More Malifaux figures

Well this week I have mostly been painting my kitchen and looking at my much delayed but very exciting Kickstarter goodies - more on those in some future posts hopefully.  A heads up that my genestealer giveaway ends tomorrow - I am finding I literally can't give them away currently.

Rather than let the weekend pass without a post, here's some Malifaux figures I've finished this year and not posted for one reason or another.

First up is a warden I painted for Ian at my local gaming club.  He was kind enough to let me have his Shang figure so I offered to fix the warden up and paint it (it was missing a claw).  I've used my snow base technique here, without the snow that is.

Next its a couple of Waldgeists.  These beasties featured in my brawl blog the other week for the first time and I thought I'd show them in a bit more detail.  I've used the Fenris games woodland bases here, extras from my gatorman squad.  These are a very recent purchase - with the immenent release of Malifaux version 2.0 I discovered they are useful to a Zoraida crew in the new version and I like the current models.  If the new plastic versions are good too, well they fit into at least 3 crews I have (Zoraida, Lillith and Marcus) so it wont hurt to have some variety!

This ugly critter is an Insidious Madness.  Its usable by both my Zoraida and Kirai crew, but I haven't actually put it on the table yet.  Clearly inspired by Lovecraftian themes, I added an interesting bit of freehand to the base :)

These dapper looking ne'er-do-wells are my Wastrels from my long time in progress Lucas McCabe crew. Again using my snow basing technique (plus a few cacti), all of my Guild models will be based on slate (cork) to tie them together visually.  These are the only other plastic Wyrd figures I have completed so far aside from Yin. I did manage to undercoat these without losing any detail but I have to say they are a challenge to paint with the sculpted details being so fine.  I hope I get better at completing them, although I hear the later releases are improving in terms of both the detail and not using such tiny components separately (the bowler hat for example).

Malifaux Brawls

This weekend I ran an event at 7th Heaven Gamers focusing on larger scales Malifaux games.  The event was called the "Masquerade Brawl" as a knowing wink to the larger games being called Brawls and many of the players at the liking a bit of a dress up.  In all the excitement I didn't get photos of people in their assorted masks (Ian was in a Lucius mask and wig at one point) and in one case full steampunk cos-play (Emily was a heroine in the heat yesterday!).

Brawls are games where 2 masters can be used and typically larger amount of soulstones are available to hire crews.  We decided on 50 soul stones and below you can see the crews that turned up.

This is Mark's exceptional Arcanist crew.  This is more than 50ss but its all the figures he could potentially use during the game due to powerful abilities that allowed models to be summoned, combined or powered up into Avatar form.

Of particular note is the wonderful Avatar Hoffman model Mark has recently completed.

Described by Mark as a robot-dragon-spider he was very keen to get to use this guy in the game.

 Mark's opponent was Matt C using a combined Misaki and Yan-Lo crew, as Ten-Thunders.

Here's the Torakage Matt's been working on, its looking really nice.

On to the next table we had Emily's Jacob crew, playing as Ten Thunders.  He was joined at the last minute by Misaki (not shown here).  This represents all of Emily's painted figures, but the Thunder will be adding choice soon I'm told.

 Emily's opponent was Andy using Guild, with Peridta and Lucas joining forces to round up some varmits.

This is Jen's crew of Ten Thunders (clearly a popular choice!) again Misaki turning up, this time only 1 master but Von Schill was hired to help out.  The Freikorps are actually Simon's but its all a cunning plan to combine collections to give the most choice I'm told.

Here's my crew - Neverborn lead by Zoraida with Lilith turning up to help.  Most of these figs have been shown on the blog before, but the Waldgeists are new and finished, whereas Lilith and Zoraida's avatar are WIP.  I got to play as it wasn't a tournament with time limits, poor Jen had to put up with me answering rule queries but we did get a solid 3 turns in.

The final game going on saw a huge crew lead by Lucius and Lucas taking the the field as Guild controlled by Ian.

Facing them would be Matt K with his Arcanists, Mei-Feng, Rasputina and Kaeris (as a henchman) all turning up for a crew that was very polarised with extremely powerful models and really weak gamin and totem.

