Excitement At Adepticon

I have mixed feelings about Adepticon.  Overall I had a great time, and got to see friends from the Malifaux community located in many different areas.  My Thursday night warmup, the Cake tournament, didn't go so well.  My friends and I teamed up and enacted the Zen-Rock method of competing.  Simply put it is, "Be as stone, sink to bottom."



Our reward for such enlightenment is the above plaque and artful postcards.  I shall find a place of honor on my geek wall for this prestigious reward.  It was a great game, and we all had a lot of fun.  Even though we lost, we still had cake, and thus, we won!  Everyone wins when cake is involved.

One thing of note is the swag bag.  Those who register early qualify for what I like to call, "The Super Swag Bag."  Here's what I got in mine:



I got some quick start rules, the con mini, other bonus minis (it looks like this year I got a WWII tank!).  You might notice the Skorne battle box from Privateer Press.  I used to play War Machine long ago, but got out for various reasons.  They keep trying to real me in it seems, and they just might've succeeded this time around!  I have taken to calling my Skorne guys, "Angry Men With Pointy Sticks," because that's what they look like.

Friday was the team tournament.  I got to team up with my best friend, and we brought a really good game.  We ended up taking 9th place over all (about halfway), but it was much fun and we surprised some players.

That night on my way home my car was struck by another driver.  I don't know if he was drunk at the time, but I suspect he was.  I was very nearly killed, and thankfully a moment's hesitation kept me from being seriously injured.  Right now I seem to be ok with no broken bones or open wounds, and the ER didn't diagnose me with a concussion.  The unfortunate outcome of this is that I was unable to compete in the qualifiers for Malifaux.  This was a bit of a downer.  I feel elated that I'm alive and with little injury, but all that time I spent prepping, playing, and painting leaves me feeling a little upset.  For the time being I'm thinking I'll leave Malifaux aside, and focus my painting on other projects (like Angry Men With Pointy Sticks).

I spent Saturday and Sunday hanging out and talking to people, but I didn't spend a lot of time there due to my feeling wonky from the crash.  I did however pick up some swag:



I spent some time in front of a Reaper Master Series paints section.  My thought process at the time was, "Ooooooo, pretty colors!"  I grabbed about twenty paints that I need to break in.  I grabbed some promo minis (notice the Robotech one?  More on that later this week), some bases (I think I finally found one I can use for my Nightmare Edition Lord Chompy Bits), some funky dice, and some magnets.

Aside from the events of Friday night I had a good time meeting new people and seeing my friends again.

The Moment Before the Strike

Wow!  Adepticon is looming overhead, and tomorrow at this time I'll be on my way north to join the fray.  The past few weeks have become a bit of a blur between work, sleep, and Malifaux.  Last week I finished up the last of my miniatures that I would need for Adepticon, and now I can finally share them with you!

Let's begin with the Brutal Effigy.




Everything about this model came out perfect!  The shading, the colors, the Object Source Lighting.  I have too much fun just looking at this piece.  It's definitely one of those where everything just came together.  The OSL came out much better than I expected it to.  When I first put it down I had tried to lightly drybrush the layers down.  I went with orange, and then some shades of yellow.  The only problem had been that the drybrushing came out too heavy.  I had some wash mixed up for the coat and went with a few alternating layers of wash and drybrushing to help lower the effect, and the overall result looks fantastic!

Moving on, our next subject has taught me a valuable lesson:




I will not buy a base that has as much stuff going on as the Mechanical Rider's!  I love how the piece itself came out, and it looks great!  The cape came out looking really good.  It could use a little more definition, but overall it doesn't look entirely like a flat color.  The flames were a bit of a different style for me.  I had been getting tired of using the traditional color of fire, and while I wanted to go with a little more blue in the purple, I'm happy with the end result.

Last but not least is the man of danger, Willie:




This is one of Wyrd's newer plastic miniatures, and I was a little surprised.  When he was unpainted he looked like he'd be a little tricky, but as I started to actually put layers down it quickly became clear that he'd be a lot easier than anticipated.



If you take a glance you can see traces of a lit fuse.




