Malifaux, Pandora - Crew Shot

Here is a shot of the whole crew together.

Yup that's it.

Malifaux - Pandora's Box, Pandora

Finished off the last of my Neverborn from Pandora's Box, Pandora herself. This time not the avatar form already put up but the regular sculpt. I plan to use this miniature mostly as a proxy, for several games. I plan to use it in confrontation as a Rhea of Brisis for my Ram forces as well as a proxy for the Doppelganger that comes out in April for Malifaux. The only real complaint I have with most of the Malifaux miniatures is they are so thin. I have a hard time finding a place for pins needed for use with the base inserts. Pandora was certainly not an exception. I was able to squeeze one into her left leg. Still their so small it was difficult. Different certainly than how I have been doing all my confrontation miniatures. Those I leave on their tab and simply base over the tab. I do have to say though having the pins does make painting them a whole lot easier. I can use my pin vice as a handle to hold the miniature with. So no more grubby paws rubbing paint off while working on the miniature itself.

I kept the coloring as similar to the Avatar form of Pandora as I could. Sculpting differences prompted me to come up with a few new coloring schemes for areas like the back of her coat and eyes. Overall though I think they fit well together.

Malifaux - Pandora's Box, Candy

Finished up the last of my crew. So now I have a 35 Stone crew ready to field. I think Candy came out great. I was debating ongoing creepy little girl or not with her and opted with sweet. I think the juxtaposition of a sweet Candy with the rest of the crew will make it all the more striking. I found the freehanded candy stripes to be very difficult. I’ve never really done any free hand work so this was pretty much a first for me. They came out alright. Table worthy to be sure, but not too far beyond that I am afraid. Then again we are our own worst critic. I have to say the entire project was a lot of fun. I can’t wait to give them a go on the table.

Malifaux - Pandora's Box, Baby Kade

Finished up Baby Kade and on my way into Candy to finish off my crew. Hoping to finish her off today as well so I might get my crew into a game tomorrow. Time will tell. I painted up his teddy bear to match the previously painted Teddy in the crew. Same coloring for the fur and the pads, and I even made the button eye a red one to match Teddy’s evil red eyes. Wanting Kade to look a bit malicious but still to hold a little cute charm I opted to make his eyes the portals to the evil within. I gave him bags under his eyes these seem to really give the impression of an adults eyes to the miniature. The darkening passes off an image of very mature very adult sadism to the baby body that is Kade. I think it works perfectly for this model. My opponents shall rue the day this little guy takes the field.

Malifaux - Pandora's Box, Teddy

Anyone want a hug? I finished up Teddy today. I simplified the painting colors of this miniature. I wanted to make him look more akin to a traditional teddy bear rather than the version Wyrd miniatures showcases. I wanted him to match my Kade's teddy bear in coloring so that the two miniatures where thematically colored in sync as well as having the abilities that make them work better together. As such I opted to really go at the base to help frame up what I think is a relativly flat looking miniature. He's a one mold model his arms are resting at his side and he is pretty thin along the side. Since he is supposed to be a thing of nightmare, much like all the Neverborn I wanted to frame him on the base witht he lightpost and trashcan to make it almost seem as if one was viewing the model hiding down an alley from you. I think the effect came off rather well. Visually Teddy seems to be crammed in behind the post and can, I rather like the overall effect. This is perhaps the first case where I did about as much painting work ona base as I did on the model itself. Perhaps even more. Still I think teddy will make a great addition to the crew as something of a beat stick.

as always you can click the image for a much larger version of the picture.

Malifaux - Pandora's Box, Pandora Avatar of Woe

I finished up Pandora in Avatar form today. I’m basing this model on a 30mm to use as an alternate sculpt of Pandora rather than the 40mm avatar form that will be released in a future rules release. I greatly enjoyed painting this miniature. I think the dry brushing used across the clothing gave it a very woven texture that I appreciated. The ghostly tendrils leaving the box on the ground also came out very well to me. I opted to make the faces glow an inner white rather than leaving the washed black I had started them as. I though this gave them a look of power rather than the solid realness the black wash filling the screaming faces had given it initially.

