Improved Game Accessory Box

My last attempt at a gaming accessory box for Warmachine worked fine for the cards, but it was very inconvenient when it came to the gaming tokens - at least in the amount that I carry around for Warmachine. After checking my carrier box I decided I had room to make a larger version that could organize everything better. I couldn't increase the height if I wanted it to fit in my case, but I could increase the width and depth. So I designed a new double-sided box; this would allow me to store cards on one side yet still have a large, shallow area for storing and organizing tokens on the other.

On one side I have enough room to store 3" cloud templates (up to five of the acrylic ones I'm using; I don't think WMH uses the larger 4" and 5" templates anymore) and still have several compartments left over in my 3D-printed divider for dice, tokens, pens, etc. I think I could even fit a small measuring tape in the middle, if I could find a good one. The other side has four compartments, each large enough for around fifty game cards in Dragonshield sleeves. Of course they can also be used for more tokens if needed.

This box took me longer to make than I had hoped. Double-sided boxes are something I've been having trouble getting dialed in, likewise partitions have been proving tricky. My first attempt actually didn't quite go together right, and the box glued up wonky. So I went back and modified my code, double-checking pretty much every aspect of the sizing and tolerances. I also changed my workflow to focus on accuracy (at the cost of a great deal of speed; this box took many hours to mill).

Previously I've been using a 3mm compression bit, and cutting through the entire stock in one pass. This is very fast, but I was getting some deflection. So this time I tried a 1.5mm bit (single-flute upcut as that's what I had) and used multiple very shallow passes; this gave me much better dimensional accuracy (and also meant I could use dogbones without them being nearly as noticeable), but took much, much longer. I also broke the 1.5mm bit, but that turned out to be because a connector for my spindle power cable was crap; it's only a few years old but the plastic had become brittle and the retaining tabs had snapped off. I noticed this and taped the connector ends together, but the tape apparently decided it couldn't be bothered to do its job and just kind peeled off partway through a cut, allowing the cable connector parts to separate and leaving the machine trying to drag a non-spinning bit through the plywood.

Speaking of plywood, I'm not too happy with the quality of what I'm using right now. Lots of voids in the middle, and it all splinters very easily, the box finish getting damaged during assembly and sanding (in a way that feels like it shouldn't be happening). This was especially true of the box lid "runners", the tongues and grooves that hold the box lids in place. So to try to reinforce them, I added varnish first, before sanding to fit. I actually tried to apply the varnish and then put them in a vacuum pot to draw the varnish deeper into the wood, but I don't think that really did anything. Regardless, I think the varnish helped to reduce the damage to the tongues and grooves when making the second box.

I wasn't too happy with some of my other materials either. My old wood glue had turned weird and yellow, so I threw it out and bought some new wood glue from the local hardware store, but this stuff... feels different. It's labelled HP Gold Synthetic Resin Adhesive, and it doesn't feel like the PVA wood glues I'm used to; it doesn't spread very well for example, and I feel like it might be setting more quickly. It worked, but the difficulty I was having spreading it might have been compounding the issues I've been having with box glue-up.

You see, applying glue to the correct places on all the sides and partitions was taking so long that the glue would start to harden before I was done, and pieces would end up setting slightly out of place. So for my second attempt at this box I tried applying glue to just two pieces at a time, then quickly assembling the box parts and applying pressure so that the two pieces would set in the correct positions. Once they were set I would take everything apart, apply glue to two more pieces, and repeat the process. This again took a long time, but I feel it worked better. I do need a better clamping solution though; my clamps are too big, elastic bands actually work better than clamps for smaller boxes but the ones I have are too small for this box.

I did think the resin inlays worked much better this time than in my last attempts. I started by applying a very generous coating of Coprabel's Easy Color wood stain varnish in Palissander 506 into the inlay to seal the wood. It's the varnish I used for the finish on my previous game box; I hoped the very dark colour would create a sort of blackline around the actual resin. After giving this a day to set, I applied a clear varnish (National Protective Coatings synthetic varnish clear) to the entire top of the lid. This was to avoid the issue I had with the previous box, where sanding the resin inlay flat created a coloured dust that settled into the wood top and refused to come out, leaving it looking slightly pink. I also wanted to wet-sand the resin as I've found it to be MUCH nicer than dry sanding (at least for resin), and hoped the varnish would protect the wood from the water.

When all the varnish was dry I applied the resin. I used gold Art Nation mica powder in ResinVentures Art Resin. The Art Resin has proven to be very vulnerable to yellowing, but I didn't feel that mattered in this case, and the mica powder worked much better than my previous attempts at using dyes or GSW metal powders. Being able to use a vacuum chamber (a relatively recent aquisition) to reduce the amount of bubbles in the resin also helped. Of course I passed a heat gun over the surface to pop the rest of the bubbles too; I think the heat gun moving the resin around also helped create a more organic looking pattern.

After giving the resin three days to fully set, I tried sanding the inlay using wet/dry sandpaper in a 3D-printed sanding block. While most of the clear varnish actually got sanded off the wood, and a fair bit of water soaking into the unvarnished wood on the other side, overall it still mostly worked out OK; I didn't notice any real warping of the wood or discolouration from the resin dust. The dark outline came out very nicely too, I'm quite happy with that. I did a quick polishing pass with a Dremel tool and Dremel polishing kit/compound. This did deepen the gold colour a bit and give it a bit more shine, but the wet sanding had already given the resin quite a nice smooth surface so the polishing wasn't too important in this case (I think I used a rather finer grit of sandpaper than I needed to for the initial sanding). Besides, there was still another varnish layer that was going to go over the resin, so the polish was too early (I didn't end up polishing again as it didn't seem to do enough to be worth it to me - especially when the rest of the box ended up looking a little bit rough anyway).

With the box assembled I started the final sanding (dry) to smooth everything out. Once this was done I coated the outside of the box with the clear varnish (applied by brush) and left it for a couple of days. This varnish was not very even; some areas felt very smooth, while others had a rough wooden feel. They actually felt rougher than they had after sanding, as if the varnish had lifted the wood fibres. So I applied another coat, then after giving that a couple of days to dry gave the whole box a very wet sanding. This evened out the surface a bit and actually gave it back a bit of the textured wooden feel, which I was happy about. However in some areas, where I felt the need to sand a bit more heavily as there were some thicker spots of varnish on the surface, I ran into some issues where the varnish didn't sand very well; it almost seemed to gloop up like an almost-dry PVA glue. Perhaps the water, and heat from the friction of sanding, was affecting it?

There were also some spots where the varnish didn't soak into the wood properly, perhaps because of my clumsy use of the wood glue earlier. These spots show up as pale spots and look pretty bad. Overall the final finish is not great, I actually think my previous box came out looking and feeling a bit better. The stained Coprabel varnish was much more expensive than the clear National "synthetic" varnish, so material quality might be a factor. I also dry-sanded that one much more heavily compared to the light wet-sanding I gave this box (to try to get rid of the excessive staining), creating an aged look and a more natural raw wood feel than the varnished look and feel of the new box.

