San Diego Comiccon Day 2

Well, went to day two of Comiccon in San Diego.

It was a blast!!!

I ended up taking my Flip camera this time to video the participants, the hall, the stars and the costumes.

Here is the product:
First up is a video demonstration of Privateer Press’ Monsterpocalypst by Kevin of PP:

Part two of the demo:

And here is a video of the participants, stars and various artists at the convention:

Comiccon is a blast, if you have an opportunity to come to this event, do it!

San Diego Comic Con 2008 Day 1

San Diego hosted its 2008 International Comic convention Comiccon this weekend, beginning on Thursday (Wednesday’s preview doesn’t count).

The place was PACKED.

Costumes galore were in attendance:

Movie Props were being displayed:

And there were some amazing toys being demonstrated by various companies:

With many con exclusive items available

Movie industry stars and professionals were in abundance:

If you have a chance, check out this show, or make sure you plan to make it next year:

San Diego Beach Bash

A new group of gamers hosted a 750 Point Warmachine/Hordes tournament in San Diego.  This event was done in conjunction with San Diego’s Comiccon Comic Convention.

It had 29 players attend the event, with every Hordes and Warmachine faction being represented at least once, and most multiple times:

Cryx – 3 players

Cygnar – 6 players

Everblight – 3 players

Khador – 6 players

Menoth – 1 player

Mercenary – 2 players

Skorne 1 player

Troll 2 players

Steamroller four was used for the format and and timers were used to limit rounds.  The following scenarios were played:

Scenario 1 Mosh Pit
Scenario 2 Process of Elimination
Scenario 3 Ridge Raiders
Scenario 4 Assasination

Rounds were approximately 70 minutes in length, with each player limited to 10 minute turns each round.  A win was worth 1 tournie point, while a draw and a loss were both worth nothing.  Victory points were not utilized to determine round winner, unless the scenario explicitly called for it.

Players shared the timer and passed it between each other, meaning that 14 timers were used.

Privateer Press staff were on hand to meet, greet and mingle with attendees, since they were in town setting up for Comiccon.  The PP Quartermaster Biggie and NQ Editor Kevin were on hand to glad hand and talk with any and all:

Game Empire, a local gaming store physically hosted the event, providing lots of space, and access to players to product:

There selection was amazing, with almost the complete line of Privateer Press’ and Gale Force 9’s products in stock, no one could complain that they were unable to field a particular model or unit.

The event lasted from 5pm until Midnite.

Adam, with Khador winning the tournmanet, and William, the sole Menoth player, at his heals with Menoth, taking second place.  Both players went undefeated in the tournament.   Third place was brought up by Chris, a hordes Everblight players, who only got knocked out of the winners circle, the last game.

Good times were had by all, as Biggie took up the challenge and played against the Bye players in the rounds where there was an extra player, who would have otherwize sat out that round:

More 5th edition 40k games logged

So I was able to participate in a small 40k tournament yesterday (Sunday).  A simple 1000 point affair with a modified Force org chart (0-1 HQ, 0-1 Elite, 0-1 Heavy, 0-1 Fast, 2+ troop).

So my Sisters of Perpetual Remorse, with fresh uniforms and a strong outlook took to the fray!

I faced 3 differring opponents: A DA Ravenwing, A Chaos Space Marine with a unit of Tzeentch SMs, and a Chaos Khorne Army in my 3 rounds.  We played each of the basic scenarios and each of the basic setups.

Wow, Troop selection is of Major importance in this system.  I only brought 2 troop selections, 1 HQ, 1 Fast, and 1 Heavy for my 1000 points.  In the first game, against the Raven wing, I was able to styme the Bike assault my bringing the battle first to them in the middle of the table, if the game had gone longer, then his bikes would have been able to break my line and zoom to my objective, which was unguarded.  Unfortunately for him, is that he failed to watch the time and his own objective, so no one claimed either objective – Tie.

2nd game, against a troop heavy CSM force, this scenario was based on kill points.  This time, I was able to wittle my opponent down as he crossed the field, and deep struck my Seriphim back into his devastator squad taking them out, from where they had been potshotting me from behind cover with Heavy bolters and Laz cannons.  His Champion, with a lash of submission, enticed my troopers out of their fortified positions, allowing his units to concentrate fire on each unit, almost decimating me.  Thankgoodness for Spirit of the Matrye and good dice rolls.  This encouraged me to take my trooper squad and  my Cannoness an bums rush the champion.  Divine guidance ensured that I took him out in 1 1/2 rounds.  This simple fact, plus the survival of most of my units by Spirit allowed me to win the game based on kill points.

