Bloody Valentine; 7 days and counting

Just a week to go now to the big Ordo-Ineptus WHFB at Hobbytown in Brookfield, CT and I've been working like a fiend on models and terrain. (mostly terrain lately - my army has taken a back seat for a few days so I can knock out a bunch of the terrain stuff. I'll be focusing on them again in a couple days)

I've got one of the eight tables completely knocked out. The Skull Wastelands are now complete.

In the above picture, the terrain is layed out on a 3x3 space, but picture it spread out on a 6x4 with a grey battlemat. The temple of skulls in the upper right is a GW plastic kit. The gate of skulls atop the hill on the lower left is a forgeworld piece. The bone bridge was (I believe) an Armorcast, and the skull pillars were homemade terrain I bought from someone on ebay years back. The hill, river and bases for the rock pillars I built from scratch.

As for the other themed tables, I finished building the orc huts this week and spraycoated them all black. They're now ready for painting. The picture on the left was taken right after I did the sides and roof with fabric dipped in glue.

Below you can see them finished and ready for spray coating, along with some jungle trees that I put together with the help of some club members (and a junior club member), as well as the gallows I had built.

I also finished building the two rickety orc towers, seen below along with the in-progress rivers from the Skull Wastelands board.

Yesterday I constructed a pyramid for the desert table, a ziggurat for the Lustria table, and have a couple hills, more rivers, some roads, and a waterfall scheduled for finishing today along with the painting of the pyramid and ziggurat.

I'm hoping to get some help painting up the orc huts and towers tomorrow at gaming night, and then I'll have the orc and lustria tables finished, and once the gallows and roads are finished the village table will be done as well. Since the 'Death and Mud' and 'Ogre's Teeth Pass' tables are all made of terrain I had built a couple months back, the only tables that will still need to be finished in the final days before the tournament are the winterscape and desert boards.

Bloody Valentine: 16 days and counting

Sixteen days to the our second (and over twice as big) Warhammer Fantasy tournament (http://ordo-ineptus.com/40ktourny.aspx)

The army I'm working on to use in the tournament is an Orcs and Goblins army with a Halloween theme, which I named "Ghost 'N Goblins" after the arcade game from the 1980's. The picture above is the art for it. I think it must be the most difficult video game in the universe. Basically you're this little guy running around in armor and a lance fighting spooky but cartoony monsters and whenever something hits you - which usually occurs sometime soon after hitting the 1Player button - your armor flies off and you're running around fighting zombies and demons in your underwear, until you get hit again and die. Which usually happens somewhere in the next 0.5 seconds....

With less than three weeks to go, I'm not in too bad a shape. The lion's share of the work - and by that I mean the rank and file troops - have already been done. Mostly it's the character stuff that's left.

The goblins (and I painted up 170 all at once, over the course of a couple weeks back in November) are all set. The hoods I did with a liche purple base followed by Warlock Purple, the robes I did with Necron Abyss followed by Liche Purple, and the skin was I believe a Dark Angels Green base followed by ever-lightening mixes of Snot Green and Camo Green.

The bases were all decorated with a metal ivy vines I had gotten from an overseas online distributor. I also did up several bases of just pumpkins (sculpted ones and ones bought from Reaper miniatures) and these will be interspersed throughout the goblin bases to give them the effect of being in a pumpkin patch.

My 'fanatics' in each unit are malicious ghosts that are unleashed from the pumpkin patches by the goblins. There are 18 of them total and each were completely hand sculpted by me, other than their hands, which I used parts from the GW ghoul kit for. I made the basic shape of their bodies and arms with Sculpey, then put them together and attached the hands, and then went back and did the flowing robes with green stuff. I then used Sculpey again for the jack-o-lantern heads, and finally molded some flames coming off of a few of them.

I can't remember what I used for painting, as it was a multitude of increasingly lighter coats, starting with a blue base. At the end I mixed in a metallic white to give them a little shimmer. Right now, they're all done except for the pumpkin stems and their hands, and then the bases.

The ten man unit of Black Orcs are also almost done. The only thing that remains is to do the metal of their weapons and details like the banner pole and the musician's drum. I had given them all the full facemask helmets to make them more imposing, and painted them with Graveyard Earth and then two coats of Bleached Bone and a highlight of Bleached Bone/Skull White and then a Ogryn Flesh wash. The armor I did with a Scab Red/Chaos Black base followed by Scab Red highlights and a Devlan Mud wash. I used green stuff to change the traditional bad moon Orc symbol on the banner pole to a pumpkin face that better matched the army theme.

The three man unit of trolls I am still currently working on converting, though I'm almost finished. I started with two of the trolls that come in the Battle for Skull Pass set and a Reaper mini. The plastic GW models were holding a dwarven statue over their heads. I cut the statue (and the hands holding it) off of both of these and then cut the arms off of another as well and re-glued them to be outstretched downward rather than upward. For the one with the arms still over his head I used the fleeing villager from the giant kit and glued him in place to the stumps and sculpted three fingered troll hands to be clutching him by the leg and arm.

