Warhammer Quest: Cursed City is a labour of love for hobbyists and a love letter to those old enough to remember the original Warhammer Quest. I hope it's a good game, but it really doesn't matter.

 One of the things I've paid a lot of attention to during my absence from the hobby is the re-introduction of Warhammer Quest.  

Delicious components

I have very fond but hazy childhood memories of playing the original 1995 Warhammer Quest with my friends Dave, John and Tim.  Dave had acquired the set during a period where we were all collecting Warhammer Fantasy (R.I.P.) models and doing our best to play games when we were too young to stay focused on collecting and painting armies and didn't really have the money to do so.  Warhammer Quest was a dream come true with everything you needed right in the box, and I spent some allowance money on the Wood Elf hero to give another option.  Back then, they released small boxes with a new hero for WHQ with their in-game card you needed to play them, and at the time Wood Elves were very much my jam.  I hadn't yet learned that bugs are gross and I can get all the exposure to nature that I need from golf.

But really, my journey began before that with HeroQuest.

We had a family friend who owned a cottage in the Muskokas, and my father was a general contractor and carpenter.  It was mutually advantageous that we would go up for a period each summer and my dad would do some work or repairs, my brother and I would mow the grass or paint a deck chair, and we would get to use this absolutely amazing property for a week or so each year.  

This cottage was a full blown house in lake country.  Rare for the time, it had all the appliances you'd expect, running water and all that.  Because the owner and his family spent so much time there, there was a variety of VHS tapes, outdoor fun equipment like ATVs, and a selection of board games.

Among the board games was something that completely blew my mind called HeroQuest.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, give that a quick Google.  I suspect that the same son of our family friend responsible for the stack of 1960s-1980s comic books was also responsible for HeroQuest being there, but all I can say for certain is that the box art alone sent absolute fireworks through the mind of a young boy who had been consumed by old AD&D PC games like Pool of Radiance.  

I will never find the words to express the frustration I felt when I couldn't get my family to play the game with me for more than an hour -- I couldn't understand why anyone would want to do anything else.  Screw the lake.

Fast forward a few years, after I'd managed to finagle my own copy of HeroQuest, when my newfound interest in Warhammer ran face first into my delight for HeroQuest and RPGs in general.  It took me a long time to learn that Games Workshop was responsible for HeroQuest as well.  

Stepping away from the days of yore, when I learned that the modern Warhammer Quest games were designed to be playable solo, I broke into a sweat.  I wouldn't have to convince anyone to play with me.

But I didn't buy Silver Tower.  I didn't buy the next one.  I didn't buy Blackstone Fortress, despite being intrigued by the fact that it was WH40k. 

Then Cursed City got a reprint right as I was getting back into this hobby, and I found out that it had all the secret sauce I remembered from before.  Wide variety of heroes?  One's even a wood elf?  Character progression over the course of a campaign?  Random table of bad shit that can happen to you between missions for no reason?  Sign me up.  

So I bought it.  Then immediately decided that I wouldn't play it until I had assembled and painted every model.  I wanted to savour the anticipation and have something beautiful.  I've started, and I'm making progress.  I'm not bothering to count while I'm typing, but I'm 5/8 heroes painted and I'd guess around 20 of the bad guys.  There's  60 miniatures in total.  It's a lot of work.

Just the enemies.

I don't know if the game is good, but there are lots of places you can look up reviews.  I'm guessing I'll enjoy it regardless.  But I wanted to use this space to document some of my trials and tribulations while getting the set ready for prime time, and maybe I can inspire someone to finish their set or help someone learn from my mistakes.  

So with that in mind, I'll be posting about the painting and some thoughts about the models and some limited lore.  I'll also give my thoughts about the box itself, but here's my initial take:

For the money it costs, there is nothing that is going to give you the variety of incredibly high quality sculpts to paint.  It's also a hugely satisfying building experience, although it's moderately challenging so I'd say make sure you have the right tools and patience for the job.  The quality of the materials inside, the models, the presentation is so far beyond my expectations that it really is the best example I can present for the new Games Workshop theme:  High cost, unbelievable quality, slick presentaion.

