Cog Collective Painting, Journeyman League

The Cog Collective painting challenge continues, but now there's a new wrinkle: A Journeyman League. I'm sticking with Skorne for this league, but most of what I'll be painting is Minions:

Since that's a pretty fuzzy phone picture, here's the list, top to bottom:

Gatorman Posse, metal sculpts
Gatorman Posse, new plastic sculpts
Tiberion
Skorne Venator Catapult Crew
Titan Gladiator (the head is currently bathing in acetone to get some superglue off)
Basilisk Drake*
3x Reptile Hounds*
Bloodrunner Master Tormentor*
Gatorman Witch Doctor*
Bog Trog Ambushers

* These models all have one color of paint on them; in the case of the metals, it's because I spilled a pot of silver paint and didn't want it to go too much to waste...

Painting Log: Seleucids update

Of my current projects, I'm enjoying the 15mm Seleucid army the most, I think. I've finished the horse archers:

Begun and finished some slingers:

And begun some thureophoroi, Greek mercenaries named after the shape of their shields:

Blitzkrieg Commander II - First Taste

I finally got to play a game of Blitzkrieg Commander II today, in my long-running quest to find an alternative to Flames of War. It was a pleasant experience, and I think I might - almost - have found what I'm looking for. BKC is in the Warmaster family of games, similar to Hail Caesar and Black Powder, and I think that design philosophy hits my sweet spot. It tends to be more abstracted than the crunchier business of Flames of War, and plays much more quickly - or at least, it feels like that. On the flip side, it's even less suited to competitive or pick-up games than FoW is... but I'm ok with that. The one drawback that does bother me is that it's not terribly well-suited to company-level games. It can do them, but the cracks show a bit, as it's designed to model battalion or regimental-level clashes.

Lock & Load 2014

Privateer Press' big hometown con was this past weekend, June 6-8, and as I'm in the area I headed up. I didn't participate as much in the convention as I'd have liked, because one of my old college buddies was having his bachelor party the same weekend in the same city, and that kind of took precedence.

My convention experience, then consisted of playing three games of Warmachine; trying out the Warmachine: Tactics demo that was on offer; attending a concept art seminar; and hitting the PP store to pick up a couple models slightly earlier than their street dates. In order:

First game was 50 points, versus a Mortenebra force, on one of the theme tables. I ran Master Tormentor Morghoul with a beast herd starring Molik Karn, a beast noted for extraordinary threat range. And that's how I won the game, by folding up his right flank and then sending Karn in for the kill. Sadly, that was my only win. But my opponent did have a really sweet paint scheme! That white is hard to pull off.

Second game was a short and sweet 25-pointer, again with pMorghoul and Karn, versus a Barnabas minions list. I lost that one with a really stupid mistake, putting Karn just outside Morghoul's control range on a sidestep, and thereby losing him... and eventually the game. (Also, Gatorman Posse are very, very good.)

Third game was a rough one, versus a Mercenaries Durgen Madhammer + Earthbreaker list with plenty of AOEs. Morghoul doesn't like AOEs, and I eventually lost to a solid assassination run.

The concept art panel was pretty fun. It began with a brief talk on how the art staff at Privateer develops the reference art for a model, using the new Cephalyx models as examples. Then we had an open group design, where members of the audience tossed out ideas and the moderator sketched it out in realtime on the computer. This was the result, a possible (though not likely) Mercenary warcaster:

The store doesn't really merit mention; I picked up Tyrant Zaadesh after a short wait in line thanks to not hitting the store until late afternoon.

Now, Brian's bachelor party was the highlight of the weekend. Since we're all enormous geeks, it was nil on the strippers and blow, very high on the board games... I managed to play four new games and enjoyed all of them; three (Sentinels of the Multiverse, Love Letter, and 7 Wonders) are now on my to-buy list.

Cog Collective Summer Painting Challenge, 2014: Week 1

The Cog Collective runs a painting challenge every summer. This year, I'm in.

This week, I'm attempting to finish these figures:

Essex Miniatures 15mm ancient horse archers

Privateer Press Skorne Mortitheurge Willbreaker

Privateer Press Skorne Nihilators

Spartan Games Firestorm Armada Dindrenzi Cruisers

Battlefront Miniatures 15mm World War II German Armored Cars (SdKfz 222 and 223)