Delays and mishaps

Apologies to anybody that may be keeping tabs on this. It seems that this has stopped being a tale of any number of gamers because we're lacking the motivation to stick to a monthly schedule, mostly due to it being just the pair of us and we live in the same house. Resultingly, we're changing this into more of a blog to follow the progress of our armies. There will likely be a similar sort of strategy to the building of our armies, based around a block of army, then some tasks, then more army etc. Anyway, we're not planning to get more stuff for the army until we've had a battle (ith a report this time!), but Stormsoul keeps refusing to play, lol.

Without further ado, a quicks ummary of a goodbye - no longer a Tale of 4, 3 or 2 Gamers, but now an ordinary blog but of two people's armies.

Ciao, until next time!

Taking a leaf out of their book

Well, as the poorly punned title may or may not suggest, Stormsoul has completed her piece of fluff. I have mine planned out and may type it up before posting this. All that that leaves is for Stormsoul to create her army name (putting a lot of thought into it, but she may have it finished by the end of this post) and finish her 8 Glade Guard (something she plans to do tomorrow whilst I'm off at an audition) and highlight her dryads, for me to get my fluff up and for Lizardman to remind me of his army name, give me his paintscheme (which he's created), paint his entire army (as well as one rank), make two pieces of fluff (or one and a picture), make an objective marker, create a scenario, build two pieces of terrain, the names of each of his units/characters and the specifics of his army list. Not a lot to go!

Still, here is the fluff of Stormsoul:

As the Wood Elves celebrate another Winter free from bloodshed, they hear the cries of the incoming Wild Riders. Each Elf braces themself, for they know no-one is safe from the mysterious selection process. The Riders come into the clearing, they pause momentarily, looking around at the worried and frightened faces. They head towards a capable and well-liked Elf. It’s difficult for many to hide their feelings of relief at not being selected and sorrow at the one whom had. The Elf is garlanded with flowers and mysterious sigils painted all over his body.  He enters the Oak of Ages slowly, knowing he will never leave. The next morning Ariel and the reborn Orion emerge from the Oak. This is the eternal cycle of the Elves of Athel Loren.

Here is my fluff:

As the Grey Mountains Dwarfs of Throngaz-a-Ankorak-a-Zhufundaz regained themselves from the grobi-slaughter of the days before, Makaline the Red took it upon himself to approach the great runicly-guarded gates, the towering edifices of Valaya and Grungni looming overhead, each as tall as a small mountain, but dwarfed by the majesty, grandeur and sheer heigh of the threshold before him.Carved into the enormous doorway was a smaller, more manageable entrance, surrounded by just as many powerful runes. Makaline mused at how magic and brute force would not open his pathway to his desires here and resolved to simply vapourise himself, slipping through the most minute of cracks in a gaseous form. Assured of his entrance and undetected arrival, he coalesced to find himself in a hall built for the wealthiest of kings and sturdiest of defences.

Once more, the Crimson Duellist admired the talent for warcraft that the pint-sized, pint-guzzlers practised so intensely. Columns stretched further than even his everliving enhanced eyes could fathom in the darkness above the wide-bowled braziers, embers lighting enough of the great hall to see, but not filling it entirely - although this seemed to be by design with the choice of lighting more. Makaline strode through the hall, silent as the grave he slept in, boldly making random judgements as to where to go. Through a small passage, engraved with symbols relating to the protrectress ancestor Valaya, he could see firelight glowing on the tunnel wall, a silhouette of a helmed, heavily bearded, bestaffed figure. He chose that as his next destination, knowing full well that the wards of the goddess would not save the Dwarf from his approach.

**********

As the single combat ended with the Dwarf unconcious, staff broken, Malakine began his takeover bid of the hold by sinking his fangs deep into the tough skin around the jugular of his foe, having moved the many layers of beard to allow access. A trickle of blood flowed from the needle-like wounds as the vampire left the shrine, empowered with the scarlet life-force, seeking out a new thrall to make.

It didn't take him much longer before he found what was clearly the king's chambers, guarded by a pair of the elite longbeard hammerers, bedecked in full gromril armour. "A challenge, possibly?" slipped from his lips, knowing full well that even these skilled warriors would fall to his attacks. They began a charge and one started a cry to alert others, but with a flick of the wrist and a snap of his fingers, the Crimson Duellist plucked the soul into the aethyr and bound it unto his undead flesh. The second Dwarf seemed uncaring of the pain of his companion, perhaps even further angered and spurred into combat with the nightlord. A swift parry with his bladed and a sharp crack into the skull, through the heavy helmet and the Dwarf fell before he had completed the swing of his weapon.

Satisfied with the brief and slight spike of excitement garnered through the martial prowess he possessed, he evaporated and reformed through the king's seals. The old Dwarf looked grand and every bit the champion of battle the vampire had seen, even whilst entirely unconcious, almost in a stupour from heavy drinking. The beard swaddled him almost as a second cover, bound in elaborate ringlets and rings, bejewelled with more wealth than Malakine had ever owned. As his canines pierced the leather-thick skin, he supped the merlot of bloodied alcohol from the king's veins, only to be startled by the wizened Dwarf's angry awakening.

