Workbench: A New Year, A New Challenge

Last year I decided to try to do the painting challenge of one mini per day.  I started out strong but unfortunately things took a nose dive through the middle of the year.  In the end I managed to get over 100 minis painted which was a very pleasant surprise.  This year started with another lull as we worked out way through the New Year but I've decided to reset and give it another go.

To that end, I sat down and started cranking out some minis over the weekend.  To be honest my cranking them out is more of a power walk compared to some people, but you get the idea.  So far I have six minis just waiting on basing with another two in progress.

My goal for now is to finish up all of these by the weekend (including basing), plus get some more underway.  I'm the first one to say that I'm not going for any awards with these figures so the paint schemes in some cases are pretty basic.  My goal with this is to get more consistent with my painting through the year, and the extra brush time will help improve the quality of my work as well.  Time will tell how I stick with this but I really enjoyed having the goal last year, so I'm hoping to make even better progress this year.  Until next time...

Workbench: Spearmen, Space Barrels, and Some Gardening Too!

More progress on the painting challenge but things have been going... a bit... slower...

I've started work on the spearmen that I had drybrushed and I've gotten half of them painted already.

I decided to split knight army up a little bit to add some flavor to the whole thing.  The soldiers in blue are the affiliated with the Crown and will form the core of my army.

In addition to these core troops, one of the two leaders for the army will be Baudric the Red (aka Lord Hawthorne from the Daqan forces of Runewars).

His set comes with a mounted figure and one on foot which will give me some options in the army as well.  Baudric is definitely the more imposing of the two figures so if I field the full army, then he will move into the champion slot.  Beside Baudric is one of the mounted knights that will accompany him, plus I will be painting up a unit of spearmen in his colors as well.

The next items are terrain pieces.  Nothing too fancy but I'm excited to have them to add into the mix.  What are they?

Spaaaaaace barrels!!!  (this is a call out to Table Top Warlords YouTube channel... check them out if you haven't already!)  I'll admit that I have no idea what Kevin made his out of but I made mine from assorted plastic bottle lids hot glued together, then painted.  Quick and easy!

Last but not least, I added some detailing to my plant terrain.  Originally I was going for quick and easy so I didn't bother with any ground cover.  Well, I decided that it was time to change that up so I hit Michael's and grabbed some lichen.

This is just a sample of but you at least get the idea.  It's just a minor touch but I really like how it added some realism and depth to the pieces.  I've been holding off on setting up my full terrain board since I'm going to be bouncing rooms again soon but once I'm in a more permanent location, I'll have to see what I can do.  Still more to do this month but this is a good start for this month!  Until next time...

Workbench: And the Painting Continues!

January is wrapping up and I've made great headway with my painting challenge!  I posted earlier that I was up to 21 minis painted but I've blown past that all the way up to 33!  On top of that, I even made a cheap little "light box" so I can take some better pictures of my minis as I go along.  So without further ado, let's see what I've gotten done!

After picking up my tectorists, I had to grab the next mini that has been on my radar ever since it came out; the Hukk bounty hunter for Gates of Antares.  In addition to the hunter himself, the blister also comes with three angkriz hunting beasts.

These take up a tactical slot and operate together as a unit.  They can also be used by all of the factions, including the Ghar due to their alien nature.  The unit is highly customizable (as long as you have the points that is)  and gives you number of options for the models to go with him.  In my case, I maxed out his drone compliment, giving him a spotter, medi-probe, and two shield drones.

The trickiest thing about these minis is figuring out what to paint which color.  These are completely alien beasties so it really is just up to your imagination.  For mine, I decided to paint the hunter and beasts with bone colored carapaces, while the skin tones are similar to the one paint scheme that Warlord has shown for these critters.  As for the drones, these were an open canvas as well.  Since these are buddy drones that the hunter has picked up over time, it really opens up the palette for them.  I even custom built one of the shield drones just so they would look more ramshackle.

And next is the first mini for my Warlords of Erewhon knight army.  I was originally looking at going with an undead army but it sounds like they're pretty popular at the store (go figure) so the knights were a good second option.

These minis are some of the Daqan outland scouts from the now defunct Runewars game by FFG.  In addition to this set of minis, I also grabbed not one but two core sets so I've got a bunch of minis to work with.  There are a few more figures that I need to pick up to round things out but by the end I should have two full armies for a discount price which is always a plus in my book.

For next month, I've already got a head start as I have 16 Daqan spearmen already drybrushed just waiting for paint so I should be able to push through those really quick.  Of course the Antares Facebook group is trying to distract me with talk about running Zona Alfa reskinned with an Antares flavor.  This sounds like an amazing idea and has me thinking of the possibilities of sci-fi/pulp adventures.  Must stay strong and focus... argh!!!  Until next time... unless I get lost in some long abandoned research station looking for the lost arc of the Concord.  Wish me luck!

