ETC Finale 2013

Final tourney to wrap up the year of 2013 happens this Saturday - 14 December 2013.  This tourney will be based on the existing AR1 ETC restrictions and with a brand new AR committee this year, I am expecting some very different list from the previous tourney.

Was drafted into pretty much the same team as last tourney with Neo Chee Kiong, Dawei and Anderson, with addition of Kevyn.

I am taking ogres and with the new comp, it makes a IG deathstar with SOD possible with an ironblaster.  My list looks like this:

Slaughtermaster, General; Magic Level 4; Lore of Heaven; Iron Fist; Tormentor Sword; Armour of Destiny; Channeling Staff - 358
Bruiser, BSB; Great Weapon; Heavy Armour; Talisman of Preservation; Ironcurse Icon - 195
Butcher, Magic Level 2; Lore of the Great Maw; Ironfist; Warrior Bane; Armour of Fortune; Dragonbane Gem - 183
Firebelly, Magic Level 2; Lore of Fire; Dispel Scroll - 180
6 x Ogres, 2nd Weapon; Light Armour; FC - 216
8 x Ironguts, Look-Out Gnoblar; Great Weapon; Heavy Armour; FC; Standard of Discipline - 394
4 x Mournfang Cavalry, Iron Fist; Heavy Armour; Standard; Musician; Dragonhide Banner - 350
4 x Mournfang Cavalry, Iron Fist; Heavy Armour; Musician - 290
Ironblaster - 170
3 x 1 Sabretusk Pack - 21

Been dabbling with heavens for a while on the OK and it's cheap buffs seems to work for me, especially when buffing together with Maw.  This double MFC list has been doing rather ok as well in my training sessions.  The firebelly is a new addition which i felt completes the list as it makes the list more dynamic.

Will post results up after Saturday's tourney.

I hate metals!!!

I can't believe how much metal there is on an ogre mini, to the extent that it is even suckier than painting the flesh or pants.

Instead of completing the mournfang, I got distracted and started work on a unit of 6 ogres. The flesh and pants were easy work. Leather boots and belt was slightly irritating. The metals... OMGWTFBBQ!?!?!?!

What's with those huge iron fists that has a larger surface area than the gutplate. I did 3 and was about to complete the 4th before stopping for the night. Too tiring... just too tiring...

Updates on 12/12/2013

Managed to persevere and finished the base coat for the ogres followed by their dips.  This was done last night so that i could work on them again tonight, probably on the bases.  I'll try to leave it for another day to make sure the dip is fully dry before the matt coat.  Still undecided on spray or brush on.  Pictures take this morning 5 hours post dip.  

Painting Mournfang

Started work on my 4 newly assembled mournfang cavalry. Tried to follow previous paint scheme  closely as possible.

Started off by priming Army Painter Desert Yellow followed by Mournfang brown for base coat on skin. Next step will be dry-brush of tau pet ochre followed by bare skins and saddle.

Painted the pants of the riders too.

This is what they look like now. Got whole of tonight to finish painting. Hoping to get it to a stage where I can dip it so I can use it for next Sundays tourney. 

Updates

Managed to get some metals done last night but it was too painful to do 4 in a row.  Must be something about the way light is reflected off the metal paints that made me feel fatigued after getting 2 done.

More mournfangs!!

Due to the downward slide of the OnG in AR, it is likely that I have to drop OnG for this year's ETC and instead bring OK.

I am very inclined towards a double MFC list and hence started work on my second quartet of MFC.

Always fun to build models. Anyway, white patches is my attempt at creating uneven terrain, courtesy of paint pot explosion last night of my Vallejo plastic putty. 

Empire incoming

Managed to get a huge empire lot of Bartertown. Consist of shit ton of models which are all mounted. Found it to be a pretty good deal and next years ETC captain is preferring me to play empire as compared to OnG.

Orcs & Goblins update - Trolls!!!

After play testing trolls, I have decided tat these will be a permanent fixture in my army. I started work on those Mantic trolls and built 12 of them.

