Unbearable weather.

Well, I think the only way we are going to be spared these incessant downpours is for winter to take hold.  The choice is... do you wish to drown, or freeze?

 Shoveling snow is way more fun than trying to bail water!

I bet this bear loves the snow even more!!

It's from Mierce Miniatures.  The base is about 60mm.

Lots going on with this figure.  I really tried to get the fur to have as many different colors embedded as possible.  Warm tans, greens, a bit of blue... even some pink.

I was trying to reflect the snow, yet also provide some contrast with those warmer colors.

It was quite the beast!

No Bones about it

Here we have some finished images of the Palette Cleanser miniature.  It was definitely the right sort of mini to put out in front of the brushes at the time.

Again, since it was a Bones mini, you don't get too wrapped up in all sorts of exotic plans.  All you are trying to do is have some fun :-)

It was also handy to have this base sitting around that had been waiting for a miniature for years!

The Good Word

With the first test fight out of the way, we set down to a second matchup between the Lawmen and the Outlaws.

We each made slightly different lists.  Rich took a different boss, and a Dark Council.  Yay... Outlaws with even MORE influence!

Here's my force... Wyatt, Deputy Berenger, the Interceptor, some hired hands, and so on.  I really wanted to make better use of the Interceptor this game, as well as Wyatt!

I tried to do the Forward Echelon thing, but that is really not all that helpful, at least with my style.  I prefer to create more angles against the opponent, and FE wants to put you all in one big mob.

With only 3 possible activations per round, it is even more difficult to keep that up.

Here's the board, with the Outlaws on the left.

The Lawmen advance through the streets of Wappelville.

In this game,  I was going to try to stay out of buildings, based on what happened in that first test match.  The Outlaws blew up the buildings with me inside... so that was not gonna happen again!

These buildings were already ruins, so I figured they would be safer :-)

Speaking of blowing things up... remember that big water tower?  This is what it looked like after a shot from Deputy Berenger!  The heck with the citizens and their need for vital water!

It caught one guy under the rubble, and the second was now exposed to close in fire from the two Rifle Hired Hands waiting nearby.

I advanced the Interceptor to keep dropping templates on Outlaws attempting to move into town.

The Deputy strikes again!  BOOM!  Template goodness, taking out snipers.

This group in the center had a very commanding position, and could drop a variety of weapons fire at all angles.

The Dark Council could only stand by and watch as more and more Outlaws were taken down, one by one...

The local Preacher attempted to intercede on behalf of the residents, ordering the Lawmen to end their attack on Wappelville.

It's a very cool element of this game... random citizens that roam around the battlefield!  They really are fun, as they can even get in your way... or provide cover if you are ruthless enough...

This heroic Lawman stood right in the way of Friar Tuck, preventing him from using his shotgun template on my big group in the center.

The Preacher moved to the Interceptor, pleading once again for them to stop the carnage.

But the carnage continued, until only Billy the Kid remained.

Forced from his hiding place, all the Lawmen concentrated their fire, cleaning up the Town of Wappelville once and for all.  Or did they?

Big 'n Nasty

OK folks, here's something rather giant for you.  This is the Thanatar Siege Automata.

The picture below gives you some idea of the size of this thing.  The Castellax standing next to the legs is Dreadnought sized... on a 60mm base.

I knew I was in for a treat when most of the on line searches for how to assemble this ended (or began) with "Good luck".

I won't horrify you with my screams of delight as I assembled the legs and arms prior to painting.  I am sure I created all new words.  A language of vulgarity at new heights of creativity :-)

These types of ball joints can be very deceptive, in that you think it offers you loads of ways to position the arms.  I learned from the smaller Castellax that this was definitely not the case.

The massive torso.

Topped with a massive gun.

Figuring out how to get these pieces together and mounted on the base was not something I had looked forward to doing.

It took at least an hour just to get this far.  Right now the torso is sitting on the pin, which is stuck into the leg assembly.

I actually used the gun as additional weight to keep the feet stuck to the base as the glue dried.

I tried to position the arms in an interesting way, but this is where I was reminded about the restrictive way the joints work.

The final challenge is to get those ammo feeds to fit.  I don't even know if that will be possible right now, but I need to let all this set for quite a while.

With the Castellax, I had to nearly melt the ammo feeds with a hair dryer to get them into position.

I am sure that will be required here.  To make it more difficult, there are two ammo feeds stuck together.  I predict more interesting words to describe the heritage and genealogy of whoever created that particular idea.

Wish me luck!!!

Stress management

Just about every miniature painter finds themselves in situations where they are distracted by stress and other craziness, whether you are just doing it once in a while for fun or a million hours a day. :-)

I have seen lots of people become completely paralyzed by these distractions... sometimes whatever you try to do with the brush is not much more than poo, or the figure you are trying to work on has some difficult area to work through, etc.

You already know that I have lots of things going on at once, at many different stages, for a variety of reasons.  Usually, it is all about efficiency.  There are also those times where one has to extract one's head from one's posterior to move on to bigger and better things.

I try to have lots of 'easy' stuff sitting around just in case.  It might be pieces of terrain, or some bases that need paint, or even simple figures that have been sitting around for those times where I need to just toss paint at something.

The Reaper Bone minis have been ideal for this.

Low impact, low stress, and so on.

No plan here... just grab whatever colors were around on the palette, and spend a few minutes trying to work away stress.

The Shaded basecoat is normally liberating enough to jolt one out of any jam, but being able to slap just about anything on this did the trick.

I had no idea what colors this would be.  Whatever came to mind is what happened.  Even then, it still changed.

Had this been a 'normal' figure, there would have been the innate urge to do something more fancy, or get crazier about doing something exotic with colors, etc.

The point, however, it to step away from the painting table without stepping away from the painting table.  I think I might have messed around with this for an hour...

By doing a quick little exercise such as this, I could see some instant results, forget (for the moment) all the stuff that was making me want to crumple up the Universe and toss it in the corner of the room, and focus strictly on a brush and some paint... and a plastic fig.

For those times when whatever you are trying to do is not working out, throwing some easy short passes for completions will give you the little nudge that you need.  Making you feel in control once again.

Once you have gotten to that place, you can once again return to smashing your face into a wall of broken glass :-)

Three Amigos ?

Red Box Games Warriors one more time :-)

Each one of these has a little bit of variety to the poses... some more than others, but still a nice way to keep a unit looking more interesting!

There are still some more of these guys that are painted... yet to appear here.

Eventually there will be some much larger group shots, along with some terrain I have been working on!

You can shoot the Sheriff, but you cannot shoot this Deputy.

Now this guy has already made quite an impact on my Lawmen faction.  There are many useful aspects to his abilities... offering some longer ranged heavy duty firepower, coupled with the ability to survive.

I was quite pleased that his very first action was to blow up a giant water tower with a couple of unsuspecting Outlaws hiding underneath it!  Yes, we took pictures :-)

He will be featured in the next Wild West Exodus battle report!  Stay tuned!