Monday, March 28, 2011
Goodbye for now...
So, after only a few short months, Cast Dice is going to be shutting down in its current format. I'm getting involved in a new, collaborative blog project what will cover all things gaming. I'll post more information when it becomes available.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Let me tell you about my character(s): L5R edition
I return again after too long a hiatus. I've come to realize that weekly or bi-weekly updating is probably not the best option for me. I go through periods of intense creativity where I want to write, and then I direct my creative efforts elsewhere.
Before our main topic, a quick painting update: all the Wolf Guard (terminators and power armour) are finished along with the Grey Hunters. My terminator Wolf Lord is nearing completion along with my newly wolfified Vindicator and another Rhino. I'll definitely have the Vindicator and Wolf Lord done in the next week as I prepare for a fast approaching tournament. I plan to post a painting report and a tournament summery toward the end of the month.
Anyway, on to the main topic! A while back, I gave a review and overview of The Legend of the Five Rings Role Playing Game. My campaign at the time pettered out due to a number of player drop-outs but this week, the world of Rokugan has made a triumphant return. To begin the campaign, I intend to give a sense of closure to the unfinished tale in the earlier game. Exactly how... I can't say as I don't want my players getting too much of a preview. I'll talk more about the story in a future post; for now, I want to introduce the PCs.
Doji Hitomi is a young but promising Crane Clan courtier. She fits her clan very well and is viewed as a rising star in the court at Kyuden Doji. She is ambitious and values the tenets of honor and courtesy. She is leaving the comforts of the courts for the first time which gives her a much need break from emotional difficulties.
Isawa Hitori is a gifted Shugenja of the Phoenix Clan . He is tied to a bitter marriage and he travels the Empire to avoid is troubles at home. He is less of a pacifist than most in his clan and the Kami of Fire come easily to his call. He seems to be seeking something in his travels though he could not say what it is. He values honesty above all other virtues.
Kitsuki Mikage is an experienced investigator and representative of the Dragon Clan. He is skilled in a wide range of topics from astrology and bonsai to kenjutsu and shogi. He is yet unmarried though he speaks quite highly of his family, at great length if one is not careful. He has been unable to find inner peace for some time and seeks out wine and women to replace it.
Togashi Yamada is a tattooed monk of the Dragon Clan. He has a way with words; one that most would describe as off-putting at best. He began following Mikage without a word and responds only with riddles when asked for his reasons.
Tsuruchi Juri is a brash archer of the Mantis Clan fresh from his Gempuku. His is a skilled hunter and the Air Kami guild his bow.
The characters have been pulled together by Omen, the enigmatic Oracle of Jade. The Oracle bid them to travel to the contested Yasuki provinces. He gave the two pieces of advice: "Let Bushido be your guide," and "The will of the Heavens will be made clear."
Before our main topic, a quick painting update: all the Wolf Guard (terminators and power armour) are finished along with the Grey Hunters. My terminator Wolf Lord is nearing completion along with my newly wolfified Vindicator and another Rhino. I'll definitely have the Vindicator and Wolf Lord done in the next week as I prepare for a fast approaching tournament. I plan to post a painting report and a tournament summery toward the end of the month.
Anyway, on to the main topic! A while back, I gave a review and overview of The Legend of the Five Rings Role Playing Game. My campaign at the time pettered out due to a number of player drop-outs but this week, the world of Rokugan has made a triumphant return. To begin the campaign, I intend to give a sense of closure to the unfinished tale in the earlier game. Exactly how... I can't say as I don't want my players getting too much of a preview. I'll talk more about the story in a future post; for now, I want to introduce the PCs.
Doji Hitomi is a young but promising Crane Clan courtier. She fits her clan very well and is viewed as a rising star in the court at Kyuden Doji. She is ambitious and values the tenets of honor and courtesy. She is leaving the comforts of the courts for the first time which gives her a much need break from emotional difficulties.