Assembly was fairly easy and mould lines were mostly in hard to see places, apart from one of the arm variants where it was in plain sight. 

I wanted my trolls to look somewhat dirty yellow. Hence, my basecoat was a very thinned down layer of desert yellow. However, it looked too flat and I added a second layer of thinned terracota to make it look darker. It still looks yellow now buy dirtier and more reddish.

 I am pleased with the color and can now proceed to the other details such as armor. 

Decided to do the armor black Orc style. Hence to start with base coat of black on all armor pieces. I did this using Vallejo black and must say the paint was smooth and easy to apply. However, I didn't think there would be so much armor per model and took me an hour to coat 2 trolls.

With 10 more, I am looking at another 5 hours just to base coat the armor. Yikes!!!

Orcs and Goblins Update - chariots, rock lobbas

Took the time to basecoat my Orc boar chariots from Mantic, rock lobbas from Ramshackle games and GUU wolf chariots.

Using even thinned down Calthan brown made the wood look way too dark. 

Probably have to dry brush using Khemri brown to brighten it up. 

The wolf chariots are looking good as well and ready for priming. 

I have an idea of doing the bases to look Ogrimmar like. This is how they turned out, less the grass/flock. Only one of the mangler bases have grass on it and I like how it is turning out so far. 

ETC Equatorial Massacre 2013

Just attended the ETC Equatorial Massacre 2013 tournament on Sunday.  Its a one-day 3 game tourney consisting of 4 teams of 4, using ETC army restrictions.  I refined my list somewhat after getting 2 losses in my orientation games.

My list was as follows:

Black Orc Warboss: General, Talisman of Preservation, Crown of Command, Enchanted Shield, 245
Savage Orc Great Shaman: Level 4, Big Waagh!, Lucky Shrunken Head, Obsidian, Amulet, Ironcurse Icon, 290
Savage Orc Big Boss: BSB, Great Weapon, Luckstone, Armour of Silvered Steel, 154
Savage Orc Shaman: Level 2, Big Waagh!, Dispel Scroll, Ruby Ring of Ruin, 155 Goblin Big Boss: Wolf, Shield, Light Armor, Dragonhelm, Tormentor Sword, 66 Goblin Big Boss: Wolf, Shield, Light Armor, Dragonbane Gem, Warrior Bane, 61
20 Night Goblins: Musician, shortbows, 2x Fanatic, 120
20 Night Goblins: Musician, shortbows, 2x Fanatic, 120
34 Savage Big 'Uns: FCG, Additional Hand Weapon, Big Stabba, 429
9 Trolls: 315
Orc Boar Chariot: 85
2x 1 Wolf Chariot: 50
2x 1 Rock Lobber: 85
2x 1 Doom Diver: 80
2x 1 Mangler Squig: 65

Game 1 - David Wong, Empire
I was drawn vs David's empire list. His list consisted of hurricanum, arch lector on war altar, 2 level 1 light wizards, bsb on peg, 2 great cannon, block of halberdier, 2 x 5 knights, 1 x 6 DGK and small detachments of archers. Despite out-dropping him, i stole initiative and went first. My war machines were on fire throughout the tourney and in my first turn dropped a great cannon, did 3 wounds to hurricanum and drop 2 DGK. He then proceeded to charge his steam tank into my SOBU block where we stayed for 3 turns. I forgot about the 2+ AS on my BSB and he got chopped down after 2 rounds of combat... my trolls had to seperate from the general due to a building and lost combat after a flank charge from the archlector and got chopped down. Bad plays from me and would have been victory to me if i had remembered the AS on my BSB... David took the game 11-9

Game 2 - G1, Beastman
The gist of his list was 5 casters, 2 death, 1 wild and 2 shadow, gor block, besti block, plenty of gor ambushers and 2 x 5 harpies.  I held back as much as i could till he was almost on me before i charged his gor block while his bestigors were being re-directed.  hand of gork failed 3 times but his IF pit on my trolls caused a wound on all his casters which allowed me to pick off points via headbutt.  I did managed to clear out block of 50 gor but had to sacrifice my troll block to the besti block to do so. I all my units apart from my characters.  G1 took the game 11-9