*******

"My lord, you seem deathly pale. Is it that something has haunted you this night? Both of your guards were murdered, one likened to stone," the young Thane enquired.

"I was visited, you are correct. But matters have been dealt with and, like a true Dawi, I perservere, without notice of ailment. A grudge has been made and stricken from our hold's book this night and I must see to it immediately," came the ancient gravel-like reply. The king strode out as the Thane bowed in respect, entering the king's room to assess the situation and have beardlings attend any needs. As he walked through, all he could see was a pair of plate-armour shoes and greaves built for a man, snapped near the top and sprayed blood covering the entire room from them away from the bed. The king's hammer dripped in its rack and no body was to be seen, just a few chunks of the man that must have filled the boots.

Schoolboy dropout

Well, it's an unfortunate thing that I have to make this post, but Sousunou is dropping out due to personal commitment reasons. I am working on trying to draft in a second replacement, otherwise this is likely to drop down to being a tale of 3 gamers, which I'd frankly rather it didn't come to. In future, I may simply borrow people from the Interwebz0ers that are interested and be done with it!

Anywho, regardess of the problems we face, there has been some progress. I have decided to write my fluff for the timebeing as I am not yet confident enough to try a comic strip for it, although I may still try to do so at some point. Stormsoul has progressed somewhat and promised me that she will paint some more today. She's settled on some more colours for the dryads and done most of the painting on them - the wood is remaining as said, but the skirt type things are now Rotting Flesh, with Thraka Green wash and the leaves are Camo Green. Eyes are expected to be a rather luminescent green as well. just got bases and highlighting the bark left to do on them and finish off her last 8 Glade Guard (as well as get on with naming her army and producing more fluff/artwork).

Lizardman guy hasn't progressed any further, due to work and playing a game that is apparently not dissimilar to Final Fantasy, but with guns. Dang those other "hobbies" ;)

From grey to green

It's been a while since I last posted and, in fact, I have had stuff ready since the 27th of January, but not got round to taking pictures or updating the blog, so I apologise. A fair few things have happened since last time on a fair few fronts. Stormsoul and I headed down to my parents and had planned to see Sousunou and Lizardman (who's still not bothered to give me a screen name and, thusly, he can have that one for now), who was coming up from the South coast for a week.

 Anyhow, I managed to completely finish painting my army - that's 9 Skeleton Warriors (a

lthough I don't remember which 9), 7 Zombies (again, I don't recall which 7), 2 Cairn Wraiths, a Banshee and my Necromancer (who seemed to need a lot of rectifying and made me keep changing my mind as to how to paint him, but was completed in the end). I have yet to finish basing the army, but I only have 20 models on which to add a little snowflock - however, I am happy with the sateg at which the army is now (basing is always something I've been lazy with and a sort of nice thing to add to a completed model, rather than a completion of it for me).

The gist is, I have now completed my basic 750pts (well, 747pts) army, as well as created a ridiculously long name for it, which I'll get to in a second. I have storyboarded a graphic-novel style strip for showing the next instalment of my fluff, but am slightly chickening out on the drawing part of it and may return to a more literatural version. It is part of the same story as before though, but will detail the actual events of the Dwarfs becoming Undead - you can probably work it out from the previous story, but it will be stated clearly in this segment. Back to the army name: I created it in Khazalid first (also known as Dwarfish), going into the exact use of tense and correct suffixes for the utilisation and implementation of each word - as well as having a translation for it into English (or Reikspiel, depending on which universe you're from). Grom Garaz Gnol Azul Throngaz-a-Ankorak-a-Zhufundaz - a.k.a. Brave, fearless, old, dependable army of the Realm of Rapidriver Watchtower. As you can see, it's a bit of a mouthful, so Lizardman says he'll just call it Old Fearless. Fine by me!

Stormsoul has managed to get a large amount of painting done in the last two days, completing her unit of Wardancers, her Spellsinger, half of her Glade Guard (minus cloaks) and is working on her Dryads and remaining 8 Glade Guard. She's contemplating how to base them, likely using a mixture of static grass and some shrubbery made from clump foliage.

As for a name, she is struggling of how to go about making it, although she plans to do a similar process to me - I.E. translate it into Elvish (a.k.a. Elthin), but also keep the English (/Reikspiel) for people to realise the true meaning. Her plans for fluff are in fruition, but she is only going so far as to mention that it will be more about her army specifically than last time and she is going to produce her rendition of Ariel and the Great Oak.

Lastly, whilst we were 'dahn sahf', we managed to meet up with Lizardman and had a battle between my army and is, just to see how things went and keep limbered up for when we start competing in battle for this. He absolutely creamed me, so it's fortunate that it didn't count towards the battles ahead and we didn't take any pictures/make any notes, which will will try to do for future months. Unfortunately, a scheduling error with Sousunou meant we couldn't meet up with him.

