Captain Kara Sloan Concept Art

http://cwalton73.deviantart.com/art/Captain-Kara-Sloan-143217396

The first new warcaster featured for Warmachine MkII, Kara Sloan debuts in Forces of Warmachine: Cygnar. She was a lot of fun to concept - any chance to create mechanika sabot rounds is always to be jumped at.

Before anybody bags on the sculptor for the model pose - you can direct your grumblings at me. I provide all pose reference, and this one helps to create Kara's distinct profile on the battlefield (or that's the line of logic, anyway).

Enjoy.

So now I wished I'd seen this yesterday when I blogged or skipped yesterday and blogged it today instead. Then I could have combined the preview with the concept art.

One of the interesting things about his statements is that part of the unusual and uncomfortable pose was that models have to have distinct profiles; when you see a model, you don't mistake one from another. While some of that can be handled with paint, having the model distinct clears things up from the get-go.

For me, this was one of the appeals of Warmachine; I was not painting the same model 30-50 times over (even when posed differently). Though I tend to keep color schemes in line to have a pretty looking army composition, I still appreciated being able to paint robed zealots one day and armored knights the next while still contributing in a meaningful way to the development of a playable force.

I'll have to test this theory.

Future project idea:

• Start with a warlock/warcaster
• Stand warlock/warcaster next to various similar based infantry models from their armies.
• Eyeball to check for differences in profile.

Or, better yet:

• Silhouette the models and go for the Who's That Pokemon feel.

Hmmm...

Captain Kara Sloan

Looks like Cygnar finally got a peek at their new female warcaster: Kara Sloane.




(As always, you can view the 360 view via the link)

Captain Kara Sloan goes to war as a one-woman rifle brigade. When focused on the destruction of her foe, every warjack she commands becomes linked to the pull of her rifle’s trigger to unleash a barrage of unparalleled accuracy and power simultaneously. Armed with her custom magelock rifle, she walks into the most vicious of firefights without hesitation and always emerges the victor.

So take the concept of the magelock and apply it to a rifle rather than just to a pistol like the regular Gun Mages (though there's nothing "regular" about them). I'm thinking she'll have some kind of thing where she can fire spells or she has some kind of spell similar to Bartolo Montador's one that fires all the battlegroup's guns at once (for the life of me I can't remember the spell's name and it's the one thing that lured me into starting a Mercenary army.

Kara Sloan vs. Allister Caine seems like it will become a fun battle.

Dakka Paint Challenge Voting

I do not know how long the polls are open, but you can vote for the winner of the Nitty Gritty Armor contest on Dakka Dakka by following the link.

You can vote for as many models as you want, but please vote for one!

Models represented include Space Marines, the Imperial Guard, and the Blood Angels.




#1 - Deathstrike Missile


#2 - Death Company Dreadnought


#3 - Wasp


#4 - Space Marine Scout Biker


#5 - Valdor


#6 - Leman Russ


#7 - Macharius Vanquisher


#8 - My Tank is Dirt!


#9 - Valkyrie

Skorne on Skorne, and a new player! (no pics)

Played against a new face the other night. Going by the handle OmegaLolrus on the Black Sun Games Forums, Matt came to Black Sun Games to play in the last MK1 Call to Arms league.

Archdomina Makeda vs. Tyrant Xerxis



This game almost turned into a mirror match. My default 500 point skorne list is a Tyrant Xerxis list that buffs up the Swordsmen with Merciless Assault (a spell that allows them to make an additional attack each turn with each of their weapons) and looks for an opening through which Xerxis can charge through the lines and wreck face with the Pillars of Halaak (the two large monument things he uses for clubs).

However, since Matt brought Xerxis, I switched my Tyrant out for Makeda, the general who enhances her troops resilience and their melee abilities.

Makeda's Krea helped me drop Xerxis's assassins by lowering their defense. This, in conjunction with my swordsmen's double attacks, the spell Savagery that lets them run and attack and Makeda's Carnage spell that improves their chances to hit enemies in melee combat helped me take out the Bloodrunners and their solos.

The Rhinodon did its part against Molik Karn, and oddly enough it was Xerxis who fielded Molik Karn and Makeda who brought the Rhinodon (Skorne players will understand this). Matt ran Molik Karn hot on Fury to drop my heavy warbeast.

But what sealed the deal was Xerxis standing in range of an Ancestral Guardian charge. Though he survived the initial weaponmaster attacks, on the following turn Makeda's feat was up and Matt's Swordsmen plowed through my own, which meant that my Extoller and Ancestral Guardian gathered up souls AND the dead swordsmen returned to the game as part of their unit.