Isawa Hitori is a gifted Shugenja of the Phoenix Clan . He is tied to a bitter marriage and he travels the Empire to avoid is troubles at home. He is less of a pacifist than most in his clan and the Kami of Fire come easily to his call. He seems to be seeking something in his travels though he could not say what it is. He values honesty above all other virtues.
Kitsuki Mikage is an experienced investigator and representative of the Dragon Clan. He is skilled in a wide range of topics from astrology and bonsai to kenjutsu and shogi. He is yet unmarried though he speaks quite highly of his family, at great length if one is not careful. He has been unable to find inner peace for some time and seeks out wine and women to replace it.
Togashi Yamada is a tattooed monk of the Dragon Clan. He has a way with words; one that most would describe as off-putting at best. He began following Mikage without a word and responds only with riddles when asked for his reasons.
Tsuruchi Juri is a brash archer of the Mantis Clan fresh from his Gempuku. His is a skilled hunter and the Air Kami guild his bow.
The characters have been pulled together by Omen, the enigmatic Oracle of Jade. The Oracle bid them to travel to the contested Yasuki provinces. He gave the two pieces of advice: "Let Bushido be your guide," and "The will of the Heavens will be made clear."
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Mustering the Warriors of the Fang
So, please indulge me in looking at another picture post. This time, I'll show you the foot-slogging half of my painted Space Wolves. Also, I tried to do some more interesting formating with the text and images last week and it didn't work out. I will not be trying the same this week.
Grey Hunters are the core of any solid Space Wolves army and I've spent quite a lot of time building and painting them. I've finished painting 20 so far and plan to do at least another 10. Here's a number of photos of the ones I've painted so far. Since taking the photos, all the models have been based with the same sand and stones mixture.
The Wolf Standards are not magnetized but they are set on pegs so I can remove them for storage and to indicate when they have been used. Now if only I could remember to re-roll my 1s when using them...
To show which Grey Hunters were afflicted with the Curse of Wulfen, I painted facial tattoos in read and gave them wolf skull shoulder guards instead of the squad markings.
I finally settled on the Great Company symbol for my army, which was the personal heraldry of Russ. While painting it freehand doesn't create a perfectly uniform look, I draws a lot of attention.
To lead the Grey Hunters (and other squads) I've build and painted a number of Wolf Guard veterans. These were the first two finished. I'm currently working on several more with a variety of armaments.
Wolf Scouts are experts at operating behind enemy lines and destroying parking lots full of vehicles. They have been an invaluable asset on the table. This is the first of two squads; the second is still unpainted. I have since converted the bolter into a melta to make the squad even more effective.
While missile launcher Long Fangs have become a staple of most Space Wolf forces, I prefer to use a mix of weapons. That being said, I have another two missile launchers in progress with the intention of running 3 missile launchers with 2 heavy bolters or lascannons depending on the points value and/or my opponent.
I've made a number of minor conversions in an attempt to make the weapons more Space Wolf-y.
Finally, to lead my army, I've painted a Wolf Lord/Wolf Guard Battle Leader and one of the ubiquitous Rune Priests. The WGBL is fully magnetized so I can swap the weapons load-out as needed. I'm and currently working on finishing up some of the options and will post all of them at some time in the future.
The Rune Priest is pretty much the standard model, though I have swapped the totally unnecessary plasma pistol for a bolt pistol. Seriously, if your shooting with a pistol instead of using a psychic shooting attack, you're doing something wrong.
At the moment, I have quite a lot on my painting table or in the queue to be painted. My current project is a unit of Wolf Guard Terminators kitted out for close combat with magnetized options along with a Wolf Lord in terminator armour. I also have another unit of scouts (though they're still headless); I hope to make them a bit more wolf-y than the fist group. As I said before, I'm going to paint another 5-10 Grey Hunters to fill out my troops and 2 more missile launchers.
