Updates: Christmas Break!

There has been, and will continue to be, a slight lull in my update schedule as I deal with a busy Christmas season that will see me finish a chapter of my thesis and then fly back to Canada to visit my family.

However there are big things coming in the future and readers can expect to see lots of stuff relating to Warhammer 40k in the new-year.  I am organizing a narrative escalation campaign ranging from 500 points to 1250 to begin in February and am painting up a small Ork force to accompany it. There will be posts not only commenting on the system and showing my painting but also some battle reports and army narratives!

As a placeholder here is a teaser of my unit of shoota boyz coming along. This is the basecoat on everything save for the metals. I look forward to talking to you more in the new year!

Forge World Fails to Impress

Disclaimer: I have often stated that one of the things I dislike about miniature-wargaming as a hobby is the entitled and oft-negative nature of its customer base. There are a lot of reasons why this attitude exists within the community, some of them reasonable, but many not so much. While I hate adding my voice to the  criticisms sometimes I can't help it and this is one of those times. I hope you find me justified.

Earlier this week I made my first ever purchase of a Forge World miniature,a subsidiary arm of Games Workshop that manufactures highly-detailed resin figures designed to compliment or replace those produced by GW itself. Forge World, like its parent company, gets a lot of flak for its high prices, but I have heard little to no criticism of its actual product.

So when I decided to treat myself by purchasing a new and untouched Ork Warboss on a Bike second-hand from Ebay, I felt assured that I'd get a great figure out of it. Unfortunately I was profoundly disappointed by the quality of the sculpt.

Now I know the first thing some people might take issue with is that I purchased this item through Ebay, as I know there is a whole recasting industry located in China that does imitations of Forge World products for half the price. I want to emphasize that what follows is an original Forge World product. 

• I purchased it from within the UK through an individual seller and not a store.
• The figure arrived within a Forge World bag with appropriate barcode, 
• When I needed a replacement part the seller provided me with his original order number. I used  this to contact Forge World directly who confirmed the original order/barcode and had a new part sent to me.

Hopefully this is sufficient to establish authenticity, and I can get into my issues with the quality of the sculpt itself.

Firstly, here is a layout of the figure's components. There are a lot of parts but its an intricate sculpt so that can be overlooked. There is also no assembly instructions included, but I had heard in advance that Forge World was really bad for this and was not expecting any. Thankfully I located an exceptionally detailed blogpost explaining how to assemble him. So despite this initial problem this is all pretty reasonable.

To give credit where it is due, the components that are well-cast look really good. The best example of this is the main body of my warboss, who looks pretty great right out of the bag. Although the chain on his little skull necklace is subject to some of the casting issues I encounter elsewhere.

Now we get into the real problem. It seems like every small component was very poorly cast, and they all have a huge assortment of flash and mold-lines. This is especially problematic given forgeworld's choice of casting material. Resin lacks the pliancy of plastic in which you don't need much force to trim and cut away excess material even on fine points. 

At the same time it is nowhere near as durable as metal, which requires more pressure to clean excess casting material but is very unlikely to break or lose its shape. To get around this a lot of companies use a type of soft resin mixed with plastic that is easier to work with, Games Workshop's "finecast" material is like this. (Which, despite its rocky beginnings, has become a great material to work with as time has gone on.) Forge World resin on the other hand seems to be "pure" resin and is extremely brittle, to the point that I believe they should not be attempting to cast anything small or intricate with it.

I am an experienced hobbyist, and I am happy to spend lots of time cleaning and assembling an expensive character figure like this. Between fresh hobby knives, a set of miniature nail files, a jeweller's saw, and small clippers I should have all of the tools and expertise necessary to effectively clean up a messy cast like this. Yet I have never felt a material fight me so much as when I work with Forge World resin. No matter how gentle I am I feel constantly at risk of having chunks of the model break apart from under me. Cleaning the really fragile components feels like trying to remove every individual piece of salt from a soda cracker without breaking it. Sure, with a sharp enough knife and enough time it is possible, but also exhausting, and I am constantly at risk of breaking off big flakes of material. This has also made me seriously concerned about future breakages as I plan to use my warboss on the tabletop. I don't know if pinning will matter much if the material just shatters around the pin...

Even the large components can be hard to work with. Many of the mould-lines are the product of off-set castings that require a lot of work to align.

