The Greenboyz mega catchup post #2 (52 minis weeks ???)

Back for more of that GREEN!?

Okay well let us get right to it with a quick recap from Legends Cup.

And there you have it! The Greenboyz had a final record of 0 wins, 1 tie, and 2 losses. Lost the first match vs Underworld Creepers. Came down to a failed GFI and tripping over the goal line for a tie. Second match was against the Bright Crusaders who pulled ahead early for a 2-0 lead but didn't count on the scrappy Goblins of the boyz coming back to tie it up 2-2 in the end. Last round was a brutal game against the Grudge Bearers who dominated the field and finally outscored a tie in the last turn of the game.

Overall a really fun event I am look forward to the next one now that I have a bit more practice with the team and know the rules a bit better (like you can't throw a Pogoer... oops!).

Hot on the heels of Legends Cup the boyz headed to Chicagoland for Chaos Cup 17. With the theme this year being GOBLINS it seemed like a no-brainer to bring a less than stellar version of The Greenboyz to the pitch for 6 games of Blood Bowl action.

Chaos Cup 2017 - Goblin Power!!

Round 1 vs Khemri (Coach aenir)
First game of the tournament started way up on table 10 or so versus... Khemri!? Got bashed around good and the fewer goblins on the pitch the easier it was to score for some reason. Managed to shut out the Khemri for a 2-0 win and secure goal #1 for The Greenboyz at Chaos Cup 17 - take home at least one win!

Round 2 vs Undead (Coach swerve)
Playing on table 4 (what the) after round 1 The Greenboyz got utterly trounced by the Undead. Not even a close matchup from a player perspective. Ended in about 1 hour or less. Nice coach though! I look forward to playing a proper match sometime in the future.

Round 3 vs Skinks (Coach bluedaybreak)
Finally a good match up for the boyz! At least on paper... this one turned into a snooze fest with the goblins failing every roll they made. It was a disaster but at least I was drinking heavily at this point! Ended up losing 0 to 3.

Round 4 vs Skaven (Coach gaddockteeg)
Ending the day somewhere in the middle/back of the tables (mid 20's) the boyz ended up matched against a Skaven team. I fully expected this to be a blowout but the boyz surprised me by going head to head in a shoot out with Gutter Runners?! Failed a final TTM attempt to tie it up on the last turn of the second half and ended up losing 2 to 3. A really fun game!

After a full day of Blood Bowl it was time to relax and unwind with a little SRG Supershow! Dr. Skullface made his XCW premiere and was promptly smacked down by everyone he went against (mostly by rolling Agility on the dice over and over and over again...). Luckily The Right managed to win the whole thing and bring home the tiny championship belt to Kalamazoo! Alright!! Then it was on to day 2 of Chaos Cup.

Round 5 vs Dwarves (Coach bigstraycat)
Dwarves. How are they even down here on the bottom tables!? Broken. I don't remember much from this match outside of being very pissed off as my opponent decided to stall out after being in the lead by 2. Playing for all the marbles at the bottom tables... good game bro? Just to spite their beardy faces managed a TTM 1 turn score on the last turn to get on scoreboard. Lost 2 to 1.

Round 6 vs Dark Elves (Coach sargon)
Deep into the bottom tables now last match is against... Dark Elves?! I mean wtf... can't I play at least one more fun team? The boyz failed all their rolls, coach hated himself and the game, probably was a dick to his opponent, and finally lost 3 to 1.

Somewhere in the second day I put up The Greenboyz for the Chaotic Brush painting competition. I have entered every year since it began and each year I paint a new team for the event. And each year I received no awards. Now I don't think of myself or my painting as your traditional "painting competition winner" type but I also don't think of myself as a total shit painter. Here's the team.. you be the judge?

The Greenboyz with sideline bits and stuff. One of these minis I did not paint (the Ogre). 

Well surprisingly a couple things happened. #1 - I saw a few new teams and not the same teams which seem to be entered each year and continue to win awards.

#2 and #3 I won two awards!? Fan Favorite (hell yes!) and Best Theme (Green!). I may not look like it in the photos but I was (and am) super excited to finally win my first miniatures painting awards! Heck it's only taken me 10+ years to get here. Thanks to everyone who voted for and appreciated The Greenboyz! We're already adding new pieces to the team for the next time out.

Progress Report 4/23/17 - 52 Minis week 16

It's spring! I mean it has been spring for some time but it's warm and the sun is out and things are growing. Spent some time this week working on a few landscaping projects. They take a lot more physical labor than the terrain landscape projects littering my hobby room. 

Didn't manage to spend much time painting minis as I was working on my final projects for the semester. Here's a peak at a WIP multimedia drawing:

And here is the one mini I did get painted for the week - my test paint job for my This Is Not A Test Preservers warband named after X Files characters. Maximum nerdage! Not sure which one this is yet. 