So, until next time!

P.S. It seems that I forgot to mention - our deadline for this set of tasks is Sunday! Also, check out http://www.ramblerstheshow.com/ because the webseries starts on Friday at 8:00p.m. GMT!

The road goes ever on...

Well, it's getting close to the end of this month and a little progress has been made by most of us. Sousunou has at least built his army from my last hearing, Lizardmen guy has been diligently working away (painted 5 Saurus, 5 Skinks, got an army name, army list and paint scheme from what I've heard), Stormsoul managed to continue work on her remaining Wardancers and Spellsinger (and has undercoated her Dryads and Glade Guard, as well as built 8.5 of the Glade Guard [as well as a model that I put together to be a Waywatcher because I could see any easy way of doing so]) and, lastly, I have completed 10 Skeleton Warriors and 9 Zombies.

With the 10 Skeletons, I managed to devise a new system for the order in which I paint them (that sounds incredibly dull, but it's fantastic news for me as it has created a painting process with absolutely minimal tidying up - excellent for someone that hates painting, such as I). This brings my total Skeleton Warriors up to 23 (although I need to glue the shield onto the standard bearer and have a new standard top that stands out more and is more suited to my theme), meaning 9 left to go and 50% of my army completed. Also, for those that may care, the new ordering of painting is: Warlock Purple, Scorched Brown, Chaos Black, Bleached Bone, Boltgun Metal, Vermin Brown, tidying up, Devlan Mud, Badab Black, then Asurmen Blue.

The 9 Zombies went from built to sprayed, to fully painted today as well! I was really quite pleased with the speed with which I managed it - due in no small part to the reorganisation of painting order again. That's what my day is filled with: attempting to remove as much annoyance/banality from my army building as possible. Anywho, the results can be seen here - for the beer, I used Bermin Brown and applied a little Bleached Bone for foam. Again, for the weirdos out there that care, the ordering is as follows: Scab Red, Scorched Brown, Shadow Grey, Chaos Black, Boltgun Metal, Codex Grey, Fortress Grey, the beards, then any tidying up.

Also, I've decided to start taking pictures of the whole army, for comparison, each time I complete a batch of painting! My next plan is to do the remaining 9 Skeleton Warriors, then the 7 Zombies with the 2 Cairn Wraiths/1 Banshee combo and end with the Necromancer. Things I have yet to do: name my army, write mre fluff/draw something, change the name of my Banshee, paint the rest of my army.

So, I have completed 65.5% of my army, plan to do the 34.5% painting over the next two days, then create a name for the army on my journey down South, where I shall create my fluff/picture (although I am strongly considered giving my best shot at doing a graphic novel style piece for it instead - combining the two and giving me more leniency on the artwork because I fail at non-comic style drawing [and am not great at any other kind either]). Also, when in Essex (Stormsoul shall join me on Monday, Sousunou lives there and Lizardmen guy is popping there for a week too), we plan to try and get a game or two in - at least between Lizardmen and Vampire Counts, maybe Wood Elves, but probably not the Skaven just yet.

Some scenarios and switching!

The first item of news is that Stormsoul's scenario, Protect the Spite, is uploaded to Mediafire and can be downloaded here: http://www.mediafire.com/?vmeiay1cn1trai7

The second item is that my scenario, Defend the Mines, has also been uploaded to Mediafire and can be found here: http://www.mediafire.com/?zhamd67j268m1jm

The third piece is that our newcomer (still working on him giving me a screen-name) has completed his army list, but so far has only told me the basics - a Saurus Scar-Veteran, a Skink Priest, 2 units of 12 Saurus Warriors, a unit of 20 Skinks (of unknown type) and a unit of 3 Kroxigor.

The fourth piece is unfortunate. Because Skyjacker hasn't bothered to get back to me, despite repeatedly asking him to (and Sousunou not having heard from him either), combined with his utter lack of activity over the last two months, it is now assumed that he has dropped out. The upside is that with our Lizardmen player having joined, it is still a Tale of FOUR Gamers (with a slight silver lining of not needing to be bothered by the URL being incorrect, as it isn't).

A fifth piece of information is that I have been busy today and sliced and spliced together the remaining 19 Skeleton Warriors with spears (including musician), although shields are separate for ease of painting. I also found a suitable banner top to make the standard stick out a little more, but not yet painted it to add it on. Lastly, I glued together another 9 Zombies, meaning the unit is fully built now, but 7 are undercoated and 9 only built.

Only things left to do are to paint 39 models (19 Skeleton Warriors, 16 Zombie Horde members, 2 Cairn Wraiths, 1 Banshee and the Necromancer), create some extra fluff/expand my own fluff/draw something and create an army name. Stormsoul has 35 models to paint (28 to build/spray - 6 Wardancers to paint, Spellsinger to paint, 16 Glade Guard to build/paint and a dozen Dryads to build/paint), expand/create fluff/draw something and create an army name. Sousunou has both his terrain pieces to complete, his whole army to paint, scenario to make, fluff to expand/create or draw something and create an army name.

