The State of the Waaagh

Orks have always been one of my favorite armies, ever since I started in the hobby back around 1998 I almost instantly took to orks. Any time I would attempt to start another army it wouldn't retain my interest and all those bits would just end up going to orks. Over the years I have collected bits and pieces of old ork history (both the books and miniatures) and I vowed that when orks received their new codex that I would make an army of a true veteran.

Year or so later after orks received their codex and I still have not progressed much but a handful of boys painted. So to get myself back on the painting (battle)wagon I will try and paint my orks in a timely manner. Who knows I may even go down to play with them sometime.

I will start off slow and come up with a rough 1,000 point list and add/adjust from there. Hopefully I will get to log all the adventures my orks have now all I have to do is come up with a witty name... But for now the rough list I was thinking up.

"Fingaz" - Big Mek with Kustom Force Field, Eavy Armor and Burna
- I have always been a fan of the Kustom Force Field giving my boys cover saves while avoiding all that difficult terrain. In the current edition it is also really good when paired with vehicles. The burna gives Fingaz a power weapon in close combat as well as a flame template to handle with a number of situations/enemies.

"Grubb Da Loon" Wyrdboy with Warphead upgrade
-Most people think that the Wyrdboy is too unpredictable and would rather a nice Warboss or an additional Big Mek. Well I had so many Wyrdboys I decided to paint one up and he made his way into my army.

"Thrugg's Shooty Gits" Shoota Boys x25 with big shoota x2, Nob with big choppa and bosspole.
- a nice mob of boys, you figure with that many shots the enemy is bound to stumble into a wall of lead.

"Gutstab's Killas" Slugga Boys x25 with rokkit x2, Nob with powerklaw and bosspole.
-my main attack block nothing like a handful of boys making through enemy fire and still getting an astounding number of attack dice!

Grots x20 Runtherd x2
-I don't care what people think of Grots, i have always used them to great effect. People have such a great hatred for these little bleeders and they always do something great.. maybe it's because I expect to little from them. Regardless now with BS of 3 they have a better chance at distracting my opponent and taking the heat away from my ork mobs.

Lootas x10
-a decent sized mob of lootas, hopefully they will lay waste to anything they point their guns at..

Looted Wagon with boom gun, grot riggers and big shoota

Looted Wagon with boom gun, grot riggers and big shoota
-I also added two boom gun toting Wagons, more to soak up points than anything else, two large blasts will also help the cause.

I believe I have about 60-70 points left which I am considering adding a pair of wartrakks into the mix to harass small enemy units. Well I better get going work calls, hopefully in the coming posts I can post small pieces of fluff as well as pictures. Till then!

Driven by magic..

Recently our group has been really into the game Malifaux. I had painted these a few weeks back but didn't get a chance to update the blog and thought while I was using the camera for commission work that I would also post these up.

These are Witchling Stalkers, former outlaw magic users that are tortured and their magical energy sapped from their bodies. They now work for the Guild (evil corporation types) hunting down magic users.. kind of ironic no? lol

Also in the works I am working on Sammael Hopkins, Sonnia Cridd and the Executioner, but since those are all character models i'm taking my time on them. I'm still torn on what will be my next purchase for Malifaux, it is between the Ortega Family or Lady Justice box sets. It will most likely be the Ortega Family in the long run as they have the most character.





I am waiting on getting a few extra dollars to spring for static grass to adorn the bases. Also because I haven't been transported in my regular carrying case they have some wear and tear on them that I have to fix. Otherwise i'm quite pleased on how they turned out and I can't wait to finish the characters.

Reinforcements have arrived! ... sort of?

So about two months back I made a sizable order of WWII German Infantry to use in my Weird War II games. Despite having a bad reputation I still ordered from Black Tree Designs, 50% off just about everything in their online store made it far too tempting so I gave in.

The first couple of weeks I sent an email but no miniatures came, so I took the advice someone posted on TMP forum and wrote on their website asking about my order. Well in no time they sent about a third of the order. I waited another week and a half then I wrote again soon after I received everything minus four miniatures (infantry character models).

The miniatures themselves are of excellent quality and look better in person than they do on the site. They are about the same scale as my other Weird War stuff, alternatively because I have so many of them they can create their own battle groups (for skirmish games).

I'm still on the fence about about converting the miniatures or not, part of me might want to use the miniatures in a historical scene. But I do have some Pig Iron heads that would look quite good on them.. hmm decisions.. Update soonish

Oil Fields of Elysia

Arturo led his cadre around their usual rounds, command had said there was some unusual activity in the area and that his patrol should check it out. The MILICIA was made up of undiserables and as such most utilized older era Gears. Often seen as disposable plenty of patrols have "gone missing" and weren't missed.. there were always more recruits for the MILICIA.

It seemed to be a routine patrol of the oil fields but Arturo had a feeling something was up, though the MILCIA was handed second hand gears the veteran pilots were quite experienced at staying alive. He split his squad sending two gears to make a sweeping action to search through the oil refineries while himself and two others took to high ground to spot any trouble.

Without warning autocannons barked and the enemy was revealed, four paratrooper jagers intent on keeping the oil refinery in a hostile takeover. Though the initial fire was an impressive sight the shots did not connect to any gears leaving his squad intact. With practiced ease his squad mates took up firing positions on the hill and started to fire downward onto the paratroopers. Caught in the open and being surrounded the paratroopers didn't stand a chance and they were eliminated piece meal.

Red lights flashed in Arturo's gear as the enemy grew desperate and fired all their guns at him. Though his gear was heavily damaged and sluggish his flanking team showed up behind the enemy and finished them off before his gear finally sputtered and gave out. "Command we got rid of the problem, four paratroopers send a scout team to look for survivors...".

