Modeling: Beast 09 WIP (1)

Beast 09!!!  This guy came in about 10ish parts.  I've been using him on a couple of lists lately.  I've also had him just sitting on a shelf and thought what the hell... let's put the punk together.

On to the basics as usual.  There was an average amount of flashing and mould lines.  I'm not usually too worried about such things on a model this big.  As usual my trusty Dremel with Diamond Point and Brass Brush took care of it.  What I AM usually worried about with models this big is "miscasting", meaning that parts of the model don't actually jive well with the parts they are supposed to.  Well, in this case there was none to be found!

The image above is just an example of some of the flash and mould lines encountered but easily tackled in this kit.  At the end of the day this model took me just shy of an hour to put together with pretty much no problems.

Dabbed him lightly on the base with some super glue as I'm certain I'll be doing some work to his base. For now though no more proxying!  More to come...

Preliminary Review - Hordes Domination (Legion) Naga Nightlurker

I didn't find an actual image of this guy that was suitable.  So this guy is just an average(ish) light beast, nothing too crazy about it's stats really.  What I find interesting is that it prowls.  This is actually very nice because it has a healthy amount of boxes and semi blast proof ARM (which is usually what you look for when something has stealth/prowl or at least I do) so it's going to be pretty hard taking it down with range abilities.

Is far as offensive abilities it does pack a decent ranged weapon, what I would call medium range which is magical (helps against Menoth) and crits poison.  Combining it's prowl with eyeless sight it means that it can probably take an aiming bonus often if you find it a  nice place to park and take out even stealthed solos that cross whatever lane you have it covering.

It's melee attacks sport Crit Shadow Bind which I find interestingly synergetic with Refuge.  Send the little bugger out, boost to hit if you gotta and you back out at the end of it all leaving a dude sitting there at -3 Def and virtually immobile.

The animus on this guy is kind of a sweet.  Wraithbane is probably the most likely reason he'll make it into people's lists, well and the fact that he's setup to be a survivable Wraithbane engine as well as a Def debuffer in a pinch.

So, a nice lane coverfire beastie that can survive quite a bit of blast damage.  A wraithbane engine for your more important warbeasts to ignore those precious buffs.  Let's not forget the Shadowbind missle that can shoot out of it's cover to gift someone with -3 DEF and as I mentioned above, he could do this to help your range flavored elements with Refuge by going out there, doing it's best to impart that shadowbind crit and Refuging back (into cover ideally) to allow your ranged troops to hit better.  Of course, slipstream, and leash could also help with this but I'm just saying!  There is one thing that should not be overlooked however, this guy competes in points with a Raek which pretty much has stealth already and a bit more of a trick up it's sleeve with it's placement ability... just something to think about as well.

Preliminary Review - Hordes: Domination (Legion) eVayl

Now I know I'm way late to the game as far as covering this book.  Not only were there a lot of leaks for this book but some of the more reputable blogs / youtube channels already got a legit copy and have covered a bit.  But in the spirit of this blog which is to serve me as a journal, I wanna cover my first impressions.  So read on!  Hopefully this initial ideas could serve you too as a source of inspiration for good/bad ideas. 

The release of this long awaited book (at least by me) is tomorrow, November 16th 2011.  I will be covering my very "newbie" thoughts on the additions to the Legion of Everblight Army.  Not that I won't be studying the other factions so that I know my enemy but alas, Legion is my army.

Epic Vayl

Stats:  So, stats wise she's pretty much the same with the exception of her RAT and ARM which are one higher.  The RAT being 1 higher will probably make me feel better about taking chances and not boosting on some of her spells or Oraculi (since now it is not Guided) but honestly 1 more I will probably be boosting most of the time to make sure.  One more point of ARM still doesn't make me feel good about having her be a worthy Spiny Growth target but I do believe she will escape the dents and scratches she was taking before from blasts a little better.  DEF is still the stat I'm looking to boost with Tenacity in most cases.

Weapons:  Her Oraculus has turned into Oraculi.  One thing right off the bat is that it's RNG is 2 higher.  That's nice!  I say that because I may be adding Mr. Wishnailer (I know that's not how it's spelled lol) and ideally adding 2 more inches on top of that.  ROF.... hmmm... Ok so It's nice right?  I just simply wish it had been initials (maybe I'm reaching here).  It will be great to setup multiple vectors on her spells though!  Also, the weapon has lost it's Guided ability so no more auto hitting.