Oh well, maybe the next one will be better. I want to try working with solid wood rather than plywood; I'm also hoping to eventually try using stabilized wood, which should be stronger and not require varnish. Fingers crossed.

Slow And Steady

I ran a demo game for a new member of our hobby group. This was my first game of Warmachine this year. I had put together two 30 points Unlimited lists in preparation. I ran a silly Strakhov2 list that I could use to show off a little of the jankier things you can do in this game, mostly centered around Alexia and LoLS to demonstrate soul and recursion mechanics. I don't think either of used a command card all game (though I did mention how he could use them a couple of times), but we both had Blessing, Lucky Penny, Old Faithful, Hit & Run, and For The Motherland (which I guess is not legal anymore but w/e).
Strakov2 (proxied by Strakhov1)
-Kodiak
-Elite Kommandos (2)(proxies)
-Reinholdt
Koldun Lord
Alexia 2 (& Thralls)(proxy)
Battle Mechanics
Legion of Lost Souls (Risen conversions)

The list I made for new players was intended to be simple and solid, mostly centered around demonstrating the basics, including the use of straighforwards buff spells. Ruin was a no-brainer. I included Bombardiers as versatile faction models with good overall stats and enough armour for Butcher's Deceleration to be meaningful. The Forgeseer fit with the MOW, was painted, and could help counter Strakhov's cloud/stealth tricks. Mechanics made sense as they are cheap and could repair most of the army.
Butcher1 (buff version)
-Ruin (proxied by Juggernaut)
Greylord Forgeseer (Bombshell conversion)
Man-O-War Bombardiers
-Bombardier Officer
Battle Mechanics


Pre-Game
I placed a simple 12" zone in the center and said any model could score starting from the second player's second turn, with the first to 5 points being the winner. I went firsts so I could demonstrate basics rules first. I gave him the terrain so he could place them as he wished.


Deployment
I put Strakhov and his support near the forest. The Kodiak in the center, with the Mechanics behind him, and Alexia and the Legion to the left. He spread his MOW in a line in front of the rest of his models (I could not remember the rules for deploying units).


Round 1:
Strakhov cast Inviolable Resolve on the Kodiak and Quicken on himself, used the Sneak battle plan and ran into the forest. His support followed. The Legion ran into the zone, clustered up in a shield wall. The Kodiak, excited to get to grips with the enemy, "accidentally" vented steam and killed all three mechanics. Oops. Oh well, accidents happen in war. Alexia respectfully and surreptitiously pocketed their souls - no point in letting good corpses souls go to waste, right? Walking up, she used the souls to craft three Thrall Warriors, who immediately ran forwards.

Butcher's army ran up, with Butcher himself staying behind the wall of Bombardiers, while the Forgeseer alone split off from the force. Butcher cast Deceleration, and put Vengeful on the Bombardier Officer.

Round 2:
I upkept both spells. Strakhov moved forwards just enough to take a shot at the Forgeseer, hitting and rolling just low enough to not do any damage. Alexia walked up and slung a Hellfire at a Bombardier, also somehow rolling just low enough to not do any damage. The Legion walked forwards and shot their pistols, doing some damage. The Thralls charged the Bombardiers, although only one could make the 3" needed for boosting damage. They finished off one Bombardier, but the return swing from Vengeful on the officer killed a Thrall. The Kodiak trampled up and used Vent Steam, the Kommandos then walked forwards and did the same.

Butcher upkept Vengeful and allocated to Ruin. The Bombardiers shuffled up a bit and killed the Thralls, allowing the Officer to lob a shot at the Legion; it missed but a roll of 10 on the blast damage still killed the target. The Mechanics then repaired some of the damage on the Bombardiers. Butcher Feated and cast Deceleration again. Ruin charged the Kodiak, dispelling Inviolable Resolve. I was surprised that even with Butcher's Feat and the free charge from his Bond, he still only just managed to finish off the Kodiak on his final hit (doing only one point of extra damage). The Forgeseer walked in to the zone and cast a Hoarfrost at the closest Legion grunt, killing it and also a second with another roll of 10 on the AOE damage. At least Alexia was close enough to take their souls.

Round 3:
I dropped Quicken. The Legion charged the Bombardiers, killing one and bringing back a member of the unit. One attack hit the Bombardier Officer, triggering Vengeful. The Officer's attack did no damage, but it was a Crit allowing him to use Shred to attack again (it was only later that it occured to me that Crit Shred is only during the model's combat action), unfortunately he rolled low again, leaving the Legion trooper untouched.

Alexia charged Ruin, using souls to buy attacks and boost damage rolls. She did some damage, not that much. One Kommando charged Ruin, the other I feared would block Strakhov's charge so I charged the Forgeseer instead, leaving her on one health. Reinholdt gave Strahkov a Lucky Charm (which came in handy as I think I rolled three 1's on a damage roll at one point). Strakhov then cast Last Stand on himself and charged Ruin. After buying all his attacks Ruin still had around 10 health boxes left; pow 11 is just sad really. The Koldun Lord managed to land a Brittle Frost on Ruin but did no damage.

With all my activations done Last Stand kicked in and Strakhov keeled over; karmic retribution for killing his own Mechanics no doubt.


Post-Mortem
It was a fun game that flowed fairly smoothly. I did end it somewhat prematurely using Last Stand, but I felt there wasn't much point in drawing it out too long. Still, in retrospect I probably should have let him take down Strakhov himself using Ruin. But this was actually my first game with Strakhov2 and I thought it would be funny for Strakhov to basically kill himself. I do think only have one jack per side is a bit of a problem, because losing that jack is hard to recover from; having a couple of jacks just sort of "buffers" the impact of losing one, or at least creates more of a back-and-forth. But I wanted to have a bit of everything without having too much of the power in the battlegroup as that might make the rest of the army feel redundant; I feel that gives a more accurate impression of the actual game. I think the Butcher list did what I wanted it to quite well, but I might re-write the Strakhov list.

Spriggan: The Untold Story

"When Queen Ayn Vanar ordered the Mechaniks Assembly to give her a warjack that would turn the tide of the Motherland's ongoing border wars, they provided her with the Spriggan." - Forces of Warmachine: Khador

MECHANIK:	"Your royal highness, for years the Khadoran military has relied on the iconic Juggernaut, with its powerful MAT7 POW19 axe, and the humble yet beloved Destroyer, with its simple yet effect RNG14 POW14 AOE3 bombard cannon. Well, I am proud to present to you our latest and greatest creation, the mighty Spriggan!" "With its MAT6 POW18 lance it is less accurate and not as hard hitting as the Juggernaut. But it has two guns; not giant cannons that take advantage of the size and weight of the platform, but tiny little RNG10 POW10 AOE2 guns that could easily be carried by infantrymen. Also at ARM19 it has less armour than the ARM20 Juggernaut chassis - but we gave it a shield. Of course it's a POW14 shield that is much worse than the POW16 shield the Devastator chassis the Spriggan was built on is already equiped with. Oh, and the whole thing costs 50% more to manufacture than the Juggernaut." "As I'm sure you've realised by now, I am a Cygnaran agent who has infiltrated the Mechaniks Assembly in order to sabotage your production of war materials. I'm sure you will execute me now for wasting so much time and money on this nonsensical design, but I proudly sacrifice my life for my..."
QUEEN VANAR:	"IT'S AMAZING! PUT IT INTO MASS PRODUCTION RIGHT NOW!"
MECHANIK:	"Wait, wat?"

