I had as I have mentioned before been on a epic losing streak of late, however last night saw the turning of the tide (I hope). I vanquished Stef’s Trollbloods and won a game! But that win has reenergized me and given me some much needed enthusiasm for the Legion, so much so that I’ve planned out a painting scheme which in theory should allow me to keep playing while each unit and beast has its time on the desk.

So with that little ramble about positive thinking and the power of victory I’m off to the shop to marshal the Tyrants and see if I can’t get them winning some games.

Now I thought I was good at the game and I certainly use to be fully versed in dishing out a good ass kicking…I wont go into the details but of the six games played I only walked away from two victorious.

This is no lament no no, please don’t think that I’m about to cry about my losses because each one taught me something new about the game. I met some great people and had some good conversations about the hobby and various other things, but what I really want to talk about is the fact that I’ve been bitten by the Tournament bug, big time!

So with a sizable Legion of Everblight force already sprayed (I have been using the excuse they are fighting at night to get around the matt black look), but here is my dilemma as I mentioned in my last post I really really want to start my Cryx but the horde of wagon jumpers between me and the shelves (despite the fact I organize and stack those shelves) is proving more of an annoyance every day as each time certain people start a conversation with me I’m finding myself editing my own sentences so as too not mention anything I might want to convert, proxy or paint incase its stolen away from me. (This may sound petty but stand in my shoes, not only do I have to see some one else do my army almost an exact match for my list but I have to see it done badly).

So as I said I still plan on doing my Cryx but as more of a painting project than a tournament owning mega list of doom! No I think the Legion with the fast approaching release of Mark II Hordes is a safer bet for a tournament win, now all I need is to get back on form and I’ll be well away.

But and there is always a but, this now leaves me with three major painting projects along side several individual miniatures that I want to paint, work, writing and sleeping, my schedule is pretty packed but I think I can do it! I pledge now too all you readers that I will come hell or high water post a WIP or finished photo every week, and if I don’t well then you can feed me to this bad boy!

The key for me to remember is that whilst I want to make my Draconic minions look amazing and spend hours lavishing attention on each mini, I have to remember these are gaming pieces. They will get knocked over, fingered by the sweaty Magic the Gathering players, hit by die and tape measures, fall out of my case, get crushed in taxies or trains (or planes), get sworn at and in rare cases thrown so a good balance between practicality and master piece should be good enough (although best painted would be nice).

My colour scheme is pretty simple, I want to emulate the style of the Privateer Press examples but also give it my own twist, so I’m thinking perhaps a deep purple or red for the Draconicly blessed beasts and solos whilst keeping the pale white flesh for the Troopers and Warcasters.

As I have a tournament penciled in for August (Two in fact as I am hoping to get down to Cardiff as well as crushing the regulars in the Blood and Oil event in the shop, nothing short of a crushing will do as I finished bottom half last time round), I had better get painting!

Pictures soon my loyal followers!

It isn’t the fact that no matter how awesome they are they get thrown back at every turn, I’m looking at you Games Workshop! But Warmachine is different, the bad guys turn up and bring the pain yes on occasion they get an ass whooping but the Cryx are insidious and even when they are defeated they are winning the bigger war – a dead soldier can’t fight another battle unless you happen to be a millennia old arcane monster of a necromancer.

This is why Cryx has snared my soul, the undead have always captivated me whether it be the zombies portrayed in films like Dawn of the Dead, Ghosts, Daemonic entities, Vampires, all of them get the neurons jiggling and slam my imagination into over drive so when an army of bio-mechanical undead minions ruled by a cast of near immortal necromancers, you can more or less guarantee I’m going to do something with them at some point.

Now my good friend Anton (http://toomuchmetal.blogspot.com/) , has been collecting Cryx for a long time and I have spoken to him on numerous occasions about the nascent urge to start a Cryxian force and he has given me some sound advice ‘Go with whatever you think is cool’. I have seen his armies and I know this might seems like an odd way to start a new force but believe me look at his blog and you will understand, Anton is a hobby guru and he knows his stuff.

Unfortunate with the recent release of the Cryx forces book every Bill, Bob and Dick have started a Cryx force (which has severely annoyed me as not only are they doing an army of the faction I wanted to but my some miracle of eaves dropping they also seems to be doing the tire lists I was intent upon), but I cannot let this put me off else I risk cutting off my nose to spite my face.

So I’m resolute in my decision to continue with my Cryx force, my parents very kindly bought me a Cryx starter box at Christmas and that is where I shall begin. After a lot of contemplation I have decided for now I wont be building a tire list, I know that the aforementioned Bill, Bob and Dick will quickly lose interest and move on to the next new a shinny thing so when that happens I’ll unleash the beast and tackle a tire (Also if they do move on I can buy their stuff dirt cheap strip it with the help of Mr. Cooper – Bonus!)