Finally, to top off this nightmare of quality control Forge World accidentally packaged two copies of the left-hand bike gun rather than one for each side. As a result I had to get in touch with the Ebay seller to get his original order number so I could arrange a replacement part through Forge World. To their credit they were kind enough to cast another gun for me even though the original order was past their usual three month returns deadline. I had heard their customer service is excellent, which seems to be true, but at the same time I now completely understand why this company would require a good Customer Service team.

To put things in perspective, I wanted to give some examples of resin done right via some images of Guild Ball figures. These figures and its game are the product of an independent company called Steamforged Games that is closely associated with my local store Element Games. Yet despite their smaller size ,the quality of their resin casting is exceptional. Small components are not bent out of shape, flash is kept to a minimum, and mold-lines are  small and easy to remove. Despite their 28mm figures being almost half the size of my massive warboss, the detail seems just as good if not better on many components. To top it all off, their resin is of a much nicer and more workable quality than the Forge World equivalent.

Note the thin arms on the bottom left that came out perfectly.

A reasonable and easily cleaned mold-line along the front torso of the figure.

Another reasonable mold line along this guy's side.

Conclusion: I am a casual hobbyist, and my skills don't demand flawlessly cast miniatures in order for me to get the most out of my painting and gaming. Yet it seems to me that Forge World products are of such poor quality they are not suitable for tabletop gaming or professional hobbyists. The figure I purchased is an omnishambles of bad casting, extremely brittle resin, and poor quality control. They are a major company with probably the single most expensive miniature wargaming figures in the world, and yet independent companies with cheaper figures comprehensively outperform them. If I could have returned my warboss I would have, but as it stands he will represent my first and last time working with a forge world miniature.

Update: Since writing this piece, I have had a chance to take a close look at other forge world products shown to me by friends and the like. Some have been totally unassembled, others painted, and I admit that some of them looked to be very nice casts indeed. Yet the quality seems to vary enormously, and the brittleness of the resin that I discuss here is present across the entire range. However I feel its important I acknowledge that Forge World is perfectly capable of producing decent casts, and reiterate that this blog is an account of my initial experience with them, and why it led to them losing me as a customer. I know that my experience is not an isolated incident, nor do I think this blog is merely an angry rant. The issues I outline are legitimate grievances with Forge World's quality. I'm not sitting here hoping my blog puts Forge World out of business, rather I genuinely hope they fix these issues and that anyone else who decides to purchase from them has a better experience than my own.

Hobby Thoughts: How to enjoy painting miniatures.

I don’t claim to be a great painter. In fact I am perpetually reminded I'm not given the award-winning abilities of my roommate Byron. His basic line troops wipe the floor with my fanciest character models.

A phoenix guard model from my roommate on the left. A warpriest character I slaved over on the right.

Talk about a slice of humble pie right? Yet I have, over the course of the past year, come to truly enjoying painting as my favorite aspect of the hobby. This is something that was absolutely not the case for many many years, and I thought writing article about the changes in equipment, technique, and attitude I've undergone to reach this point this would be a great idea for anyone else looking to enjoy their time with the brush a little more.

From "I hate this shit" in 2010 to "I'm having a blast!" in 2015.

This article assumes that painting is a priority for you to some capacity within the hobby. Whether it’s painting a high-quality force or just hitting a “three colours and based” minimum for a tournament you may find something of interest here.

