Things get Painted - Wyrd Poltergeist

OK, I'm running a bit late on this one, so I have to be quick...

TaDa! This is the Poltergeist I painted ages ago! The colour scheme was done with an eye towards matching the Sorrows I did ages ago. I also tried out at a friends suggestion the idea of doing hair like fire, which works in well with the spirit side of the model I think. Anyway! Pictures!







CMON Link for anyone interested:
Wyrd Poltergeist by Turelio
Currently sitting on:


As for the paint scheme:


White Undercoat

Body
(Airbrushed same colours as the Sorrows)
H: Sunburst Yellow and Rotting Flesh (1:1)
H: Rotting Flesh and Skull White (1:1)
H: Skull White
S: Orkhide Shade : Charadon Granite : Hawk Turquoise (1:1:1)

Eyes
Base: Hawk Turquoise
H: Skull White added for highlights
H: Skull White

Tongue
Base: Tallern Flesh
Wash: Scab Red
H: Tallarn Flesh
H: Tallarn Flesh and Skull White (1:1)

Claws
Base: Astronomican Grey
Wash: Devaln Mud
H: Skull White

Purple:
Base: Dheneb Stone: Liche Purple (3:1)
S: Dheneb Stone and Liche Purple (1:1)
S: Liche Purple and Chaos Black (2:1)
H: P3 Menoth White Highlight with small amount of Liche Purple

Hair
Base: Sunburst Yellow and Scorpion Green (1:1)
H: Drybrush - Sunburst Yellow
H: Drybrush - Sunbirst Yellow and Skull White (1:1)
H: Skull White
Wash: Snot Green
Wash: Orkhide Shade
Wash: Badab Black

Random Thought 8 - IAMA former Games Workshop employee. AMA.

I thought I would link to this article on Reddit. It's pretty long, but gives some insight into a few of GW's decisions which have seemed weird to fans in the past.

IAMA former Games Workshop employee. AMA.

Things Get Painted - Wyrd Zombie Chihuahua

I finally got pictures ready to post! Isn't it amazing! This is the Zombie Chihuahua from Wyrd. I don't play a McMourning crew, and this one is a Totem that can only be attached to him, but either way, I still wanted to paint it.

He's a bit strange in that he (Yes, it is a boy, there is a precise level of detail on these models...) is so small some details are hard to make out of the texture is skin or fur. So I chose in the end to do him with a lot of exposed skin, and went from there!









If anyone is interested in voting on CMON though, his link is here.

Currently he is sitting on

And as for the paint scheme:

White Undercoat

Flesh - Airbrush
Base: P3 Bastion Grey
H: P3 Cryx Bane Highlight
H: P3 Midlund Flesh
H: P3 Midlund Flesh and Skull White (1:1)
H: Skull White

Flesh - Brush
Wash: Midlund Flesh
S: P3 Cryx Bane Highlight
H: Skull White and Midlund Flesh (3:1)
Glaze: Warlock Purple
Glaze: Liche Purple

Hair
Base: Charadon Granite
H: Calthan Brown
H: Khemri Brown
H: Khemri Brown and Skull White (1:1)

Bone
Base: Astronomican Grey
Wash: Devlan Mud
H: Astronomican Grey and Skull White (1:1)
H: Skull White
Wash: Gryphhone Sepia

Muscles
Base: Scab Red
Wash: Devlan Mud
H: Scab Red and Fortress Grey (1:1)
H: Scab Red : Fortress Grey : Skull White (1:1:1)
Wash: Scab Red

Eyes
Base: Fortress Grey with small amount of Scab Red
H: Fortress Grey and Skull White (1:1)
Pupil: Calthan Brown and Charadon Granite (1:1)
H: Skull White

Nose/Lip
Base: Charadon Granite and Calthan Brown (1:1)
H: Charadon Granite : Calthan Brown : Fortress Grey (1:1:1)
H: Charadon Granite : Calthan Brown : Fortress Grey : Skull White (1:1:1:1)

Water Effects for gloss area
Second round of gloss on eyes with a small amount of Skull White mixed in (cataract effect)

Random Thoughts 7 - Thanks Colonel Shofer!

A friend pointed out to me today that he was looking through Colonel Shofer's blog, and noticed that he had linked to the Puppet Wars Multiplayer opening I posted yesterday!

I just wanted to say a quick thanks to Colonel Shofer, and also welcome to anyone who has found this blog through his blog!

If you'd like to look at his blog, it is located HERE!

Things Get Opened - Puppet Wars Multiplayer Expansion

Hooray! I'm back! Better late than never and so on...



This is a quick rundown of opening the multiplayer expansion for Puppet Wars. What it offers is a way to go from the two players in the main game to four, or alternatively gives you two alternate masters, and a few extra sidekicks to expand your toybox. It also provides some more counters so that should you have four people playing, you have enough counters in different colours in order to differentiate the four players workbenches ingame.