BY now you’ve realized that this is another massively wordy article that has been crafted with devious genius to hide the fact that I’ve done no painting…you would be correct so to make up for that have a look at this monster.

That is a Slayer, its more or less Ronseal in that it slays things…simple enough.

I promise you now my next article will have either pictures of my WIP minis or some finished work for you, but for now I’m going back to the drawing board to try and pin down a tournament list for the Cryxian horde.

Sleep well my friends lest I steal your soul to fuel my infernal machines!

Did you like that?

Well you shouldn’t have, my tainted mind long ago dreamt these renegades into existence. I can’t take all the credit some of that goes to Games Workshop them selves for giving me the nugget of inspiration; it was a single image in the previous edition of the Chaos Codex that lured me in and beneath it a single caption, a name.

Warp Ghost.

Now being a writer at times is an amazing ability (I say ability because whilst every one supposedly has at least one good story in them, most don’t have the words to write it), I took a simple name and turned it into a tragic story of betrayal and jealously. A tale of two worlds brothers of the same orbit and two men one the son of the savage death world Olos, the other a noble scion of the civilized paradise Nolos, a story that I wrote because of two words.

Now this is going some where before you start getting antsy.

As I said in my previous post I am working on a new Chaos army, having already lavished so much time on the Warp Ghost’s I thought hell why not I’ll turn my literary warriors into table top warriors, so I went on over to Bolter and Chain sword and knocked this little beauty up.

It’s a rough mock up of how my Marines will look, the majority will be converted in some way to represent the recently turned Renege nature of the Chapter. For example I have chosen to keep many of the Imperial Symbols on the models as they in the fluff relish the terror such blatant heresy invokes in the souls of their victims.

The first conversion you are going to see from me will be my Chaos lord or as I know him First Captain Oc’thar, I have gathered all the pieces I need to craft this malevolent individual and as soon as I have him in a fit state I’ll get some pictures up for you all to drool over.

But now I can hear the Scouring wind howl my name and summon me to glory!

The Emperor Protects…for now.

Ross

I would have been back sooner but a sandwich that once belonged to Cooper had mutated and I had to battle tooth and salivating appendage with the beast before I could wrestle my way into the office (This of course is completely fictional…we don’t have an office), it was a tough battle that lasted many a moon but that is a tale for another day.

I have come to say “We have not abandoned thee to the darkness of the vast porn laced interweb! We have returned with the burning light of knowledge”. Now I’m very aware that several of you are now half way through typing words like naked and hardcore into your search engines because I have mentioned the P-word but please bare with me a little longer.

It has been very busy for the MP team these last few months, Stef has been working hard doing some internet gubbins that apparently people pay for (some thing mysterious involving codes and server stacks think the Matrix but less leather more…I’ve just grossed myself out thinking of Stef in leather). Cooper has just started a real life career,  now he tells me he’s and Engineer some thing akin to a Tech-Priest and a car mechanic as far as I can tell (no he works with Giant batteries or some such mechanical marvel).

And as for me, well I’m working away at the shop watching the world pass me by. No in reality I have been very busy writing on several projects, one of which I have high hopes of getting published before the end of the year!

But none of you want to hear about the mundane lives of the MP team, no you’re here for painting!

Having recently returned from a Warmachine and Hordes tournament and having seen some truly beautifully painted armies on display there it has inspired me to paint again, Phat Katz has also begun a Tale of Gamers project yet another reason for me to unleash the brushes.

So With this in mind I have begun thinking about painting again, I know I need a lot of practice to regain the skills I use to take for granted, and having recently put brush to mini and realized I had forgotten basic blending and shading techniques I was horrified! So I’m back in training!

My new Warhammer 40K Chaos and Warmachine Cryx will give me a chance to get back in the saddle so to speak and also once I have the basics back down to unleash the light sourcing techniques I have been practicing and maybe just maybe I’ll have a go at NMM.

With this pledge I leave you to think about what project maybe you want to start or continue!

Ross.

Stef prefers a buy what is cool and mould that into a workable force method, Cooper combines the army list method with what looks cool, Spencer picks a theme and holds on to it die hard to the end even if his vision was rose tinted.

I have chosen to this time pick a theme in this case a Nurgel mortals list with a preference for Warriors, I then looked through the catalogues and trawled the miniature pages for inspiration and only once I had my theme and some festering Nurgelish miniatures in mind I built a list.

