getting through the plastic rangers, with touch-ups being done as much as possible. I may jump the conversion of the mounted Ecthelion forward in order to get something interesting into the painting competition, but no further than ahead of improving highlighting on the entire army.

However, I do have other things going on in my life which could distract me, particularly grading papers, which I am woefully behind on. On the other hand, I've played through Mass Effect twice, so that doesn't have the time-sapping draw it once had. We'll see how things go next week.

Considering minor changes to the Errand

2009-01-21T19:42:00.000-08:00

Hmmm... I had a brief conversation on AAZ about Guards of the Fountain Court, and I am sorely tempted to include them. The biggest issue will be that if I do I will have to give up a model, dropping to 44 from 45, which in turn drops my break point from 23 to 22. What I would be gaining in return would be F4 models with D7, countering any S4 nastiness I might encounter. Which is the point of my Citadel Guard - the compromise being that with the CG, I'm going to get thumped on 5-6 anyway against S4 but I'm getting a better chance at winning than if I had my F3 warriors instead. So with that in mind, here are some alternate lists.

Option 1

Gandalf the Grey

King of Men with heavy armor and shield (D7)

23 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shield
5 Rangers of Gondor
9 Rangers of Gondor with spears
5 Guards of the Fountain Court with shields

Total Models - 44
Total Spears - 14

Option 2

Gandalf the Grey

King of Men with armor and shield (D6)

22 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shield
3 Rangers of Gondor
11 Rangers of Gondor with spears
6 Guards of the Fountain Court with shields

Total Models - 44
Total Spears - 17

Option 3

Gandalf the Grey

King of Men with armor and shield (D6)

24 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shield
8 Rangers of Gondor
6 Rangers of Gondor with spears
5 Guards of the Fountain Court with shields

Total Models - 45
Total Spears - 11

So I can have one of higher model count, more spears, D7 Guards, or D7 combat hero. Tough call. I'll put the Guards of the Fountain Court on my "like to do" list after converting Ecthelion and give them a try in some games.

A long and trying ordeal comes to a happy end

2009-01-20T19:33:00.000-08:00

Back in 2008, I ordered some LOTR blisters and a book for Flames of War (I've only played FoW a couple times, but I do enjoy reading the books, and this was a new update with a buy one get one free deal) from The War Store on Black Friday. This was a good deal - over 30% discount on the blisters and the book, plus a free book. Mostly these were for my Gondor army - I got a ton of Gondor minis from my victory at the Vegas GT, and these purchases would fill out the army. I got a blister of Guards of the Fountain Court since I don't have them, a blister of Foot Knights of Dol Amroth to cover dismounts for the blisters of mounted Knights I got. I also picked a blister of Arathorn and Halbarad because it was cheap and I'd always wanted Halbarad without the banner.

Well, three weeks after I ordered the stuff I was wondering where the package was. I checked the UPS log, and it was delivered a few days earlier! Uh, no package for me. I filed a claim and after the holidays they verified my claim and The War Store reshipped it. Almost two weeks later, I'm still wondering where my models are. UPS: delivered three days ago! Now I know something is wrong. I go back and check my invoice - uh oh. I transposed the numbers on my address, and it was sent to another condo! I went over, and the lady there said she hadn't seen anything but would ask her boyfriend. I check back two days later, no one's home. I'm getting discouraged.

I check again tonight. The lady there immediately starts apologizing profusely - her boys had apparently opened the boxes and rifled through them. But I did manage to recover not only the first box but the replacement as well. Score! I need to contact The War Store to see if I need to send the stuff back, but I'm guessing that since UPS paid the claim and didn't catch the error either it will just go under the rug. At least I finally have my order!

Tournament Report - GW Alamo

2009-01-19T06:22:00.000-08:00

As I said earlier, there are a couple of problems with running a tournament in a GW store. First off, you can’t have people playing in the store when the store is closed. There isn’t a lot of flexibility in terms of hours, so the tournament ends when the store closes, period. Next, GW stores are chronically understaffed for the purposes of running events. The staff on hand have lots of other jobs to do, such as making sales, doing demos, and talking to customers. On this particular day, there was also an Academy being taught (their new hobbyist training program), plus as assessment center for new potential hires. Whee.

So as a result they didn’t have any staff member available to run the tournament. This is more common than you’d really like to know. The standard answer for GW is “get a hobby champion to run it!” aka find a customer who will run the event for you for free just because they love you so much. Well, to seriously run a tournament, you need to be prepared, you need to be focused, and you need to be neutral. You rarely get all of these things in a “hobby champion”. In this case, they found a guy who would run the event if he could play in it. Pretty much all three requirements out the window.

To be fair to the guy and the staff, the scenarios were already printed out and two of the players (myself and my carpool buddy, David) were very knowledgeable on the rules. The staff apparently did help out enough to judge painting (though I’m not sure when they did it – not that it would have been too hard with three bare armies and three painted armies), but for everything else we were on our own. I ended up keeping track of time myself.

Round 1 – To The Death (sort of)

I’ll give the staff credit – they did plan out some scenarios that were fairly quick, particularly when you had some inexperienced players in the tournament. Round 1 was a To the Death kind of scenario that required a forward deployment from the corners. There was an objective in the middle that gave the possessor 5 extra battle points if they controlled it at the end by having twice as many models as their opponent there. One other fun part of it was that all of the tables were split 6x4s, so the tables were actually 3x4s that we were playing on. This concentrated forces to an extreme degree.

I played a new player named Matt who was putting together his list while I was gluing my static grass on. Due to an extreme shortage of models, he ran with three fully tricked out Nazgul – the Witch King, Khamul, and a generic wraith. To this he added 18 Easterlings for a total model count of 21. I outnumbered him over 2 to 1.

The table was narrow, and I had a barrier and a hill that further concentrated forces. The battle would be fought in the open center. Matt deployed along the front edge of his deployment zone, and I deployed near the back edge in a shield wall/archery formation with Gandalf in the center and cavalry on the flanks.

There isn’t a lot to write about. I actually gave the fellow suggestions on how to more effectively use what he had throughout the game, but it didn’t do much good. I gunned down about a third of his force as he walked in between the archery and Gandalf. When he started to close, I surrounded his entire force and demolished the troops then set about playing piñata with the wraiths. I finally managed to kill Khamul, but I couldn’t manage to finish off the other two Nazgul. Time was called with me having lost six models to his nineteen and me in possession of the objective.

Result – Major Victory plus bonus points (one note – due to an error in result sheets and an odd ruling by the judge/player, we counted Major Victories as Victories and Minor Victories as Draws. Go figure.)

My game ended up running the longest – David’s 73 goblin horde annihilated an all troll Mordor army, and the other game saw both forces broken, which resulted in a draw.

