Dark Age Games - March to Immortality

Hmmm...March to Immortality, sounds pretty serious but what the hell is it???!

Well it's a pretty damn solid contest put on for the Dark Age universe.

From the Dark Age March to Immortality page:

Each year, Dark Age players gather at Gen Con Indy to participate in the annual Immortal tournament, where the winner gets to work with the design team to create a special character for the Dark Age universe. How cool is that? 

The March to Immortality is the premiere tournament circuit designed for stores and gaming clubs to host qualifiers that feed into the Immortal tournament at Gen Con Indy. Special prize support will be provided for participants. Providing that you meet the requirements, the winner will be provided with round trip airfare to Gen Con Indy to play in the Immortal Tournament. If you are a store/club that wants to run one or more of these awesome events, read the document and let us know!

The next immortal winner might just be your store champion!

Sounds pretty damn kule huh?  Immortalized as a mini for a game? So who was last years winner? Marc Berlove!

And the concept work for his figure!!!

We are proud to introduce Phadras and Maximo! Marc wanted to include his son as part of his Immortal Prize, a few ideas were thrown around and he setteled for Phadras & Maximo. Phadras is an ex-Brute Pusher that got tired of the bickering in his tribe, so he decided to make out on his own. Little did he know at the time one of the Scuts that always looked up to him and regarded Phadras as the father he never knew, had followed him. Eventually Phadras came to accept his "little shadow" as he called Maximo, now the two are inseperable. This Bounty Hunter Matched Set will be available for hire Gen Con 2012.

Not only does Marc get immortalized but his son as well!  How would you like that???? HUH??? I AXED YOU A QUESTION SON!

So what do you have to do you ask?  Find a store to host an event, win a 24 person X'Treme Tournament with an approved Judge at hand and CMoN will even pick up the flight to GenCon!!!  This pdf details it out really nice like:

Event Brief

You can find more info and the previous winners here:

March to Immortality

For the events in December and January check the link below:

Dark Age Games - March to Immortality Events in December & January !:

So do you want a chance at IMMORTALITY in the gaminverse???!!!  Thought so...get your local store to set up an event, start a league and get to hammering out some games of Dark Age!!!

Til next time, keep your paints thinned and your brushes clean!!!

DreamForge-Games: Eisenkern Trooper Kickstarter Project and actual prototypes!

Well I've talked about the work of DreamForge before...and I just can't help but do it again.  So Mark Mondragon is looking for OUR help, and well dangit, one way or another, I'm going to give him some!  He's working on getting his next project rolling and he's got a fantastic set of mini's in the works.  Here's the details on what he's working on...

Well folks, I need your help. If you enjoy my models and would like to see this product line launch, please head on over to Kickstarter and add your support to the project. 

If you're not familiar with the Kickstarter model, the way it works is you receive a reward for an accompanying pledge in support of my project. The more you pledge the better the rewards and the greater contribution you will make to this and future projects. Your positive participation will help a small independent company to grow and thrive and you gain the satisfaction of knowing you made this happen.

And what you have been waiting for....Here are a few shots of the actual prototypes for the Kriegsmarine and Sturmtruppen soldiers.

Now as you can see he's got some sweet prototypes ready to go...so what can YOU do to help out?  Well you can jump over here to his KICKSTARTER page and get to pledging!  There's a couple of phenomenal deals on that page, including a 2 Leviathan set with like a GAZILLION troops!!!!  (it's actually a pair of platoons which is a sick deal)! 

I'm excited to see the next faction he puts up and starts rolling on!  GO MARK GO!!!!

To see more details check out the link above for the KICKSTARTER deals as well as the DreamForge page, and for more on all of Marks doings, hit the DreamForge home page as well!!!

Help support small business and score some sweet figs in the process!!! I LOVE IT!!!

Look for a couple of updates this weekend with some early WIP of my Skorne paint scheme and a review or two of some Dark Age starter sets!!!  Oh and I might unbox a Legacy Mini's figure if time allows!

Til then, keep your paints thinned and your brushes clean!!!

HORDES!!! - Skorne Project Update

Here we go again! Time for a project update, my life has been a bit on the hectic side for the last month or so (as  it always is at the end of Con season since I end up going to two or three of them) and I'm still commuting to work ever Monday and home on Friday so my hobby time has to compete with my Honey Do and family time as well as my gaming...Gears of War3 hit and wooooo is it solid!