Abilities:  Well ... I'm not too happy with these really.  She traded Dark Sentinel, Snow-Wreathed, and Talion for Quick Draw and Serenity?  These abilities are meh to me compared to her previous encarnation.  She will probably not be needing Snow-Wreathed as much since without Incite she's pretty much a full support Warlock now rather than having to get up there to support Incite or sling shot someone with Leash for a kill.  Serenity I see simply as a free Tenacity per turn.  Compared to her old stuff not really too hot.

Fury:  This stat is still the same.  Not sure why it did not go up by 1 (would that really have been grossly overpowered? I guess I'm not sure).  I guess with Serenity it's effectively 1 higher and with Mr. Wishnailer is 2 higher?

Spells:  I happen to think that eVayl's spells are quite nice...  basically her entire spell list has been revamped.  While I do miss incite I must say the only spells I really really miss are Hoarfrost, Chiller, and Rampager.  Those seemed to me very Vayl(ish) regardless of epic or not.  Her new spells are Admonition, Icy Grip, Obliteration, Occultation, Purification, and Refuge.  Icy Grip, and Obliteration and nice offensive abilities for sure.  Purification is nice and can be timed nicely with her feat (more on that below).  Admonition and Refuge are very Cat and Mouse like so they are nice, allowing for repositioning or simply to get away from undesired charges etc...  I'm thinking there is a lot of synergy here with a spell like Refuge or Admonition, allowing charge lanes to multiple Carniveans/Scytheans where there normally wouldn't be room for it.... Will have to think more on that for sure!

Feat:  Vayl's new feat allows her to cast all of her spells without paying the cost.  I think it's very nice to be honest.  This in combination with Purification could play out very well.

Summary:  One thing I think is pretty clear for me.  She will definitely be sporting Warbeast Heavy lists.  However, I do not want to discount her ability to have a nice infantry list as well specially being able to spell sling as good as she can (legionares come to mind).  What are your thoughts?  Have I missed something obvious?  More to come....

Painting: Annyssa Ryvaal WIP (4)

Finally part 4 of this girl.  Like I said on my last post here this model has definitely taken me longer than most models.  She is quite intricate.  Honestly, I'm not just trying to do the model justice but I'm trying to figure out my brushes, paints, and techniques I'll use for the humanoids of my legion army.

I worked on her a bit this weekend.  Since last I posted about her I added a bit of lighter shade on the leather armor covering the elk, her armor, the feathers holding the leather strap cloak and her bow.  You'll notice that I have not really "based" her yet.  I'm waiting to be done with all the details at the bottom or near the bottom of the figure before doing that.  I'll probably be adding some snow and such as well.

I did "retouch" the metallic parts of the armor, or at least the parts I've decided to make metallic, with a mixture of brazen brass and silver, trying to emulate that yellowish platinum look they have on the Forces Book.  There are a few tid bits that I have not finished yet like metal armor pieces on her knees as well as the hooves and fur and armor on the elk, I'm hoping to have those figured out and finished soon so I'll have a better path forward for my other "humanoids".

Also, I did some "retouching" on her face which is honestly the part that is driving me crazy the most.  Been trying to do a white glow on her eyes.  I am not 100% on what I have on her face right now but it'll do for table top.  I really want to get her ready to play so I can feel free to "move on".  I will very likely come back to her once done to table top but for now... still a bit to go to get even to table top.  More to come..

Modeling: Kayazy Underboss WIP (1)

As promised... The boss!  Now, I'm sure if you've read any of my posts I mostly report on the reason for putting the guy together as well as the simplicity of the bit of flashes and mould lines and how easy it was to remove.  Well, this is a different story...

This model had the most amount of flash and mould lines that I've ever encountered from Privateer Press.  Thank god it was just 1 piece cause I'd imagine I would have seen miscasting to the point of insanity.  Not sure if you can make this out but if you zoom in or click on the image above the bottom part of the model near the shoulder... that "edge" you can see there running all the way down to his bottom torso is flashing.  It actually goes all the way around his back by his hair and his other side.

The picture above shows even more of the type of flashing I encountered on most of the model.  Hopefully that gives you an idea.  