I wanted to show the epic table that Ian and Matt K were playing on, Rob spent 2 days making this Terra-clips masterpiece, its a great showcase for the game.  Featuring 2 levels of streets over about half the table and several multi-story buildings it has lots of interesting locations to play over and a nice water fountain feature provided by local game designer Tarran.

Here's another shot as the game kicked off - you can see it fits nicely on a 4'x4' table as Malifaux is played on a 3'x3' area, leaving space for cards, rules, counters etc. around the edge.

The final shot from the day highlights Mark having a ball with all the large models he could possibly get on the table.  Both Ramos and Hoffman have manifested as Avatars here, the Cophee Duet have combined, a peacekeeper is pitching in and, not to be left out, Matt C threw Izamu the Armour in for good measure.  Despite how it looks, Hoffman died shortly afterwards as Misaki is a beast in melee.

My oft hinted at competition is almost ready to be unveiled - I just need the weather to cool down long enough to complete a few things.  If you want in, please subscribe!

Twisted Allegiances : Malifaux Tournament

Last weekend I ran my second Mailfaux Tournament - another multiplayer extravaganza!

After the first event earlier this year the feedback was generally "more of the same" so I looked into what I could do.  Some lessons learnt from the first time round was to be more prepared and to remind people to turn up promptly!

With this in mind I worked with Rob, the shop manager to ensure we had all the schemes and strategies printed out and protected to give out to all the players as packs as they arrived.  I had registration sorted out using the store PC and I made sure I took photos of all the crews entering the painting this time around.

I arranged a few votes to determine some of the details of the event and one of the changes this time was to try out a few story encounters.  These took a fair bit of play testing and while the first encounter seemed reasonably well rounded, the second was problematic and on the day proved tough make much progress with in the short space of time we had available.  The details of the full event pack are here.

Anyway on to the eye candy.  Here's all the crews that entered the painted competition.  A huge thanks here to the sheer number of new players and crews that turned up as well as the longer in the tooth players (and their crews) who constantly support these events and games we arrange.

Molly's crew by Si - I love Molly and the crooligans here especially

Von Schill's crew by Big Simon, bought and painted in the last couple of months - the Orian mere hours since the paint dried!

Jacob's crew by Emily, painted in what I am calling a canvas style,
really interesting and striking effect, even more so in person

Jacob's crew by Steve, my old mate.  Recently returned to gaming and painting,
he's adding more detail to these as he gets chance

Zoraida's crew by Jason - its all frogs here with a really nice shared  palette
and great bases to bring the models together

Nicodeem by Matthew, an interesting mix of book 1 and 4 models
overshadowed by the huge and grim Killjoy

Perdita's crew by Andy - the selection grows as Andy leaves no
corner of the guild unexplored for recruits
(he married the proxy into the family in one game)

Finally we have our winner, Rob's Leviticus crew.
We have a rule at 7th Heaven - you can keep entering a crew  until you win -
Rob was narrowly pipped last event, but now he'll have to paint something new!

One thing I did forget to do was take shots of all the tables, I had spent a fair bit of time constructing a pile of terraclips buildings to help on the day.  Before the event started Rob, Steve and I built 5 tables in readiness, you can see hints of them in the crew shots above and there's a few shots I've stolen from Matt below of some games in progress.

Battle at the farm!  The noobies take on Rob - Rob suffers!

Its Jacob and Jacob vs Lucius and Mei Feng - my Oogie Boogie guest starring here.

A streets of Malifaux table - very pleased with this board.   The Tazos are markers!

So the day went really well, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, although once again time was the enemy. I'll have to consider how the sort this out for the next event, we'll certainly be doing more before Malifaux 2.0 hits officially.

The overall placings then were:

Best Painting: Rob
Best Sportsman: Jason
3rd Place: Jen (very narrowly pipping Ian on a technicality)
2nd Place: Matthew - for the second time just missing the top spot and...

1st Place: Big Simon - a stunning first place with a clear 2 point lead.  Newly into the game Simon is crushing his foes with the combination of Hulk Hogan moustache and giant leaping Iron Man suit.

