Live to CRUSH

When I first saw the black dragons character unit of Iron fang Pikemen, I was pretty excited. Iron fang pikemen are some of my favourite models ever created. Period. If LtC’s Aaron didnt pick khador up first, I would have. If I had that khador army, it would be all pikemen and spriggans. As you can see, an IFP character unit with some back story appeals to me.

Then the wheels began to turn. The $15.00 blister contains enough shields to upgrade a full unit with officer and standard bearer. That’s 12 models. That’s not such a good deal. I envision the breakdown to be a dollar per shield, 50 cents for the card, and the standard costs $2.50. Iron Fang pikemen are frakkin expensive as far as 10 man units go The cost to purchase the full 10 man unit, plus standard and officer blister is $103 bucks. Then you have to throw down another 15 just to get the upgrade pack. 118 dollars on one unit!! That’s more expensive than my DJ extreme!! It hits me right where it hurts: the wallet.

As the engineer that I am, I hypothetically considered magnetizing a unit of pikemen so I can swap shields and standard when I want to play the black dragons instead of regular IFP, thus saving some cash. This seemed like a great idea at first. When I started to consider that my black dragons would be wearing black or be a completely different livery (as privateer press painted their models) the magnetic idea fell apart. Sadly, you can’t swap shields and standard on models that are a different colour scheme. It doesn’t work that way. I could paint my regular IFP khador red and my Black Dragons a colour that compliments the red. This is one possible solution.

Another solution is this: Don’t paint your models! That way you can swap between the shields and standards all you want. You and your opponent just have to put on your imagination goggles to envision the difference in livery between the two. “Hell yeah those are different! Cant you see the difference in primer I used on those shields!?!” To be completely frank, 9 out of 10 units of iron fang pikemen that I have seen on the table don’t even have their shields glued on because the owner is waiting until the base model is painted before attaching the shields.

The long and short of this release is while it may appear that Privateer Press is trying to enliven an older unit to see more use on the tabletop, it really just screams lazy. Instead of taking the time to sculpt something new*, they did the most basic of conversions/sculpting to make something new for one of their more expensive 10 man units (seriously, I could sculpt those shields and standard in two hours**). Their competitor’s would just throw the alternate parts and card in with the IFP box and let you choose how to build it. Heck! Privateer Press did include alternate parts with their plastic jack kits. Why not here as well?

Unfortunately, in this case, your going to have to shell out 118.00 dollars to get something new. Or go unpainted. Everyone else is doing it.

*I would have liked them to fix the larger IFP problem that most people gripe about: the flimsy pike shafts.

**I’m assuming 3 unique shields and one standard. The rest is casting magic.

Hawk is Shae’s main squeeze. It is his first mate. I don’t know why he keeps his first mate around all the time. I wouldn’t no matter how grandiose her boozies are. Maybe she is Shae’s one and only. I know I’ve met the one. I had a few ones, but now I’m on just the one. Life is full of comings and goings. I think Charles Dickens said that.

Onto painted figures! I painted this substitute mate as a stand in for privateer press’s First Mate Hawk. The model is Reaper 02981 Lonnia Female Duelist. The reasons are obvious, so I’m not going to beleaguer this post with a comparison. As they say in construction management: See below

I kinda went overboard on her. I wanted to give her clothes something different to make her more like a swashbuckler of many seas. Overall, I am very pleased with her. My main painting gripe is her lips. I couldn’t get them right and to this moment, they still are missing something. My other beef with this model and all reaper models is their casting process leaves small imperfections in the metal, whether it be dimples or coarse patches. There are a few dimples on various spots on this gal that piss me off. Overall, as I said, I am pleased. I really tried to get the metals to pop and I think they do, especially the gold. Her shirts pattern, imho, came out great too. I dig it.

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

I’m going to be slowing put up pictures of my Khador army once they get completed. I finished this Devastator a while ago and I feel that it is my best work to date. I’m trying to improve on this work by making the shadows and highlights more noticeable, they are very washed out by the light in these pictures. When I was painting the model I thought that they were drastic but afterwards realized that they were. The transitions are very smooth though and I was happy with that.

