Legions of Nagash

 

Following up on the last post, I spent the last 3 weeks or so looking into Warcry by Games Workshop. after purchasing the Red Harvest set, I have been spending some time assembling the terrain and watching videos on the game and how its played. I mentioned I probably had a enough models around where I could build a couple other Warbands.  I really didnt without just proxying everything, which I was ok with except I could not find the remains of my old box of Skeleton Warriors circa 2010-2011.

I had a post back then venting about what a pain in the butt they where to build, I must of really not liked them because they have disappeared expect for the two models on the far left . I might have just thrown them in when I sold a bunch off my Vampire Counts stuff way back.

I didnt want to just dig into the models in Red Harvest because , there are numerous build options and I want to figure out the game first, plus I figure my revist to the Games Workshop hobby after a decade away, I could work on upping my painting game.

Like alot of you I'm sure I spend some free time surfing You Tube and have good dozen hobby channels I check out.  I have wanted to get into trying out Oil paints, specifically Oil washes for awhile now

If you've  followed the blog at all, you also might notice I had sworn off metallics a very long time ago, in fact any metallic paints I have are at least 10 years old. I have seen such wonderful work done with metallics and inks and oil washes, I want to experiment with all three, none of which I've ever used or havent used in a very long time. In fact I havent owned any inks since Chestnut Brown Ink was a GW product and that was the old hex shaped pots....

 Skeletons are great for new techniques, they are very forgiving and since I seemed lack any GW style Skeletons I picked the "push fit" Sepulchral Guard for $20 something dollars and oh boy has assembly of GW models got light years easier (lol).

 The standard GW Necromancer is very old, I picked him up a painted him when he was first released. he's here just for the photo op,  The Necromancer here is the Mummy figure which is proxy as its made by Gale Force 9, from the Tomb of Horrors resin box, from way back...it was a good excuse to paint him , he and all the skeletons where batch painted. I used a handful of Reaper Paints,  a couple bright reds, some browns,  Bone, and some greys and greens ., Inks used were from Liquitex- white to zenithal prime, ( priming with ink? wtf right? but I used an air brush and it worked great. Black, Burnt Umber and a Pale Green for tinting my decade old GW Chainmail. Oil Washes are burnt umber over the bone and black for everything else.  There is bit of Vallejo Vergidis for some metal effects and some sparse mithril silver highlights and thats it.

For 10 painted models , I got them done in record time ...I like them , and liked the techniques through I need much more practice with this  new mediums, I am not sold on rebuying metallic paints a few here or there are a great accent but I want to try a batch of models with my standard NMM style with the oils and inks..so that will be next..

As far as Legions of Nagash goes, I dont think these 10 guys even make a 1000 point warband or close enough,  I'll still need a few more models.  The new Warcry update just got released so I will see when the book shows up, I cant believe GW is taking my money again, LOL

Oh and I sold my Stegadon, he had his crew, are travelling to their new owner in sunny New Mexico much for fitting for Lizards...

Rogues Gallery

 

Bugbears by Reaper Miniatures, 

I painted a bunch of figures since last September , here thes antagonists from a bunch of differentD&D games we ran, its about 50 models,  then I have about 20 Adventurer types, and then a couple dozen figures from the game Zombicide. All in all Im somewhere around 100 figures, which is alot given my
 time constraints and I am not doing any Army Painting. Also have some newish Terrain as well.
All will be revealed as I move back into posting more frequently.  The Bugbears in the opening shot appeared in both our B2 Keep on the Borderlands and T1 Village of Hommlet games..

Ogre by Reaper Minatures

Like wise this Ogre appeared in B2 Keep on the Borderlands and and as Lubash in the Moathouse Dungeon of  T1 Village of Hommlet 

Bloodhoof Minotaur by Reaper Minatures

The Minotaur was a TPK machine in our B2 Keep on the Borderlands game

Owlbear from Otherworld Miniatures

The Classic Owlbear from the inside cover of B2 Keep on the Borderlands, The kids didnt stumble into his Den, 

Goblins by Reaper Minatures

I really started to like these Reaper Goblins and they keep making better and better ones so I just keep painting them.  I gave up on using my Otherworld ones, because the scale on these guys is just way better.  Used, in Lost Mines of Phandelver, Keep on the Borderlands, and my version of village of Hommlet .

