Cross posting my diary from Tabletop Gaming Networks Battle Challenge 3 for Malifaux. Hopefully it will convince some better painters than me to have a go at these wonderful figs.

Hello all, I'm new to this site as I've pretty much joined to participate in this Battle Challenge, which I heard about on another forum and figured would fit perfectly as I just had my first batch of Malifaux stuff arrive last week.

I have the Seamus and Ortega boxes thus far, with all minis assembled. I intend working on both factions, as I live in a country town about 200km south of some of the other Aussie participants in Brisbane, so unless I intend to travel (which I do intend some of) I'm going to need to get some of the other locals interested in the game.

These two crews had the models that most inspired me to play the game. Seamus is the big standout for me, just an absolutely strange combination of influences there, and zombie hookers sound hilarious.

The Ortega family most embodied the Western influence I like about the game, so they were also a must-have. I'm looking forward to putting on my best Dave Chappelle inspired Mexican gunfighter impression while playing them As a side benefit, I think they'll make a good crew to give newbies in demos, as they're a fairly easy to grasp crew, and quite powerful to boot with the big alphastrike.

OK, so I think I'll detail my goals here and the way I want my crews to look.

My main goal is to have a nice, painted 35 ss crew for some of the events in Brisvegas coming up in March and April. I have a 40K tourney on this weekend that I'm doing the usual last minute rush job on a few guys for, but after that I intend to focus solely on Malifaux for a while. This goal fits in pretty easily with the Challenge schedule, so the painting shouldn't be a problem, just gotta remember to take some pics during the process. My biggest hurdle will be getting some games in, and making the terrain, which I've never really done seriously (I did make a tarpit piece once for WHFB involving half a skink in some black painted PVA glue, but truthfully that piece was meant to be a convenient drink coaster more than anything).

For my Guild crew, my intended list is basically the Ortega's, plus the Enslaved Nephilim and a Witchling Stalker. Not really sure what I'll drop for the 20ss game. I'll probably drop whatever ends up being my least favourite Ortega and all the two extra models.

One of my big things with painting is I try and always give my forces a strong coherent colourscheme. I'm not a particularly good technical painter, but I do tend to be very good at picking a colour scheme and making it work for me. This game presents somewhat of a challenge in that I'm used to army games, where this is easy. The much more individualised figures in this games may stretch me a bit there. The current plan is to use a factions colour as the primary for all figures, so individual details will primarily be the other details.

For the Guild crew, I intend using a fair bit of GW's old terracotta colour as my base colour, and on all the Ortega's a bit of leopard skin in places. Apart from that I'll probably just do whatever colours I feel like.

The Resurrectionists I think will really challenge my painting skills. Seamus is my favourite figure in the range, so I really want to do a good job on him, and my colour scheme will be somewhat similar, as I intend to make the main colour a jade green. I'll try and make the secondary colour something that doesn't really fit any of the other factions colours, which might get difficult without copying the pink used in the rulebook pics, which I always hate doing. A deep green will be used for Sybelle's gimp suit, and the Belles will be different shades of green for variety, as well as probably different colours of lace.

My intended list for them is the boxed set, plus two punk zombies plus mini-Seamus, though after playtesting I may drop another Belle for a Punk, and have the Belle spare for summoning.

OK, so with the 40K tourney I went to over the weekend now done with, I have gotten around to undercoating my dudes:



Hopefully I'll get a bit more colour on them today.

Got the terracotta on the Ortegas, and dark green on the Redchapel Gang.

OK, started to get some skin happening.

Pretty standard skin for the Ortegas:



The Belles and Sybelle I'm trying for something a bit different. Have so far done a grey base coat for the flesh, and washed with Ogryn Flesh - partially to tint the grey, partially to pick out detail. I hope to blend it up to a proper flesh tone in a few places.

OK, I got some shirts and more importantly, some leopard print done on the Ortegas. First time I've ever attempted it, so I'm keen for some feedback on this. I attempted some single figure shots, but my photo-fu is weak. They're down there, but I think my group shots are actually coming up better.

So, the first model I did was Francisco - who is quickly becoming my favourite model of the Ortegas:


Next up Santiago, with a front and back - also probably my least favourite of the Ortegas:



El Nino washes across next:



Papa Loco - who is too crazy for leopard holmes:


Last but not least, the lovely Perdita:


Finally, a group shot - let me know if you think the single fig shots are worth persisting with compared to this:

Woo, I am on fire tonight!

