Triple the Glott, Triple the Fun! - Monster May(hem)

         Here we are, final day of May. More importantly, the end of the Monster May(hem) challenge! I didn't get around to the Idoneth Deepkin, instead I opted to paint some of the Giant Spiders I picked up from Wargames Atlantic as they can be used in Rangers of Shadowdeep which requires 6 or more. A quick peek through the rules and I didn't find anything about what base size these giants spiders should be. The box comes with 12 of each size so that shouldn't be a problem.

    These boxes are great, they have victims that are wrapped up in webbing and options to make sci-fi spiders with guns! If the stinger wasn't lethal enough, the plasma gun will be! Combining a Goblin box from WA allows you to make Spider Riders, pretty nifty box. However, not having instructions and fiddly spider legs doesn't make it easy to assemble. A good trick is using baking soda with your plastic glue, makes it harden quickly so you can get onto the other 7 legs and 2 mandibles. In the future, I might use the plasma gun arms of the spiders on some Tyranids, there is also some cybernetic implants too. 

    Someone reminded me on a comment on Facebook that due to rules changes (and also new shiny models), The Glottkin is now over priced for points and no longer has the keyword Daemon. Clearly, this lump of flesh is a Mortal. I am probably the last person to follow meta for games, Rule of Cool is number one in my books. Looking up the base size, it is a 130mm, which a Great Unclean One is also on. Could easily be a proxy model for his daemon counterpart, not in tournaments of course but in friendly games. 

        I painted Ghurek's left tentacle with a rotten segment on the upper section. I figured this was the start of his putrid mutation, bound with rope in hopes of stopping the spread of the diseased flesh only for it to consume his whole body. For the base I used Crayola Model Magic Clay, I purchased a box of six packets and one of them covered this base. For the pools of standing water, I used a mix of white glue and Super glue. For my first time, I also created a brown ink wash to cover Ghurek's body. All and all, I am pleased with the results, especially my base. It's not that I am getting better, but more that I am trying new technics and putting time in them. My skaven were the first models that I started to paint my bases for and they have come a ways since then.

    So with the Glottkin being three brothers and my 6 spiders, that's nine models for Monster May(hem) right?

    I really enjoyed painting monsters over the month, maybe next year I will go for quantity instead. Don't forget to check out the other entries on Angry Piper's blog as he will have a round up there.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    I will be on vacation* for a good section of June, but I will be participating in a Warcry Tournament once I get back. My time away will help me decide what warband to bring. I probably should try to do some scenery.... if only there was a challenge for it....

*Parental leave but with beaches!

    

Jujosz - Character of the Month (April)

         Oh boy, dragging my feet a bit with these Character of the Month entries. This will be my April entry, Jujosz is a metal reaper miniature. I was opposed to basing him on the square base he came on, but I just thought I was being basist, all bases look good on the tabletop... besides those shitty Wizkids flat discs. 

    Vindex, a town of wealth, for those that had it, was paradise. The rich owned the City Watch, making sure their position on the top would never falter and keep their hands clean of any criminal activity. The wealthy elite would compete against each other, three families are paramount in Vindex. 

    Xilmaris, a pure bloodline of Drow elves, they control the refining factories that dot the outskirts of the town. Workers are paid barely a living wage, it is also common for petty criminals to work off their debt to society in the factories. Speak to the right foreman and for the right price, they can send one of the workers a message for you in the form of "accidental" maiming in the workplace. Of course, some of these incidents might go sideways resulting in death instead.

    Ahjkar are preoccupied by keeping up appearances, this family of Rakshasa might look young but they are centuries old. The secret to their youth is harvesting genetic traits from other species for elixirs. They sell off potions that have short durations, which makes sure customers return frequently. Through experimentation, they have found the Drow prove to have several traits of worth, especially full breed Drow, which has fueled many family feuds between the two houses. 

    Liloxora are dishonored Tieflings, outcasts in their own race they are mercenaries for the highest bidder. The Xilmaris would use a nepotism model to support their own business, hiring those members of the family that lacked empathy to be Captain of the Watch. These soldiers would economically bully society, keeping the peace in Vindex and sniffing out an "enemies of the state."

Jujosz

Zombie rave in the dungeon

    Jujosz had the unfortunate luck of being born in Vindex, his family was tied to the city. His father worked in the refinery and mother was a blacksmith. Fleeing from the raids on smaller towns, they found work in Vindex, raising their family. Jujosz, was the youngest of three, discovered his talents for healing at the age of 6 (about 20 in human years). Sharing it with the community in the slums of Vindex.

    The Ahjkar took notice of his skills, he was offered a position as a cleric at their shop. Spending time with the lower levels of the community he knew that the Ahjkar were not to be trusted. He refused, and while he was praying at the cloister, he was captured. Forced into service for the corrupt Ahjkar, tending to their weak experiments, keeping them alive to extend their harvesting of genetic material. Will Jujosz be able to escape his captors?