This model actually took me about 1 hour to just clean up.  My trusty Diamond Point (I ended up needing both the oval and concave), as well as my Brass Brush helped quite a lot but I did have to use a bit of files and xacto knife action.  Also, I kind of just jammed him in the base rather than glue him so I can keep some alternatives open for basing if I want to later.  More to come...

Modeling: Kayazy Assassins WIP (1)

Kayazy Assassins.  I actually have two boxes of these guys so I can field either 2 x minimum unit or 1 max unit.  If I ever need two max I'll pick up the expansion blisters.  So... the basics...  There was basically no flash.  There was a bit of moulding on the legs and some of the capes but once again my trusty dremel with Diamond Point and Brass Brush was sufficient.

Thus far I've only been using one mine or one full unit so I went ahead and grabbed some from the second box and put together 10 of them.

Next?  The underboss!  More to come...

Modeling: eSorscha WIP (1)

More models to put together!!!!  Ok, here is eSorscha.  I've made a couple of lists using her but been having to proxy her so this puts a shameful end to that (shameful since it's still not painted).  Lets' go over the basics...

As far as mould lines there was some just slightly on her shoulderpads and weapon handle.  Oh, before I forget!  These weapons seem to always come bent some how.  Straighten it out slowly to avoid breakage.  This model took me about 5 minutes, no joke, it was easy, and there is also no worries about being too fancy about basing since she comes with her own icy terrain!  More to come...

Mould lines were scarce which is always good.  A bit of flashing was found here and there, and of course the cleanup needed for separating her weapon from the sprue.

As far as mould lines there was some just slightly on her shoulderpads and weapon handle.  Oh, before I forget!  These weapons seem to always come bent some how.  Straighten it out slowly to avoid breakage.  

This model took me about 5 minutes, no joke, it was easy, and there is also no worries about being too fancy about basing since she comes with her own icy terrain!  More to come...

Modeling: eEiryss WIP (1)

Eiryss, Angel of Retribution!  How much we all love when she joins our armies... and how much we hate her when she joins the opposition.  Love her or hate her... I think most people would agree this is an outstanding model.

This model came in a blister, 4 parts, 3 of which were still attached to a metal sprue.  So, the basics...  Flashing was pretty much non-existent.  Moulding was present but very mild and easily dealt with.  This model actually looks more complicated to put together than it really was.  It literally took me about 15 minutes total from unpacking to "together".

This mini does have one small issue.  I say small because honestly, I'll be able to fix it easily.  The "building corner" or whatever it's supposed to be doesn't quite close in correctly.  I don't have a picture that captures it but I'm sure whoever owns this model knows what I'm talking about.  Basically the edges of those two pieces don't quite close in.  At the end, it looks like it's easy to fill it in with some green stuff / miliput / or maybe even gap filler.

This is one of those models that I really wasn't liking proxying it.  Besides missing the card and having to have my Mercenaries book constantly open to remember the small details of her statistics there is always the dreaded "who is that again?" question that inevitably comes up during proxy games.  She's now ready for some paint and no longer needs to be proxied.  More to come...

Modeling: Manhunters WIP (1)

Here is another post as part of my ongoing effort to stop proxies but of course also to just get all the models I've ordered put together!  Here are my manhunters!  I decided to go with the variant simply because hey, I like chick models better most of the time, but especially the manhunters.

These guys come 1 per blister in 3 pieces.  The 2 axes had a bit of molding on the blades and the edges that were attached to the sprue.  The manhunter had some mold lines on her pants and hat.  All of it easy work with the dremel / files.

The picture below shows the only pieces of flash I found on both the models I purchased.  If you look carefully it's just a piece coming out of her right arm stump.  Easily removed with hobby pliers and smoothed out with the dremel.

Glueing them was pretty standard easy work.  No real pinning required unless you plan on transporting them in a very abusive way.  The arms although small were not attached to very tiny areas it was in fact I believe their biceps so with that said I think they are on there to stay.

The next step will probably be some gap filling on the base either with tape or plastic card (as suggested to me by one of you!  Thanks!).  After that some flocking and some painting!  Another model off of my list of proxies ready to play.  More to come...