My favourite model in the Malifaux range (and probably the primary reason I bought the game) is Seamus:


I also started to turn the flesh from grey towards a flesh colour, which will then go to a very light almost bloodless flesh colour for all the dead ladies.

Sybelle:


The Belles:




The group shot:

I've been beavering away on the Ortega's tonight, and was probably one more colour off calling it a night and taking some pics, when I butterfingersed with Perdita Chipped the paint off half her hat It looks like it should be able to be fixed tonight though, so hopefully I'll still have an update with pics later.

OK, the pics of my Ortegas after tonight efforts/disaster:

These are now getting pretty close to being tabletop-worthy. Ideally I'd like to get both crews to this standard by Sunday, when we have our local club day, so I can take them along and try and convince some people to have a crack at it.

I'm thinking of them being 20SS games. I'm thinking for the crew lists:

Guild:
Perdita
Francisco
Nino
Papa Loco

Essentially the box minus Santiago gives me an 18SS crew. Decided to drop Santiago rather than Papa Loco as Santiago is my least favourite mini, and Papa Loco looks very fun to play with.

Resurrectionists:
Seamus
Sybelle
3 Belles

Straight out of the box at 18SS is pretty much spot on for a 20SS game.

Anyone got any tips and tricks for demo games? Hell I'm still a total newbie myself, having only really played one game which was pretty disjointed as we figured out the rules.

I won't be painting tomorrow night, as I'll off boardgaming.

Nice to see you still around Chuncky, let me know when you are down in Sydney and we can line up a few games.

I've got my Hilly Billy Gobbos (what's not to love about xxxx Jugs, banjos and pigs :-) And Lilith's daemons.

Also, when are we going to see you at some WFB events

Haven't really been playing WHFB at all lately - not really liking the games current direction. I'm expecting it to stay on the shelf for a while until I feel a excited enough to get out my Dwarfs again.

Been playing a bit of 40K, lots of boardgames, and hopefully now plenty of Malifaux if I can get it going.

cool bananas.

It looks like a fun game, have to get my Gremlins done up. Its a pretty fun game, good for a laugh while having a few beers.

I think I really need to start thinking about basing up my models. For the Guild, I am thinking of wooden planks like on the verandah or balcony of a saloon.

Not really sure what to do for the Resurrectionists.

OK, I got a bit distracted over the weekend, but finally to put a bit more paint down and take some more pics:









These minis really only have fine details to go now, for both my crews, so I'll probably wait until I'm ready to rebase them in case I end up doing some damage. I have decided to use the Wyrd base inserts - Victorian flagstones probably for the Guild (though I might still just go with wooden planks there), and Sewers for the Resurrectionists.

But for a bit, I'm going to focus more on expanding and getting some games and list together for a while. I'll get to that in a new post.

OK, so on to some awesome non-painting news. One of my mates has decided to join the fun, and we put a solid order through for more figures the other day. My friend is keen on Neverborn, and ordered pretty much every Neverborn model currently made, with some redundancy so he can play around with his list as he pleases. So he got all three boxed sets, the totems, Teddy, a second Mature Nephilim, a pair of Young Nephilim and the Rulebook and Fate Deck. My friend is normally exclusively a gamer and doesn't paint at all, but with the low model count he's keen to have a go, so I'll try and convince him to join up here.

I'm hoping to have our first game this weekend with my basic stuff, as ours will be a while yet.

I also ordered a bunch more stuff for my two factions. For my Guild, I basically got the Witchhunters box and advanced ordered a Peacekeeper, which I am now definitely thinking of going the saloon them for and modelling up a cool little scene on that big base of a Peacekeeper cease and desist on a poker game or something.

For my Resurrectionists I went a bit crazy, as I really like a lot of the figures there. Got both other crew boxes, as well as all the totems, a second Flesh Construct, pre-ordered two lots of Canine Remains, and got some Necropunks, so I'll have quite a large Resurrectionist selection to choose from.

From both these areas I intend not to fiend paint as I have so far, but will probably start gaming a lot more and start to hone in on the crew I want to take to the Stone Fever event in Brisbane on March 27th:

http://www.phoenixforge.com.au/g/37628/stone-fever.html

It is a 35ss event, so I hope to try out a few forces before I fully work out my list.