New Year and New Tasks

It's that time again! "Month 2" has been completed and we move on to month 3 now! As a quick recap, last "month" we were to make a piece of scenery that we had each chosen, make a piece of terrain that we had randomly generated, create a scenario and we later added in to paint either a rank or a single character in our previously decided upon colour schemes.

At this stage I am the only one to have completed all tasks set out so far, Stormsoul is a close second having only one unpainted model from her rank of Wardancers (otherwise completed all tasks), followed by Sousunou who didn't complete any terrain nor the scenario and started 4 rats. Skyjacker is last with no updates of any kind.

So, as a rundown of what each of us have completed:
Hashut's Blessing:

• 750 point army list (was legal at the time of making it, but now requires a Vampire)
• Objective Marker
• Paint scheme
• Fluff
• Names for all characters/units
• Chosen terrain (Raging Torrent)
• Random Terrain (Scree Slope)
• Scenario (Will upload and link to it so that it can be downloaded)
• Paint one rank or a character

Stormsoul:

• 750 point army list
• Objective Marker
• Paint scheme
• Background information
• Names for all characters/units
• Chosen terrain (Venom Thicket)
• Random terrain (building)
• Scenario (Will upload and link to it so that it can be downloaded)
• Painted 4 out of 5 Wardancers

Sousunou:

• 750 point army list
• Objective marker
• Paint Scheme
• Fluff
• Names for all characters/units
• Currently balancing scenario
• Started to paint 4 rats

Skyjacker:

• 750 point army list
• Paint scheme (Average of 2 shades on 4 locations)
• Fluff
• Names for all characters/units
• An idea for an objective marker
• Grapevine says work has started on his terrain (Chosen = Blazing Barricade, Random = Haunted Mansion)

Scoring is yet to be done for this month, but we have a surprise for y'all! We have a new gamer joining in - he has agreed to try and catch up, so he's not getting away scott-free. His pseudonym is: (yet to be chosen) and he's decided to go for a Lizardmen army. He's being sorting out which terrain he wants to make and has randomly selected, as well as devising an army list (that he's tweaking), a paint scheme, some names and even started to paint some models.

The next month's tasks are to paint the rest of the army, create a name for said army (since we only named the units and characters. What a wolly to have not thought of the army's name, eh?) and to select at least one of the following: write a piece of fluff, draw something relevant to your army (this may be commissioned, but the amount of requirements to the artist must be in-depth) or to extend current fluff. A little note: at least 3 of us have begun the rest of the painting already...

Also, I seem to have not posted Sousunou's fluff, so here it is:
Vermin Rising

Forg’s fur began to stand on end as the bizarre contraption continued to emit a progressively higher whine. There was a sensation of barely contained energy building up and Forg was not entirely sure the promises made by Skreetz were to be trusted. Finally, the strange form that was Skreetz waved his paw, and an arm seemingly attached to the device pulled the lever. For a heart pounding moment there was absolute silence and Forg began to feel certain that he was being double crossed.  Just as he was about to run the hunched form standing to his side through with his dagger there was a sudden wrench in the very fabric of reality, followed by an ear splitting wail and blinding green light. Forg jumped at this audio-visual onslaught and was torn between holding his paws to his ears, or his one remaining eye.
“See-see. works every time, no-nothing lives when this near.” proclaimed Skreetz excitedly, somewhat muffled through his ‘safeness-thing’ which only now Forg noticed contained conveniently darkened lenses.
Forg turned to inspect the remains of the slaves that had been used as a demonstration. They were gone. Nothing at all remained of the ten victims of this test aside from a few smouldering feet. In fact, nothing remained of much else for a long way behind the test area. Boulders that a giant would have struggled to pick up had oddly shaped holes pierced through them, which were still glowing green, and were dissolving from the inside out. No two holes were alike and the contorting shapes were beginning to give Forg a headache. He turned to Skreetz, “Yes, I take it. You both come too.”
Skreetz stopped breathing for a moment, his mind reeling at the implications of this development. He had not forseen this request, and truth be told did not really want to go along with it as this would mean leaving the relative safety of his boobytrapped laboratory. He usually did not like talking to anyone but himself as this was the only company he could truely trust, most of his dealings were conducted via farsqueeker or his almost sentient constructs.Forg began to stare suspiciously at Skreetz, who caught this glance and quickly tried to appear to be thinking. He uttered “we will come, but it costs more now. double. you pay before we go.”
Forg promptly agreed the price and marked the deal with a pawprint, knowing full well that it was still cheaper than he would get elsewhere. Unfortunatly this is mainly due to the fact that nothing designed by Skreetz has ever worked quite how it was designed to, yet still managed to be just as lethal as he has envisioned.

