Game night this week and we actually had a game this week. No models involved in this one but it did have cards and dice. ‘Art of War’ is a deceptively simple game but a lot of fun. It consists of set of different coloured cards with symbols on them and a set of dice with corresponding symbols in place of numbers. You roll the dice and try and match them with the symbols on a card. If you can match a full line you can bank them, discard one dice and roll again trying to match the remaining symbols. If you match all the symbols you get the card. If you can get a full set of the same coloured cards you lock that set out and keep the points. If you don’t have the full set then the cards can be stolen. As I said it’s a really simple game but offers a lot. With one card left on the table me and Pete were drawn on points so whoever got the card won the game. Needless to say I wasn’t victorious. As I’ve already said it’s a really fun game that is easy to pick up and with Christmas just around the corner one that is well worth considering for family and friends.
On the hobby front all of this week has been taken up with finishing off my models for Red Steel Preston’s Steel Daemon paining competition which takes place today at Harlequin Games today. In fact when this post goes live I should be on my over there with Pete and Al. The plan is to enter our models and then try and get a few games of Guild Ball in and possibly run a few demo games is anyone is interested in giving it a go.
As for my entries I’m reasonably happy with what I have done. Giving myself just three weeks to paint up three entries was a challenge but certainly worth the effort. To round things off I’ve also used an existing squad just to round things out with an entry for each section. So first up we have my entry for the single miniature category which is the ‘Greater Good Deep Strike Veteran Ranger’ from Wargame Exclusive. This was something I basically stumbled across and just fell in love with the sculpt. I had a few old Tau in my bits box so I tried a few paint schemes before coming up with this one. My idea was to try and just use a few key colours. A turquoise / blue for the armour, an orange / brown for the clothing and then a red for the equipment. Overall I’m really happy with how it turned out and really enjoyed painting this.
The next category is the squad one and this is where I didn’t do anything especially for the completion. I was going to do a Malifaux crew but this still hasn’t turned up so no chance to paint that. Instead I decided to enter my Wild West Exodus Lawmen Deputies. I think these make up a nice squad and with them being from a different game system it adds a bit of variety to things.
For the Large model category I’ve taken ‘The Thing’ from Knight Models. Now I’m not sure if this will actually fit the category or not, but it is on a 50mm base so I’m hopeful it will be ok. As for the model it turned out to be lot harder to paint than I initially thought. My original plan was to try and do most of it with the airbrush but this soon fell by the wayside because it ended up looking to uniform. So it was back to a normal brush and then I set too painting each segment of the rock effect separately. No a very hard job but certainly a time consuming one. But the end result was well worth the effort. To finish him off I made a bit of scenic base and there you go.
The final category is for vehicles so I’ve gone for Eva and Ike.0 from Ammon Miniatures OMG! Range. Like the Greater Good Model this is simply a model I really like the look of. My plan for this one was to concentrate on giving it a worn and chipped look. It’s not something I’ve done much of to date and this was a chance to have a go at something new. I started off using the airbrush and did all of the pre-weathering grey with it, I even did the star on the hull with it. Once I was happy with the ‘clean’ model I started to work on the weathering which I did in two stages. The first was to paint in the main chips and scratches using a variety of taken from the Forgeworld painting guide. Once this was all done I sealed the model with a satin varnish and then used some enamels to add the streaks and the general grunge effect. This turned out better than I expected and is certainly something I will try to develop in future projects.
I’ve also had a little bit of fun with the bases for the three fresh models and I’ve added a squashed can of ‘coke’ to each of the bases. I know it doesn’t really fit with the Tau model but who I thought it was as bit of a laugh.
I’ll do a full update next week let you know how I get on and I’ll also take loads of pictures so you can see what everyone else entered. If it’s anything like previous years you’ll be in for a real treat. In the mean time I’ll be doing some updates on Twitter throughout the day and I’ve also set up a Google + Event. Or more accurately I think I’ve set up a Google+ Event so with a bit of look there will be some updates on there as well.
So that’s it for this week. Have a good weekend and I’ll catch you next week.