After finishing those models, I have a converted Wolf Priest to finish along with a unit of Blood Claws (which will be fielded as counts-as Grey Hunters). I have two Wolf Guard with power fists and multi-meltas to lead my scouts in the works as well. Early next month, I hope to fill out my motor-pool with a Vindicator and a third Rhino/Razorback (I plan to use the Whirlwind kit so I can use the missile-platform in combat patrol games). My hope is to have all of this finished by the end of the summer, hopefully just in time for a new wave of Space Wolf models (I'm holding out for plastic Thunderwolf Cavalry).
Grey Hunters are the core of any solid Space Wolves army and I've spent quite a lot of time building and painting them. I've finished painting 20 so far and plan to do at least another 10. Here's a number of photos of the ones I've painted so far. Since taking the photos, all the models have been based with the same sand and stones mixture.
The Wolf Standards are not magnetized but they are set on pegs so I can remove them for storage and to indicate when they have been used. Now if only I could remember to re-roll my 1s when using them...
To show which Grey Hunters were afflicted with the Curse of Wulfen, I painted facial tattoos in read and gave them wolf skull shoulder guards instead of the squad markings.
I finally settled on the Great Company symbol for my army, which was the personal heraldry of Russ. While painting it freehand doesn't create a perfectly uniform look, I draws a lot of attention.
To lead the Grey Hunters (and other squads) I've build and painted a number of Wolf Guard veterans. These were the first two finished. I'm currently working on several more with a variety of armaments.
Wolf Scouts are experts at operating behind enemy lines and destroying parking lots full of vehicles. They have been an invaluable asset on the table. This is the first of two squads; the second is still unpainted. I have since converted the bolter into a melta to make the squad even more effective.
While missile launcher Long Fangs have become a staple of most Space Wolf forces, I prefer to use a mix of weapons. That being said, I have another two missile launchers in progress with the intention of running 3 missile launchers with 2 heavy bolters or lascannons depending on the points value and/or my opponent.I've made a number of minor conversions in an attempt to make the weapons more Space Wolf-y.
Finally, to lead my army, I've painted a Wolf Lord/Wolf Guard Battle Leader and one of the ubiquitous Rune Priests. The WGBL is fully magnetized so I can swap the weapons load-out as needed. I'm and currently working on finishing up some of the options and will post all of them at some time in the future.
The Rune Priest is pretty much the standard model, though I have swapped the totally unnecessary plasma pistol for a bolt pistol. Seriously, if your shooting with a pistol instead of using a psychic shooting attack, you're doing something wrong.At the moment, I have quite a lot on my painting table or in the queue to be painted. My current project is a unit of Wolf Guard Terminators kitted out for close combat with magnetized options along with a Wolf Lord in terminator armour. I also have another unit of scouts (though they're still headless); I hope to make them a bit more wolf-y than the fist group. As I said before, I'm going to paint another 5-10 Grey Hunters to fill out my troops and 2 more missile launchers.
After finishing those models, I have a converted Wolf Priest to finish along with a unit of Blood Claws (which will be fielded as counts-as Grey Hunters). I have two Wolf Guard with power fists and multi-meltas to lead my scouts in the works as well. Early next month, I hope to fill out my motor-pool with a Vindicator and a third Rhino/Razorback (I plan to use the Whirlwind kit so I can use the missile-platform in combat patrol games). My hope is to have all of this finished by the end of the summer, hopefully just in time for a new wave of Space Wolf models (I'm holding out for plastic Thunderwolf Cavalry).
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Happy New Year! Fear the fury of Fenris!
A new year is upon us! This year, I have a few gaming related New Year's resolutions. First, I am going to continue updated my blog. I plan to update at least three times a month. Second, I'm going to commit to finishing my Space Wolves army before the end of the summer. I got a lot of work done on it in the final months of 2010 and I have a lot of work ahead of me. I'll be posting photos of models as they are completed. Finally, I'm going to try to expand my customer base for commission work. Part of that will be though posting photos on this blog and part of it will be spreading the word in the local community. My current commission project is an Ultramarines Techmarine, which should be finished in the next couple of weeks.
So, to start off the year, here's some of what I've done with my Space Wolves army...
