Singing in the ice (and fire)

I'm bringing here the rest of the minis of this range I have :)

Let's begin, the first one will be Tyrion Lannister:

 

Small guy, great mini

You can't see that, but his eyes have different colours

Watcha lookin' at?

 

Then Arya Stark:

 

Another tiny person, great character

Unfriendly face. Can't blame her

 

Her sister Sansa:

 

Should have painted that as a sandcastle. Nobody would have seen that coming

Reaching that face in the hood proved more difficult than expected

Finally, Hodor, Bran, Meera and Jojen:

Meet the Reeds

Hodor? Hodor hodor!

Stop moving! I'm falling down!

As you may have noticed, these minis are not based in the tv show, but in the books. Check the rest of the range by Dark Sword Miniatures, there are some really awesome minis!

Botticelli with dragons

Damn! I totally forgot to take pics of the WIP!!

OK, I'll have to show a hundred pics all the same :S

This is a 54mm. mini by Dark Sword Miniatures, a company with a most interesting A Song of Ice and Fire range. Most of their range are 28 mm., but they also have beauties like this.

 

Told ya, Birth of Venus by Boticelli, just with dragons

Everything's cooler with dragons

The difficult part about this mini is that... it's only flesh all around! I tried to show her extreme paleness, but being covererd in the ashes of her clothes and hair, so the skin tones had to go from light pale flesh to greys with mixes of browns and reds, showing dirt in the shadows.

I am not satisfied at all with the results, I'm afraid. I tried a risky experiment and failed. This one will need a repaint in the future, but for the moment this is it.

 

You should be paying attention to the dragons, not staring at her ass

 

Next week I'll show you the 28 mm. range I have. I've already painted them, just need proper photos. This time I'll post some WIP pics, I promise!

Darth Vader

Ha! For sure you expected an 'I am your father' or something for the title! Yeah, I know, I'm that predictable, that's why I have just said the name of the evilest among the evils, the infamous lord of the Sith. Ladies and gentlemen, with all of you... Daaaarth Vaaader!

 

Err... Not a great introduction, I guess

 

Once again this is a 72mm. miniature by Knightmodels. You can bet that if the licence was not profitable, it was not my fault!

 

Easy thing this time, black priming and then for the textures

 

I worked on greyscales for the pants and leather in general, and black and dark blue for the cloak, armour and  the rest of the clothes.

 

You can't see a thing here, but you get the idea

Maybe a little better here

 

The pose is great, but the mini has a main design flaw in my opinion, the lightsaber. At some moment you will have to stick a metal bar into the tiny end of the hilt. I really believe the whole lightsaber should be made in one piece.

 

It looks like I'm a rock star with my micro

 

I tried to kinda show the light effects coming from the lightsaber on the robes, armour and even slightly on the floor.

I just said 'I tried'

Then it came the dreadful moment. A drop of superglue and just a whisper... 'May the Force be with you...'

 

It works! Imperial March sounding from the back...

Hey, you thought I would not be able to achieve it? 'I find your lack of faith disturbing'.

The guy deserves a better final pic, doesn't he? Here you have:

 

Hhhh-khhhhh... Hhhh-khhhhh

 
Wow! This has been the last of the Knightmodels Star Wars range mini I had! (I still have more stuff from this company, just not SW). The minis are truly lovely, believe me. I have seen some online retailers that still have some minis in their stocks, so I don't refuse the thought of purchasing some more stuff.

But for the moment this is it, I still have too many different pending projects, as usual. Later this week you will begin to see one of them... ;)

Project HeroQuest: The baddies (bosses)

Just a few pics today to show you the two big bosses in the game!

The first one is the Witch Lord:

 

Just a stage name, you can call me Larry

The poor guy needed quite a work of stripping layers and layers of old paint. I first thought of painting some ellaborate pattern for the cloak, but when it came to the actual moment of painting I realized how lazy I really am, so he had to get along with the plain blue clothes. Hey, I painted two yellow stripes down there to break monotony!

The other big bad guy is, of course, the Gargoyle:

 

Fred the Gargoyle

I also had the thought of painting it in stone colours, but I finally went classic and painted it red, as you can see.

I'm afraid that's pretty much all of it, here you have the two most dangerous baddies of all the dungeon, in their rock stars poses:

 

Let the public cheer us, Fred, we're gonna be rich and famous

You hear me? Rich and famous, I say

 

I'm in the process of painting regular bad guys, hordes of them, but I'll be showing them as I finish each group. In the meantime I will go for another change for next week (you know, I just can't keep my mind focused on one single project...)

RT Bestiary: Psychneuein

I have named this project this way, but for sure these minis can stand for several other ambientations. The first time I saw these minis, the word 'Psychneuein' was the first thought that came to mind. I'm talking about these fantastic 'Space Wasps' by Akky, the mastermind after Akula's Galactic Armies:

 

Go check his blog, won't be disappointed

 

 He doesn't run a company, just enjoys sculpting and has the capacity to craft a few models for anyone interested. All his not-Dune range is simply amazing, and if you have seen any pics of his work at Salute 2014 you'd know of what I mean.

