The Grand Host of Revered Slann-Mage Priest Xalana’qay – (re)Finished!

Used without permission.

You ever have the urge to get up in the middle of the night about 3:45 AM and decide to start working on your unfinished army…? Well that’s exactly what happened to me this morning. After not feeling so well the last few days as well as re-adjusting to West Coast time, my body just wasn’t feeling it… but this morning, I woke up in the wee hours of the night wide awake, and since I decided there was no way I was gonna fall back asleep, off to work I headed. If you read my last post about the TSHFT Open being cancelled, then you remember me saying I was going to have to re-assemble my army in a day or two in order to play in the tournament this weekend. Well it turns out it was cancelled, but I still had plans to work on my Lizardmen anyways… If you recall, my army got simply trashed on the move back from Maryland over the summer… I hadn’t actually taken it out to assess the damage because 1.) I really haven’t had the proper time and, 2.) I was scared to see what kind of condition it was going to be in. The moving company simply obliterated it… Things were bent, some were broken, and some things trashed entirely… Below is just a sampling of what I pulled out when I finally opened the case (notice the Terradons in complete pieces…)

So, I upgraded the carrying case this morning and got everything it’s own cutout in 2 separate Army Transports… So now all 5,000ish points of Lizardmen fits nicely into 2 carrying cases. I set about gluing, cutting, re-cutting, gluing some more, and throwing some things away… It took a few hours but I’m happy to report that the entire army has been fixed and is now ready to go, at least for the most part. What some of these pictures don’t show is how beat up some of the details are on some of the models. Some have big chips that I need to go back over but will set to doing that shortly. Today’s goal was to just get it all put back together. Here’s a couple more pics:

I found that I need to finish up one last movement tray (you’ll notice it on the Temple Guard) and I have an unopened Scar-Veteran model that needs to be painted as well. So I’m about 98% complete with this army, minus the touch-ups. Here’s the last of the finished army:

After getting everything back in order I started working on my Beastmen and took stock of what kind of condition it’s in as well. There appears to be about 2,200 points of models available and nothing yet painted. So, with this in mind,  this army will be next to paint once I finish up the other 2% of my Lizardmen. There is one other thing I’d like to do, though, specifically for the West Coast Hammertime GT, and that’s re-do my display board to have some real water effects. This will be the first thing and likely take place this weekend so check back for that. It’ll be my first time trying out water effects but I’m confident I can pull it off. Stay tuned, check back, and as always, thanks for reading.

Another Saurus WIP Unit Filler.

I’ve had to up my saurus warrior unit to 40 strong and I only bought one box of Saurus Warriors. Since there are only 16 models in the boxed set I decided to be resourceful and create another unit filler. If I had to buy another box of Saurus Warriors I would have only used 1 of the Saurus and would have had 15 of ‘em sitting around. So, I came up with the idea of having a small stone / temple / arcane thingy… Not really sure what you call it but it seems like it would be covered in vines and moss since it’s hidden deep within the Jungles of Lustria. So I sculpted some vines out of green stuff and literally wrapped up the stone and then painted up a single Saurus Warrior. I had a lizard laying around and so through that on the base as well. I plan on sculpting some leaves onto the vines to make it stand out more and go along with the theme that I have going with my entire army. I also need to add the shield to this guy. So, once I have the entire unit painted up (I need to paint 9 more) I’ll post them along with this unit filler. For now, here’s how the filler is coming along so far. Nearly done! Enjoy!

Skink Skirmisher Movement Trays – Start to Finish!

The cardboard I used as the "filler".

I have had a little bit of time on my hands lately since my wife has been outta town… so I’ve tried to get in as much painting / converting as possible. After putting together my final list (hopefully!) I started to work on what’s left to paint in order to have that list completely painted for the upcoming Lonewolf GT and Throne of Skulls Tournament. First up was the skinks (both Chameleon and regular). In this newest edition, skirmishers need to maintain a 1″ gap between each other to represent their loose formation. I have, in the past, just kept this guys with no movement tray and have moved them one by one. I figured that since the rest of my army is on movement trays this would be a good opportunity to make these guys some movement trays as well, however, the difference between my skirmishers and my regular infantry units is the overall coverage of flock on the bases/movement trays. Since there is supposed to be that 1″ gap I went to work on filling it in so that it’s not so noticeable on the battlefield. I found a thick piece of cardboard(ish) stuff laying around and figured it would work.

So, at first, I made the movement trays out of plywood and used some sheet metal for the magnet portion. I then took a skink base and started marking where each of these guys would be on the movement tray. So I set to work on marking it up and getting it where I wanted it. I then cut squares about the perfect size of a small base into the cardboard and glued it into place, placing washers and magnets in those cut out squares.

Makin' sure they fit.