Lizardmen by Reaper Minatures

I hope they make more poses of these guys and out of the newer plastic material Reaper is using, I've gotten lots of use of them, Keep of the Borderlands, Village of Hommlet and now Barrowmaze.

Kobolds by Reaper Miniatures

Spent about a week working on all these guys...think I have another 6 still and then there another set I want of new ones Reapers released which would give me about 30....made a brief appearance in my Keep on the Borderlands game.

Giant Frogs and Giant Crocodile by Reaper Miniatures

Swamp Creatures appearing in the Village of Hommlet

Giant Crayfish by Otherworld Miniatures, Green Slime by Reaper Miniatures

Denizens of the Moathouse Dungeon both these guys claimed many of daughters Hirelings and Henchman, ouch a nasty pair.

If you want to read a narrative of retake on the Village of Hommlet as the starting point for Barrowmaze head on over to my Sword and Sorcery Blog, Iron Shadows in the Moon. I'll try to get my painted Adventurers up soon.

Bolt Action- bringing an Army to the table

 In any miniatures skirmish game, for me a measure of ones interest in said game can easily be gauged by the what they put into their models. Whether it be causal or competitive, I find it rare that people slave away on the models for game they dont really like. The reverse can be true as well ,where you may love the game but models just don't inspire you. I've bounced around a bit quite since I quit playing Warhammer, I had brief affairs with Warmachine, Kings of War, Flames of War, etc. all of my attempts to work around the various nuances that irked me, be it the IP, the models or scale all lead to my inevitable lack of interest in the games. Even my longest serving miniature passion, Lord of the Rings has suffered not due to not only my fading interest in the state of the game but failure of the new ranges to inspire in either the visualization or the physical material (failcast). After spending a year with Warlord Games, Bolt Action, its clear to me, I really like this game.

First of my 4 teams on 60mm bases my Sniper Team, finally finished up this morning.

 I've got two Bolt Action Armys, my British Paratroopers, and my favorite nemesis of theirs Germany's Waffen SS. I actually think this will only be the second minatures game where I can field more than one completely painted army ( other being LotR where I can field at least 600 points armys from numerous incarnations from 4 different factions but I have also been playing that game since 2007)

My Humber Mark IV is only 90% complete, I still have a bit of touch up to do and put some decals on it. The guys walking along aside are British Commandos from Black Tree Designs they work great with WG figures.

 Adepticon is about 47 days away, This about half my army I still have 6 commandos, my HMG team, ATG Team, Mortar Team, and Jeep to paint...they are all built modeled up and base coated
so I am going right into painting, My goal here is to be done the end of the month, that's looking unlikely but it will close. I'll surely crank about the rest of my Commandos and  my HMG team by next weekend, my 6 pounder ATG in the week after that..leaving me my Mortar and Jeep for the last month going in. Keep in mind I am simultaneous working on both the Pirate Table and Bolt Action table in between. While everything for the tables might not happen in the end, I am not worried about my Tournament armies, and for Pirates I already have more stuff then would fit on the allowable gaming space before I built the stuff recently built.

As for my painting I kept it pretty by the book, the uniforms are the uniforms however being military uniforms are bit drab I like to bring a bit of color into the miniatures, I am using a lot of bright highlights of the base colors hopefully getting them to pop out a bit more. The camo smocks on the Red Devils and extra work of all the resin bases definitely add on to the time to get them done.
Regardless, I am loving painting this army more so that any army in recent memory, looking for forward to posting shots of these guys on the new table, against another fully painted army.
(speaking of which any BA fan should check out my pal Jeremy's Japanese over at his Blog)
I am glad to report that reality is going to happen very soon!. Next weekend is my pal Tim's Gathering in Desert Reboot  "Operation Scorpion"  taking place in the Phoenix area. Bolt Action was the transition game for former LotR players as the game died out there, IL/WI is definitely following suit as   while LotR is still soldiering on here, almost every regular I played at events with for the last 5 years is playing BA, in fact 3 of my local LotR compradres are making the trip and I wish I was joining but alas, this time of year its night impossible for me to get out of town.