Game 3 - Jon, Chaos Dwarf
Going into the game, i was warned that this would be a tough match for me, esp the kdaii destroyer.  He also had a HC, death shreiker, 2 units of goblins 3 bull centaur with a taaruk and a level 4 death, bsb and level 1 fire and an IG block.  I went aggressive and pushed his line.  Highlights of the game is me not placing my wolfs to re-direct the kdaii and they went warmachine hunting instead.  Also, NG blocks with fanatics should not be charging at people and they suffered the brunt of their own fanatics.  The sobu went after his IG.  his bull centaur moved voluntarily into my manglers and got decimated.  Warmachines were on fire and rock lobba hit his HC 3 times but that blasted dwarf save kept him alive for 2 more turns.  Long story short, my level 4 shaman got deathsniped despite the MR and ward save, bringing things downhil.  his kdaii mopped up the entire flank and contacted my sobu block, wiping them out.  Jon took the game 17-3.

Many lessons learnt and stupid mistakes made.  I am getting comfortable with the army and learning what i can and cannot do.  I absolutely hate fanatics now and will tweak my list to exclude them in favour of netters.

Orcs & Goblins Update - Night Goblins

Once again, I have to pay myself on the back for foresight of buying so many OnG models. Trawling through my stuff, I have enough NGs, both bows and spears to work various variations of list.

I do realize I have wAaaay too many models. Below are my big bags of Night Goblins. I estimate I have about 150 NG left. 

However, I have been given instructions from the team to play-test some of the proven lists and the German list with 6 Fanatics intrigues me. 

Hence, only need 2x20 NGs for use as launch pad for the fanatics. 

I am in assembly mode now and have not decided on a color scheme. I just thought of something and would prob do scarlet or scarab red for the clothing and gold/yellow trims. I can imagine it should look pretty good. 

Assembled my first Orc boar chariot as well from Mantic. Everything was snap on for the chariot and assembly was easy. But the boars had some gaps that needs filling. The yoke was also crooked but resin is easily fixed. 

Orcs & Goblins - Rock Lobba

Came back from work early today and had chance to start work on my OnG army. 

Was eager to try assembling the warmachines first and started on my two rock lobbas. 

Got these 2 from Ramshackle Games, at 10€ a piece, which is a fraction of the cost of the GW version. 

However, what u pay for is what you get. The resin they used is not your typical gray resin but brown. It's brittle, had lots of flesh which I had to carefully chip away, less risking chipping away some parts I need.

It was also tacky to touch despite buying these more than 12 month ago and washing it with soap. Made adhering more difficult than it already is. 

Parts don't fit well and some degree of cutting was necessary to get the parts to fit. Hence, you will see that none of the wheels align correctly. My only saving grace is that since this belongs to an OnG army, some degree of non-conformity is acceptable. 

Best part is, superglue does not join the parts!!! I don't know why but they just refuse to stick to each other and I had to use epoxy to get them to stick to each other. 

Not as straightforward as I initially thought. It's definitely a good deal but the quality of the model is just no where near GW. 

Now I have to bloody wait 24 hours for the epoxy to dry before priming it. 

Preparing for ETC 2014

LWith the passing of ETC 2013, it's never too late to start preparing for next year - ETC 2014. 

For the coming year, I am intending to being OnG and will be starting to build up my army. 

I'll have to start from scratch since I have no models done yet, although I have all of them. Most daunting would be the unit of 60 NGs and 35 SOBU. 

Walk the talk and I'll start today. 

Went through my boxes of stuff to gather up te nexessary stuff. As it turns out, the batch of NGs I bought couple of weeks back turned out to be what I exactly need. But still undecided to go with double hand weapon on Sobu or bow. 

Will see how it goes

Go Team Singapore

As I am typing now, ETC 2013 is in its third day and the teams are now in the pairings of the 6th and final game of the tournament. 

