Golden Hat XLIV: K'daai

 Time to join another community painting contest over at Chaos Dwarfs Online, with the latest round of the Golden Hat.

 

And this time, the theme was K'daai.

 

With a deadline set at the 31st of May, I went out and paint up a model for the contest.  I had these mountains of Runewars models still, and I went for one of the big rune golems as such to paint up.  It's not like I ever am going to end in the top painting spots, but it is a motivator to get some things painted along the way. And you never know like last time I get lucky in the participant draw...

 

The beast itself, even though based to large as it comes with an integral 50x50 base (and is just to wide to put on a 40x40) was painted in the same style as the others in my army, a dark grey with the lava veins showing.  However, as these are clothed and sword wielding, I opted to incorporate my army's blue and gold scheme into it as well to prevent it looking as just a big grey lump of plastic.

 

The base as usual was done like my regular army as well, so no surprises there...

 

 It didn't win any top spots as expected, nor was I the lucky draw winner, but it is these sorts of thingies that keeps me motivated to paint on my beloved Dawi'Zharr amidst all the deadlines...

Warhammer Underworlds: Myari's Purifiers versus Borgit's Beastgrabbaz

 Wiej, I managed to get outside to play a game of Underworlds before work during the casual meet-ups.

 

Now, due to having to get back on time to get to the night shift, I can only manage a single game a night, but it did gave me the opportunity for a first try out of my Blazing Assault / Emberstone Sentinels build.

 

Facing me was Peter with Borgit's Beastgrabbaz, and a build of Wrack & Ruin combined with Pillage & Plunder, and he opted to make Bahannar the trophy...

 

I got to pick the board, and deployed my warband all to one side.  Peter was countering, his leader ending up in striking range of my hitters, so that was nice, and his troll as such forced to be set far away on the outfield.   What was more was that I had Supremacy in my opening hand, and as I knew he would be out delving first and foremost, that seemed actually really scoreable in round one as I looked at the deployed bands.

 

To that end, Bahannar immediatly occupied the token in neutral territory, as he indeed started to delve on his half to inspire his warband.

 

Snagz was the first to fall to the attack of Myari, after escaping some arrows from Senaela, and by now I saw how relatively easy the Purifiers actually inspire.

 

 I duly scored Supremacy, and took an early 5-2 lead as a result

 

 For the second round, I still had Strike the Head in hand, and it was time to try and assassinate his leader.  Bahannar charged forward, swinging his huge hammer and combined with the grievous it had went through the defences of Borgit, felling the git in one blow.

 

 Rigg and Shamm sneaked onto the objective to prevent me from getting it, but Ailenn moved up and swiftly dispatched the cloaked fellows with her blade.

 

 This left him with only Uglug whom I'd been ignoring, and Dregg, while I still had a full and healthy band of Aelves.

 

 The troggoth charged in, but Bahannar withstood the pummeling for now... yet was gravely wounded in the brutal assault.

 

 But as I kept scoring systematically, it stood 14 to 6 at the end of the second round, and all I had to do was consolidate and not worry to much about killing the opponents.

 

 Uglug kept battering Bahannar as for the third round in a row Peter had the initiative, and the Aelf fell to the savage assault.

 

 Ailenn wounded the beast, but he healed back up with a Healing Potion, and in return gravely wounded the swordsmaster.  Fortunatly she hed Great Fortitude and as such remained clinging on vunerably.

 

 I had the swordmaster "voltron'ed up" though, and using Great Speed moved behind Myari on the total opposite side of the board, his only chance to take the bounty would be a lucky shot with Dregg.

 

But the puny little archer totally missed his shot, and my Aelf was safe from harm.

 

Senaela dodged an attack from Uglug, and so the game came to an end, the Purifiers keeping safe distances from the big beast, while rattled by the troggoth's attack my archer missed her shot to finish of little Dregg...

 

But it was nothing to worry about, as Myari took home a 17-11 won without ever actually coming into a tight spot.  Taking out his leader early in round 2 was a big boost in taking the win, as that left his wings clipped.  But I also had the benefit of both his leader being in striking distance, yet opting not to go for him immediatly to grab Supremacy first, and the troggoth being to far away to have any decent impact on the game.

 

The deck itself ran smoothly, I only had one card left in my pile and in the very end also didn't score a single objective as I failed to make that Perfect Strike even with 2 dice, but heck, it didn't matter to much.   

 

 

White Dwarf 484

 Time to have another look at an issue of the Games Workshop in home magazine, White Dwarf.

 

At the beginning of the year, at the Aalst Underworlds tournament, I obtained a nice stack of older magazines for nought, and been flicking through them on and off.

 

Now, let's have a look through it after reading them, and have some opinions.  I do say, I am not into the whole 40k universe thing for years, so those won't be getting to much attention on my part for the reading, but the things that caught my intrest I read of course. 

The cover shows a Chaos Marine, with the big title for the issue being rules to play Boarding Actions through a space hulk.

 

Starting out with the regular community pages, the first article tells about what it is to be a human in the Imperium.  The Arks of Omen was a new thing back then, and as such background to how it came to be is provided in the next article.

 

Next we get a Flashpoint rule set, Herald of Misery.  This is the first set of rules for the Ark boarding action missions, and the rules to play it out are also included in the next article in the magazine.  Tiles are included for use in the game as well, together with a set of mission briefings, force organisations and a battle report between Orks and Thousand Sons using Kill Team.  A lot more Kill Team is added to the whole volume about boarding actions as such, as the game of course lends itself to such small scale games.

 

But then we move to the Mortal Realms, which tickles my intrest more... because Fantasy gaming.

 

It begins with a Flashpoint Flash which gives a mini-campaign for the Gloomspite Gitz against the Skaven as they battle it our inside the underground warrens.