Round 2 – Storm the Camp (sort of)

This scenario was kind of like Storm the Camp, but you couldn’t win unless you also destroyed the opponent’s objective and you had to outnumber your opponent’s army by 2 to 1 in their deployment zone. I was matched up against David. Great. Can someone tell me how in the name of all that is holy I can outnumber (or even outmaneuver) a 73 model goblin horde list on a 3x4 table? To make matters even better, one of those models was a shade.

The terrain was fairly balanced with a hill on one side with lots of monument/ruins, and trees scattered about the field. We actually played on one of the new GW plastic gaming tables, and it was nice. I don’t know if it was $300 worth of nice, but it was nice. Apparently the things weigh 30 lbs with their carrying case.

I decided to try to hold a line between two groves of trees and send Eomer to do his worst to the goblin archers that I knew would be setting up on the other side. Silly me, David deploys and puts his objective inside a forest. Well, crap. There goes that idea. In the mean time, the goblins stretch from one end of the table to the other.

David rushes his goblins forward into fairly accurate bowfire. He takes one Rider down to volley fire, and I decide to try to run them up a flank anyway, but use the side with all the cover. I also try to send some foot models up the other flank. David ignores them other than shooting them when he gets a chance.

He slams into my force about a foot from my objective. The shade is just brutal. I manage to blast him back with Gandalf, but I don’t wound. I am managing to kill a few goblins, but he’s giving back at least as good due to the -1 I am rolling and the multiple attacks he’s getting from all of the spear goblins. He also shoots down a horse and Rider with volley fire. Damn! I finally just decide to play for the draw and send my flankers into his main force. Eomer starts doing bad things, but the other riders get killed once I start losing priority. I do manage to kill a shaman though, which makes me feel happy.

The game ends when my force hits a quarter of starting models but David still hasn’t destroyed the objective. He did get 5 bonus victory points for breaking my force. Really this should have been a Major Win for David.

Result – Draw, no bonus points

Round 3 – Contest of Champions (modified)

At this point, two of the other players have left and I’m put up against Nate (I think that was his name) with a quality Dwarf list. He has some 25 Iron Guard and Khazad Guard, a few warriors, 13 Rangers with dwarf longbows, a ballista, and a Dwarven Captain. Oh, and Malbeth the Seer thrown in for pure cheese factor. 42 models total.

This Contest of Champions scenario gives a major victory if your champion kills twice what your opponent does, a minor if you kill more but less than double, and a draw for a draw. You also get bonus points for breaking your opponent. I decide to go with Gandalf as my champion, because with the archery Nate’s got, he’ll gun Eomer off his horse in no time. I figure I’m better off with S5 blasts and Glamdring.

With only two games going, we all agree to go to full 4x4 tables. Ah, breathing room! We arrange the terrain – I try to limit the lines of sight for his ballista, but there isn’t a lot I can do. I deploy first into the standard castle type formation, hiding my cavalry behind a barricade. Nate puts his rangers on a hill in his center with the ballista on a lower spur. His main force is clustered around Malbeth with a few flankers to one side.

The game starts typically, with Gandalf firing off Blinding Light and volley firing for all. I now learn that my opponent must be very unwelcome in Vegas when he hits the legal gambling age, because he is insanely lucky. Despite Blinding Light, his ballista hits 3 of 6 rounds it can fire, including one direct hit on his target. He also gets enough volley hits to put a round on Gandalf each time, and manages to get three wounds in four rounds! To make matters worse, I fail two of my 75% chance Fate rolls!!!

OK, now I’m scared. I’ve got one wound and no fate left on Gandalf, it’s time to get him some kills. I abandon the volley firing and rush my force forward. Gandalf does manage to get some sweet Sorcerous Blasts off, taking a Fate off of Malbeth and killing two dwarves. Cool, things are starting to look up.

The lines clash and I send Eomer with several Riders into one Iron Guard, then slingshot them around to his rear via a Heroic Combat. The cavalry slams into Malbeth’s bodyguard and starts butchering them. I also Immobilize Nate’s captain to prevent him from getting any kills this round and throw Gandalf, spear supported with two other friends, into a fight with a lone Iron Guard. Cool, 4 to 2 attacks with the upper hand in Fight. No problem. I roll a 2 and three 1s. Iron Guard rolls a 5 and puts an axe into Gandalf’s head. Well, that just sucks.

OK, now I need to kill off his captain without my greatest anti-hero weapon before he can get two kills. I do make myself feel a little better the next turn when Eomer turns Malbeth into a quivering pile of hamburger. Long story short, I start losing ordinary troops to his captain, manage to pile Eomer into his captain through a Heroic Combat (blowing the last point of Might I have on the table in the process), but can’t kill him. He wins priority the next turn, and scores his third kill with the captain. Time is called, and both of our forces are broken.

Result – Draw Really, this should have been a Minor Victory for Nate.

We wrap up the tournament, and the hobby champion ends up winning the tournament (his last game was against David: Treebeard vs. Goblin Captain. You make the call), while David won Best General. I won Best Sportsman, and they didn’t announce Best Painted, apparently because they didn’t want any one person to win more than one award. OK, fair enough. I’m pretty confident I had the best painted army out there, though there was a case to be made for the hobby champion’s Minas Tirith/Grey Company/Treebeard list. However, I did manage to pull a box of Warriors of Minas Tirith out of the deal! Sweet! I now don’t have to do conversions to get my ideal force, though I will certainly do so if I have enough time.

I’m not really sure what lessons to take from this tournament. The force was a compromise, with deliberately lower numbers than I’d ordinarily have taken. With no model painting considerations, I would have mounted Ecthelion and given him a lance and three Knights of Minas Tirith with shields, dropping one warrior and adding some spears for 47 models. I don’t know how much of a difference it would have made, but the slightly higher numbers and higher defense would have been nice. I also might have been able to kill more Dwarves and maybe even the Captain with a lance armed Ecthelion. Clearly the way to kill Gandalf seems to be with volley fire (that was unbelievable) – I need to avoid getting into any kind of volley fire match-up. I need to advance full bore to direct fire range unless they don’t have any archers.

Well, next step I think is going to be getting the models I’ve painted so far up to the standard of the others – shading and highlighting plus light detailing. After that, I’ll finish the “must do” models and take a look at my next step. It will probably be converting Ecthelion followed by detailing the Citadel Guard.

