Gaston Crosse and his Vanguard

For my Christmas present this year, my good lady wife has bought me a place on a Meg Maples Painting Masterclass, which runs next weekend. I am very much looking forward to this, and for the class, I have a list of things we will be learning, so I have been going through my minis selecting a bunch that should be good to use. One set of minis I plan to use are Gaston Crosse, and his personal Vanguard.

I had originally bought this extra Vanguard to be built as a Khador Jack, as part of Zerkova's theme force the Hunting Wolves, where she has the ability to take re-purposed Llaellese Vanguards as Khador Jacks. I never did get round to that, though this project may inspire me to do another personal Vanguard for her.

Gaston takes vanguards at 1 point less than their normal cost, so it's pretty much a certainty when I take him I'll have at least one of these with him, and likely a Mule, given his skill set. However, since he gives Jacks longer range, I stuck the extra part from a Cygnar jack upgrade onto the barrel, to give it a more imposing look. Gaston is from a less than noble background, so these guys will have a much dirtier colour scheme than the rest of my Ashlynn Highborn list, but should fit in none-the-less. We will have to see what techniques I am practicing on them to know how they will finally turn out, but expect to see some 2 brush blending at least!

 

Mean looking little bugger isn't he!

Colore Ton Monde: June

The anniversary edition of Colore Ton Monde this month , led to a bumper crop of models painted by entrants (22 finished models this month!). Click here to go see them all, including my own Mangler. The photo, taken at the Oldies night last week, with a proper camera, lighting set-up and background.hose really make the mini look better than it deserves. I chose the mangler as it fit well with the theme for the month (That's gonna hurt!), but come the time to finish the model I was rather uninspired, and was looking round desperately for a bucket of dip to plunge him in to.

Off to stick some flock on his base now. Maybe there'll be something to help me do so in this big box of fun. Yes, that's right kids, I won the prize draw!  Thanks to Club Chaos for running this amazing challenge, and thank you also to Gamers' Vault for putting up the prizes! (Sasori is the winner, but that's my forum nom de plume).

Whilst the camera was out last week, I had one of the Big 'un's minis that happened to be in my bag snapped as well. It came out nicely. I don't think she'll notice the difference I this pic and the one I took, but it was fun to have her on the list of those who entered the challenge.

On to this month's challenge:

Si tu finis pas ton assiette, on va l'envoyer en...

Pour le mois de juin, nous vous invitons à peindre un modèle qui traîne sur votre table de peinture. Quelque chose de commencer par le passé, mais mis de côté pour quelques raisons que ce soit, ou un projet qui s'éternise. On accepte aussi tout vieux modèle pas encore commencer, pour étendre plus large.

If you do not finish your plate...

For the month of June, we invite you to paint a model that hangs out on your painting table. Something started in the past, but set aside for any reason whatsoever, or a project that drags on. We also accept any old model yet to be started.

This is great, I was hoping for a theme that would give me an excuse to finish off the Llael Loyalist Artillery Corp that I started (and obviously failed to finish) a few months ago. They are in various stages of painting, including one mini that I had missed at the basing and priming stage and now joins the rest of the section completely nude, so to speak.

Colore ton Monde: September II

September's challenge turned out to be a real rush job in the end. As I stated at the beginning of the month, I tried to paint the whole unit, and was doing so systematically, but with 2 days to go before the deadline, I had to get at least one of the troopers finished. I am not at all happy with the way this guy turned out. but here he is in all his dubious glory. The base looks chipped already, that's what comes of moving him around to get the pictures before the paint dries. Like I said, rush job.

Purple base to tie him in with the rest of the Highborn Covenant, black coat to tie him with the other units I will be/am completing and red  piping on the sleeves and loin cloth to tie the unit together.

Here he is beside the rest of his troop. These guys are not off the paint queue yet, and I will finish them soon, however they may be put to the side to complete October's challenge, which very handily coincides with the Sekrit Projekt.

Montrez votre fierté! I

June's challenge is almost over. I figured this month, instead of spamming you all with an update after every painting session, I'd make use of Bloggers draft function to write up as I went,thereby foregoing on all the WIP shots, and hopefully making the post more meaty, and of more interest.