Due to personal reasons, I was unable to attend this year, despite having the opportunity to do so. Although, I am in Singapore, my heart has flown with the team to Novi Sad. 

Owing to excellent organization this year, the team was able to stay in constant contact over Whatsapp due to availability of Wifi at the venue. I was also able to extract individual scoresheets from each round. 

Till now, my opinion is that our strikers are not doing as well as they should. We are also not having the best of luck, having already played 3 top tier teams - Germany (Round 1), England (Round 3) and Sweden (Round 5) out of 5 games. The other two games were with Northern Ireland and Serbia. 

The game against England was particularly close with a narrow 4 pt loss. 

The team is drawn to play against Team USA in game 6. 

Edit: Game 6 is complete and we had lost to USA, dropping our ranking to 18th. 

Individual results from each game posted below. 

Final Standing for ETC 2013

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3od94TpMuvccnEyeXk0WS0zX1E/preview?pli=1

Crackle failure.

Replacement base is unsatisfactory as well. As I have found out - for myself and through google, crackle paint does not adhere to glossy surfaces. The latest layer of crackle is still peeling.

As much as i hate it, I'll have to abandon the project, wasting almost $50 of material and 2 weeks of my time. 

Such a huge disappointment that it didn't turn out the way I hope it to be. My last attempt will be on a conventional base, painted ice blue and a layer of crackle over that. Hope it works this time.

Unfortunately, the crackle still refuses to adhere to the surface painted ice blue and would only stay in place after i blast it with some white spray paint.  I have halted this project in favor of orcs & goblins that i need to get up for 2014.  

Crackle 2 Go!

Ok. Managed to buy new materials to restart the project. At the hobby shop, I saw MDF boards which would probably not melt under high temperature. 

Assembled and primed the frame last night. Painted it this morning to kick-off the 24 hour wait for the crackle to form. This time round, I made sure I put in a thick layer of crackle paint, to make sure the warping does not occur again. 

At 0900 hours

At 1115 hours the next day. 

Crackling look much better, bigger more distinct cracks. No warping of individual pieces but still does not adhere to the base. But I am overall satisfied with the end product. 

Next step is to apply the washes to the cracks. Maybe I might apply a layer of gloss to it in order to make the ice stand out. Lets see how the inking goes. 

Crackle one has failed :(

Sigh. It's hard to have spent money and effort on custom building a base and declare it a failure. Yes. My custom base for my Thundertusk has failed. 

Multiple failure reasons:

1. Crackle paint applied too thin and started warping once it dried.

2. Tried to remedy above by going over with watered-down white glue - didn't work.

3. Wanted blue ink to stay within the cracks but since there's warp, paint went under the painted instead. 

4. Easy water was final nail in the coffin. Tried pouring heated Easy Water into base. Realize that it was not hot enough had did not flow, resulting in the globby mess. 

5. Plasticard base cannot take the temperature and started melting as well.

Ran out of materials to make a new base. Just a terrible night...

Thundertusk Update 2

Ok. Did some minor stuff today. Primed the plinth before going out so as to let the paint dry by the time I get back in the evening. 

Then painted the rims and the "ice" blue to give it that glacier blue look. Then poured in a thick layer of crackle paint. Here's what it looks. Can't really see the crackle since its transparent. 

More updates on how the crackling went. 

If a paint could crackle

So... After 12 hours or so overnight.. The crackle paint has started to cure.. Albeit quite slowly. 

Rest of the area still wet and does not even look like its drying out. Will see if its dried out by the time i get home today. 

15 hours curing time...

18 hours...

20 hours

24 hours

Not too satisfactory. The layer I applied was too thin, resulting in some of the shards lifting up. I am gonna try brushing a layer of watered down white glue to see if it helps

Back on track

Hobby been on the back burner last few days as I have been spending spare time on Xcom. However, with my attendance in Singapore ETC Masters confirmed, need to go back on schedule.

I will be going in with my OK list and after stock taking, I have every model I need for the army, apart from the Thundertusk. 