Fin.

---

I believe that a model's rules should be consistent with the model's story. A knight in shining armour should have a higher ARM value than a peasant in rags, and a sniper with a scoped rifle should have more range than a guy with a bandolier of throwing knives. So for me the Spriggan's strangely compromised stats are at odds with the fluff that served as its introduction.

Back in Mk2 it had the same MAT as a Juggernaut, and I could accept the lower POW on the lance as a tradeoff for the lance's longer range - even though other armies had warjacks that did not make this tradeoff, with expensive elite warjacks having straight-up better melee stats than the cheap beaters (for example the Mk2 Ironclad with its MAT7 RNG0.5 P+S18 hammer compared to the Stormclad with its MAT7 RNG2 P+S19 sword), and Khador even had an elite warjack with the weapon range of the Spriggan and the power of the Juggernaut in Beast09.

But I never understood the lower base ARM; why build a new Khador warjack (that according to the fluff was like 50% heavier than the existing chassis) with less armour, just to give it a shield? A shield which, despite being described in the fluff as being "heavy enough to deliver a crushing counterattack", is less powerful than an empty fist? I get that, rules-wise, an ARM22 warjack can be seen as a problem. But remember we had ARM25 Devastators at this point, and unlike other factions Khador had no ARM buffs at the time. I'm just saying it doesn't make much sense fluff-wise.

Then in Mk3 the Juggernaut chassis received a MAT upgrade to 7, while the Spriggan stayed at MAT 6 despite being an expensive melee jack (it also received a nerf to the guns, which unlike before - and contrary to the fluff - could now be crippled). Supposedly this was to keep it in line with the Devastator chassis, which also remained at MAT6 and now had a base ARM of 19 (the Spriggan was also buffed with the Devastator chassis' Steady rule, but for some reason not its Sturdy rule).

But why would it need to have the same MAT when it was built for different purposes? According the fluff the Devastator was build to use lower-grade cortices due to Khador's difficulty making high quality cortices, while the Spriggan was specifically designed as an elite warjack to present to Ayn Vanar herself! Also, partway through Mk3 the Berserker chassis, which in the fluff is described as a REALLY old, practically obsolete design that still used ancient cortices that had degraded with time, got upgraded to MAT6. Surely at this point the MUCH newer and more expensive Spriggan should have a MAT7 cortex, if not the entire Devastator chassis (that, remember, had previously had the same MAT as the Juggernaut)?

Then in Mk4 they dropped the base ARM on the Devastator and Demolisher to 18, so the Spriggan is no longer consistent with the chassis anyway! So why not bump it up to MAT7 now? At the same time, PP introduced the new Mk4 Khador warjacks that were ARM20 with access to shields, so ARM20+2 became normal. Yet the poor Spriggan is still stuck at the perplexing ARM19+2 statline that just doesn't make sense fluff-wise. Bear in mind Khador's new Great Bear is ARM20+2 at MAT7 with access to a RNG2 POW19 melee weapon alongside a POW 14 cannon with the pistol rule for the same price or cheaper than the Spriggan, leaving the sad old Spriggan completely outclassed. Hell, the new Avalanche, which is the same cost as the Spriggan and also has a RNG2 lance and a shield, has the Great Bear's MAT7 ARM20+2 statline, but at SPD5!

Yes, the Spriggan has some nice rules on it, but so do the Great Bear and Avalanche. For a while I continued to argue for the Spriggan needing at least a little bit of help; a single extra point of MAT would go a long way. But SGF just released their annual balance update, and it became clear that SFG/PP don't give a damn about classic Khador anymore. So yeah, even I have to admit there isn't even the tiniest grain of hope anymore for the Spriggan's rules making sense in the context of its fluff.

I still love the look of the jack, being one of my personal favourite models in the game, and I still think it's capable on the tabletop with all the utility if brings - if a little expensive and outclassed in several important ways by other options. I just hate that it just always seems to have been short-changed for no apparent reason. Well, that's the way it goes sometimes; some stuff is great, some stuff just does not work on the table the way it's supposed to. Still makes me sad when I think about it though.


--EDIT--
I forgot to mention that the original text seen above specifically says:

"... an impenetrable shield in addition to its tremendous underlying chassis armor".

This is Khador, ARM20 is standard. Yet somehow "tremendous chassis armor" is only ARM19. Like I said, the stats DO NOT match the fluff. Sigh.


--EDIT 2 (30/01/2026)--
In the January 2026 balance patch, the majority of Prime models - including almost every single Khador warjack - lost a point of MAT, or a point of RAT, or both. This includes the Juggernaut and Great Bear chassis. However this did NOT include the Spriggan or clamjacks. So now the Spriggan's MAT6 is the same as the Juggernaut and Great Bear (and ofc it has that +2 MAT on the charge, making it technically slightly more accurate). Which genuinely makes it a lot less painful to add to lists because you're no longer giving up melee accuracy to do so. And of course it makes it less out-of-touch with the fluff, which is a very big deal to me. This single change genuinely made me feel significantly happier about the state of the Spriggan.

Bear in mind that you can now build an ARM20+2 RNG2" POW19 Great Bear for 13 points (and an ARM19+2 SPD5 POW17 Shield Guard Dire Wolf is only 10 points), while the Spriggan is still sitting at 15 points, so it's not like the Spriggan is suddenly amazing or anything, he's still lagging behind in the "Khador jack with a shield" category. But I'm OK with that since:

1. rules-wise those two are Winter Korps so they are not in competition with the Spriggan in list building; the Spriggan has his place in Armies Of Legend,
2. fluff-wise the Great Bear and Dire Wolf are newer and therefore it makes sense for them to be more advanced.

Also the Avalance and Medveditsa (another two Khador ARM20+2 jacks) both went down from SPD5 to SPD4 (alongside the aforementioned loss of a point of MAT each), further reducing the disparity in core stats. So yeah, while the Spriggan is still not in an amazing place and there's still room for improvement, I'm much happier now with where he fits in the game both in terms of balance and in terms of representing the fluff on the table.

