Road trip

                   
          Historicon! This is my first time back to Historicon since it changed locations. The increased travel distance has put me off. I never looked forward to going. It is 8hrs without traffic to Fredericksburg,VA. And I have to drive complete through NJ. The drive will blow.
         This time is different, work sucks. I can not wait to go. I am leaving as soon as I can on Wednesday.          

          Poor me, with no friends or family near by I actually have to stay in a hotel. The convention center wanted 150 a night. I am one exit north for 45 a night at the Days Inn. I am not worried about parking as I run early every morning. Most will be scratching their way to the shower and I will be on site, two Dews into the day.

Humidity, matt spray sealer, and the save!

          It has been raining and above normal temperatures for weeks and weeks. My last go around ruined, ruined all my hard work. Not so much hard work, but I pissed away what little time I do get to paint. End results; the primer got tossed and the models well. This is where Jimmy from Taccom saved the day. He gave me the gloss trick.  Zero to Hero!



          Why force the issue. I am crazy and there is nothing to lose. On to Jimmy's trick. If your seal turns to fog or white all over your model. Let it dry out good. Then hit it with gloss vanish. Magically it returns to normal looking. No shit! I am totally stunned.
         I used Testors pro gloss and GW matt afterwards.

          Before;                                               

          After:

           My yellows toned down and the gunmetal looks crappy. One or two quick highlights, then I should be good to go.

Blood Angels tanks pre

Blood Angels tanks post

Red Scorpion tanks post

Trying my luck with humidity

          I was crazy that nothing was getting finish and packed away. I tried to seal some BAs with matte spray. One side of the mini looks great, the other looks as if I used white primer. You can see how truly bad it is on the Stormraven's clear flight stand.

          I will try to save most of them. The predator need to be stripped. Yep, you big dummy. Rework blows!

 jimmyzimms from Taccom to save the day!!!!!
Regarding your fun with the matt varnish: have you tried the gloss coat trick on them yet? It usually does the trick. It'd suck to see that Flying Lunchbox have to get a dip in the stripper.
Basically you usually can spray the model with the cloudy matt varnish with a really good quality gloss varnish and let it dry dry dry. Then you should be able to wait for a not humid day and repspray with matt. Most of the time the cloudiness will go away. Not guaranteed fix but works more times than not. Also the gloss is better at protecting your paint job so there's that bonus

War Hound Titans II

          The 3rd ed hound will be painted in 4 stages. The base and legs, the body, head, and lastly the weapons. The spotted armor plates are going to be a challenge. I started with a field blue base coat, 2nd coat had white added, and this was followed by a med grey wash.
         Next came the spots, same white. The first round of spots were too few and far apart. After studying the pictures, the number of spot were tripled. Also my spots were smaller. Ah whatever.  Then a wash of the med grey with the field blue mixed in.

         The head base coat was GW foundation yellow. The eyes are blue now, but I think I will redo them red

      

         The 1st ed hound is more grey than blue. I have worked on the base a little and block in the base colors.

20mm MMGs

       Once again I am all over the place painting. It is not my A.D.D. The weather, just will not stop raining. Every day rain and very high humidity. I can not prime or seal anything. As I finish this stuff it sits waiting on my wife's cookie sheets. ( She don't know I took them, yet)


       On to 20mm. They were started long ago and sat there taking up space. Plus they were primed! I can't remember who made them. Afghans with MMGs.

         Just behind them sit the first round of zombies. These were an easy lot. Army painter plague spray, a purple wash, and a army painter strong tone wash. Next I will dry brush rotten flesh and pick out their clothing. Easy, easy!

War Hound Titan

          I have had this hound laying around for a long time. With the up coming re-release of his big brother, Reaver,  I am finally getting around to working on him. The hound is a good casting, lots of detail. The interior is completely kitted out. Too sad for it is a gaming piece for me and not a showcase model.

         These titans will be painted in the Legio Gryphonicus winter scheme.

Standard colors

Winter Sheme

Old School

          This titan is fast and prowls the battlefield. To get this look the legs have been pinned straight through to aid in the proper positioning of the feet and hips. I will be pinning the upper body also.

          Here he sits primed white with the head and carapace glued on.

         For lost glories and missed sales I GW 1st ed War hound will be painted up a long side. I got this hound from a collection bought last year. He was assembled and primed. I just stuck him down on a base.

Returning from Vacation

         Going back to work blows. Coming back and dropping into an Epic tourney and with Historicon around the corner has me twisted. I want to finish the M&T, but there Epic bits floating about and Romans that came while I was gone.

         I am starting with the Epic stuff to fill the gap between the tourneys and cons. My Blood Angles' army had holes in it. I bummed the missing units from another army. A yellow marine army. I plowed through the boxes of epic lead. 2 razorbacks, 2 hunters, and a detachment of dev. In my searching I found a detachment of death company half finished.
          The BAs army is half matte sealed and half not. Once the rain stops and the humidity drops the whole lot is getting sealed again.

         Also I noticed that my terrain started to show wear. Some of the building are chipping. After the repairs are made, this time I am going to coat them in a clear poly. The poly is tough and provides a great protection barrier to the paint jobs.
         The weather is messing with me. Our humidity is crazy high. I am unwilling to spray now. Humidity does bad, bad things to primer and matte sprays.