It's going to take forever to paint, it took a while to assemble, and it will take some time to beat the campaign.  But god almighty, I am going to enjoy opening that envelope.  

Start of a long journey

I'm painting again. I don't know where it goes from here.

 It's been a while!

About 6 weeks ago, I felt like painting again.  It's been about 10 years at this point since I stopped, but I've taken longer breaks than that before.

I wanted to wait before posting anything both because I'm a lot older, out of practice and I honestly wasn't sure if I'd pick up a brush and not be able to paint.  As documented previously, my eyesight and fine motor skills were never great to begin with, and I am absolutely racing towards the grave at this point.

It's hard to say what exactly gave me the itch again -- I've casually kept up with WH40k over the last decade, and my Google news feed occasionally features articles from the ever-delightful Bell of Lost Souls (as an aside, it's been incredible to watch the progress of that site over the years).  I think I just ticked over from seeing some beautiful models to realizing that I could go pick up something -- maybe just get some fresh paints and a couple of models and dip my toe in.  You know.

Within a couple of weeks, I had the 40k starter set, some extra Necrons, the Age of Sigmar Dominion box, and Cursed City.  As well as the big paint set from Army Painter, and a growing collection of Citadel contrast paints.  I guess the toe dip went a little sideways.

As an aside, I'm amused that this post of mine from December 2010  has become an entirely valid alternate way to paint models that we now call 'Contrast Method' or 'Speed Painting'.  We'll come back to that.

I'm now about a month and half into collecting, assembling and painting.  I'm really enjoying myself.  

The reason I'm posting tonight is that I wanted a place to put up some pictures of what I'm working on, and document for myself some of the progress I'm making.  Also it's a place to share photos where I'm not spamming my friends and family, who I'm sure are already tired of the daily random photos of weird little models that they don't really understand.

I can also see by the dashboard that somehow people still end up directed towards this site every once in a while.  I hope that these poor lost travelers can find something that inspires or helps them in their pursuit of the hobby, or at least reassures them that someone, somewhere, is also still trying to figure out how to paint after decades of doing it.  

I have a lot of thoughts about the hobby, Warhammers both 40k and AoS, and the enormous evolution of available tools to produce beautiful models and the huge increase in both cost and quality of Games Workshop miniatures.  

Right now I'm working on finishing the Cursed City miniatures before I actually play a game of it.  I'm about 17/60 minatures done, and I'm mostly pleased with how they've turned out.

I will be posting here occasionally with some updates and backlog photos of the stuff that I've been working on.  Forgive me in advance, the photos I've been taking are in no way staged for photography, just rough workdesk photos like the header above.  But in the meanwhile I thought I'd share the first model I painted after a 10+ year absence vs a model I painted a few days ago and the evolution over that 6 week period as I started to remember what was forgotten.  Both are WH40k Orks from the (5th edition?) starter set, Assault on Black Reach.

March 27th: 

How do paints work again?

May 1st:

I'll try to put up something new every few days or when the thoughts feel like going down in text.  In the meanwhile, I'll also try to find a better set up for taking pictures of miniatures, but bear with me for a while on that :)

Delusion? Or Genius?

So while I was scheming about my Tervigon conversion, I had an idea:

All those Rippers we all have kicking around? And all that extra space on the MC bases?

I was thinking of magnetizing 6 rippers onto my next Trygon's base, and pulling them off as wound markers.

What do you think?

Alright, it was Paddy's idea!  I'm scared to contradict him.

Prepare yourselves for the world's laziest Tervigon conversion... And a status update!

Hello, everyone!

I will remind you again that this is representative of my conversion/painting skills

Just a super-quick post to update on my progress with all the new acquisitions, and I can tell you that my league starts in mid-February, but I'm doing well enough here that I may actually be able to play my first game before then.  I know I haven't been keeping up with my posting, but in my defense, you don't want to hear about me working or see pictures of grey plastic models :)

Also I finally figured out what I'm going to do about Tervigon conversions!