Equipment

1. Know what type of paints your buying and whether they align with your painting goals. There is no such thing as brand loyalty when it comes to paints due to the variance across each range. Experiment with different brands and see what you like, check out what others recommend. Of relevance to this is a personal revelation I've had recently in the difference between what I will call "tabletop" paint designed to have good coverage and go on as a basecoat easily with a harder protective finish, versus what I'll call "advanced" paints that might have a high pigment count but are not designed to be very opaque or cover effectively. 
• Examples of "tabletop" paints include Vallejo Game Color, Army Painter, and most Games Workshop paints, all of these are designed to basecoat smoothly and stand up to the rigors of handling produced by typical gaming. Of particular note here are Games Workshop's "Base" range and Vallejo's "Extra Opaque", both of which are formulated for maximum coverage.
• Examples of "advanced" paints include Vallejo Model Color and Scale 75 paints. Both tend to cover poorly despite their vibrant colors, but because they are not very opaque they produce beautiful blends far more easily then having to really thin out a paint that wants to cover everything.
2. If you are painting anything bigger than a skirmish-game sized force then do yourself a favor and buy an airbrush. Even if it’s a cheap set up you will get back hours of your life through simple techniques like colored base coats and/or blocking out colors on basic line troops. I can't see myself painting anything without one.
3. Get a good traditional brush. I haven’t really implemented this myself yet as I've  not yet tried the much-idolized Windsor and Newton series 7. But I have gradually progressed from using Games Workshop, Army Painter, and currently Kolinsky sable hair brushes from Element Games. The improvement in control of the paint coming off the brush has been noticeable each time.
4. Use a florescent or daylight lamp to illuminate your painting. Any cheap articulated lamp will do, and it helps even more than you think.
5. Don’t buy things you don’t want to paint. If you want to have a good time painting, then paint something you find beautiful. With the glut of skirmish games in the market right now there are many companies with extremely poorly designed, or downright ugly miniatures. I'm not inclined to care how great a system rule-set is, how beautiful people may claim the miniatures are, or if a particular model is really strong on the tabletop. If you don’t like them, don’t spend hours of your life on them.
6. Don’t buy more miniatures then you can paint. Trust me, I know how hard this is. But having a legion of things that need painting is going to hurt your enjoyment more than anything, and turn an otherwise enjoyable painting session into a small part of a massive slog towards completion. Unless you’re doing big batches with simple techniques like airbrushing/washes where you can see progress being made extremely quickly, be conservative with your painting goals. One unit at a time, reward yourself with a character between them , put away any miniatures that need painting so they’re not out in the open guilting you. Don't assemble things you won't be able to paint right away. Don’t spend loads of money in one go, regardless of how good the price is. A personal rule of thumb for me is to buy, assemble, and paint only one box at a time, be it a character, vehicle, or unit. You get to enjoy your painting more and you save money, it's win-win!

Technique

Given that I'm not an expert painter this section is quite basic, but I hope still applicable to everyone getting a bit more joy out of their painting. However feel free to skip it if you're already a strong painter!

1. Spend time on assembly, clean all mould lines, pin things that need pinning. With modular options think about natural-looking yet dynamic poses. Add some details to your bases like rocks, etc. There is no point beautifully painting a miniature that was slapped together in a few minutes. Conversely, a clean and well posed/assembled miniature will make even a basic paint job looks miles better. This is the reason I stopped buying second-hand figures. 90% of people are not thoughtful in their assembly, and the effort and time to salvage their careless work is not worth the reduction in cost.
2. Choose a primer colour that will help you paint your chosen colour scheme. Using a black primer for a brightly coloured force that has a lot of yellow (for example) is just adding hours to your painting, whereas its a great decision if your painting lot of metallics since they cover nicely over black. Conversely using a light primer with darker colours will make more work for you, as any mistakes will stand out much more and you'll need to basecoat and shade more extensively. Grey is a nice middle ground if you have a mix of dark/light colours. For other colours outside of these three I recommend using an airbrush basecoat over one of them rather than a colour primer.
3. Using a little plinth of some kind for painting is often quite useful. It isn't always strictly necessary but having a magnet on the bottom of your figures and sticking them on a wine cork with a penny glued on top can help with accessing hard to reach points. Alternatively if you are pinning your model to their base, consider painting the base and figure separately and just sticking the figure into a wine cork while painting it. This is a must for metal or resin figures since paint layers can easily rub off on your hands.
4. Thin your paints. People always say this but you have no idea how true it is until you do it. Just water is fine for most applications and it won’t affect coverage if you’re using a good basecoat paint. How much you need to thin depends on application, but for basecoating you should need to do two coats for good coverage of anything that isn't extra-opaque like the Vallejo line or GW base paints.  Glaze medium is an exceptional thinner for when you want to reduce how opaque paint is in order to have it pool in the recesses like a wash, enhance how easy it is to blend a paint, or just washing over a series of layers to tie them together.
5. Basecoat carefully. Unless you are doing advanced shading and highlighting the need to put down a clean basecoat of a single colour over your primer before doing anything else is really important. If your basecoat is neatly done then everything else is gravy and the model will still look good almost regardless of what follows. It should all feel downhill after a good basecoat.
6. Washes are your friend. Most people already know it, but for the sake of any truly new painters, washes go a long way to adding depth to your models. Bonus points if you use a bit of glaze medium to make their colour go on smoother. A careful and clean basecoat with a wash or two is probably the best place to start for a beginner painter on your average line-trooper. Keep it neat and keep it simple. Once your comfortable with that you can step it up to the magical formula of basecoat, wash, basecoat on raised areas, higlight/basecoat mix for highlights, which is more than adequate for the majority of hobbyists out there.
7. Less is more when it comes to paint. Keep things simple with a handful of colors and only 1-3 pots of paint for each. Repeat simple techniques and shade down or higlight up by mixing rather than introducing tons of different paints. Remember that black is not a color and doesn't clash with any scheme, so if a figure has a lot extraneous details like equipment hanging all over it consider just painting the extra stuff black to keep the visuals clean.
8. Paint your bases last. If you mess up the colour and get it on the miniature's feet it’s a lot less noticeable than the reverse scenario.
9. Varnish your paint-job. With plastic miniatures this is only necessary at the end, but with metal or resin I would suggest at least three coats of varnish: one after your primer, one after your basecoat, and one when its finished. There's nothing worse than having your hard work get rubbed off when you are painting or playing.