Privateer Press released the 2012 Steamroller rules the other day. Check them out here. Scroll to the bottom of the page for the PDF of the rules.

In case you don’t know, the Steamroller format is one of the official tournament formats of Hordes and Warmachine and probably the most popular format. If you go and play in a local tournament or if you go to one of the big regional tournaments, chances are you’ll be playing Steamroller. You don’t have to be at tournament to make use of these rules. The LtC guys like to use these rules to switch up from playing the old ‘Caster Kill format with other scenarios. Try it out in your local gaming group.

Good luck in 2012!!

– Aaron

Alright class, please sit down. Today we will be discussing a paint scheme we have all grown to love and fear. The Orange Blight. After a brief discussion of the scheme I will begin to outline the practices one must go through in order to achieve a well done paint job using this scheme and colors to their fullest. Please keep all questions to the end and interruptions will not be tolerated. Yes, hurry up and go to the bathroom now..

.

.
The orange blight is an alt scheme I developed in the very beginnings of my Warmahordes days. I will start off by saying I NEVER under any circumstances use studio schemes. This is not to say I don’t like them, in fact much of the opposite is true. I love most studio color schemes. However, as a person who feels a special connection to THEIR army I believe a truly original color scheme is a very important aspect to making an army your own. It also separates it on the battlefield when playing other armies of the same faction. It also allows you to develop an overall feel. But enough of color schemeing we can talk about that later lets get into the process:
.
Step 1. Prime white! I always prime white. Part of me thinks im just stuck in my ways so in the future I plan to experiment with some other primer colors but for now, white. Why white? Two reasons. One- white allows you to see the model and all its details much much more clearly. Two- It allows for bright colors to glow or shine bright without the black under painting ruining them. Black under orange or khaki gives you a VERY different feel than having white underneath. It does not reflect as well.

.
2. Base coat! This step means your putting down you basics. In the orange blight scheme it is Hammerfell Khaki (P3) and Orange Fire (valejo). No mixing medium because I don’t want to stretch my pigment, I want it as opaque as possible so it will cover the best but a little water to help the flow and so the paint doesn’t dry during application.  I base coat everything first before highlights and shades. I also base coat with a midrange of my color and add a bit of water only.  No mixing medium because I don’t want to stretch my pigment, I want it as opaque as possible so it will cover the best. Not the shade and not the tint or highlight. This way I can work in both directions as much as I see fit. Getting darker in the shadows and lighter in the highlights. The orange just goes on liberally over everything that may have orange poking through. This means over the entire range of armor plating this way I can let areas be revealed as opposed to trying to get orange to show up on the dark areas after. (this will make sense later)

.
3. Shade tone on Khaki.  For this I mix Hamerfel Khaki, Coal Black, and some mixing medium.  The medium allows my paint to become transparent so my base coat will show through a little bit thus creating a better harmony and blend of the shade with my base.  Coal black is a little on the blue/green side so this also works as a way for me to get some cool tones in my shadow areas and contrast off the orange bits.  I apply this nice mix pretty liberally over the undersides and valleys between muscles and limbs.  Anywhere that sinks down and is not raised like between ribs or folds in skin.

.

.

4.  Now that we have our shade down its time to highlight back up.  Almost always I do one shade down, then back to base color then either one or two steps lighter.  So for this step we ad back in our base color because chances are we shaded more area than we needed.  Each step I get tighter and tighter as I paint.  So base coat i can be sloppy, shade tone I can be a little sloppy now when I add base coat back on I need to be neater and each highlight I will be more and more careful.  So this time I ad a little water and medium to my base color and work up the more raised areas things that pop off the model or stick out.  This includes ribs, shoulders and usually the bigger flatter areas of skin.

.