In other news coming up we are running a couple demos for public events I am involved here at out Bi-Weekly game nights which look to be back on track after getting sabotaged by this brutal winter
We are doing our Hail Ceasar demo of a huge Crusades game on a 12 x 4 table, this game is happening post Adepticon at Little Wars  which is great little local convention that always gets overshadowed by Adepticon.

Then we are demoing Pirates the week after, basically just to make sure the scenarion plays the way I want it to..again a 12 x 4 table...painting is underway on the Gatehouse piece I recently posted and Rich brought the ruined castle back over on Tuesday I'll be setting the whole thing up very soon to get sorted.. So hopefully I'll be back to posting a bit more frequently in the coming month, as all these
thing come to fruition I'll be psyched to talk about it.

Hell Division and Wizard

I haven't had much time to blog of late but I finally got around to taking these quick shots last night. I have actually been painting quite bit and playing Empire of the Dead and Bolt Action.  Getting back into the nightly stride of painting can be challenging I'm a bit rusty but happy with these guys came out.

This wizard and imp from Otherworld miniatures, currently one my favorite wizards, from Otherworld my favorite fantasy miniature manufacturer to at the moment, I hope I get time to paint
their fantastic new Fantasy Adventurers line soon,

 

Here's my current faction I am playing for Empire of the Dead, Hell Division or the Super Natural      Division of the London Police. I currently have a crew of six, with the new Van Helsing model          filling  in for   my Police Chaplin. I dont have the Robo Dog in the list yet but hope to soon, I've   been getting  my  rear handed to me by my rival Nosferatu Faction hopefully the Chaplin will help.  I've got  3 more Bobbies and a Detective Constable ready to for paint as well                                                         

Hopefully I'll get a few more posts up before year, working on my table for the Pirates event at Adepticon and painting my Red Devils for the Bolt Action tournament.

LPL 7- Round 4 is on!

Round 4 has begun over at the LAF for Lead Painters League Season 7

Above is my 3 round entry, "Heroes of Helm's Deep"  Which scored me my first win by 50 votes, So if you voted for me thanks, and if you bothered to vote at all thanks again.  As it seems to be a  developing pattern my round 4 entry Red Devils 15mm is losing to some cultists flashing some skin, the exact same thing that happened last year with my 15mm Red Planet entry. 15mm is tough nut to crack with people for sure in the LPL .If you've painted 15mm before, you know how tough it is to paint cleanly for close up photographs in the scale.  Checking entries going back a few years across the board it seems if a tough scale to win with period, so in retrospect I should have went with my Saxons, although I didnt think they looked as good. Anway this one is lost cause at the current vote totals but if your so inclined please vote as you still get leaderboard points for the votes.
 
I am currently working on my round 5 entry which the theme round for Historical civil war..this prompted me to finally get painting on my Perry Brothers War of the Roses figures. I am doing a small diorama and already I took some WIP photos so I'll shoot for getting this entry its own "development" post for something different later on in the month after round 5 is complete. Unless something else comes up, until next Sunday!.

LPL 7, Round 3 begins!

Round 3 has begun over at the LAF for Lead Painters League Season 7

Above is my 2 round entry, "It's got two heads! (old lead)"  Which again, lost in a just about a 60/40 spread to some GW eldar of all things, Not the the best photo I submitted with the guy front and center being slightly out of focus. The photo's here are so very important in peoples perceptions this thing ends up a miniatures photography contest all most as much as painting contest.  I didnt have alot of time for photos with my initial submission with my Adepticon prep. Things get tough from here out as I am basically working a submission a week..my round 4 entry should be submitted today, giving me until May 11th to work on the Historical Civil War bonus round which is minimum 10 figures if I want all the bonus points. I'm torn as I am ready to dive into painting my new Bolt Action stuff, but the 20 bonus points is tempting with going 0-2 so far, with me being only 13 points down from the top leader board is pretty tempting.  Anyway this week is more of recent figures I did in preparation for Adepticon, familiar faces in "Heroes of Helm's Deep"  check it out and go vote!

LPL 7, Round 2 is on!

