Guess…
the…
LEADER!!!!
The studio picture of the Legion of Everblight Hex Hunters unit has just been released, showing the full unit of these sorcerous elves, minus UA whose existence was spoiled earlier last month. I’m not a vest man myself, but the biker mages aren’t bad overall.
After finalizing the last few characters, our first actual roleplaying session was dedicated to teaching the players the basics of the system and as a prelude, setting up the situation in which I wanted to start the campaign proper. In both regards the game was a success.
The campaign opened in media res with the characters on the plane of Whitesea, being ambushed by a herald of the demonic forces trying to invade the plane, and some of his forced-converts. Our bold planeswalkers backpedaled initially but after Grrrk unleashed his destructive power in the area indiscriminately, knocking the converts (and a companion) out of the fight, the herald fled.
While Nika and Ada helped get the companions back on their feet, Gaeleth took a moment to examine the fallen conscripts. Under their armor she found the pale skinned faces of the denizens of the plane, eyes rolled back in their heads – vacant but alive. Realizing there was little to be done for the conscripts except to end the Herald’s hold on them, the planeswalkers quickly chased after him.
The Hordes MkII cards were previewed a while back but now that I have mine in hand I’m noticing something I glossed over before. The Warmachine MkII cards seemed to receive a negative reaction on the forums, but it looks like PP took some of the feedback and made a change that I much prefer.
Spirals aside, I definitely think that the Hordes cards came out looking better than their Warmachine counterparts. The contributor is the card backgrounds themselves. Where the Warmachine card backgrounds are gear-filled and busy, the Hordes cards have more organic and subtle designs without light-effects. They encourage the eye to look past them instead of jarring the eye to stare at them like the Warmachine cards do. The cards just feel less busy overall, and as a result also feel more spacious and less cluttered.
The spiral issues is just a personal gripe of mine that isn’t going to change one way or the other. Spirals aren’t going to change (unfortunately) so it’s just something I have to accept. Although I will say the MkII Spirals are definitely better than their MkI counterparts. The spirals are larger and each aspect has a different colored background, making it easier to follow them around the spiral.
So overall the MkII Hordes cards are definitely a step in the right direction. There are a few areas of design that could be improved but overall it will definitely service for the next couple years.
When MkII was released Privateer Press resized the “wall template” used by some spells, making the fold-up cards that came with models like Feora and Gorten obsolete. Although I liked the fold-up wall for ease of handling, I decided to make a new flat set so models could be placed directly on them if necessary.
Last weekend our Manaburst campaign finally got off the ground. The actual play portion of the night wasn’t too long – we spent a lot of the session going over rules and took our time with the scenes to make sure that all of the rules were explained as we went. Slow-paced that it may be, the session seemed to be a success. By the end of the night everyone had gotten the basics of the system and were getting into the flexibility it afforded them.
Character generation was slow at first while everyone wrapped their head about the phases and aspects that FATE uses, but before long we had a fairly diverse group of planeswalkers who, for the most part, had a united enemy and had met each other in their travels-at least in passing.
Ada
Ada’s original conception was that of a construct capable of aiding its master in research and ritual. She quickly became indispensable to his experiments, able to observe and record all that transpired while his concentration was elsewhere.
Many years after her creation, Ada was given sentience when a powerful spell cast by her master inadvertently bound a being of primordial magic within her shell. The reaction not only destroyed the ritual but also flung Ada from the plane, sending her careening through the Blind Eternities for the first time.
Concept of Magic: Flow of Aether
Recently I’ve been experimenting with a few of the techniques that the Privateer Press painting staff talk about in their recent books. It’s taken a while to adapt to a new way of doing things but after getting used to it I’ve been able to increase the speed I can paint a figure pretty significantly.
The biggest change I’ve picked up on is how I layer cloth. In the past I’ve started with the darkest shadow color and slowly worked up from there layer by layer. But recently I’ve switched to basecoating with my mid-tone and shading down from that in thin coats, falling back to wet blending occasionally just to smooth out some of the larger surfaces.
