A Victorious Victory... Again!

1,850 point Grey Alien army done.

Really, that about sums it up for me. After a false start trying to make an Irken force, followed by insults directed toward the models and their paintjobs, I have completed this army.

Maybe.

Long-time readers may remember the above picture as my first foray into these minis. These fellas still sit in my gaming closet waiting for an opportunity to be fielded in the right skirmish game. Look behind them. See that big UFO? It is not in my Grey Alien army, and that should be rectified. I have already decided to run it as a Razorshark Strike Fighter. Since the model has four landing struts I can use them to mark arcs on a round model. I do run into the problem of possibly not having the appropriate weapons to "count as" the armament of the Razorshark, but with enough work I can probably figure something out.

So, all I need to do now is order a plane flight stand from GW and get another UFO (this time to model as flying). That will take me to exactly 2,000 points- just right for many tournaments in this area. I will post the exact composition of the army later, but be warned- unlike my Dark Eldar these lil' fellas aren't designed to be honed to a razor's edge. This is well and truly a labor of love.

Ready to Rock and Roll

Paint pots prepared. Pallet positioned. Aliens aligned. Brushes... I dunno, bristled?

I'll be painting this last Grey squad today, followed by my last squadron of walkers. That means as soon as I varnish them the army is done! Time to get down to business.

And... FTW!!!

 

After a long, devoted day of painting her it is. The big stompy robot. Now I'm but a single Alien squad and a pair of "Broadsides" away from acrylic completion. Then varnishing of course, but one step at a time. Soon(ish) my invasion force will crush the lesser species beneath their boots of doom!

Blue -> Silver

 

Done with the blue, onto the silver. All of it will eventually be metallic purple, so stay tuned as the robot develops!

Step Two: The Blue

 

Now I'm on to the next step, the blue bits. I'm starting to run a bit low on blue, so I'm getting concerned. It's also a bit frustrating using an old large-ish brush to apply this layer. I really can't use a medium brush (and retain my sanity) so if I slip up I get blue onto the magenta. Next I'll be adding some white to the blue, or maybe I'll add the black stripes. That way if I slip up on the black I can add highlights to cover the bits that go outside the lines.

First thing's first however. a bit of blue ink in the seams.

The Long Slog Begins

 

Today I'm starting the second "Riptide" for my Greys. As you can see I've basecoated the exposed workings with magenta. As of just now I inked the gubbins, and the "mini" (if you can call it that) has been set aside to dry for the next 40 minutes or so. I'll get back to the retouching of the magenta soon. I'll update throughout the day as I make progress.

Another Day Another Squad

One more squad closer to the finish line! Yep, my Greys have yet another squad ready to hit the battlefield (barring varnishing). this means that I have only one "Riptide", one "Broadside" squad, and one last alien squad to go before the army is fully painted. Once everything is done I'll need to strike out into the world and see if I can get a game in. I'd probably enjoy taking these lil' fellas out to a tourney, but...

1) They're not Citadel Miniatures.

2) Tournaments are pretty much exclusively held on Sundays around here (a day I must be at work).

3) Being as they're small some jerk would most likely accuse me of MFA (Modelling For Advantage).

4) I would totally need to get the TO's approval before bringing these fellas.

5) They're all "counts as" (NOT proxies- there is a difference) and this may confuse some people.

6) Tournaments around here are usually 2,000 points, and this army is only 1,850.

The list goes on and on. This basically relegates them to a "friendly game only" status, which is fine, I just need to get some friendly games in.

Tomorrow I'll be starting on the second of the big robots. I'm not a fan of painting these suckers, so I want to get it out of the way before I run out of steam again. With only three units to go until completion of the army however, I'm pretty sure this is a project that I'll get done soon.

Grey Alien Kick in the Rump

 

More painting of Grey Aliens. I finished my first two heavy robots (Broadsides). As you can see the minis are designed to fit on 50mm bases, and there are no GW bases of that size, so 60mm bases it is. I went ahead and put a Grey next to them to show their size (in comparison to an admittedly tiny mini).

 

 Now the figure case is looking much more full. There's a missing squad off to the right there, which is normally occupied by the squad pictured below. They are my mission for today, but as you can see in the horribly out of focus picture below I have a fair bit of work ahead of me. 

 

Ever onward and upward. Next: blue armor. Then grey, black, purple metal, and squad markings. Back to the grind!

Tournament Results, a Break, and Back in the Saddle.

Above is the army I took to the Warhammer tournament. I basically got stomped. Two things were learned- I am way out of practice, and Skaven are no longer my tournament army of choice. Ogres all the way!

After that showing I took a bit of a break. No assembly, no purchases, no painting, no wargaming save a touch of X-Wing with Demitra. On that front I did finally pull a couple out against him (I don't ever remember winning, though he assures me I have). TIE swarms for the win, baby!

After that Demitra introduced me to DreadBall. now I am hooked. I mean to the point I bought into the Kickstarter for DreadBall Xtreme. Now to pick up the Space Bugs and Space Monkey Clones. This is not a cheap game to buy into, I'm looking at over $100, but that's far better than a Warhammer army (or Warmachine). As long as there's an opportunity to play it'll be money well spent.