Sense of urgency restored

2009-01-18T20:08:00.000-08:00

Well, I found out on Thursday evening that there would be another tournament this weekend, but I put off doing almost anything about it until this morning. That's right, this morning, specifically around 5:30 am. At that time, my army looked like this:

To back up a bit, the tournament was being held at Games Workshop in Alamo, CA. Well, this is a good venue, but there are always limitations to playing in a GW store, which I am personally familiar with from having managed one and running many tournaments there. In particular, store hours is a big issue. In this case, the store was open from 12 noon to 6 pm. Also odd was the points level: 650. Upon prompting the manager, it turns out the rounds would be 1:45 long. Ooooo-kaaaaay. Grand Tournaments run 2:30 for 600 points, why would this be shorter rounds and more points? I made a quick decision that I wasn't going to paint any more models than I had planned on for the 500 point tournament, so I needed to crap some painted models. I decided on the following list:

Gandalf the Grey

Damrod

17 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
4 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
4 Citadel Guard with spears
4 Rangers of Gondor
7 Rangers of Gondor with spears

Eomer with horse and shield

5 Riders of Rohan (1 with bow, 1 with throwing weapon)

This made things easier because all of my Rohan are painted. Plus I didn't want to bulk out the army heavily so I could play it faster. And I already had my hands full painting the above models.

So back to 5:30 am. I knew my ride would be arriving around 10:30, so I had a total of 5 hours to crank out as much of this army as humanly possible. Oh, and get dressed and showered. Preferably not in that order. I figured I could get a passably painted army done in that time. Time to work on the Zen of the Tank Brush!

First step was an overbrush of Boltgun Metal on all of the armor. I love Boltgun Metal. It comes out nice and dark in a drybrush, but it's bright enough when block painted to look like steel. Twenty minutes later, my warriors looked like this:

This was a nice overbrush, achieved by putting a small amount on the tank brush then dragging it in circles on the palette until it could be seen through. By the way, I have found that a tile palette is a very, very useful tool. For a while I used a plastic one, but it was hard to clean and of limited use. But here's a look at what my palette looked like after loads of overbrushing.

One shortcut that I also decided upon was to just drybrush the shields metallic instead of going white. I can touch them up later if I really want to. Note the difference between the drybrushed shield and emblem and the overbrushed armor:

Next, I overbrushed the armor of the Citadel Guard with a smaller brush. This took me about five minutes.

By the way, I did take pictures with a couple different light arrangements. You can see all the pictures if you really want to at my Photobucket account.

A couple minutes later, I had the Guards armor washed with Badab Black, and by 6:40 I had all of my models washed black, including some on the rangers for emphasis of the textures.

Next, I did the overbrush of the two extra rangers, and tried to do a tank brush overbrush on them without using the tankbrush. This didn't work so well. Instead it left big swaths of Bestial Brown over the model. Hopefully I can shade that out later. After that, I block painted Boltgun Metal onto everyone's weapons. Here was the status as of around 7:20:

At this point, I took a break to shower, get breakfast, and type up my list. This also let the washes thoroughly dry.

I was back at the grind around 8:00. I did a heavy drybrush of Chainmail over the entire warriors armor, and this came out very nicely. Unlike the overbrushes, I removed some of the paint via a paper towel this time. I liked it so much I just decided to do the exact same thing with the Citadel Guard. Here is a shot of two of them, the left after the Chainmail drybrush and the right with washed Boltgun overbrush.

I also gave the shields of all the warriors a nice drybrush of the Chainmail to highlight their trees. Here was my army around 8:30:

I next threw a light drybrush of Mithril Silver onto the symbol detail, particularly the trees and gull wings on the helmets. I also did some onto the upper shoulders and raised arms. This is as of 8:45:

At this point, the messiest parts are done. In order to really make these guys look done, I needed to get their bases looking good. A couple of things about basing: First, you need to choose a base that complements the model but doesn't distract. With a pretty light model, I prefer a darker base. With a dark model, I'll go for a lighter base. In this case, I'm doing Scorched Brown bascoat, Graveyard Earth midtone, and Bleached Bone highlight. This step was the biggest pain. I'd already done the basecoats, but I have a really hard time doing good mids and highlights. The best ones are controlled overbrushes which leaves plenty of paint up higher and the darker color beneath showing. I always either seem to smear tons of paint over the bae or dust the base so lightly it's almost invisible. I finally managed to get something decent around 9:15:

Next step, skin. I'm starting to feel the crunch now, and I'm also sitting around in my bathrobe still. I just decide to get some Tallarn Flesh on now, and if I can shade it later then great. I whip out one of my kolinsky sable brushes and apply the flesh to my models. Around 9:30 I had this:

Now I took a brief break to pack up everything I needed (other than the models I was working on) and get some clothes on.

One note about my brushes. You may have noticed from my painting station that I have two sets of brushes in it. On the right on standard GW brushes, and on the left are some brown handled brushes. These are Vallejo brand kolinsky sable brushes. A couple of years ago I wouldn't really have been good enough to use these guys. They are incredibly precise – in fact sometimes it's hard to get everything you want covered if you're not very careful about it. For this reason I use my GW brushes when I want good general coverage, since they tend to slide down into crevices and flow around the model, while I use the kolinsky brushes for all of my detail work.

I sit back down around 9:45 and get to work on the cloth of the warriors. About ten minutes later, I had:

I decided against shadowing or washing – I just didn't have enough time to do a good job. Much more important was covering appropriate areas with black paint, such as the Citadel Guards' cloaks and the warriors shields. This took some time – I used the GW Large Brush for the cloaks (coverage), and the Vallejo #1 brush for the shields (control). With minutes until 10:30, I grabbed the Iyanden Yellow from my paint rack and put it onto the trims of the Citadel Guards. At almost 10:30 exactly, I had this:

I packed up and went to the tournament. I brought along some washes and my static grass in order to get some more work done with the models. Once we got there, I did manage to get static grass onto all of the models, and here they are, along with their Rohan buddies, on the first table:

Whew! From black models to gaming quality in 5 hours. I was quite pleased with myself. Over the next few days, I'll improve them, adding shading and highlights, plus making the details better. I'll write a report on the tournament itself in a little while.

Well, there goes that sense of urgency

2009-01-14T06:30:00.000-08:00

I got an email last night that said the Cotati tournament was cancelled due to the organizer's illness. It's only pnumonia, come on!

Just kidding. Really.

So I played Mass Effect instead. Fun, but no work on minis. I need to reprioritze, which means more grading and less fun. I'll get something done this weekend.

Step Two - done

2009-01-12T20:33:00.001-08:00

All right, I am still on track for Saturday. I got the warriors and guards primed, then found I had to touch up the primer job on the rangers. Sad reality when dealing with the Zen of the Tank Brush is that you HAVE to have a smooth coat of black primer. The main point is to use the primer as shadows, and if your shadows are grey or silver the effect just isn't quite the same. So after touching up the primer coats I played 45 minutes of Mass Effect. Mmmm, video RPGs... so addicting.

