iamfanboy

Back in 2016/ early 2017, I was Henching HARD, trying to get people to play Malifaux. I ordered a couple of 8-man boxes and somehow ended up with one 16-man tourney box instead... Then, the only game store for 70 miles (at the time, now it's closer to 110) closed, and no one cared about Malifaux that I could get in touch with. And I got evicted because of my sister's methhead boyfriend, and spent six months looking for a new place to live - which I did not succeed in until three months AFTER the eviction. AND I started having terrible, TERRIBLE asthma attacks that are so wretched some days I can't even risk laughing.... It was... a bad year. I'm still dealing with a lot of trauma. The CURRENT problem is that I'm going through my old boxes and sprues, trying to put together kits and chuck boxes so I don't have so much clutter in my gaming room, and found the Tourney Kit. I opened them way back when to glue them together preemptively, as I was already assembling some 80% of the Malifaux minis my people played with. The only time I've ever, EVER gotten anyone to play the damn game with me in three years is out of sheer pity, so using it for its intended purpose ain't gonna happen. "Oh, it's your birthday? Well, we'll play that Malley game you like then..." What the hell should I do with them? I don't need money, so reselling them on eBay or whatnot would be mostly getting them to a home that would use them, and they're not all that interesting and completely out of my chosen factions (Dufresne, alt Guard Captain, purple plastic Jakob Lynch), so assembling them isn't appealing either. Plus there's those stupid Guilders. Is the Guilder store even still available? If it is, I don't feel it's fair to just turn them in, but on the other hand, when the hell am I gonna be able to give them out? *sigh* Also, the only Guilder model I actually kinda want is Miss Step, as I don't have a Langston for my Toni crew. What would you do, is what I'm asking?

@Icarius, that red and black is great for the Freikorpsmen. I enjoy it a lot. I did something similar with the bases of my Super Dungeon Explore minis - there's a mechanic in the game where each model has a color affinity, and it matters for placement, so most of them have their affinity on their base. Does make it handy for organization, except when there's a dual affinity - "Do I put the yellow/red between the yellow and red? There are far too many of them to fit; where should I overlap them..?" Anyway, @Franchute, here's my pledge from (last) month: the Dreamer and Lord Chompy Bits for 28ss. Funny story, they were finished March 4th, but I started working and then I lost my camera and spent a week looking for it before giving up and using the cell phone. Ugh. I swear, he's blonde. I did a stippling across LCB's body that came out really well, but after a day of trying and failing to get any good pictures with the damn phone I give up. Here's the proof they're painted. Maybe next month I'll find the camera.

So my Cassandra fell to the hardwood floor and then was kicked by my wife across the floor, where the sword broke apart. We spent three hours scouring the room and found NOTHING. Now, I'm looking for a replacement. A plastic Cass from the boxed set, a metal one that you don't want because you bought the plastic set, or even the bit by itself. I'm not picky.

And let me say this from hard, annoying experience: If you use a browser with any kind of script-blocking, you have to unblock EVERYTHING in order to see and use your Soulstones when you get some.

EDIT: I forgot that this forum software has the charming habit of not telling you when a post succeeds if you start it on an earlier page. Double post.

I just have one question: Iron Wind Metals for the manufacturer? Because I still remember almost a decade ago, opening up a metal Sue for my Deadlands collection, and smelling that unique pewter odor which belongs only to IWM.

So - great spirits, almost a YEAR ago? - I wrote a little post about Seven Roles of Malifaux Models and How To Use Them. I liked it, and it proved helpful to a couple of friends who played the game with me at the time - until the gamestore closed down, but that's another story. So I was wondering how I go about trying to get an article into Wyrd Chronicles? I'd probably have to expand it a bit, and it DEFINITELY requires revision - I want to change the references about a master that can do a bit of everything to Sandeep, now that I've used him!

@Franchute, it's mulligan time. I ran into... problems... with the Blood Bowl dwarf team commish and had to set aside personal painting. Oh, and other stuff came up too. Life is like that. They're this close to done and yet, I can't claim they're done so I guess I'll finish them up this weekend and claim 'em for March instead. *sigh*

"And in a language they understand..." I can't be the only one who snickered at that. I remember over twenty years ago hearing two people tabletalking in Klingon at a Battletech Grand Melee. Didn't help them any, they just got ganged up on by everyone else. More seriously. In the fiction, we do see situations where multiple Masters team up, and there ARE lots of other games that have 'upscaled' play sizes not necessarily BALANCED, but still endorsed. X-Wing has Epic (which is honestly more like a real wargame than the regular size!), Warmachine has its multiple Warcaster sized games, and one of my fondest wargaming memories is a lost weekend spent on ONE Battletech battalion-on-battalion game. If you've never played BT, the game pretty much tops out at 8-10 miniatures on a side, and we had close to fifty in each force! Something like, "60 Soulstones, can hire a Master at 15ss cost" and label probably Von Schill and the Viks as mercenaries. Or maybe 75 Soulstones.