For the metal Reaper model I cut off the left hand and the club it was holding, then took the bit from the giant kit of the villager clutched in the giant's hand, cut away the giant hand (only cutting myself twice in the process!), and glued it down to the stump and modeled the troll hand grasping him by the waist. Finally the third troll I sculpted a pair of troll heads out of green stuff and attached them to the body and built up more of the upper torso and shoulders around them. I took the bag stuffed with halflings from the giant kit, added some green stuff to the hollow in one side, and glued it to the base on the troll's left side. I then sculpted a troll hand so that it appears to be either pushing one of the halflings into the bag or perhaps pulling one out. For the right hand I used a hand from the GW zombie kit that was holding a really wicked looking serrated knife and then sculpted the troll hand over the zombie hand. The final pose makes it look like the troll is about to do some dinner prep (heh heh). I plan on having a fourth troll base with a big cooking pot on a fire with arms and heads sticking out of it. This would be a fourth troll when needed, and on the display base I plan on doing for the army, it will sit in front of the three trolls so that they all appear to be in the process of adding the 'ingredients' for their stew. The concept for the trolls came from idea of the three witches which is often repeated in mythology and literature (saw a promo poster for the Clash of the Titans remake that featured the witches and they look pretty grotesque)

For the characters, I have two shamans (one goblin and one orc), a goblin boss on a giant spider, and a orc shaman general in a chariot. The general is going to be the most elaborate piece and I haven't started yet although I pretty much have all the materials.

For the goblin boss I used the Goblin Big Boss on Giant Spider mini from the collectors range that I had gotten with my White Dwarf subscription a couple years back. I decided I didn't like the goblin sitting up on the hodai so I'm using a Reaper mini of a kobold king instead. I have assembled the spider (I think it may have been even more of a pain than the Tomb Scorpion) but still need to put together the perch and add the mini. Not too much conversion work, which is why I've left it alone for now. The only thing I will do is use some green stuff to give the effect that the dog-like kobold snout is a mask worn by a goblin (Halloween themed army, remember?)

I'm going with a grim reaper theme for the two shamans on foot, with the orc shaman being 'Bigg Deff'' and the goblin shaman being 'Littel Deff". Both will be dressed in matching robes and masks, and both will have scythes. Big Deff will have a set of scales in his left hand (with human heads on them) and Littel Deff will have a small cauldron out of which the harvested souls will be seen emerging, ever trying to escape. Bigg Deff started life as an Orc Boy from the 6th ed WFB set, but he's mostly green stuff now. Right now I've got the basic shape of him and just have to do the detail work. I want to add lots of bits hanging from his belt to give him lots of details to paint up nice and obscure somewhat my 'still-learning' sculpting work on the robes. I have to add more to the hood to make it pointy, and then give him a scythe to replace the blade currently in his right hand. I started working on the scales, which will be using real chains. I'm hoping to have the whole model done and ready to paint by the end of the weekend and am hoping to use him as my submission for our Ordo Ineptus painting contest on the first of February.

Littel Deff is going to be a lot less work, as he's already got the robes and hood. I started with the goblin shaman from the Skull Pass set and cut away the horns on his hood, the top of his staff pole, and the madcap mushrooms from his little cauldron. I made wire armitures of the ghosts to help in the sculpting and glued them in place coming out of the cauldron, and just need to use green stuff for them and the mask he'll be wearing, and then give him a scythe in his right hand.

I'm also going to be providing most of the terrain for the tournament, and so I've been working on that as well.

This week I've been working on painting up a couple of store-bought pieces I've had forever. One is the Temple of Skulls that I've got almost finished, and the other is the Gate of Skulls (I think a Forgeworld piece from a while back) that I have to do a little more on.

I also started working on some gallows, using balsa to build several of them and then using the gibbet bit from the Warhammer Giant kit for two of them (using the chain from the bell in the zombie kit) and working on a corpse for another with some zombie bits. I also am modifying the hanging cages from the giant kit to make them look metal rather than wood, and will be hanging them with chain from a craft store. A couple of the gallows I will leave empty, ready for new occupents!

And that's what I've got on my table right now. I'm hoping to have the trolls, shamans, and spider boss ready for painting at the end of the weekend, and have the gallows, skull temple and skull gate all done so I can start working on more of the terrain stuff. I'm looking to start sculpting the general's chariot (yup it's going to be mostly all sculpt) early next week.

Now that I've introduced all of the projects, hopefully the next post won't be such an enormous Wall of Text!

Ode to Count DeCapito (or why I'm like a super villain)

Now I know that right now everyone who knows me even a little bit is thinking, “well, because you’re sick and twisted and maybe even a little insane, and you only play Warhammer armies that are sick and twisted and a little insane”.