Mindset

1. Plan your painting in advance and use test models if you want to try a new color scheme. Think carefully about how your colours will look and check out how they relate on a colour wheel. Consider in advance how you will base your figure and what its visual interaction with your colour-scheme will be. Also be sure to write down your paint scheme as it develops so that if you come back to a particular scheme down the road you can retain consistency.
2. With each miniature, know what quality of painting you’re aiming for from the outset. Don't try to paint line troops like your character models and vice versa. Make sure your expectations align with your skillset. Knowing when to put down the brush is just as important as being able to paint like a golden demon winner. When it comes to line troops remember that quantity is its own form of quality, so most of us can keep it simple.
3. Keep pushing yourself to make painting interesting. If you are not enjoying your painting try employing a new technique. Try painting a different model in some new colours, or a one-off figure from a totally different system or army. Always try to incorporate something into what you are doing that challenges you. Try a bit of weathering on your vehicles or armor, or try some blending on a character model.
4. Take the advice of people who are good painters. This doesn't mean you have to do everything they say. But really try to absorb it and think about how you can apply it to your next project. I despise coming back to a model I feel is “finished” so I never implement any criticism I get immediately, but I will always internalize any feedback I receive and keep it in mind for the next figure.
5. Know when to step away from the painting desk. If you are ever frustrated or finding you are not enjoying yourself just stop and do something else for at least 15 minutes. Stretch, go for a walk, talk to some friends. Its just not worth harming your mental state to finish a miniature, and if you push yourself like this its only going to reinforce whatever you dislike about the process. Additionally, if you are frustrated with a paint job just step away and don't look at it for a day. Coming back with a fresh pair of eyes is far better than going back and forth and agonizing over things.
6. Don’t play if it’s not painted. Another tough rule to follow that goes hand in hand with “don’t buy too much”, as the less models you have awaiting painting the less likely you are to try and field them. The payoff, however, is absolutely worth it in my mind. Being able to put a fully-painted army on the tabletop gives a cathartic pleasure in and of itself, and contributes immeasurably to the enjoyment and visual immersion one gets out of the game. If both armies are painted then you get a beautiful, immersive and far more characterful game out of your chosen system. Alternatively if you’re playing against an opponent with an unpainted force then you have already won, dice rolls be damned.

I hope this wasn't too pedantic from someone whose clearly only an average (if that) painter. Then again I think its precisely because i'm average that my words might be a bit more relevant to most of the hobbyists out there.

Happy painting all, and thank you for reading!

Painting Experiment: Orange/Yellow Orks Part 2

I'm planning to run a Warhammer 40k escalation campaign with a narrative focus next February. To that end I have to decide on a army to build and paint for it and, because i'm a masochist, I've elected to go for Orks rather than the using the Grey Knights I've already completed. While I love the Grey Knight models the fluff and character of the Ork army is vastly preferable to me. I love custom armies with a great backstory and a focus on having fun rather than winning games, and the Orks are all of these things to a tee!

After the (relatively) successful experiment with orange skin I spent a lot of time agonizing over a color scheme to accompany it. I settled on a bright turquoise produced by Scale 75 and tested it on my original model here.

