Dave wrote:I'd say just keep going at 2250 for now, until people get a proper handle on the rules I see very little point in changing it yet.

At the moment I'm struggling to find time to sit and read through the rules, so it's probably just as well I wasn't planning to go to any of the 8th edition tournaments coming up soon

Dave wrote:Bugger on the spearmen, that's why i use flash multipurpose cleaner on plastics, doesn't work great but will take any thick paint off with a decent scrub after a 24 hour soak. I generally don't paint well enough to need a perfect model to start from.

I think I've tried flash in the past and wasn't impressed with the results, which is why I went the nail varnish remover route

Ok, this blog has stalled a bit. Time for another update (will try and put up some pictures later, once i've taken them).

Since last time I've been getting things done but not much end result.

I've finally got all the wife's Dark Elf models I was assembling put together, bases sanded (and with stones in some cases) and undercoated. I think I may have gone a bit overboard with stones on the Hydra but its a bit late now.

As I was feeling a bit adventurous at the start of August I decided to have a go at non-metallic metals. Digging out the recent guide in White Dwarf I decided I'd try and replicate that tutorial and headed off to my local games shop to buy the Sanguinator figure, only to find out it's direct order only. Grr. So decided to buy a box of the Sanguinary Guard instead since the armour is pretty similar. Unfortunately that meant having to put togther 5 models which I've been doing off and on all month.

I've also been building my second Lion Chariot as I'm thinking about possibly taking 2 Lion Chariots to the Mansfield Maul. As with the first one I put togther, I'm not building it completely right now - I'm leaving the banner off until I get some time to practive my freehand design painting as I'd rather not put a really badly painted banner on the chariots. Mind you, I still need to remember what paints I used to paint the first one and then figure out how I'm applying washes to the lion bodies (so that I hopefully don't end up having to paint the lion bodies 4 times).

Anyway, I've now finally got the Sanguinary guard built and the bases sanded and have also got the Lion Chariot base sanded. I've also decided to pin this one to the base so that hopefully it'll stick to it better.

Finally, after dashing from the railway station to my local games store to pick up my Island of Blood set yesterday, I've started clipping out the High Elf bits from the sprues to start getting them ready for sanding and undercoating. I was planning on getting the whole set sorted this weekend but as I've been running a few errands today so far I've only got 10 Sword Mastes done. I also can't do any of the Skaven as the wife has decided that as we're doing a joint Skaven army, and as she doesn't want to risk inhaling the fumes from my plastic glue, she's going to contribute to prepping the army by clipping them out and cleaning them up.

Must say I'm quite impressed by the models in the Island of Blood. There don't seem to be many mould lines (or at least not many I've come across on the Sword Masters) to clean up so it's just where the model was joined to the sprue.

There are two things about the set that don't impress me. First is the red plastic measuring sticks. Why GW can't spring to a tape measure I don't know. It wouldn't be quite so bad if the plastic they'd used was more solid so you could use them as straight edges when checking line of sight but they seem to be too bendy for that.

The second thing is the lack of any practice missions in the Island of Blood booklet (unless I've somehow missed them). As the wife hasn't had much of a chance to read through the 8th ed book (heck, I only finished reading up to the end of the Special Rules section the other day) I was hoping we'd be able to use the practice missions from the boxset to familiarise ourselves with the rules better. I see there's 3 on the GW website (although for one of them you need to have 2 IoB box sets. Great way to encourage the new gamers - tell them they need to buy a second box set).

Anyway, I'm now off to try and make an effort to do some more painting to try and get my core troops requirement prepped for the Maul

As threatened, here are some WIP shots.


First off, part of my second unit of spearmen (plus some additional musicians and Mage)



Those of you who've been following this blog will probably notice that the armour looks a lot brighter and cleaner. I've decided to start with Chainmail rather than Boltgun Metal now and I'm painting the scales rather than drybrushing.



This is Lion Chariot number 2. Current need to go over the sand with watered down PVA.



These are the Island of Blood minnies that I've been working on so far, apart from the Rat Ogre and Warlock Engineer which the wife has been doing. And making a hash of - she keeps chopping off the connecting tabs when she's cutting the models off the sprues which is proving to be a bit of a PITA. About the only one she didn't do it to was the one on the head of the Rat Ogre, which then decided to break off of its own accord in the body when I was trying to tease the head off ready for gluing.

Ok, can't believe it's over a month since I last updated this blog (yet again...)

So, where am I now with the army? Well I think I've now got my Mansfield Maul list sorted. Unfortunately that meant adding another 10 or so models to my painting pile.

I had planned to crack on and do a lot of painting once my paternity leave started but unfortunately it ended up being a forceps birth and the wife ended up getting kept in hospital for three days after the birth. It wasn't until Wednesday night that I had the bright idea of setting my alarm clock so I could wake up and get the planned housework for the day out of the way and give me some painting time before going to visit.