I know – that’s what I thought too! That’s why my avatar is always the same

and why a lot of my armies are references to classic super-villainy (Legion of the Kraken = Cobra/Hydra). I only just this morning uncovered the truth…

See, I had just been in a very morose, depressive state the past two days following the debacle which was my showing at the Conflict GT. Fortunately, the slump only lasted a day or two – thank the maker for wives and medication – and this morning I started feeling a creative surge which often follows one of these funks (hence this Wall of Text right here). I started thinking about how the new army I was building for Bloody Valentine - nice plug for our club here, check it out at http://ordo-ineptus.com/40ktourny.aspx – was going to rock everyone’s world (looks-wise at least. Performance-wise, it’s a goblin army, and I’m not that delusional). And that’s when It hit me: I’m just like Count DeCapito!

A pause now for some back-story here. In the 1970’s in Japan, the giant robot craze started with the cartoon Mazinger Z. One of the primary villains was the headless lunatic Count Brocken. In the 80’s the series was redubbed and exported to America as “Tranzor Z” and the character was renamed “Count DeCapito”. (For Duke G, Rod, and Arlin who saw the version they exported to Mexico, the character was Conde Decapitado)

Anyway, every day when I came home from school I eagerly tuned in to watch Tranzor Z, and at the beginning of every episode, Count Decapito – or sometimes his rival Devline or their master, Dr Demon – would unveil a brand new gigantic machine beast that was ‘sure to defeat Tranzor Z’.

Spoiler Alert:
With the exception of a pair of two-part stories, no machine beast ever made it to the end of an episode of Tranzor Z.

And at the end of the episode after the machine beast in question was either disintegrated or blown to tiny bits, Count DeCapito would sulk or throw his head across the room but then by the beginning of the next episode he would be back and cackling with maniacal glee about his newest machine beast and how it was going to totally kick Tranzor Z’s ass

Never did he try rebuilding or repairing one of the ones that almost worked and try to make it a little better. Always a completely brand new Tranzor Z-killing giant doomsday machine. And this is what I realized I can relate to. Because I have twelve different painted armies for the two Warhammer systems. My newest ‘doomsday device’ will be the thirteenth. And that’s not even counting armies I’ve sold or scrapped for newer miniatures when they got overhaul codexes. I think the number is probably closer to 17 complete armies I’ve assembled and painted in the 13 years I’ve been playing Warhammer.

On average each one has been used maybe a couple times.

A new one each episode.

Very rarely – and by that I mean hardly ever – do I go back and try and fine tune a list to make it better, or experiment with a list I’m painting to see how it actually works.

At first I was completely blown away by my realization. Then I started thinking about the other villainous notables from my childhood that I still obsess over and reference constantly in my creative works.

Guys like him

and him.

Yup and yup. Master plan. Master plan fails. Next episode, brand new master plan.

And each time they were totally pumped up about their ‘foolproof’ plan. That’s an unshakable self confidence. I mean, I get surprised and disappointed by how bad something ends up sucking, but by now I’ve at least come to expect it to suck just a little. But they still keep coming back for more, and usually from a different direction (that still often proves equally futile in the end), and I think that’s where the comparison fits best. I thought about my personal life, which I never get into in this kind of forum, and realized that the same super-villain paradigm can be applied.
Then I thought of some of my favorite comic book characters.

This guy

and him

And him too.

Same deal. Always had something new that was sure to guarantee them victory over the hero. Never worked. But still they kept coming back again to unleash their next master plan with gusto.

And when all the master plan, doomsday machine making baddies got together? Whoo-boy, then things would get really interesting.

They would sit around and combine their already loony and larger than life personalities together to form diabolical schemes that would get so grandiose and top heavy they would almost move into the surreal realm. Here’s an excerpt from Seanbaby’s Superfriends Page (http://www.seanbaby.com/super.htm), where he does an awesome send up of that show and the Legion of Doom in particular.
“it's a good thing they failed, because if they were successful, they'd end up tallying their take home pay, and realize they're in the hole 80 million dollars per mission. Extorting money from world nations makes you money, but have you ever looked into the cost of an oribital death ray, or a flying submersible headquarters?”

And again, it was always something completely different (and for the most part, untested) You will not find course correction, triangulation, trial and error, or test run in the supervillain playbook.

Count DeCapito never just fixed that one fatal flaw that kept the last machine beast from destroying Tranzor Z (and of course they ALL have to almost destroy him, otherwise it wouldn’t be a half hour show). He also never held off on sending the new ones out to fight and accumulated like eight or nine of them throw at Tranzor Z all at once. I always thought that one might have worked.

At the same time, Cobra Commander never just retooled that one plan for world domination that would have worked if one of the female Joe members had not happened to have been carrying a make-up kit with compact and a few bobby pins into a combat situation (oh those sexist, sexist 80’s)

Personally I always thought Cobra should have released a follow up album to their subliminal hypnotizing zombifying rock anthem ‘Cold Slither’.


I mean, even Meatloaf came back for an encore.

But then, that’s Cobra.

And that’s me.

And I guess that’s why we’re drawn to one another. Because fine tuning an army list or a doomsday machine or a plan for global domination is just not as interesting as coming up with a brand new one.

Now prepare to tremble at the sight of my Ghost N’ Goblin army!

Muwha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!