2012-10-29

Variety 102


So this is the finished unit in all its glory. If you enlarge the photo, you can see what I meant when I said that these guys look rather uniform, but when you look closely you notice that no grunt looks exactly like the other.

Coming up next is this big guy:


I am torn whether I should build the Mountain King now or not. Basically the blame for making me do this goes to my friend McMortison who *built and painted* his Mountain King in record time - and that was just his little side project to have a break from racking up his Cryx army. In other words, McMortison's enthusiasm is contagious. On the other hand, I get mixed reports about the competitiveness of the Mountain King; at the OETC, the Italians found him a beast ("If you don't kill him in one turn, he won't go away.") whereas others like Andrew galea just slowly but surely get a grasp of the gargantuan. I'm not sure what the Mountain King will bring to the table, but it surely is a heck of a model. Maybe I should aim for the "failing with beauty" award in 2013.

2012-10-20

Variety 101


This is a post mostly directed at newbies dealing with the topic how you bring variety into a unit with many models that look the same.

Like in the earlier days of GW, Privateer Press still has many metal models and they don't come in a big variety as the only variety you get is what the original sculptor sculpted. This is far inferior to GW's modular plastic kits where everything fits together interchangeably so your variety is not limited by the number of molds the company has, but by the number of bits in your pocket.

Luckily in the case of Privateer Press, there are some kits that allow for a certain variety and this article is about how you get the most out of it. There are only two steps to follow:


  1. Unpack all the bits and cluster the same bits into individual groups.
  2. Start building your models by making sure that no model gets the same combination of bits from the individual groups.



In the two pictures above you see the max unit of Kriel Warriors I am currently building. I bought the unit box with six warriors plus two blisters with two warriors each plus the UA for a total of twelve. Now the neat thing is that the blisters have two many heads and shields (three of each for only two models), so there is our gate to more variety.

Step 1 - group your bits

In the picture above you can see that I made three piles for the three types of shields I have, so did I for the heads, arms, and weapons. I also glued the torsos onto their bases already and sorted them, too. For example, in the back of the center of the picture you can see four torsos (2+2) that are exactly the same.

Step 2 - avoid doing the same combination twice

So I have four torsos and I could potentially give them the same weapon (e.g. hammer) and shield (e.g. the kind with the chain mail hanging down) as I have enough of everything. However, then I would end up with minimally two models looking the same as I have only three types of heads for four models, so one kind of head has to be used minimally twice. Therefore, as I know one head has to be used twice, I make sure when glueing things together that one head gets the hammer and the other head of the same type gets the sword. The same strategy applies to the shields, so by combining heads, weapons and shields properly I won't have two models that look exactly the same while the entire group still will have a certain uniformity - which isn't necessarily bad, though, since these are just foot soldiers and not rock stars who want to be individually adored.

My point is that you can't do this type of systematic variations if you don't properly lay out all the bits first and check how many various combinations you have to come up with. If you just take bits out the box and start to glue everything together as you unpack it, you may end up with several models that will look exactly the same and therefore rather boring.

Greygore Boomhowler & Co. The same models are front-left with back-right plus  back-left with back-center. These models are also in the blisters you can purchase to boost that unit to a max of ten, so you end up with 4+4 models looking the same.


Think of Greygore Boomhowler & Co. where you can't really swap anything - you have four unique models in that group of six and two "filler" models that look just the same (which seems to be a general strategy for Privateer Press how they sculpt units of six). Boring, boring, boring. And it gets worse if you purchase the two blisters to have a max unit of ten as those blisters contain the models that you already have twice in your unit of six. In other words, out of ten models, four and four models will look the same in their sculpts. The only thing that can still save you here is if you paint them differently.

In case of an emergency

Privateer Press always includes a unique head that you won't find twice for the unit leader - so if you are in a very desperate need for some variation, you can glue the leader's head onto an ordinary grunt and take the grunt's head to glue it onto the unit leader's torso.