Swapping Playstyles

Back in Mk2 I was quite fond of Lady Aiyana and Master Holt. It's a great looking unit, with an elegant decorative style, Holt looks cool with his bladed pistols and his rules and stats lived up to his appearance, while Aiyana's debuff spell was an incredibly powerful tool. But in Mk3 it became much harder to justify taking them outside of a Mercenaries list as the main reason to bring them, the Kiss of Lyliss, became friendly-faction only. Still, I've been thinking about running them lately, and the other day I had an idea. I've been having a hard time getting the most out of the Cutthroat's Prey, and was wondering if it was worth throwing it at a jack early. Then I realised that if I couple it with Kiss and Brittle Frost that becomes functionally POW 16 shooting; against an ARM 18 Cygnar jack, that's doing 5 damage per shot! Couple that with Holt's pistols and that's an average of 35 damage, enough to one-round a Cygnar heavy!

Of course I should take some more quality shooting just to be sure; since I'm pulling out some old models, how about Harlan Versh? He could be very effective if the target jack has an upkeep on it. But that's a lot of delicate pieces I would want to keep alive for multiple turns, so the best Khador caster to run them under would be Strakhov 1. But he'll only protect them for one round, and even then there's ways to ingore Stealth, so I would need some shield-guards. The High Alert card would help, but it wouldn't be enough, so how about Alexia 2 and a unit of Legion of Lost Souls to both stand in front and also catch bullets? Plus that amounts to a +6 damage swing for them, putting them at effectively POW 18!

Obviously I'd need the Blessing card, and I chose Infiltration and Hit & Run for extra defense. Finally I chose Old Faithful over Power Swell, since I was only taking one shooty jack and no repair models. This all sounded like a very silly and janky list that would probably catch someone by surprise and win the first time I run it, then probably never again.
50pts Unlimited Khador
Strakhov 1
-Destroyer
Lady Aiyana and Master Holt
Croe's Cutthroats
Legion of Lost Souls
Alexia 2
Koldun Lord
Ol' Grim
Harlan Versh
*Blessing
*High Alert
*Hit & Run
*Infiltration
*Old Faithful


I told Karas I was running a Strakhov gunline, and he finally succumbed to the urge to run a jackspam list; it's something he's mentioned wanting to do even though he knew it wouldn't work very well.
50pts Cygnar Storm Legion
Huxley1 (Electrify, Jackhammer)
-Courser (Advanced Deployment, Mag-Bolter, Voltaic Punching)
-Stryker (Arcane Precision, Voltaic Javelin, Heavy Mag-Bolter)
-The General
Arcane Mechanics
Sharpshooter
*Blessing
*High Alert
*Infiltration
*Old Faithful
*Sentry Duty


Pre-Game:
We took a quick look at the Battleforge Customs 1.2 scenarios (by Alif Cheng). On a whim I chose the Extraction scenario. I tried to set the table up in a slighly less symmetrical way than I usually do while still having an overall uniform spread; I chose to put some terrain in the very center, but not something that would be too punishing. I don't know why I have such a hard time laying out terrain... Karas won the roll and chose to go second.


Deployment:
I put Strakhov in the center to ensure he could cover my entire army with his feat, but closer to the forest since he likes concealment. Ol' Grim also went close to the forest. The Legion went in the center with all my important units and solos behind them. Karas deployed in a block to my left. My Cutthroats went behind the forest. I declared The General as their Prey target.

Round 1:
I ran everything up. The Legion went as far forwards as possible, while everything else tried to get defensive bonuses. Strakhov cast Assail on the Destroyer, then Feated and ran forwards to cover the entire army.

The General ran to the left objective. Huxley and maybe the Courser shot the right objective, leaving it on a few boxes, then Huxley used Jackhammer to destroy the left objective with The General, giving him a point.

Round 2:
I upkept Assail and allocated one focus to the Destroyer. I started by activating the Koldun Lord, who successfully landed Brittle Frost but did no damage. Aiyana and Holt went next; Aiyana landed the Kiss but Holt rolled low for damage. Next the Cuthroats activated, walking out of the forest and doing a fairly poor job as well. Harlan Versh activated, but without an upkeep on The General he did very little damage. Alexia tried to land a Hellfire (which would have been effectively POW 18) but missed. Ol' Grim tried his hand, and also fell flat on his face, missing one aimed shot and doing very little damage with the other.

Mathematically speaking The General should have been VERY dead by now, but it just wasn't happening. So much for that plan. I activated Strakhov, aimed, and cast Hand of Destruction on The General. I rolled three shots on the Riot Gun, and with damage boosts plus Hand of Destruction killed The General with the second shot. I put the third shot into the Stryker, then... somehow had two focus left? I... must have forgotten to pay for something? Anyway, I cast Convection at the objective but didn't do any damage, then repositioned backwards. I played High Alert on the Destroyer, who walked to within 3" of Strakhov and put a double-boosted Bombard into the Stryker. Finally the Legion of Lost Souls charged the Stryker and cranked their damage rolls, killing it! I scored two points for killing two undamaged jacks.

The Mechanics moved in and shot at the Legion, but only managed to kill one. The Courser hit Strakhov with his armour-piercing gun, but the Destroyer took the shot, taking 9 damage iirc. Huxley then shot Strakhov, doing 8 damage. The Sharpshooter took a shot as well, but missed.

Round 3:
Prey went on the Courser. I dropped Assail but forgot to allocate focus to the Destroyer. The Koldun Lord walked up and landed Brittle Frost on Huxley, but did no damage. Aiyana landed Kiss, but Holt didn't do all that much with his guns. Harlan Versh rolled four shots, missed two, and only did around 3 damage with the ones that connected. This was turning into The General all over again. Eventually, between Ol' Grim, Strakhov (who landed a boosted Hand of Destruction and remembered to use the Infiltration card after activating), the Destroyer (who didn't have any focus for boosting the damage roll), and the Cutthroats, I finally managed to take Huxley down. I think it might have been Croe who got the final shot, doing a single point of damage and also ensuring that Huxley wouldn't have been able to cast any spells next turn. I was planning to have Alexia buff the Legion's damage and walk them in if I couldn't finish Huxley with shooting.

Post-Mortem:
That was a silly but fun game, where we both played lists that felt better suited to each other's factions. I had a janky shooty list and Karas was running very unoptimised jackspam, so he was facing an uphill battle. The mission was a bit of a weird one, I didn't end up liking it; technically I won by points, because caster kill wasn't a win scenario. It's weird though, because I can see situations developing where you would run out of ways to score points and essentially have no way to win; I guess at that point you play to draw, or just conceded? That wouldn't be very satisfying. I need to spend more time looking at scenarios.

I was careless with Strakhov, running him dry; I really need to get used to resisting the temptation to use all my caster focus. It was a bit scary, facing down armour-piercing guns without any focus. In retrospect I could have protected him better; if I had put High Alert on Versh instead of the Destroyer, I could have replaced him with a Thrall with Shield Guard, allowing my to block two shots instead of one. Also I could have stayed within 3" of Old Grim, who benefits from Alexia's aura and thus was also a shield-guard. I kept forgetting to transfer Prey, and also forgot about Volume Fire on Strakhov. Oh well. Karas forgot that the Courser had Advanced Deployment, didn't put out his usual upkeeps, and he might have forgotten about the Eyeless Sight card (I'm not actually sure if he every had a chance to use it). Tournemant-winning players we are not.


