Tuesday, April 08, 2014

Unboxing the War Chest

Posts have been scarce lately.  We've had our kitchen redone, an exchange student come to visit and all the ensuing cleanup, reorganization and other stuff.  Frankly, it's been crazy around here, but the good kind.

However, since I just got my Kickstarter backer reward from the Warmachine Tactics computer game, I thought I'd post up the unboxing.  Especially since the war chest is only now reaching backers.

It's a pretty beautiful piece of work, but let's get on with the photos, shall we?

First, the box.  Well, the mailing box.  And another box inside the box. (Rather well packaged, actually)

My Ironclad warjack wanted to check it out too.  Either that or he just wanted some attention and paint.
Next we open the box, and find, another box!  Only this one is wooden, with sexy sigils on the front.

Very nice.  The gold is thick too, not just a brief dusting across the top.  Ironclad approves!  Inside, there's a large foam sheet.  We pull it up and...
(he's very curious, that Ironclad)

Inside, that thick foam holds in place all the goodies.  There's a coin for each faction's journeyman warcaster, as well as one for Tactics and an additional one for the alternate Sturgis sculpt.  Each of the journeymen models (and the extra bits for evil Sturgis - those and the extra coin I added as additional rewards) are tucked into the cubbies in the lower foam.

Everything arrived super safe, and all the parts are there, which I checked shortly after the photo above. Ironclad can vouch for me, he was watching the whole time.  You can see the special edition dice (which has Cygnar on the six, of course, as that's the way it should be)

Also included were the patches for journeyman and mage, as well as a rather nice thank-you postcard.  All the cards necessary for the models are in there too, including duplicate Sturgis ones (Cygnar and Cryx).


The design of the whole box is pretty sweet.  The lower foam is the harder kind, and you could put your limited sculpt models in there with the coins.  I might want to add some softer foam if they were fully painted, but I doubt this set will see a lot of bumping and jostling, so not a big deal.  The circles for the coins look large enough to hold the coins even if you had them in those plastic coin protectors, so that's pretty cool.  

Here's a shot of the coins themselves.  They are probably the most beautiful part of the whole package.  I admit I just took the photos on my desk, so the quality may be lacking.  I also left the coins in the plastic for now, as I plan to get some protectors in the near future.

And finally, the models in all their glory (unassembled for now, will get on them when I get my gaming table back from the heaps of stuff on it at the moment).

Ironclad agrees; the War Chest is pretty awesome.  (Now paint me!)

I'm looking forward to getting the models together and giving them some paint.  Unfortunately, I'm posted to HMCS Regina in a few weeks, so will have to wait until I get back before I can really give them a go.

Until then, there's a brief preview of the Warmachine Tactics Kickstarter War Chest.  

Monday, February 03, 2014

Ads done right

Due to a lack of other content, I present an ad that totally gets it right.  I'm neither fan nor foe of Nissan in particular, but anytime you put zombie snowmen and a faux-Zimmer soundtrack, it's probably going to be pretty cool.



That's all for today, as it is the Monday of housework and other miscellaneous chores.

Friday, January 31, 2014

They Might Be Giants, 2014

Over at the Reaper message boards, there's an informal competition started for 2014.  Normally I'm not much concerned with competing, but a year long contest to paint a 'large' mini was too tempting.  It's also an informal event, so I'm using it as a chance to paint something I don't do very often.

Cue the Reaper Bones material.  I picked up a few giants to give me some choices (and free shipping, never say no to free shipping).  The cloud giant, frost giant and remorhaz are all interesting, as is the Belladonna figure I grabbed a while ago (L to R in the photo).  Far right is a lovely dram of Jura Superstition single malt scotch whisky, but that's for another post.



However, the one I picked is a fire giant (you can sort of see her in the upper left, above).  I like her stance, the facial expression, and that cloak. Wow. Intimidates me as much as makes me drool to paint it.  She'll need some straightening and other prep, plus some sort of scenic base.  I'm thinking lava flows but we'll see. 




Looking in the Pathfinder Bestiary, I see fire giants are lawful evil and highly regimented and militaristic.  Their hair also looks like flame.  Needless to say, this has my artistic gears churning.  A lava flow base, dark skin and flaming hair.  Something with colour but not too overwhelming for her cloak and some cool armour.  Hmmm, I could enjoy this.  

I check the Pathfinder books not to limit creativity (as I'll ignore what I don't like), but for both inspiration and the basic fact that I use these minis for gaming.  As much as they 're display pieces, I like having some pretty models for the game.  As a GM pre-painted plastics are fine for hordes, but when you've got a special villain, recurring character or something like that, being able to plonk down the exact mini is awesome.  (And if any of my players are reading this, beware! Unless I'm faking you out.  Or not.)