For as simple as he was, I have to compliment the face of the sculpt.  It is very dynamic, and has a lot of character to it.  So much is said by how he's posed coupled with the look on his face.  Willie is a great example of what Wyrd can do with their plastics, and I hope their future models hold up to this caliber.

Over the weekend I'm going to be snapping photos of miniatures and tables.  I plan to share my finds with all of you next week.  If you're at Adepticon feel free to keep an eye out for me.

Trophy Wights

As a Henchman for Wyrd Miniatures it is my solemn duty to spread the joy and love of Malifaux.  To do this I run demos mainly, as well as leagues.  Every now and then though, I run a tournament!  My first tournament for Wyrd is going to be called The Fetid Cup, so named for my good friend who took a job in another state.  I miss him a lot, and haven't gotten to play as much Malifaux since he left.  Fetid Strumpet is his username, and the tournament is obviously dedicated to him.  In addition to other prize support for this tournament I wanted to make up three very special trophies.




I thought it would be appropriate to use his three favorite miniatures from his faction, Resurrectionists.  Topping the list is his favorite character from the setting, and favored miniature, Molly Squidpiddge.



To say that Fetid Strumpet adores Molly would be an understatement.  He even goes so far as to throw a game in order to destroy any fake (not his) Molly that should be placed upon the board.  In second place is the well done sculpt of an undead showgirl, the Dead Doxy.



The Dead Doxies are a normal minion, but the sculpt is very well done.  It takes a lot more than what you'd think to make a good zombie miniature.  Undead showgirls aren't the only attraction, and one of the main minions used by the Resurrectionist master Seamus are the Rotten Belles.



I was very surprised at how well the models turned out.  It was a very simple paint job, and it had a nice effect.  I used six colors in all to paint the above models (not counting the black I used for the ring around the base).  So let's dig in!

I started off with a basecoat of Glorious Gold (Vallejo72056) for first/Molly, Chainmail Silver (Vallejo72053) for second/Dead Doxy, and Bright Bronze (Vallejo72057) for third/Rotten Belle.  For a little while I though that the base colors themselves did a fine job, but I wanted to do something a little more (this is a tribute to my friend after all!) so I added a wash of Sepia Ink (Vallejo72091). 

 

At first I had thought about using a black ink for the shading, but then it struck me that a medium to dark brown ink would be much better.  Glad I went with my instinct on this one as the effect was wonderful!  I was really surprised at how the sepia interacted with the chainmail, giving it a really rusty tin man effect!  Once the ink had dried I went over them again with a heavy drybrush of their base color.



Doesn't look like that much progress does it?  Just stay with me a while.  I've noticed over the years that when you use a wash and drybrush over it with the basecoat that you almost seem to lose the effect.  It is there though, I assure you of that.  You notice it as you add on more and more.  The final step was to drybrush over again, but this time use a brighter coat.  I used Polished Gold (Vallejo 72055) for first, and also for third.  I was able to use it normally on first place since I wanted it to look very gold, but on the third place model I used it very lightly.  Third place was supposed to be bronze so I wanted to make sure it had just a little extra luster to help distinguish it from the gold, and I'm quite pleased with the results as you can see.  For second place I used Silver (Vallejo 72052) in the same manner as gold.

These trophies will be given away as prizes for my very first Malifaux tournament!  Come on out and play if you want a shot at one of these beautiful pieces!

I haven't neglected my commission though.  Painted another two wights for the growing hoard.




I may have mentioned before that the Wights are supposed to have black armor, but painting black so that it looks good is a bit tricky.  Either you use a dark grey for a highlight or a dark blue depending on how you want the shade to show up.  For the wights I've been using an Imperial/dark blue, drybrushing it with chainmail, and then washing it with a black ink.



If the black has too much blue showing up I just wash over it with another thin coat of black ink and that usually does the trick.  If these wights look like they're standing funny then give yourself a prize!  Both wights had problems with the ankles, and I had to re-glue and pin both of them to some extent.  The pins fit in with the bone though so that worked out nicely.

Coming up on Friday I plan to do a large amount of painting.  Or hope to anyways.  With luck I'll have a nice pile of freshly painted miniatures to talk about Friday night!