Turquoise is exactly opposite bright orange on the color wheel and compliments it very nicely. So I quickly moved to get some actual 40k orks to test the scheme on. Thankfully a mate of surgical fame had a partially-used pack of stormboyz he gave me to test my scheme on.

Initially things went great and I loved the way they looked with my orange skin.

The grot inside this rocket is probably my single favorite miniature of all time. I'm dead serious.

However after this it got a little complicated. 40k Orks have tons of different components slapped all over theme, especially these stormboyz figures, and it was tough trying to decide where the turquoise needed to be. I eventually added a secondary color and did the majority of their armor in black as its an absolutely neutral tone, and actually compliments the turquoise and orange quite nicely.

My plan now was to paint turquoise on the clothing and black on the armor with just a few small turquoise accents here and there. But unfortunately even this simple arrangement ended up looking a little too garish given how bright the turquoise i'd chosen was.

The jumpsuits are too much in that color.

To this end I decided to use a burnt umber over a good portion of the clothing to tone things down, and it ended up looking alright. This guy (exempting the red on the rocket) is probably the best indicator of where i'll go with things. Burnt umber clothing, black armor, and turquoise accents here and there in both areas.

Naturally I did some sponge weathering on their armor to give them that properly battered orky look. The black looks lovely with a bit of metallic sponged over it. I also liked the idea of them slapping turquoise paint over the black, which I managed to convey a bit with this guy's eye. I'm going to experiment with adding this sort of "handpainted" turquoise to the armor some more I think.

Unfortunately I messed up the bases after experimenting with different washes on each one. I'm going with a desert theme to accompany the orange/yellow skin tone since they are fungus after all! I'll be getting some new pigments to use on them and further dirty them up. I may also chose a different turquoise color that's slightly less in-your-face about things in order to tone down the palette a bit and make the orange stand out more.

Working with these guys definitely  hammered home how important it is to test your colour-scheme out on some miniatures before starting to paint your force properly. These guys haven't been washed or highlighted yet, or had their details picked out, but even going this far has given be a great understanding of what to do with my chosen scheme. Next up, an Ork battleforce! (And painting a GK librarian when I get bored of assembling things)

Thanks for looking guys!

Completed Project: Grey Knights Terminator Squad

So at long last I have finished my unit of Grey Knight terminators after about a month and a half of fiddling around with them at a very casual pace. I was definitely slowed down by using so many unfamiliar techniques but I'm quite pleased with the finished result! Here they are as a unit:

Some quick thoughts on the painting aspects that were new for me here and that I didn't cover previously. Firstly, oil washes. I was deeply impressed by the effect that oils gave and they were wonderful to work with. After gloss varnishing the models I washed the cream armor with a straightforward mix of burnt umber thinned with low odor mineral spirits. I immediately noticed that the oil wash pooled in the recesses far more neatly and the finish over larger patches of of the model was extremely smooth and there was no "blotchiness" or tidemarks that usually accompany an acrylic wash over a large section of mini.

This is after the oil wash dried. The lighting is poor but it gives you a rough idea of how natural it looks.

Furthermore, because the oil wash takes so long to dry (about twelve hours to be completely dry) you can push it around as much as you like and wash off sections with straight white spirit, which I did to make sure not to darken the models too much. You can even do this after its totally dry as well! The control you have over the wash is unparalleled and combined with what is already a smooth coloring the result is strong yet subtle. I have simply never experienced such a realistic-looking wash.

I will absolutely be returning to work with oils in the future, especially considering that its relatively quick to move into and out of them, a coat of gloss varnish, apply the oils, and once its try a coat of matt, and your done!

The final new technique I experimented with was the use of resin bases. I decided to keep it very simple and ensure the bases were relatively dark in order to draw the eye to the cream armor, and by extension how mangled it is! This follows from roomie Byron's excellent tutorial on basing either for contrast (as in this instance) and cohesion. I decided to use a few simple drybrush layers on the stone and some burnt umber pigments from Vallejo to keep the "dirtiness" consistent with whats on the terminator's armor. The resin bases from micro arts studios were a dream to work with and the texture is exquisite!

Bases as they appear in natural light.

Bases under fluorescent light that shows more detail.