First, however, I have some Eldar models to finish up, but then this will be both a fun project and a palate (palette?) cleanser.  Something in between wargaming models.  

Thursday, January 30, 2014

The Adventurers, Part 2

Here are the next two miniatures I painted over the holidays.  As before, my photo setup is rudimentary (actually, primitive would be a more fitting descriptor), so there's a bit of glare from the flash, and the lighting in the office isn't top notch).  First is Chalderos the wizard.



Chalderos was a lot of fun to paint. As with the others, I started with the player's favourite colour, which was red. The cloak was a joy to paint. I'm also in love with P3's Coal Black colour. It's a black with tones of blue-green and looks really good. For those keeping track, the cloak is Skorne Red.  I kept to more natural colours for the rest, so as not to overshadow the main colours. It was tough though. Wizards and other spellcasters can be a pain, due to all the pouches, scrolls, vials and other gear they carry.  I want to make it interesting, but too much variance and it becomes a clownish riot of colour.  I think it turned out well, mostly using bronze and leather colours.  The base is part metal, part sculpted.  Since I put the minis on spare Warhammer 40k bases, I usually have to build up the base with putty to finish it off.  In this case, I sculpted a continuation of the stonework that was the original base. Once painted, you can't tell the difference.  To top it off, the green gem on the staff finishes the mini, adding a complement to the red.

The next one is my daughter's mini, Kyra the cleric of Desna. For this one I used blue. Mainly as it is a traditional Desnan colour, but also because I used her favourite colour (purple) for a mini in another campaign.



The blue is Cygnar Blue from P3 again.  I love this colour. The character is mostly robe, so the blue dominates the miniature.  I went with more neutral colours for the rest of her clothes, even over my daughter's objections to the linen pants (told you it would look great!). The hair also worked well, the rich brown turned out just like I expected.  It's hard to see in the photos, but I did a stylized silver butterfly (one of Desna's symbols) on the robe.  Following the curve of the robe on curved wings ... ugh.  It came out pretty decent though, so I'm happy with it.


Needless to say, the kids were pleased, and we'll have plenty of games to come with them.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

The Adventurers

Here's a few photos of two of the miniatures I painted over the holidays.  The first is for one of my daughter's friends, who plays the elven fighter Tiraimi in the Pathfinder RPG campaign I'm running for them (Serpent's Skull adventure path, for those keeping track).

(Note that I do not have a miniature photography studio, so the quality of the pics will not be great)

In this case, the armour, oh the armour.  This was the first time I used the Armour Wash from Privateer Press' P3 paint line.  Wow.  What a difference.  Outside of that, the teal colour is Meredius Blue (also P3) with a blue ink wash and arcane blue highlingt (also P3).  The most fun to paint was the armour.  The white, as usual, was a pain, but hey, it looks good.




The next one is Hubert the dwarven rogue.  For this one, I chose a more limited palette (mostly green, black and some brown leathers) as rogues aren't in the business of standing out.  The beard and face were a joy to paint, and I think the colour mix managed to be interesting yet blend well together too.  



As I said, the pics aren't the greatest.  I'm planning on cobbling together something better in the future.  Next, I'll show off the other two.  They make a pretty good looking adventuring party, if I do say so myself. 

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Review of 2013

Not really a review of the year, but a review of the goals I set out.  They weren’t many, but I like to keep things simple.  Sadly, simple and easy don’t get along very well.

Two things came off the list, one was to finish my Phase VI and get promoted.  Done!  Life is good, though it did suck up almost every useful moment from January to the end of March.  Still, totally worth it, as my final board went really well.

The second was to have more miniatures painted than I had before.  Also a win, though barely as it was only a few Eldar as well as some RPG minis.  More on those later.  Still a win though.

As for finishing the first draft of Queen’s Legacy, well, no.  That didn’t happen.  So, it’s on me to get on that and put the effort in to get it done.  Some cases, I had good reason (see getting promoted, above), and in others, I just got lazy/procrastinated.  All it does is push back the eventual publish date (or that of the next, or the next).  On the plus side, I found new energy in the story, and later months were much better for getting writing done, especially once I decompressed from all the studying/working early in the year.

In the end, I have myself to blame for successes, lack of successes and outright failures.  In between goals, we had a lot of fun playing games as a family, I started a new Pathfinder campaign which now plays regularly and got some things sorted out around the house (yes, we’re still unpacking and organizing).  We also got out to Big White ski resort (more on that later too).

Overall, 2013 was pretty good.  Now going into 2014:

  1. Finish Queen’s Legacy first draft
  2. Begin the editing process on Queen’s Legacy
  3. Begin planning the next writing project (during the necessary downtime after Queen’s Legacy first draft)
  4. Paint some more models (finish a whole army would be nice)

That’s about it.  More time spent in the writing chair.  In between there’ll be games, some vacations and some sailing time.


Looking forward to it.