Khador Manhunter Solo

I finished a Khador Manhunter Solo the other day:

...this was probably one of the first models I bought beyond the battlebox because it's a highly recommended addition to a Khador army, but it's been unfinished forever - because the *&%#@ arms kept breaking off.  Every. Time, I. Turned. Around.  Every time I opened my bag the GD arms would be broken off.  I finally scraped & drilled the sockets, stuck them on with Super Glue and Green Stuff, and have resolved to throw it in the ocean if they break off again.

Painting was pretty unremarkable, except I came across a bottle of Reaper Flesh Wash in my newly-filled dropper tray while I was working on it - I have no idea where it came from, as I didn't buy it, and don't remember getting it as a sample in a swag bag.  I was even hesitant to try it, as it looks VERY purple right out of the bottle - but I wasn't really happy with how the skin tone was coming out on this model, so I thought I'd give it a shot.  I was really pleased!  It's much more natural looking when it dries than GW's Baal Red wash or the Army Painter red ink that I've been using lately.

Khador: Vladimir Tzepesci, The Dark Prince

Another model I finished recently:

This is Vladimir Tzepesci, The Dark Prince.  I originally started this model quite a while ago, but it wasn't holding my interest, so it got thrown in my bag.  I dug it out recently because I've resolved to finish all my partially completed/needs repaired/etc Warmachine models before moving on to new ones, and I sat and sat and tried to come up with a novel technique or conversion for this one... turns out, it's just not a very interesting model.  Really.  He has some neat abilities that I want to try out, but as far as the model goes it's just not terribly compelling.  So, I just finished 'em off and ran with it...

Khador: Battle Mechaniks

Hey, look at me - I actually painted a unit for the first time in over a year!

These are the Khador Battle Mechaniks that lars4life got me as a birthday gift... two years ago, I think?  They've been primed and knocking around in my bag since then.  While we were at Adepticon we decided to go downstairs one night and make use of the open hobby area, and next thing I know they were 90% done - a few touch ups, some clearcoat & basing and they're done!  Cetainly not my best work, but not bad for shaking off the rust...

Building the Colossal

So, I spent the first part of the year trying to get my hands on a Khador Conquest - My FLGS had one, but I never seemed to have the extra cash in the budget, and I went to both Adepticon & Origins with the colossal at the top of my shopping list and cash in pocket, but none of the vendors had one.  I finally resolved that it was going to be my "must-have" purchase at GenCon - but a couple of weeks before we left, I happened to find a seller on eBay that had the model for $20 less than my FLGS (which is usually 10-15% cheaper that MSRP).  As much as I love to support my local shop and the vendors at the cons, It's hard to pass up saving forty bucks on a model that's this expensive.  I ordered the model and got to assembling it shortly after we got back from GenCon.

My first order of business was to thoroughly clean ALL the mold lines, flash, etc., from every piece of the model - I had spent a lot of time lusting after this model, and a lot of money; I was damn sure going to build it to the best of my abilities.

Initially, I was impressed with how little work the three main body pieces needed - unfortunately, this trend did not continue:

It was a really poor choice to put the mold vents on a perfectly round area

The wide, flat expanses were the worst - some entire sections needed a skim coating of putty, which was sanded flush after curing to make it flat.  Liquid Green Stuff made this job a lot easier.

It was hard to tell if the leg joints were supposed to be flat, or the offsets were intentional - either way, they didn't work.  The whole area needed to be reshaped

Air bubbles on the shoulder needed to be filled

Lots of flash on the feet / rear legs.  Surprisingly, the metal parts of this kit were overall easier to work with than the plastic pieces

I actually ran out of heavy-gauge brass rod while building this model, and paperclips weren't gonna do the trick - to improvise, I sawed the heads off of some machine screws. 

This actually worked quite well, and was extremely sturdy!

After the legs fell apart for the third time, I added one of the machine-screw pins there, too

\

The legs falling apart required a lot of removal / re-shaping of the green stuff work I did previously.  The Testor's Sanding Films were a lifesaver here

Cutting the cork for the base - I had to dig out a big sheet of cork from my supplies for this project

Base layer glued down

Cutting smaller "rock ledges" to allow me to pose the legs more dynamically

Mostly finished base

Ready for primer

...needless to say, the kit was a bear to put together & finish to a decent standard.  I've never really worked with a 28mm model this big before.  I've heard that the Forge World Titans can be a huge pain to build, but I've mostly heard people attribute that to the age of the molds - Privateer Press really can't use that excuse.  I have some (albeit very basic) experience with casting, and even to a rank amateur like me, some of their choices on where they placed the mold vents puzzled me.  Also, this particular model could have used a bit more detail with the instructions than the included 4"x5" diagram - I built the arms wrong THREE FREAKIN' TIMES until I finally figured it out (the "collars" that the hands attach to are fairly plain, but have to be attached in a particular direction for the arm shields to attach properly).  Soon, I'll be painting this model using some techniques I've never tried before - check back soon!