OK so I'll start by saying I've got the 'problem' with blog updates nailed down to the fact that I can't stand taking pictures, transferring them to my PC, uploading them to photobucket and then pasting them here.  It's just SO tedious.

So I guess I'll start with the list, I'll be starting off with Supreme Archdomina Makeda or the almight eMak.  Starting at 25 points and moving on to 35 and later 50, I'll start with the list and then why.  I'm building a simple Tier 2 list (Tier lists give us fluff players a much better chance at being competitive on the tourney scene in my opinion...not that I had much trouble before...but now I'm rewarded for building lists that fit into the fluff)!  So here's the list:

Supreme Archdomina Makeda +5
Cyclops Brute - 5
Cyclops Savage - 5
Cyclops Savage - 5
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 5 Grunts) - 3
Praetorian Swordsman (Leader and 5 Grunts) - 4
Praetorian Swordsman Officer and Standard - FREE
Praetorian Swordsman (Leader and 5 Grunts) - 4
Praetorian Swordsman Officer and Standard - 2
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor - 2

25 points on the nose!!! I love it when a plan comes together - dun da dun daaaa dun dun dun

So the choices are derived obviously from the rules of the Tier list - I can only have Cyclops warbeast and Molik Karn...well at 11 points, MK is too much of a point sink in 25 points...and a bit cheezy to me to put on the table at that low of spread.  So the decision was pretty simple...load up on Cyclops!! :D 

I took a Brute as my +5 since it's a great defensive beast and it will hang with eMak as she rolls into the fray, keeping her safe from the ranged shots with Shield Guard along with a set of solid defensive buffs in Intuition and Safeguard.  Being able to force a re-roll and not having to worry about knockdown when slammed is a set of great abilities to have around a warlock.  With a DEF of 15 against charge, slam or impact attacks, it's over average rolls to hit for most and the ARM of 19 with that big ass shield means he can soak up a bit as well.  This guy is fairly important in the overall scheme of things as eMak is definitely a lead the army into the mess kind of warlock, she just needs to get into the thick of it to make the most of her spells and abilities, so having another tool to keep her alive is paramount.

My second and third beast choices consist of a pair of Cyclops Savages.  A solid mainstay medium based warbeast, they have decent hitting power, decent DEF and ARM and being able to boost after the fact with Future Sight.  With Prescience as an animus I can also give eMak (or any other faction model) the same benefit when needed.

With no heavy's (high damage output models) a max unit of Paingiver Beast Handlers is truly needed here to make sure my Savages are taking care of business as needed on the heavy's I'm sure they'll be facing.

To hit Tier 2, I have to have 2 units of Praetorian Swordsman in the force, but I get a free UA for unit 2 out of the deal, which is pretty solid as the UA make a pretty solid melee unit and make them a bit better.  I've had units wreck heavy warjacks in the past, but not having any way to buff their STR or damage rolls yet I don't see this happening all that often as on a charge averaging 10 on the dice with a Combo Strike, that's still on 2 damage per model on a Khador 'jack.  :P  But with Vengeance from eMaks Elite Cadre, boosted attack rolss from her feat, Side Step from the UA and Perfect Strike once a game for BOTH units, I can pretty much guarantee that when they get into contact with units, those units will fold like fresh set of linens!  

I'll have to rely on the SPD of the army to make it into contact with the enemy forces as soon as I can, but with Road to War, Leash and the solid high base SPD of the models in the army, that should not be too much of an issue. Stay Death will help keep a model or three alive in the early game as I cross the table and the fact that models don't flee and immediately rally in her CMD range make worrying about CMD checks a very low priority.

Now rounding out the pack is Orin Midwinter, a solid solo who can bounce some lighting around like a couple of well know Cygnar casters and stop an enemy caster from casting spells during those all important last couple of turns when little trix are what are needed to turn the tide of the game or solidify that victory.

I won't dig into eMak as I can't give away all my secrets.  :P  More like it's late and I need to crash.

So there it is, my base list, feel free to let me know what you think...it won't change anything as this is what I want to play and it's a solid start to a Tier list that should bring me some good wins, but I'm always happy to see what other people have to say about my lists and thoughts on lists.

Til next time keep your paint thinned and your brushes clean!!!

HORDES!!! oh and an update.

Well now, it's been some time since I've had an update on here, but I do have a decent reason me thinks.  I got a job.  Out of town.  Pretty dang far out of town.  Like 124 miles out of town.  As in it takes almost 2 hours to get to my office out of town. So I drive out of town on Monday and drive back to town on Friday.  It's rough.

