10mm Terrain & Lasercut boards

So, about a week ago I got two things. First was my laser-etched road boards for dropzone. The other was another pack of small buildings from Blotz. Said buildings were assembled… creatively. This actually pretty nice, because it gives me some different footprints to play with when organising terrain.

So, have some of said buildings on one of the road tiles.

3 Industrial units and a warehouse to make small work district.

 The same layout from above.

And a model's eye view from the western edge of the board.

 More buildings laid out across 2 tiles. In all I have 8 tile designs that work together in at least 30 different configurations.

The same setup, viewed from the eastern side.

PHR ready to drop

So, I'm finally putting up another post on my criminally underutilized blog. I finished the first 750 points of my PHR force for Dropzone Commander. Hex camo is once again done with the Anarchy model stencils.

Everything is magnetized in this force, allowing WYSIWYG dropships.

Closer view of an Ares (front) and Phobos (rear) slung underneath a Neptune medium dropship. The core of this force is 2 of these squads.

Tried using flash with this shot to better show off the contrast between the various colours.

All forces on the ground. On the outer flanks are Ares and Phobos walkers, and towards the centre are Janus scout walkers. In the foreground are Triton A1 infantry dropships, and their accompanying infantry squads.

Ares and Phobos. The bases are just 1.5mm circles from Litko. Got 100 of them for a very reasonable price, should be all I ever need.

Another view, trying to show the iridescent effect I used on the rail weaponry for the walkers.

Close up of the Janus scouts. I may trim the bases slightly for better balance when on the dropship.

The first squad of Immortals. Infantry play a pivotal role in Dropzone Commander, being the only units capable of searching buildings and extracting objectives from within.

Second squad of Immortals. These were a lot faster to paint than UCM Legionnaires, though that may be because these guys are block colour, and Legionnaires have a fair amount of fine detail on them.

Better Pictures

So, had a painting day with Mark today. We actually did very little painting (though I'll probably have some progress to show tomorrow). He did, however, take much better pictures than I could of the Yellow Sign I've painted up, using his shiny new DSLR camera and lightbox set up.

So all these pictures were done by Mark, and his camera setup really leaves mine in the dust here.

The Nameless One

So, after many months of being lazy and working on other projects, I have finally finished painting the Yellow Sign forces for Cthulhu Wars.

 All the lesser creatures of the Yellow Sign.

 The Undead hordes, pulled from the desecration of the world.

I tried to keep these guys simple, but in the end there wasn't enough contrast so blacklined the bandages and shaded the tentacle tips.

 The Byakhee, winged horrors not of this earth.

I tried my hand at some two brush blending on these guys, using black over yellow, followed by a wash of dark sepia.

 The King in Yellow, a lesser avatar of Hastur, and the embodiment of his desecration. His power is to corrupt the lands to increase the power of Hastur.

The flesh took the most time on this guy, being about eight stages, with a transparent yellow intermediate layer. The base is just drybrushed with small details picked out.

 Hastur, He Who Is Not to be Named. On the dais we see that Elder Signs no longer hold him back.

Shading the yellow proved something of a task over such a large area. The tentacles are my first real attempt at airbrush blending on any kind of detail.

 From the rear Hastur is no less intimidating, a great mass of writhing tentacles and malign intent, and carved into the dais the symbols of his rule over the desecration.

The symbols didn't come out exactly how I wanted (more of a glow effect was hoped for), but the effect is nonetheless good, and I like the way the blue acts as a spot colour against the yellow and sandstone.

Acolyte cultists, loyal to the Yellow Sign itself, and capable of bringing forth the minions of Hastur into this plane.

Each spellbook is slightly different, though the cultists are the same. This is about the only place I can really put in any individuality, so I go to town on it.

And something a little cheeky to end 2015 with. For a boardgame, these miniatures are lavished with detail, some of it subtle, some, not so much.

Wishing everyone all the best for 2016.

Cthulhumas Fhtagn

As one might guess form the title, I got some Cthulhu Wars swag for Christmas. (Actually arrived on Monday, but it's been a bit nuts this week). So, without further ado, the stuff (which also joins my ever-growing painting queue).

Five boxes. Five!?

Yeah, this stuff is kinda bulky, and comes in very nice thick cardboard printed packaging (which I did not, in fact, think to photograph).

The first part of the 'one of everything' bundle for being a KS backer of the original game. These might become display pieces or something.

