...all out of bubblegum. Lord Commander Stryker charity paint job

Lord Commander Coleman Stryker (or "Strykey," to his friends), here, is the first mini I've been asked to do as a charity auction piece, and has a fair amount of story behind him.

We can Rebuild Him! Mercenary theme list league and painting blog. Part 5: 30 points Bad Seeds trying new things, more painting progress

It's been a couple years, but I'm getting back into playing Bad Seeds.

Magnus, the Ideologue: My Little Diatribe on Asheth Magnus, and What to do About His Story

Not so long ago, I got back into Warmachine, and have been fairly active, with this Friday marking the beginning of my second league and my return to Mercenaries.

Something I've tossed around for years now was Magnus at the core of a larger army- not the loner represented in his theme lists or the simple sell-sword of Four Star, but the leader of a well-organized army.

The concept was, doing a whole Mercenary "faction," with each Warcaster (and some warjacks and units) being re-imagined as part of, or allied to, this one thematically linked force.

It was easy enough coming up with characters, but then I started talking about how this would happen- how Magnus, or some other character, could unify a larger army/nation, and realized that there was no way to, without fundamentally diverging from the Warmachine narrative, because there isn't a compelling reason for everyone's favorite sell-swords's actions: to put it bluntly, Magnus does not make sense.

Note: Being involved in narrative arts, this is something I do for fun with any number of movies etc.: why does something not work, and what are the fewest number of changes you could make for it to be interesting? Prepare yourself for some analytical ramblings...

The Noisy Killer

Not the most tasteful title, for those who get the reference, but I couldn't think of anything clever for this lightning-themed post.

While I've been getting in to Malifaux, I've been attempting to pare down my Warmachine collection into something actually manageable, as I'd like to just keep what I play or want to learn to play with.

A side effect of this is, I'm actually getting reasonably close to having fully painted factions.

The Street Sweepers, Part 2

(Continued from Part 1)

A reminder of my list,
from the previous post

While I've been as sick as a simile, I've finally gotten a chance to play my Street Sweepers list.

In this case, it was against another Cygnar army- an epic Stryker list with Precursors, warjacks and the black 13th for range, and Rowdy.

Captain Kara Sloan Conversion

Capt. Sloan, in her stiff stock pose

This was a fun conversion, and one of few times I've been asked to reproduce my own work.



Like many others, I thought that the Kara Sloan stock pose (right*) was static, at best. I personally am a huge fan of well done "at ease" poses, which is why I'm constantly impressed by the old Confrontation line.

* Seems there was some confusion about the stock photo, so I've added the least painted photo I could find of the stock pose, if someone has a clearer one, please let me know.

However, holding a rifle longer than she is tall, one handed, with the other on her hip, is not an interesting (or believable) pose. (Interestingly, the concept sketch shows with her in a very similar pose, but looking over her other shoulder, and the rifle on the ground, in a much more natural pose. The face is also nicer, but I imagine that's more to do with sculpting limitations than the poor pose.)

Sloan, done by Mr. Uderzo looks
 sort of like a man, but at least looks
like s/he's doing something.

The obvious modification was to make something like her artwork (right), which took some careful cutting and was one of the first attempts I made to do thoroughly mechanical details.

Ready to cap some (insert faction here).

I was quite happy with how the model came out (as were my clients), but, were I to do it again, I'd definitely apply what I've learned about making scale rivits (more on that in another post).



I think that this conversion, while not perfect, is one of the more effective conversions for the time it took of any I've done.



A more elaborate conversion I've considered is as follows:

-completely remove/resculpt both shoulders, to drop her stance slightly.
- lean her head in to the gun slightly (to give the look of taking a shot, instead of either just having shot or scoping out a new target)
-the addition of a bipod or monopod might be in order

However, I pride myself in affordable prices, so I didn't do the extra steps for the commissions, as I don't feel it's worth the time and associated cost to my clients- this would likely be a personal project instead.

The Street Sweepers, Part 1

I'm a big fan on Privateer Press's theme lists.  In fact, I make a point of running them, and with a number of casters, run their theme lists to the exception of others.

I've written extensively on Magnus and his theme lists (just below this post), have played with some success a number of Khador's (Zerkova's, both incarnation of the Vlads', and even the Old Witch's maligned list), which I eventually would like to focus on in turn, and dabbled others.

However, after Mercenaries, my favorite army is Cygnar, which suffers from some thoroughly mediocre, to just plain bad theme lists. There are exceptions, of course, but I'm looking at one particularly unfortunate theme list in specific: Captain Caine's The Street Sweepers.

The Patriot's Return

This used to be a thread on the Privateer Press forums, which became notably longer and, to my surprise, more subscribed to, than I expected. While I'm no longer as active on their forums, I've moved and updated the document on my blog, with some new notes from experience, and cleaned up formatting and language, and the beginning of some more personalization, as I felt it was a bit dry.

While it isn't as complete as I'd like it to be, I doubt the writeup will ever be complete, unless I quit playing. Also, a word of thanks for the interest/support/conversation, to everyone who asked about it, or contributed when it was back on the forums.   So, without further ado...

Magnus, the Patriot, a Discussion of Asheth Magnus' Theme Lists

An old photo, of an old model, of an old man. Soon to be updated with a new photo, of an old model, of an old man. Somehow, less appropriate.

Cygnar update

Watch out: he'll getcha' with his sword!

While I had some of my Cygnar army up here before, I've updated it somewhat, and now I feel it's worth posting about.

While Cygnar was actually the last Warmachine army I started collecting that I still own, it's one of my most complete, and I've enjoyed trying new schemes out on it, over the years.

I could speak more on it, but my gallery has enough of that already, so, on to that link:

Full Cygnar Gallery