 

Flashpoint Rondhol features the Stormcast Eternals facing off a beginning of a Waaagh, before we go back to some painting guides for character models.  And then it is a nice juicy article for me, as Warriors of the Depths features new quests, rewards and lore for the Idoneth Deepkin in Warcry.

 

An article for deckbuilding in Underworlds is included, tailored towards the grots warbands, before we go to Middle-earth for a scenario of skirmishes in Osgiliath, together with a battle report between Gondor and Mordor forces.

 

So we conclude this issue, and it has some intrest for me with the Idoneth and the MESBG articles, so not to bad at all considering the heap of game systems and armies they produce.

Charlotte OVA: The Strong Ones

 Following in the trail of the Charlotte anime I recently completed, I also viewed the special OVA released afterwards, The Strong Ones.

 

This special extra episode was released about a year after the series, and takes place in the first half of the series, where they still work out from their highschool organisation.

 

It tells about Iori Sekiguchi, a mind reader and as such very hard to find.  Having been selected by the student council, Yuu and Nao must find a way to work around her mind reading powers to try and approach her, which is something made very difficult due to her powers.  

 

 

She can figure out the team's next moves, they eventually figure a way to work out what to do and bring her to the folds of the school. They do this by taking her out on a pleasant day to the amusement park, as they learn the girl has actually an incurable disease that will take away her mobility, and the problems this causes with her best friend.  But Nao manages to consolidate the two together, and Iori vows to do her best to fight the disease.

 

A nice little extra for the series, even though it doesn't resolve any of the loose ends left behind by the main series.  But when binging the series these days, it is best to view this OVA between episodes 4 and 5 for the timeline.

 

 

LARP'in up an old plastic necklace

 Okay, so it's a heatwave, meaning it is way to warm to bend close to my painting lamps to work on some figures.

 

So I went rummaging through some boxes of old stuff, and found this little plastic tooth necklace from I guess 25 years ago.

 

Now, as I'm still slowly working on a LARP set, I thought it was the perfect thing to spend the time sheltering the heat and still be somehow productive.  

 

The first thing I did, bar finding a way to have it placed decently to work on, was undercoat it with some Payne's Grey acrylic paint from my Talens Amsterdam collection.

 

Next, the tooth part got a layer of Van Dyke Brown, again from the same range.  I really love this series of paints, as they are better then euro store craft paints, yet don't cost an arm and a leg, averaging around 2 euro for a small to 8 euro for the very big tubes... and I can do a LOT of wargame bases or 3d printed wargame terrain with them. 

 

The edge was then painted with Gunmetal Grey from my Vallejo wargame paints.  For these small projects or detailing on larger pieces, I dare using these in comparison expensive paints but hey...

 

I then did a coating of Ink Wash Armour from Coat D'Arms over the metal, to give it some depth.  These inks also require a while to dry, so that would allow me to paint the rest of the tooth first before rounding out the top part.

 

And the first colour added to the tooth was Vallejo's Game Colour Earth, a muddy dried earth style of colour and ideal to work up from, letting the dark brown show through at parts to give some depth.

 

Using more wargame paints, I took some Green Brown from Vallejo to make the intermediate layer from the browns going to the white touches.

 

Next, using some more Coat D'Arms paint, I went to draw lines with Bone, now using a smaller brush to do this.  This is basically the most important stage of the painting of the tooth, as this layer is what makes it look decent or rubbish.  I think it turned out alright though.

 

The metal part then got some highlighting as by now the ink had dried enough to do so.

 

So, time for the final stages of the painting.  Using Dead White, again from Vallejo, I drew some highlight lines into the bone lines, more towards the point of the tooth then near the top.

 

Finally, the last painting was some Dark Rust, again from Vallejo, to weather the metal part at the top to give it a bit of an old and worn look.

 

And that is it for the painting, now all I needed to do was using some matt varnish, again from my stack of craft store material and not wargame expensive varnish, and leave it out to all dry up.

 

And there we have it, an afternoon project of transforming a cheap plastic tooth to something that can be worn on a LARP costume, a simple yet fun project to do and spend some time on sheltering from the weather.  It did give the benefit thought the paint and inks dried a bit faster though...

 

Until the next time! 

 

 

 

 

The Haul Report 419

 Time for another overview of the stuff added to the collection, and we kick-off with some tournament loot...

 

Because the first of june it was Mines of Alost II, a tournament for Warhammer Underworlds.

 

 

As Nico, the organiser, had one of the new OP kits available, that meant some nice promotional goodies to be had as well as the new board and the trophy as I actually won the tournament.  Apart from those, we also received a sprue of choice (I picked one with a Stormcast and a Kruelboy, always handy for solo games), while also picking up a paint.

 

But there is a serious blast from the past, as I had a parcel arriving from Agents of Gaming.  Yes, we are getting back into Babylon 5 after nearly 2 decennia! 

 

More Underworlds (and a paint) from Starspeler, as I saw "something" of a possibility in the new Realmstone Raiders deck (which is, a bad one mind you) combined with the Knives of the Crone mechanics... so I duly ordered the deck after all.

 

Going to play the Benelux Clash III, a Golden Ticket qualifier with an Organised Play set as price support, we brought home some more freebies. 

 

The final haul is some more Underworlds.  The benefit of being "that one guy in the club that plays it" is that people think off you when stumbling across sets of them.  And so they brought above three warbands from a local thrift store for 5 euro each... 

 

The cards where for straight to the garbage as they had a damp smell, but the models where complete and only the Warden's spear needs glueing.  And a free bag of bases lol... 

 

Okay... maybe that wasn't the final one, as on the cut off fo typing this, the friday afternoon, my Frontaal Beer Box subscription box arrived, VERY welcome at the 35 degrees it is currently outside...