Forg skurried away to make preparations for his campaign against the overworld and within a few seconds was unable to be seen or heard.
Skreetz felt a sense of satisfaction, relief and something that can only be described as acomplishment. His latest experiment was the fruit of many years of tinkering, tweaking, adjusting and complete overhaul of various ideas and whims. He had always wanted to remove all risk of harm (mostly to himself) from experiments and weapons but could never really bring himself to trust anyone else to do it right. He had been visited by one of the revered master engineers of clan Skryre and forced to take on an apprentice. This actually served his plans well, so he emphatically agreed and set to work on his hapless associate.
Within a month of being together, Skreetz had managed to ‘persuade’ his minion to agree to being fitted with a set of metal legs, grafted straight into the hip. Within another month, he had fitted a fully powered exo-skeleton, enabling him to lift many times his own weight with great ease. Again, even Skreetz’ curse struck. This time in the form of a massive overload in the power systems causing an explosion of tremendous magnitude which was felt for many miles in all directions. Citizens of the empire took great interest in the mysterious disappearance of one of their rural villages, and the smouldering abyss that had replaced it. Many claimed that it was a message from Sigmar to remain devout whilst others spoke of divine blessings from the gods, ending the suffering of the citizens. None truely guessed the real reason.
With much of his research destroyed, and yet more of it encased in cooling bedrock, Skreetz requested a new apprentice to further his work – this was promptly refused, and all possibility of ever having one again was ruled out.
Certain that he was on to something, Skreetz set about locating a suitable specimen for his next project using a legion of specially augmented common rats. Once it was located, neutralised and dragged back to the safety of his lab, he wasted no time before setting to work on the upgrades. This time, he decided it was probably best to fit a release valve of some description to the contraption to avoid any more unpleasant results. He named the resulting hybrid rat-machine ‘Fischnag’ after the sound it had made when he inserted the last warpstone core into the being’s spinal column.
Further testing and fiddling led to yet more upgrades and advancements, each more revolutionary (some would say insane) than the last. Finally, during a paranoid waking dream, his masterpiece was realised. An answer to his every conundrum. His reason for being. Skreetz realised that if he attached his creation to a Warp-lighting canon, all risk of hostility from friend and foe alike to himself would be eliminated due to the remote shutdown apparatus built into his arm. Genius. Even if he was the only one clever enough to realise it.

Yuletide reckonings!

Merry Winter festivities to all and sundry! Managed to get a few bits completed today and on Christmas eve (although not Christmas day because of joyous celebrating). I managed to finish off my Scree Slope and add snow to it and the bases of my Skeleton Warriors, completing all of my tasks this time around (will post my scenario around new year for perusal). Stormsoul completed her building after changing tack at the last minute because we both felt that the original one wasn't working as well as we'd imagined (although I shall later complete it for the sake of it), instead completing a Brettonian watchtower (since they're on the outskirts of Athel Loren) and got a little further with painting her Wardancers.

With the watchtower, the paintscheme was quite simple: Bleached Bone with Devlan Mud wash on the lighter parts, Chaos Black with a drybrush of Shadow Grey on the darkest parts, Codex Grey with a drybrush of Fortress Grey on the mid-tone parts, Terracotta roofing tiles, Scorched Brown for the door and Boltgun Metal on the door-handle/chain.

Anywho, we're packing tonight to head down to Essex tomorrow (early in the morning) to see my family for Christmas and hopefully meet up with Sousunou (and Skyjacker if he's about). I'm packing my Skeleton Warriors and Stormsoul's Wardancers, with the paints she needs to finish them, in the hopes of using my scenario as a four-way battle as a little Christmas surprise and so that Stormsoul has a chance to finish painting her Wardancers before new year!

See y'all on the other side!

Nearing completion on two fronts!

 Well, I decided to have my unit of Skeletons be 8 wide (meaning 4 ranks deep) and, as a result, I had to paint another Skeleton. I chose the unit champion because it's a little more interesting than another ordinary warrior - but it's also because I got to test out the skin painting and the beard painting techniques. Ultimately, I'm really quite pleased with the results!

Also, today, I managed to get another few stages closer to completing my Scree Slope! I finished adding the sand to the borders last night and proceeded to paint them Space Wolves Grey, then washed them with Badab Black. Still trying to figure out what to do at the bottom edge to smooth it out - any suggestions? I also plan to add Static Grass at the sand/grass join to make a better transition and add some splodges of snow to the whole piece to help make it fit into my army's bases a little better. I also want to add some snow to my riverbanks to help tie those in as well (as I'm too lazy to repaint the borders in Space Wolves Grey).

Also, Stormsoul has been hard at work, drawing out, cutting and gluing together her Wood Elf cabin (the Building). She's got plans to fill it with papier mache to add some strength and resistance to it before she starts adding "the planks" to it. Not long left in which to do it all! But, she has also been adding paint to her Wardancers (no pictoral updatefor those yet).