Tried mounting the large base on my plinth but it was too hard to cut and maintain a plausible shape of the frame. Dropping the idea of mounting and will stick Thundertusk straight on top of the completed diorama. 

Sticking in the magnets for today and base coating it. 

Thundertusk Updates 1

Done with the first wash of sepia to give it  the warm tone. Thereafter, heavy dry brushes of commando kaki, bleached bone, skull white and finally a deliberate highlight of skull white on the ends of the fur is the current fur result. As for the exposed skin, it's an extremely heavy drybrush of skull white. 

Went on to do the face and exposed skin in a lighten shade of fenris gray. Decided to go lighter on the tusks so base coated the tusks and hooves in dheneb stone and will wash them black to have some contrast in color between fur and tusk. 

As for the base, green stuffed the corners where the frame didn't meet so that the eventual water effect does not leak and for better visual effect. 

Kick off project - Thundertask

All right!  Schools out. Back to my hobby. For my first project, I am going to carry on with my Thundertusk. I bought one kit and bought bits to have enough to build a stonehorn as well.

I read about an ice basing system from the following link 

http://www.vampirecounts.net/Thread-How-to-Base-your-models?page=3

and was inspired to create the same with my Thundertusk. But I needed to create a small platform to give the base the water volume. 

Couple of months back, I also got the crackle paint and just today managed to get the balsa strips and Woodlands Scenic Easy Water to commence my project. 

Before my exam hiatus, i had already assembled the beast and magnetized the saddles as well as the banner for easy storage. Primed the whole lot last night. 

Have not done much for the riders though but they'll come later. 

Anyway, my first step would be to give the clown a big wash of brown or sepia to set the skin tone. Not sure how that would turn out. More updates to come later. 

The start of my Tzeentch Army

A small distraction came in today. Placed a bid for a pair of old school Tzeentch daemons, for use as heralds and they came in today. Fantastic condition and unique. I like it.  

Might try to reposition the arms though. Don't like the air-armpit stance. 

Continuing on with Land Law..

My Smallchoppa

Irrelevant to my hobby but my little bundle of joy - Justyn was born on 10 March 2013. Just hit 2 months couple of days back! 

At this point, my first paper is done and I just have 2 papers left, till the end of month. I am getting tempted to go back into the hobby and I'll try to work something out to find a hobby space. 

Recap of 2012 - Part 2

Here's part 2 of what happened in my hobby for 2012. If you were following my previous post, you would have read that majority of my time in the first half of 2012 was spent on building up my OK army for ETC 2012.

However, it was also around late July that I received a very good news - that my wife was expecting our first child. While it was definitely a very good news, it meant that I had to leave her alone at home in her early stages of pregnancy. The thought left me with a very heavy heart but I am glad she was still supportive of me attending the tourney.

July was spent completing my mournfang and 40 gnoblars, as well as lots of practice sessions, about 16 hours of practice per week.

Finally, August came and the time forETC 2012 had arrived. The team consisted of some of the best players Singapore had to offer, including Justin, Lam, Andrew, Gee Hwan, Chee Kiong, David, Jon an myself as the least experienced.

The tourney was held over 3 days, with two games per day. To summarize, my scores were as follows:

Battle-Standard

ETC Team Singapore 2012

While I didn't do very well, it was an eye-opener for everyone and it was a thoroughly a blast especially the camaraderie among the team.

However, an unfortunate incident en route home spoiled the trip and from August on, I have almost completely stopped my hobby activities.

In September, I did manage to paint up 3 ogres I procured from Titanforge as replacement for my maneaters.

Pirate Maneaters

However, my wife's pregnancy meant that I could not do any painting or gluing when she is around and that severely hampered the hobby.  She started giving me shit when i was gluing up my Ogre Thundertask and Stonehorn.

So there you have it. My summary for 2012 is complete. A very satisfying year largely due to participation in ETC 2012 but slowed down towards the end of the year.

