The Epic Gamer: 2014

A sad month for updates, so here's one for the road, 2014. I finished up a Paladin Household for EpiComp, the Knight Paladins in front are done and the ones in back are awaiting yellow highlights and all the details.

I added a pennant to the seneschal to further differentiate him from the standard knights. The checks are hand painted but the fleur-de-lis is a decal from Ginfritter's Gnomish Workshop.

I held off on the bases as I wanted to make sure they were all uniform (a problem of mine). I got some plastic HO scale ferns and plants that I think will work good for a jungle world.

My buddy Eric over at Direct Fire and I had our first full fleet maiden voyage of Man O' War this past Saturday. I took some shots and got to use the handy counters I got for the game.

They face off against le Monkey's Bretonnian fleet.

A Squadron of Buccaneers let's fly, taking out a Wolf Ship's oar deck.

War Galley's surge forward, ramming and sinking a Buccaneer. Two other Buccaneers take fire but the shots fail to penetrate.

The Buccaneers rebuttal leaves much to be desired, le Monkey is displeased.

The Wolf Ships following the War Galleys, sinking another Buccaneer with a devastating ram, and capturing another.

Buccaneers sail up the far left flank while the Iron Fists lob shots at the Galleon. One scores a hit but it fails to do any damage.

Buccaneers on the right flank fair better and do some real damage to the War Galleys.

Not to be outdone, the War Galleys respond. One sinks a Buccaneer that sailed too close and the others set up for rams next turn, raking the Buccaneers' decks with cannon fire.

The Corsairs finally unleash hell, reducing a War Galley to a floating barge and taking out the cannons and Oars on another.

A single HellHammer manages a shot on a Corsair while the others move up.

Next turn sees the Corsairs send the lead Wolf Ship to the briny deep and damage another taking out its oars.

Buccaneers let fly on the War Galleys but fail to do any damage.

On the Empire's left, Iron Fists reduce a Corsair to a floating wreck and War Galleys manage to capture a Buccaneer. A lone War Galley takes a shot at the Galleon but its ram fails to penetrate.

The Corsairs make their way around the flank but fail to hit a War Galley.

Their cross-eyed cousins manning the Buccaneer catapults don't fair much better.

One Wolf Ship reverse waters to ram next turn, another let's fly on the lead Corsair dealing heavy damage.

Next turn, the lead Corsair explodes and the ram fails to damage.

The Buccaneers damage to hit a Hell Hammer bit the stone bounces off the ship's huge cannon.

The Hell Hammers line up and deliver, two sinking the Wizard's Corsair and the third missing the center Buccaneer.

On the left the Corsairs are still trying to hit a War Galley, they manage to set its mast on fire.

Iron Fists hit the center corsair once, doing some minor damage. The Galleon also sinks the annoying War Galley on its port.

The surviving War Galleys manage another turn of delaying but fail to do any damage.

The Great Ship, finally able to move, lets fly on the lead Corsair.

In the next turn, it sails up into the heart of the Corsair squadron and does heavy damage thanks to some inspired gunnery (a card that let it fire twice). It sinks the lead Corsair and damages the Galleon.

Buccaneers capture a War Galley and try to sink some Hell Hammers.

Their cousins still can't seem to hit much. At this point le Monkey conceded to Rear Brigadier von Dave and the Empire fleet claimed victory.

Started a slight tangent for this weekend, after glueing some pennants on my Man O' War Empire fleet last week I put down the base coats and washes on each.

The colors are different enough to keep the squadrons separate, I'd like to add decals at somepoint but tracking down The Armory decals I'm after isn't easy for cheap.

In knightly news, I got the yellow down on the Crusaders...

as well as the Errants. I think I'm going to go back and paint some parts on the Power Gauntlets blue as well.

Finally, I added some yellow to the Paladins gun casings.

Still working on the yellow, I've managed all the Paladins and the Castellans at this point.

I also took a Seneschal a few steps further. Aside from touch-up and highlights on the metal this guy is pretty much done. Any thoughts or suggestions? The yellow turned out a little greener that I was hoping for, I was aiming for a warmer tone like the pictures of House Lakar in Codex Titanicus. It was the first time I painted yellow and also the first time I used pure white as a highlight.

The fleur de lis is a decal from Ginfritter's Gnomish Workshop. Annoyingly, you have to cut them each out which is pretty difficult as they're tiny, hard to see and extremely close together. I had some checker decals too but make those work was going to that much more difficult given the angels and curves so I ended up free handing them.

I've been working on the Knights these past weeks. As a heads up, painting yellow is SLOW. You think I would have taken the Internet's word on it, but no. I didn't get a chance to paint this Monday, but last Monday I blocked out the blue and did one Knight up in yellow. I'm thinking I'm going to finish him up to get a feel for the scheme before batch painting the others. Yes, that'll likely mean this guy will be slightly different than the rest.

In other news, I'm working on the Warmonger Miniatures studio Landsknechte. I've done the skin at this point. I'm going to paint up the hair/beards and then see if it needs anymore work.

I forgot to mention it here, but I did a Kickstarter back in June: 10mm German Landsknechte with Zweihänder (Great Swords). It was funded and I've since received both the Zweihänder and the Pikemen production models:

Warmonger Miniatures Landsknecht Pikeniere (Pikemen)

Warmonger Miniatures
Landsknechte with Zweihänder (Great Swords)

Once I've fulfilled the pledges they'll be available for sale up on the Warmonger Miniatures website (I'm guessing two weeks at this point).

2014 - Last Call for Painting!

le Monkey Sails Against Von Dave

All Yellow, All the Time!

Yellow-fication Continues

Painting Yellow, Ain't Nobody Got Time for That

I Started a Mini Company