The last thing I want to show is my attempt to hand-blend an intense blue into the eyes and nemesis force weapons. The eyes came out nicely but the swords were much more of a challenge. However with enough glaze medium and time I was able to bang out something reasonable. The final edge higlight of white along the edge of the blade was rather messy, but a blue ink glaze tied everything together nicely. I know the quality would have been far better and the process easier had I just used my airbrush to do it, which I did for the force hammer, but I wanted to set a challenge for myself as blending has always felt rather elusive to me, like something only pros do. The fact I can even blend like this though, (poor as it is) is a sign of just how far I’ve come, as this stuff seemed downright impossible to me even six or eight months ago.

The best of my hand blends.

The blend produced by the airbrush.

Anyways thanks for reading guys! Here's a few more pictures in different light. Looking forward to my next project!

The squad under natural light.

Single model under natural light.

Single model under fluorescent light.

In-Progress: Joan of Arc - Panoceania

Not much to report towards the end of this week. I've been making steady progress with my Grey Knights and they are now highlighted and ready to be oil-washed.

In the meantime  I began working on Joan of Arc tonight and have tried to dial up the contrast somewhat on the mint scheme. I'm still not quite satisfied with it. I think the brights look better but I feel like their needs to be more shading in the recesses, and it still photographs very poorly. Ah well, onwards and upwards.

Painting Experiment: Orange/Yellow Orc Flesh

So last night I took a little break from my Grey Knights to fool around with paints chemes on a Savage Orc Warboss from Fantasy I have lying around. For my next little 40k project I’m sorely tempted to take up Orks even though they wouldn’t ally very effectively with my Grey Knights. I’ve always loved the miniatures and the inherently casual and fun sensibility that the army brings. You play Orks to have a good time, not to guarantee a win!

However there are two things I dislike about GW orks:

• The green skin. I know it’s a little heretical but I’m just a bit bored of it and want something different!
• You have to paint a lot of them. They are the polar opposite my hyper-minimal Grey Knights.

To that end I wanted to experiment with producing a really quick and efficient way to paint non-green Ork skin to use on the line troops. Even in a 500 point army there will be at least ten boyz I need to paint so I wanted something quick and dirty to use on them.

I decided to base my scheme around the more naturalistic earthy skintones of the World of Warcraft Orcs. I’ve never really played WoW but I love the direction that blizzard has taken the Orc’s appearance in their latest expansions. To this end I was looking for an orangey-brown base being highlighted up into yellow given the palette presented by these images.

Conveniently enough, Element Games acquired the entire Scale 75 range of paints this week, and given the hype surrounding them I really wanted to try them out! To that end I decided to purchase a few bottles and used a lovely Savage Orc Boss I had lying around as a tester model. After some thought and color comparisons online I ended up selecting their “Mars Orange” to use as a base and use their “Tenere Yellow” as a highlight.

Given that I’m looking for something really quick and simple to do on the line troops, I wanted to do everything through either my airbrush or washes, no brushwork allowed! To that end I began with a black spraycan primer, and then did an initial coat of Mars Orange mixed about 70/30 with Army Painter Uniform Grey in order to allow for better coverage over the black. After this I went over everything again with straight Mars Orange. I have to say it is an absolutely gorgeous color that went on like a dream, it gives a really naturalistic earthy tone that looks superb. I was almost tempted to start washing straight away, but after such great results from one pot I just had to see the other.

Unfortunately the Tenere Yellow was a bit of a weird color, the paint had a curious texture that didn’t want to thin nicely in the airbrush. While I love getting unusual colors like this that make an army look really unique sometimes they can be real duds and I was afraid this might be the case. I tried different levels of yellow over the mars orange and it ended up looking alright at points, but I definitely think I went overboard and that it should only really be used for a single minimal zenithal highlight rather than covering the bulk of the skin like I did here.

However the results improved significantly after a wash of orange ink. I made this from a 50/50 mix of scale 75 red and yellow inks kindly borrowed from Byron. The scale 75 inks are incredible but damn are they ever vibrant! It feels like your using ink from a pen they have so many pigments in them. But I’ve never seen a more vibrant orange ink than the mix I got out of these. I did the wash over the entire model but as I went over sections I’d immediately go over them again with straight water in order to push the inks into the recesses. This could have been done better with some Vallejo Glaze medium but i'm out at the moment, so water had to do! A tempting alternative to this would be to glaze it with the mars orange again which might look more cohesive but I'll try that on another miniature.