I base painted the two forms of Pandora initially to keep them both similar in coloring. As I got near the end, I opted instead to finish up the avatar form as I wished to complete this one for use in game. The base was somewhat interesting to paint. I didn’t realize until I was about to put brush to the base that it was not a dirt/gravel pile in front of the grating but rather a kind of sludge/slim mixture. I enjoyed giving this a sort of brown sub coloring, grey wash/streaking followed by some various laying of darker to lighter grey/green coloring. I think the effect came out well. The bubbles are a nice putrid light green. I made sure to paint up two of the same base inserts the same way so that both forms of Pandora would sit on the same base. You’ll be able to compare them once I get the other Pandora done.

Malifaux - Pandora's Box, Sorrows Part 2

Late this evening I’ve finished off the three Sorrows for Pandora's Crew. Along with the miniatures themselves I've painted up their bases and base accessories. I’ve added some nice static grass to the plant pot. I also chose to have the spilt bread bag be on the other Sorrow. A sign of activity about the miniature, as if a civilian was walking by with bread when the ghostly Sorrow came up out of the drain.

After painting the Tarascus for so long these felt good to get done. Painting the mini’s and their bases took me all of a day to complete. After the weeks of work on the Tarascus the feeling of accomplishment from these guys is just what I needed to get my painting groove back. I’m all gun-ho to get at the rest of the crew and finish the whole lot up this weekend. Maybe then I can even get my first game in.

Malifaux - Pandora's Box, the Begining

So Monday my unit arrived and I set to work on it. I got the mini's all cleaned up, the tabs trimmed out and the miniatures themselves assembled into workable clusters as I call them.
Sections of the model that would not be interfering with each other for me to paint are assembled; those areas that would get in the way are left unattached but made very ready for easy assembly later. I then set pins into the model drilling them and attaching a very long pin that I can also use as a way to hold the miniature in my pin vise, while painting. The first image is a shot from this morning. I had started in on the ghostly green effects of the sorrows and Pandora’s avatar form.

Then I got all into painting one of the Sorrows. In about 2 hours I got him finished up and the base painted and him pinned in and attached. I've also cut out and attached a piece of felt along the bottom of the base. I think this adds a level of "class" to my miniature and will hopefully help keep it more stable on the gaming table while playing. I thought this particular base insert was perfect for the ethereal Sorrow, as he is forming up out of the drain pipe.

Tarascus Completed

Well its taken me a fair task longer than any of my previous miniatures to complete, and rightly so, but the Tarascus is now done. I'm not sure I will care to work on a model of this scope for some time again. The shear amount of time spent doing the same thing over and over again was driving me nuts and away from my table. This is also why I tend to only paint heroes and not units. I get a lot of enjoyment painting a miniature; I don't enjoy painting a miniature multiple times. Yet I am done now and that is nice. Base coating this monster took me a fair amount of time, and the weathering steps were also time consuming, washes took a long time to dry, and keeping my hands clean while holding the "mini" was very difficult during the wash/weathering steps. My normal system is to use very watered down black then rust then brown pigments after each ones dries and to liberally coat the area of effect. The problem on such a hefty miniature is that I had few safe places to be able to hold the miniature while not getting my fingers pigmented and thus transferring them about the miniature unintentionally. I had to clean up such mistakes a number of times. Also After base coating I assembled the miniature to have the finishes applied more uniformly across the miniature. I didn't want for example where the leg connected to look different from the hip because they were painted separately.


Actually while painting the skin I found uniformity to be my most difficult goal. I wanted the skin tone to blend from darker near the top to lighter on the belly/bottom. Yet to get a smooth transition while dry brushing over such a large area was extremely irksome. Still I am happy with the results. The miniature came out looking great and I even got a game in the following day after I finished sealing it. At 1775 AP it is a bear to deploy, but with a 4k game I was able to get it in. I ended up losing the game, I was honestly more interested in how my Tarascus was performing than in taking objectives so I ended up losing by 1 elixir in the end. Still the beast was a beast on the board. I lost all of 1 incarnate, and 6 clones of dirz. My opponent had a full Knights unit with the Red Lioness Mounted eaten by the Tarascus with about 6 paladins as a chaser and his second incarnate. My tigers where able to un-hurriedly consume an entire unit of archers. Leaving my opponent with nearly 2/3 of his army eliminated by game end. It wasn’t overpowering. I would have lost the Tarascus by turn two had I now won initiative and been able to heal it with Genetic reconfiguration/Reconstitution as my opening maneuver. The clarification that challenges are rounded UP to the nearest integer, rather than down as they had been in the past makes the titanic Tarascus a more balanced unit rather than a terrible beast. Still with disengagment and implacable the Tarascus is a terrable foe to engage.