Priming Over Magnets

In my previous post, I had pics of how I added magnets to the Khador Heavy Warjack kit.  Next, I had to find a way to primer the model without completely covering the magnets - while they are neodymium magnets and are very powerful, they're small, and a few coats of primer / paint / clearcoat over them will greatly diminish their effectiveness.

Luckily, I found a solution in the toy section of my local drugstore:

Silly Putty!  (Note: in the past, I've had good results using poster tack, but the store actually didn't have any.  I've also bought Silly Putty at the dollar store before, so it might be cheaper if you want to stockpile it).

I probably don't need to explain the concept too deeply: you pull off tiny bits of the Silly Putty (work it for a bit to get it soft) and press it over the magnets:

After that, you can prime the model as usual:

After the primer dries, you can pick off the Silly Putty:

After the primer had dried, I roughed in my basecoat color (Vallejo Model Air Fire Red) around the magnets:

Since I plan to paint the model using zenital airbrushing, I'll have to paint the model with the magnetized bits attached - to make this easier, I went ahead and basecoated the backsides of the magentized bits:

Since I was using the Model Air paints, it took 3 or 4 coast to get adequate coverage with a brush.

Next, I gave the backs of the pieces a coat of brush-on Citadel 'Ardcoat:

...I wish the reason for this was some cool technical tip, but the truth of the matter is that I needed to transport the model unassembled, and I wanted to protect the pieces from getting chipped up in the box:

...the backs will be sprayed with matte varnish once finished.  The process of covering the magnets with Silly Putty will be repeated when the model is airbrushed.

Magnetizing the Khador Heavy Warjack Kit

...a while ago I bought the Khador Heavy Warjack kit - This is a single kit that allows you to build a Demolisher, Devastator, or a Spriggan. I didn't want to limit myself, so I decided to magnetize the interchangeable components, so I could use whichever one I wanted.  As this was the first model I've built in a loooong time, I was a bit rusty, and it took me a while - I didn't document the entire process, but here's the highlights:

The interchangeable parts for the warjack are the weapon arms, shoulder pads, heads, and the armored shroud covering the head.  The basic process for all the bits is the same - drill a hole slightly bigger than the magnet as deep as possible in each side, fill the hole with a tiny bit of superglue and Green Stuff, press the magnets into the hole, and remove the excess.  You have to make sure the poles of the magnets are aligned properly.

Magnetizing the shoulder pad

The middle part of the arms of this model were really weak and kept flexing - I built them up with several layers of Citadel's Liquid Green Stuff, and will file them into shape when it cures.

Magnetizing the front carapace

Filing excess Green Stuff after it has cured

Drilled out the barrels of the cannons on the Spriggan shouldpads

Mostly finished.  Since the head is almost completely concealed by the armored carapace, I opted to just use a single head, since magnetizing it would be awfully fidgety, and they're so small that they'd be waaay too easy to lose

...and that's about it for the build.  Next I have to find a way to prime it without covering up the magnets...

Ten Years Gone

As I mentioned earlier, I had very little spending money during our trip to GenCon this year, and I wound up not even going into the dealer's room.  It was a bit of a bummer not coming home with any swag, but a few days after I got back this arrived:

...that softened the blow a little.  More details as work progresses...

League Night #3

The Privateer Press Machinations League rolls on - I missed week #2, and week #3 didn't look promising when I pulled in to the game store - it appeared to be deserted when I pulled in (I'm guessing because of the terrible heat wave we're having here, and the A/C in the game store isn't fantastic).  Luckily after a bit some people started showing up, and Funderhammer and I decided to play a 25-point game (with league play, you get more points for playing a new opponent, playing a new faction, playing at a point level you haven't played at yet, etc).  It had actually been quite a while since we had played each other, and I had a few new models I wanted to try (my Torch warjack and my Great Bears).

Picking a list

Setting Up

Overall, it was a fun game - ironically, I picked almost all of my ranged units in my Khador force, while Funderhammer picked an almost entirely melee Retribution list.  The aforementioned Great Bears charged into combat and were quickly outnumbered:

Lonely Great Bear is Lonely

Surprisingly one model survived the first round of combat, and went on to take out two of the opposing unit before being wiped out.