When my timer went off I shut the game down and brought in the primed models. I touched up their primer coats as well, then set to work on the rangers. I tank brushed them, then painted the bases of the warriors while my wife and I watched a DVD. Finally I block painted the rangers' cloaks with Orkhide Shade, and now I'm uploading.

Interesting thing - it took me almost as long to paint the cloaks as it did the rest of the rangers. That's the beauty of the Zen of the Tank Brush, and since Rangers of Gondor were the first models I learned the tank brush technique on, I feel it is appropriate to do a bit of a step by step comparison with them.

The first stage you need to have a bit of a wet brush. I put a drop of Scorched Brown paint on my tile palette and smeared a bit around with the tank brush until it was smearing and I could see the tile through it. I then dragged the brush over the models, which were left with a solid basecoat of paint while leaving the low areas shaded black. Here is the result. This step took me about 15 minutes, or just over two minutes per model. If I wasn't as fussy, I could have done it in half the time.

After that, I did a heavy drybrush/light overbrush using Beastial Brown. There was still quite a bit on there, but as you can see from the pictures the effect ended up being pretty subtle. This step took me almost exactly 5 minutes for all of them - I was making ravioli in the kitchen and the timer went off just as I finished this step.

So in about 20 minutes you've got 7 models that just needs a little detail and you can have very playable figures! This is an awesome technique for speed painting. My next step is to do a little line highlighting with the Beastial Brown to accentuate portions of the model plus the detail work (and of course the highlighting of the cloaks). I may also play around with brown washes in order to blend any highlighting I do in better, but I'll wait until after Saturday to do that.

Step One - done

2009-01-11T20:51:00.001-08:00

Well, I'm on track - all of the models are built, cleaned, and sanded. Rangers are base painted, so tomorrow I'm going to take step 2!

A small errand

2009-01-11T16:34:00.001-08:00

Well, I had almost forgotten about another tournament I'd wanted to go to, an event being put on by the Powers of the North in Cotati, CA. A friend of mine is running it, and my parents live about a half hour from there, so I figured it would be a good trip. Well, it's next weekend, and I really, REALLY want to have a fully painted army for it.

Fortunately for me, this is only a 500 point tournament. So less to paint, right? Well, kind of. The tournament gives a bonus to people with fully painted armies, but there won't be the tough standards one would expect at a GT. So that will be easier. However, I had a much bigger problem.

For the army to be Legions legal, I have to have both a hero from every list and no more than 1/3 of the warriors armed with bows in the army. Well, six of my painted models are rangers, with bows. So I can't reduce the numbers in my army too much or I start losing them. Plus dropping lots of numbers is anathema to me. The easiest way to go would be to just drop the King of Men and lead it with Gandalf. Unfortunately, Gandalf isn't the any of the Minas Tirith lists. And there is NO way I'm dropping Mithrandir. Besides, then I'd have even MORE to paint.

So the solution I came up with was this: Drop the King of Men, then use the Rangers of Ithilien list, from which I can take Damrod, the 20 point hero of goodness. Yep, he only has 1 wound and 1 of M/W/F, but he counts as a hero, and he even has a bow! So here is the list I developed.

Gandalf

Damrod

6 Rangers
6 Rangers with spears
17 Warriors of Minas Tirith (I got three more in the mail last week)
4 Warriors of Minas Tirith with spears (hey, they're already painted, so why not?)
4 Citadel Guard

Total: 500 points
Models: 39
Might: 4

So that's my list. This does mean that I have some really, REALLY quick painting to do, as seen below.

22 models to paint, 4 of which need to be built, and 11 of which need to be checked for mold lines again. I was going to prime the warriors last week when I primed the rangers, but unfortunately I found fat mold lines on almost all of them. I thought I'd gotten all of them... Grrr. So it's time for a real quick plan.

Tonight: Remove mold lines, build, sand, and possibly put the base coat of brown on the primed bases.
Tomorrow: Prime the models that haven't been done already, then do basecoats for the rangers (including Damrod). After primed models have dried, basecoat of their bases.
Tuesday: Overbrush of warriors and guards then wash. While wash dries, do first layer of highlights for rangers.
Wednesday: Drybrush highlight of warriors and guards, followed by basecoat of cloth.
Thursday: Shadow warriors' and guards cloth, then detail rangers. Drybrush bases and flock the rangers.
Friday: Detail warriors and guards, then flock their bases.
Saturday: Go forth and kick butt!

Alas, I did something very foolish last weekend. I went to get a book that we'd ordered, and while walking through the mall to pick it up, I passed a video game store. I ended up picking up an RPG for the Xbox 360, Mass Effect. That's one of the reasons I haven't gotten more painting done, I've been playing silly video games. It definitely takes time away from my silly miniature games! I'll have to try not to play this next week, and hopefully actually get some tests corrected for my classes.

Rumors seem to prove untrue

2009-01-08T05:45:00.000-08:00

Well, it appears the fear mongering, along with GW's silence, have created an impression that is not quite true. According to the GW Community blog:

Planning for the 2009 GW Touranment Circuit is wrapping up (yes there are still some events we’re looking to add), Games Day planning is wrapping up (new dates, new information a-plenty), and our own Grand Tournament planning begins (whew!). [emphasis added]

So a lesson for community relations - be as open as possible to prevent undue speculation. Sadly, GW's record on cooperation with its community hasn't been good, and its customers tend to see the worst in things as a result. They've made progress from their past, but it takes a long time to repair damage.

While on the subject, I just want to add a little personal note: my favorite part of this hobby is probably the community. I love running tournaments, I love meeting new players and experienced players, and there really isn't anything quite like being a part of a group of people who all enjoy the same geeky stuff that I do. It was without question my favorite part of working for GW, and I did relish the leadership position I held in that community. My level of visibility has dropped since I left GW, but I stilll love being a part of the hobby community.

Let's call it a draw

2009-01-07T22:18:00.000-08:00

The Errand had another battle against the mighty forces of the Goblins of Wyn. This time we decided to try out one of the other scenarios, specifically Storm the Camp. I’ve developed some prototype rules for breaking ties to avoid the inevitable unhappiness with the victory point system. In this case, the tie breaker was if the game ended without a camp being captured then whoever had more models in the other’s camp won a minor victory.

Wyn’s force was exactly the same as last time, which was not a fun prospect – where I had the advantage in Contest of Champions, Wyn had a major advantage in Storm the Camp with 14 models on me, including a flyer. The table was also really full, as shown in the below picture. This reduced the effectiveness of my archery. I had swapped out one of my warriors with shield and spear for another Citadel Guard with spear.

I set up first, planning on using Ecthelion and a small contingent to block my right flank while sending Gandalf up to break through with my main contingent on the left. I knew I had to act quickly before I was overwhelmed. Wyn then set his force up with the drum in the middle, a shaman on each flank, with Durburz on my left and his captain on my right.