Next order will be a bunch of base inserts I think.

Hey Chunky, I got a rulebook the other day and will read it several times (and hopefully get a few minis and games in ) before I head up to Lismore next...
This game is the right size to take with me on the family travels in contrast to a WHF army that will not fit in the car with the kids.
Might not be till the end of the year but I will get in touch when I'm heading up.
Matt

Hey common now, i do paint. Am painting skaven, not to shabby either if i do say so myself!

Sounds good Matt - plus I might have all the models myself anyways by then!

Skell - pics or it didn't happen!

work on that photography so i can see if your painting has improved!

...tho the single pics look to be improving

It's in Bli Bli.

I love discovering diaries by people I have had dealings with.

It looks like you have some good lookin' models coming along.

Hey dan, yes my painting has improved when I can manage the patience to do it right. I've actually started highlighting stuff now, though I'm not brilliant at it. You really should have a rack at Malifaux mate, I reckon it'd be right up your alley.

w00t! Good news around here, it looks like we're getting a few converts and Malifaux may well reach a critical mass of gamers in these parts.

I'm starting to think about hosting some regular gaming nights at my house (I have a double garage setup for gaming), with Malifaux as one of the main focusses. The terrain I've been seeing has really been inspiring me, and I think I really want to get in and have a crack at it.

There's an extremely cool Guild vs Guild battle report on the Wyrd forums from youtube that is basically a bunch of fairly blurry photos, but its really well done with this cool Western soundtrack and just oozes atmosphere. I definitely want to get a Wild West themed table up and running, and I've been thinking about some other, so I thought I should put my ideas down here.

- Wild West town

- Hexagonal, ruined temple area. Inspired by the Mythera ruins in the book sort of combined with Greek Style monuments, I'm thinking a big hexagonal board with an ancient crumbling temple in the middle thats starting to be overgrown.

- Bayou swamp table

- Graveyard

Here is the link to the battle report with Western music:

http://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=10704

OK, I finally worked out a post I can make while waiting for my next wave of minis to arrive so I can start painting again. I mentioned some terrain ideas earlier, and the one I've been thinking most about is the Hexagonal table with a techno-arcana temple as the centrepiece. I've been thinking about how I want it to look, and ended up doing a bit of a design concept sketch which I thought I'd show here:




So basically the idea is that it this huge marble edifice, basically a 3 foot (from one side to the opposite) hexagon. The step and tiers would be made to look like ancient, corroded pitted marble, which at first ascends from the bayou, then gradually sinks down again, until the weird techno-arcana temple at the heart of it, which has a hexagram in the middle with these massive cogs that join on to either grecian columns in a circle arrangement or some sort of stonehenge monolith, with some sort of semi-organic growth with these little energy emitters around it it that look like they hook into an energy field around the hexagram.

The whole marble area would look like its in a semi-ruined state, as the whole thing crumbles around the amazingly pristine condition mechanism, as nature tries to tear it down as the bayou gradually starts reclaiming the area.

I've never really been a terrain builder, so I have no real idea how to approach this other than that I imagine lots of polystyrene will be involved. I may not end up even attempting it, but damn it looks cool in my mind.

You clearly have too much time on your hands...

Looks good, my only concern would be with deployment in corners etc.

Have you seen this guy btw? http://thelowercrypt.blogspot.com/2010/01/...ain-part-5.html

Hmm, good point on the corners, but it would probably be a custom scenario to play on it anyways, so its easy enough to specify a deployment type that works.

Thanks for the link, some pretty solid tips there, I just need to find somewhere to get some of the materials.

Thanks for the link Juliet, as you'll see in the pictures after this post, it came in very handy

OK, still no new Malifaux stuff, so haven't done any further work on the painting front. I have been thinking a lot about the terrain. Having finally found some foamcore board, I want to start building some Western buildings. I've drawn up the plans for the first and most important one - the Saloon.




Basically took the design right out of Deadwood, which I have started watching again as inspiration. I am making a few changes though. The main doors are going to be those swinging doors like in the mocies, where people always get punched or thrown through them. I hope to get these cut out today, and probably try and glue them together tomorrow.

OK, foamboard has been cut and glued together, the saloon has also had an MDF base attached, and starting to woodenise it up - I think its coming along nicely.

good work. I've been thinking about the need for some buildings for mine as well and a saloon is a must.

don't forget to go back over the planks and make horizontal join lines, preferably uneven ones, like you see on floorboards.