But first, an update of where I'm at:

Finished Trygon!

Well, that was a journey!

I actually finished it yesterday but didn't have time to post anything up.  I also want to say that by 'finished' I mean it's ready for the tabletop, but I'm going to be finding small errors and correcting them for weeks to come, I'm sure.

Here it is!

Bring on the AV14!

Detail pics and my thoughts after the jump!

The Biggest Bug of All - Trygon almost finished!

After much. much work, we're coming around on the home stretch!

I have to paint three of these eventually? Goodness.

I am actually tired from painting.  However, it's almost done!

Here's what I have left to do:

- Edge all of the carapace sections with Dheneb Stone
- Clean up a couple of the details
- Do some general fixing of errors
- Base it!

So what you're looking at is very close to the finished product, with a little less depth in the carapace!

Here's a closer view of the front that shows the details a bit better:

Terrifying, isn't he?

So I should be done, dare I say, tomorrow!  Although it's such a large model that I'm sure I'll be finding errors on it for the next month, so it'll keep me busy.  As for the base, I think I'm going to take the Rippers off, just because I don't really feel like painting them or that they add too much to the base.

I'll wait until tomorrow to do that, though, because maybe I'm just tired and grumpy right now!

The Biggest Bug of All - Trygon WIP Update!

Well, this thing is a pretty big project but having started it I'm much less intimidated!  I had a nice night where I popped the movie Hot Fuzz on the computer in front of me and just painted away.  So here we are:

The Trygon got a manicure with OPI colour "Voracious Vermillion"

 - The exoskeleton is done, highlighting shading and all.  It will get another thin coat of Leviathan Purple wash over certain parts, but other than that it's finished.  

 - The (very) bright red on the talons will be toned down considerably after a couple coats of Baal Red, but I really like the effect -- it's very attention-grabbing!  This will probably be the method I use for MC talons on all of my bugs, except perhaps the Tervigon, but more on that at a later date.  And what you're looking at there is just two layers of Blood Red over white primer.

- The Carapace is what I'll be working on tonight.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around how to shade and highlight it, and I still haven't picked up Devlan Mud to test it and see if I can get a more natural, consistent shade on the Dheneb Stone.  One thing I'm very pleased with, however, is how smooth of a coat I managed to get on the large back Carapace section (the only part I'm really stressing about) by being very patient and thinning down the Dheneb Stone alot:

I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave

As always, any input is appreciated!  One decision I'm still struggling with is whether or not to use the red for any other 'spines' on the model, such as the side ones that I've left unpainted on the tail.  I'm not sure if it would add anything, or just make the model look busier.

Thoughts?

The Biggest Bug of All - Time to paint a Trygon!

EDIT: The next one gets painted before it gets fully assembled.  Made that tougher for myself than I had to.

Well, here it stands in all its white-primed glory:

Whitesnake!  Haha!

This is by a large margin the largest model that I've ever attempted.  The next largest was a Bloodthirster, which really isn't all that big without its wings.  This model poses a couple unique challenges that I'm going to have to overcome:

1) The two-part Scything Talons.  Because I've been painting both the carapace and talons bone-coloured for the rest of my models (such as these hormagaunts), I've got a bit of a quandary here, since there is carapace on top of the Talons.  After doing a lot of test runs on a spare Mawloc arm, I'm going to try leaving the carapace bone coloured, but doing all the talon 'blades' in bright red.  We'll see how that works out!  I can always repaint it.

2) The sheer size of the model.  As I said, I've never tackled anything this large, and the wash-over-primer method I use for the little bugs won't really do this justice -- plus it would take a lot of wash!  So I'm going to do a traditional paint/highlight/wash on this model. Which could take some time!  I'm also going to try Devlan Mud for the carapace sections instead of Badab Black, since I think it will give me an overall 'smoother' finish.  I'll be testing that out beforehand, though.