Vindictus in particular only took a few days for me to do, and for me that’s faster than it usually would. If it weren’t for the filigree around the armor plates, I expect it would’ve gone even faster.
I’ve also spent some time on a reaper figure lately, using this technique primarily on her cloak. A lot of the rest of her is quick-work, but all in all, she’ll make a good RPG figure once complete.
I’m still refining the techniques, but for now I’m satisfied with how the figures are turning out. Soon I’ll be moving on from my recent string of Protectorate pieces to try out the wintery blues of my Legion. Between that and a few side pieces I’m working on, I should have ample opportunity to perfect the new technique.
Although I haven’t been writing much about it, I’ve been making some notes on how I plan on using the Spirit of the Century system to run a Magic: the Gathering-inspired campaign for my group that I’ve previously mentioned. One of the unknowns I since the beginning is how to handle magic – a decision made harder since I really have no idea how magic works in MtG’s Multiverse.
Sure, that card game has its mana-powered magic, but it’s made for a turn-based card game and can be considered slower and less fluid than I’d like for our campaign. I still had two questions to answer before I could design my magic system: how exactly does one gain and spend Mana, and does summoning pull a preexisting creature to the summoner, or does it create a simulacrum. To answer these I decided to ask WotC directly… so to speak
To help keep motivated after spending a fair bit of time on my exemplars’ armor, I switched up things a bit and started working on some side projects. I found a couple Hordes figures I had started to work on and forgotten about, and started work on some figures for a new RPG campaign.
The change of pace has helped me keep productive, but the subject matter isn’t really helping the problem I mentioned previously of not pushing my skill. It seems like a lot of my RPG figures tend to get rush jobs – especially the plastic ones. But at least it’s still painting; I’m building momentum. 🙂
The last figure is one that I’ve actually painted before, but I’ve gone back and rebased. I’m thinking on starting to do this on more of my figures as I get time. Since their tabs are already glued into the base it’s just a quick series of tasks:
It’s something that should be easily done while I’m waiting for other other figures to dry, and will help make some of my older figures look more ‘finished’. They never see table time other than in role-playing games where it doesn’t really matter, but I’ll be happier with them.
I’ve noted a few things before on my blog: I hate painting Exemplar and I’m suffering from brush burnout. You’d think I’d pick different a different model type for my newest project. But alas, I just started my Exemplar Errant Seneschals and Unit Attachment instead. Sometimes I wonder if something’s seriously wrong with me.
I spent a few evenings with Hulu on the laptop near my painting desk working on the models’ armor and made some decent progress. I’m still working on some more detailed shading at the moment, but I’m going back and forth between wanting to take the time to do some really detailed shading and getting burnt out working on them.
This has me thinking – I wonder if army painting is causing my abilities to stagnate. It seems like there’s less motivation to push my skill to the next step when in the back of my head I can always fall back to “Well, this just has to look as good as the rest of my models.” Might be time to shake things up a bit.
I’ve always enjoyed painting pewter figures over their plastic counterparts. The heft makes them easier to handle and they feel like they just take paint better (a trick of the mind, I’m sure). Plastic models are far easier to customize and modifty, but pewter makes for a more solid figure that I prefer for some intangible reason. Lately though, I’ve found my opinion switched when it comes to using figures for role-playing games. The pewter is still preferable for painting, but plastics seem more beneficial at the table.
I think that this is primarily due to the resilience of plastic. Dropping (or even just knocking over) a pewter figure can result in damage. Beast case scenario, that means a weapon or arm has to be bent back into place, but worst case scenario it means something snapping off that needs pinning and replacing… in multiple places. And that’s not to mention the repainting necessary.
In contrast, plastic figures have a resilience that lets them take a fall better. The relative elasticity of the medium, combined with the model’s lighter weight, means an accident with a plastic miniature is far less catastrophic than its metal counterpart.