Modeling: Devastator WIP (1) & Quick Annyssa Update

I'm going to be giving my Annyssa Ryvaall model here a bit of a break for now.  I have to figure out if I want to remove her from the mount or not so I can really give her a go.  I'll keep you guys updated on which way I go one way or the other.  However,  I've gotten a bunch of orders in and honestly while I do agree that one should not unpack / put together models until the lot are painted I  have been proxing some of these for a little too long.

So, without further delay!  The Devastator!!!!  So this guy was actually part of the auction I went to this summer.  There was no flashing.  I imagine that's due to it having been put together before and someone removing it.  However, there was a bit of molding which came off easily with my Dremel's Diamond Tips and Brass Brush (Click here for more info).

I've seen a handful of pictures now on the internet that have him in sort of a "shell" format.  That is to say his shield arms are glued in such a way that he looks like he's covering his body on both sides while holding his arms very very close to his body, almost like a turtle.  I have nothing against that except that it looks like it would be even harder to paint his body had I glued him like that.  I imagine people that did that probably painted him first and then glued the arms.

There's actually a couple of things to note on the picture above.  The top part of the shoulder was cleaned with a Diamond Tip and Brass Brush and as hopefully you are able to see it's shiny and porous enough to be good to go for priming.  However, for some reason even with my brass brush I am unable to remove the yellow grime on the top shell.  That's even after a nice warm water and soap bath.  I washed it and brushed it the best I could but I'm thinking the previous owner simply left the mold release agent on the miniature a little too long without washing.  I hope it doesn't cause too many problems with the primer!

This model was not difficult to put together except for the part where I basically waited for each segment to be dry before pressing on.  This guy is HEAVY!  So pin if you can (I'll probably do an article on that sometime in the future).  For now though, I can stop proxying this guy and bring the real thing to the table, alas, without paint for now.  More to come...

Painting: Annyssa Ryvaal WIP (3)

Here is part 3 of the series for Annyssa.  This model has definitely consumed more of my time than others because it is more complex.  She has belts, metal and leather and wood and hair etc...

To do the base I used my "Dead Earth" technique I normally use, which I talk about in detail here.  But to summarize, I base in any acrylic black > Grave Yard earth > Desert Yellow > Bone White > Skull White.  Except for the base color I mainly dry brush all these colors so that they contrast on the material like dirt or rock.

I took a couple of additional steps to ensure that the cork material would end up looking closer to a slab of stone than earth so I added a dark grey > light grey > skull white dry brush step.

After working on the base I tried doing some work on Annyssa.  Now, from this experience so far I have a couple of thoughts that I'd like to share.  If you are ever going to do this model, do yourself a favor, don't glue her to the mount.  I believe it is probably easier to deal with painting the model without the hassle of getting the paint brush into hard to reach places.  In fact, I am at a point where I am still considering somehow prying her off of it to finish it.

So far I've done her skin to my normal specs of Legion.  Base white > blue wash > dry brush icy blue.  I am very bad with faces and in fact will confess to having tried to get "fancy" with her face for practice sake and at the end I re did it as I mentioned above.  She looks a little more manly than I'd prefer but it will do "table top" quality for now.  I will probably do a little more with her hair so that it's much more distinguishable from her skin.

The horns of the mount got a simple Greyphone Sepia wash over the white base and I'm pretty happy with the results.  The metal covers (in fact all the metal) will get the treatment of Bolt Gun Metal > dry Badab Black wash > dry brush Silver.  If it wasn't for the forces book I couldn't tell you what parts of her bow are metal and which are wood or another material.  It looks like there's some room for interpretation if you wish but I'm just going to follow the pictures I have for reference (not sure she's actually in the forces book but maybe the PP site).

The leather on the mount covers is an attempt to recreate the color I made for my Ogrun here.  It's basically GW Scaly Green and a dark Blue mixed together.  Overall I like it.  It's quite subtle on her but I will most likely be washing it a tiny bit and then dry brushing or highlihgting in some fashion with a lighter color mix maybe adding some icy blue to it.

On the last picture I tried to capture the work on the mount's skin.  The picture doesn't do it much justice as I think it turned out pretty well.  The previous picture might be better.  It's really just a Light Grey > Wash Devlan Mud > dry brush Light Grey again.  I might do one more run of dry brush white.  I'm using the same technique on the hair of the mount and mouth.