Now that my life has settled down, I've found a new 'local' (half an hour drive) gamestore and I'll have my demo stuff there if anyone wants to try Malifaux!

Whew. Decided to take a break after doing a lot of commission work these last two weeks (Bretonnian Knights - boring! Plaguemarine terminators with scythes - almost interesting! Blood bowl orcs - looking forward to crushing them with my goblins!) and paint some stuff for me - namely, the Dreamer and Lord Chompy Bits for 28ss this month. LCB's wip pic did not turn out well (and who the hell thought it was a good idea to SCULPT THE BOTTOMS OF FEET THAT NEED TO BE FLUSH AGAINST A BASE?) but the Dreamer's did just fine. He's blonde, but it's so ash-blonde that it doesn't photograph well outside a lightbox.

@Franchute, I got 'em finished up - then I posted on a local gaming facebook page, "I do commission work" and got flooded with requests. Bretonnian Knights of the Realm, Plaguemarines, and a Bloodbowl Orc team - the last of which is the only piece that actually interests me. But still, earning a few hundred dollars (provided the Bret and Plaguemarine customers are satisfied with these initial pieces and commission more) does make me feel better. Here's the Alps, bringing me up to 24 Soulstones (Bandersnatch, 2x Insid Madnesses, 3 Alps). Quite terrible, actually, but I really don't care about these guys at all. I just insisted that they be finished before I tackle the Dreamer and LCB next month - in between painting for other people. I actually hate doing commission work - there's nothing that murders a hobby faster than doing it as your job IMHO - but until I get a regular job it'll do. Just as long as I don't have to do 150-ish Zombicide zombies in a month again, along with the heroes.

So, I'm not... necessarily HAPPY with how the Insids turned out, but they're OK. I painted their orifices white with a yellow tinge to make them look more glow-y, and I got the Bandersnatch done for a total of 15ss so far. Next, the Alps. Talk about boring minis, that I will almost certainly never use. But their lack of paint tasks me.

It's the glasses that catch my eye more than anything else - I've done that for some commissioned Battletech minis before, that graduation is a beast to do and @Piccio pulled it off most expertly. Bravo! Unfortunately, my painting hit... a snag. While the impasto worked very nicely on the Insidious Madnesses, unfortunately my attempts to impart a 'glow' incorporeal effect via white ink, with some parts being corporeal (and thus not white inked)... did not work. Just plain did not work. I'm not sure whether to attempt a salvage via drybrushing darker purple, trying to re-emphasize the 'glow', or to just give up on the idea and try a more traditional inking, with a strip-and-repaint if that also fails. At least the Alps are cruising along, and the Bandersnatch is just about done. I'm feeling a bit discouraged. Here's the Insid next to Pandora. Is it as bad as I think, or am I just being overly negative? Ehh... I'll try the salvage idea tomorrow. Tonight I'm in a 'ragequit, table flip' mood.

@Amdor, the trick with orange is to start with a medium brown mixed with a touch of red, and, do a below highlight coat with a very light brown (like cocoa), then move onto orange - and don't skimp on the color, because man, those robes the Buddhist monks wear are BRIGHT, and the High Rivers match it. Of course, me, I get lazy and just do orange with a brown ink wash... but I'm lazy. So here's my pledge for January: 3 Alps, 2 Insidious Madnesses, and a Bandersnatch (21ss). My plans are to use impasto blending of various purples on the Madnesses, then have them 'glowing' with a white ink and ground effect. Failure? Possibly. The Alps, a flat purple with yellow-brown robes and accessories because honestly, I don't see using them much. For the Bandersnatch... I'm conflicted. Get fancy? Just do a black-to-purple blend going up the body? I feel like the latter is the way to go, even if it's boring. Maybe I'll find a pillar or something that the shadow can extend from. I don't like the guy that the 'snatch comes with.