Happily the Torch did great - after getting locked up in melee the entire game the last time I tried to use him, he got to do everything I wanted him to this time.  In the end it came down to whether I wanted to run The Butcher in for an assassination run on his caster, or try to get his caster with the Torch's spray template.  The Butcher was getting dinged by feedback every round, so I took the free strikes and was able to get his caster under my template - with The Butcher's feat and a focus boost, Torch did D4 damage and came away with the win! 

Great Bears of Gallowswood

Finished Painting my Great Bears of Gallowswood that Funderhammer got me as a birthday gift at Adepticon this year:

These are the first mini's I've painted in a loooong time - well over a year at least.  (Well, actually, they're not the first, but the other one came out so bad I'm ashamed to post it here).  These are the first ones where I felt like I was started to get some of my chops back, anyway.  Looking forward  to using them in a game...

League Night

...so lars4life is the Pressganger at our local game store, and has been running events for a while - I've been meaning to get to some of them, but my graveyard-shift job makes it difficult.  I decided to wake up early and try playing in the Machinations: Entropy league.

After meeting everyone, a player named Matt asked if I wanted to get in a game. I warned him that I hadn't played much, as I was primarily in it for the painting & modelling - if he was willing to put up with me stumbling through the rules, I'd be happy to play.  It turns out that he was playing a new army for the first time, so he didn't mind.  After setting up terrain, we got down to it.

Matt was playing a Cryx army - I used my typical strategy of running everything across the board, since Khador is slow as molasses.  There were some weird lanes to be dealt with and a lot of back-and-forth - the Cryx were pretty fragile until Matt popped his feat - then they got downright nasty.  This was the first time I had tried to play with my Torch warjack, but Matt tied it up with Death Chill, so it didn't get to do much of anything.  My Gun Carriage was effective, but I actually overshot most of his army and he moved them down the left flank behind cover, out of harm's way.  In the end, all I had left was The Butcher, but I had his caster down to one point. In the end, I just couldn't get close enough for an assassination run, since my caster was stuck in melee across the board.  (I probably popped my feat a round too soon - The Butcher is tough-as-nails, but I still get nervous when he's in melee).  The few troops he had left chipped away at him until he was dead.  Overall, I had a good time - Matt was nice enough to put up with my weak grasp of the rules (I'm sure he could have taken me apart in short order if he felt like it) and in the end, he said he didn't really notice any big errors in strategy on my part, which was good to hear. I'll be back for more next week...

Great Bears of Gallowswood

I finished building the Great Bears of Gallowswood that Funderhammer got me for my birthday at Adepticon this year:

(Note: those axes are stoopid and fidgety, and I hate them).  Looking forward to trying this unit - Funderhammer seems to think they will address some gaps in my Khador force, and he's the one that's going to be facing them 90% of the time, so we'll see if he's right...

New Khador Warjack: Torch

I bought a Torch Warjack ages ago, and he's been sitting in my bag half built forever - I finally got him built & primed:

In the process of painting him now - I'm really looking forward to playing with him, as I think the ranged attacks / ongoing damage could fill some gaps in my Khador force...

Old Witch of Khador & Scrapjack

...so I celebrated my return from Adepticon 2013 by building a model I got at Adepticon 2012 - the Old Witch of Khador & Scrapjack:

I really like these models fluff-wise & aesthetically, but the sculpts are shamefully bad - I know this isn't really a hugely popular caster choice for Khador, but Privateer Press should make re-releasing this model in plastic a priority ASAP.  You pretty much have to sculpt the entire back of the Old Witch freehand to have a usable model, and there is literally no way to pin the legs on the Scrapjack to give it any structural integrity - I had to sculpt "bands" around the knee joints out of Green Stuff (I gave them the impressions of rivets using a pen barrel) to hopefully help them hold together.  This was my first attempt at a significant amount of freehand sculpting / gap filling in quite a while, though, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out...

A Winner Is You!

...you might remember my Karchev the Terrible warcaster model, which I built & painted using some cinematic effects from Armorcast:

...well, I'm happy to report that the model won first place in the "Vehicle or Monster" category in Armorcast's first annual cinematic effects contest!  Much thanks to sponsors Armorcast & Battlefoam for putting on this contest!

Winter Guard Mortar Crew - Painted

I finished a Winter Guard Mortar Crew the other day:

...as I said in the post about my Winter Guard Infantry, the reds don't look as intense in person as in the photo.  I'm pretty pleased with how the wood grain & the metallics came out on these models.  This unit has proven to be invaluable in games, I'm working on another one right now...