5.  Now I take that same base coat mix with the medium and add some Menoth White base (a yellowish bone white color).  This will give me my first highlight up.  I work generally the same areas as the last step but stick to the most raised or bumped out surfaces and muscles.  My brushwork also starts to change as I concentrate on following the contour or the muscle.  I am also using a lot more tip of the brush and bristles and a lot less flat. also i make sure i have a damp clean brush and my paint is kind of wet. i just use the tip and i brush on in quick downward strokes with the muscles to get that rippled muscle effect.. make sure you clean your brush often to keep the paint flowing and your lines thin and perfect.. i also use a golf swing.. what i mean is that i start making the strokes with my hand as i move towards the model allowing myself to get some practice swings in.. also my brush moves in bit by bit till just the tip hits as i make my stroke! perfection… most of the times!?

.

6.  Next highlight: same as before but mix in some menoth white highlght to the mix.. ok now just the very high points get highlighted.. (after this is done the skin tone is finished but dont be afraid to do some thin strokes of the shade color again to put emphasis on the muscle striations.. (you may over paint and lose some of the feel sometimes thus adding back in shades or highlight may be necessary)

.

.

Whew! You made it pretty far, but the bell is about to ring.  Next time we’ll go over the way I paint my under armor and top plates and put the finishing touches on my Legion.  Hope you enjoyed this little tutorial and please feel free to ask questions post comments and give feedback.  See ya next time.

Howdy all, long time no post. Thundernuts and I played a game of Arkham Horror this past weekend, and I’ll jump tentacle-head first into it. Mr. T-nuts chose to play as Mandy Thompson the chesty researcher, and I played as PI Joe Diamond. After learning from a flying chimpanzee that combat is where it’s at, we were pumped with our initial item draw which left Mandy wielding an enchanted knife with dynamite in reserve, and Joe dual wielding his .45 and a .18 Derringer. We squared off against the ugly bugger Nyarlathotep:

With each of us owning and finding a fair amount of clue tokens, I jumped into the first gate that opened up while Mandy fell through the next that popped on her. A couple turns later we sealed both gates but came back to another two open gates and plenty of monsters roaming the board, nearing our monster limit of five. T-nutso and I had a snack and decided to talk strategy. We read the AO’s card and found that clue tokens acted as health in the final battle, so we probably should not seal any more gates. He reasonably suggested that we didn’t have enough turns (taking into account Nyarly’s 11 total doom count) to close every gate for the win; I told him to shove it. We plowed ahead with the goal to kill monsters before we were overrun.

With both a bloated woman and a hound of Tindalos blocking Mandy from moving, another gate opened up on her. Joey D was on the other side of board and I decided to collect clue tokens. An evil fog settled on the city, breaking our will but making covert operations easier. A rumor “Good Work Undone” permeated through town, threatening to destroy every seal we put up unless we spent clue tokens. After panicking and lollygagging for a couple turns we ate dinner and strategized again. Both the weather and the rumor were making the game more perilous if we tried to close gates and kill monsters, so I agreed with Thundernutcracker’s earlier advice. Our plan was simple; we gear up and head for the final fight.

Avoiding monsters was easy under the evil fog, so we ran for all the buffs we could. After getting a blessing for a gate token, I posted up in the curiosities shop until I read the King in Yellow, gaining more clues. Mandy popped out of another dimension with an axe, ran to church for a blessing, then to the science building for more clues. A monster surge occurred at some point, which revealed a witch’s sweet underboob/sideboob and gave us morale.

The final fight began and Nyarlathotep came at us with all his tentacles and magic resistance, but really stood no chance. Mandy started the fight with a bang using dynamite. It was a blast. After three turns of her rerolls helping out Joe’s aim, we hadn’t lost any clue tokens and Nyar was dead. Happy days to the investigators and the world!