3rdgame against the Khorne.  This one placed 5 objectives (loot counters) on the table.  I only had 2 troops versus his 5 troops for capturing objectives.  I raced off with one of my troops in a rhino toward 1 objective, camped my other troop on another objective, placed my Exorcist to overlook as many objective as I could, and sent my Cannonness and Seriphim to contest other objectives.  He used cover as much as possible, mostly because my Exorcist came into its own, averaging 4+ shots a round.  I focused on his troops, and the withering fire caused many of his troops to drop down to 2 or 3 troops.  Unfortunately he was able to close in on me and in the end, only my Tank and my Seriphim where left, and he had 4 of 5 objectives.  A clear victory for troops!

Overall, I have to admit I like this new version of 40k.  The distribution of wounds is equitible, I saw leader of my squad and specialized weapons fall, while normal bolter troopers survived.  I saw some squad survive further since I was able to distribute insta kill hits with normal hits and double up the insta kill onto one trooper, as she would dive in front of her team to take the melta blast and the plasma round to save her fellow sisters! (talk about heroic!)

Weapons Primed

[

Well the weapons are primed and now must just dry before going on the next step.

Additional Titan Weapons reinforcements have arrived!

Well, I finally received my Additional Titan weapon arms for my Reaver!

I went ahead an took my dremel to them to clean up flashing and mold lines and redrilled out holes (air holes) in the design as well as smoothing out grooves when I could.

I’m priming them today and hope to have them painted this week!

Citadel Washes – Part Deux

Continuing my coverage of GW Washes:

I participated in a local GW Battle Bunker’s Iron Painting Competition in celebration of their release of 5th edtion of 40k.

The event which provided an opportunity to paint a Battleforce sized army of 40k models within 24 hours.  We had to show up at the store at 5pm on Friday with our Battleforce, which could be be assembled and primed already.

I showed up with a Sisters of Battle force.  Firstly, the SOB (Sisters of Battle) were my first force when I started playing Warhammer 40k back in 3rd edition.  We were relegated to a simple Chapter Approved list to play our force as there had been no army codex since 2nd edition for the army.  But the idea of women in powered armor and Faith based feats is something too big for me to ever give up on.

So for this contest I brought 2 large units of SOB troopers (12 women each), 1 unit of Retributors (6 strong), a unit of Seriphim (12 – which included 2 alternate troopers either 2 hand flamers or 2 inferno pistols), a Immolator/Rhino and a Canoness.
I also brought along 21 bases from Jeff at Dragon Forge (http://www.dragonforge.com) that I had purchased for my sisters last year.
For paints I used a mixture of Privateer Press P3, Citadel, Vajello, and Coate d’armes.
List:
P3 Menoth White Base (Bone White)
P3 Menoth White Highlight
P3 Menoth Sanquine Base
P3 Menoth Sanquine Highlight
P3 Rhulic Gold
P3 Solid Gold
Citadel Boltgun Metal
Citadel Gryphonne Sepia Wash
Citadel Thraca Green Wash
Citadel Baal Red Wash
Citadel Blue Wash
Citadel Royal Blue
Citadel Devlin Mud Wash
Citadel Ogrin Flesh Wash
Citadel Foundation Mechrite Red
Vajallo Black
Vajallo Silver
Vajello Scorpian Green
Vajello Flaming Orange
Vajello Bronze
Coat d’arms White
I primed all the models in basic white first, with a spray white primer.
I first painted the sisters’ bottom robes in in the Menoth Red base color.  I then applied the Citadel Gryphon Sepia wash to the entire model., this made each model a bone white (brown/white).

It took while for the models to dry and there was some pooling on the bottom edges of many of the girls robes and feet.  The final drying took close to an hour.

During this time, I painted the bases I picked up from Jeff with Citadel Blood Red Spray paint (which you can no longer get) and washed them with the Citadel Mud Wash.