Went for the slightly Fallout look. Probably too shiny but I figured those with the tech type stuff try to keep it looking good (and working). I might muck them up a bit still. 

Progress Report 3/12/17 - 52 Minis Week 10

This week was spring break. I had hoped to get lots of painting done but it turned out to be a very busy week of work and my evenings filled up with other activities. I managed to get a little bit of painting done but it was just finishing up some Nurgle models I had yet to complete. 

It's the first day of Spring and this lot is bringing things back to life... in the Nurgle way!

The herald. Bringing back the funk with his collection of bells, guts, and mummified heads!

His back  up band leaders, aka the command group. Heads a plenty! 

Roadies. Can't they just clean up their act a bit? This puts my total at something like 20.

And a group shot just for fun. They look gross, funny, and monstrous which is pretty much exactly what I wanted. The bases are not 100% finished and I have yet to add the final goo and gore which will come after I seal them up. Thinking about playing some form of Nurgle in a local escalation/narrative campaign in the works so I figured it was time to crank these guys out.

Progress Report 1/28/7 - 52 Minis Week 4

Didn't accomplish much this week in the realm of games or painting. I'm hoping to spend a bit more time this weekend at the desk but homework is always looming...

This week we have this Chaos Sorcerer looking guy in a stitched up skin cloak. Not sure what edition of WHFB or 40k he is from. Another random from my acquisitions. 

I had fun painting the various shades of skin color in his cloak and the magic runes on his skulls. The stuck on dead skin mask was a bit of gruesome joy to paint as well. And even though I didn't plan on it I finished up another Dwarf adventurer while I was at it!

No name yet for this grizzled bear clad warrior. I imagine him as being a bit of a veteran... he's seen some things. I tried to reflect that in his slightly battleworn gear. Pretty happy with how he turned out overall. If you have a name suggestion throw it in the comments section! Next up on the painting table... more Dwarfs!?

Progress Report 1/21/17 - 52 Minis Week 3

Here we go... it's week 3 of (at least) 52 minis for the year. Hey look it's a Dwarfess!

Some kind of rune wielding blacksmith? Or runesmith? Or just a badass Dwarf woman? Either way I was really excited to get my paintbrush on her. For some reason the ink wash I used looks very glossy in this photo. Hopefully it will look less so with a bit of dullcoat applied. 

This is the first mini painted for my Mordheim Dwarf crew or alternatively for Frostgrave perhaps? (Oh yeah I kinda bought that rulebook during the holiday break... but haven't played yet)

In other news this last week was good with a bit of Pathfinder Societies play with my group (who hadn't played since Feb of last year!!) and also my first week of a new semester. This time around I have two separate drawing classes 4 days a week which has really kicked my lazy drawing butt into high gear. Probably drawn and sketched more this week than the past 15 years combined!! 

Random sketch of a random person in public.

My Ben Templesmith/Police Sketch self-portrait

The week of drawing has been a good reminder that like any art drawing takes practice! Same with mini painting and painting in general! Don't get down on yourself for doing something and it not being "the best" - getting yourself going is at least half the battle.

Kevros the Half Orc Monk about to Grapple a Stone Giant

Last year before my last session of PFS I re-created my Monk with the Unchained Monk. Best choice I could have made! At level 9 he has 27-30 (potentially up to 48) AC without armor, 2d6 damage per hit (with up to 3 per round in his Flurry of Blows), the ability to follow up and strike opponents who miss him in combat (thanks to Snake style!), and he can generally sense and perceive the hell out of things. Of course he is dumb as a bag of rocks with about as much charisma... but that's okay!

Potentially playing a bit of Bloodbowl or AoS tomorrow and I have plenty more drawing to do as well. So until next time....

Progress Report 1/14/17 - 52 Minis Week 1 & 2.

Here we go! The first of (at least) 52 miniatures I will paint this year as part of my hobby resolutions. As I was gone out of town the past week I'm playing a bit of catch up with getting these posted here to the blog. I'll try to be more timely moving forward. I dug out my light box and set it up so I could get more consistent/better photos of my work. I think it helps!

First up we have this older GW Nurgle Chaos Warrior of some kind (honestly not sure what edition it is from):

I built him on a 20mm base and I wish I had gone with a larger (more AoS appropriate) base but oh well. Since I have no idea what I will use him for I suppose it doesn't really matter what the base size is. I painted him roughly in the scheme I used for my Nurgle Daemons and I am happy with hot he turned out. 

Next up is another Nurgle like mini that looks to be more 40k related:

For this mini I wanted to test out a few color schemes for my Skaven Pestilence force and overall I would say it was successful. I'll likely use this guy on the table in TNT if nothing else as he looks a bit mutant. 

And that's all I have to share this week! Working on a few Dwarves and more Chaos stuff so who knows which will be the first to be completed for the week 3 mini. Only time will tell.