The Ancestral Guardian had 5-6 attacks with all the soul tokens on the table, so I took them. At least 1 of the rolls was transferred, and Matt managed to make it through 2 or 3 Tough rolls. But in the end, it wasn't enough. The Archdomina reclaimed her Tyrant for the Skorne.

Hopefully some progress

There's a space marine on my desk. It's white, its bolter is blue, and the whole thing is just hideous. Sometimes I take it out to look at it just to see how far I've come.

This post is not about the fugly marine.

Instead, I recently posted a picture on my Dakka Painting Log (a "Plog" if you will) comparing my work on a Cygnaran Long Gunner from Warmachine from years back to a Long Gunner I completed recently:



Elapsed time: 3 years, 6 months.

I like to think that I've improved. I bought the Long Gunner on the left back when a local Hobbytown was carrying Warmachine figures. I've said it before and I'll say it again, but I was never drawn to Warmachine for its robots. I was always all about the infantry.

The Long Gunner on the right is one I've painted recently

A few notable changes in both style and color scheme:

• I've switched from general blues to something more specific: Reaper Master Series Triads based off Templar Blue, a very soft color. I probably could have mixed to get this color before, but I'm not too good at color matching so I tend not to mix paints much.
• Instead of gray highlights for the hair I use a dark blue and instead of white streaks for the goggles I use a gray color.
• Reaper Master Series has a nice Olive Skin paint that I'm starting to use on all my figs. The old Long Gunner is painted with some generic dark skin paint
• Richer yellows in the new guy. The older Long Gunner has brighter yellows, but poor coverage and layering.
• A switch from my warmer shading on the whites to a light blue. I think it matches the light blues much better.
• More care with my metals. If a metal stands out too much, it gets hit with a wash now. I'm not sure if I did that before.
• An addiction to static grass. I now use different colors for different armies.

It seems like a fun enough exercise to take an old model and stand it up right next to a current one. If you read this post and you post with a similar comparison (old painted model vs. new paint job), comment me with a link to your blog so I can see your efforts.

I think this comic describes me perfectly.

I'm not always big on Scott Kurtz's work, but he's consistent and his characters are human. He doesn't always have something to say about gaming, but I suppose my blog isn't always about miniatures.

From his webcomic, pvponline:



I think I'm more like Skull the Troll on the right and less than Scratch Fury on the left. Though there are moments that affect me emotionally in a game (I get upset, excited, and/or devious) I tend to enjoy playing the game just as much as winning it.

You meet people a lot who aren't that way, and it's odd to play them. Some of them are cool; they want to win, but they play you and take the loss when they get outplayed (or outlucked by the dice).

And then there's Scratch Fury.

I really dislike it when my inner Scratch Fury seeps through, so I'm on the lookout for people who let it out. You know you're dealing with Scratch Fury when it's simply not enough for them to beat you. They want you to be as emotionally invested in the game as they are because they feed off your energy and part of the challenge is surmounting that energy with their own.

(And before you get the image of big gamers mounting other big gamers, I clearly typed surmount rather than mount.)

Anyway, Scratch Fury is the type of gamer who doesn't feel like he's won until you've lost, because that's how he feels when he loses. When you don't give him the satisfaction it can really frustrate the poor guy.

I wonder if it's in the best interests of sportsmanship to sometimes fake a morally crushing defeat against a Scratch Fury? Give them something to chew on?

Or would faking it take something away from their victory, feeding into your own Scratch Fury?

The possibilities are endless...and inane.

Privateer Press releases for February

This is taken from a post on the Privateer Press forums that estimates prices by looking at the Japanese online retailer malefic and dividing the prices by 120 (a quick conversion from the yen).

*PIP 1023 Forces of Warmachine: Cygnar Softcover $34.99
*PIP 1024 Forces of Warmachine: Cygnar Hardcover $44.99
*PIP 31068 Warcaster Kara Sloan(1) $11.99 (est.)
*PIP 32059 Exemplar Cinerators(5) $44.99 (est.)
*PIP 33068 Winter Guard Rifle Corps(10) $49.99 (est.)
*PIP 33071 Widowmaker Marksman(1) $9.99 (est.)
*PIP 34075 Warwitch Siren(1) $11.99 (est.)
*PIP 41075 Rutger Shaw(1) $11.99 (est.)