Lastly, I have created my scenario, but do not yet wish to reveal it so that I can make any necessary tweaks as well as adding in some interesting fluff/background to it...

Some progress!

Hey to all and sundry, once again! This time around, after 8 days of procrastination and working (simultaneously somehow), we actually have some pictures to put up of our work! I managed to get the majoirty of my rank painted up with very minimal amounts left to do (I.E. basing and deciding if I'm going to have the unit be 10 wide or 7 wide [basically, if I'm going to paint another 3 skeletons or not]), Stormsoul has got the basis of her scenario completed (but she is going to look back through it to see if she wants to keep it the way that it is or not and she wants to add some fluff so that it's not all just rules), I also gave her an early Christmas present (since she gave me one of mine early: the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD because my other set had broken :'( But yay and whoop for the new one!) in the form of some Skaven rats, a couple of spiders and a baby dragon so that she could add them to her Venom Thicket when she's ready and, lastly, Stormsoul has been getting to work with painting some of her wardancers, although she is taking a little more time on one or two of them.

So, to start off with, here are my 7 Dwarf Skeleton Warriors! I realised, once I'd finished doing all of my written scheme (that was applicable to these models - I may have to do the unit champion to get the flesh and beard in as well!), that I had nothing for the weapon handles, nor the shields or bases! So, I decided to have a basic Chaos Black handle, since I didn't want it to detract from the rest of the model, but also didn't want it to blend it - I think it helps to frame them quite nicely. For the shields, I thought I'd be "clever" and steal Stormsoul's wood pattern (the condition of these shields is partly from clipping them off of old models [which will be my zombies] and them being glued ont he wrong way, hence the wood facing out), so they are Graveyard Earth, with a drybrush of Desert Yellow and the cracks are edged with Kommando Khaki (the flat, back side of the shields is also Chaos Black). As for the bases, again I didn't want it to detract, nor blend it, but I also wanted it to fit their mountain home - Space Wolves Grey was the answer, since I wasn't using it anywhere else (unlike the greys for the flesh or the browns of the belts/boots & spear-wraps) and I think to help finish them off nicely, I shall provide a smattering of snow to the base (much like my WotR Dwarfs - http://minesandmodels.blogspot.com/).

Ah, before I forget, (Stormsoul can confirm this as she sat next to me and I showed her so that I had back-up!) I have used Badab Black, like I said I would, but it's only int he recess of the ribs/stomach area, in the eye sockets and teeth and any cracks in the skulls (such as the big holes at the back of some and the scratches of the one-eyed one. His single eye has been painted Kommando Khaki [I think. It may have been Bleached Bone again...] after all other painting was done).

Stormsoul's scenario is based around her objective marker and trying to remove it from the board for nefarious deeds of corruption or trying to protect it from the blight of the forest's enemies to heal the wounded trees in the area. Sounds very exciting to me and I can't wait to play it (although it'll be easier for me to play at a larger points level when I have the Raise Dead spell!), but it's not ready yet and neither are our models. I haven't asked her if she wants it posted yet, so I won't reveal more than that except to say that the spite itself isn't so defenceless! Mwahahahahahahaha! (Note to self: cut down on exclamation mark use.)

This is the current state of the Christmas present that I mentioned - she's not yet begun painting and placing them because she's been unwell all week and is at work today (I think tomorrow as well) and has been working on her scenario and planning out her Wood Elf building.

Here are the wardancers thus far, meaning that we both only have two tasks left to complete each! I'm not yet sure what she wants said about these models, but they are still in need of bases (although I have custom built a movement tray for them. It's made from cork tile because that's what I had in my hand at the time). The two tasks for her are to make the Wood Elf building and to finish painting her Wardancers/Venom Thicket models (both only half tasks, really). My two tasks left to do are to finish off my Scree Slope and to create a scenario - I have the premise set in mind, but want to add a few eextra quirks to it to make it more interesting still!

I believe that that's all for this update, but I can always edit/add a post to include anything that I've forgotten!

The World's Most Belated Scores!

Well, it's that time of reading again,w hen I apologise for being so late. In my defence, this one isn't my fault int he slightest. I was waiting until roughly a week ago for the marks to be presented to me by Sousunou for the writing section of the last set of tasks and have been waiting (until now) for Skyjacker to get back to me with the same scores, as well as evidence of his objective marker. Having still not received either of Skyjacker's necessary tidbits, I have used an equal mark to give to myself, Sousunou and Stormsoul so that we can move on.