Battle Report: Campaign Testing

So for the third time my play group has been play testing the missions for the Confrontation Campaign I have been working on. The campaign document itself is about 80% done. Its nearly all written, fluff being about the only part not having gone through at least one completed draft. I had posted the document up for the other Sentinels for Rackham’s Confrontation to look through and make comments on. I’ve only had one response. So taking those comments in stride looks like I will have to work this one out on my own.
My gaming group has been very good at helping me to test out the missions though. We have a discussion about how they went and what could/should be changed why they feel that way and how that would affect the feel of the mission. The comments from my fellow Sentinel demonstrated I needed to put a lot more clarification on certain new rules elements that I take for granted as my group has been using them for a number of months, why they are set this way for the campaign.

So this week we play tested a mission called elemental portal. Fluff wise this area holds a number of stable elemental portals to the various elemental plains, a crew from Cadwallion discovered it and had been collecting mana gems from the portals before all out war broke out accost Pernicus. The map basically features three chests filled with mana gems radiating from the center of the map on three points of walls spreading out from the center. Surrounded by six elemental portals, one for each element. The portals work like Nexus of Mana but only for armies who’s mages work with the particular element. Part of the campaign document has an appendix with print out for the cards representing the elemental portals, including icons for the armies who have affinity for ease of reference during play. The key element of the scenario though is that once controlled the chests can be carried off by the unit controlling it so long as a member of the unit is in contact with it. So once the second round begins, the first chance to control happening during the first round control phase, the play becomes very mobile as the objectives get carted away from the center.

We played a three way game, I played the Ram, and my opponents played wolfen and lion each. For pretty much the whole game Lion was winning authority, I took it for one round, but the wolfen’s scouts and high mobility proved to be a clincher this game even though I and the lion player nearly ignored each other trying to stop him. I knew it would be a scenario in the wolfen’s favor, I also don’t think it was exceedingly in his favor. The end result was pretty close and he did a very stoic job of sacrificing his fighters to allow controllers of the chest to get away. I played a summon heavy ram company and deployed my summons in a type of undead wall formation to try and pen in the wolfen. Sadly aside from a slight delay at one point the wolfen player would assault and wipe the unit out with a non-objective carrying unit to allow the objective holders a chance to run for it. Still I had a great time and I think it was a good scenario.

Malifaux

So I've been hearing about Wyrd Miniatures newest game, Malifaux since the D6 Generation went to Gencon and espoused upon its virtues to their listeners, me. I must admit I have had an intrest in the game since then, but having been working to get Confrontation and AT-43 played in my local gaming area, without widespread success, I was leery of getting into another game that no one was playing. Well a group independent of me has started playing the game, and those in my group playing Confrontation with me had made and order to play Malifaux. So I broke down and got a hold of the rulebook, I told myself at the time it was to figure out if I wanted to play before I dug myself in too far. The truth is more akin to figuring out what crew I wanted to run before picking up models.

I took me a whole 4 hours of reading through the rulebook to decide the following. A.) I was hooked and wanted to play. B.) I was drawn to two crews, the Ortega Family as well as Pandora. I liked the western feel of the Ortega’s, not having anything western themed at all it would be a good fill in for other western themed games that may come up in the future. However I learned that the group getting into the game already had a solid Ortega player, and no one playing Pandora. After reading the stats and how they worked I was truly intrigued. This is a crew that will not work in the typical fashion. They don’t really fit into a play style standard that I know of. They are not brawlers, they are not shooters really either. They do some of both but their real strategy is to have the enemy almost literally eliminate themselves. So far that is how I see them anyway. They manipulate and confound your enemy, and in the end force him to pay for every action he takes against you.

To say I am unfamiliar with how to run a band based around this kind of strategy is an understatement, yet I am looking forward to the mental wing stretching. The very foundation of how this crew works seems to demand a lot of imaginative undertaking from the player to pull out victory. You have to game both your opponent and the cards to make them work. So I put in my order and have my crew showing up. Being such a minimal figure count, I wanted to go all out on these guys and also ordered the Victorian base inserts as well as the accessories to really spruce them up. I think I may have found a new painting inspiration to get me over the marathon attempt that painting my Tarrascus has been so far.

Speaking of that beast of a critter, weathering is done, and the leather armor is all painted up and highlighted ect. I just have the flesh to highlight, and the strapping to highlight as well. Then go back do a little touch up to some detail elements and it should be done. I work on it a bit every day but no long hauls on it and I’m making progress again so yay.