Looking good chunky, I saw some of these models in the shop in canberra, I'll be interested in having a game when i come home, see if you can convince me to play

Cheers Boofa, I reckon the models will do all the convincing required!

w00t! my order arrived yesterday with some lovely new models.

So far, I've rebased the Ortegas onto some wooden bases to match the saloon. I'll probably put the saloon itself on hiatus for a while until I have a couple of solid crews painted up properly.

First step will be finishing up thwe Ortegas. I'll post pics of them based up this afternoon, and hopefully will have them finished by Saturday night.

OK, so firstup, some pics of the Saloon in its current state - majority of the pop sticking has been completed. Up to building the balcony, then the remainder of the sticks on the front of the building.

Now some pics of based up Ortegas - just gotta work out what to do for the greenstuff lump I had to put on to stabilise Nino.

OK, some more pics of Ortegas:

First, a group shot:

and spin!

El Papa Loco!

Santiago

Francisco

and last but not least, the lovely Perdita


There are still details to finalise on these models, but I keep dropping Perdita so decided it was time to varnish. Note the saloon in the background for an idea of the scale of that building.

the pics would benefit ALOT from not using the flash but getting a light source or 2 in there that are nice and bright. Its really hard to tell what these guys look like atm.

also if you have a macro setting on your camera, try zooming all the way in the the max point of your optical zoom and then back it off 1 "click" and that will be your optimal macro photography range.

hope this helps!

Not sure if its lack of 'macro' setting or if its a combo of lighting and flash...

Has a go at the zoom thing, which didn't work too well for me - I'd say its definitely the lighting. I have some more photos, but unless I suddenly develop some ability in this area, they will still be a bit dodgy photos.

OK, got the Witchhunters based up, undercoated, and started to get some paint on them:


Also, Skell now has his Neverborn, and is over for a bit of painting. He has a bunch of stuff, just basing them all up now:

OK, I've been working pretty hard on the Witchhunters, and they're up to having a varnish coat done similar to the Ortegas.

Pro Tip: Do not put rulebook in the washing machine:



So there's a warranty on rulebooks amirite?

On the bright side, the binding held up surprisingly well - still holding onto what remains of the pages in fact. Stupid, fragile pages. :'(

How do you put a rulebook in the washing machine???

Well, first I need you to clear your mind of all thought. There yet? No? OK, seriously, this isn't a meditation thing, having no thoughts in brain was an essential part of the process.

Me need carry Rulebook and washing downstairs. Me put rulebook in laundry basket. Me pour contents of laundry basket into washing machine, hit go. Me wonder why clothes look like been washed with whole box of tissues. Me rage at work clothes. Me wash again. and again. Me put clothes in dryer, find remains of cover at bottom. Me give self lobotomy to improve brainpower.

I'd rather have a bottle in front-o-me than a frontal lobotomy!

Has the same effect on defenceless rulebook....

Couldnt help admiring your sketches.

I found when sculpting dwarf/lizardmen runes; pillars; friezes(sp?) using chalk as your medium speeds everything up. Once satisfied, you can cover it to seal it (i used superglue) and then make a master mould to produce in quantites for later use.

Hope this helps.

Good job with the rule book mate. You seem to have reached a Zen place of thoughtlessness, well done

OK, I haven't posted in a while. I've been doing a fair bit of stuff, but its mostly the not very glamorous sort of work - basing, assembling, undercoating. I do have a couple of pics though:

All my Resurrectionists - I now have nearly everything for them:

and my based up Redchapel Gang - Seamus is on the teaparty table - just gotta make some little cup, saucers, teapots etc - I also want to make a zombie in a suit slumped over the table:

OK, finally got around to remembering to take photos during a battle so that I could do a battle report. This was a small intro battle for a new player, pitting his Seamus against my Ortegas. This is a bad matchup for Seamus at the best of times. Seamus had 3 Punk Zombies tagging along to the fight, while the Ortegas were missing only Santiago.

This was a straight fight with no strategies or schemes. Our terrain is still scarce, so there are a bunch of boxes masquerading as buildings.

Game starts out with both forces advancing on the street - Resurrectionists didn't really try any alternate route with more cover.




As expected, the Guild forces draw first blood, as Nino gets an Obey assisted kill on a punk zombie.