This month's challenge is to "Show your Pride!" by painting up a standard bearer (or figures in blue, go here to see the explanation). I chose to go with this guy, with this flag for my Highborn Covenant army. It seemed the right thing to do.

Long tutorial and many pics after the cut.

Highborn vs Circle. Finally a game is played.

Well, one game. A 25 point Warmachine vs Hordes battle at my New Local Gaming store (NLGS) (also on facebook here). I have been planning to go along here as it's just a couple of streets from where I live, which means I can theoretically wander over once the girls are in bed. Yesterday evening, the stars aligned to allow this to happen. There,s a small group of players who frequent the Tuesday Warmahordes sessions, and a lot of them are fairly new to the game. I know of at least one veteran player (and good friend) who goes, but he wasn't there last night. I watched a 15 point game where a new player was taught the ropes of her legion force, then I stepped in to play against her opponent.

At his request, I didn't use my Khador army. There are apparently a couple of Khador players in the store, one of whom is no fun to play against, and I think there is a feeling that Khador are too strong an army to play against. I do feel this can be the case sometimes amongst beginner players, as Khador is certainly the most straight forward of factions, and can be the easiest to rack up the wins with early on. That's not to say that there cannot be some subtlety to the faction, they certainly have a depth to them when required, just that it can be harder to figure out the winning strategies for the other factions when you're just setting out.

So, with that in  mind, I pulled out my Highborn Covenant army. I think it was the first time the players there had played against this particular army (like I said, small group of keen beginners), so there was some excitement to see what they could do.

My opponent played Circle, and went with Moshar the Desertwalker. Not the best choice in a face off against Warmachine as it would turn out, as I was told his feat is primarily anti-Hordes. Also, not a Warlock I had ever faced off against, as his release came during my 'hiatus' from gaming, so some unknowns for both players. All good.

In the end, my opponent was far too cautious which was to be his undoing. He threw forward his Reeves, I presumed as a screen for his beasts and caster. I ran forward the Devil Dogs, with tough from the piper. First blood to my opponent, as he took down one of my Dogs, but he failed to follow up with his beasts. In the next turn I pretty much took care of the Reeves, and brought up the rest of the army behind my screen of Devil Dogs.  He was shaken by the loss of the Reeves, and pulled back the Warlock and beasts. I followed up, managing to pull a critical hit from the Mule on his Warpwolf Stalker, knocking him down, and at the same time the blast brought him closer to my Devil Dogs, who charged and did what they do best, turned him into dog-meat.  This really scared him, and he tried to block me out with his remaining beasts (A warpwolf and a Gorax, but next turn Ashlynn popped her feat shot the caster in the face and cast one of her new MKII spells, Gallows, and drew the 'Lock into charge range for the D-Dogs, who finished off the Gorax and the 'Lock.

In the last turn my opponent had pretty much given up the ghost, and said as much, but I think we both had fun, which is the only reason for playing, The starts of the show for me were the Devil Dogs, but only because my opponent didn't take care of them faster. In reality, they shouldn't get so much use out of their Slug Guns with a RNG of 4 inches. The Mule knocking stuff donw and them finishing it off was a very nice combo, if not a little unreliable as the Mule's deviation could throw stuff the wrong way.

Some of the onlookers expressed an interest in my return, if only so they had a new faction to test themselves against. Win-win!

I think Sam McHorne's unit is now deserving of a completed paint job. They're back up the list, after I finish off this month's Colore ton Monde challenge, although, they are more than half way done.

Taryn di la Rovissi

 I bought and painted the bulk of this figure way back when it was only and Iron Kingdoms RPG mini, there was a NQ that gave a scenario for Ashlynn that included an Arcane Gun-Mage solo as an option for her mercenery list (this was way before all the new fangled optional lists that you get with your MKII sonny-boy, or even before the advent of mercenary contracts). I picked up this model to use as such, as she is Llaelese in background.