Well gee Oz, you can login and blog anywhere duud!  Yup, sure can, but being home only two days out of the week, that leaves very little in the way of 'hobby time' when I've got the honey do list and the kids got stuff to do list and the other stuff I have to do list...so I can blog, but I really don't have much to say all that often.  :P

So I'm thinking I will most likely start doing a bit more 'newsy' type posts when I can, and interject the 'hobby and review' stuff whenever I can put some time in at the painting desk...which leads me to the current project.

Now like most 'gamers' or 'hobbyists' I have a serious case of gamer AD/D, or need to bounce from army to army to army...sometimes game to game too.  I like to think of it as the whole 'variety is the spice of life' concept, but it could be that I get bored with the same thing, but seeing as how I have been with my wife for 18 years, I can most definitely say that I DO NOT have a fear of commitment.  :D

When I first started this little blog I was all gung ho on a fantastic little project for a Drune Rag Na Rok force...well I'm STILL waiting for half the models to show up, so I've kinda shied away from that project for now, plus the fact that I cannot for the life of me find anyone to play Confrontation let alone Rag Nar Rok has also added to that project getting back-burnered.

Soooo having spent the last few months searching and reading and reviewing and talking to multiple gazillions of gamer duuds looking for a great tactical fantasy game to play I have found that no such thing exists...so I have succumbed to the rolling pebble that is HordesMachine once again.  The two local areas I'm in have a decent community built up and I can just kinda plug-in wherever, plus my buddy Erik is all fired up to start a new force after we took like the last year off.

After pouring through half dozen army books I was figuring I'd have to wait until I got my hands on the new Hordes book to make a decision on what I was going to build up...I knew I was going Hordes as Erik is rolling up le Cygnar and the powder blue pansies...plus I just like the feral-ness of it better.  So it became a toss up...back to Circle my oldest love in the Hordesverse or continue on with the Legion force I had started a year ago?  Hmmm...decisions decisions.  Well I decided to go with NEITHER!!!

I ended up having a conversation with my buddy Casey who was asking me a bout an eMak Tier list he was thinking of picking up and right then I was like...HELL THAT'S IT!!! Yup that's right, back to my old love/hate relationship with Skorne.

So I jumped in and started collecting a force...in a matter of days this is what I threw together:

Casters:
Mekeda
eMakeda
Mordikaar
Xerxis

Beasts:
2 x Savage
2 x Brute
Molik Karn
2 x Razor Worm
Bronzeback
Gladiator
Rhinodon

Units:
3 x min Pret Swordsman
2 x Swordsman UA
Nihilators - max
Venators - max
Karax - max
Beast Handlers - max
Ferox - max
Tyrant Commander/Standard

Solos:
3 x Ancestral Guardian
Hakaar
2 x Extoller
Aptimus Marketh
Tyrant Rhadeim
Void Spirit
Agonizer

Quick pic of the mess:

Sexy huh?

I'm going for the heavy infantry strike force...win big or lose big type of army. I'll be rolling eMak as the main and picking up a few more models to run Mordikaar as the back-up.

My goal is to get this assembled and painted pronto - so I'll be rodeo rocking the paintbrushes like a mad cattle rustler at an all day moo cow stampede! As for a color scheme though...I'm leaning towards a deep blue, but do not have a colormatic color concept all squared up yet...feel free to chime in if you like!

Well it's late and that's all I got for now!

Til next time keep your paints thinned and your brushes clean!

YO DRE!!!! DROP THE BASS!!!...er BASE!!!

Well this weeks update comes in the form of the start of the base for my Warrior of Stone.  Here's a couple WIP shots of what I'll be mounting him on.  The idea is a simple one, a pathway up a on a mountaintop with a withering tree - Behemoth Orcs and Trees...there's some connection there I'm sure of it.  :P

Not a huge update this week but I did get quite a bit done on this thing...next week, more details for the base and more paint for the WoS!!!

Til then, keep your paints thinned and your brushes clean!

Warrior of Stone

Started in on a new piece for a local 'friendly' painting competition - I'm going to plug away at one of my favorites in a fantastic set of figs - the Warriors of Stone for the Orc of the Behemoth tribe from Confrontation.


I'll be posting my WIP here as well as on the local site..

I got base colors laid down, worked the overcoat up and started in on the face and back pack.