So that's what I'm up to.  How are you all doing?  I feel like we haven't talked in so long!

I'll update the WIP as I get something accomplished on this beast.

P.S.:  I had to add a couple rippers to the base.  I like to think that they look up and say, "I want to be a Trygon when I'm all grown up!"

How To Cheat At Painting -- Part 2

Part 1 here.

Recap:


If you're anything like me, you face two very large obstacles when starting a new painting project or (heaven forbid) an entire army:

1) You are physically disabled when it comes to painting.  Your hand quivers as though in constant terror of the brush, and you have eyesight somewhere between a myopic bat and an a rock.

2) You have little time, and less attention span.  You are also the slowest painter in the world, and it's a shame there's no trophy for that.

Because I'm determined to enjoy this hobby despite my challenges, I had to figure out a way to paint up 'Nids quickly, smoothly, and (since I started a blog) in a fashion that photographs well.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We left off with this:

We've come so far together!

Now I'm going to continue the step-by-step and show you how to finish off a model's details and give it a good looking base, all with minimal effort and time!

How To Cheat At Painting -- Part 1

If you're anything like me, you face two very large obstacles when starting a new painting project or (heaven forbid) an entire army:

1) You are physically disabled when it comes to painting.  Your hand quivers as though in constant terror of the brush, and you have eyesight somewhere between a myopic bat and an a rock.

2) You have little time, and less attention span.  You are also the slowest painter in the world, and it's a shame there's no trophy for that.

Because I'm determined to enjoy this hobby despite my challenges, I had to figure out a way to paint up 'Nids quickly, smoothly, and (since I started a blog) in a fashion that photographs well.

I should have special parking at my hobby shop.

Now, I've posted the evolution in how I paint my bugs, but I feel like I should share a step-by-step for others on how to quickly and easily put together a decent looking model, from priming to basing.

First attempt for Blood Angels paint scheme

Since I'm leaning towards Blood Angels for my fledgling Marines, I figured I should do some paintin' and make sure that I actually enjoyed painting the model and could do it to a standard that I found acceptable.

So I'm going to put up two or three test models using different techniques and hopefully get some feedback on what looks best.  I have a tendency to create extra work for myself by picking out areas of detail that aren't necessary, which slows down the whole army production, and I have a feeling I might have done that on the first test model here:

Look Ma! No hands!

First of all, as many people have mentioned, it's amazing how much you can see in terms of errors when you photograph the model.  Having said that, you can't really see any of them on the tabletop, and this is just a test model after all.

So here's how I did it:

Assault on Black Reach impressions

Okay, the Mordheim stuff is on hold for the time being, but we have returned to civilization and I have had a chance to dig into the Black Reach boxed set.  I know it's been out for a while, but I just got it, so I thought I'd give a newcomer's perspective on the set, especially as it compares to what Games Workshop offered back when I used to play their games, a decade and a half ago.

Pictured: Civilization, except for the Big Bang Theory sign

So while I sit here in the comfortable glow of the city lights, the familiar hum of the Leafs getting massacred on the TV behind me (fewer things are more pointless than a huge HDTV that you listen to, rather than watch), with glass of wine in hand,  I'll give you my thoughts on the Assault on Black Reach box. And I'm thinking of what kind of Marine force I'm going to put together.

Not 40k but still awesome: The Zombie Boardgame, "The Last Night on Earth"

Happy Friday my people!

Amazing to see how much traffic drops off for a new blog when you don't post for a day!  I'm a bit leery because we're out of town all weekend doing glorious family holiday things, and I'm afraid I'll make everyone who's been kind enough to visit the site lose what little interest they already had.  I'll try to find a good topic to post about while I'm visiting the parents for the weekend -- maybe I'll dig through the attic at my parents' and try to find some nifty stuff.  There's a lot of buried Chaos and Vampire Counts stuff there that's getting on in age.  Plus I want to grab my old Mordheim stuff, because hell yes.  I wonder if I could trick my buxom wench into playing Mordheim?  Very small boardgame leap from Last Night on Earth.....