I've always been a big fan of dreadnoughts and I wasn't going to miss the chance to convert and paint a few for my Space Wolves. This one has a number of conversions to match the themes of the Space Wolves army. First, I know I wanted to replace the front plate with a Space Wolves shield and change the fist into claws. Neither task took a lot of conversion work and were finished quite quickly. Later, I added a wolftooth necklace to the close combat arm since it seemed a bit bare.
The next round of conversion work on the dreadnought involve alternate weapon options. I added a number of bits from the Space Wolves troops sprue to the missile launcher arm.
For the las cannons, I wanted to do something unique. Using the dragon heads from the Chaos Predator, I began sculpting wolf heads to decorate the gun barrels. Finally, I decided to replace all the skulls across the whole dreadnought with wolf skulls. It was a fairly simple conversion using green stuff. You can see one example on the las cannon arm.
As a center piece model for the army, I spent quite a while working on my Land Raider Crusader/Redeemer. I spent several weeks before I started painting cleaning the pieces, figuring out how to magnetize all the options and doing some pre-assemble. Before finalizing the assembly process, I spent several hours painting the interior. You can see one shot of the instrument panel below. Unfortunately, I made a mistake in the assemble and it is now very difficult to see the detail work that went into it.
I wanted to give the melta gunner a wild, windswept look so I used one of the Blood Claws heads. I figured, the guy who sticks his head out of the battle tank to operate a pintle mounted heavy weapon is probably a bit crazed. As with the dreadnought, I resculpted all the skulls into wolf skull except the ones in the Adeptus Mechanicus symbols.
By the time I finished panting the hull, I felt it looked a bit flat with such wide areas of blue-grey. I decided to add some freehand work to make it more interesting.
Below, I've added a few more shots of the Land Raider for your enjoyment. Next week, I'll post shots of my Grey Hunters, Long Fangs, Scouts, Wolf Guard, and Rune Priest. I'll also follow it up with a list of what I plan to finished painting as part of my New Year's Resolution.
So, to start off the year, here's some of what I've done with my Space Wolves army...
I've always been a big fan of dreadnoughts and I wasn't going to miss the chance to convert and paint a few for my Space Wolves. This one has a number of conversions to match the themes of the Space Wolves army. First, I know I wanted to replace the front plate with a Space Wolves shield and change the fist into claws. Neither task took a lot of conversion work and were finished quite quickly. Later, I added a wolftooth necklace to the close combat arm since it seemed a bit bare.
The next round of conversion work on the dreadnought involve alternate weapon options. I added a number of bits from the Space Wolves troops sprue to the missile launcher arm.
For the las cannons, I wanted to do something unique. Using the dragon heads from the Chaos Predator, I began sculpting wolf heads to decorate the gun barrels. Finally, I decided to replace all the skulls across the whole dreadnought with wolf skulls. It was a fairly simple conversion using green stuff. You can see one example on the las cannon arm.
As a center piece model for the army, I spent quite a while working on my Land Raider Crusader/Redeemer. I spent several weeks before I started painting cleaning the pieces, figuring out how to magnetize all the options and doing some pre-assemble. Before finalizing the assembly process, I spent several hours painting the interior. You can see one shot of the instrument panel below. Unfortunately, I made a mistake in the assemble and it is now very difficult to see the detail work that went into it.
I wanted to give the melta gunner a wild, windswept look so I used one of the Blood Claws heads. I figured, the guy who sticks his head out of the battle tank to operate a pintle mounted heavy weapon is probably a bit crazed. As with the dreadnought, I resculpted all the skulls into wolf skull except the ones in the Adeptus Mechanicus symbols.
By the time I finished panting the hull, I felt it looked a bit flat with such wide areas of blue-grey. I decided to add some freehand work to make it more interesting.
Below, I've added a few more shots of the Land Raider for your enjoyment. Next week, I'll post shots of my Grey Hunters, Long Fangs, Scouts, Wolf Guard, and Rune Priest. I'll also follow it up with a list of what I plan to finished painting as part of my New Year's Resolution.
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