Obviously the lighting is horrible as its just my painting light, but its good enough for now.  :D

Kelts of the Drune Clan - An Army Project - Proof of Concept

WOAH!!!  Holy forgotten blogs right???  I mean RIGHT??

Well not exactly no, life has been coming like The Fast and the Furious and I've been doing my best to keep pace with the pack!  I spent the last few months working on a game contract and the office is two hours south of the house..so adjusting to living life in two different cities has been a bit odd.  Well it's full time now, so I'll do what I can to keep my hobby side up!!!

So some of you may recall I started in on a Rag Na Rok sized Drune army project a little while ago which I started chronically here on dragon painting.  I started this project with the 'community driven' mentality putting up a couple of polls here and here.  The point was simple to allow the regulars who post there (some top notch painters and all around pretty swell group of peeps) have a bit of input into my own personal project by picking from a few set choices with the almighty poll./popular vote thing.

Well the project itself has been going a bit slower than anticipated due to a couple of things, first, I'm still waiting on my buddy to deliver half of the army to me...it's missing the cav, the lanyfh warrioresses and the base foot sloggers still.  But it is full of Formors, Minos, Hounds, Karnaghs, Archers and most of the characters...so I've got plenty to work on.  Second, the above aforementioned job, it's put a bit of a damper on my weekly painting and my weekend painting has to compete with the long list of 'home improvements and chores' one must do...when oh when will they make a yard that is maintenance free????  And finally, like all you fine fellows who may be reading this, I've got painting/army collection A.D.D. like nobodies business, so I went on a Cryx tangent for a couple of weeks in there too.

So with all of that, I have finished a pair of models to prove my color proof of concept which is based on this piece of artwork.

Now I love this piece of work and find it just fantastic from an artists perspective (for those of you who don't know I'm an animator - so I actually make a living as an artist).  It's rich, emotional and has amazing contrast while being very stylized.  Now the color palette in question doesn't necessarily jump right out and say 'HEY I'M PERFECT FOR A MINIATURE ARMY!!!', it does say 'hey, I'm a challenge...can you take this unusual scheme and apply it to a bunch of toy soldiers and make it interesting?'

Well I think I can, but of coarse I took some liberties with it and will say that I will most likely evolve the test pieces a bit as I went more into the pink side of the reddish spectrum and more into the yellow side of the orange.  Also the fact that this is an army, means that I have to come up with a scheme that looks good and that can be applied fairly quickly across a bunch of figures, so making sure I follow those directives is important, so keep that in mind when 'scrutinizing' the work.  it's not meant to be competition worthy.

So my first test piece is a larger one, the Drune Minotaur- here I wanted to make him raw and feral looking - so I opted for a really bright skin tone bordering on muscle fiber-ish.  Again, heading towards a more yellow tone for cloth...I might bring this back to a more orangish look in the overall scheme though.  I believe the blue armor and sword contrast very well with the rest of the mini, but the plan overall is to make sure that each minotaur does have a unique look and feel to it...as I have 4.  Here's a couple shots of the first.

Here's a WIP of his back in the early stages as well:

Overall I think he's got a unique look and although the scheme does not follow the initial palette selection exactly, I think there's enough of it there to not bath him in the Simple Green and start again.

The second model I completed is Wandyr the Bloodthirsty.  I love this fig, it's got attitude and a real solid look, plus it just seethes Barbarian with the helmet, the half armor and the bare feet...siick.  Now this one pulls a bit more into the colder end of the scheme from the front and then a bit more into the warmer end from behind as again I went much higher into the yellow's with his cloth than that of the artwork. I also leaned a bit more into the pink tone in his fur cape  A couple of shots here:

Now as I'm sure you can tell, I am no maestro with a camera, and my lens work needs real help but you can at least get a good idea of what the look is.  As it stands however, I may very well move the next piece into a 'darker' overall feel but pressing into the orange spectrum a bit more and not going so high into the yellows and pushing the pinks back into a more magenta/red or even into a deeper purple - we'll see.

Any requests on the next fig for the test?  

I'm currently spending a lot of time on a Mountaineer of the Behemoth as he's going to showcase another little project that I'm working on that has suffered due to my time pressed schedule...but I do have a couple of pieces for that to show here as well...so a couple of sneak peeks!!!

So with that, I'm going to close this out and until next time keep your paints thinned and your brushes clean!!

Ankama - [ the art of edouard guiton ]

One of my favorite concept guys has updated his page! He did a lot of Rackham work, but his other stuff is superb as well.

Ankama - [ the art of edouard guiton ]