Holy Zealots

     I initially painted this unit for hobby points during Machinations: Umbra but only painted them to a minimum tabletop quality (basecoats only and minimal shading/highlighting). I've finally gone back and finished them up. Here's a group shot with the Monolith Bearer UA.

Gorman di Wulfe: tired of painting black and red

     Since Gorman is a merc and isn't part of Protectorate of Menoth, I decided to give him a different color scheme. Been painting a lot of black, red, and gold and it was nice to paint some different colors for this model.

Reclaimer

Working my way through some of the solos available to Protectorate. Here's my Reclaimer all finished.

Holy Zealots Monolith Bearer

     Spent quite a bit more time on this one than I would normally on a single miniature. Not because I painted it exceptionally well or anything but I had a couple challenges in painting this particular miniature. Whenever I start to visualize how I'm going to paint a model, what colors are going to go where, what techniques I'll use to achieve the desired effect, etc.; I'm often tempted to just stick to what I know and get it done. I could have done that here and the model would still look good. However, when I think or have seen the way I want a model to look or an effect that would look good (if done well anyway), I try to make myself attempt it if I've never done it before. Even though it takes much much longer to paint the model, I will now have a new skill or technique to use in the future.
     For this particular miniature I wanted to try a couple effects I've never done before. I wanted the metal pieces on the monolith to look tarnished and oxidized and the monolith itself to resemble white marble reminiscent of ancient roman or greek architecture. For the metal I played around with some different washes and settled on using thraka green wash followed by asurman blue wash over a base coat of glorious gold. I then made up a wash mixing about 3:1 of enchanted blue to dark angels green and future floor wax then washed only in the deepest recesses of the metal. I went back and drybrushed gold highlights followed by silver highlights on sharp corners. For the marble effect I searched the Internet and found some decent ways to do it but in the end I just experimented on spare models and practiced different ideas until I came up with something I thought looked relatively legit. The entire model was airbrushed black as a base and I started with a coat of bubonic brown (which is really more of a yellow)over that. Then I took some pure white, watered it way down and did a couple thin coats over the bubonic brown so that the white was semi translucent. To achieve the "veins" inherent in marble I used a .005 micron pen and drew them in. I then went over the veins with one last watered down coat of white. During this final coat of white I wet blended faint yellow and light brown lines and inconsistencies into the final coat to achieve this effect. Once the entire model was finished I sealed it with Vallejo matte finish then went back and hit the monolith sparingly with a gloss finish to give is just a little bit of sheen.
     It took me probably twice as long from start to finish to complete this model, but I learned some new skills along the way and I'm relatively happy with the results.

Machinations League: Anomaly 2v2 35pts Trolls/Legion vs PoM/PoM

     Played a ridiculously long but fun team game last night for our Machinations league at Clockwork Comics. This matchup had Andrew (aka Dr. Tan) and I teaming up with our Protectorate forces to take on Dan and Tim with their Legion and Trolls forces.  It was a very long and super grindy game that lasted close to 5 hours  that saw the demise of many models. By the end there was not much left on the table but casters/locks, the book, a few trolls, a gator or two, and a couple legion beasts (pThagrosh brought back his Typhon with his feat). It was anybody's game right up until the end but we eventually called the game after my caster (Reznik)  fell and there was little hope of Intercessor Kreoss taking care of the remaining enemy forces. We were playing the first season scenario that did not have a win condition other than caster kill. After the game we all agreed that in a 2v2 game, there needs to be a scenario victory option and that it would be a good idea to probably just play 15 or 25 pts or use a timer. Regardless it was a fun game even if it was long winded.

The Covenant of Menoth

     Took about a month away from gaming and haven't played Warmachine or painted lately. I have several solos sitting around waiting to be painted. I picked these up after the last Machinations League with the bit of store credit I received for finishing second. I picked up Gorman, Rhupert, Reclaimer, Covenant of Menoth, and Monolith Bearer. I decided to start with The Covenant of Menoth first mostly because I needed to paint it in pieces before assembling it on the base. That just means I can't play with it until I finish painting it. For the rocky hill I used Sculpy and used a pitted rock to texture it before throwing it in the oven. The Covenant bearer is the first Protectorate model I've bothered to paint the eyes. Anyway, I'm looking forward to painting solos for a little while rather than units as I feel I can concentrate on one model from start to finish and enjoy the process a little more than painting one color on 10 models before moving on.
     On another note, this past week my blog reached over 1000 views! Thanks to everyone who's shown interest.