Round 2 has begun over at the LAF for Lead Painters League Season 7

Above is my 1 round entry, "For the Riddermark"  Which unfortunately lost by a 2 to1 margin but to an excellent entry by one of my favorite painters on the LAF user: Blackwolf  My follow up entry, "It's got two heads! (old lead) features some more old school grenadier stuff I have had around basically since I was a kid, I've been trying to get thru those old gold boxes for nostalgia purposes over the last few years but the going is slow, this weeks photo is up against some pretty nice 40K Eldar., not seeing the usual anti-GW sentiment on forum rearing its head yet as I currently down about dozen votes, so go check them out and see what you like better, honestly I had a tough time getting a good picture on this one. With Adepticon out of the way, I can crack down the next couple months and see if knock out some real winners here, we'll see, even with small pool and some huge names absent this year, my first two draws have been tough!

Speaking of Adepticon, had a great weekend, played 8 great games, saw all kinds of awesome work, snagged a pair of best appearance awards, along with the usual great swag....I'll get on a full write up with pic during the week.

LPL7 Round 1 commences!

I awoke this morning to find my round 1 entry "For the Riddermark"  up against one of my favorite painters on the whole LAF, user "Blackwolf". whose stunning realistic tones against soft lighting are always pleasure. Please go check it out and you can see a preview of Rohan army for Adepticon this year. Now that this has begun I'll post some different shots of the whole set up on Wednesday.

With only 30 contestants this year there are whole of big guns absent from this years LPL, while I'll certainly miss the eye candy, it bodes well for my own performance, unless I continue to draw the top painters every week., not sure how I feel about that...

Do yourself a favor go check out all the entries and vote!

Scratch Build "The Eye" complete!

 Well complete as it going to get anyway. Here its is crewed with Aragorn and some Army of the Dead for my "Aragorn at Pelennor" list for the Thursday nights Adepticon event "The March to Mount Doom" which is a 500 point Single Elimination Tourney. This is the Army and the Boat is the display. I have a small sign that goes in front, that is yet to be made.

 
 I had alot of fun with this scratch build and I've some other ideas stewing around, not sure whats next this is my second totally completed ship after "The Griffon", I also have an Old Glory Brig that only needs a couple days work to be complete as well.

Painting was a pretty straight forward affair, in the future paint the masts before stitching the sails on would have saved me some time. The water stained patina on the bow ram and shields and the other weathering effects took the longest.

 As far as Adepticon goes..all my models are done..Painting all those cavalry models took me forever. .I still have my team display to paint/flock and a couple plaques/ signs for the Army lists.to make..nothing I cant get done this weekend.

I used a bunch of my Rohan Team Army for the LPL7 which starts this weekend, in conjunction with the rules I wont post my Rohan shots until probably Wednesday, the day before I head over to Adepticon. but you can get the preview over at the LAF this on Sunday. I'm not going to have much time for coverage this year..I am playing in three Lord of the Rings events, my only free time to socialize is Friday night, (so if you know me look me up then) Saturday I have split right after the event for ill timed but mandatory engagement with the wife..I may break my own rules and show up on Sunday to bum around. 

Lead Painters Leagues - Season 7

Lead Painters League- Season 7 commences shortly over at the Lead Adventure Forum. The LAF ,is for me, personally where the best of the miniature hobby is taking place. Multi-genre, scratch builds, old school miniatures galore, tons of terrain and best of all always lots of great ideas. Very little brand ID pigeon holeing across the board. the Lead Painters League or "LPL" now hits season 7, I only got the gumption to stick my toe in the water last year for the first time, and was pretty happy with the way I made out.

Its a tight 10 week schedule, where you have to submit new entries on the weekly basis, and you submit your first "3" entries when you enter. Prepping for Adepticon events has got me well on my way for my initial entries, but after that I'll be scrambling to stay of ahead of entry dates by a good margin so I am not trying to cram it in that week. A big part of the contest is not just your painted miniatures, but how they are presented. So, yes while it is a painting contest it is open to a public vote so your presentation certainly sways peoples opinions. My best stuff last year that won by wide margins won by either by clear painting caliber or was pushed it though because my entire scene presented itself as a mini-vignette and got the point across better.

