It wouldn’t be a convention without a swing by the Privateer Press booth to say hello to friends and check out what goodies they have on display or may be painting up. And as usual they did not disappoint!

The Booth was situated as usual on the convention centre sky bridge which is pretty much the what many would consider the middle of the exhibition halls. It’s a tall glass encased bridge that is nice and cool and has some of the freshest air in the entire convention centre. If you were walking across the bridge you couldn’t get through without seeing Big Blue guarding one corner of their booth.

The figure display case had its usual suspects all standing around but what caught my eye was the completed and painted Circle of Orboros battle engine. Now we saw this as a work in progress at Lock and Load so to see it completed and painted at PAX was quite a nice treat.

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Tags: Battle Engine, Circle, Circle of Orboros, Dire Troll Blitzer, Dire Troll Mauler, PAX, Privateer Press, Trollblood

The “Book of Fragments” miniatures line is a collection of horrors, monsters, minions, and cultists for the tabletop. Drawn from mythos and nightmare, and re-conceived by top artists and visionaries in the industry “Book of Fragments” monstrosities break new ground and shatter expectations.

I spent last Friday to Sunday down at PAX: Pime in Seattle and spent some time talking with Duncan and some of the other employees from Black Ball Games working their booth.

That’s right PAX isn’t just all about the video games!

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Tags: Black Ball Games, Dark Young, Miniature, Monster, Mythos

Now that Gen Con 2011 is finished, it’s time for me to decide what I’m going to play for the following Gen Con (I work on yearly cycles based on Gen Con). Having just finished my Master Track series for the Cygnar casters considered reject by the Cygar forums, (http://handcannononline.com/blog/cat…/master-track/)

I’m going to focus Master Track 2012 on winning with Mercs. That means I’m going to need to pick casters that I think I can win with, and just as importantly casters I want to play, since I tend to have the best success with casters I enjoy. I’m going to start with 6 casters and narrow it down to 4 over time, since my guess is Gen Con 2012 will again be 3 list, characters restricted and I want to focus an additional caster on Hardcore.

Given that I’m planning on a character restriction, I’m going to start out by calling this the worst case scenario — 6 lists with characters restricted. Since no event over the next year will likely have characters restricted across this many lists or more, if I start here, I should be able to find character leeway on events that only require 3 or 4 lists and it should help me build my final masters list when I start culling casters (and thus freeing up characters as well).

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Tags: Convention, Lock and Load, Master Track, Masters, Mercenaries, Privateer Press, Strategy, Tournaments, Warcaster, Warmachine

Welcome to the first installment of the Assembly Guide series of articles! This series will go over the most common (and maybe some not-so-common) difficult to assemble models in the Privateer Press range, and provide the reader with simple to follow instructions on how to put these models together in the easiest way possible.

In this Assembly Guide, I will demonstrate the easiest possible way to assemble Cylena Raefyll, and her accompanying unit of Nyss Hunters. This particular unit seems to be the most lamented unit on the PP forums, and with good reason. All of the models holding swords have three contact points to connect the arms, wrist and sword. Getting these to line up is a headache, and may give some beginners nightmares about assembling models for years to come. Not only are the parts a chore to line up and glue, but they are tiny, with some of the smallest contact points to glue in the entire PP range of models.
They come completely dis-assembled, and each model comes in 6 parts. For a full unit of 10 models, that’s more than any beginner is able to deal with. Considering this particular unit is one of the so-called ‘powerhouses’, they get recommended by forum members all the time, which only compounds the problem for any novice; great unit in-game, but extremely trying to assemble and actually get on the table.

This article will hopefully alleviate your frustrations in assembling this particular unit. I go over my tried and true methods for getting three contact point arms to line up, and stay together, which should assist in any models that are similar, in addition to the Nyss Hunters themselves.

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Tags: Assembly guide, Beginners, Cylena Raefyll, Infantry, Mercenaries, Modeling, Nyss Hunters, Pinning, Privateer Press, Tutorial, Warmachine

Some of you may have seen our previous article about Sedition Wars and some of you may just be tuning in now. For those that don’t know Sedition wars is a project by Studio McVey. The main people behind the studio are Mike and Ali McVey who some people may know from Mikes time with GW or their time on US soil working with Privateer Press back in the day.

Studio McVey recently released a set of alpha rules & cards for people to try out and see where the game is headed. there are three factions so far in the game each with a unique look and background. the initial play test is meant for two players to match up and duke it out.

The game uses a 2d6 mechanic similar to warmachine where 2d6+modifier vs target number = success. One main difference is that any six you roll may be then re rolled and the new number added to your initial result as well. As for the gaming area it will be a grid based system and there is a plan for an interlocking tile set once the game is released.

The Alpha rules and Cards only have information on the Vanguard and Strain but it definitely will give you a good sense of where they are headed with this game. So go take a peek!

-Geist

Tags: Sci-fi, science fiction, Scifi, Sedition Wars, Studio McVey, The Strain, Vangaurd

In this article series I plan to explore the process of converting a model to fit a theme army better. In this case it will be taking a Cygnaran Sword Knight for Warmachine and converting it into a Cygnaran Journeyman Warcaster.

Some of the Hurdles will be:

• Tournament legal: since the model is based off a sword knight and not off the journeyman warcaster we will really have to pay special attention to small details as well as making sure the model stands apart from other sword knights.
• A suitable location for a holstered pistol, or possibly holding the pistol with a sheathed sword. (currently planning on gun holstered)

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Tags: Conversions, Journeyman Warcaster, Miniature Conversions, Modeling, Privateer Press, Sword Knight, Warmachine

Ever since we received a batch of terrain stamps from Happy Seppuku Model works I have been on a basing spree. in a short time you can whip out a extensive variety of bases with very little work. If you haven’t read it yet you should check out Basing Basics: Part 1.

In Part two of this short series I plan to show you some step by step guides on how to make a base rick street with a storm drain and curb, a middle of a paved road, a brick path with rock garden, as well as the edge of a side walk curb with a bit of street. For all of these bases we will be using 40mm round bases.

For Tools I used a hobby knife as well as a few metal shaping tools.

For supplies to build these bases I used:

• Two part green epoxy putty mixed in equal amounts
• Thick Cork board sheets
• Plasticard Strips
• Balsa wood

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Breaking the Format is a new Warmachine & Hordes podcast hosted by Jason flanzer in conjunction with Matt O. and Zafar Tejani.

In their first episode they cover Wrath, Diecon, and some keys to list construction. They also go over their favorite models from every faction, how Zafar and Matt took different routes to more Hardcore Tournament victories, and even more!

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Tags: Breaking The Format, Diecon, Hardcore, Hordes, Privateer Press, Warmachine, Wrath

To finish this week, we’re going to leave you with a gallery of models I have painted for various miniature lines over the years. This is just a small amount of the models (and some of what I see as my best work) that I have painted over the past 4 years, which is a good cross-section of my work. Looking at how many images I had to upload for this gallery, I feel like I’m pretty prolific!
Enjoy!

Warmachine and Hordes:

My entry that won Gold at Lock n’ Load.

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In September Wyrd Miniatures will be releasing their new game Puppet Wars which is a board game for 2-4 players and using cards and miniatures similar to their first game Malifaux.  A game should take 30-75 minutes depending if your wanting a small quick and dirty game or if your using a full toy box of models.

Malifaux as usual has the rules up on-line for free, as well as a set of game maps that you can use for playing or can even edit yourself which is quite a nice.

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Tags: Board Game, Miniature Game, Miniatures, Puppet Wars, Puppets, Wyrd