Anycase, I was talking about the Psychneuein:

 

The wasp, black primed

 

Those among you who are into RT fluff may remember this nasty bug; for the rest, let's just say these beasts just look like giant wasps. They come from the Warp, the psychic dimension, and predate upon unprotected psykers. They lay their eggs (psychically projecting them) into the psyker's brain (uggg). Once infected, the poor psyker slowly loses intelligence until he dies or suffers from the perils of the Warp, whereupon multiple psychneuein will erupt from the corpse (bigger uggg).

 

Not that bad looking wings for such a disgusting creature

I didn't think the black/yellow scheme would work fine on these models. At least I didn't thought I could make it work. I rather opted for brown instead.

 

I know, they look black, but they are dark brown

Some highlights here so they look better

 

I painted them kinda quickly, considering that I was using quite a limited palette. The results made me happy enough.

 

Bzzzzzzzzz

I tried to somehow mimic the insectoid aspect of compound eyes. Not satisfied with the result here, but well, I tried.

 

I can hypnotize you...

On the whole, I'm satisfied with the giant bugs, they should be fun to play.

 

Bzzzzzzzzzz

But of course, not only for RT! They can be a dreadful enemy for any ocasion and ambientation! You can make an idea of the size with this pic.

 

I'm pretty sure you weren't in my original game...

That's all for today. More dreadful enemies coming soon...

Playing Rivet Wars

Last weekend I played a new game! Rivet Wars this time. If you never heard about it before, how to explain...

Well, a pic will do my job better than any words:

 

Weird World War I in cartoons

 

My mate recently got the game and the silly, cartoony aspect of it totally made it worth of a view! The minis are not exactly chibi style, but quite toy-ish, remind me of videogames of old.

 

Tiny, adorable enemies

Quite steampunk too

This WWI parody faces the Allies and the Blight through trenches all over Rivet World. Our first introductory game made us familiar with the basic rules:

 

Tiny war

The turn sequence is quite easy, you deploy, fight with your units, then move the survivors. Depending on the profiles of each unit, you attack with a number of dice. You hit the enemy on a 5+. That simple.

 

Die! Die by my die!

 

This is a bloody massacre!

As you can see, the game has quite a flavour to tiny oldschool videogames, with units advancing and getting stuck in the trenches.

 

Hold the line! Hold the line!

 

The profiles are quite easy to apprehend, so it is all just a matter of properly deploying your units and having good luck with your dice. Allied infantrymen are quite balanced soldiers, while Blight Panzerfausten (is that spelled right?) are more anti-tank oriented, but Blight vehicles are more anti-infantry designed where Allies have heavy mortars, for example. Both armies have specialised units for each role, so the game is fun and balanced.

Once we got the basics, we decided to play a full game. The difference is that you draw some special cards at the beginning of each turn. You have two decks for that, one for secret missions (so you have to accomplish them without the enemy knowing a thing about that) and one for special actions, allowing you determined features for your units. The rest of the turn is just the same.

We chose the 'Death from above!' scenario. Let me transcribe the introduction:

A gallant young officer of the Allies has formulated a daring plan, using the new dirigibles to drop men behind the enemy lines and take them by surprise! The senior staff reviewed the plans in their subterranean command bunker and agreed that it's worth the risk.

So, under this premise, we deployed our troops. Blight can deploy up to 6 points (each kind of unit costs a determined number of points) and Allies can deploy up to 4 points, but can additionally deploy 3 riflemen in any grid (but beware! They will scatter a little...)

 

Ooops! Were we supposed to land here...?

 

Allies managed to deploy their special character, the M2 'Wolverine' armour (on the left of the pic), an infantry meat grinder

 

I'm a mix of Mr. Potato, Iron Man and Captain America

Blight deployed their special character, Jager Erwin Konig, a dreadful sniper, and managed to hold the position:

 

They keep comin', we keep shootin'!

Mr. Potato Murder-o-Matic 1900's series

 

Luck plays quite a role in this game, one turn the Allies were taking over the enemy positions, the next one Blight smashed Allies and regained the positions.

 

They killed Kenny! The sniper has killed Mr. Potato!

 

So it was quite a balanced battle, getting new reinforcements each turn, wave after wave.

 

Static frontline. It's WWI after all

We also were having a draw with victory points!

 

 Then the Blight Empire decided to deploy their truly killer machine...

 

...the Sturmpanzer!

 

Here you have an example of what I was saying before:

 

One minute the Allies have their ranks depleted...

...the next one they have the trench crowded again...

...just to get killed again another minute later.

 

The sniper was finally taken down

But victory was in the Blight's hands by now

 

So this was the game, I hope it helps you to make an idea of it! I actually enjoyed it a lot, the dynamics are quite simple (funny thing, this is the first game where I've seen that you shoot first and move later on), there is a lot of action (a lot!) as there is a terrible number of losses every turn which get replaced by the next wave (just imagine the guy with the whistle calling for the reinforcements) and you get a lot of fun, really!
The aesthetics can be an issue for some people, I know, but I believe the design is just part of the appeal of this game, I find it really funny!

Of course I know what you are about to say... I played with unpainted minis! Sob, sob, I just can't keep the rythm, but I promise I'm not idle! These minis will get onto my workbench as soon as I have the chance...