Rather than engaging in the typical archery duel, we both ended up rushing at each other. I think he realized that he needed his archers up front more than he needed to volley fire at me. We ended up funneling around the hill in the center – I delayed with Ecthelion’s force while rushing forward with Gandalf as planned. I didn’t want a gaping hole in my lines, so I tried to get a few guys up on the hill, but proceeded to roll 1s for almost all of them. Typically, Gandalf got Blinding Light and Terrifying Aura going, and Wyn started up Fury, though one of his shamans blew all of his Will to do it. As the forces closed, I threw a perfectly lined up Sorcerous Blast into a goblin warrior – with a good roll he would have slammed into Durburz, a shaman, and three other goblins! I rolled a 1 for distance. Sigh.

I smashed into Wyn’s right flank very early, turn four I think. Gandalf blasted a goblin into six other goblins, then jumped onto a lone goblin with a warrior. I then tied up the rest of his flank and started sending people around to try to turn it. I launched a Heroic Combat to get Gandalf past most of the goblins. Durburz and a bunch of Wyn’s goblins also came barreling into my line, but I managed to pile a Citadel Guard in with the Warrior on the Goblin King and supported them both with spears. The fight happened, we tied with 6s, and I won the roll off for tied Fight values (good thing I got in the Citadel Guard!). I then piled three wounds onto Durburz, which he saved on with Fury, but then rolled snake eyes for his Fate! All of his Might went into keeping the bugger alive. In the mean time, I was rolling 6s like a madman and the F2 goblins were getting the worst of it. I was also winning all of the priority rolls, and Wyn couldn’t compete with Durburz having blown all of his Might to survive.

On the other side of the table, things weren’t developing quickly. Wyn took cover behind some ruins and threw a couple of arrows my way to little effect. He then threw his captain and some troops into my line, but they just bounced off.

I then threw Gandalf into another Heroic Combat to get him and another warrior behind the goblin lines, and with priority I isolated Durburz and tied up Wyn’s goblins. Durburz fell to the spears of the Citadel Guard, and I blasted a gaping hole in the goblin lines with another insane round of 6s. Things were looking a little grim for Wyn.

He did manage to tie up my troops on the hill and send some goblins off on a dash for freedom.

Time was running out, and I won priority yet again. I bottled up the goblin breakout and sent a contingent running for their camp with Gandalf in the lead. Wyn started pulling troops back in an attempt to make it to the camp in the same turn as mine. Ecthelion and his troops held firm against the goblins pushing against their line as the rangers supporting them fell back to secure the camp and the Citadel Guard stepped forward in support. Another bloody round of combat found the Errand down four models to Wyn’s sixteen.

We checked the time and found we had only a couple of minutes left, not nearly enough for the two turns we’d need to finish the game properly. We both felt that I was on my way to a victory, but according to the agreed upon tiebreaker, we had a tie, since neither of us was in the other’s camp. This is one problem in that a well-constructed force can play for a draw simply through delay if they were so inclined, but I guess that’s a problem you’ll face with almost any scenario.

Again, I’m not sure what I could or should have done differently, but we both agreed that Wyn shouldn’t have thrown as much force against Gandalf’s contingent as he did. Rather than trying to kill them, he should have used shields to stop my movement while he rushed through the light defense in the center or spread my right flank so thin I couldn’t stop something from oozing through. By allowing such a large chunk of his force to be bottled up between the hill and the forest, he surrendered his numeric advantage, which left my superior Fight and Defense dictating the battle. Of course, I did roll like a madman for tons of fights, and winning Priority the last four turns made Wyn’s job nearly impossible. All in all, a very fun game which made us both think hard, and it wasn’t a blowout by any stretch of the imagination.

One kind of funny thing – while I know many people wouldn’t play with unpainted models, I’m more interested in getting some games in than having a fully painted army. But with that, I was working on the force during the game! I’d been working on shadowing the warriors’ cloth before the game. Once my first warrior died, I started shadowing, swapping out the painted warrior for one I still needed to do. I went through my entire force this way, so now all I need to do for the warriors is shade their cloth and detail them.

Metallics and photography

2009-01-03T17:39:00.000-08:00

OK, I did a little bit of this yesterday, but I managed to finish the armor on my warriors today despite being groggy and having family obligations. I actually started this yesterday, but had to wait until the wash dried. I ended up finishing Gandalf while I waited.

By the way, all of these pictures in the blog can be clicked to call up a full size photo.

This first shot is of the warriors after washing them with the GW black wash. It gives the armor a nice used look while creating shadows in the detail. I've included the test models on either side as comparison.

This is a different group of the same batch with a tankdrush applied drybrush of Chainmail. This removed the dingy tone from the armor without overwhelming the wear and shadowing.

This is the first group of five (I realized I'd photographed the wrong group in time to fix the mistake here) with a highlight of Mithril Silver applied lightly to the detail and the high points.

It's tough to see a heck of a lot of difference in the photos, but in real life the difference is dramatic. A lot of people seem to think that metallics just highlight themselves, but this really isn't the case. I definitely have found that using washes to bring out the shadows and drybrushing brings the detail of the model out really well and adds a lot of depth. Having seen far, far too many of these models with nothing but a quick block paint of Mithril Silver, I can personally attest that the extra work done here was worth it.

I think one of the reasons the difference doesn't come out too well in the photos is that I'm just using my quick and dirty photo setup. It's essentially the two lights that I use for painting just pointed directly at the models from about a 45 degree angle in front of and above. This gives a sharp reflection off of the metallic paint which the more diffuse light we normally see doesn't have. I also just have the camera set to Auto in Macro mode with the flash turned off. If I really took the time to reflect the light and set the shutter speed they would come out a lot better. Ah, well, I just don't care that much right now. I'll probably try to do a better setup for my pictures of the finished army.

I also use daylight spectrum bulbs in order to see my colors in the most accurate light possible, though I wonder sometimes if this is really necessary considering that paint judging is rarely done in such light. I remember the light in Vegas was so bad we had to ask the staff to turn the lights up in order to see the detail on the models. I was wishing I'd brought my little camera and tripod to Vegas - there were some gorgeous armies there.

Speaking of Vegas - I was shocked to realize that apparently GW decided running GTs was too much of a hassle, including Vegas! I haven't heard any official word on this, but the circuit that has been published is all Indy tournaments. It's great in my mind that they're encouraging high quality events, but with no official event, even in Baltimore, it kind of leaves me feeling left out. Vegas in particular was a huge hit with a waiting list for almost all the systems.

Gandalf is done

2009-01-02T19:19:00.000-08:00

Here he is, my early scale Gandalf in all of his glory. Oh, I do need to finish his base now that I think about it.