    This miniature is from the metal line of Reaper Miniatures called Dragonman Cleric, T'kay. I have had it for awhile, really like the look of this sculpt. I also have his Fighter friend, Kar'Drakir unpainted, so maybe he will show up in one of the Character of the Month entry. I recently watched Fantasic Mr. Fox, so I think the idea of three families that ran a town sunk into my story.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Well, I hope it's the next Character of the Month as it is the end of May! I do have the Glottkin to a good place to call it finished. Tomorrow is the last day, might as well use the time to add any finishing touches to it.

Shadows of Brimstone - Core Set

 In April, I finished off my City of the Ancients Core Set for Shadows of Brimstone, yes, definitely not very timely with this post. At the end of last year, I had two heroes and the Goliath to finish off. I painted up the female Drifter for good measure, not in the core set, for Rachel to play. 

All the beasties in the starter set

Goliath

Drifter (expansion), Gunslinger and Saloon Girl

    While painting the Saloon Girl, I realized her hat sits flat on her head in all of the artwork in and on the box. The sculpt looks more gothic lolita then what is portraited on the front of the box, or maybe that's me, either way, she has a jaunty hat in my version.

Reenactment of a "Holy Shit" moment in game

    Wednesday night, my brothers, Shawn and Nathan, Rachel and I played the tutorial scenario for Shadows of Brimstone. We started by creating characters, Shawn went with the Bandido, Nathan the Gunslinger and Rachel the Saloon Girl (mostly because I didn't print off the Drifter's character sheet). I was the U.S. Marshal, a character I played previous in a Solo play. Everyone gets a personal item to flesh out their character, Rachel's Saloon Girl had a journal as a personal item that will probably tell of the horrors we encounter, and as a warning to those who find it should we fail!

First Exploration, a summoning circle, well, time to go home

    The summoning circle has it's own Advanced rules, which we ignored for our first run of the game, a lot of the tiles have additional rules. I do like how you can ease yourself into learning the game and bring in more rules as you get more familiar with the basic mechanics.

The first, and only fight we had. 

Gunslinger Nathan unloaded his deadly pistol into the first Night Horror

Dynomite from the Bandido took out the last two, with some help from the Saloon Girl and Slinger

    Not much fighting in our first game, which was fine as some of the fun was scavenging on each tile. These are random events that add flavour to the adventure, like how Nathan's character found a dead body at the entrance of the mine full of bandages. We started calling him a mummy, as he had 3rd bandage token from character creation.

    On the second tile, one of the events was called Tracks in the Dust, letting our party smash down a seemingly dead end. This would guarantee a clue on the next time, collecting two clues would lead us to Dark Stone and the final encounter with the horrors.  So of course that's what all the characters did besides Rachel, who wanted to explore (and her strength wasn't very good anyways.) Along her journey she meant a prospector and a room full of steam, both could have led to encounters, instead had some loot. 

    While fighting the Night Horrors in the final battle, I used my inflated ego (my Marshal's badge) to buff everyone's shooting or combat. This must have went to my character's head, as even with 3 shots for my shotgun that rolls D8 (instead of D6), I got three 1's on my dice. 

    I didn't get any experience points for killing the horrors, but exploring, scavenging and healing others all give you XP. So healer characters can still level up with the more aggressive characters. The game also scales nicely, potentially adding 2 more characters to a game, though our kitchen could barely contain a small map with four players.

    I have a few expansions that I really want to get at, but I already have a Glottkin to paint for May. Was very tempted to just assemble one of them anyways, clearly, I trying to find anything to distract me from painting the Glottkin. But the real monster of May is the gray tide, oh and procrastination! 

Next on the Hobby Desk

    I did get some painting in on the Glottkin, probably should show off some of my work on it as well as post my Character of the Month for April & May (once I actually pick one and finish it!) The backstories are bogging me down a bit.

    

Monster May(hem) 2022

    This year I will be participating in Angry Piper's Monster May(hem). He has been running it every year now for quite sometime. And every year there are some mind blowing entries. Take a look at some amazing work by theses fellow bloggers. 

    The basic premise to the challenge is to paint your monsters! The more beastly and yearning for wanton and destruction the better. It's just the beginning so contact the angry piper if you are looking to add your blog/ Instagram for his shout out of all the beautifully ignorant rampaging creatures throughout the month. I will also post my progress here throughout the month.

    A couple years back, I started work on my Glottkin with the idea of using it as a wandering monster in Warcry. Not wanting everything in my Nurgle army to be green, I opted to paint in blues and purples. This model has been toppled off of its pedestal as ugliest mother trucker in Nurgle armies after the new battletome came out last year, replaced by the Hygienically Challenged One. Points wise, The Glottkin is almost double the points, now that's an odor some players would find offensive! But hey, I was smitten by this putrid chunk of a rot it might as well get used in games.

I bought him off eBay around 3-4 years ago, it came assembled. To be honest, I haven't painted a model this big, and if I did, I would vastly prefer subassembly. So I am finding starting this project a bit daunting.