Finally, yesterday I finally fulfilled my vow to pick up painting my Grey Aliens where I left off. Haters be damned, I'm going to do this thing. Wish me luck.

Oh, and go buy my Cygnar stuff off of eBay. It's extremely cheap for what it is. My wife is selling it, just search "Painted Cygnar" and look for the stuff on the gaming board. Shameless plug over.

Mean Green Mini Stripping Machine

Once again Blogger rotates my photo.

Not too much to report today, other than that I've finally gotten around to stripping the paint from my old, old Skaven. As you can see there is a collection of Plague Monks, Globadiers, Stormvermin, even an original Warlock Engineer in there. I still don't have the varnish to take the shine off the minis I dipped, so no army photo/list yet. Not that it matters, as the weather on NoVA os about to go from bad to Very Bad, making it so that I have exactly a 0% chance of varnishing today any way. Curse the snow! Give me summer any day.

I've also been slacking on the painting front. I have Super Dungeon Explore minis to paint, as well as Mice & Mystics, even my Grey Aliens, not to mention the fact that I'm way behind on my podcasts, but I'm just having a hard time picking up a brush lately. Maybe something will get me into gear here, as I really hope it will, but maybe I just need to pick up a dang brush, open some paint, and go to town. Watching TV is getting really boring and all that's on is depressing stuff.

That's it! I'm going to start back up on my Greys, snide comments about my color scheme be damned. I bought them to enjoy the hobby aspect of these games, so I'm going to enjoy it weather certain people want me to or not. Besides, I've gotten more compliments than criticisms on my army, and I like the color scheme.

Time to grab my brush and go to town. Now, if you'll excuse me...

Take Me To Your Leader





Well, there he is. My "Ethereal" is complete. I was probably a bit bold using my general as my test mini, but luckily he turned out just fine. Here's the color scheme in a nutshell:

Exposed cloth or gizmos are magenta.
Armored areas are blue.
Gloves, boots, eyes, antennae, and robot claws are black.
Metallic areas are the purple metallic I bodged together.
Skin is, of course, grey.

For the magenta I started with Vallejo Warlock Purple over a black primer, and then inked it with some Magenta Ink I found (from the days when GW made such things). I then gently wetbrushed the areas with the original Warlock Purple., From there I added a dab of a nice bright pink, and carefully added the final highlights. The blue is Ice Blue, a dab of Blue Ink in the recesses, touchup with Ice Blue, and then I added a bit of white to the blue for nice bright highlights. The skin starts with Cold Grey, which gets a Nuln Oil shade. Next I coat everywhere but the recesses with another pass of Cold Grey, and then a highlight of Fortress Grey. Finally, the purple metallic. This is simply Leadbelcher as a base, wetbrushed with Silver, and then a coat of Purple Ink. After touching up the areas that remained black, the minis are ready for basing. I used the same green I have been using for... Pretty much everything lately. Over that goes a drybrush of  Scorpion Green. Finally, I hit the rims of the bases with green, and there you go.

Once the basis for the army was determined, I went on to the first of my squads. It's kind of annoying that there are only five poses plus the commander, but it allows me to get into a rhythm better. You can't really see it in the picture, but their right shoulder pads are all purple (the color I was originally going to use for the armor) and I'm going to keep doing different colors as the army rolls along in order to distinguish squads (relatively) easily.

Next up is one of my "counts as Riptides". I'm doing all the exposed internal workings in magenta, all the armor plates in blue, and then a few black touches here and there. The purple will be on the sword arm as well as the barrels of the gatling gun. This is a pretty big model, and it will take several coats to eliminate the streaking left over from the brushes, but I'll try to post some work in progress pictures as I go since this will probably be a time consuming process. After that another squad, then another robot (or group thereof) and I'll keep alternating until the army is done.

I may break things up with another Super Dungeon Explore mini here and there, but I'd really rather not break up my momentum again, so we'll see.

Crusher Crushin' and Robots... Robotin'?

Let the hero crushing commence!

Well, after a struggle with Blogger's... interesting interface, I had to delete my last post and start all over. On Monday I finished up Crusher (above) and took a quick break from Super Dungeon Explore.

I went ahead and hit Michaels for beads to convert my minibots into scouts, and hit gold. I went ahead and snipped the heads off of all my lil' guys, glued the beads into place, and took a step back. The robots now had the look I wanted, but they had holes in the tops of their heads. I could either; A) fill the holes with green stuff, or B) get creative. As you can most likely tell from the image, I got creative. Looking for the more cheesy sci-fi approach, I snipped off little pieces of paper clip and glued them into place to look like antenna. Now, not only did they look more goofy, but they could relay the positions of enemy troops back to their Grey Alien handlers as well. More in line with them being used as marker drones n the table. Now for primer.

I did a poll of my wargaming buddies and asked what colors I should use for their suits. The unanimous decision was purple. I'm going to go ahead and take a tip to break up the purple with a nice icy blue. The models will have a "cool" coloration from head to toe, which leads me to wonder if I should paint their bases red (like my Chaos Marines) to offset the mini, or brown (like my Dark Eldar) for a more neutral color, or to come up with an entirely new color (dare I say green?) to branch out my painting.