Consequently I've got nowhere near as much done in my first week of paternity leave. I have got some more stuff undercoated (albeit it wasn't all stuff I'll be using at the Maul) and Friday and today I've been making up some movement trays I'll need for the Maul (as I realised I hadn't got any 6 or 7 wide trays in the depths I'm planning on fielding). Probably could have got the trays made up a lot quicker but with baby being home I'm now feeling somewhat tired and suspect, after reviewing how much I've been cutting out and how long it's taken, I've not been applying enough pressure with my knife (or the knife blade is becoming blunt).

Anyway, I'm definitely not feeling at the moment that I'll have the stuff I'm painting now at the same level as the stuff I took to the Summer Incursion, although none of that stuff was at a finished level anyway so it doesn't really matter all that much, apart from making me even more depressed about how long it's taking me to finish anything.

I love this blog, it's very 'real'. There are so few people that actually get through projects at the rate they intend. The majority of those simply languish in the depth of blog forums untouched and unloved. At least you are continuing to keep the updates coming despite the delays in the schedule, which I really like.

Just looking back at your previous post you appear to be painting individual scales, can I suggest you are mad!, paint the entire area silver and then give it a wash with an ink and call it done. You'll end up getting a pretty similar effect, if you get the consistency of the wash right, while taking a fraction of the time.

Dave wrote:Just looking back at your previous post you appear to be painting individual scales, can I suggest you are mad!, paint the entire area silver and then give it a wash with an ink and call it done. You'll end up getting a pretty similar effect, if you get the consistency of the wash right, while taking a fraction of the time.

Well I'm painting individual scales because I did the paint the whole area, wash & drybrush thing for the first units I did (pictures should be somewhere in the first part of this blog) and to be honest I'm not sure there's enough definition in the scales for my liking.

I'm not sure if it's just down to the amount of undercoat on the models, having left some/most of them a bit too long in the nail varnish remover when cleaning them up, poor moulding in the first place, or the fact that I was basecoating the scales in Boltgun Metal rather than Chainmail as I am at present, but when I was looking at some of the existing ones they looked quite messy and undefined.

I am conscious that painting this current batch is taking longer because of painting the scales individually but I wanted to see how a whole unit looked painted up this way before deciding whether to carry on doing it this way in future. I'm also conscious that the new HE plastics have larger scales that look a lot more defined and think that painting this way might make them look more cohesive.

Damn.

Realised that I'm now right at the bottom of one of my pots of Chainmail. My other one is in my pedestal drawers at work, which as it's in Nottingham I'm not going to get to before the Maul.

Annoying thing is I was in town yesterday and could have picked up a fresh pot from my usual games store if I'd realised. Fortunately I should be passing through on Friday so this is more an annoyane that I'm not able to paint things in the normal order than a major disaster.

Another quick update (try not to die of shock)

Currently having doubts about whether I'm even going to have things ready for the Maul.

I know, I know, I'm sure most people end up feeling that way who have models to paint for a tournament.

At the moment I'm trying to make sure that at the very least I've got a basecoat on every part of every model. Unfortuantely I don't think I'm going to have time to paint the edges of the spearmen's armour so that it matches how I've painted my earlier ones.

I'm also kicking myself for having painted the background of the shields I've been doing before painting the metal as I've now got tonnes of bits to go over again.

Will try and get some pictures up at some point during the week.

Back to the grindstone

So, another update and a couple of photos.

First the photos. The first is of my Ellyrian Reaver musician conversion and the second is a batch of 5 White Lions to round out the unit I'm taking to the Mansfield Maul.





As you can see, these are within the bounds of my existing colour scheme.

To be honest I think I've got about as much done as I can do now. I've finished with the additional Sword Masters I needed as well as the additional command models. Obviously nothing is yet finished finished but it's all up to the standard needed for the Maul.

There is more I'd hoped to do to the additional Spearmen I've been painting but I don't think I'm going to have time to do it to all of them in the time left so I'm going to leave them rather than only getting part way through.

All I think I've got left to do painting-wise is tidy up the spearmen's shields and a small bit of tidying up on the spearmen.

Unfortunately I've got some repair work to do on my first lion chariot which I didn't get round to doing after the Summer Incursion. I'd meant to get round to it after that tournament but went on a bit of a painting break and then didn't get going again until I started painting in preparation for the Maul.

Anyway, I think for the Maul I'm going to try and pin the chariot and lions in the same was as I have for the second chariot. Speaking of which, I had a bit of a boo-boo while trying to put the second chariot together. While trying to put the driver into the holes in the chariot floor I must have applied a bit too much force and ended up splitting the head, cloak and left arm off. And then I couldn't find my plastic glue and so ended up having to use super glue to stick them back on.

Post-Maul I've got a fair bit I'm wanting to do. First off, there's a few models I need to strip the undercoat off of as I must have sprayed them when it was too cold, resulting in an uneven, lumpy finish on the undercoat. Then I want to finish painting the lion chariots and the additional spearmen I've painted for the Maul. In between doing that I've also got to clip out the Skaven Clan Rats from my Island of Blood box ready for painting by myself and the wife.

I am looking forward to seeing your army on the tabletop in a couple of days Si. I am still frantically painting for the maul too, so I feel your pain. It can be really annoying not quite getting everything you want finished to the same standard, but you need to look at what you have managed. It's always surprising!