Overall this model has served as a great learning experience but also a bit of frustration.  I'm hoping to press through and finish it and see if there are any other tricks I can gain off of this.  So far I still have to finish her equipment, armor, and the mount's hooves as well as the mount's bridle details.  I hope this has served as some inspiration!  If you have any tips for me let me know or your own Annyssa WIP article!  More to come...

Modeling/Basing: Annyssa Ryvaal WIP (2)

So as promised here's part 2 of the Annyssa Series.  I really wanted to do something with her base.  So first things first, I removed her.  A little wiggling and some tugging with tools got her off of the base successfully.

Now with the model off of the base I took some cork material and broke it up around the edges enough to do two things.  One, I broke it enough to fit on the base and cover enough of it so that it would look like a massive stone slab as well as minimize how much I'd end up flocking.  The cork material or sheet that I bought I simply bought at my local Walmart in the office supply section.

The fact that in Warmachine/Hordes the volume of your miniatures is predetermined by base size is something that I actually like quite a lot.  I feel like it gives you freedom to model up poses as well as high and wings and just embellishments on your figure in general without sacrificing tactical advantages in line of sight.  Because of this I chose to add another level to the rock.  I felt it looked good for her to be a top some rocky snowy (more on the snowy in other posts) mountain looking down on her prey.

The next step was very simple.  I just wanted to get a good sense on how much of the cork material I would have to dig out since I had chosen to use the bracket under one of the stag's hoof.  So I put her side by side around the area where I wanted her to end up and just marked it with a permanent marker.

After the mark I just started digging with a sculpting tool and an old exact knife.  During this process I would try to fit her in the gap to see my progress until I was satisfied it would fit the bracket.

I went ahead and put her on there to make sure it was a good fit.  At this point I wonder if this is what people do when basing this way.  What do people do to hold the figure in place when doing the base first?  Is this a method?  Hit me up on some comments and let me know!

My next step was based on a tiny bit of experience working with the cork material.  I took some white glue, watered it down about 30% and spread it all over the cork.  The reason for this is that in the past, the cork has actually been able to absorb quite a bit of the paint leaving patches that needed retouching several times.  It's not hard to touch these patches up but in truth it was simply annoying as sometimes it would absorb enough to have me repaint 3 or 4 times.  I also added the glue to hopefully  help the material not crumble and fall apart later in it's life from being handled in the gaming table.

After the glue dried I went on to flock the edges that were not covered by the cork.  I may do something else with the edges as far as maybe adding snow etc... but for now I'd rather flock it in case I don't get to it right away.

My next step will be to paint the base so that I don't have to deal with the model being on there while I experiment on how to get some good looking rock effect on here.  I will be addressing that on another WIP for her.  More to come...

Modeling: Annyssa Ryvaal WIP (1)

I'm probably going to do a bit of a series on this model.  As you can see from the picture she has already been attached to the base.  I did this with just a tiny bit of superglue so that I could later remove her if I wanted to do something with it.  I believe I will!  For now though, this allows me to user her in games till I get her complete.

Putting this model together was not too hard.  I usually worry when pewter models come with the head detached (I'll address this on a pVayl post later).  This model however, was good, and the head fit properly only having to do a double take once or twice.  I believe the only hard time I may have had was with her bow arm taking a bit longer to dry than I wanted.  The gap filling looks to be minimal work at most.

Like I said before though looking at her on this base, there is no way I'll simply "flock" the bottom with rocks and be done.  I believe I'll try another cork material experiment on her.  I'll try to document it as I go.  More to come...

Modeling: Angelius WIP (1)

The Angelius!  This is actually one of the most awesome looking models I have ever seen.  To be honest I plan on using a model like this not just for Legion but maybe some D&D and Pathfinder games!  Any who, let's go over the basics.  I don't know if I'm lucky but this model didn't have much mould lines or flashing.  Whatever little there was took about 10 mins to remove, dremel out, and brass brush polish.

There were however, a couple of issues with the wings fitting without leaving a gap.  Don't get me wrong.  The wings fit right as far as surface area to glue and such but no matter how I positioned them there seemed to be a gap.  On the image below hopefully you can see though that the gaps were minimal enough to be taken care of by gap filler.

The largest gaps were actually left on the back of the beast.  To maximize the area attached to the body there seemed to be huge gaps left on their connection to the back.  This part was also easily taken care of by gap filler.  Because of their location I was able to hold the model just right for about 5 minutes so the glue wouldn't run off.

