December Painting Vows

The Under Empire forum does a "competition" of sorts. Well, not really a competition unless you're counting it as a competition with yourself. You make a vow of what your painting goals for the month are, and you earn points by achieving them. Now those points just translate into a ranking system on the forum with a banner to add to your signature, but it's a nice thing to really get one to think about and concentrate on painting and modelling.

So here's my vows for this month. It's the last month of the Escalation league at the GW store, so I want to try to get as much done as possible for the Painting competition at the end. I probably won't win it, but I think I could make a good showing.

Here's a pic of what I have going on so far this month:

And many, many... MANY more to go. SO if you're curious, here's my to do list for December.

Assemble:

• 1 Plague Furnace - complete!
• 14 Stormvermin - 10/14 complete
  30 Plague Monks - complete!
• 6 Slaves (6 V.V.P.s) -
• 10 DE Warlocks - 5/10 complete

Paint:

• 30 Stormvermin - 16/30 complete
• 40 Clanrats - 13/40 complete
• 10 Slaves -
• 30 Plague Monks -
• 1 Plague Furnace -
• 2 WLC (1 old 1 new) -
• BSB  -
• Warlord -
• Plague Priest -
• Rating Gun -
• Queek -

Base:

• 30 Stormvermin -
• 40 Clanrats -
• 10 Slaves -
• 30 Plague Monks -
• 1 WLC -
• 1 Plague Furnace -
• Warlock -
• BSB -
• Warlord -
• Plague Priest -
• Ratling Gun -
• Queek -

So yeah, I got my work cut out for me. Trying to keep up a pace of 5 minis a day, minimum. If I can do that, I should be able to get it all done.

Escalation League Battle Report: 1250 pts. vs. Dwarfs

 Had another League game today against Dwarfs. Need to try to get one last game in after this before the end of the month. We bump up to 2000 pts. in December. Anyway, we played a standard Battle Line game.

My list:

Escalation League Battle Report: 1250 pts. vs. Vampire Counts

First game of the November round. I was supposed to play Dwarfs, but unfortunately that game fell through, so instead I played Jose who was playing Vampire Counts. He's very new to Warhammer, just starting with this League. With the start of November our point totals have bumped up to 1250. Here's my List:

Escalation League Battle Report: 750 pts. vs. Empire

Today I played a League game vs. Empire. Here's the List break down, and remember this is still under the restriction of only core + 1 hero.

Skaven Forces
1 Warlock Engineer, lvl 2 (Warp Lightning and Crack's Call), Warp Energy Condenser, Ironcurse Icon, Dragonbane Gem
20 Stormvermin w/FC and Storm Banner + Warp Fire Thrower
30 Clanrats w/FC, Spears and shields + Poison Wind Mortar
30 Slaves w/ musician and shields
5 Giant Rats w/Packmaster

Escalation League First Game - Skaven vs. Tomb Kings, Victory!

Had my first game in the Escalation League vs. Tomb Kings and finally got to write a Battle Report for it. To recap: 750 point lists, all core with 1 Hero level character allowed. I forgot to bring something to write on, so this is from memory.

Another unit... sort of done. And matte spray woes

So I got my Clanrat unit ready for an upcoming game this Friday. I got to league standard... which is 3 color. Sort of like the old tournament standard for "painted." Primed, armor color and then fur color. I'm going to have to be satisfied with that for now since I want to try to get the final giant rats (x4) and Stormvermin (x20) primed and 3 colored before tomorrow so I can get that extra point for a "painted" army. More pics forthcoming.

I had a few fully base coated and went out to matte spray them yesterday. I thought it wasn't that humid outside, but apparently the paint thought differently... it's got that lovely haze to it now. Fortunately it's not horrible. I've had them come out worse. It's still annoying...

First Skaven Unit Complete!

Finally got my first unit of Skaven completed. This is a 30 strong unit of slaves.

The Skaven Horde!!

Forgot this in my last post. It didn't take me long to build up my Skaven Horde. This was the last photo taken of the assembly build up. At last count I had about 3500 points of Skaven without any magic items. Although I could only field about 3000 or under since a good chunk of that is tied up in Heroes and Lords.