This is the way I glamorously unbox items... The back it similarly packed to a Malifaux crew box. So you get models, cards, counters, bases, and foam.



Bases. See them? Good. That's the least interesting thing aside from the foam in the box, so let's move on...



The minis! This box has two new masters (Pandora and Marcus), as well as four new sidekicks (Joss, Kade, Sebastian and Nino). So it's a boost for the four 'suited' factions, as well as providing masters to use for the same suited factions.



Out of interest, this is the comparison between the Malifaux and Puppet Wars Kade. They haven't shrunk down Kade even further. And for this, I'm very grateful.



Counters! Not much to look at, but they are necessary in an expansion letting you go from 2 to 4 players.



Cards! These are the fun bits for the models. I did find it funny that the Pandora puppet has probably just as many rules as the Malifaux one, and at the same time, still retains a similar style of play (Or motive of how she plays if you want to think of it that way). In fact, while going through the demo games of Puppet Wars, it's clear that the puppets have all retained similarities to their Malifaux counterparts. It will be interesting to see what other puppets come out in the future and how they work, especially the masters.

So that's it! Has anyone else played Puppet Wars yet, or used the expansion packs? What did you think of them?

Things Get Opened - Puppet Wars

Better late than never! I picked up Puppet Wars and the multiplayer expansion just before the end of the year, and took some unboxing photos when I first opened it up.



For now, I'm going to go through the main box, and I'll do an opening of the multiplayer expansion later on...



This is the main box. Everyone drooled over the images when they were firs released, so I'm not going to go into too much detail on it.



Opening up the box, it's pretty well arranged, the rulebook and pattern book are on top of the board, which covers up the rest of the things that go with the game.



The rulebook and pattern book. One thing I would point out is that while it may make sense to read the rulebook and then the pattern book, in this case it is probably better to read the pattern book and then the rulebook. The rulebook goes through all the main rules, but the pattern book has a few introductory games that build on the rules slowly, so it does explain the game in a few easy games that slowly grow to include the full rule set.



These are the counters. The art quality is pretty good, however the card stock is a bit thinner than I have seen in other board games. I've seen worse, however these counters are meant to be used pretty often, so I would prefer something a bit harder wearing. Having said that, I'm sure that Wyrd were half expecting people to make their own counters for things (which they have been doing), so it's probably a case of them being aware of their fan base. I would point out that the box is made of the same card stock (If you've bought their crew boxes from Malifaux, it's the same type of card) so it seems rather thin for something that will be opened and closed a lot and is pretty commonly used.



The board! Now this, I really like. Nice art and very solid. The rules have details for making your own boards with squares instead of hexes, but I honestly really like this, so I wouldn't want to try to replace it myself. I'm quite fond of it.



This is the layout of the box. It's laid out pretty well for what is packed into it, but at the same time, things are going to be taken out, built etc., so a lot of the contents probably won't be going back into the box. Having said that, it also highlights a few other games on the market that don't put much thought into how the boxes are packed.



The puppet decks. They are basically Malifaux decks with the Puppet Wars artwork on them. They've been available for a while, so I'm not going to start opening them and so on.



Minis! And... temporary tattoos? Well, there are people getting Malifaux tattoos, so they've saved people some time there if they really like the puppet head logo.



Bases. A little bag full of them. They are slightly smaller than the Malifaux bases, and can actually sit into the top of the Malifaux lipped base in case you want to use these in a game. They are slightly textured on top similar to the GW bases, so that things to be stuck on top have something to grip to.



Counters! Again, some simple counters. I've got some plans to make my own counters for impassible counters, workbenches etc. I think it's another case of them knowing that their players are most likely going to make their own counters. These ones are functional enough to use, and can keep being used, but they aren't anything that can be replaced without a huge amount of fuss.





Cards, stats, and so forth. Pretty pictures, and the best thing is that Wyrd have clearly been keeping an eye on what their customers do to the Malifaux cards, so these come as plastic cards, ready for whiteboard marking. Considering the game uses a lot of counters to start with, this has actually cut down the possible loose items floating around the table and getting confused with other things.



Finally, the miniatures! As much as I love the twisted, warped nature of these models, they're so... cute! Deranged versions of the pre-existing models from the Malifaux range, but they are also adorable in a strange way. Like a care bear covered in razor blades...





Here's a few close-ups of the two masters included; Lady Justice and Seamus. Cute little blighters :D

As for the game itself, so far I've played the first two introductory games, and I really enjoy it! It's pretty similar to Malifaux in some ways, and in others there are some variations on the mechanics so that they are familiar enough to easily remember them, but different so that they can be distinguished.

Back from Cancon with a sack of loot!

This Monday was a relaxing day for me: Since Wednesday, I have been in convention mode; running round getting stuff ready for the trip to Canberra, then helping friends out for stuff that was being taken to Cancon, and after getting back yesterday and crawling into bed around 2am, I woke up and have spent the day doing a bunch of small tasks, culminating with this blog post and a few others being prepared.