This was my first full game of Heavy Gear Blitz without referring to the rulebook every few seconds lol. The game played out quick enough even after we rolled the special event "Friendly Fire" that had random blasts dotting the battle field. Cash and myself were playing the same faction "The South", though we played two different types of forces. While I was playing with a more general force that focused on numbers and speed, Cash chose the more elite Paratrooper Jagers with plenty of upgrades.

My list:
Command Jager with Medium Auto Cannon
Jager x3 with 1 Medium Auto Cannon and 2 Light Autocannons
Stripped Down Jager with Light Autocannon

The game itself went by pretty quick I managed to get the high ground with my command jager and two others while I sent a stripped down jager and a regular jager into a flanking move. It turned out that Cash had no real option to hide from my group on an elevated position and paid for it dearly. If he had tried to climb the tiered mountain he would be wasted time and get shot all the way up, if he tried to run I still had a clear view of most of the board.

All and all it was a very enjoyable game and it got me motivated to finish putting together my gears. Which I might add are pretty detailed though they are the size of a regular 25-288mm miniature they represent a large mech rougly the size of a house, so all the gears and servos are crafted along with a few extras.

Hopefully I get a few more games in to get a better feel for the game and actually motivate me to paint.. though there are plenty of "toys" already on the painting line..

Tales of the Weird West...

I finally got to try out Malifaux, a game set in a sort of victorian/steam punk/wild west setting. If you have ever played the rpg/cc/ttg of Deadlands it is very similiar in many aspects. The story line is there is a mining town of Malifaux that is between the rift of different dimensions. This tear in reality has caused many a curious adventurer to settle the town and mine for riches. What they mine are called "soul stones" which help fuel/bolster the magical essences of magic practioners.

There are five factions in Malifaux:

"Guild" which is the company that regulates and oversees the mining operations in Malifaux. They could be seen as the "good guys" but in reality they are watching over their interests first any citizens second.

"Arcanists" run under the guise of a "Steamfitter's Union" which is a cover for their crime syndicate, this faction is made up of powerful unlicensed magic users.

"Neverborn" are for lack of a better word demons that were former residents of Malifaux before the humans decided to come in and populate the town. They are the things of nightmares and fairy tales that humans have dreamt up come to haunt them.

"Resurrectionists" those that experiment and raise the dead, this faction is made up of necromancers, gravediggers and mad surgeons leading an army of undead. They do not live in the town of Malifaux themselves they live on the outskirts or closed off sections of Malifaux as the Guild is relentlessly hunting them down.

"Outcasts" made up of clones, gremlins, martial artists and other guns for hire. This group is made up of individuals each with their own agendas to complete, some of them are for hire and others only exclusively work for their own faction.

Each faction currently has three sub-factions or "Masters", you can mix and match your minions to suit your playstyle. That makes for 15 different "armies" in the game and I think that's quite good for the first printing of a rulebook.

The things I like about this game:
-Alternating Activation

-Each model has many different rules and abilities down to the lowest costing model, there is so much each model can do

-Deadlands-ish setting, till now I haven't seen many games in this type of genre especially seeing such a positive reaction in such a short amount of time.

-Skirmish level. The starter boxes bring you 4-5 miniatures which actually makes for a full and enjoyable game. Some people have run "starter box" tournaments which has quite some appeal that you are ready to game right away.

-Use of cards, you can use regular playing cards or the custom cards to play Malifaux. There are no dice instead you use cards to determine everything, it is actually quite refreshing. You feel like you have more control because you can "cheat fate", if you don't like what you flipped you can use a card in your hand! It gives the player more control over whats happening, but watch out use all your high cards early on in a turn and you may not have anything for when a nasty surprise comes later in the game.

With that said I am really a big fan of the game already and I am quickly seeing how it's popularity is spreading. In our group we have 3 other players besides myself and we have a few guys that also might interested. Hopefully in my next update I can show you some pictures of my painted crew or at the very least battle report. Stay tuned..

Hoodoo what you don't dare do people?

In an effort to to tidy up my painting/computer desk I decided to go into a painting frenzy and paint up anything that was primed. These miniatures are from the Dark Age line a post apocalyptic game based on the artist Brom works. First up is Hoodoo a lone swordsman from the Skarrd faction that coats his weapons in poison when he heads into battle.




The second miniature is also from the Skarrd faction and she is the Toxic Mistress an addict to her own poisons which she unleashes on her opposition via a rigged pressure system much like a flame thrower.. but with toxic waste! She is missing her twin to complete her "group" but other than that I am quite happy how she turned out.



Here is a group shot with a confrontation miniature I plan to use for Dark Age as a Kaustic (a sort of lieutenant for the Toxic Cult sub-faction of Skard) which seems to fit in just fine with his friends.


Alas I came to that point where I ran out of primer before I got to do more of my Dark Age miniatures. But a quick order to The Warstore and I was back on track, I even managed to order myself a Malifaux book. Apparently this game is getting rave reviews and is selling out of just about everywhere. Malifaux has the look of a "weird wild west" type of game with heavy steam punk influences. Sort of like the game Deadlands which was an rpg, card game AND miniature game.

The mastermind of it all..

Here is my Logician from the AE Bounty line, which is the last miniature I had to do for this particular crew. All I need to do is wait for the book to come out at the end of October and i'll be fully prepared to play. Now all I have to do is come up with a few names.. hmm the battle is never over is it?






Here is a picture of the whole crew together, when you see these guys around you better be somewhere else!



I am slowly starting to organize and sell off a lot of the miniatures I have laying around. I even started to paint up random miniatures within arms length on my painting table. Till I hit every painters nightmare... no primer! Ah well this week I will stop by my local hobby store and pick that up as well as a few paints.