This is a try to get a shot of his face - a side effect of having such a cool hat is that you can hardly see the model's face and it's almost impossible to take a picture of it. This was the best shot I could get.

I had most of the model done already and just had to get the flesh done. I did the layered method on this one. I put on Dark Flesh, then Tanned Flesh, next Dwarf Flesh, and finally a light highlight of 50/50 Dwarf and Elf Flesh. One thing that I've found is that hands in particular look really flat without some flat painting to give it a little extra pop. On the back of your hand you can see the bones creating a little ridge. Well, that's pretty much invisible in real life, but on a mini a light highlight there really brings the hand to life.

I also tried a blue wash on Glamdring, and I'm not sure how it turned out. I may give another highlight of Mithril Silver over the edges to return the metallic edge to it.

Another win with the Errand

2009-01-02T18:12:00.000-08:00

I took another victory with Mithrandir's Errand, this time against a goblin horde force commanded by Wyn Robertson. For those who don't know him, Wyn is an extremely canny player who regularly wins local tournaments and fought me for the best overall at GT Vegas 2008. We played an unfavorable scenario (for him) this time, which was Contest of Champions.

I used the same Errand as last time. I don't remember the exact composition of Wyn's force, but at 600 points it had 59 models including Durburz, a Goblin Drum, a Bat Swarm, a captain with shield, two shamans, and 6 prowlers. I was outnumbered by 14 models, or over 30%. Yow. Gandalf was my champion and Durburz was his.

The terrain was pretty normal with lots of hills, a ruin, and one river blocking a quarter of the table. However, the center of the table was clear as required by the layout of the scenario.

The game started off with the predictable volley fire from the goblins, but I eschewed volleying in order to get closer. Gandalf turned on his Blinding Light and Terrifying Aura, while both shamans got Fury going. Only one of my warriors fell to the goblin archery. As I got to within 24 inches of Wyn's goblins, he kept most of his gribblies behind terrain, but I started to plink off one every so often, though I was disgusted at how my vaunted Rangers of Gondor were statistically matching goblins for archery. However, as more and more of his goblins became visible and the forces closed, I jumped Gandalf out and started throwing Sorcerous Blasts at his goblins.

At one point, I saw a terrific opportunity to blast Durburz back into a shaman and four other goblins, and ran him up to hop up a 1" climb to blast. I roll a 1. Grrr. I burn a Might, after all, I've got 3. I then rolled three dice of Will (burning two from my store), and managed to only roll a 4. At this point, I'm pot-stuck as my poker playing friends would say, and I threw in a second point of might to make it happen. Wyn rolls one die to resist and throws a 6. Well crap. Just don't blast heroes is the lesson here.

An hour and a half of maneuvering around each other finally saw Gandalf blast a goblin out of existence which put Wyn behind the 8-ball. The goblins were getting the short end of the stick in the archery game with about seven of them dead to still only one of mine. Wyn started to move in closer, and I pulled together a shieldwall across the center with a corner near the hill that Gandalf had to use Might to climb. Gandalf headed away from Durburz towards my left flank while Ecthelion went to deal with the goblin king.

Wyn finally managed to hit my line with about 45 minutes left. Gandalf jumped in and blasted some goblins who were stuck behind the lines then charged a lone goblin. Glamdring cleaved it, bringing Gandalf's tally to three, while Durburz still hadn't hit the line. Along the line the goblins threw themselves onto the shieldwall only to be repulsed with serious losses.

Durburz finally hits my line, but it's looking tough. Wyn very cannily isolates Ecthelion from Durburz, but I manage to peel off all but one enemy while putting spear support on both of the warriors Durburz charged. Alas, I forget to call my Heroic Combat until later. Before that, Gandalf butchers another goblin (two wounds, though he managed to roll 6-5 for Fury: whew!) and Wyn's line is collapsing and I'm turning his right flank. We play through until we get close to Ecthelion and Durburz, and I ask for a mulligan Heroic Move. Wyn gives it to me and while I win the combat I fail to kill the gobbo. Oh, well. Durburz then butchers the two warriors opposing him, we check the time, and have one minute of play left. Wyn asks for a mulligan Heroic Move for Durburz and just for sport we do it. He manages to kill another warrior, but that still leaves the tally at 4-3 in favor of Gandalf.

This scenario played Wyn's instincts against him. Wyn is a very deliberate player who knows how to place his specific models. He also regularly plays Wood Elves, whose archery is vicious. He's used to hanging back and drawing his opponents to him through withering bowfire, and the goblin archery was more annoying than deadly. My rangers and Gandalf on the other hand were seriously scary and once I'd killed a goblin with a blast the pressure was really on Wyn to even the score. Here his deliberation helped me as I whittled down his forces at range.

In this case, he should have rushed his entire force (minus the drum, of course) straight at mine. He'd suffer some minor pricks from my archery, but he needed to get Durburz into the thick of it, and his greater numbers would have put me into a seriously tight place. On the other hand I pretty much played it how I should have, forcing him to come to me and scoring kills at range with Gandalf.

I'm looking forward to playing Wyn some more in the next few months, and I think we'll deliberately choose some different scenarios.

Test warriors complete

2008-12-31T16:35:00.000-08:00

When I started painting heaps of models for Games Workshop in one of their hobby centers, my manager introduced me to the amazing technique he called "The Zen of the Tank Brush." So I got the main things I'd need for this project:

The idea of the "Zen of the Tank Brush" is to do an overbrush of the entire model with the tank brush. An overbrush is very similar to a drybrush - in fact most people who think they are drybrushing are actually overbrushing. The difference is in the amount of paint on the brush. For both techniques you need a dry brush - moisture on the brush will lead to paint going down into the crevices of the model, which you definitely don't want here. For overbrushing you put a little of the paint on and remove enough that there are no glops. However, if you drag the brush across a surface color still shows up immediately. This lays enough paint onto the model that you've got a smooth basecoat without going too far into the recesses. So you just drag the tank brush over the entire model a couple of times and you've got a partially shadowed basecoat! It takes a little practice - too much paint and you get a messily block painted model, and too little and you get the powdery appearance of a drybrush. The beauty of it is that with a tank brush you can effectively overbrush a large number of models in a few minutes. That leaves you free to complete the details if you're not too picky about the highlighting, and if you are just do a lighter version a second time.

I tank brushed the primed model with Boltgun Metal, but I think I actually didn't have enough paint on the brush, because the model came out a little powdery. So for comparison I grabbed another one of my spearmen which had a more solid coat of paint on him. This also gave me the opportunity to test some other ideas side by side. My second step was using the GW black wash over both models. After that dried, I used the tank brush to drybrush on some more Boltgun Metal, followed by another light drybrush of Chainmail just to see if it mattered. I saw a small difference, but nothing big. Next I grabbed a small drybrush and hit the chest tree, the wings on the helmet, and edges of the plates with Mithril Silver. This gave the models a very nice highlight. I also liked the effect of the more solidly painted model - the first model had a definite powdery appearance. I also will pretty much have to use other models for my actual army, as it became blindingly obvious that I hadn't removed the mold lines from these guys.

