My Top 10 Favorite Models

Inspired by another blog entry I saw come up on the BoLS blogroll I thought I'd put together my top ten favorite list of models I've painted for the "big three" systems over the years. Some of these have never seen the light of the internet, so enjoy!

10: Wood Elf Wardancer Lord
I collected wood elves to paint. I think I got maybe three games in with them, but I have many painted models. I really enjoy this sculpt and I feel like the wood elves were the first time I really took painting seriously. I did this girl almost 6 years ago!

9: Badruk The Ork Pirate

I enoyed painting all the fiddly bitz on this guy. GW ork models have so much character and this one might be the most characterful of all. Finished in 2009.

8: World Eater Terminator Champion

My World Eater army is one of my favs. and completely 100% painted to 1850+ points. It tough to pick one model out of the army, but this one is a cool representation of the scheme and the Forge World bits. Another model from 2008/2009

7: Beast Lord

Another fantasy army. This one I actually took to a tournament and won best painted. Which was good because I didn't win many games. This is another older model, probably 5 or 6 years ago.

6: Orion

Besides being very busy, I really like this model. I spent a lot of time on him back in the day and still think he turned out pretty darn decent.

5: Belial

Ahhh my beloved Deathwing. Every model unique, freehand banners... this captain model is old school GW but still one of my favorites. I'm sure when DA are re-released under 6th belial will get a shiny new sculpt and I'll replace this guy, but it will not be without a great deal of sadness. Painted back in '08 I believe.

4: Vostroyan Banner Bearer

I find it odd that my favorite model from the fuzzy hats isn't wearing a fuzzy hat at all.... Painted in 2009.

3: Deathwing Terminator Standard

Still proud of the freehand standard.... Painted in 2009

2: eSkarre

My favorite PP sculpt, quite possibly one of my favorite models ever. While single figure models were dominated by GW, units and dreads/ jacks would of been dominated by PP. Painted in 2010

1: Sammael

The best model I've ever painted, hands down.



Return to 40k: Dark Angels vs. Dark Eldar

Last night saw a return to 40k for the Carney Wargaming Crew. With the upcoming Warmahordes slow grow league we figured a evening diversion back to our original game would be a lot of fun. We set up the basement for 40k and rolled some dice... a lot of dice.

I took on Joey Baltimore's Dark Eldar and their shiny new (well to us at least) codex with a good old fashioned DarkAngels mech list. We rolled sieze ground and pitched battle. The early turns were domintaed by long range shooting. After years of PP games, 48" seems like it goes forever. I had quite a few lucky shots in turn one shutting down some of the DE skimmers. Joe moved in on one objective early on and I decided to let that one go as it had a unit of wracks and a Chronos pain engine sitting on it. I focused on the right flank and the objective that was placed there and soon had a tac. squad in a razorback parked on the objective with a clear third of the board. The middle of the table became a scrim as my fire power brought down the transports but not before Joe dropped a unit of warriors and incubi with Vect on the objective. I headed in with my command squad; a combat squad; and a very angry chaplain under the cover fire of a combat squad and a dreadnaught while he hoofed the chronos and a second unit of wracks in to add to the melee. I shot down a few DE but Vect chumped almost everything he touched before the chaplain brought his crozious into the dark eldar's helmet, ending his reign of terror in the table. In turn five a razorback charged onto the far left flank to contest the objective and then in turn 6 the dreadnought marched in to the middle objective contesting it and allowing the Dark Angels to pull off a 1-0 win.

40k = fun. The rules seem clunky now, especially the vehicle rules but I still enjoyed myself. I hope that 2012 brings 6th edition and a big return to the K for our group.

Now, we've got some Warmahordes to cover! But before the Jan. 4 kick off to the slow grow league, tune in tomorrow for the first of two end of year blog entries!

My Painting Station: New and Improved!