Fast forward a few years, and she has been integrated into the tabletop game to be used as a gun mage mercenary, with a host of lovely abilities. She's seen the table a couple of times, and I rather like the way she turned out.

Colore ton Monde Juin: Montrez votre fierté!

The entries from May from all of the participants are now up on Club Chaos's Blog. There are some beautifully painted minis there, go check them out. 

For June, the theme is as follows:

Montrez votre fierté!
Nous vous invitons à célébrer la Fête Nationale en peignant un modèle avec du bleu ou en peignant un modèle avec un étendard.

Show your pride!

We invite you to celebrate (Quebec's) National Holiday by painting a model with blue or painting a model with a standard.



Flag Option 1: The Carillon Sacré-Coeur



For those that don't know, Quebec's National Holiday, or Saint-Jean-Baptiste day is the 24th of June, hence this month's challenge.  Hmmm, I have a Cygnarian Long Gunner standard bearer that I have converted to a Llaelese Long Gunner standard bearer, maybe he'll do, though there will have to be some fixing done to the model first, as the standard I added was far too heavy for the glue I used. Out with the pin-vice and copper wire. Or, I could make my own new flag, which makes this post over on Monty's Caravan rather timely.



Flag Option 2: Llael Flag from here.



A Quebec themed flag even fits with the heraldry of Llael (they both feature the Fleur de Lys). This may work out very well indeed. At least I have a plan to do only 1 miniature, rather than trying to paint all the minis that have been in my cupboard for a long time.



There is also this miniature that has just been announced.
Perfect timing I think.





The other option is to wait till I can get my grubby little fingers onto this rather fetching model. I fear, however, the release will be too late for this month's challenge, as she was just announced today. She does cry out to be placed in a diorama with eIrusk. Epic flag-off!  

Highborn Mule

An old picture of my Mule, painted to run with Ashlynn in my Highborn lists. An old picture, but it gets the idea across about the colour scheme as mentioned in the previous post. Maybe I'll take some newer pics and post them again, but thay would likely require me to do a spot of repainting on him first, and he's not really at the front of the queue. He has since been based.

Devil Dogs Talon

When Warmachine came out at first, I got into Khador. Then Superiority came along, with a fine selection of Mercs that wouldn't play for my favoured Faction. Fortunately, they would play together, and my Highborn Covenant army, with Ashlynn at the stern,was born.

Since way back then, I've had an urge to get and paint up Sam MacHorne and her crew, but I didn't pick them up till a couple of years ago. I love that every one of the sculpts in the box set is different, and there are some real characters in there. However, they were expensive points wise in MKI, so didn't see the table much.

In MKI they ran well with a Talon marshaled to them. His disabling of jacks made the opposition easy targets for the nets and special abilities of the rest of the crew. I already have a Talon painted up for my Highborn list, in the deep purple scheme, and I wanted my Devil Dogs to fit in with this scheme, whilst still retaining their cohesiveness as a unit, especially for their marshaled jack. So, we have the white, purple and bronze highlights showing through on the shoulder pads and trimmings, with a khaki main colour to keep the unit together. This guy is finished now, but for one thing. I want to really tie him to the unit by painting their insignia on his shell. My free hand is not up to the job, so I'll be finding a way to cheat.

Ogrun Bokur WIP

A WIP from my Highborn Covenant Mercenary army. An Ogrun Bokur to accompany Ahslynn's Army in the ousting of the Khadoran occupiers from her homeland. With the help of Menoth who just happen to be there on their Northern Crusade. This large gent is not the Bokur as sold for WM, but the Ogrun adventurer from the Iron Kingdoms range. The simplest conversions I feel are the best. In this case, I snipped off the gun that came with him, to make space for the Khador MoW Kovnik shield he as picked up from a fallen foe. A menoth Exemplar shoulder pad adds a little more armour to his weapon arm. Both items he'd find close by, according to the fluff. He's armoured in the Purple and White in other places to tie him in with the theme of my Highborn Army. I like the design of the original armour on this mini. It almost has a bamboo/oriental feel to it in places. I was almost sad to cover it up on the arm plate, but I feel I have improved upon the original, at least as far as using him in WM is concerned.