I especially like the Bhole… and in game it's horrifically evil as an indestructible Great Old One with 6 combat dice. It also has a nasty habit of eating gates—and everything on them. Whole.

More stuff. Includes a couple of monsters from the core game that aren't in the top photo.

The 6-8 player Earth map. I have a 6-8 player Dreamlands map on pre-order from the Onslaught 2 KS.

The Dreamlands map… or maps. They don't 'wrap around' like the Earth map, but tunnels like the Surface and Underworld of the Dreamlands.

High Priests. One for every extant faction. Sacrificing them grants extra power.

Ithaqua, the Windwalker faction. Starts at the poles, and creeps forward. Playstyle is to cause attrition damage to opponents and them hibernate to conserve power for next turn. Also gets to summon monsters in any battle where casualties were caused. 

Tsathoggua, the Sleeper. Can steal other factions spells and abilities for temporary gains. Also gets a free monster every turn. Not particularly tough, but has some devious plays, like capturing and sacrificing enemy monsters, or holding a gate in suspended animation.

Yog-Sothoth, the Opener of the Way. He (it?) serves as a gate. His monsters can be promoted through various forms instead of being summoned. In addition, he can start anywhere (that isn't already occupied), and can shuffle gates around with his spellbooks.

Azathoth, the blind idiot god. This is a neutral faction, and anyone can pay doom points to buy his monsters' loyalty; or trade their spellbooks for his.

Great Old One pack one. Five flavours of gribbly that can be summoned by anyone willing to pay for them. Some are good for you to have, some are bad for your enemies.

Great Old One pack two. Only four gribblies, but each has a very nasty flavour. Bokrug is immortal, and destroys your enemy's infrastructure when you give him as a 'gift'. Atalach-Nacha spines webs of fate that can win the game. Father Dagon makes the sea yours to command, washing your enemies into it. Ghatanothoa mummifies enemy cultistis, preventing them from doing anything in the doom phase.

The PHR Advance

So, I've been painting a bit more this last week—actually a fair bit more than usual. Probably something to do with my Xbox being out for repairs… anyway, this is my second 'Skirmish' sized force for DzC, the Post Human Republic. Their shtick is battle walkers (mechs) and cybernetic enhancements for everyone.

Neptune class dropship. Underslung is an Ares class AT walker.

 Another view of the Neptune + Ares. Normally the Neptune can carry walker, back to back, but I only have 1 painted.

 Closer view of the Ares. I painted some iridescent blue pigment into the vents along the top, but I'm not sure how well it shows up in the pictures.

 Rear view of the Ares, showing off the powerplant (dark metal) and radiators(?) (dark bronze). The silver on the legs is Vallejo Model Air Gungrey, washed with Secret Weapon Heavy Body Black. It actually creates a really nice dark metal look for me.

 Attempts at heat discoloration on the Neptune's drive nacelles. The base colour is GW Tin Bitz (the new Warpstone Bronze is about 2 shades darker), washed to about the 3/4 mark on each plate with GW Leviathan Purple and then up to the 1/2 mark with GW Baal Red. (And I will never understand GW discontinued their matte drying range of washes.)

 And now we have my attempts at OSL on the inside of the Neptune's drives. I think it actually looks better in the photo than in person.

 Triton A1 light dropship, armed with optional missile pods. While these are kind of underwhelming in the game vs armour, they do give the Triton surprising capability for building demolition.

 Rather smaller than the Neptune (though their wingspan is approximately the same), it's still packed with detail, most of it brought out with a simple targeted wash using Secret Weapon's Dark Sepia (this stuff is like the old GW Devlan Mud for me, even if it does dry gloss).

 The underside of the Triton, once more showing off some OSL inside the drives. Rather easier to do than the Neptune due to how small they are.

I should note that there are technically only two colours down here: VMA Sand, and VMA Gungrey. The former is hit with a targeted wash of Dark Sepia, and the later with simple wash of Heavy Body Black.

 This is the Triton A1 carrying its charges, a pair of currently base painted Janus scout walkers.

 Trying something different with the infantry. They were primed white, then hit with a shading wash of Heavy Body black. The front left soldier has a layer of VMC Transparent Yellow beneath VMC Pale Sand. The front right soldier has only the VMC Pale Sand coat.

I'm not actually sure which one I like best.

The back of the infantry base.