Zombicide Invader: The Return

09.08.2022

After mechs last time I find myself returning to Zombicide Invader, but this time going the opposite direction of alien zombos and instead sticking to the mech-like blockiness afforded by gun emplacements wielded by robots.

Yet again I still have no idea about the rules that go with what I'm painting, but all that can come later and would just get in the way now!

I still have the goal of getting Zombicide Invader painted and ready for a potential game with Jer and Keith by the end of the year. All of the alien zombos are painted. All that's left is 28 non-alien zombos. I would say good guys, but those unread rules could come back to haunt me.

I picked the biggest things remaining to paint first. Some evil looking robot thingies, with guns and pointy bits. Like the Battletech mechs from last time, I didn't want to go too colorful to keep things from looking cartoonish. This also ended up being discovering that I really like Citadel Necron Compound for a metallic drybrush. For most of these I just primed grey, Nuln Oil wash, Necron drybrush, and then picked out some details to colorize. After the fact I might need to use some gloss coat to make the metallic parts stand out better, but I kind of like the dull look right now.

4 down, 24 to go.

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BattleTech: Miniature Force Pack - Clan Support Star

08.29.2022

On a recent trip to Nashville, I tricked my good close personal friend Charles G into purchasing a Battletech game. For my goading, I agreed to get a support team for him to quash should the need ever arise to do battle. Also, it's been a while since I painted something that didn't have eyes.

I picked up the BattleTech: Miniature Force Pack - Clan Support Star, and I have no idea what that means in terms of game play. I have a copy of the rules.. from the 90's. I'm not sure I even read the rules in the 90's. But that's not the point of this. This is a game in which my good close personal friend Charles G has always enjoyed the background and history - kind of like Warhammer 40K. This was an excuse to buy some toys and read some stuff under the guise of "yeah, we'll play that"; which we actually might.

I went fairly simple on the paint job, as too many colors would look overly cartoonish, and I came across some paint jobs online that lost the scale for the mechs and started to look like man-sized powered armor. Vallejo Olive Drab for the base coat. Each mech got a different green-based contrast paint for some highlights/panel and parts differences. I had fun trying to add in the plasma-green for energy weapons (I think it worked). Sky Blue for windows and canopies still works well, although adding it a drop at a time to get color coverage while not overlapping non-windowed details took a steadier hand than I thought I had. I found some Citadel Nechron Dry "compound", as it didn't claim to be paint. I honestly thought it was dried up paint, but when I dragged the brush across it, it had a rubbery bounce-back to it. It had a nice metallic look so I thought I would give it a try at drybrushing instead of the tried and true Use Too Much Paint/Try To Find The Sweet Spot/Now I Need More Paint method. I've got to say, while the first swipe was a little heavier than I generally wanted, after that it was a really goo drybrush. I don't care for the pots they're in, but I'm finding more and more Citadel paints (and paint adjacent) that I like.

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Malifaux and Fallout

08.01.2022

Today helps to show the epitome of painting things for games I don't play, as I have no idea about the rules for where either of these sets come from. First up is a group of 4 from Malifaux, because the guy with the hatchet looked like he would be fun to paint. And he was fun to paint! Ditto for the trio from Fallout.

Thanks to various sales over the years I've gotten a handful of sets from the Fallout game, yet never opened any. There was a recent sale of even more from the line which looked fun to paint, so I thought it was time to actually see about that before buying more. The Fallout minis are resin which needs some assembly, which is not my favorite combo. These minis are slightly larger (32mm) than most other things I paint (28-30mm). It's such a small difference I didn't think I would notice, but these had some nice detail that made me think that just having that little but larger scale might make a difference.

Having learned a little from Blood Bowl construction previously, I painted before gluing. Also having learned from Blood Bowl construction, I didn't get fancy with the paints used where parts would join, so that shades would match. The glue-points for some of these was a little weird - the guy holding the pistol with both hands had 1 arm, both hands, and the gun as 1 piece, while the other arm from shoulder to wrist was the matching piece. I was a little worried about things lining up, but I managed to get everything close enough (without gluing my hands to the resin).

After long runs of just cranking out minis this year, between alien zombies and Blood Bowlers, it was nice to just paint some random stuff. I'm not really sure what will get painted next, as the backlog of shrinkwrap needs a little organization to both see what all I've got, along with make things a little easier to get to/grab and paint.

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Blood Bowl Part 3 (maybe 2.5)

07.23.2022

Quick post to wrap up the Khorne Blood Bowl team, as I finished up the balls and turn marker/tokens. I think that's what they are. One of the balls was lost during priming - never to be seen amongst the river rock/pebbles it fell amongst. It was like Games Workshop knew this might happen and thus cast multiples in the kit.

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Blood Bowl Part 2

07.14.2022

I stuck to what I said in my last post and actually finished touching up the glossy bits on the Blood Bowl team! And it took less time than I had originally feared.

With glossy metal parts and battle blood splatter applied sparingly, I now proclaim this Blood Bowl team ready for blood bowling. There's still some secondary pieces I've got to ready - like a ball or three - but those are more along the lines of whipping out for fun as opposed to cranking through a team. At least that's my approach.

Next up will be something random which doesn't constitute a lot of similarly painted minis. Considering my year has been made up of this Blood Bowl team and a whole lot of alien zombies, I have a desire to not paint the same colors in mostly the same places over and over again. It might be time to do another terrain/building piece?

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