Daemonic Invasion!

This past Monday, Nick and I had our first game of 2011. It is also the first time that we have both fielded fully-painted armies against each other! It must have been a sign because Chicago was promptly destroyed in a blizzard the next day (Sorry for that everyone).

Anyway, I had been bragging for weeks that I had finally completed 1500 painted points. However, on the day of the game, I wrote a list that only came to 1350. Oops. I guess I better paint more daemons.

We were both itching to try something out of the battle missions book, so we did a random roll and ended up with the daemon mission "Invasion". In that mission, a warp rift is placed in the center of the table and four objectives are placed equidistant from it.

For the warp rift, Nick broke out this bad boy:


Yeah! Virgin vortex grenade marker!

It was an interesting game. Nick kept everything in reserve which meant that I had two turn to get most of my units in place over the objectives. Unfortunately, that took away the element of surprise that is usually inherent with Daemonic assault. Nick did a very good job of isolating my units and tearing them apart.

I did a fair amount of tearing myself, but the game ended in a draw.

I have to apologize, I didn't get many pictures of Nick's army in action. They looked great, trust me.


Here are some horrors holding down an objective. I usually call these things Space Marine Roombas, but for this game, they were portable Geller field projectors.

The Angels of absolution making a spearhead.

These daemonettes did nothing but hold down this far-flung objective the whole game.

Khorne daemons and Slaanesh daemons working together. Truly a thing of beauty.

Chaplain Vitus banishing the daemon prince. Don't worry, he'll be back...

Scott's Painting Year in Review

I don't want gloat too much, but yes I won the painting race between Nick and myself.

However, as Nick so kindly pointed out in his post, I didn't beat the person I was really trying to beat. Namely, myself. In 2009, I painted 32 miniatures. In 2010, I painted 32 miniatures. Exactly.

Now, granted, the mix is a bit different. This year I painted a monstrous creature and two HQ choices. Seen here:



So, had I scored 2009 painting the way I scored 2010, I would have only earned 33 points. So in a round-about, convoluted way, I did beat my total from 2009.

Sort of.

Anyway, here are more close ups...




I also very nearly finished the second half of the CSM unit pictured above. Those will be done soon as I can tear myself away from assembling skaven.

And Thanks again to Nick for spilling the beans, but we have decided to start (or in Nick's case, revive) WHFB armies.

More on CSMs and Skaven coming soon.

The Horrors... The Horrors...

I finished this unit of pink/ blue horrors.

I have to say, these new plastic horrors are a joy to paint. I wasn't crazy about them when they were first released, but painting them has won me over. I mean, look at this face:



Anyway, I like them more now that I've painted them. They're certainly not perfect and there are things I like about the last edition ones better (I'll cover more on this in a future post).

This unit is actually a mix of old and new horrors.

First here are more pictures of the new plastic horrors.


I really like painting jewels.

Icon bearer.

"Champion"


While I do like these new models, I own quite a few of the old metal ones. I really didn't want let them go to waste. Since they're so much smaller, I decided to paint them as blue horrors.

With each of these blue horrors, I painted one set of arms and half the their bodies pink. I wanted to show that each of these blue horrors used to be half a pink horror. So two of the horrors are pink on their right and two are pink on their left.

Besides the size, one of the differences with the new horrors is that they have a lot of "bling". I sculpted a little be of jewelery on to two of them.



Here is one more group shot.


This is a pretty important milestone. I now have painted as many miniatures as I did last year: 32 (Though I have 37 points in the painting race due to the way it's scored). I was really hoping to beat my total from last year, but that's looking less and less likely.

Some Day My (Daemon) Prince Will Come....

Actually, he's here. Here are pictures to prove it.



This is a standard plastic Daemon prince with a couple small conversions. I liked the left hand, but thought it looked like it should be holding something. I created the fireball out of a large spawn eye, dryad limbs, and green stuff.



I also used a small spawn eye to make this third eye. This prince will be dedicated to Tzeentch and I thought the third "mystical" eye was a good way to show that.

I also painted the armor in Thousand Sons colors. However, my Sons are undercoated in black and the prince is undercoated in white. As a consequence, the armor is a lot lighter than my other Thousand Sons. No biggie, I guess.



Here is a rear shot.


Here is a shot of the base before I mounted the mini. As you can see, it has a Rhino door from everyone favorite Dark Angels successor chapter, the Angels of Absolution (Thanks for the painting tutorial, Nick)



Finally, here is a close up of the daemon face on the right arm.

Enjoy.

Let's Flame Again!!

... Like we did last fall.



So here are more flamers.

These miniatures are from my backlog of models that I started and never finished. From what I can tell, I painted the base coats with a Q-tip. Not only that, but I primed two of them them with guesso (You can read more about me complaining about guesso here).

Point is, this paint I was painting over was very rough and blotchy. It took a lot of work to get them to look more or less smooth.