Last game I said I was done with Strakhov, but I have to admit I felt as if he worked this game. He did pull his weight when so many models weren't; rolling a lot of Riot Gun shots will do that I suppose. Still, I think it's time to move on. I've had my eye on Butcher2, and recently I've been considering Vlad2 (who on paper looks like he has some similar gameplay elements). Most casters want faction infantry though, so realistically I need to start playing less mercs and get some more Khador stuff ready for the table. Eh, we'll see.

Attack The Paint

Many years ago, when "Blackest Black" became available and people started talking about using it for miniatures, I had the idea of trying to recreate the monsters from Attack The Block (2011). I've always had a soft spot for that film; my old company worked on it, so I watched it at the cinema with a group of workmates, and I even got to briefly talk to Nick Frost about the possibility of a sequel at a signing at a comic convention several years back. And of course I've always loved the design of the monsters:

I didn't have a suitable model in mind though, so I never got around to it. I did discuss the idea with people on the old Privateer Press forums, and I seem to recall one forumite trying it on a Circle Orborus Warpwolf, but I don't remember his name or how well it came out.

I never completely forgot the idea, even picking up a bottle of Green Stuff World "Maxx Darth" when it came out. Well, recently I was dabbling with Khador lists (as you do) and felt like putting Butcher 3 on the table, just once. But I didn't have any Argus models and was never fond of the two-headed deal to begin with, so I figured I'd print out a couple of generic wolf models to proxy. And that's when I remembed the old idea, and figured it was finally time to give it a try.

As it happens, while looking up OSL effects for my glowing blade experiment, I saw some videos using fluorescent paints. I've been seeing more and more miniatures painted with these, and figured they would be perfect for this model. I actually had a few Vallejo fluorescents lying around that I had picked up years ago but never figured out how to use. Luckily I had both green and blue, allowing me to mix them together to try to get close the turquoise glows from the film.

War Argii:
I spent a couple of hours searching for a suitable wolf model. I was looking for something simple, with no accessories, but with large pronounced teeth. The best model I found was "Fang The Dire Wolf" by The Lost Adventures Co. Unfortunately this was a single sculpt and I needed two of them, so I had to mirror the model and hope it didn't look too obvious. Also I had to shrink the model to fit a 40mm base, which meant I couldn't use the existing supports and would have to make new ones. Which I completely screwed up first time, losing much of the all-important mouth detail, so I had to redo the supports and print them again.

I did some experiments with the Maxx Darth, and found that the surface finish was VERY delicate; even extremely light handling would start to affect the surface finish, possibly even rubbing off the paint. So I decided to put it over a normal black undercoat that had already been varnished, so even if the Maxx Darth got rubbed off there would still be a robust black layer underneath. So after priming them in Mr. Hobby Mr. Primer Surfacer 1000, I airbrushed the entire models with Green Stuff World 1779 Acrylic Color Black Stallion (thinned with Green Stuff World 1880 Airbrush Retarder).

I wanted the basing to be brighter than the black body of the wolves, but dark enough to help accentuate the bright teeth. My typical Khadoran snow or ice bases would be too bright. I also wanted something that would work for both the steampunk fantasy of the Iron Kingdoms and also the modern urban setting of Attack the Block. I settled on the flagstones from the Basius Max: Sanctuary texture pad (pressed into Brown Stuff putty). The irregular square stones were ambiguous enough to fit a variety of different time periods.

I basecoated the bases in Vallejo 70.994 Model Color Dark Grey, then dryrbushed with Vallejo 70.992 Model Color Neutral Grey. This didn't really give me the kind of stone texture I would have liked; the Basius flagstones are a little smooth. I edge-highlighted the flagstones with the Neutral Grey, then washed the bases with Citadel Shade Nuln Oil. It seems my Nuln Oil is getting too old; I had to thin it with some Lahmian Medium, but it still felt a bit thick and had some small black particles that I tried to remove with my brush when I saw them.

I airbrushed the entire models with Mr. Hobby Mr. Color GX 112 UVCut Gloss, followed by Mr. Hobby Mr. Color GX 113 UVCut Flat. I had some issues with one of the bases and had to repaint and revarnish the base rim, but I rushed it and it didn't quite come out the same as the first one, looking a little bit less flat black.

With the varnish dry I started on the mouth. I did this after the varnish as fluorescent paints rely on ultraviolet light, and the varnish I'm using blocks UV. I basecoated the entire mouth in Citadel Layer Sotek Green, then picked out the individual teeth using Citadel Layer Temple Guard Blue. I applied a layer of Citadel Layer Baharroth Blue, aiming to cover about three quarters of each tooth (starting from the tip). I then covered about half of each tooth with a layer of Formula P3 Morrow White. After this I glazed the entire mouth with a mix of about 5 drops of Formula P3 Turquoise Ink and 1 drop of Formula P3 Blue Ink. This added some shading as well as tinting the teeth to be closer to the greenish turquoise glow in my reference screenshots (Iirc in the photo below the model on the left has not gotten the glaze yet). Once dry I covered about a third of each tooth with Morrow White again.

I mixed Vallejo 70.737 Model Color Green Fluo with Vallejo 70.736 Model Color Blue Fluo in about a 1:1 ratio to again try to get close to the colour in my reference material, using a UV flashlight to check the glow colour as I worked. In my first tests I had tried covering the entire mouth of my test model (turns out the failed first wolf prints had a use after all...) with fluorescent paints, but under UV the entire mouth started to glow instead of just the teeth. So I painted the fluorescent mixture onto just the teeth.

This gave a rather flat uniform glow effect under UV; I had hoped to experiment with fluorescent white paint, but the paints I ordered had taken a very long time to ship, and I really wanted to get these guys done in time to actually put them on the table during the month of Halloween, so I had to do without. Instead I applied a second layer of the fluorescent paint mix onto just half of each tooth, to create a simple rough gradient. I brushed Vallejo 26.518 Matt Acrylic Varnish onto the mouth, to protect it without blocking UV light (I did some test just to be 100% sure it had no effect on the glow whatsoever).

I could finally apply Green Stuff World The Blackest Black Maxx Darth to the body. This is a very thick paint; I had to thin it a lot with water, but I tended to over-thin it, so I had to apply several coats to get a solid effect on the raised fur areas. I was using a regular dry palette, and when I was almost done I started to suspect it might be picking up some of the grey paint that had dried on the palette before. So I grabbed a clean palette and thinned some fresh paint to apply on an area, but I couldn't see any difference so I guess it was fine.