This isn't even all of it. It grew from this point having about 2 units each of slaves and clanrats. A unit of Plague Monks. More weapon teams and Engineers. Just ignore the Necron Sentry Pylon and the Cyriss Clockwork Angels. :)

Escalation League Update and First Painted Skaven

So we finally hashed out the details of the Escalation League. We're starting at 750 points for the late Sept./Oct start. Increases to 1250 in November, and finally 2000 in December. We have to play 3 games a month with one floating game for a total of 10 games. (I can just hear my wife complaining already) We get 3 points for a win, 1 point for playing. There will be painting point as well, but that hasn't been completely determined yet. Something akin to: you get the points for showing up with the army of the current value fully painted. It's a one time bonus point for the month. So you can get it again the next month when the points value increases. The league ended up with 25 people signed up. Only armies not represented (IIRC) are Dark Elves and Beastmen. There may have been one other.

I also got my first Skaven mini base coated. Mostly because when I bought it it was already assembled and primed. It's a Warpfire Thrower. It still needs to be Quick Shaded, but I may wait on that because I need to put some more liquid greenstuff in a seam to fill it in, otherwise the Quick Shade will settle there and that would look bad. Also because I have nothing else primed yet. Still trying to figure out where to spray. I'm thinking int he down stairs bathroom attached to the room I do my mini stuff in. I can utilize the exhaust fan. I bought a spray mask as well so spraying indoors won't be too big a deal. Also, these pics were a test of a new Macro lens I got for my phone's camera.

Front rat

Back rat. Tuskgor Fur isn't too far off from the Ratskin Flesh color. :/

Warpfire tinged smoke

I did the Warpstone/fire tinged smoke by painting it white, giving it a coating of Wayfarer Green glaze, then dry brushing Abaddon Black onto it in a downward direction.

Also, I finally have my Warplightning Cannon assembled. The old school one.

Can't wait to unleash this! I need to find another of these on Ebay or something. I don't like the look of the new one that's part of the multi-part kit that can be this or a Plague Claw catapult.

Escalation League Build Up: Skaven

As I mentioned in my last post, I am joining an Escalation League at my local Games Worshop store. The deadline for sign up is this weekend, and the rules haven't been hammered out yet. Oh, and I am doing Skaven. So, since my daughter is sick and can't go in to daycare today, I found myself with some time to start putting together models. These are all from my old 6th edition army box I bought when they re-released Skaven for 6th. The models are different than how they model them now (I like the newer incarnation better, but since I already have these). I spent time cleaning up the mold spurs and flash and got them based and put together. Here's what I got so far.

2 Ratling Gun teams

Warlock Engineer

3/12 Storm Vermin

Warplock Jezzail Team. I have one more but have yet to assemble it.

10 Plague Monks

I have other stuff too I have yet to assemble. I have a box of 20 Night Runners which I may see if I can't make them into Gutter Runners. I have a Doomwheel (new plastic version), Warplightning Cannon (metal version), the exclusive Battle Standard Bearer from the box set (partially assembled), a Warlord, another Engineer, a Grey Seer, and I have two boxes of Clanrats. I also have a bunch of stuff from the Island of Blood box set that I split with a friend. So that added a Poison Wind Mortar team, a Warpfire Thrower, yet another Engineer, another Warlord, and about 40 more Clanrats. I also picked up two boxes of Night Goblins to use as Skavenslaves since I will be modelling them as Clan Mors who fight Night Goblins a lot and take them as slaves.

More updates to come. And once the league starts, I plan on posting Battle Reports.

WHFB Escalation League

I signed up to do an Escalation League at my local Games Workshop store. For those not familiar with it, an Escalation League is where you start small -- typically around 500-750 points -- then you add on to it by a set amount every month or so. It's a great way to start a new army, so typically that's what you do. So, I will be starting Skaven. I still have my box set from 6th edition so I have plenty of minis to start. I will report on how it goes. The details haven't been hammered out yet.