Back to bases

Another week gone by and more hobby goings on to report.  I'm currently planning for my next Malifaux tournament  so if you can make that you'd be more than welcome.

I've been working on basing (or re-basing in some cases) my miniatures in better ways since taking up small scale skirmish games.  For Malifaux in particular I am picking up minis from the various factions and its an opportunity to use different themes.

This lady is a gunslinger from the Iron Kingdoms range that Privateer Press supports alongside its RPG.  A couple of months ago I took part in a short campaign and this was my character.  Long term she's going to appear as a Gunsmith in Malifaux which means she's an Arcanist.  I had an idea in my head that I wanted really steampunk bases for any Arcanist figures I get, so I was looking for something special.

Fortunately I found Foundations of War on ebay and they had a range of resin bases that matched what I had in mind.  Using pieces of clockwork watches they've made some great looking bases.  Hopefully you can see from these varied shots how great the detail has come through.

 In case anyone is counting, that's 4 guns shes got :)

This next chappy is the Arcane Effigy from Malifaux.  I've used him in my Zoraida crew (as is her want) to boost the amount of cards and spells the hag gets - especially useful if you are planning to 'Avatar up' during a game.

This little chap is attached to his based by a pole of metal and it looked a bit naff frankly.  This clockwork base was perfect to re-base him onto with the raised central shaft from the cog.  I still have 3 more bases from the set, one is already painted and I have a figure in mind to mount on it, so in time that will appear on here.

These tiny chaps (sorry they are a bit blurry - its because they are so small!) are Malifaux piglets but I am using them collectively as the Lost Love(s) for my Kirai crew.  As I have used a Spirited Away theme for that crew, following the film's story her parents have been enchanted and turned into pigs.  So while not physically lost, they are spiritually.  I've swirled up a bit of wood filler on this base and painted it as mud - seems to fit them nicely.

Finally a bit of a WIP on my Gatormen posse.  I painted the minis a while ago, but my Minion army for Warma-Hordes still isn't based properly.  I picked up some woodland path bases from Fenris Games of various sizes and am working my way through the army.  This one has a nice little stream sculpted into it which I've added water effect too.

Yin the Penangalan - weekend painting challenge

Quick post this weekend.  On passing through my game shop on Friday I couldn't resist picking up Yin, the Penangalan for my Kirai crew (Malifaux again!).  I've been working on a lot of hobby projects that trickle on for weeks if not months, so I thought I would buy a fresh mini and get it finished in a weekend as a challenge.

Here's the box artwork - Yin's an unpleasant looking character and I thought would be a fun mini to paint.  Lets see how the art translated to figure.

 

Here's the completed figure.  I must confess after undercoating I was worried I'd lost a lot of the detail, I didn't look at the figure too closely before spraying and things looked very smooth while the paint was wet!  I think it dried largely alright, however I have noticed that the Malifaux plastic miniatures in general have very light/fine detail so I may have to be more careful in undercoating in future, one of my wastrels has a very vague face at the moment!

Yin is based on an Asian folklore monster, a sort of vampire.  Essentially the head and organs of the creature are mobile and the body is left behind.  This means painting all manner of gore, organs and mucus - a lot of fun experimenting here!  I've used some water effect to make drippy bits of gore hang off the model, gloss paint to make areas shiny and a lot of different ink mixes to get assorted shades of blood.  My favourite combination here was using the old GW Dwarf flesh with a red wash over it to get the wormy body colour with muscle tone - very simple and I think very striking.

Oddly I went for a completely new base style on Yin.  I had the idea that the trail of gore she'd leave behind would really have an impact on a more conventionally setting.  The black and white tiles of a traditional kitchen for some reason jumped into my head so that was my challenge.  Using some plasti-card I got very carried away making little tiles.  I even broke one just because.  Once neatly painted and with Yin in position, I had to carefully apply pools of gore where I felt they may have splattered - above you can see a small pool growing the from the drip on one of her coils.  There's also a large amount of gore where she slithered into position, much like a worm trail.