The paint is kind of weird; sometimes it looks incredibly dark, much blacker than other black paints. Other times it looks like a lighter grey, but VERY matt, with virtually no specular light. I guess it's very lighting dependent. In the photo below you can see the regular varnished black on the left, and the Maxx Darth on the right, under normal room lighting:

The problem with Maxx Darth and, from what I hear, with all these "blacker than black" or "blackest black" paints is that they rely on their surface finish to work, and that surface finish is very delicate. In my test even very careful handling would damage the matt effect that gave the paint its "black hole" look. After some experimentation it seemed that a very light coat of Alclad II Lacquer ALC 600 Aqua Gloss Clear would give the surface a slightly satin look (compared to the unprotected matt original), but still maintain some of that extra blackness while providing some protection. So I carefully applied a very light dusting of the Aqua Gloss Clear. In the photo below the model on the right has been varnished:

I wasn't convinced that it had worked, so I avoided touching the bodies until after I had taken the glamour shots, to try to get the best possible photos. With that done I tried to very lightly rub the body of one wolf, as you would when handling gaming pieces normally, and I could immediately see the raised areas of the fur becoming more reflective. Here is the model before handling:

And here it is after some light handling. You can see the tops of the locks of fur starting to become more reflective:

And here's a comparison, with the unhandled model on the right:

So yeah, the Maxx Darth is basically a failure for normal gaming models. I can see using it for recessed areas that shouldn't be touched under normal handling, such as the inside of a monster's mouth or something (that could work well to give the appearance of a gaping maw of nothingness or whatever), but overall not really practical for normal gaming models.

Despite being such a simple scheme, these two models were EXTREMELY frustrating; from the print issues to the varnish issues to the finicky paint, these ones were a bit rough. And I'd like to say it was worth it, but knowing that all the work won't amount to very much in the long run since the Maxx Darth won't hold up kinda robs the project of the usual payoff. Still, it was educational; it was my first time using fluorescent paints, and that part at least worked out in the end. And I've finally put one of my many stupid hobby ideas into practice, so that's one less piece of baggage rattling around in my skull. Now to play Butcher 3 exactly once and never again.


EDIT (2024/11/03): I had ordered a pot of Green Stuff World 1760 Fluor Fluorescent White, but I wasn't able to use it for these models as I wanted to paint them before halloween and it hadn't arrived. Once it did, I tried painting it onto the teeth of one of the wolves to try to further brighten them (as the blue and green fluoroscent paints had darkened the whitest parts), but the paint is very transparent and made no visible difference under normal lighting. Under UV light the glow was more blue than before, but the difference doesn't really show up on camera so there's no point in posting new photos. So yeah, doesn't look like the white will work very well for creating gradients on glows, I think it'll be more for creating glowing whites (the glow itself is bluish under UV, but still).

Game-Swap

I offered to demo Warmachine to a local 40K player, and in return he offered to demo Killteam. So we did both.


GAME 1: KILLTEAM
Pre-Game:
I brought out my old Space Marine collection and picked some proxies for Angels of Death:
Space Marine Captain
Assault Intercessor Warrior
Eliminator Sniper
Heavy Intercessor Gunner
Intercessor Warrior (Bolt Rifle)
Intercessor Warrior (Bolt Rifle)

Attila had Legionnaires:
Legionary Shrivetalon
Legionary Chosen
Legionary Anointed
Legionary Baleful Acolyte
Legionary Butcher
Legionary Warrior


Round 1&2:
I was learning the movement and combat. I pulled ahead by a point in the first couple of turns.

Round 3:
I had done more damage in the earlier rounds, but wasn't able to finish off some models that I was in melee with. I had decided to take a risk with my heavy; instead of walking away and shooting the model engaging it (that would go down to a single hit), I figured I could kill it in melee, score the objective, and then use his ranged attack to finish off another model, but I whiffed HARD in melee and just died without costing Attila a single activation instead.

Round 4:
With very few activations left, the score remained even while Attila was ahead by one living model. However, having the numerical advantage allowed my an extra action with my sniper, who managed to finish off one more Legionnaire, drawing the game.

Post-Mortem:
It's a quick game to pick up and play. The movement and action system seemed to be simple but fairly well done. The combat resolution system took a little getting used to, but I can see how it creates the opportunity to make meaningful decisions while giving the attacker an advantage. The "stealth" system felt unintuitive to me, but I guess it makes sense as a way to balance melee and ranged combat. The action point system seems to allow most activations to follow the standard "move and attack" format, but with some flexibility (moving further and attacking, or scoring an objective without sacrificing movement and combat) while still remaining quite simple. I have had issues with small model count games in the past, where sometimes models would die too easily, or there was too much of a binary difference between the model getting hit and dying, and never getting hit and not taking damage, making attacking feel unsatisfying. Killteam's system of wounds and saves might be the best health/damage system I've played in a small-model-count game.

The basic game did feel very simple, without too much difference between different models and weapons, and very few special rules outside of basic attack/defend combat rules. Of course this was an intro game where we didn't use all the rules so it's not a fair comparison, but I will say there was a stark difference between the model profiles, which were mainly just base stats with a few special rules on the weapons, and the incredibly rule-dense model cards in Warmachine. Which is not a knock on Killteam, I believe it's supposed to be a quick and easy-to-pick-up little skirmish game, so the simplicity seems like a feature. I don't know how much depth the game has when played at a higher level by experienced players, I imagine there's a fair bit of strategy in positioning etc. when you understand the game better.

From this one experience, I felt it was a fairly quick and clean game that's an easy way to put some cool 40K models on the table, that can be enjoyed in a very casual way. I wouldn't mind playing it again, though I don't expect it to replace Warmachine or Monsterpocalypse for me. It might replace Zone Raiders sadly; the core rules in that game are probably just too crunchy for me.


GAME 2: WARMACHINE
Pre-Game:
I wanted to write a couple of 30 point lists that prioritised using actually painted models for the demo, with at least one jack, unit, and solo. I chose Butcher1 for Attila; he's relatively straight-forwards (or at least he used to be) and wrecking face with him is great fun. Ruin is the best jack for Butcher and would help demonstrate command cards (Grave Robbing) and internal synergies/interactions through his bond with Butcher. The Legion of Lost Souls was freshly painted and synergised with Alexia2. The Koldun Lord filled out the points and brings a great debuff.
Butcher 1
-Ruin (proxied by Juggernaut)
-Sylys Wyshnalyrr
Legion of Lost Souls
Alexia 2
Koldun Lord
*Blessing of the Gods
*Grave Robbing
*Infiltration
*Old Faithful
*Power Swell

I chose Harkevich for myself as he's a relatively simple warcaster, and Black Ivan could show off some synergies and movement tricks with him. The Drakhun and War Dog are painted. I didn't want to run a mirror with my second unit of Legion of Lost Souls, so I just grabbed the Cutthroats.
Harkevich 1
-Black Ivan
-War Dog
Croe's Cutthroats
Man-O-War Drakhun
*Break Through
*Careful Reconnaissance
*High Alert
*Hit & Run
*Put The Fires Out

I know demo games are usually played without a scenario, but again I didn't feel that was a good representation of the game, and Attila was not new to wargames so I figured he could handle it. So I just threw a 12" zone in the center of the board and said that any model could score it if no enemy models were in the zone, starting from the second player's second turn. First to five points - or to kill the enemy warcaster of course - would win. I said I'd go first so I could demonstrate the turn order etc.