The skinks fit perfectly in it and it would help with moving around on the battlefield. I also did a smaller one for the Chameleon Skinks that only holds 6 models. I will use these guys in my 2K list so I wanted to get them primed and ready to go. I went about the same way on constructing their movement tray. And below is how they turned out…

After assembling the movement trays and ensuring that the skinks would fit into them came the flocking / painting stage. Again, because of the 1″ gap, I wanted to put more flock into those open areas so that it would fit in with the overall theme that I have with my army. I also (for whatever reason) wanted to have more water show on the skirmishers bases so I did about a half and half look on the trays. Here’s what we got so far…

So the trays are flocked and I’ve allowed them to sit and dry for a minute so then next came the priming / painting stage. As you may know, I have a water theme going on with my army. Every base in my army has some type of water on it and these movement trays would be no exception. I really like the idea of the half and half theme on these trays. I’m not sure but it just feels like the “scouts” of the army would use a sneaky tactic like submerging in water to get close to the enemy for surveillance. That’s what I was thinking when I decided to paint it these ways. Kinda makes sense…. So anyways, I set to painting them up, got them where I wanted and then bam! Done! I put the skinks on their newly modeled / painted movement trays and I think they turned out well. Also, since I have a metal case I put a few strips of magnet on the bottom of the trays so that they stay in place and, therefore, are not that susceptible to being broken during transit. Here’s the final results. Enjoy and thanks for checking it out!

WIP Ancient Stegadon.

So, if you’ll notice in my current list (see below) I have an Ancient Stegadon that can wreak some havoc. I have this guy modified so that you can put all 3 variants of the howdah (Giant Bow, EOTG, and Giant Blowpipes) on it. I originally painted this guy using orange highlights but, after I painted my most recent Salamander (again, see below) I decided to go back and try some different colors and techniques. I have gotten better at blending and using inks and so I went to work on this guy. I covered up the scales from orange and went back with Goblin Green followed by Scorpion Green followed by a half/half mix of Goblin Green and Scorpion Green then Scorpion Green added with white. I like the new results. I have posted both a before and after shot to show what is used to look like and what it looks like now. Next up is the skink crew (both for the Giant Bow and the Giant Blowpipes)… I plan to make them bright red as it will stand out more from the green and blue colors. The Skink Chief is already complete, I just need to add some highlights. I’ll be posting pics of the completed Stegadon and other stuff that I have in work at the moment so everybody can see. Thanks for checking and enjoy!

Before

After

1 Salamander down, 1 to go.

So I won 2 old OOP Salamanders off of Ebay and got one painted today. I like the old models better than the new ones so I’m glad I got my hands on ‘em. Anyways, if you read my post below you’ll notice that I added 2 Salamanders into my list. So, here 1 is, I plan on painting the other just like it. Enjoy!

WIP Unit filler for my Saurus Unit.

So I’ve been looking around on this other website that I frequent (www.lustria-online.com) and there is a post that talks about Unit Fillers. As I read through the post my mind started racing, thinking of what I could use to represent a good unit filler. I remembered that I had several jungle swarms laying around in my bits box. I also had a spare monster base laying around and after reading the comments about my current army list, I decided it’s a good idea to up my unit size from 20 to 24. This would be the perfect way to do it. I wanted to make it look as though the Saurus are in the jungle and bursting through in order to get to their foes. I put only 1 Saurus Warrior on the base and several small lizards from the Jungle Swarm bits. I am very pleased with the way that it turned out and am now about 90% complete with it. I need to go back and add some vines made from green stuff and touch up the lizards on the base. I also need to add a shield so that he ties in with the rest of the unit. Anyways, here’s some pics of the Unit Filler by itself and then with the unit. Enjoy!

BSB time!

(Originally updated 12/29/2010) Next up for me is the battle standard bearer. I’ve had this model for a while and really like the way it’s sculpted I have just never had the time to finish him up. Now that I’m going through my entire army and making it appear much better I’ve found the time to get him completed. I went with the slab base / water on his base to tie in with the army and because I really liked the way it came out on my chameleons. Here’s the pics of the completed BSB and the last one is him with a unit. Enjoy!

Chameleon Skinks w/movement tray… Complete!

(Originally updated 12/26/2010) I finished up the first unit of the Chameleon Skinks, complete with the movement tray. I added two slabs to fill in the empty spots to represent the 1″ that’s supposed to be between skirmishers. They can be removed for when the unit gets into combat (at which point the plan will have gone terribly wrong…) Also, I added just a bit of the water effect on the movement tray to blend into the overall theme of my army. I like the cheap way of making slab bases and figured the chameleons would be on it since it wouldn’t make sense for the chameleons to be submerged in water and also adds to the whole Temple City Lizardmen theme… Let me know what you think. Enjoy!