Workbench: Ghar and Algoryn and Distortion, Oh My!

(Just a quick note...  I took pictures of these minis again with my highly advanced, extremely expensive light box.  Yeah, it's made out of a cardboard box, some duct tape, and a sheet of printer paper.  Really advanced, let me tell ya!  Anyway, these are cleaner pics so I thought I'd update this post but nothing else has changed.  And now back to our regularly scheduled Dispatch already in progress...)

As I mentioned previously, I have been making some good headway with the  2020 Painting Challenge.  I was going to wait until the month was finished and just do all of my minis in a massive update but I've also had very little time for the blog since I've been painting... and watching the Office.  Damn you Tim!

But I digress...

Instead of waiting, I've decided that I should post them as I go since I am painting units at a time.  Far more efficient plus it makes it easier to maintain the same color scheme when it's fresh in your mind.  So without further ado, here is the start of my Painting Challenge!

For my first ones out of the gate I had to go with my brand new Ghar tectorists.  I've wanted to add these to my Ghar army for a while now but I haven't been able to pick any up until earlier this month.

These troops act as probes for the Ghar forces, scouring the battlefield for enemy targets and helping their own troops rain disruptor death on them!  Mechanically this lets a Ghar unit reroll one miss if there is one or more Tectorists within 15".  Always a handy thing plus I really like the models.

In addition to the tectorists, I also decided to slap some paint onto one of my spare order dice (Which I forgot to include in the picture.  Oops!  I'll be sure to post a pic of it later).  This is a special die that is used when there are Ghar forces on the table.  The archaic technology highly unstable and even distorts time itself!  In the game, you are supposed to add one unique die to the bag with the other order dice, making the distortion effect a result of the order die pull in the turn which I think is a good way to handle it.  And since it is supposed to be a unique die, I decided to kick it up a bit and paint it like I've painted the plasma reactors on my battle suits.

Next I decided to hop factions and finish some of my unit options for my Algoryn.  Even with all the troops that I've previously painted, for some reason I just never got to the rest of the spotter drones so it was time to amend that.

As with the tectorists, spotter drones also allow rerolls but unlike the Ghar troops, these little robots hang out with their assigned unit.  In the case of these four, the three in green are for my x-launcher teams and mag cannon while the more traditional red is for my assault squad.

And speaking of the mag cannon, I finally finished painting up this imposing piece of support weaponry.

The mag cannon only rolls a single die when it fires but if it hits... well, if it was a person, they are now pink mist and vehicles won't fare much better.  Not only does it pack a massive punch, its maximum range is 100 inches!  Of course you still need line of sight but that's still an insane range for a table top miniature game... until you look at the next one.

This is the first of my two x-launcher teams.  Unlike the mag cannon, the x-launcher doesn't need line of sight if you have spotter drones that can see your target.  This lets you hide them behind cover and still lob shells down on the enemy.  This is also one of the few weapons that has five optional ammo types besides it regular explosive round.

And when you consider that you can lob these shells up to 120"...  Sure, you might not hit but just the threat is enough to make your opponent take notice!

With all these extra troops fighting for Algor, it was only fitting to command squad so they can lead them all into battle.

Unlike regular AI troopers, the command squad is equipped with the slightly more potent plasma carbines.  These have slightly less range that a standard mag gun but make up for it with two modes of fire, one with better penetration while the other has a higher rate of fire.

I also decided that it was time to change up the scheme on my AI troopers as well and repainted their shoulder pads so they had the traditional red.

I think this ties them in better with my assault troopers and its also easier than doing the tribal pattern on each shoulder.  I am thinking about going back and doing a different mark for each squad as well but one step at a time.

And that's what I have so far!  21 minis not including the repaints but there is more to come soon, hopefully with some better lighting if I can remember to grab a light from home.  So there might be more pics of these guys in better light as well but fear not... the Hukk is coming.  Until next time...

Random Updates: The 2020 Painting Challenge!

Just about the end of last year, I joined the FB group for a local game store where I'm hoping to finally play some Gates of Antares. One of the first things they announced was the 2020 Painting Challenge.  The idea is for the group as a whole to paint at least 2020 minis this year.  In addition, the guy that put up the post challenged us to each paint 366 minis this year.  This seemed like a great motivation, so I dove right in.

So far I've been making great progress and I'm even hoping to be able to have more minis painted for the year than I buy!  Now that would be an accomplishment!  That's all for now but there will be more to come.  Until next time...