Deployment:
I deployed centerally, with Harkevich ready to run into the forest. We discussed his deployment and I suggested that some models wanted to stay further back.

Round 1: I forgot about Escort and moved Black Ivan before activating Harkevich. Everything basically just ran up and spread out.

Attila moved the Legion towards the trench and ran Alexia into the forest. Butcher cast Deceleration and put Vengeful on Ruin.

Round 2:
The Drakhun was almost exactly 13" away from Ruin; too far to charge, but just close enough to walk and shoot, repositioning away afterwards. I think he might have done a couple of points of damage; in retrospect this would have been an opportunity for Ruin to trigger Hyper Agressive and Vengeful (singe the Drakhun was almost exactly 6" away so Ruin could walk 4" and attack 2"), but I completely forgot about those rules. Also that would have allowed the Drakhun to hit Ruin, and I don't remember if Black Ivan had activated yet, so it probably wouldn't have been a good idea. But I should have remembered it and discussed it.

Hark and Black Ivan did a bit of shooting, but didn't do much damage. The Cutthroats charged the Legion of Lost Souls; I killed one but that left two of my models without a target in range. Croe and the last Cutthroat missed their attacks.

Butcher cast Decelaration and moved around a bit, respecting my threat ranges. Alexia moved up in the forest. Ruin dismounted then killed the Drakhun, allowing Alexia to replace him with a Thrall, who moved behind Ruin to be able to Shield Guard for him. The Legion of Lost Souls completely wiped out the Cutthroats, resurrecting their lost brother in the process. Attila scored one point.

Round 3:
I allocated to Black Ivan and charged him in to Ruin, but wasn't able to finish him so I had to finish the job with Harkevich. Worth mentioning is that Black Ivan's Dual Attack shot hit even though he doesn't have the Pistol advantage, but the Thrall took the shot. Also I once again forgot that Ruin had Vengeful and should have been able to take a swing at Black Ivan. I scored a point.

The Koldun Lord cast Brittle Frost on Black Ivan and Alexia did a few points of damage with a Hellfire. The Legion of Lost Souls charged Black Ivan; they were doing a couple of points of damage each, except for on who REALLY cranked the dice and did two whole columns by himself:

This left Black Ivan on twelve boxes. Butcher Feated and charged, swinging over the heads of the Legion where it would be harder for Harkevich to reach him. With five damage dice on his charge attack, he rolled 16 damage, taking out my jack while sitting on 6 Focus. I just went ahead and conceded.

Post-Mortem:
I find it amusing that Attila played a Legion and Butcher in both games. Playing Warmachine right after Killteam reminded me just how complex Warmachine is these days; every model on the table had a multitude of special rules. Butcher1 used to be one of the simplest Khador casters; the back of his card used to be blank, but now he has Hyper-Agressive on himself and his warjacks; I feel that's a rule that takes a fairly high skill level to use effectively. Perhaps Vlad1 is a better starter caster now; he's strong but pretty straight forwards, with great buffs and crazy threat range on his jacks. Guess I need to get mine painted up.

Still, Attila seemed to enjoy it, and didn't seem to have any trouble with the rules (other than both of us forgetting about Vengeful...). It was fun to play some Warmachine, it's been a while. As much as I love the game, it has no local presence and I don't really want to try to push it. I was trying to bring people into Monsterpocalypse, but that game is pretty much dead right now, at least in terms of support. As is Warcaster. People seem to be enjoying 40K and related GW games, at this point I don't think I'd be doing them any favours trying to get them into other games. So maybe I should be playing more Killteam...

Arise!

Wow, I can't believe it's been over nine years since I painted Alexia, and I still hadn't painted the rest of her unit. That's just depressing. Well, with Alexia and the Risen being a pale shadow of their former selves, I'm finding it very hard to justify bringing them (in the rare event that I actually get a game). But it felt sad to put them away without ever having painted them, so I decided to try to knock the Risen out in a single week of speed painting. Spoiler warning: it took me a lot longer than a week. I did try to paint them as quickly as possible, but various stuff got in the way and I had to put them on hold for a few months. But hey, they're FINALLY finished!

And here they are with Alexia and her favourite undead servant:

The unit originally had twenty Risen grunts (well, due to a mispack my box actually came with twenty-one Risen), but only three sculpts (seen here with some missing arms):

In Mk4 the unit size was reduced from a maximum of twenty grunts to a maximum of ten grunts. This was a bitter pill to swallow, both in-game and also in terms of leaving me with ten (actually eleven) unusable models. But then I hit on the idea of converting them into a couple of units of Legion of Lost Souls. So I sculpted and printed some shields and glued them onto ten grunts. I chose two Khadoran Risen models to serve as unit leaders (which isn't actually a thing in this edition, but maybe it will be again someday, and it looks good aesthetically), and four of each of the others to give me an easy way to differentiate two units. I considered giving them some halberds as well, but decided it would be too difficult to fit them on to the models, at least in a way that looked good.

This left me with ten plus one basic boney boys for Alexia.

Risen:
I've never been a fan of duplicate models in a unit, so I tried to find ways to differentiate them. Luckily they were soft metal models and quite spindly, so I was able to do quite a lot by twisting and bending limbs. I also removed some body parts here and there. The Khadoran sculpt was an issue though, there wasn't much I could do other than chop the feet off at varying heights. Oh, and take off one guy's head. I'm sure he didn't need it.

In order to try to match the swamp bases I gave Alexia and the Thrall without having to spend a lot of money on resin bases (this was LONG before I got into 3D printing) I tried to sculpt my own swamp bases, with areas for water effects scattered across the textured ground (which I tried to make reminiscent of the ground on the other two's bases - some of which I had sculpted myself). I also drilled small holes of varying depth into the "water" areas, which I would use for the bubbles later.

For the Legion of Lost Soul's shields, I considered trying to recast the shields on some Precursor Knights I have lying around unassembled, or maybe just recasting the Radiance of Morrow on the fronts of their shields, but ultimately decided to digitally sculpt it myself, using this image as a refernce:

I wasn't too hard to get the basic shape, modifying it very slightly for better printing. I have uploaded the design to Thingiverse. For the shield I ultimately settled on a design by KillMeForPrizes on Cults3d. I wrapped the Radiance onto the shield, printed them up and glued them onto the chosen Risen models.

My plan for painting was to try to use very quick and easy techniques; I wanted to try to use mostly airbrushing and a dip, with maybe some drybrushing. The idea was to just use paint everything in faded brown colours so I wouldn't have to paint different colours for the different sculpts. I figured I might as well use a zenithal, but figured I'd go for green as the shadow colour rather than black.

So after priming the shields I airbrushed a basecoat of Green Stuff World 1796 Acrylic Color Kraken Green thinned with Green Stuff World 1747 Acrylic Thinner over the entirety of all the models. I then airbrushed Vallejo 71.287 Model Air Ija Kakhi Brown from above as the main brown colour. I carefully airbrushed Vallejo 71.132 Model Air Aged White onto the bone areas - or tried to. I thinned it with the acrylic thinner, but I still had a very hard time getting a consistent spray. I airbrushed the shield faces with a turquise I had mixed up from various blue and green acrylic inks a while back for a different project that I ended up not using (so I have a lot of it lying around). It ended up being very close to Citadel Layer Temple Guard Blue. Finally I airbrushed the bases with thinned Citadel Layer Doombull Brown.

Next I drybrushed the various metal bits with Scalecolor SC-72 Viking Gold, a sort of aged brass colour. I had some painting videos on in the background as I worked, and funnily enough after I finished I was cleaning my brush and glanced up at the video only to see Broadsword Wargaming painting Stormcasts, using almost the same blue/teal on their shields. Small world. I went over the Radiances and the Khador Anvils on the Ushankas of the Khadoran models with Scalecolor SC-73 Dwarven Gold to brighten them up a little.

By this point I felt a lot of the cloth had been covered up by the drybrushes and I wasn't really liking the colour that was showing anyway, so pretty much on a whim I brushed some Formula P3 Bootstrap Leather over any cloth areas with a drybrush... but then I decided that it was blending into the brass too much in places so after a few models I switched to Formula P3 Rucksack Tan and want back over the painted ones and continued with that. This wasn't exactly a drybrush as the brush was loaded with more paint than I would use for a normal dryrbush, but it wasn't exactly a regular painted coat either; it was sort of something in the middle.

I drybrushed over the "ground" areas with Formula P3 Hammerfall Kakhi to give it some contrast. Finally I "drybrushed" (again with a more loaded brush) some aged white to fix some bone areas that had gotten covered up. Most of the visible colour on the models now was from "dryrbrushing" rather than from the airbrush, so I kinda feel like the whole "do most of it by airbrushing" plan was a failure. Still, I had mostly drybrushed with a downwards motion so some of the original green shadow was still visible, and I had finished it all fairly quickly - MUCH more quickly than if I had painted all the basecoats on in my usual way - so that's OK.

I shaded them using The Army Painter Quickshade Dip Strong Tone, using a brush to clean up excessive pooling before it could set. When this was dry I airbrushed the "water" areas of the bases in Vallejo 72.729 Game Air Sick Green, but I wasn't able to get it down cleanly so I ended up going back over it with a brush, rather carelessly throwing it on. Most likely it would have been faster and less frustrating to just brush it on in the first place, although in retrospect I think I shouldn't have painted it up to the "ground" areas as sharply.

I carefully dryrbushed the Dwarven Gold over the Radiances on the shields to try to get them to stand out a bit more, as they weren't as bright as I would have liked after the shade. The result was subtle, but it did make a difference. I airbrushed spots of Vallejo 72.732 Game Air Escorpena Green onto the "water" areas, trying to create an "organic" looking undercoat for the water effects I was planning to apply.

Decades ago, back when I was in school, I used to write with a fountain pen that used standard ink cartridges. I discovered these had small clear plastic agitator beads inside. On a whim I started collecting these beads, amassing a reasonable number before I got tired of it. I still have them after all these years, and I had put them in my bits box when I got into the hobby. I glued them into the small divots I had originally drilled in the "water" areas (I did this after painting to maintain their transparenccy and to make sure there wouldn't be any unpainted base visible through them).

After painting the base rims black I varnished the models using Mr. Hobby Mr. Color GX 112 UVCut Gloss then Mr. Hobby Mr. Color GX 113 UVCut Flat. I marked bottoms of the bases with Rotring Drawing Ink White through an old Koh-I-Noor, I believe it's a Rapidosketch 0.35mm. Some of the beads did not pick up enough of the green colour from the base, so I glazed them lightly with Citadel Glaze Waywatcher Green.

For the water, I added a little bit of Woodland Scenics C1228 Earth Colors Liquid Pigment Green Undercoat to some Woodland Scenics C1211 Realistic Water. I ran a brush through it a couple of times, than added it to the bases with the brush. I didn't want it well-mixed, I wanted streaks of colour in the hope that would make it look like streaky swamp water. But that didn't exactly work, instead the paint seemed to sit on top of the water effects, so when I applied it to the bases I was picking up a lot of colour at first, then less and less as I worked through the unit. So the first models I did had darker looking swamp water, with more green particles, while the later ones had lighter, clearer swamp water.

While not what I had intended, I think it's fine, the difference is barely noticeable irl. Still, I think next time I'll try adding the water effects first then picking up a tiny bit of colour with a toothpick and swirling it in, or something like that. The water effects shrank a LOT; it feels like it loses at least half its volume. Also it doesn't help that there is a lot of capillary action pulling it up the sides of the models. After the first application dried it was very thin, so I gave them a second pass of water effects.

After that the swamp water ended up looking too plain and flat, even with the bubbles; it didn't look swamp-like tbh. So I decided to try to add something to the water to give it more detail. I took some strips of leftover paper strips ("Double A Premium" 80gsm white A4) from cutting out some cards I made using my card creator, and painted both sides with a heavy coat of acrylic ink. I wanted to completely soak the paper so there wouldn't be any white edges showing. I used a sandy-coloured mix I had leftover from a previous project, which was made of Amsterdam Acrylic Ink 227 Yellow Ochre with a little Amsterdarm Acrylic Ink 275 Primary Yellow. I then tapped an old paintbrush loaded with the yellow ink to splatter it onto the paper for mottling. I mixed some of the Yellow Ochre with Amsterdam Acrylic Ink 735 Oxide Black; this somehow turned out quite greenish so I added some Amsterdam Acrylic Ink 369 Primary Magenta to get a darker brown, and splattered that on top. Then I splattered some yellow on top again. I punched out a bunch of leaf shapes using two different Green Stuff World leaf punches (1300 and 1310).

I might not have given everything time to dry fully, as when I collected the leaves in a pile, many of them stuck together somewhat and I had to pry them apart with tweezers - which luckily mostly worked OK. I then picked up individual leaves with the tweezers, dipped them in the same water effects and positioned them on the base, immediately painting another coat of water effects on top, covering all the swamp areas again. The leaves unded up quite bright, perhaps distracting somewhat from the models (and also making them stand out a bit from Alexia and the Thrall, who didn't get the Autumn treatment). The green on the bases was already competing with the models for the viewer's attention tbh. But I've never used my leaf punches before, so I'm glad I got the chance to try a new technique, and I honetly think the makes the models more visually pleasing overall.


I've had a lot of fun with Alexia's unit in Mk2 and Mk3, so even if they don't get much more play in Mk4, I'm still glad I finally finished painting them. They deserved it. It might be a slightly muted colourscheme using very lazy painting techniques, but I think it works for them. I tried a lot of new things while painting these models, and it's the largest unit I've ever painted, so this was kind of an accomplishment as well as a learning experience for me.