Progress Report 12/26/16 - Last tabletop games of the year?

Happy holidaze are upon us! I spent the last week off from work but got very little accomplished on the modeling or painting fronts. I did go a bit nutty and decided to rearrange my whole first two floors starting with painting setup. Previously it lived in our sun room but I wanted to be able to use that room for my non-mini painting as well as hanging out in (cozy in the fall and winter and fresh in the spring and winter). After many hours of packing up and taking things up and down our treacherous basement stairs I managed this:

New basement dwelling for the basement dweller

Painting table (desk) all set up and ready to go again after carefully moving my entire miniatures collection. New set up has less (basically zero) natural light but I have a combination of about 6 other lights which keep it from being too dank. 

Pros

• No dogs in my painting area (so hopefully no dog hair stuck in my paint)
• Nice and cool year round (not too hot or too cold like the previous set up)
• Right next to my 4x4 gaming table (hopefully netting me more painted terrain!)
• I can talk to myself and not seem to crazy

Cons

• Less human and animal interaction (see last pro)
• A little basement-troll like
• No natural light

Painting with sunlights and plants

My current sun room painting setup is pretty modular (read temporary) with a folding chair and table though overall I am quite pleased with the change. I also rearranged my living and dining rooms to make things more open and easier to have guest over for entertainment (like hopefully playing games!). Speaking of having guest over - earlier last week Furry and I got in a quick Vanguard game of Age of Sigmar. It was his first game of Warhammer (of any kind?) and he did great! 

Table set up - Khorne Bloodbound vs Skaven Pestilence 

Plague Monks and Skrolk hanging out with the Plague Furnace

So many followers of Khorne! The wolves were stand in minis for Flesh Hounds

More rats equals more fun for the Plague Furnace! Shove off!

Line of topless barbarians is not impressed.

Cute little Korgorath wants a hug?

Plague Furnace managed to chew through topless men but got stopped by one with a whip.

This is all going according to plan...

I wanted to give us both a chance to try out some fun synergies with the two lists. Since I had not played either force there was a bit of guessing as to what would work well and what might just be for laughs. Big winners for Khorne and Furry were the Flesh Hounds. Two units of 5 each managed to chew through almost all of my foot slogging Skaven (Plague Monks and Censer Bearers). Add on their ability to shut down a magic phase and I really can't see why you wouldn't make room for them in any Khorne themed list!

For the forces of Pestilence the big winner was (literally) the Great Unclean One. He single handily managed to kill the most units between his magic, shooting, and close combat phases. Of course the Mighty Lord of Khorne probably could have killed him in one turn but Furry realized that a bit too late in the game (and yes I did tell him about his general's fighting skills!). 

Game ended as a draw on objectives but a win for points taken out (with just my Hero units left on the table and running away). It was a lot of fun and I can't wait to get these minis all painted up and more games going! 

Meanwhile in a galaxy far far away... 

Spent one afternoon at the FLGS getting a demo of X-wing from a player who has literally everything that has been released for the game. It was a bit daunting to be honest but I stuck it out and played through a quick tutorial and then short 35 pt game. Ended up just barely winning by taking out the Rebel scum in a desperate strafing run from my star pilot (the either Tie Fighter having been blown away quickly in the game). The game seems like a good time and I can see why it has such a following. The dog fighting and maneuvers are quite cool and the key gameplay of action economy and synergy between ships, pilots, and abilities is well done. Overall I am just not that excited by Star Wars in general and not in love with all the spaceships. A fun game but one I don't intend to dive in to. 

Now that we are living in a post-XMASSSS 2016 world it's time to dive into my basement painting den and get cranking on some minis!

Progress Report 9/2/16 - Headed out to Chaos Cup.

It's that time again!? Chaos Cup!!! This year I am bringing Dark Elves and I even managed to finish painting them. It was a slapdash bit of a job. Partly because I didn't have the urge to paint these models and partly because all of their details are so damn small!! Still they turned out acceptable which is what I was aiming for. 

Here we have the two Runners and one Assassin 

Followed by 3 Blitzers (though one will be playing a Line elf this time out)

And the only reason to play Dark Elves - 2 Witch Elves! 

Finally we have the remaining 3 Line elves

I played one practice game against Furry's Chaos Dwarfs and we tied 1-1. Things I need to remember for the tournament this weekend: Shadowing on the Assassin, asking if my opponent will follow the block on the sidestep pieces, and that even the Line elves have AG 4!! 

For 6 games I am hoping for 3-2-1 but would settle for wins and ties to outnumber losses. I'm not looking for another Wooden Spoon award from Chaos Cup (already got that one in 2014).  

I also painted up another member for the Chaos Cup Legacy Team - a Thrall! 

A Reaper Bones mini I cut a lot of stuff off. I think he looks alright. 

Now it's time to pack up and hit the road for another fun Bloodbowl event with fine folks!