Unexpected Agendas Tournament

After an exciting and fun filled day, here's my write up of the Unexpected Agendas tournament that ran on 02/03/2013 at the 7th Heaven Games Shop.

The tournament was based on encounter driven multi player games, which mean each table had a strong theme.  So on a busy Friday night of roleplaying, I snuck into the shop to set up the tables the night before with Rob's help.

Seamus's evil plans are on display for all to see on the Badlands table - here the Irish madman is going on a killing spree near the dead zone while the Von Schill crew toy with the other half of Sonnia's embattled crew.

From top to bottom, left to right we have the graveyard, the Badlands (actually from a game in progress- thanks to Bryan for his scenery here), the street of Malifaux and the bayou (with some excellent trees made by Will) .  

With the tables all set, I thought I was all ready for a busy day of running the tournament.  What I had forgotten was the Rob was getting all the agendas (much like schemes in a normal game) printed and I would need to get this cut out before the players arrived.  As our first contenders arrived I presented them with sheets of card and scissors and everyone got involved with the Blue Peter spirit!  This meant I didn't get photos of everyone's crews, which I apologise for.

Eventually we had 13 players with all the cards they needed and 4 great looking tables to battle over.

Here's an in progress shot from the first round battling over the graveyard.  The gremlins have found the real Necronomicon and are running away from Kaeris on the warpath with her pet bipedal stream train!  Lucius wants in on the action too so is frantically ordering his special forces into the mix.

Here's a Ronin reinforcement that Matthew hired into his Seamus crew during a game where he was the underdog.  Its a turtle fantasy football figure from Greebo's upcoming Nippo Goblin range (I got it early from an Indiegogo project).  Next to Leonardo is Bryan's hand from late in the second round - it looked like his Viktorias were about to unleash hell with cards like that!

Here's a battle unfolding on the Mailfaux table, with the Ortegas attempting to sneak into the creepy haunted house early before anyone notices!  Big demons have descended upon Ramos while the Viktorias are eyeing up the shape of the fighting and waiting for the right moment to break cover.

 

A couple of Andy's new recruits to his guild crew.  The Austringer is a homage to Richard O'Brian I'm told.  The cards and spell picture next to them is Leviticus casting unnatural wasting on Lillith for a staggering duel total of 30 - she was down 5 wounds after this, only to be punched in the face by Rusty Alice - who would have thought?

A furious rumble in the bayou is unfolding - the Silurids enjoying the watery scenery.  Leviticus is spreading out looking for scrap in ponds while Kaeris lines up some devastating fire-power.

 

I managed to snap a few crews on the day - here's Will's Kaeris in situ on the bayou board.  They are all mounted on metal grills over furnace like bases.

Here's Dan's Lillith crew.  Great use of Heresy's demon here as an alternative mature Nephilim.  Dan won the Sportsmanship award on the day, so well done!

Here's Karl's Ramos crew which won the best painting award.  My photo really doesn't do them justice - combination of bad lighting and a bit too much reflection.  There's some lovely subtle colours and highlighting on these figures and the crew look great together on the table.  There were some really nice crews in play on the day (see Bryan's here on his own blog) so Karl did well to come top.

So who won in the end?

3rd Place went to Louis with his Marcus crew - you can see him in action on the Bayou board above using his dratted frog men to great effect.

2nd Place went to Matthew with his Seamus crew.  Clearly his evil plans worked pretty well.

1st Place went to Mark with his Kaeris crew, which I really must get a shot of!  Mark was great fun to play against, scoring well in the sportsmanship award and he was certainly a contender for painting too.  However it was with an eye on the prize that Mark ruthlessly hunted down his agendas (note the Steam Golem bashing  his way though gremlins in the graveyard shot above) - to the point of even shooting Kaeris in the back with one of his own models to ensure he spent all of his soulstones in one turn to achieve a personal agenda item - that saw him ultimately victorious.  He didn't quite demolish the entire creepy structure in round 2, but it was close and he did manage to land mine about 50% of the figures on the table in one turn as well.

So that's all done and dusted for this month, but I am pleased to report many players were very keen for more, so I'll be planning something for April.  Any excuse to wear a cowboy hat and carry a nerf gun around all day...