For those who haven't heard of it, Cancon is a convention held in Canberra, ACT in Australia. I went down to help some friends with a stand they were running, and also spend lots of money (In my usual "It's my first time at this con" routine). So what did I come back with? Well, this:



Want a closer look? Well, here you go! (Complete with photos of my only slightly clean rug...):



First up: Loot from Eureka! While I've been aware for the past few years that I'm able to pre-order and pick things up on the day, I tend to take my luck, and use the excuse to dig through the compartment boxes that the Eureka team bring along. There is something 'old style candy store' about it: Dig through the boxes, put the ones you want on a tray, then get the amount you owe them. This time I ended up with zombie pirates, skeleton pirates, lady pirates, mermaids, monkeys with guns, and a few others. I ended up doing two trips over the three days to get things from them.



Next up are a few books and models from one of the guys I knew there that was selling some things for some people he knew. I can't resist second hand books and grabbed a few, and also dug through a box of cheap minis there and found a few that I hadn't seen before: small female adventurer models for the archtypes - mages, dwarves, elves etc. I grabbed two different packs to have a look at and paint up at some point for fun. I also grabbed the third Dark Tower book. I haven't read the second yet, adn will get the third to match the series of covers I have, but I couldn't say no to an illustrated copy for $1!





I grabbed some Coat d'Arms paint from Olympian Games. These are the same formulation as the classic GW range, so I'm filling a few holes in my collection. I'm planning on trying these out soon and doing a write up for them on the blog to give my impressions.



While on the paint spree, I grabbed three VGC's from Hall of Heroes. I'm planning on expanding the number of paints I have this year, and considering that HoH carries the big lines, I'll be using them to enable this habit :D



At Aetherworks I grabbed a few magazines including some Game Force which are hard to come across, and a few of the Derivan Mini paints (Well, the paint aids they have in the range) that I thought I might try out at some point.



This was some of the stuff I grabbed from the Second hand stall on the last day: A few cheap old Warhammer books (For reference, I'm not getting back into the game), some Mucnhkin, and to feed my LOTR Eowyn habit, another Eowyn. I was a bit shocked to find out that one of my friends who was their found an OOP Eowyn in the same stall that I missed, but he's a better painter than me, so I know it will get a good paint job.



Mil Sims was another stop I made early on at the con, and grabbed some Munchkin things, as well as a Call of Cthulhu expansion. I like the card based games because they are easy to transport if needed (Even though my Munchkin collection is getting rather bulky).



Also feeding my collection to Munchkin and Cthulhu was Good Games. I forgot the Axe Cop version had come out, but grabbed it because I know how well the humour of the game and comic will mix. I also grabbed the Elder Sign for a lot less than I thought it would be, so that was a nice bonus!



More card games!This time from Games Paradise. I couldn't say no to more Cthulhu, a Jack the Ripper game, and more importantly, a game about throwing kittens in a blender. It's wrong, I know, but kind of wrong in the right ways...



This one was from Mind Games. When I got there it was 50% off, and after checking it wasn't a waste of time on BoardGameGeek I picked it up.



This was from another trip to the second hand stall. Retro goodness! I never thought I would see a boxed force of Eldar Epic models, and when I picked it up and found it was $6, I found the Ork one behind it. Grouped with the Man O War, these were looking to be my big wins of the trip, as I doubt I will see this kind of stuff for a while.



This one was the big win for me. Zepnix Games had some Rackham at good prices at their stall, and three packs of Pixie Tricksters! I only got one, but Pixie Tricksters are models I have been trying to get my hand son easily for the past two or three years! I found out back at the hotel that one of them was missing a hand, but I'm going to resculpt it at some point. A few ideas have already been suggested to me. Having said that, the one with the bottle is the one I really wanted, and that is a great cast, so all is good at the end of the day!



These are some Bederken models that Dave King had on hand, but weren't in blisters yet. I wanted this group mainly for the little familiar, but the other models are pretty cool as well. He had some other fun stuff there still in the green stuff phase, so I'm waiting for those to be cast up, as there are some awesome models he has handed over for casting!



Dice blanks from NASM. I've got plans for these... Yes, quite plans at the moment...



Speaking of dice, I bought two of the Cancon dice. They have dragons on them...



These were from the B24Flak stand. I hadn't seen their art before, but grabbed a T Shirt and a few art prints, including an awesome Wild Elf Mage looking character. I'd definitely like to convert and paint a miniature to look like her, but in the meantime it is incredible art, and I'm planning on getting some of his fantasy art shirts as well at some point.



And these T Shorts were from Storm Publishing. They had more Doctor Who shirts, but these were ones I really like (The Usual Suspects line up is a great idea) and I also like to Tolkien University short. I didn't notice till I got it home that there is also a nice Eye of Sauron and wing design on the back of it.



And last but not least, the Munchkin collection that accumulated this weekend. I need to get a few more games in. but luckily I know a few people that can help with that :D