Priming is soon to come, and following that the first drop of paint will hit the minis. I hope to have everything sorted by then, rather than waiting for the muse to take me. Time is running out though, acceptable priming weather is (supposedly) on the way.

Grey Aliens Walking Tall(ish)

"Missilesides"

Arrayed for conquest.

Another shortish post. So far today I have put together my Grymm walkers, to represent Broadside Suits in my "not Tau" army. As mentioned in an earlier post, I have decided to go with the "missileside" option for my heavy walkers. The gatling guns will use the High-Yield
Missile Pod stat line, as it's pretty close to the "baby Assault Cannon" look they sport.

Unfortunately it's 15 degrees outside, and it just snowed, so I can't prime them. That's okay though, as I have Super Dungeon Explore stuff to paint. Later on I'll try to post my next Rock Top Gang minis. After that, I think I'll roll a die to determine which hero to paint next.

Super Dungeon Explore Hobby Bonanza

Flame on!

A fair bit of hobby news to report today. I have finished all of my Burning Gels and Fire Gels. For the most part I'm happy with how they turned out, bit the big fellows above could have had better looking eyes. It's hard to tell in the above photo, but the white paint didn't come out perfectly smooth. It's a little streaky, a little textured, and it goes outside the lines a touch.

 

Lil' squirts.

The little fellas came out much better, but as you can see in the picture above, somehow the mini in the middle of the front row got scratched twice above his eye. It may be hard to see, but I know it's there. It annoys me greatly.

 

Getting ready to roxor your soxorz.

I also picked up some white primer yesterday. This means I was able to prime the rest of the models for the Caverns of Roxor...

 

Heroic heroes.

...As well as prime my heroes and the small mini-bosses. I'm going to finish the turtles I started in the picture of the Roxor box above, but once they're done I'll paint one of the heroes to break up the monotony of painting the Rock Top Gang, I'm torn between Nyan-Nyan, Princess Ruby, and the "I sear I'm not Link" elf.

 

There was also some progress on the Von Drakk Manor set, where I primed the big fellows as well as the spawn points. I'll have photos of them as soon as I remember to snap them. (^_~)*

 

A Grymm situation.

Finally, on the Grey Alien front, my walkers from Hasslefree just arrived. I am now torn about my army list, as I want to swap out the Heavy Rail Rifles I currently have in my army list (represented by the weapon on the right) for High-Yield Missile Pods (to be represented by the linked gatling guns on the left). I'll have to fiddle around with my "army construction software" tonight to see if that's even an option, but it's hard to resist that many shots. No matter what, I'll be interested to find out which bases they'll have to go on. They come with a 50mm base, which is not the correct size. They'll either end up with a 40mm or 60mm base, depending on how wide the finished models are. I'l be pondering that tomorrow as I clean and pin all four of these walkers, as well as head over to Michaels to try to get beads for the heads of my robots. I checked on their website and couldn't find anything, so wish me luck.

 

Irken No More.

Sandy bases abound.

 

Today has been very productive. As you can see above I have now based every miniature in my "Tau" army, and I have encountered an issue. I hate the antennae I have added to my troops. Passionately. This has led me to (with pliers) rip every antenna out of my minis heads and go back to square one. They are no longer going to be Irken. I have had too much of an issue with finding the correct basis for my minis, and I am no about to start sculpting every last little thing. This is a cop-out, I know, but I have to protect my sanity here. My fingers too. I had the dremel slip on me as I was trying to drill a hole and it got perilously close to my hand. Not good.

 

Counts as Crisis Suit.

 

My conversions are not ending, however. I didn't like the head that came with this robot, so I swapped it for a bead just as I did with the bigger boys. This will give the army a more cohesive look as the heads of all of my mechanical minions will look the same. The fellow above counts as my Battle Suit Commander with two Fusion Blasters. You can't see it from the front, but I also added some thrusters to the model's back so that it will look like it will be able to boost around the board in the manner of Jetpack troopers. What sets this fellow apart from the other three "battle bots" (I'm working on a better name, believe me) is the aerial coming from his back. As you can see I shaved the bolts off this fellow in the same way as the Leviathan.

 

My "Ethereal" flanked by his two recon robots (Markerlight Drones).

 

I have also put together my "mini bot" models (by which I mean putting them on their bases). I fully intend to replace their heads as well, but I'm not too sure I can find the correct sized beads at the craft store, so their default heads will remain attached until I can find suitable replacements.

 

Ready for boostin'.

 

Finally, I added thrusters (well, most of the way) to the Leviathans. I fully intend to cover up the holes that are visible there, and I intend to do it with whatever I use for the minibots' heads. I just decided that these are supposed to be Jetpack Monstrous Creatures, so they should look the part. Good thing I had these resin jump packs lying around.

 

That's it for right now. I brought Von Drakk Manor to work with me to remove mold lines and fill in gaps in bases. I know I most likely shouldn't be doing this at work, but come on! I'm not even supposed to be here today!!!