My wonderful wife restocked my paints for Christmas! This led to a total reworking of my paint station. I threw away a lot of old, mostly dried up citadel paints and reorganized my paint carousels. I've converted to using Reaper Paints and P3 paints almost exclusively now. I really like the Reaper Paints for their depth of color and coverage. The P3 adds some "game specific" colors to the pallette. I really like the spread of browns and off whites in the P3 range. I still have a few citadel colors on the table, including the full range of foundation paints and washes. The foundation paints are some of the best products GW ever produced. I also still have my leftover Citadel inks. One of GWs worst ideas was to discontinue the inks. Anyways, here's a shot of my painting station as of last night:

If you look closely, you can see the Celesital Fulcrum box in the back corner!

Tonight is 40k night! You heard that right! We're playing some old school 40k prior to starting our slow grow league for warmahordes next week. Tomorrow look for a battle report and some pics!

I've also got a few "special" blog entries planned to close out the year, so check back soon!

Miniature Market

Just a quick one tonight. The guys at Miniature Market are top notch. Quick replies, great customer service, and on the front end great prices. I feel like people are always quick to complain, so I thought I'd throw that positive remark out there. I won't go into the specifics of my issue that prompted this comment, but it was handled very well.

www.miniaturemarket.com

No other news. Missed weekly Warmahordes night tonight for Christmas prep time at the homestead. Playing a lot of gigs this week and next, but do have some vacation time. Now if only I can stop playing T.O.R. for a few hours...

Happy Second Night of Hanukkah!
D-9

Cygnar: 3 35 Point lists Painted

well... almost painted.
I have one damn Boomhowler troll camped out, occupying my painting table.
But otherwise, look three 35 point lists + some other stuff!

Once that damn troll gets some paint on him, I'm taking a break from Cygnar for a while as 2012 is the year of the Circle. With our upcoming slow grow league I will be focusing on painting up Grayle and his merry band of forest dwelling outlaws and werewolves.

A List of Painted Stuff (if anyone cares)

Casters: eStryker, pStryker, Siege, eNemo

Jacks: Ol' Rowdy, Hammersmith, Stormclad, Cyclone, Charger, Thunderhead, Triumph

Solos: Stormsmith Stormcallerx3, Journeyman Warcaster, Squire, Capt. Arlan Strangeways, Eiryss

Units: 2 units of stormblades w/ UA and 1 WA, 6 stormguard, 6 Arcane Tempest Gun Mages +UA, Black 13th, 2 Trencher Chainguns, Boomhowler and Co. (minus one damn troll...)

Battle Engine: Storm Strider

Finished Storm Strider Pics.

It is done. I've been working on this model on and off since it was released back in July and it's finally finished. It's an incredible piece, but it was boring as all get out to paint. The repetitive nature of the circles on the legs and the ball made it very difficult to sustain interest over long painting sessions.

The blues are my normal Cygnar recipe (GW blue foundation, cygnar blue base, cygnar blue high light, then arcane blue in various levels of blend) minus the wash I normally give everything to tie the colors together. On the larger pieces the washes tend to look dirty. The silver on the ball is pig iron and mithril silver with some light arcane blue washes worked in for shadows. The golds are pretty straightforward metallic work with some brown washes for shadowing. The interior of the nodes followed the suggesstions in wrath, and I'm pretty happy with the result. The road on the base is all green stuff with a few bits added for color like the broken menoth shield. So anyway... pictures!

Updates

No the storm strider isn't done yet. Closer than the last pictures show, but still not done. Life has hit the holiday/ midterm of semester accelerated season and my hobbying has taken a hit. But fear not oh gentle purveyors of the internetz, D-9 has some vacation coming and hopefully a few surprise days off thanks to weather.

of course there's a small snag to that logic.

It's called Old Republic and it's coming very, very soon...

www.swtor.com

Look for a new series of articles starting here soon as our group is about to begin a slow grow league. I'm playing Circle with Grayle as my caster of choice. Hopefully I'll figure out to play the little guy and keep you up to date on my exploits. Part of the league is to paint a new army up, so if all goes as planned I should have another 50 point army done sometime in the spring.

I made a few Black Friday purchases to fill out my Circle collection, including a preorder of the Battle Engine. I picked up the Warpborn Skinwalkers finally and they are some of the coolest looking models I've ever seen.

Hopefully the next update will consist of a completed Storm Strider! Til then!