My daughter wanted to take a picture for the blog, too.

2012-10-17

Painting a Hreidgotaland Axer


I already explained how to paint the basics of a Hreidgotaland Troll in a previous post. Here I simply add how to paint the green armor, but there isn't really that much remaining to be said.


The Troll got originally primed with Army Painter Greenskin primer like everyone else. After that the skin, hair, etc. was painted as explained here. When I finally had to do the armor, it was too bright for my taste, so I toned it down with Angel Green and Dark Tone. After that I built up the highlights again by adding increasing amounts of Greenskin and Goblin Green. here the Army Painter range shows it's true strength because you can easily and efficiently go up and down the ladder just as you please.



Well, this is the finished Axer. Interestingly, I like the way his back has turned out a lot better than his front; usually I like the front way better.

As an added bonus, here are also the pictures of my Earth Born Dire Troll (EBDT):




Heya Hreidgotaland!

2012-10-11

OETC 2012 recap

Team Switzerland - The Unboostables @ OETC 2012. From left to right:  Konghar, cb_crusader, Botond, Grailhunter (me), QiLin, and McMortison.  Picture by courtesy of Eva (via Jan).

Team Switzerland - The Unboostables:
Konghar - Circle of Orboros
cb_crusader - Protectorate of Menoth
Botond - Cygnar
Grailhunter (me) - Reserve player (Trollbloods)
QiLin - Retribution of Scyrah
McMortison - Trollbloods

Well, as promised here is the recap of the 2012 OETC. It was a blast and we experienced tons of cool things, so here is just a summary of the highlights of the tournament. Generally we agree that it was an amazing experience as a tournament as a team, but it was also very good in terms of getting to know each other better in the time off the gaming table.

If we continue to go to tournaments as a team in this formation is open for discussion. The WTC 2013 allows one team per nation so we will have to establish a national qualification system for the event. With the gaming experience we have on our belts we may be interesting candidates in the qualification process, but of course we can still be beaten by a better player any day.

With that all said lets revive the joys of the recent past. :-)

The OETC 2012 venue - an amazing piece of modern architecture that blends steel, glass,  greenery, and top notch facilities for added gaming comfort.
Day 1


  • QiLin manages to kill pButcher and eButcher in two games when his situation seemed very desperate, but his archers (Retribution) were able to pull it off. Now we are all worried in Switzerland about the security of our own casters and locks. ^^
  • cb_crusader was able to deathclock one of his opponents. Looks like the European scene isn't that familiar with clocks in general, though, and the tournament definitely aren't run as strictly as in the US in terms of clock management.
  • In the third round of the day, we had to face Team Sweden - tough players but with a very gentlemen style attitude, so the games against them were a truckload of fun. During the award ceremony on day two they were one of the teams getting extra applause form all players - looks like they left an excellent impression on other teams as well (despite calling their team Rånbögmörd​arna). :-)
  • Salzburger Nockerl FTW!!!

Busy times at the OETC 2012. There was a total of 24 teams with 5 players each, so 120 people were throwing dice at any given moment. Picture by courtesy of Eva (via Jan).

Day 2

  • Andrew Galea gives his very own Team Australia shirt to Botond as a gift.
  • After he got the shirt, Botond and eCaine show the path to the scrap yard to an army of undead Cryx. (Botond now calls the shirt his lucky shirt.)
  • McMortison has to face a Minions army - pigs everywhere. Rök likes pigs and keeps eating them up until he Sturm & Drang are gulped down, too.
  • On Day 1, Konghar learned double teleportation move from another Circle player that was new to him. In the hotel room on Day 1, Konghar practices the move with his miniatures before going to sleep - and on Day 2 he uses his new move to score his very own caster kill! ^^
  • During the award ceremony, Team Australia 1 & 2 get extra applause, too, simply for showing up. It's an honor to have two teams travel across half the globe just to play with us and they are the main factor that makes the OETC 2012 into the WTC 2013.
  • Botond wins Youngest Player and gets a new (plastic) warjack for his Cygnar army.
  • Team Switzerland is getting rank 23 out of 24 teams - in other words, we met our goal not to rank on last place on our first participation at the tournament. :-) However, maybe we should have aimed for last place because that team got prizes. ^^
  • Apfelstrudel FTW!!!