I next decided to see how the models would look with and without washes over their cloth. I experimented with another metal ranger I had lying about, and found that the wash really worked well as a glaze to pull the highlights together. I played around with the warriors as well, first putting a basecoat coat of Fenris Grey, a Foundation paint, onto their cloth. Instead of layering up, I layered down, enhancing the shadows of the cloth. The next layer was a 50/50 mix of Shadow Grey and black (using two drops each from my Vallejo bottles), and the bottom layer was the same mix with another three drops of black added. I finally put a black wash over the first model's cloth while leaving the second model unwashed.

Next I did the shields. I've almost always seen these done in metallics to match the armor, but I wanted to actually have them be white as it says in the books. OK, the books say that only the Guard of the Citadel (which GW split up into the Guards of the Fountain Court and the Citadel Guards) bear the arms of Elendil, but heck with it - they're on the shields, so I'm painting them white. I covered the entire shield in black to cover the drybrushing up, then used the side of my brush to barely hit the detail on the tree with Astronomicon Grey, another Foundation Paint. Well, the first model had much lower detail than the second model and I ended up smearing paint all over it. I next put a layer of white on, then went back and touched up the black around the tree and between the branches when I could manage it.

My next task was to experiment with faces. For the first model, I just slapped on some Tallarn Flesh (Foundation paint), then used the Ogryn Flesh wash. The other one I did a three layer process of Dark Flesh, Tanned Flesh, and Dwarf Flesh. This was a huge pain in the rear inside that tiny helmet space and ended up looking sloppy and unhighlighted. Well, easy looks better, so I'm going with that!

Finally I tidied up the details and based the models, and here they are! The model on the left is the original one with the drybrushed base coat and the washes, the one on the right is the unwashed cloth and face.

By the way, pictures of my step-by-step work are located at my Photobucket account.

Well, with the result of this test, I think I'm going to go with a heavier basecoat of Boltgun and make liberal use of the washes. I'll put building more spearmen into the "like to do" priority list, along with converting some non-spearmen. After all, if I don't need the spearmen, why build them now?

Vital contruction complete (mostly)

2008-12-31T13:32:00.001-08:00

OK, I've got the first stage of construction done.

I am still waiting on a few models to arrive via the mail, and I'll get them cleaned up before I start painting the rest of their batch. Or maybe I'll just get this one batch done and do the others when they get here. I'll figure it out. One way or another, I'm test painting my spearman first.

One thing that I really don't like doing, but am still zealous about, is cleaning the models. Gah, I hate mold lines. However, they do really look tacky on the models after they've been painted, and the methods I'll be using will actually accentuate any mold lines, so I'm being super careful. The most obnoxious - I had one of the Citadel Guard with mold lines over the wing detail on his helmet. Removing them while keeping the detail was a challenge. The next most obnoxious was a mold line down the middle of the face of one stance of the plastic rangers. Getting rid of it while keeping the facial detail was another pain.

Ah, well, I'll get the test model painted and then I'll review how I've done.

Pics of what I've got so far

2008-12-30T14:17:00.000-08:00

I had a hard time sleeping last night, so one of the things I decided to do was organize my paint station and get my models ready. After cleaning it up and tracking down the various paint pots I had lying around the house, here it is, ready to go.

It was not NEARLY this clean last night. It had probably eight different half started projects on and around it, such as the Assault on Black Reach terminators and dreadnought, a Nazgul on Fellbeast, some stuff for a 40K army my wife started years ago, Lumpin Croops Fighting Cocks for Fantasy, Numenoreans, Dwarves for LOTR, and stuff for my Mordheim warband. That's just what I remember. Well, I cleared all of that off, put them into boxes, and stored them away so I can focus solely on this project. Here are the minis I'm starting with.

An observant reader (not that I think I actually have any) will note that I've got 6 Citadel Guards, an extra spearman, two Dunedain with spears, extra heroes, and not enough warriors with shields - only 14 warriors with shields, in fact. Well, first on the warriors. I'm making a couple of transactions via Bartertown in order to get more warriors with shields. I'm getting a bunch of other minis, too - it's a nice way to dispose of excess models that I've got hanging around for models that I don't have. Having worked for Games Workshop (I managed one of their hobby centers for about two years), I have a heap of unneeded plastic and pewter.

Anyway, I'll be using the extra spearman as my painting dummy to see how the paint scheme plays out. The extra Citadel Guard will be easy - painting 6 models takes almost the same amount of time as 5 models, and I may replace a regular spear warrior with a Guard. The Dunedain I might use as Rangers of Gondor with spears - I'll need to see how that works out. I'll put them in the "like to do" priority list. I'll also put additional plastic Rangers (beyond the eight spear carriers) into the "like to do" category, since I already have fully painted metal Rangers of Gondor.

As for the extra Gandalf, I'm not sure if I want to use the old Fellowship/Old Friends Meet Again Gandalf, or the Rivendell/Scale Creep Gandalf. I'll definitely put the Rivendell Gandalf in the lowest priority "might do" slot. As you can see, the old Gandalf is nearly completed - just flesh left to do, and maybe some touching up of the details.

Ecthelion is another issue. I really want to use a converted model to represent the King of Men stat line, but I also know that as soon as I am back to teaching I'll be very short on time. So I'll paint up the Captain of Minas Tirith to the same basic standard as the rest of the warriors. If I manage to finish up everything on my "must do" list, then converting and painting Ecthelion will be my next priority. I'm also contemplating what kind of head to use - I ordered some cool replacement heads from Ebob Miniatures that I may want to use on him after filing down the swan head. Another option would be carving up a Numenorean for the head swap - I think it would look kind of chintzy to just slap a shield on Boromir and call it a conversion.

So my next order of business is assembling the models I currently have that I need. So I'll get the Rangers opened and assembled and the sword carrying warriors assembled. Next I'll base the models, and after that I'll test paint the extra spearman and prime the unpainted models black. I'll then assess how the paint scheme works and change anything I need. Next would be the same process for the rangers. By that point I should have received all of my remaining models and I'll paint the main body of troops. Following that, I finish Gandalf and start the Citadel Guard. Once they are done, I can start on my "like to do" priorities, such as converting Ecthelion and more sword armed warriors from spearmen and giving some rangers spears. Once I've wrapped up that painting, it will be on to more fanciful stuff that I'm unlikely to use, like Knights of Minas Tirith, mounted Ecthelion, and Scale Creep Gandalf.