Ultimately, the gist is that I have finally been able to work out the last few tidbits for the scores! So, the end of the first set of tasks leaves us with the following:

• Hashut's Blessing in first with 37 points (aided by the complete all tasks first bonus)
• Stormsoul second with 34 points
• Sousunou third with 31 points
• Skyjacker fourth with 29 points

As for progress on this month's tasks, I still haven't got around to adding PVA to my river, although I'm thinking that it could quite easily ruin it and I'm still trying to figure out how to do it as is. I keep meaning to finish the sand and rock gluing on my Scree Slope, but things keep getting in the way (was filiming this week and then had a meeting today with a games education course and had to sort out my lost/stolen wallet problem), but this should be able to get done in time. Stormsoul has had parts for her Venom Thicket arrive today and plans to get to work on them A.S.A.P. However, may have to undercoat by brush, since Yorkshire was the worst region hit byt the snow in England ;) Sousunou is trying to work on his scenario primarily, since his materials are in storage at the moment, meaning he may not be able to get to them in time (but fingers crossed!). Skyjacker has, from the grapevine, got something that looks like it should be pretty damned fine when it's completed!

I don't believe that I've said this yet, but it's best to announce it just in case! We added another task to make up for the time extension and we have actually decided what it is now: our choice of painting one rank of models from our army list or a single character! This way, we get to test our colour schemes, everyone gets to see the end result of them and it'll take up a bit of extra time - it also satisfies those that wanted to see models, but haven't done in two and a half months... Since we're all so far ebhind with our terrain as is, we didn't think we needed a second additional objective, especially since we couldn't decide what it should be :D

As for scoring in this second set, we're going for a similar system of points based on the amount of progress per objective. An example (which will formt he basis of our discussion) is:

1. Chosen terrain: 1 point for a plan of how to do it/how it will look, 2 points for having made it, 3 points for having finished it.
2. Random terrain: 1 point for a plan of how to do it/how it will look, 2 points for having made it, 3 points for having completed it.
3. Scenario: The same marks out of 10 procedure as with the written portion of last month (being awarded for enjoyment potential, ingenuity, interestingness and fairness, etc. Note - those are guidelines, not strict points of consideration).
4. Models: 1 point for construction, 2 points for including the base colours, 3 points for adding the second colours and 4 points for using a third layer (these only count if they are in the colour scheme, which may be changed next month to rectify any problems). Of note - a character must visibly have taken as long as a minimum sized rank.

Any comments and constructive criticisms are most welcome. Would love to start hearing feedback from more than hero of gondor, although I do appreciate his(/her) comments ;)

As promised!

As I promised, I have pictures (as ever, I'm late with posting this. Why do I tell everyone I'm always late with this? Hmmm, oh well...) of my progress thus far! Raging Torrent sections, made from cork tile bases, thin strips of cardboard to heighten and define the banks, lightweight filler to build up the banks, a scattering of sand glued down to texture the water, spray black and add paint! The banks are Bestial Brown (to match Stormsoul's base colour so that we can place them on the same table and have the bases match), the water is Ultramarines Blue, with splodge-lines of Hawk Turqoise to show the running water and broken surface tension, highlighted with Ice Blue (I plan to add a few bits of pure Skull White for the very crests etc).

For the bends (of which you can see there are two, both of which curve 90 degrees to the left), I sloped the inside bank gently and the outside bank steeply to show how the sediment would build up in the direction that the water is travelling before the turn. I also added Scorched Brown to where it would be wet (even drbrushing it at the outside corner to show it had sprayed further) and then coated that with 'Ardcoat varnish to make it look freshly wet. I did the same thing to the ford after having built it up with cardboard and lightweight filler, covering it with sand and trying to  draw lines into the slopes banking up to the ford. Again, I painted Scorched Brown and added the same splodge-lines as before, then covered the whole of the ford part in 'Ardcoat varnish.

Lastly, the bridge part - same processes as before, but I drybrushed the sprayed black bridge with Fortress Grey. Pretty simple really. Anyway, as for my scenario, I'm currently leaning towards basing it around the "Forest of the Living Dead" scenario, by Richard Irvine (can be found here: http://www.angelfire.com/wa/dralair/enclave.html), although both Stormsoul and I are looking at http://www.biguns.co.uk/articles/scenariocards.asp for other ideas (amongst other places).

Stormsoul: From having the base shape, I then purchased some trees after finding it much simpler than making each tree from scratch. The trees were purchased at http://www.themodeltreeshop.co.uk/index.html
I went with a range of different trees as it's much more realistic. I used PVA glue to stick the trees in the places, this was quite a slow process as I waited for each tree to dry after a disaster where several fell off. Once all the trees were glued in place, I covered the base in lightweight filler, this was to smooth the sides as well as ensure the trees were secure. It also helped to make the ground look more realistic.
Once this was dry, I simply painted the whole base bestial brown, once this was dry, I stuck static grass on top.
The forest is not yet finished, as I want to add some vines and creatures to make it much more life like and to add in the venom for Venom Thicket.

Hashut's Blessing: Still awaiting any ideas for the extra task or two for us to start! Any help would be appreciated. Until next time...

