Basing Basics
November 17th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed
Any time I’m working on miniatures I try to find something to do with the base. It just adds so much to the final product if you’ve got something more then a plain 1-color base for the mini to stand on.
It doesn’t have to be anything complex though. Before I even had any flocking material I just cut a few grooves in the base, put some red ink in them, then dry brushed grey over the textured top. Made a neat chaos-world cracked landscape on the cheap.
If you have some spare model bits, those are excellent for use on bases. I had a couple Imperial Guard parts left so I chopped them up a bit and put them on the base of my daemon prince. Instant recent victim.
You can get more industrious and do something like the greenstuff bases I use on my eldar. I wanted a smooth worn stone look, so I made some “stamp” impressions of cracks in the stone on a warwalker / dreadnought base and used those to make various patterns in a thin layer of greenstuff on the eldar bases. A quick brush-over to smooth it and it works nicely.
Flocking is a good stand-by, too. And you can do a lot with very little effort. For my Menoth army I wanted a scrabbly dessert plains feel so I just coat the base with white glue, dip in mixed-size sand, then dip again in some scorched static grass. The grass just gets a few sprigs between the rocks, giving it a nice scraggly weed feel. And all in about 30 seconds.
I also know some people who buy the pre-cast special bases. This can be a nice alternative for fancy bases that all look similar to keep an army tied together. Though it sometimes involves a different type of work as you’ll usually need to pin your mini to them since they don’t often have slots or holes ready-made.
Plasticard or quark board chunks are good stone-slab materials for bases and get used frequently. It’s cheaper then buying pre-made bases typically. It’s relatively easy, but still involves a little pinning work along with plenty of hobby-blade-fu. But you can get exactly what you’re after without too much fuss.
Whatever route you chose for your minis, I highly recommend doing something. I’ve found that it always makes the games more fun for all involved when you go that one extra little step to spruce it up a notch.
An Aside: Descent
November 10th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed
Descent is a neat game made by Fantasy Flight Games. It’s a board game, but shares a lot with war games. The basic setup is that you have an evil overlord controlling all the monsters, and a bunch of other players acting as a team of heroes. And unlike many RPGs, the Overlord isn’t just trying to give you a fun challenge, he’s out to crush you without mercy.
Tactics are a big thing in this game. Line of sight is precious for a lot of reasons. Being able to hit the enemy, but for the heroes it’s got the added bonus that the Overlord cannot spawn additional monsters within line of sight. This makes board position critical. Not unlike the idea of threat ranges in most war games, like a battery of Lascannons deterring tanks from zipping around in the open. What order the heroes go in is a big thing as well since each has unique options and abilities and can lead to some sweet combos. Sounds a bit like Warmachine in that one.
Another key factor is how you kit your heroes out, and what treasures they find along the way. To give you an example from my last game, we had to fight a nasty giant with basic town gear, but then he got back up again. One of us managed to run in and grab some upgrade from the crappy town gear. The mage got a super nice staff that’s basically a tank cannon, while another got an ice storm rune that’s more or less a bazooka. Suddenly the game was much easier and we went from a near-hopeless situation to practically assured victory.
Many things are randomly generated when you play, too. What treasures you get is a draw from a card deck. The attack dice are different colors, some offering better range, some more damage, and some with a chance to miss entirely but solid range and damage potential. The Overlord’s spawns and special abilities are drawn from an evil overlord deck. The skills of your heroes are drawn from different skill decks for range, melee, and magic. So much like a war game, a big part of your tactics and skill will be in trying to tip the odds in your favor as heavily as possible. Like sitting a squad in cover, or bringing backup units that can fill in when one goes down.
In the end, it’s a very fun game, but also very challenging and if you’re not careful it can become quite frustrating. But if you can relax a bit, and keep an eye out for opportunity, you’ll have an excellent time J
Technorati Tags: board game, descent, fantasy flight
Temporary Change of Schedule
November 6th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed
I work in the retail sector and ’tis the season for everyone and thier brother to be out shopping. As the Holiday Season has gotten into swing I find myself with less and less time to devote to creating content for this site.
So, from now until January 1st, I’ll be changing to just 1 post a week on Mondays. My appologies for the slump, but life does have a nasty habit of rearing it’s head. We’ll be back in full swing once all the holiday ruckus dies down though. In the meantime, I’ll be keeping you updated on painting project, tips and tricks, and all the goodies inbetween.
Thanks for bearing with me, and I’ll be seeing you Monday morning every week 
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Unit Review - Deliverers [WM]
November 3rd, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed
Deliverers are an indirect fire unit for the Protectorate of Menoth. These religeous nutbars go into battle with a pack full of gigantic bottle rockets and then launch these from what amount to a bit metal tube. It’s not accurate, and there’s always the chance of a misfire incinerating the user anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby, but by golly they can put some hurtin’ on whatever they actually hit.
This is a dirt cheap unit at a scant 46 points for 6. They have exceptionally long range 3″ AOE blast weapons with a special “innacurate” rule. This rule basically means that unless you shooting at a stationary target or the side of a barn, you’ve a good chance of missing. But that’s ok because you’ll likely still hit something with the blast. It’s only a POW 6 blast normally though. So don’t expect to start dropping heavy cavalry or warjacks with it. But it will bring the pain to all those high def / low armor types. Most ranged infantry, for instance. Or some solos. Or even stealthed enemies, since while you auto-miss you’re basically counting on that anyway with the poor aiming ability of deliverers.
When it comes to using them on the battlefield, they make a good harassment and denial unit. Squishy enemies will want to keep thier distance or they risk a rain of carpet-bombing. Good units to combo with them include Severius (eye of menoth, death sentence), Seneschals (chain slam for knockdown), Aiyana & Holt (chain knockdown & Harm effects), Harbinger (tremor of faith), Kreoss (knockdown feat), and basically anything else you want that can inflict knockdown, slams, or stationary. Deliverers are prime candidates for the Pop ‘N Drop combo.
Thier primary weakness is in thier typically low actual POW of attacks due to blast damage. In time we might be lucky and see some weapon or unit attachments that can do something about it, but until then thier targets are centered around the squishier infantry and maybe some bonejacks.
Technorati Tags: deliverer, menoth, review, tactics, warmachine
This Week in Painting 10/30/08
October 30th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed
Well, it’s been a slow week. I work retail at a toy store and business is picking up, which also means so are my hours. And I ended up farm-sitting for my folks during a week-long trip out of state. Upside, I got a variety of animals to eat right from my hand, from a chicken to a llama. Not many people can say they hand-fed a llama. Or a chicken, but the llama is more impressive I think 
I have still gotten some progress though. The acolytes are finished up and mounted on the Harbinger’s base and I’ve started painting the side-ribbons. Once they’re done and attached, on go the chains and final extreme highlights all around. A bit of flocking and the girl will finally be done.
The good side is that she’s nearly finished and looking pretty good. The bad side is that at this pace I’m not likely to be able to complete my goal of a fully painted army by year’s end. But, we’ll just have to see how things shake out.
At worst I may end up postponing the unit of zealots and just finish up all my jacks and solos first. I could possibly finish the zealots if I used some faster techniques like “base coat, ink, and drybrush”. But then they don’t look as good as the rest of the work I’ve done on the army and part of the point here is practice with new painting techniques. So I’ll just be sticking it out I reckon.
Technorati Tags: Harbinger, menoth, painting, warmachine