 

 I very broke friend wants me to paint up his army. I said I would do it for free, but he is stubborn and must pay me. His Red Scorpions are getting some attention here and there.

Epic Armageddon City Table

          I think it is everyone's dream to have an Epic city table. Mine too, and like most I have failed to create anything remotely cool and useful. Before there was never a plan or layout, just random projects here and there slapped together. Now there is a plan!
          Today the dream starts, 08 JULY 2013. How long it will take? Will I ever finish the table? There is a tag created to track my efforts.

          I searched for others examples. Because why reinvent the wheel! Hopefully I could learn from their mistakes and great ideas.

          I have seen this dude GW realm of battle table. It is sweet, but gives me the feel of a small town. One main street and a few side streets doesn't reflect an urban conflict. You could move clean across it in a turn. Also there are unblocked LOS throughout. His roads just end. I understand why, but when the sections are combined it looks funny. 
         (His road sections were saved from a past table that was more city like.) I have 14 sets of the FW roads. I will need to make molds of road section.

          The rest of what I saw looked like 40K tables. Huge over sized roads and very few buildings.

         After buying up epic collections and the forumware that is being produced, I now have the resources and materials to make something truly Epic. My plan is for an 8' by 6' table in 24" squares. The entire thing will be covered from edge to edge with roads, parks, and buildings. My focal point will be right down the center  FW church, a reflecting pool, and a large building made from Gamecraft's line. Behind the church will sit the residential area, and to the sides government buildings. From the Gamecraft building the city will creep into an industrial area.

         The first tile up is the Church. It will sit on a hill or raised area. Something like the acropolis in Athens.

PEAT III Tounament results

          The Pennsylvania Epic Armageddon Tournament III was held at at Dragonhead Distributors Hobby Shop. Dragonhead  Good location, right off the highway. ( with that said it is a bitch to find. Drive in to the parking lot and head for the train display. Second building on the left. They are the first door on the left.)
          Huge massive playing space. Big plus it has AC! They have everything but not much of it. Also they sell new and used items. I got two used books in VG for next to nothing. Another player picked up hero quest in like new condition.
          The owners are very supportive and flexible. They opened early and closed late for us. They also advertised the event somewhat. These are some things owners in the past, in my experience, have been complete cocks about.
           Down side, there is no good place to eat or get drinks. 5 minutes away is a CVS. You have to leave site. Also it is a no beer playing store.

           My PEAT III list was built on basically two tactics. One Scipio's stacked flank march, and Hannibal's refuse the center.  This is very abstract for epic. My bikes, speeders were to act as cavalry and the scouts and pelests. The phal to be my dev and tacs. The elephants the two war hounds. 

           Game one was with Chris. He had a Lamentors list with lighting air cover. Sweet army with crazy free hand details throughout. I lost, squarely beaten. I did learn 3 things. One I should have stuck to my original per deployment notes. Shifting a tactical det to the center caused my right flank to collapse faster. Two I did not follow my game plan, I reacted. Three, and best of all Chris gave me a first hand lesson in bike tactics.
           The refuse center tactic is heavily dependent on the other guys deployment. What they bring does not matter so much. Because of this, the list would need to an additional scout unit and then you would have to pray those scouts sucked the other guy in. I am shelving this one for now.

          Game two was with Matt. He played plague marines with air cover. A visually stunning army. I won. The win truly belongs to Chris. As I applied my bike usage lesson for a turn 2 surrender. My dice were stupid hot and Matt had a bit of shitty luck with his termies. Lots of credit to Matt. After the termies bit it and his left flank crushed, he mounted a extremely well put together blitz up my left flank. Only a terrain choke point grinded his efforts enough to let me refocus and shift assets.
         Again I ran my refuse center tactic. Matt was more then nice to deep strike and summon on my center. This was not a very good test of the tactic either.

          Game three was with Ron. He played sisters with 2 SHTs. An army he knew very well. I lost this too. It was a great game with the win swing back and forth with each activation. 
          In this game I ran Scipio's stacked right flank assault. At the end of turn one, Ron was in for a beat down. Two units in the foam and 3 more at half strength. He rallied, stopped me cold. My left was holding but no threat. The center gone, and the right was my wheat field. The dice went cold. Unit after unit was cut down. I made no saves, hit nothing, and fail every combat res.
          The end saw two super heavies were eliminating my left, the right had 4 of his units broken with two fresh units just off "center right" in sole control of the center and the right. Everything on my right was broken or dead. I surrendered end of turn two. 


          This was the first sisters army I have played against.The sister's list use a faith roll. You pass on anything but a 1 and become invulnerable. If you fail, -1 to your activation roll. I don't know if it did anything but smelled like cheese and was hard to keep track of. It slowed the game down and quickly became an action Ron was taking that I stop paying attention to.

          I believe if the dice were just average, not hot, Scipio's stack right flank tactic would have won the game. It will be very interesting to see if I can get the same result next time I try it.

W 1 L 2 D 0

Some interesting conversions;

Dark Eldar

Hunter

Greater Deamon of Nurgle