Paint plan - first stage

2008-12-29T20:27:00.000-08:00

Well, I'll be budgeting my time in a while, after I've taken a full accounting of my models and what I want to do with them. I'll have "must do" priorities, "like to do" priorities, and "might do" priorities. I'll start off with my basic painting ideas. I want my main palette to resemble the movie and book, but one somewhat sad aspect of the books is that the given palette is pretty much black and white and grey. Bleh. Well, I think I'll play with it a little bit with the grey, using a foundation paint with tinges of blue in it, which I have already used for Gandalf's hat. So here is my basic plan:

Warriors

Armor and blades
Base - Boltgun metal overbrush
Shade - Black wash
Mid - Boltgun metal drybrush
Highlight - Mithril Silver light drybrush

Shield emblem
Base - Deneb Stone
Highlight - Bleached Bone

Cloth
Base - Fenris Grey
Mid Shade - Black/Shadow Grey mix
Low Shade - Black wash

Flesh
I need to make up my mind on going with a simple base, wash, and highlight or a layered highlight. The facial areas inside of those helmets are tight.

Citadel Guard

I need to reread the books, but these guys are all in black IIRC. I'm thinking I'll take a little creative license and do the cloaks black but their tunics bone, kind of like the painted Guards of the Fountain Court. I think I'll give them a yellow trim if I do that, otherwise a dark red trim. I'll need to play around with them a bit.

Rangers

Cloth and wood
Base - Black
Mid tone - Scorched Brown overbrush
Highlight - Bestial Brown drybrush

Tabard and cloaks
Base - Catachan Green
Mid - Catachan Green/Dark Angel Green
Highlight - DA Green

Echthelion
I want to use this guy as part of my Numenorean army as well, but that is going to have a similar paint scheme, with heroes being dark red. However, I might stick with the same basic color palette of blue/grey and bone.

I'll have to see how my test models turn out before I commit to the specialty models. My priorities are now:

1) Gather all of the models and pieces needed in one place
2) Finish main (pre conversion) assembly
3) Paint test pieces
4) Reassess paint scheme
5) Do required conversions
6) Set paint schedule

I'll get the first two done tomorrow, and I'll try to paint my test pieces by New Years. Hopefully I'll have all of these steps completed by January 5th so I can get my time spaced out well instead of being cramped.

First game - a win!

2008-12-29T19:18:00.001-08:00

Well, I just played my first game with Mithrandir's Errand, and it worked pretty well. My list was as follows:

Gandalf the Grey

King of Men with heavy armor and shield

5 Citadel Guard with spears
21 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
3 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
8 Rangers of Gondor with spears
6 Rangers of Gondor

The list used a bunch of proxies since I haven't even assembled some of the models. I played a fellow named David who used a Dwarven horde list consisting of:

Balin (no magic axe)

8 Iron Guard
8 Khazad Guard
16 Dwarf Warriors with shields
17 Dwarf Warriors with dwarf bows
2 Dwarf Rangers with 2H axes

Great, outnumbered by Dwarves. I hate that. To boot we got a "kill 'em all" scenario, Clash of Piquets. However, the game ended up going my way. First off, we both put our archers out, though mine were behind a line of my warriors. I was able to start shooting immediately, and though I hit a lot I did little damage. However, he was only able to volley with his 18" bows.

We both got our forces on pretty quick, and I had my main line of warriors backed by spear toting rangers laying into his troops as they approached. He ended up feeding about a quarter of his force into my flank, and I was able to redeploy quickly enough to overwhelm them. He never really got his archers into the fight, and I managed to get him down 19 models by the time we called time. I had lost 10 models, so I was much farther away from breaking and had lost fewer victory points. However you slice it, I won the game, though it probably would have qualified as a minor victory. Filling D6 Iron Guard full of arrows is really fun.

So some of my observations:

1) Gandalf is the bomb! No, really, I mean the bomb! Having a free point of will each turn meant never having to say "Oh, I don't think I'll blast his troops this turn." Plus, with Blinding Light, I discouraged David from bringing his archers in closer than volley fire range for him, which was a major factor in the win. Plus, with F5 and S5 using Glamdring, he was a very potent force in fights, particularly when supported with a spear. Sadly, I could never seem to roll above a 2 with him to wound - except one turn where I rolled three 6s and a 5, and that was against one trapped dwarf.

2) I was wondering how effective bow armed troops would be with spears, and I was not disappointed. The biggest problem with archers is they have low Defense because they can't use a shield, so you don't want to throw them into combat. They end up hanging out on a hill or something away from your main line, and you have to decide when to actually commit them to combat. Well, arm them with spears, and you don't have to worry about it! They travel behind your well armored front line and when the line hits combat they help out with being picked on when you lose combat! This worked great, and I'm going to be incorporating it into my Numenoreans as well. If I can find myself a couple more Warriors of Minas Tirith, I may end up completely losing the shield and spear models in favor of giving the spears to Rangers. Hmmm, perhaps a conversion?

3) The Citadel Guard actually came in very handy. When I was fighting S3 troops, I'd use the Citadel Guard to support the people fighting so their D5 wouldn't get them picked on. When I was fighting S4 troops, I threw the Guard into the combat to use their F4 to help win the fights, since D5 is identical to D6 when it comes to getting thumped by a S4 model. Similarly, throwing a ranger into a combat when the odds were heavily in my favor was another big help to avoid losing on the tied rolls. Having so much F4 while maintaining a front line of D6 is awesome.

4) I like using the King of Men stat line instead of the Captain of Men. The F5 alone is awesome, and having extra Courage and Will is worth the price. I think I'll be changing my list to reflect this.

Starting off - Mithrandir's Errand

2008-12-29T12:04:00.000-08:00

OK, I am getting ready for the Gathering in the Desert, a independent Lord of the Rings Grand Tournament in Arizona. With only 54 days left until the event and none of my proposed armies being fully painted, I'm going to go with the easiest to paint. My preliminary list will be:

Gandalf the Grey

Captain of Minas Tirith with shield
6 Citadel Guard with spears
21 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
3 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
14 Rangers of Gondor with spears

A lot of this is dictated by what models I have available, not to mention the whole problem of painting quickly. I'd prefer to have more regular warriors and fewer spears, but I just don't have the models. If I manage to get most of this done, I may add in some mounted models, particularly a captain, since I'll have the foot models already. I may also do something like take a King of Men to represent a mightier hero of Gondor.

The back story will represent Gandalf seeking to intercept a force of orcs traveling from Dol Guldur to Mordor in order to find some proof of the Necromancer being Sauron returned. We'll see how it pans out. I'll post my painting plan later today. Hopefully. *8)