Botond and his new lucky shirt.

Steve, the TO and Leader Maximus, is busy calculating the final rankings.

The certificate being witness of our achievements.

General impressions

  • The painting of the armies generally was at a very high level. One reason definitely was that the rules said armies have to be painted to table top level, but more often than not the armies were amazing works of art rather than just miniatures with paint slapped on. If WM/H is said to be the game with unpainted minis, I don't see where that game is - it seems like the amount of unpainted/basic painted/well painted models is just as high as in other games, too.
  • The best part about the event was meeting gamers from anywhere in Europe and being able to hook up with them immediately. It didn't matter where somebody came from, what cultural background he had, and what language other than English he spoke, the game was all it took to have a common ground and connect immediately.
  • The process of the team captains negotiating the pairings and scenarios at the beginning of every round was highly entertaining and added additional depth to the game. Our team felt that we were able to get rather favorable pairings. On the other hand, so thought our opponents, so who knows. ^^
  • It's already a longtime standard for the Swiss 40K ETC team to have an extra/reserve player and this strategy also proved its value at the WM/H OETC. Having an extra guy simply is helpful for carrying stuff around, taking pictures and videos, check out how the opponents are doing, etc.

Team Switzerland discussing potential pairings prior to Round 5 against Poland 4 .

Round 5 played against Poland 4. Playing in the corridor was my favorite spot as there was plenty of room, less noise, and a lot of light coming through the luxurious windows.

Final standings
1st rank - one of the six German teams. Picture by courtesy of Eva (via Jan).

2nd rank - another one of the six German teams (feat. the mighty Zahnfee). ^^ Picture by courtesy of Eva (via Jan).

3rd rank - Team Poland 1 (they had a total of four teams). Picture by courtesy of Eva (via Jan).

4th rank - Team Australia 1. Picture by courtesy of Eva (via Jan).


2012-10-08

Back from the OETC

Team Poland 4 played My Little Pony. ^^

Well, I am back from the OETC in Salzburg and I am tempted to say it was my best tournament ever. Since I am currently very tired, more news will follow later. I will provide a quick summary and highlights within this week and publish a movie later. Since it will be the first "real" movie I am doing I have no clue how much effort it will take, so don't nail me on a timeline yet.

2012-10-05

Off to Salzburg


As you are reading this, the Unboostables are off to Salzburg for the OETC in Warmachine/Hordes. Some of the Unboostables also bring their wives and families, so Friday is a rather quiet day to get there and enjoy the city. On Saturday and Sunday dice will be rolled and the competition will be fierce until we head back home to Switzerland on Sunday evening.

Since I am the reserve player and probably won't play a single game, I will be busy taking pictures etc. I plan on delivering updates as quickly as possible, but since I am not sure about the availability of WLAN in Salzburg outside our hotel I don't dare to make any promises on how quickly you'll get the updates.

2012-10-01

Meet Gergely, First Troll of Dhunia


I am really excited about this blog post as I can finally deliver pictures of the first couple models of my new Trollbloods army. With every army I try to push myself a little further and I am quite happy thinking that I managed to achieve it again.

Pictured above is Gergely, First Troll of Dhunia, the first model I completed. I named this model Gergely after a friend I play Warmachine/Hordes with. Originally I started out with 25pts of Cygnar as a painting project and it would have stayed a painting project if I hadn't had my first game with the real Gergely. Among others, Gergely is a driving factor in building the local community which eventually encouraged me to start also a Trollbloods army as I see a good momentum in the Swiss community. Therefore, I found it just fitting to name my first Troll Gergely. (of course this is just a very elaborate ploy hoping the real Gergely with his Menoth trickery won't have the guts to kill the Troll Gergely on the table)

So onward on how to paint Gergely. but before we do that, we need to have a look at the color wheel.