I decided it still looked a little too bright so I did another wash all over with Army Painter Soft Tone ink, also going over everything with water after I’d put it on. The result darkened things down nicely and made it look a bit more like skin. While I’m far from 100% satisfied with this it gave me a pretty good idea of what to do for a line troop, especially considering there isn’t that much skin showing on the typical 40k boy. I think with a lot less of the yellow involved so more of that lovely orange shows through, and the use of a proper glaze medium with the inks it will be perfect for churning them out en-mass.

Obviously I will spend a lot more time on the leader figures pushing the contrast more and highlighting up from an orange-brown to almost a pure yellow tone. While this might sound like it will clash with my line-trooper scheme, something I love about the orc fluff is it allows for a range of skintones within the army. Especially given the fact that orks who keep winning fights literally undergo massive physiological changes. It only makes sense to me that the biggest and best orcs would have the most vibrant coloring!

Thanks for looking,

-Tom

Big Update IV: Grey Knights – Fall 2015

My final post to bring my blog up to date is in-progress shots of some Grey Knights I’ve been working on. With fantasy changing so significantly and the new AoS miniatures not really speaking to me I decided to paint up a very small 40k force as a painting project. To emphasize the “very small” aspect of that point I chose Grey Knights and prepared a little 500 point list made of six terminators, a terminator librarian, and a dreadnought.

This project largely came about as the result of probably the most significant hobby purchase I have ever made, both financially and in terms of its impact on said hobby.

Shiny and expensive.

The Grey Knights are my project to accompany this, and I have purposefully chosen a variety of techniques that I have never attempted before in order to really push my limits. These being:

• Airbrush base layers and basic zenithal highlighting
• Sponge weathering
• Oil washes
• Resin bases

So far I’ve only gotten around to two of four, but the terminators are progressing nicely! I chose a color scheme based on pre-heresy Death Guard as I wanted a nice set of colors to showcase the heavy weathering I planned to do. I borrowed extensively from this excellent tutorial on painting Death Guard.  I dislike how perfectly “Mary Sue” the Grey Knights are in the fluff and I loved the idea of really dirtying them up a bunch.

My airbrushing for these guys was fairly straightforward as I didn’t want to get too flashy to start. I used a grey spraycan to prime, then airbrushed layer of doombull brown everywhere as a basecoat. From here I did a very extensive airbrushed zenithal layer of Vallejo Air Aged White, to the point that it *almost* totally eclipsed the doombull, but there was still a hint of depth. Finally I used a more restrained airbrushed zenithal/spot highlight of Vallejo Air Dead White.

From here I did some sponge weathering using Vallejo “Extra Opaque” Heavy Charcoal, which was an absolute blast and my first time using this technique. I know I went rather overboard here but this was always my intention with these particular units, I wanted them to look absolutely covered in chips and battle damage. The last stage of prepping the white before the oil wash was to do some shading using watered down Army Painter Soft Tone ink in the recesses to provide a little extra depth once they get an oil wash.

After painting all the metal components and the gold script on the armor in black my plans for the green were frustrated somewhat. I had intended to use a Tamiya “Black Green” which is a gorgeous shade, but didn’t realize that Tamiya paints were formulated specifically for airbrush use, and it did not want to brush on nicely. The picture above is after two coats and you can see the coverage is terrible. I had to switch and go over this with GW Castellan Green, which came out nicely.

Here we have them as they are presently. The green looks a lot smoother, the metals have been painted, everything is has been washed for a bit of depth. The last thing I need to do before the oil wash is highlight the green and maybe some basic highlights on the metals. Once that’s done I’m gonna varnish everything and prep for my first ever oil wash! Then its just some glowing blue eyes and weapons and they’re good to go!

After the six terminators are finished I’ll be painting up one of the new plastic terminator librarians using the same methods described above. My last bit of Grey Knights will be the dreadnought seen above, which will involve lots of lovely airbrushing and be my first ever painted vehicle!

I will make a second update once my terminators are finished to showcase the final result and let you know how the oil wash and resin bases go. In the meantime i'm already thinking of a different 40k army to do 500 points with, perhaps something to act as the Grey Knight's allies?

Thanks for reading!

-Tom

Thoughts: Tournaments & the Batman Miniatures Game

This is something a little different for my blog as rather than discussing or showcasing my painting I’ll be giving my impressions on tournament miniature gaming in a general. A warning upfront that I’m going to be somewhat critical here, as I admit to being rather disappointed by the Batman tournament I had spent so much time and energy preparing for over summer.