I next applied by dry brushing the Menoth White Base color, which tended to be a bone white, the effect was not very noticeable, except where my brush wiped over red areas of the model.
The next dry brush layer was Menoth White Highlight to the models.  This really brightened the models providing for a sort of “White Deathwatch bone color” that I was looking for.

I now broke out the Menoth Red Highlight, and went over the red robes again., completely covering all the red areas, including any areas that might have been nicked or drybrushed by the white dry brushing from previous steps, this provided for some great shading of the red robe areas (between the red base coast, Sepia wash and the white dry brush overstrokes).  Plus I used this same red now to pick out any fleur de leis icons throughout the helmets, backpacks and armor.

I now picked out details of various guns and barrels with black, and bronze, also base coated holy symbols with P3 Rhulic Gold and highlighted the symbols with the P3 Solid Gold.
I had to decide how to show some effect with Plasma guns, flamers and melta guns.  I thought I would color code the various guns:  Red for flame throwers, green for Melta weapons, and Blue for Plasma weapons.   I first tried some orange on the barrel of the flamers, and wash them in red, and that sucked, so I went over them again with simple boltgun metal and washed them in red.  That worked.  For Melta guns, I painted the power element with the Citadel blue wash and that provided a healthy glow of the Bone white (now blue).  I washed the Melta Gun power chambers with the Citadel Green wash for an earie glow, again perfect.
I painted the end of the plasma pistols with bronze.  Nice effect.  I also painted the jewels of the power swords blue and the conduit of the power sword a Green.
Now I was ready for bases again.  I painted the rubble piles of Jeff’s Dragonforge bases with a Light brown, and again washed the entire base with the Citadel Devlin Mud wash.   I also washed the handmade bases with the Ogre Mud to match the general tone of the custom bases by Jeff.  I then painted the edging of the all the models with Citadel Foundation Mecha Red to tie all the model together base wize.

As I said this was for a Ironman painting contest, and I began my painting at 6pm, giving my self a handicap of 1 hour, because I was busy getting all my stuff together at home.  Over the course of the evening we had over 10 people join in to participate.  We had everything from Space Orcs, to Necrons, Eldar, Chaos Space Marines, Dark Angels, and Tau.
Face and hair was washed with Citadel Ogrin Flesh wash.
I finished my basic painting of my Sisters at 1 pm the next day, and spent the next 4 hours, cleaning up little details, sprucing up my bases with static grass, painting eye and black lip stick on their faces. And highlighting their hair again with Coat d’armes white.  I kept thinking of Children of the corn as I was doing this last step.

I added a banner to one of the Sister unit Signet bearer.

I applied Witch Hunter/Inquisitional decals to the Immolator and the Banner!

I sealed the entire group with spray on Polyurethane that I had purchased from Home Depot.
Of the other contestants, only the Dark Angel painter besides myself, finished his battleforce, though there were some very great models coming out of the none finishers.

The judges were the Managers and workers at Games-workshop and I was sweating my chances as the DA painter’s style was very clean and he had been working up the last minute with some elegant details.  He even made for dirt marks on the bottom of his Rhino.

In the end??  I actually won!!  This is the first major speed painting contest that I won, and for a 24 hour sprint, I was elated!

Thoughts on the Citadel washes:
These have much that makes them much better than previous Inks and washes.  They took hours off of the required painting and shading that I had to do and since they are not an ink, once they dried I was able paint again more highlights and base coats.  Inks would have mixed into the paints that were applied after the inking.
Overall I am very happy for the GW Washes, and would recommend them to others and will continue to incorporate them in future models that I paint!

Sisters of Battle Heroines – Washed

Ok, used  Citadel Gryphonne Sepia Wash to highlight the Sisters:

Sister Heroines Washed Front

Sister Heroines Washed Back

Now I need to highlight with some Bone white and paint some detail/complementary colors.

Sister of Battle Heroines Primed

Well the only update today was to prime my SOB Heroines.

Before Priming I changed my weapon and armory load out for the Cannoness, giving her Jump wings and changing her bolt pistol for an Infernal Pistol:

Sister Mary Elizabeth was also primed:

Sisters of Battle Heroes Project

So I’ve begun a project this month to paint two of my Sister’s of Battle models by Month end.  Part of the project requires that I write fluff for the models in addition to painting them:

So it begins:

The models:

Sisters of Battle Heroines