The color wheel by Wilhelm von Bezold. Source: Wikipedia

On Google+, many people asked me why I started with green primer. Well, it's because I wanted to do an army with blue and yellow colors. In the color wheel above you can see the three primary colors blue-red-yellow (in terms of pigments, for sunlight the primary colors are blue-red-green). You can also see that blue and green are direct oposites, that's the reason why those colors "pop" so quickly. (for a more scientific answer, check Color in the human brain) Now the thing is that if I had sprayed my Trollbloods blue, that would have resulted in easy skin painting, but painting any yellow surface would have been awful as the blue would continue to "shine through" unless I painted many many layers. Therefore I started with green as it allows me to move easily either towards blue or yellow. That's why I also decided that my Trollbloods are supposed to have green armor as this really is easy painting starting with green primer. Except the big Trolls, most models have large areas covered with armor, so green primer for green armor was the logical choice.


This is Gergely after I built him; I pinned the legs and filled gaps with Green Stuff + Liquid Green Stuff.


To paint Trollbloods skin I used GW Hawk Turquoise and Blue Ink (both out of production) and the continued with Army Painter Ultramarine Blue, Wolf Grey, and Ash Grey. Here the investment in dropper bottles really was worth a lot as they allow you to smoothly blend the colors by just counting the drops of color you add.


At this stage Gergely had been primed with the Greenskin primer from Army painter and already has a coat of Hawk Turquoise. Although primed green, the model has a blue look already.


Here, Gergely has had the Blue Ink treatment plus another layer of Hawk Turquoise again to light up the surface of the skin. Otherwise, the entire skin would have been completely dark blue.


Here, Gergely has his highlights done on the skin after I simply added Ultramarine Blue and Wolf and Ash Grey in increasing amounts. The rocks, finger and toe nails plus the hair were painted brown as the base color for the orange.


It took me a long time to decide on what my "third color" was supposed to be next to blue and yellow. Originally I thought I wanna do grey, but that would have given a very cold look to my models. Despite I planned on having them on winter bases, I felt the need that at least part of the model has a rather warm look. Looking at the color wheel again I realized that using red would overload the wagon as it would result in a very colorful model. However, with red ruled out I was left with either purple or orange. I decided to go for orange since it can easily be mixed with brown and has a warm tone.


Doing the hair, the rocks, and nails was very easy - I simply added one additional drop of Lava Orange into the brown paint from the previous layer.


The rest was just detail work. The yellow loincloth was done with a layer of GW Tausept Ochre (out of production, too). Tausept Ochre was the ideal candidate because it's an old GW foundation paint that easily covers anything in just one layer of application plus it has a warm and earthy yet still yellow tone without being as bright as a really flashy kind of yellow. To further dull its effect I washed the loincloth with Army Painter Strong Tone.


Gergely's teeth had been done with what I always use for such occasions - a kind of undead yellow/white mix, in this case Army Painter Skeleton Bone that gets increasing amounts of white paint added.



Well, this is my finshed Gergely, First Troll of Dhunia. May he serve me well in all the battles still to come.

I am also very proud of the base as it's the first base I did where I didn't just simply glue sand to it. The base was done with the Tundra basing kit from GaleForce Nine plus simple baking soda mixed with white glue and water. For my new Trollbloods army I want bases that look as if my Trollbloods are walking through the last remnants of snow on the tundra before spring definitely kicks in. I want this to symbolize how Trollbloods are used to harsh conditions such as winter, yet they are marching forward with high hopes for the future.

Well, I hope you liked this blog post, more is to follow. :-)