First off, I should clarify that I felt the tournament was exceptionally well run. Animosity Wargaming did a superb job of setting things up. The tables looked fantastic and were extremely thematic!

Above is a “Gotham Zoo” table that I had my first game on.

Here is me posing with a magnificent “Ace Chemicals” table that I had my last game on.

On top of this Animosity managed to have the tournament hosted in the house used for the exterior of Bruce Wayne manor in the Christopher Nolan films!

Ball so hard.

The prize support was excellent, as was the general attitude and tone of the judges and everyone involved in the tournament organizations. All of the participants I dealt with were very nice people and my games felt relaxed throughout. I managed to come out firmly in the middle of about two dozen participants, which I’m quite pleased with considering how new I am to the game.

However I did come to the realization that I am just not someone who is hardwired to enjoy large group play like this regardless of the system or setting. This particular tournament was three games of two hours over the course of a nine-hour day, and I admit to feeling exhausted and ready to leave after my first game.

Regardless of how brilliantly a tournament is run or how great the system is, it seems like I always end up too hungry, tired, and uncomfortable to enjoy my time playing after a few hours. When I was at the tournament I recall comparing it to outdoor music festivals. While a great band I love might be playing, when I’m actually there in the moment all I can think about is the excessive crowds and how tired I am.

Osheaga 2013, which I attended.

This is obviously a matter of personal preference, but from now on I’m planning to focus on gaming only in comfortable casual settings. I think this also reflects my concern with narrative gaming, as I get a lot of enjoyment from situating my army and games within larger structures of meaning and fluff. While everyone I played at the tournament was really pleasant and relaxed, in a ranked setting there is always that competitive incentive that looms over everything. This applies to me as well, I get concerned about bringing competitive lists and a competitive attitudes to a tournament, neither of which are a natural focus for me.

So as it stands I see myself taking an extended break from single-day miniatures tournaments. However it has made me realize that ongoing campaigns might be a great fit for me, and I recall enjoying an infinity one that I was part of in 2014 a lot, so I’ll be looking for more of those!

Another point to make about this tournament specifically is that I felt the BMG ruleset did hold things back rather significantly. It is not a particularly intuitive game to play, with both play and setup being rather unwieldy and slow. The phrasing of rules is also very unclear. One big example that stands out to me is that in my first game I realized I’d been playing the rules for the “running” movement incorrectly for the past two months despite reading the rulebook twice that summer. The movement potential of each unit was nowhere near as fast as I’d thought, which was a huge adjustment to make very quickly.

This was due to a lack of clarity within page 28 of the rulebook which states:

• “Roll a die for each movement counter you spend in this way, and then add up the results: this total number (in centimeters) should be added to the character’s basic movement distance for the turn.”
• The rules for running then state: “A character may double their basic movement distance by spending 1 movement counter and 1 special counter”.

Thus I assumed the additional movement was also doubled as its part of the basic movement. But apparently this is not the case and the game designer has confirmed running only doubles your unmodified “basic movement”.

Bane was still pretty fast, but not the absolute hot-rod I thought he was.

This level of vagueness should not be happening with such a basic rules interaction. Things like this came up constantly, and I did not have a single game in which both players did not learn something new about the core ruleset despite the game being out for nearly two years.

I often voice my dislike for the culture of negativity that exists within miniature wargaming, and the entitled nature of some players. We’re all ultimately doing this in order to enjoy ourselves and I hate seeing people get so worked up about something that is ultimately designed to be a casual, fun, and enjoyable hobby. However I cannot help but feel that the BMG ruleset impeded my enjoyment of the tournament. While I absolutely want the game to succeed, and will still recommend it to people, it is a less-than-ideal system.

While BMG has the potential for extremely cinematic in-game moments, the majority of gameplay just feels too clunky to really make things run smoothly. A skirmish game should not be so mechanically bulky. It reminds me of what I’d heard about Malifaux before their updated ruleset, that there were just too many little things to remember that get in the way and slow down the game exponentially.

Accordingly I still feel Infinity is the gold standard for skirmish rulesets, being extremely quick, cinematic, and realistic while still allowing for a lot of nuance as you introduce more equipment and tech. The fact that my friend and I have had zero desire to play any BMG since the tournament last September is pretty compelling evidence that there are better systems out there.

Rant over! Thanks for reading and letting me get that off my chest.

-Tom