My baseline for the Glottkin

    Lots more basecosting to go, might get a bit distracted with smaller monsters throughout the month. My Idoneth Deepkin fit perfectly into this challenge, sea elves that harvest souls of the living to survive. Teclis' Monsters, if you will. 

     The Glottkin is actually a literal name, representing three kin with the surname Glott. Otto, who wields his dad's scythe, who was a farmer. Ghurk once tall and handsome now is a beast of burden that carries his brothers on his back. And Ethrac a powerful Socerceror of Nurgle. This has basically stayed the same into Age of Sigmar. I never played Warhammer Fantasy Battle, but I do have some of the faction rule books that I flip through from time to time. When I read about the World-that-was, I find myself wanting to know more about it.

To me my X-MEN!

    This is my latest project for Super Mission Force, the key players in the X-men Animated series (also costumed as such too.) The whole gangs is here, bad eyes, blue fur ball, poor anger management man, bamph guy and sparks teen.  After painting these up, I noticed that I have been focusing mostly on super heroes, and don't have all that many villains. In SMF, it's up to you to create your heroes, picking out abilities and backgrounds. Archetypes can be standard or special. Four standard heroes on each side would be balanced. Specials are Paragon, which is equal to 2.5 standard archetypes. Powerhouse which is 2 standard archetypes and Super which is 1.5 standard archetypes. There is also Street-Level, two of these equaling a standard archetype. 

    

    With this customization, I could have multiple levels for each hero. Jean grey is a powerful psychic as a standard Archetype, but when she transforms into the Phoenix her powers are godly, making her into a Paragon Archetype, usually this means, mashing of the standard archetypes together.

Main cast of the Animated Series

Carnage jumping out of the bushes

Full Marvel Repainted Heroclix

DC repainted Heroclix (also foot soldier)

Stan Lee makes a cameo as a civilian

    Stan Lee was prolific for his cameos in his own universe, appearing in the animated series, LEGO games, the comics, movies, everywhere. So why not have him in my SFM game as a civilian to be rescued? It's basically cannon!

 

Jain Zar, Storm of Silence

    Jain Zar was part of the Minivember Challenge of 2020 which wasn't finished on time for the challenge. Since then, it has been sitting near or on my hobby desk. I would always think, "After this project you are getting painted." but there always another model that would conveniently show up to bump it off the queue. Not anymore!

"I bring only death and leave only corpses."

    While painting Jain Zar, I was listening to her audio book which really helped inspire me to continue to paint her. Then I finished the book and moved onto Soul Wars. Which, of course, drove me to painting more Age of Sigmar. 

Iybraesil Howling Banshees

    

     These are howling banshees that I painted up for minivember as well, painted with a blue bodysuit, the colour of the Iybraedil Craftworld. If I want represent the Craftworld properly, that being a matriarchal society, I will need a female Autarch as a leader. As luck would have it, GW just made a new Autarch sculpt, a quick look a the sprue tells me you can indeed model her without a helmet on... only $50... YIKES! I bought an old sculpt awhile back, I'll more likely repaint it blue if I was interested in following the lore. I would also need more Howling Banshees, as Iybraesil cultivate a large number of their shrines. I do have more to paint, but they might be of the resin variety. 

    What I do have, are WAR WALKERS! Two metal and one plastic, these will one day grace my hobby desk. Not at this moment, but they will be my next Eldar paint project.

Voronwe Fenzana

    

    Clearspell was a continent of prosperity, coveting knowledge over all else. Wizards were regarded with reverence, the council would look to their sages before coming to important decisions. Voronwe was one of the high wizards who would seek out esoteric tomes, experimenting with arcana knowledge that most thought was lost to the ages.

   Financed by the council, Voronwe, along with his pupils set out to seek such a tome. Long ago, there was a great war between the elves and lizardfolk that dwelt in the dark caves to the east of Clearspell, much of the magic of that era had been lost for centuries. These caves had been vacant for generations, which emboldened the adventurers. Delving deep into the caverns of the reptilian foes, this was not the case. For their service to their dark god never ended, nor their hatred towards the elves. Clawed feet were heard as their search found them in their ritual chambers. Voronwe desired knowledge, not a battle, they quickly picked up any tomes that might be useful and left. 

    Returning to Clearspell, Voronwe was eager to study the ancient knowledge. Once opened, the book was enchanted with a spell, a relic of the age of war. Voronwe could feel his body changing, becoming frail, gaunt. He looked to see that he had be transformed into a liche. Cursed to harvest souls of the living to have eternal life.

Voronwe needed to gain the favour of the lizard gods, Sess'innek, a demon lord, if he was to reverse his current form.

    This model is the Liche & Mummy from the D&D Wizkids, they are alright miniatures for the price. I prefer Reaper Bones with their harder plastic. Not the most fleshed out backstory, hopefully I can take a bit more time for the next one and also post it on time!