That is the route I am going to try to go as much as possible this year as much as can, as a result I am really trying to plan out all my entries in advance, so while yeah I'll probably do three Lord of the Rings entries...(only due the Adepticon overlap) I am going to try to push the envelope dig into the lead pile for the other 7 rounds. My lead pile is pretty huge and its keep growing, So I will certainly try to embrace some of the new games I am interested it, and old stuff I've never got around to painting.  This contest is a great motivation and my fellow compatriots are, nothing but inspiring, looking forward all the cool stuff we are going to see this year. Things get rolling Saturday April 13th, so stay tuned, I'll be updating my weekly entries as they win or lose each week, my only goal is have fun and try to do at least as well as last year. The two big theme rounds are Historical Civil War and Science Fiction this year, and yeah "Rex Eleven" is making a big return round 10.

Dynamic Duo!

Forget Batman and Robin, these guys are the original dynamic duo after Holmes and Watson!

 Some quick pics of how my team army for the Lord of the Rings team championships at this years Adepticon is shaping up my partner Chris and I are recreating The Warg Attack scenario from "The Two Towers"  My Rohan list features these two as the 2 man wrecking crew..having faced them both before running my Orcs..I know what pain the but they are, with the new Cav rules..The Rohirim got alot better..looking forward to what they can do on the table.

 I had stunning moment of inspiration late Friday night that had me working till the wee hours of the morning this past weekend. I've changed my display Idea for my "March to Mount Doom Army"
and came with great ideal for the display..its awaiting paint..but I should be able to show the whole army off this weekend.

 I've been working on "turning up the heat" if you will on my color palette for this Army, I have long history of using muted cold earth tones at my painting core. My armies tend to come out somewhat dark in person, and I am thankful for the appreciation they get, I know they are easy to walk right by if you dont stop to look . They definitely don't scream " Hey over here, look at me!!" which ends up
at lot times being a cheap sell in the painting competition and tournaments. Warhammer players know what I am talking about.

 Anyway my Rohan is going to pop alot more than some of my past work..not in over the top way I still keep a very tight pallet, I've just gone a little hotter on the colors. (these pics are  little washed out)

More soon , 43 days till Adepticon, I am on schedule having about a dozen models still to do this month leaving the first 2 and half weeks of April to tie up loose ends and get a display together.

January's Efforts

 

January's was a decent month on the hobby front for me, nowhere near as prolific as I was 3-4 years or so ago but the ball is moving in the right direction. First up are some Lord of the Rings figures (what else?)  My Riders of Rohan dismounted troops for my Adepticon Team Army. The entire is force is Cavalry so despite it being 20 Cav models, I need dismounts for about everyone in case they lose their mount. So that 20 becomes 40 or in this case 35, as I am only doing 8 dismount rank and file troops figuring the odds of more than 8 of 12 men being off their horses at one time is slim., I am also only doing 1 dismounted Outrider.. everyone else gets two models.  I am almost 2 with my other 2 Royal Guard, so I can get into the Cavalry now.  With just some display base work and my other two armies for Adepticon completely done, I am at a comfortable pace to finish by April. I plan on hitting some of the Rohirim Cav first just to keep my current color schemes going then get into the heroes which for this army are Theoden, Eowyn, Legolas and Gimli

Standard Bearer on Foot, its too much of risk only doing the mounted one so Two Standards it is, minor conversion on the Standard Bearer , weapon, shield, banner top, I'm doing my Royal Guard in a somewhat non traditional color scheme.

All the older metal AoD for me thanks.

 Next up, My Army of the Dead who are making there appearance Thursday night at Adepticon in the March to Mount Doom Event..which is 500 points, 15 model maximum. I'm running Aragorn and 13 of these guys, The King plus 12.  Its themed as the scene at Pelenor when Aragon shows up in the Corsair Ship and charges off with the AoD...I have cool little display in mind that should hit all the bells and whistles from that classic scene.

These guys are WIP, but I painted a up a couple of new Goblins from the Hobbit Box set, and I wanted to show how good they can look with very little effort. . I still stand by earlier comments that these models are great, All I have done to these guys was a spray base coat of  Reaper Fair Skin, block paint the hair, loin cloth and weapons and then give then give them a wash of Ogryn Flesh.
that's it..the look great already with zero additional detailing...yeah mounting them on Dragon Forge bases is a luxury but I bought a bunch of stuff from him when he had the buy two , get one free sale in December.  Anyway 36 of these models is the deal in the Hobbit Box, as these guys have a multiple uses for me from a Moria army Idea I am kicking around for next fall, to just an nice horde of generic fantasy guys, Goblins, Mutants, Morlocks, whatever.