Scrap thralls are a very unpopular solo in cryx. According to iBodger Stats They appear in 1.7% of lists. Not high on the power level I suppose. Nevertheless, I made a small collection to be the integral part of my “walking bomb” army list. Someday I will flood the field with a tide of walking bombs and watch my opponent shake fear. I need to make about 18 more for this to become a reality. Until that day, I’m stuck playing other lists. These were made with an assortment of bitz from cephalyx, scrap thralls, and a batch of homegrown pumpkins, all based on microart studio bases.

Hey guys, got some updates on Colette’s Travelling show. Just figured I’d post up some WIPs so that people could see where the color scheme is going (completely dropped the old one). I’ll have more updates, and maybe a full breakdown of how I painted them, when I finish, hopefully for the ToP deadline.

Here’s the mannequin -

The performer -

And here’s them together -

Let me know what you think of the new scheme and how the painting’s coming along. Mostly I think the ivory-ish color for the performer’s dress is getting where it needs to be and everything else is mostly base coats, but at least they give you an idea of how the scheme will look. I’m planning on doing the other set of performer & mannequin as ivory and black, and those will be my 3 main colors.

-WJ

The dawn of the New Year calls for some new fun. What better way to start off than actually getting some models painted up. Yes, that’s right, we here at LTC, in case you haven’t noticed yet, are half way through the first month of Live to Crush’s Beginning of 2012 Tale of Painters – Malifaux Edition (LtCBo2012ToP-ME). We are a pretty lax group, here more for your amusement rather than diehard deadlines, and the rules reflect this.

The LtCBo2012ToP-ME will last 4 months, with a bonus 5th month. The ideal quota for each month is the total number of models in your preset list divided by 4, rounded up, with the last month being a light load. However, as a bare minimum , you have to get at least one model completely painted/based to stay in the running. By month 4 you have to have your whole 35ss crew painted. The leeway allowed there.

Monthly submissions are due in the first week of the new month. Pictures of completed models should be posted.

Failure to get the monthly minimum done means you get a coconut cream pie (store bought or homemade, minus slices for those that succeeded) in the face, three stooges style at point blank range. Then you have to run around the exterior of whomever’s house 3 times, barefoot & with no jacket. Pictures of both events will be published here. Your not out of the ToP either, You still have to paint your stuff for the next month submission or get more pie —> face. This is to ensure we don’t leave anyone behind. No painter left behind, like the marines.

The last person standing at the end of the 4 months gets a free horseman model (including shipping) of their faction bought by the 3 losers. If more than one person is left standing, It’s a malifaux wrestlemania time. If you ever got a pie to face, then your ineligible to get the prize, but you still get to play in the wrestlemania.

Wrestlemania:

Everyone plays everyone once (random scenarios around). Record VP’s. The two top scoring people play each other. Re count VP’s. If there is a winner, done. If there is a tie, Fate deck game of 31 between the 2 people. If there was a 3 way tie for first round vp’s, the lowest vp holder gets the prize. 4 way tie, is a hat draw of random names. If we all lose the ToP, then we each have to roll down a large hill. If you are ineligible for the prize, but you won the wrestlemania, the next highest vp scorer that was eligible gets the prize.

Bonus Month 5 shall be a special bonus month where the losers buy their faction horsemen/riders (the winner got his for free). Then we all play with our 35ss painted crews and the horseman of our faction, in a grand 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse game, while listening to songs about horsemen and/or the apocalypse and eating jerky. The horseman has to be painted in month 5. Then we play the game. No paint, no date.

As you can see, it’s a wild and crazy time. As we all love pie, none of us want to see it go to waste, so were working like mad men. Who will finish? Will there be pie in anyone’s face? Who will have to barefoot hop the 6ft fence surrounding Wombatjuggernaut’s den in the icy New England winter?

The first submission is right around the corner; just over 2 weeks out. As we have seen, Cloudfang has the lead with 2 near completed models. Aaronm and WBJ have discussed their palettes, but what of the painted models? Will they be able to perform? And what of the intrepid Thundernuts; silence from him since his crew was posted? Has he even picked a color scheme? ooooooo the suspense!