With my previous batch of Flamers, I was going for an almost mono-chromatic look. This time I wanted to add more contrast, so I painted the teeth brown. Also, to distinguish them from the other unit, I painted the "hands" purple.

I'm my own worse critic, so I won't say much more other than they're ready for the tabletop.



New plastic horrors and the long awaited Daemon prince are coming out on Saturday, and I'm hoping to get them the day they come out. Not sure what I'm going to work on in the meantime.

Herald of Slaanesh

I just finished a Herald of Slaanesh. I had realized that I have no HQ units for my Daemon army. This was a pretty easy conversion and a quick paint job.

I thought it would be cool to basically reverse the color scheme on had used on the Daemonette unit. So instead of blue skin with gold armor, I painted yellow (gold) skin with silver (with a blue undertone) armor.

I can't say I'm 100% happy. Yellow is a hard color and I'm a sloppy painter. Then again, since I'm trying to focus on getting models on the table, it's fine for now.

Put it on the Board! Deamonettes Done.

This unit is done. I will never paint 11 miniatures at the same time. I think 5-6 is the ideal number I can do at once. otherwise, I get bored.

Anyway, this unit is done. It's an 11 strong unit so that with the Herald it will have 12 models (2x Slaanesh's sacred number of 6)

I'm really happy with the icon as well.




What I'm not happy with is the fact that I'm still struggling with using this camera. I really just need to set aside to learn it top to bottom.

In other news, Like Nick, I have resurrected my old blog. I miss posting in-progress shots, so I'll be putting those up there along with whatever random crap that doesn't fit the polished image of 2nd City Warzone.

Nick: 4
Scott: 11

Daemonettes and the New Year

I know I've been silent lately, but I have been working. As I mentioned in my last post, I decided to split my 11 member strong unit of daemonettes into two groups in hope of finishing them faster. Above is the first group of six more or less completed (with my test mini thrown in for good measure).

I was trying some different techniques with the gold and I'm kind of disappointed at how crappy the gold looks in these pictures. A couple of them look OK, but most just look splotchy.

Anyway, here is the whole unit with the unfinished models.



I won't do the bases until they're all finished. That way, I can be sure they're all consistent.

As far a breaking up this unit into two bunches, I couldn't be happier. It's nice to see results sooner rather than later. I was originally going to take a break from this unit and paint something with power armor (which I haven't done in about a year). However, I now feel encouraged with what I've done and want to hurry and finish the rest of the unit.

Then, maybe some power armor... or maybe this:


This is my WIP Herald of Slaanesh. It's just tacked together at this point, but I think you get the idea.

Onward to 2010!

Yeah, yeah, I know it's February and probably too late for New years resolutions. I do this every year for myself as much as I do it for you, so bear with me.

First, I need to learn to paint faster. I am the second slowest painter I know. I paint damn near everyday, but my results come very slow. I don't want to sacrifice quality, so I hope to learn some techniques that will give me decent results without taking years to complete.

Second, more games in this year. Not sure how I'm going to make this happen but it will.

Third, sell my condo* and buy a house. This may not sound gaming related, but it goes with....

Fourth, build my own gaming board. I really don't have much room for this right now, but hopefully when we get a bigger place, I will. This may help with my second resolution as well.

That's about it for this year. Wish me luck




*Also, if you or someone you know is looking for a condo in the Logan square neighborhood in Chicago, let me know.

Fiend Complete

I'm really happy how this came out.



I'm particularly happy how the eyes came out. It's been a while since I've painted jewels. I'm also happy with the transition between the black on the rear legs and the pink on the body.



Thanks for looking and please leave comments!

Flame On!

My first unit of Tzeentch Flamers is complete. I'm still having problems with having my camera focus the way I want it to while in Macro mode, but I'll try not to belly-ache too much.

I noticed we haven't been receiving too many comments lately, so please comment, critique, argue, whatever. Just give us some feedback , please!





Also...

There's this. This is my Fiend of Slaanesh (work in progress). This is also the first mini I've painted "on a stick' and I have to say, it's much easier to paint like this. Not a practical way to do things if you're painting a whole unit, but it's a nice way to do centerpiece minis like this one.

Happy Tzeentch Day!!

I couldn't let today pass without posting something.

So in honor of 9-9-9 day and my favorite god of chaos, I offer these Tzeentch flamers. They're not quite done. I still have to touch up some of the sloppy areas especially around the mouths.

I started these along time ago during a time when I was trying to prime with gesso. I'm not really happy with the texture or finish. I think the gesso made the final coats a lot grainier than I wanted. I know there are a lot of people who swear by it, but I think it's kinda crappy. Particularly with metal models, the gesso doesn't adhere as well as spray paint.

Anyway, I don't think I'll every be happy with these, I just hope that the next set will be better with a smoother finish.





The change of Tzeentch be with you all on this special day!