Post-disaster Update

Well, it seems there was no disaster, other than me trying to make time to update this :D Sorry for that everyone, but got some great news. Actually, I guess that depends upon what your idea of great is. Anywho, this month was quite tough because Sousuno has a large personal concern going on at the moment that takes up a lot of time (don't worry, it's not a bad concern, just means the hobby comes second - stupid real life...) and I was away for two weeks, with Stormsoul not really having any knowledge in scenarios, nor having had any previous experience trying to build terrain (so needed my advice on technical stuff and the like). Where was I for those two weeks? I was in Manchester, filming a 10 part webseries, called Ramblers! Want to know more? Go to http://www.ramblerstheshow.com/ and you'll get to see the latest content and find out what's happening on their Facebook page.

[/shameless plug of awesome show that I enjoyed being a part of]. So, onto the news that I promised: because we've all been kept so busy that we decided to extend this month, as well as it being because we didn't really realise how long two pieces of terrain would take each of us to create and we kind of forgot slightly about the scenarios. Regardless, we also thought that with Christmas coming up, it would be best to extend this month further so that next month we can concentrate on building and painting models (hopefully we'll get them as Christmas presents or sell the socks and smellies we're given to buy our plastic crack!). As a result, this "month" is now two months, ending in the week between Christmas day and new year's day. To make up for that though, we are planning to add in some extra tasks, although we don't know what yet. Anybody got any suggestions? I have a couple of ideas, but would love to get some feedback on it first.

Where are we all stood at this moment in time:

• Stormsoul has completed her Venom Thicket, except for a few gribblies and such like to show that it's filled with poisonous critters, but her building design went a bit awry and she's not had the confidence to re-attempt drawing its plan out, so it looks like I've gotta help her with that. She's also been doing some research on scenarios to learn about them and use what she finds as a set of guidelines.
• Sousunou, from what I've heard, hasn't really got all that far, but with an extra month should be able to manage and can do any thinking stuff at work when he's doing nights and nobody's calling.
• Skyjacker - again, I've only heard this down the grapevine - has begun work on his Haunted "Mansion", but has quite a way to go, however, it's looking very promising.
• Lastly, me - Hashut's Blessing - I have made and painted all of my river sections and am very pleased thus far. Just got to start layering on PVA, then finish it off with a coat of 'Ardcoat gloss varnish, maybe add a layer of Asurmen Blue wash and it should be all good. As to my scree slope, I have made it slopier, but need to add more sand, as well as some rocks and more scree, then paint the new slopey bit and it's done! I've also been considering how to go about my scenario, but not confirmed anything as of yet.

I shall update this later today (maybe tomorrow) with pictures of Stormsoul's progress and my own, whilst we wait for any information/pictures from Skyjacker and Sousunou. Lastly, still waiting for the marking of the previous month to come through so that we can reveal who is where.

Pre-disaster Update!

Well, managed to finally get hold of something that will hopefully allow me to get much further with my terrain making, as well as allowing Stormsoul to get slightly further with hers. We couldn't find pollyfiller anywhere, so we got something that we though should work just as well: Lightweight Filler. Which means the terrain will be lighter too! Excellent since we're not trying to use it to build muscles... If anybody knows that this will fail, please let me know as soon as possible because I'm planning to get to work using this today!

After all, I have got to build up banks and riverbeds with this stuff, Stormsoul needs it to have a neat, sloped edge for her Venom Thicket, will probably want it a little bit for her "building" and I plan to also use it to make my scree slope more, well, sloped! Since I already had the scree slope, all I need to do is add some cardboard to its base to make it more slopey than it currently is, as well as allowing me to add more rocks and scree/sand etc. As to the cardboard, I spent far too much of yesterday building a new bed (Stormsoul told me to make the bed!) and had a large amount of cardboard left over from packaging - recycling is great for the environment!

Also, Stormsoul has found a few pictures as inspiration for her Wood Elf style building, including some excellent work from "An Hour of Wolves & Shattered Shields" (found here - http://www.hourofwolves.org/?view=articles&which=lothlorienConstruction) and after a quick Google search for "Wood Elf Building", this picture came up (from this website - http://spellforce.jowood.com/?lang=en&rid=1133), which is a large part of inspiration, at least for the utmost basic shape.

Next stage is to get Skyjacker to send me his damnable objective marker picture and get both Sousunou and Skyjacker to give me their scores for the background stuff - then I can actually let everyone know the scores and who's where in ranking so far. Was hoping to get the result sup within the first week, but that's out of the window, especially since I am away (filming a new web-series called Ramblers) for the next two weeks (including my graduation), so will have little time to update this (although Stormsoul might do for me) and won't get any work done until after that, hence me hoping to start today! Lastly, to my knowledge, none of us have started the scenario plans (so I may do that during downtime in filming), but Stormsoul and myself have been thinking of scenario rules to use nonetheless - nothing concrete yet.

Lastly, keep checking http://to4g.dannyjigg.co.uk/ in case Skyjacker or Sousunou update their posts on there (in which case, let me know if I haven't already mentioned it here).