In the image below you can see the gaps being filled by the glue.  Although it may look like there's too much glue, up close and personal the glue is smoothed out to the shape of the model.  So, I'm pretty sure that after the primer goes on it'll be like it's all once piece.

I did very basic work on this models base.  I am going to probably leave it as is for now and get some more experience basing.  I believe this model will most likely be very easy to remove from the base and redo it when I come to that point.  Also, it is important to note that this model is actually quite stable even though it's got a lot of it's weight on the upper portion of it's large vertical area.  I found that feature comforting Well, modeling modeling modeling!  I'm in a frenzy!  I hope you are in a hobby frenzy as well!  More to come...

Modeling Tools: The Dremel

So on my first article about modeling tools I decided to do it on the Dremel.  I've mentioned it on a couple of posts recently so I figured I'd write this while it was fresh on my mind.  Personally I own the Dremel Stylus.  I purchased this baby back around 2008.  I remember liking the gun like shape as well as the fact that it has a lithium battery which means I don't have to drain the pack before charging it (less prone to battery memory issues) so anytime I am done with it I can put it right back in the charger (which I don't lol).

It is important to note that there are some downsides to having the Stylus, although you may already not like the shape and therefore there's no reason to worry if you acquire a "regular" dremel.  First of all, you cannot change the batteries as simply as other dremel models or exchange them or borrow them from friends etc...  I believe they can be replaced but they have to be bought special for this dremel model.  Secondly, there are some accessories for the dremel that turn it into other "tools" like a guide drill, push drill etc... (don't know the name of most).  Those accessories are based on the body shape of the dremel and none of them that I've seen fit this one.  So, be aware of that if you take a liking to the stylus.

When I first acquired the dremel I had already had some experience on what they were about as it relates to modeling thanks to a friend that used his to model as well.  So with that said, I was mainly interested in acquiring the Brash Brush (535), flat Diamond Point (7134), and round Diamond Point (7144).  

Below you can see the flat Diamond Point.  I use this one to deal with oval or flat surfaces.  Also, I use it to get into smaller places that the oval Diamond Point cannot get to (between arms and such).

Note on the image below the "oval" shape at the tip of this particular Diamond Point.  I use this point for areas that are concave as not to disturb the natural shape of the miniature.  It is also larger than the flat Diamond Point so it won't fit on as many places but it will feel more stable over larger surface areas.  Also, because of it's round tip it can also clean up flashing on perpendicular edges a little better than the flat bit, although at that point I would recommend using a file (I'll post on those in another article).

I have used the image below on the Iron Fang Pikeman post here but I figured it was applicable to this example so here it is again.  So what we have here is a generous mould line with some flashing coming out of it as well.  It is my preference to use a dremel Diamond Point for these.  I used the flat Diamond Point and filed it off.  You want to be careful with pressure and the speed you set it at.  Not sure how other dremels work but for the stylus at a setting of 2 it works fine for me.

After you're done with the Diamond Point the area will be "slightly" scratched looking.  This is where the Brass Brush comes in.  I usually use a higher speed setting for the brush, about 3 - 4 is good.  It is also important to note that the brush tends to shed it's bristles while it's being used.  Because of the speed it's going at there's a chance they will shoot out towards your face and eyes.  Wear safety googles!  Also, if you have pets I would do this in an area that you will be cleaning promptly (vacuum) or that they don't go to so they don't accidentally eat any brush bristles.

As you can hopefully see from the picture above there's no sign of the mould line or the flashing.  So why not a set of regular files or an Xacto knife?  Well the answer is I use those too on occasion.  It really depends on the task at hand.  I do find myself using the Diamond Point more often.  Also, I find the Brass Brush so useful that I use it in combination with the Xacto knife or files to smooth out any work perform to clean up the mini.  By the way the brass brush will also clean up botched up prime jobs but I'd recommend wearing a mask for that as the dust from the primer will fly everywhere.

Let's not forget of course that the dremel is in essence a drill.  Because of this you can buy all kinds of bits including drill bits to help you pin, sand, engrave etc...  Do any of you use a dremel for this?  Got better ideas?  Let me know what you think.  If not I hope this has served as a source of inspiration today for your modeling tools!  More to come...