Finally a blast from the past,  This Two headed Giant is in the "Old School Miniatures" category
This Grenadier  Ettin is from 1986.  Thats past the window of  my initial collecting as youth which was 80% Grenadier stuff from 1979-1983  (the rest being Heritage).  I picked this guy a year or so go on ebay when I found a guy selling about 10 boxes from this Dragon Lords line still shrink wrapped uncovered from some long forgotten cache..the bidding was fast and furious..I think all the Giants from this "Giants Club" where there, I managed to score this one and some cool armored goblins.  Anyway this was a experiment in some glazing techniques I wanted to try..not quite done yet, he's close...he'll make his final appearance this year once the LAF LPL & gets rolling, Then he'll be living in my slowly growing Skirmish Dungeon,

I'll  be back soon with more HC Campaign results and more painted figures ASAP.

LPL 6 Concludes!!

Round 10 and the contest has concluded over  at the LAF for Lead Painters League Season 6.  (link is the final standings)


What a ride, I ended up coming in 14th place out of 46th..I did'nt meet my goal of the top ten but close enough. Above is my final entry. "The Capture of the Griffon"  which lost by 30 or so votes. leaving me with a 6-4 Record. I would have to have won this one, one of the others I lost and figured out how to get at least half of 20 bonus I couldn't take advantage of..to make the top ten. Pretty big jump...so it wasn't really doable even if I won Round 10.

Couple on interesting notes. 1. I called the winner in round 3 after he beat me in round 2, and I saw his round 3 entry. He ended up going 10-0 (which I think is a first) anyway this guy can always find side work as studio painter if he wants it (a bunch of these guys could, some might be, not sure).
2. Getting max bonus points and winning every round is a huge accomplishment, every entry you put in really needs to be jaw dropping. Otherwise your subject to losing to any oddball entry that strikes peoples fancy for whatever reason not just the painting. Whether that be, naked ladies, comedic dioramas, or just damn creative entries These things will beat a better painted, less attention craving entry 9 times out of 10, so you need to be that one of ten, that still can trump those occasional match ups to consistently win.  3. Your Photography needs to be good. If you cannot consistently take excellent pictures of your stuff, dont waste your time here. Good photos make all the difference. I let a shoddy photo slide in round 2, and it cost me, and I am usually quite happy with my photos but I must say during this process, I learned a couple tricks to make them better, so it was a fair trade off.

A fantastic contest, quirky with a great scoring system and a incredible of amount of awesome eye candy, If you are miniatures enthusiast and are not particularity interested or married to GW this contest is certainly for you.  Hat's off to Dr Mathias for winning this and going 10-0. The top 4 guys this year all undoubtedly paint at Studio professional level, the majority of the top 25 are all, serious painters with long term hobby skills...or guys that would routinely win best appearance awards in public events, if you will. Hell of a contest...I know some guys who read here, who should definitely think about this  just for the experience, and they're all LotR players so you guys know I am talking to you!.

In other news we "finally" play Kings of War this Tuesday, after talking about it forever. The first time our WFB models are going to use for more than just myself in over a year.  looking forward to see how the game plays and if it puts the fun back in large scale Fantasy gaming for us.

I reached the light at the end of tunnel on the personal front with my real life work debacle, that I  have mentioned here. Things have sorted them out for the best, its all good and life is moving on. I am actually going to have pretty easy summer, on the work front, so I look forward to a vacation
and digging in to finish a couple of large hobby projects I've been secretly talking about.

LPL 6 - Round 10- Maritime Bonus Round

Round 10, The final round has begun over at the LAF for Lead Painters League Season 6.