Unfortunately, I am not looking forward to 2013, in terms of my hobby as:

I have expressed my withdrawal from the ETC 2013 team.
Lack of time/space for hobby due to new baby.
Stopped buying armies due to space constrain
Final year of studies

I am hoping for the best.

Recap of 2012 - Part 1

Well.... 2012 has came and gone.  What i wanted to do was to look back and recap at what I have done in 2012 and hopefully give myself a pat on the back for the achievements attained over the past year.  I decided to break it up into 2 parts, since it will be too long a post to get everything in.

Background

Prior to 2012, I already know that I will be attending ETC in August 2012 since November 2012 and have been training with my Tomb King army, to the disdain of my team mates.  Still I believed in the army and continue to tinker with builds that could be feasible for the tourney. 

Also, my wedding was to be held on 02 January 2012 and with a early Lunar New Year, it was not likely I would get anything done early in the year. 

Lastly, my study commitments continue to deprive me time from my hobbies.  The lead-up to my exams in May 2012 means I would have to stop playing/painting by March.  Hence, it looks like it was going to be a very busy year. 

January 2012

Wedding + Honeymoon + Lunar New Year.
Had to keep my room and house spick & span for the wedding and CNY.  Hence, my brushes and models all had to be kept out of sight.  Not much done that month.

February 2012

Ok... happily wedded to my wife... things are starting to settle down.  Time to start rocking out some models, albeit at a slower pace due to study commitments.  Managed to get my third warsphinx done up for my TK list, drawing my inspiration for the color scheme from my Honeymoon trip to Bali.  However, it also dawned on me that a TK army was never going to cut it in ETC and it was probably at this time that I made the switch to my Ogres and managed to get my very first ogre mini painted at the end of Feb 2012 - my butcher.

 

March 2012

Continued to plug away at the command figures for my ogres.  Managed to convert up a BSB and tried freehand for the first time on a banner.  Not half as bad but still a long way to go.  Also managed to complete my slaughter master and tried extreme blood & gore for the first time.  I think i got the colour scheme pretty well.  Also tried snow effects on my SM for the first times.  Like how the snow went but too much of a hassle.  Quite pleased with both of them. 

April 2012

Nothing much... studies took precedence over my modeling.  Besides, i have to keep everything away so that i would not get distracted from my books.  

May 2012

Finally, my exams were over by May 18 and could finally devote all my time spare time and attention to finishing up sufficient models for my ETC army list.  

Started assembly on those metal maneaters and converted the Araby guy to be a musician and the paymaster as a Standard bearer.  Got 2 gorgers, 5 bulls and 4 ironguts assembled as well.  Also managed to get some paint unto 3 of those ironguts.  That gray was such a life-saver.  I loved the color on those pants and it was such an easy color to paint. Also, dipping saved a lot of time and gave the minis a very good shade.  

 June 2012

Things really started to get hot.  Stuff were being churned out of my paint factory at good speed.  Continued to plow my way through those maneaters models.  It was probably at this time that one of my good team-mates offered to loan me 80 gnoblars at the cost of helping him paint it up and base them.  NO FKING WAY!  So, that's where i started off. 10 gnoblars.

I also wanted a very unique Ironblaster and since I had 2 of the old scraplauncher kits and with the current Ogre scrap launcher being crap, i did some conversion to mount a cannon on the frame of the old scrap-launcher.  Kind of easy conversion but still, this is my most satisfying piece of work yet. Spent lots of effort to paint the gold work on the cannon. It was also at this time i found this static grass that came in clumps.  Really saved me a ton of effort to flock my bases.  The grass on the IB was still the old GW flock of dried grass and burnt grass but soon after, most of the minis, especially the gnoblars will feature those heavily. 

In addition, i managed to get the yellow pants of the Leadbelcher to look pretty sweet and i really liked it.  The wood color was a bit boring though but that's what you get for being lazy. 

I guess this is a pretty good time to cut this review into half, since it is chronologically half-way and stopped
at a "high point" for the year, completing one of my favorite pieces.  Next up, 2nd half of my review for 2012.