Points costs at this integer are not important as we have just begun playing games at higher brackets (with the smallest at around 3000), the list breaks down like this:

Chaos Lord – I’m still looking for a model for this one but I normally leave the character’s to be painted last as I find it is a nice reward for the trudge through rank and file.

Chaos Champion – I’m planning to use the GW champion of Nurgel as it is a nice enough miniature and will fit well with the themed rank and file and work as a nice centre piece for the core units.

2 Chaos Sorcerers – For one of these I want to use the Avatars of War Necromancer as it has a very atmospheric feel and almost oozes a feeling of death and decay, the second will more than likely be one of the numerous Nurgel characters from the GW collectors range.

2 units of Chaos Warriors – the normal plastic kits are great, the models are detailed but still easy to paint in batches and always look nice when ranked up. I plan on using snow bases to contrast the putrid greens and browns I’ve used on the armour.

2 units of Chaos Marauders – I’ve never been a fan of the plastic marauders for reasons I’ve never been able to put my finger on until recently, a customer at the shop pointed out they all suffer from what he called ‘ Schwarzenegger syndrome’. Each of them is muscle bound in the extreme with this added to their already exaggerated ‘Heroic proportions’ make them comical.

After a brief wander through the catalogues I received a well timed e-mail from GW them selves! The new Beasts of Chaos range was soon to be released, and with them new Beastigores! The models are amazing and fit perfectly with my imagined theme, so they replace the Arnold Schwarzenegger Marauders in my army and happily so because frankly painting so much flesh would not be a fun day…

1 unit of Chaos Knight’s will for the hammer to the warriors anvil against which I will crush my enemies (Or that is the plan at least).

1 Chaos War shrine the plan for this conversion I’m afraid remains and closely guarded secret.  

This more or less forms the majority of the force, with the first unit 99% finished and the theme already to my liking it is only a matter of time before I march to war, but I wish to end this article as with my last one with a question.

When you make an army how do you go about it? Buy cool models before making an army list? Theory game list after list before you have one that is unstoppable? Or do you buy miniature to paint and before you know it have a small army ready for the table top?

How do you make war?

Our hobby is not one that forces you to spend hours alone in the solitude of a garden shed or some other equally bleak and soul destroying location (Not that bird watching is boring oh no! Look a Sparrow, OK we’re done it was fun yea I’ll see you again soon), it instead helps us naturally form friendship groups with other like minded gamers. I am not ashamed to say some of my best friends are friends I have made through the hobby, it is also fair to say we share other interests but we met through our love of painting and gaming.

So this in a round about rambling I wish he’d just get on with it kind of way to the point of my post.

Is it better to paint alone or with friends?

It is a double edged sword in some respects, on one hand you have like minded people to chat with discuss future projects or insane conversation ideas with but then there’s the distraction of showing your mates a funny video on YouTube or challenging them to a game of Wii bowling – all the time while you should be painting.

I am guilty of the latter, on Sunday I only had three easy task to achieve those where.

• Wash Chaos Warrior unit with Devlan Mud (Citadel ink)
• Wash Chaos Warrior unit with Griffon Sepia (Citadel ink)
• Base Chaos Warrior unit with snow theme

Now I got the two washes done but failed to base the unit as I was more inclined to sit and watch a film, this in turn impacted on my comrades as they both soon joined me on the sofa and left brushes and glue alone on the table.

Whilst there is no doubt that getting together in a group is more fun, can lead to the creation of some truly epic ideas or army themes it is less productive than working alone – but where’s the fun in that?

(If your interested the finished Chaos Warrior unit will soon be making an appearance on the site along with a how to paint guide).

So what do you think? Is it better to paint alone or with others? Would you prefer to work in the secrecy of your bed room or studio or are you a social animal? The next time you and your friends are stuck for something to do at the weekend, just think could you be painting?

As you may have already noticed my comrade Stef has set out a nice series of articles concerning the basics of painting, starting form the very beginning and working through all the techniques you will need to become a MiniPainter your self.

I on the other hand prefer a less rigid approach, over the coming weeks and months I will endeavor to bring you informative articles about whatever I happen to be doing at that moment in time. Before you all wander back to Stef’s articles give me a moment of your time, I won’t bring you articles about how I have managed to get the DVD draw on my PC stuck or about the multitudinous mundane and boring tasks I perform during the day Oh no sir!

I will deliver articles concerning the every day hobby activates of your average painter (That would be me, this isn’t some off the wall social experiment were I follow some one around annotating their life), this will be anything from putting brand new models together to painting lighting effects or attempting the dreaded non-metallic metals!

So with this in mind I hope at least some of my haphazard editorials will be helpful.