Above is my round 9 entry "Crew of the Atramentous" which your Privateer Press fans should be familiar with. This guys squeaked out a victory over some nicely painted Dwarves.  My round 10 entry "Capture of the Griffon"  is somewhat old hat around here...you've seen these models alot with my Legends of the High Seas stuff. I did spend some time getting a good photo to meet all the bonus criteria. Except "newly painted" which I could honestly try to claim.  I was very confident going into the last round unless I got paired up with one of the top 10 or so, or I thought..My entry is currently losing by a close margin, (but close enough to beat me in this thing) to a very ool 15 mm river scene that makes up for what its lacking in paint department in a really great idea. That's one of the things about this contest I am discovering- is that paint will not always get your thru..its combination of things not least of which is the whims of the voter on what's fresh or immediately eye catching, and unfortunately Pirates are seemingly a bit long in the tooth this round. So I could really use your vote, if you think my entry deserves it.  Overall its been a great first time LPL, I was shooting for a top 10 finish..but dont think I can pull it off without winning this last round...

LPL 6- Round 9 Zombie Pirates

Round 9 has begun over at the LAF for Lead Painters League Season 6.


Yay- my above entry "The Hunt for Rex Eleven"  won this time out by a pretty good margin against another excellent entry. Its disappointing I had to re-run it...but as its lost to the LPL "painting assassin"
(meaning you draw him , you lose as he looking at 9-0 so far) first time around and it was Adepticon week, I didn't have much choice by to re-run. For week 9. I reach into my very shallow Privateer Press shelf and pull out some select figures from my Revenant Crew and Blackbanes Ghost Raiders for my entry "Crew of the Atramentous"  This one is going to be another squeaker I am in the lead currently but its really close. so please go vote. Next week is final round..being its the Maritime bonus round I have something special planned as long as I can take the photos to do it justice.

LPL Season 6, Rnd 8 Redux

Round 8 has begun over at the LAF for Lead Painters League Season 6.


Above is my entry for last round, *Green Magic* which somehow pulled out of vote by vote dead heat to squeak out winning by ONE vote...a margin of 1-5 votes is a draw and I finished 6 votes ahead. Due to Adepticon, I had to re-run my round 2 Entry "The Hunt for Rex Eleven" one of my better entries
it lost to the fellow who is going to win the whole thing probably going 10-0. so I wanted to re run it at some point. I got a very solid draw this week from a very good painter and "Rex" is cruising with a comfortable lead, let that not discourage your voting however as there is still alot of great new stuff posted. Still shooting for finishing in the top ten in this thing...and I just might be able to do it, as lady luck has smiled on me of late as I will talk about in my next post!

LPL Season 6, Rnd 7. Appendix N Fantasy

Round 7 has begun over at the LAF for Lead Painters League Season 6.

Above is my round winning entry "Servants of the Spider Queen" which is also a preview of my upcoming Adepticon Army for the Lord of the Rings Championships taking place this coming Friday. With the release of the "Warbands" rules..I could reconfigure my Cirith Ungol army to feature more diverse units so my list now features Spiders, Spectres, Orc Trackers. Morgul Stalkers ,along with Orcs , Uruk Hai and of course, Shelob...I'll get out a shot of the whole package before the event.
So if took to the time to vote for Servants, Thanks!

As for round 7, my current entry is entitled Green Magic  in an ode to the worlds oldest role playing game and its "Appendix N" bibliography, of which I am a huge fan of ( more so than I ever was the game), but admittedly it was the gateway to  wargaming to me and although I have
not played it since 1st Edition, those images and style of "Old School Fantasy" are aesthetically certainly what I gravitate to with this hobby.  I do read alot of the RPG blogs because of the fantasy miniature cross over, and all the retro clones of the 1st Edition game the last 5 years or so are pretty cool. You got love to the hobbyist- self-published world taking their hobby back from the corporate stupidity of always trying to mass market everything to the lowest common denominator. This of course goes on in the miniatures hobby as well, but its cool to see in RPG world the big boys actually get their market share threatened, which doesnt really happen in the miniatures world.. ( I'll save my "Corporate Hobbies Suck" editorial for another time..)

As I look at the fiction section of my bookshelf, Tolkien, Howard, Moorcock, Vance, etc..., and continue work on my own Skirmish game (more on this soon, I know I keep saying that..but seriously)  It's certainly satisfying to see all these little aspects of your hobbies/ interests come together.

Anyway check out *Green Magic* which is in close heat this week so I need your vote- if you think its better that its competition. I am 3-3 after 6 rounds..if I want to finish in the top ten, I need win the remaining 4 rounds...a tall order.