Oh right!!  We were talking about Last Night On Earth!!

 Gratuitous box shot?

Non-Tyranid News: A One-of-a-kind Bloodthirster! I promise!

Well, after finishing off the Prime, I'm out of primed models to paint (Prime... primed... oh wait, I already made that joke).  And since it would wake up my dearest love if I were to prime more right now, this seems like as good a time as any to post this:

What's a Bloothirster's favourite sweet snack? Candy Khorne! Haha!

My lazy Tyranid Prime conversion, Part 4... Finished!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

RECAP:

I've made a Tyranid Prime conversion using a Warrior, a special base, a large Scything Talon flipped around to be a Bonesword, and a Trygon headpiece converted into a large shield that is a 'counts-as' Lashwhip.

And now it's done!  Behold:

My large sword and shield are not compensating for anything! Shut up!

I'd love to hear any constructive criticism.  Or praise.  Especially praise.

But how do I feel about it?  Jump!

My lazy Tyranid Prime conversion, Part 3...

Part 1 found here.

Part 2 found here.

RECAP:


I've made a Tyranid Prime conversion using a Warrior, a special base, a large Scything Talon flipped around to be a Bonesword, and a Trygon headpiece converted into a large shield that is a 'counts-as' Lashwhip.

So after finishing the conversion, it was time to paint!

This is a bit of a milestone for me because now that the Prime is put together I can actually play my first game if I want -- he's my first HQ.  Granted, it would be a game with a couple small units of little bugs, a Prime, and a Trygon, but still...  Getting there.  It's probably enough that I could conceivably field it against either side of the contents of an Assault on Black Reach box.  And lose to the Marines.

Not those Marines!

My lazy Tyranid Prime conversion, Part 2...

First part found here.

RECAP:


I left off describing how I had come to choose the parts for my Tyranid Prime:

1) Warrior as a base model
2) Needs a Lashwhip and Bonesword
3) Needs to be bulkier than a regular Warrior, to stand out as a Prime

And to that end, I chose to convert a spare Trygon head plate into a shield for him, to count as a lashwhip.  I really like the idea of a Tyranid Warrior with a sword and a shield.

I also carved up and flipped around a spare large Scything Talon from the warrior kit.  I used my knife to cut small 'flattened' parts out of the edge of the blade in an attempt to give it some hard edges.  If all goes according to plan, layers of highlighting should make it look crystalline, which is the effect I'm going for.  At this point, I was absolutely unsure of what colour I was going to use for the bonesword.  Not even a tiny clue.

Assembled and Primed.  See what I did there?

My lazy Tyranid Prime conversion, Part 1....

Before you finish painting me, can I count as a Prime if you just write "Army Leader" on my base?   All the other Hormagaunts would think I'm so cool...

Part of the challenge of putting together a glorious Hive Fleet (like the Turbo-Ants, for instance) is that you need to convert just about everything.

Now for those of us like me, who lack not only talent but also creativity, this.... isn't good.  Especially if the model in question has no concept art in the codex (everyone knows a Tervigon is just a pregnant Carnifex).

Now since I'm still under 1,000 points of Turbo-Ants, if I ever manage to play a game, it's going to be a Prime leading the carnival. So I better come up with one.  Daddy doesn't proxy.  Unless it's convenient.

So here are my goals:

1) A Prime is a warrior, so figure something out that uses a Warrior base

2) It needs to be differentiated, so somehow figure out how to bulk it up and make it look more impressive than the other warriors

3) You don't actually know what you're doing, do you?  Stop crying, you're embarrassing both of us.  Magnetize that business and at least your errors won't be irreversible.

Paddy O'Lanterns the Irish-dancing Hormy says, "Let's make some errors that are irreversible!"

So before I post what I ended up with as a model, let me point out a couple points of my process: