Bloodletters Done!

Picture are over at 2nd City Warzone.

New Project

You may have noticed the group with whom I play regularly is heavy on bloggers. Nick has a blog, as does Eric. There are other members of our group that wanted to get in on some blogging action, but didn't want to commit to maintaining a blog full-time.

That's how 2nd City Warzone was born. We figured together, we can generate a lot more content.

At this point, none of us are that sure what form this blog is going to take. you'll just have to wait an see.

As to the future of Citizen Nick Hobby Center, I'm not really sure of that either. Again, I'm just working on this as I go.

Any please visit us over at 2nd City Warzone (and add it to your RSS feed).

Bah!

Bear with me people. Still learning the new camera. These Bloodletters look better than this picture lets on. Now I just have to figure out what setting I had it on when I took that last set of pictures.

I'm Back!

My new camera arrived last week, so photos will return to Citizen Nick Hobby Center!

Here is the unit I feel like I've been painting for an eternity, the Bloodletters. While my new camera is a bit nicer than my last one, the functions and settings are all different. It has macro, of course, but pretty much everything else is different. That is my long way of saying that I'm not 100% happy with these pictures. I'm sure I'll get used to it soon and crank out some nicer pictures.




I definitely have to add a little more highlighting o these guys and clean up some of the mistakes. There are quite a few areas that I slopped red paint somewhere it wasn't supposed to go (the red paint I slopped on the swords may stay).

I have to finish up the claws, some spines, the teeth, eyes, and more highlighting on the swords. I'm hoping to have this unit done after one more painting session.


Here's the banner/ icon. I was trying to make it look like an old faded tapestry (maybe painted with the blood of heretics?). The last layer came out a little brighter than I wanted, so I think I'll have paint some more highlights.

Some other business, I add a blog to my links. My buddy Felix's log, Pokeminiatures. The blog mainly features Warhammer Fantasy and Warmachine/Hordes. Check it out.

Also, I've watched this video about 15 times since it hit the tubes. Enjoy:

Request for Feedback and Other Important Business

This year I've strip down this blog to just the basics. It's been a few months since I moved to the current format of switching off between progress pictures and in-game pictures.

So how do you like it so far?

Speaking of progress pictures, I have been plugging away at my Bloodletters. Unfortunately, I broke my camera during a pinata-bashing session at a baby shower this weekend. No, I didn't hit it with a bat. I just dropped it.

Here's a picture that someone else took of me about to rip the candy heart out of the beast that indirectly cause this tragedy:


Anyway, it will be a little bit before I show any more pictures, but that's where you come in. I need suggestions on a camera. I will mainly be using it to take pictures of the kids, but obviously, I need one that can take pictures of miniatures, too (although it seems like almost all cameras have macro now). Suggestions, anyone?

For the past several years, I've been posting pictures of Adepticon. However, for a wide variety of reasons, I wasn't able to attend this year. I will however post links to other blog that I think did a good job of coverage.

For example, John at plastic legions.

Finally, I have jumped on a bandwagon I would normally avoid and have summoned a Daemon Adoptable. It can be found on the right hand column. If you have no other feedback or suggestions, please at least click my Daemon.

I will be back soon with pictures of bloodletters. Stay tuned.

An Old Enemy

I have some bloodletter pictures coming, but in the meantime, here are some pictures from this weeks game. I got to play against Art, my old nemesis and former roommate. Art and I have played in some games together in the last few years, but it's always been some odd two-on-one deal or a three-way free-for-all. This was the first time we were able to go mano-a-mano in something like three years.

This game had four objectives so Art deployed in the center near three of them. I was hoping to surround him, but not a single unit from my second wave showed up until turn three. That gave him plenty of time to waste my first wave.


My screamers made a line for his hellhound when they finally showed up, but it would be too little, too late. Art slaughtered me to the daemon.

Meanwhile, on the adjacent table, Nick was playing his old nemesis and former roommate, Anton. They were both practicing for the Adepticon Championships.

I was able to capture this heroic moment. Right after I took this picture, Nick had to take seven saves from from the Kroot attack. He made 6 of them! Impressive rolling. Too bad it wasn't enough to save the marine.

Monday Night City Fight

Nick and I played a 1000pt cities of Death game this Monday so here are some pictures. Let me apologize for their weird tint. I think I had my white balance set wrong. Just pretend that this battle took place on a planet with an orange sun, or that it's atmosphere is so polluted, the sun looks especially yellow.


A small section of Nick's Ork horde. Word of caution: Orks kick ass in Cities of death.

In this photo, Nick points out which ork is about to shoot melta beams out of its eyes. WTF!?

Rhinos keeping those firing lanes clear. Good job, boys (Just kidding, I took this picture before the orks even deployed).

Great firing position, right? Wrong! I tried to get down from this 6" tall building for three turns! Never did get any closer to the objective.

This is what my sorcerer mini looked like after Nick knocked it on the floor. Luckily, it's mostly held together by magnets. I guess that makes up for me actually blowing up one of his Rhinos (that wasn't really my fault as much as I'd like to take credit for it).

The game was a total slaughter. I came to the game with a 1250 list and cut 250 points to do the 1000pt list. In retrospect, I should have left my defiler in there so that I could have blessed those Orks with some pie plates. Live and learn.

Behold! A test Mini! (And Special Offer)

I want to say thank you to those of you that commented on my last post about test minis. I think I just needed to accept the fact that when starting a new color scheme, the noble test miniature is unavoidable.

So here are some more pictures of the mini. I'm pretty happy with it.




This is definitely pretty rough still. I need to neaten up some of the blending, especially around the horns. I'm happy I was able to work some subtle purple shading into this guy.

Special Offer!
I am finally taking the plunge into selling some old gaming stuff on e-bay. Find it here.

If there is something that you're interested, please make a bid. If you win, mention that you are a Citizen Nick Hobby Center reader and I'll give you free shipping!

A discussion about test miniatures

I've been on a minimalist kick lately on this blog, but today, I'd like to provoke a little dialog. The subject is test miniature.

Instead of painting a whole squad at once, you paint just one to see how you like the color scheme. It's also a chance to figure out what colors you're going to use to get your desired effect.

Here's selection of some of mine:This is the miniature off of which the rest of my Thousand Sons are based. It's actually the second test mini I did. This is the first:

This is the third and final test mini for my Renegade Space Marine Chapter, the Sentinels of Truth. I had a real hard time getting the grey just right. This color scheme has yet to be, "put into production" since I decided to concentrate on demons for now.

Speaking of daemons, her are the test minis for my flamers and horrors. The Horrors have been finished with a slightly different look. The Flamers are in the queue.

One of the few test minis I was satisfied with the first time out. I still need to work on how that gold is going to look, but the flesh tones (blue body and pinkish claws) are pretty much what I was going for. Another unit in the queue.

This is a test miniature of a diffident sort. I just wanted somewhere to practice some highlighting and shading techniques. I figured a spawn was a good place for that. I don't intend to paint a whole squad like this, but I figure that if it doesn't come out perfect, no big deal,it's just a spawn.

The reason I'm bringing this all up is that with the unit I'm currently painting (the bloodletters), I wanted to forgo the usual test mini. I figured that they're mainly just red so how hard can they be?

Another reason I didn't want to paint a test mini was this it takes the limited painting time I have away from the unit as a whole. I really wanted to bang this unit out quick. Plus, I don't want to agonize over this unit too much. I'm more of a Tzeentch/ Slaanesh kinda guy, you know?

I painted the Bloodletters this week but didn't post pictures because I'm just not happy with them yet. I think I've come to the realization that it's harder to work without a goal in mind.

Here's what I mean. I started with a white under coat and started with a couple layers of Blood Red.

The first shading layer was Blood Red mixed with Red Gore(1:1). This layer didn't show that much, but I figured that as it was just the first layer.

I did this on all 8 miniatures in the unit. This took about three painting sessions (yeah, I paint slow).

The next layer was pure Red Gore. However, the shading wasn't really coming out the way I wanted. After I painted about half of the unit, I added Dark Angels Green to the Red Gore and painted one mini with it.

This one miniature looked OK, but I had too many questions. Is this final layer going to be dark enough? Should I add some Black? should I strat to build up some highlights? I wanted to work some purple in there; how would I do that?

I came to the realization that I'd have to paint a test mini. I hope I can nail it on the first try and not have to paint three of them.

What about the rest of you? Test miniatures: Good, bad? Waste of time? I'm open to suggestions if you have them.

It's that time of year again

Time to help the gaming group get their Adepticon team tournament list ready. I haven't play the tournament since way back in 2006, but the people with whom I play do the team tournament every year. So every year for months leading up to Adepticon, I play a lot of team games.

Last night I allied with Chad's Imperial Guard. To celebrate the fact that I completed a second squad, my 1000 pts represented a "pure" Thousand Sons force: Two units of Sons, one unit of lesser summoned daemons, a spawn, and a chaos sorcerer HQ.

Nick and Eric both played Dark Angels (technically, Nick played Angels of Absolution).

Here are some picks plus a short recap:Here's the board set-up. The mission was from the team tournament primer. Dawn of War deployment with a modified Command and Control objective (We team had two objectives in their deployment zones).

Chad's Varrian 10th holding an objective with my Sorcerer. Note: it's not that my sorcerer isn't painted, he's using his powers to conceal himself.

Corrcal's squad disembarks...

... and Rohm Dutts squad takes a demolisher shell to the face.

Some of Nick's troops skulking around the backfield.

More skulking.

By far the most heroic moment of the game. Chad's HQ takes on three terminators at the peak of this ruin. Truly a contest for the ages.

In the end, the angels would be victorious; breaking Nick's non-winning streak, but continuing mine.

I try to learn something with every game I play in hopes that I can improve my playing skill. My biggest mistake in this game was that I worried way too much about Eric's Vindicator on the left flank. I sent Corrcal's quad (a.k.a. Squad #1), to shoot a bolt of change at it. If I had instead spent that turn motoring over to the right flank (which was getting hammered by Nick and Eric's double-wing combo), I probably would have had a better chance of turning the tide of the game.

One tactic that Eric employed to my annoyance was going to ground whenever I rapid-fired my AP3 bolters at him. An odd move for a marine player, but one that kept his troops on the objective.

Rohm Dutt and the next step

Rohm Dutt is done (and the title of this post would make an awesome band name). I'm pretty happy with the results.

However, I must now drift away from Tzeentch and the Thousand Sons. Let's see what's next on the painting block...


That's right. Time to shed some blood for the blood god (Blood Red paint, that is). It will be nice to not have to paint blue for a while.

I haven't done much on these so far: Just base coats and one layer of shade. I was hoping to show that with the picture below.

I'm afraid the shading is just a little too light at this point to really see. More shading next week.

More Battle Photos

I've been getting in the habit of taking pictures of the games I play every other Monday. I really don't like writing battle reports, but I do like looking at pictures.

Anyway, here are some photos of last Monday's "Nerd Night."

I played against Eric and his Imperial Fists (formally the Highland Lions). It was an exciting Command and Control game that came down to a very close draw. I guess it was so exciting that I forgot to take any pictures except for the one above and this one...
...of my Tzeentch Herald facing of against a land speeder (which was downed the next turn).

Since our game was pretty short, I took some pictures of the game happening on the table next to me:

It was a battle between Nick's Angels of Absolution and Chad's Varrian 10th Imperial Guard.

Enjoy.

I hate this part....

I spent a few minutes working on Rohm Dutt this weekend. Good luck finding what's differnt from the last picture I took.

Here one thing:

I like the way this little skull came out. It was shockingly easy.

Anyway, I'm at a point with this miniature were I'm just picking out tons of little details. It's very tedious and I really don't like this stage of the miniature. I had about a dozen different colors on my pallet and I worked on this model for less than an hour.

I believe I will have this guy done by the end of the week. Stay tuned

Thousand Sons, Rohm Dutt's Squad

Finally, after working on this unit for what seems like an eternity, I have finally finished my second Thousand Sons unit.

This unit was my motivation to vow to only do one unit at a time for the rest of the year. I'm very happy that I decided that. I feel a lot better without this unfinished unit looming over me.


One big concern for me was that the second squad matched the first squad. It's funny, because I've been working for them on and off for so long, my painting style and skill level has changed a bit. However, I think the above photo shows that they match pretty well.

You'll see in the picture that the two from the first squad (on the right) have only one stripe on their tabards where the new squad has two. Also, in an effort to differentiate them, I added more silver elements to their backpack (which you can't see in these photos).


The sorcerer for this unit is still a work in progress. I've this sorcerer Rohm Dutt, thus the title of this post.

I think I can get this guy done in one more session. Then, I have to pick a daemon unit to finish.

Not a Battle Report

I took some pictures of the game I played against Nick on Monday and wanted to share. So this is not a battle report, just pictures of a battle. Enjoy...

The setup.

This was a Command and control game, and I think I put too many units on his objective(upper right in the picture), and not enough on mine (not pictured, but to the lower left).


The most aesthetically pleasing close combat of the game. His tactical squad against the only fully painted unit in my army.

I'm proud of these screamers. They took a full tactical squad worth of rapid fire right in the "face" and only lost one member.


My favorite point in the game, when I smoked two dreadnaught on one turn (and by smoked I mean destroyed).

In the end, the game was a draw. A real blast of a game.

Here's a bonus shot:
For those of you that follow Nick's blog, you've seen the terrain he's recently finished. Still, I didn't appreciate the enormity of the rock spire until I saw it in person. I hope this picture shows that. In the foreground are Eric's new Crimson Fists.

Tune in tomorrow for a monumental update.