Back to base-ics..

I have a minor pet peeve (what exactly is a peeve anyways, and do they really make good pets?)... Bases.

There is the eternal debate, does the base count as part of a model? People seem to be just as likely to say no as yes. But then, even those who say yes are likely to slack off and paint a decent model, but put no effort into the base at all. I hate that.

Now, Im not saying I go all out on my bases, far from it. My standard is gluing sand on before priming, painting it beastal or scorched brown, then drybrushing the top and painting the rim with snakebite leather. If Im feeling really ambitious Ill glue a bit of GW's static grass on it. The point is, I put some small amount of effort into my bases and treat them as part of the whole of the model.

If there is some thought in it, the plain black base works, especially if its obviously a display model. What doesnt work is the plain black base with paint splotches all over. Mono-color bases work... mono-color (or even multi-color) bases that have patchy rims dont. Im not trying to pick fights. We all know there is too much drama on the 'net as is. My point is I see models Id feel embarrassed to set up against marred by a base that looks like it was cut from my painting desk, splotches and all.

Am I off my rocker and yelling at the invisible younglings to get off my lawn? Or is this something others notice and like/dislike? Maybe if there is interest Ill pull out my bag of extra bases and work out a few examples....

Escalation Thing kickoff, and some other stuff.

Mike came over today for a few games. We played 1k of Space Wolves and Nuns w/ Guns vs Red Scorpions, and the first 500 point game of the Escalation Thing.

First, fantasy. My list hadnt changed, aside from my replacing the Thane's shield with a great weapon. His list was a Branchwraithe, a unit of Dryads, and a pair of archer units. We deployed and I kindly allowed him to move first, expecting him to be aggressive and move up to engage. Nope. He sat back and shot. I decided I wasnt going to sit and wait for him to get bored of shooting, so my warriors walked over and picked a fight with the dryads. His leader did the challange thing, I answered with my Thane... who almost got his ass kicked (hooray for T5!). I won the overall fight there due to ranks and a banner, and the walking trees decided they didnt like all my axes and attempted to flee. They didnt get far, my stunties caught up and showed them the business end of those axes. The rest of the game was manuvering and acting aggressive, but no more melee. My thunderers tried to get close enough to be useful, while the cannon plinked off a model a turn, until it misfired and had to miss the last two turns cleaning out. In the end, a win for the Dwarfs.

Scoreboard so far:
Ryan (Dwarfs) 1/0/0
Mike (Wood Elves) 0/1/0
DT (Dark Elves) 0/0/0
Keith (Greenskins) 0/0/0

Second game was more in his favor. He took a couple transports, a predator, and a venerable dread, along with some infantry types. My Devastator squad was Target #1, and were gone fairly quickly. Very brutal game, I was left with a single model at the end, to his small handful.

Lets see, other stuff... Privateer has announced the new faction, the Retribution of Scyrah, a bunch of Elves... Im really needing to dust off my Cryx now! One thing I learned while talking about this in email is that PP is planning on going to the Army Book format. Bleh. I really liked that when a book came out, all the factions got new toys. It also seemed to help with "codex creep", as far as I could tell that is, its been about a year and a half since I got a game of Warmachine in...

Pics of the new Ironclad Dreadnought are out. Im sure you can find them around, if you havnt seen it yet. I am currently undecided on it. Some of it makes me say "oh cool!", but some of it looks too much like the craptacular venerable dreadnought. Im withholding opinion for now.

I got all the Cadian heavy weapon teams rebased onto the larger bases, however now I have to fix the feet for three of the models, they broke in half while I was working. Im planning on just replacing it with greenstuff one of these days. Ive still got three other HW teams and 7 sergeants to go. Once these are all done, Ill look into command squads.

Monday Top Ten #14

Lots of good stuff this week!

1. Gera shares a pic of a <<**CENSORED BY THE INQUISITION!!**>>
2. Cereal John talks nice about Privateer Press.
3. Tom reviews some magnets and foil for us... Im thinking of getting some of this for my Dwarfs!
4. This makes me laugh, since I considered making a Stompa like this before I heard about the plastic one... cheers to Wild Hermit for showing me my idea wasnt that far out there.
5. Grey Death shows us a tip on pencil weathering.
6. Sidestreaker's Tau Ethereal and Fire Warriors look real nice!
7. Jabberjabber is pushing buttons....
8. Bushido Red Panda breaks out an Imperator Titan for Epic.
9. Dragonforge has a nice Cadian test model up...
10. Senji has a second Primarch done, this time its Leman Russ.

Painting Dwarfs

Ive got my Dwarfs almost to the point where I have to decide on a color scheme... The metal is done and Ive got the colors set aside for beards and painting the gold. Once those are done, Ill start painting the hold colors on the cloth. The question is which hold? Im not going with my old Akhaz Boki (Miner Hold). Ive gone a different way with the banners and actually included black powder weapons. So, my choices are either create another hold, use an existing one (maybe Karaz-a-Karak?) or do something different... Im leaning towards the something different, because Ive got an interesting idea.

The Dwarf Quarter of Altdorf. Paint these guys up as the traders, craftsmen, and assorted expatriots that live and work in Altdorf. Red and blue color scheme, with smaller imperial symbols on their banners, along with the typical dwarf stuff. This would go well with the idea I had about a large Empire force based around Altdorf and Reikland...

Making up for lost time...

So, most of this weekend was shot by a headache the likes of which would have driven a minor diety insane. Luckily, Im already insane.

All the dwarfs are painted Boltgun metal, given a wash of black, drybrushed BG metal, and a lighter DB of chainmail. Trying to decide on other colors, will make a post of that tomorrow, I think.

In preperation of picking up the IG codex when finances allow, Im rebasing all my heavy weapon teams on larger bases. Way back when, when I assembled the models, I put them on smaller bases, figuring larger bases were bad (dont ask). I went through what Ive got, and its looking like I need to build about 7 more Sgts and about as many more heavy weapon teams (on top of the rebases). Aside from that, my IG appear ready for the new book! However, I am planning on replacing the platoon commands with the new box sets. Im keeping the old HQ box set as my Command HQ, and with the officers having the longer coats in the plastic box set.... Yeah, I like a bit of uniformity.