The Next Step

After my last post I managed to come across my missing bases.  What this means is that I was able to do a lot of preparations for the coming week.



As awesome as it would be to get all this stuff painted this week, I've got my regular league night for Malifaux as well as a tournament that I'm running on Oct 20th.  However I now have some stuff ready that I can mix up my painting regemine a little more.



What you can see in the above picture are the rest of the wights (upper left), three Malifaux models I plan to paint up as trophies for my tournament this weekend (upper middle, round bases), and the rest of those are OGRE miniatures for my friend.  The infantry and GEV's are going to be done in a German Desert Flektarn pattern, while the trucks, howitzers, and mobile howitzers are going to be done up in Aussie cam (Not pictured: Aussie cam infantry).

Either I'm adjusting to the weather, or getting the OGRE stuff ready to paint has been sparking a bit of inspiration.  With luck I'll catch up in short order.

Gen Con 2012 Part 2!

Ok, so with Friday over I'm staring down the barrel of the Master of Malifaux tournament on Saturday.  I'm at the event hall at 9am roughly, and I'm stressing out a little.  I had been asked to help judge Malifaux tournaments for Wyrd at Gen Con, and this was my primary reason for being there.  I had been going over rules, rulings, errata, clarifications, and tactica all summer.  I was definitely prepared.



As it turns out I didn't get anywhere near the amount of rules questions I thought I would.  Many of the players were very experienced, and I found myself with more time to sit and recover in between the occasional rules call and wandering the tables.  It felt kind of satisfying to know that the community is really in touch with the game as well as being good sports.  While wandering I actually saw some cool setups and paintjobs that I want to share.  First up is the model Snowstorm for the Arcanists faction



I really love how the blue turned out very frosty looking.  The white is very well done, with hints of blue for the shadows.



That's the Pig-a-pult, which is as awesome as it sounds.  What caught my eye about this piece is that the main attraction, the pig, is painted in green.  I thought it was an odd choice, but it gave the model some character.  Maybe the painter was inspired by Dr. Seuss' "Green Eggs and Ham."



Last up for Saturday is the Rail Golem.  This model was pre-released at Gen Con and doesn't come out for a few months still.  The painter had rigged up everything the base would need, grabbed the model from the dealer's room on Thursday, painted it up, and even rigged an LED in the chest to give the glowing effect you see.  It was very cool to look at.

Miniatures weren't the only thing dressed to impress.  A pair of Malifaux players decided to cosplay as Ramos and Collette from the Arcanist faction.



From what the gentleman said he actually had more to the costume, but had left it as he had been wearing it for most of the day by the time I took the picture.  Both costumes looked amazing, and it was a real treat to capture them on film.  At this point I was about ready to give in to exhaustion, and once the tournament was over I grabbed food with friends and sought refuge in my hotel room to recover from the day and the night before.

Onto Sunday, the final day.  This is the day where a majority of attendees spend a few hours in the dealers hall looking to get some deals, and then heading home.  I had the finals for Malifaux to judge.  It was an invitation only with spots being given to tournament winners from the previous three days. 



The tournament was about half the size of the others, and again the participants were really capable of handling the rules.  I had a half dozen rules calls if that.  So I spent my time going back and forth between the tables, and after the tournament wrapped up I found myself in the dealers hall picking up some last minute swag.  I also ran into one of the most amazing costumes I've seen.



The costume was of a Malifaux miniature called Collodi who is based off of the tale of Pinocchio.  The hands and face were made of real wood, and the guy behind the mask kept moving his mouth periodically which kept making a wood clacking sound.  Very creepy to hear and see.  It was incredible!  I just had to get a shot of myself with him, and he was happy to oblige.



That was probably the last pic I took at the con.  Following that I gathered up my things and headed for home.  The ride back from Gen Con is always a long one.  All the fun and excitement starts to leak out leaving you with a groggy and satisfied feeling.  It's kinda like that time after Thanksgiving dinner.  I always make sure to drive carefully, and I arrived home safe and sound.  Things were unpacked, swag sorted and piled, and then I sat down to relax and prepare for work the next day.