Warmachine-Hordes APAV 3 - Helping out at a tournament

This weekend, the APAV 3 Warmachine/Hordes tournament took place in Paris. This tournament was organised by our gaming club with help from others and is a 50 pts steamroller tournament which takes place over two complete days (6 games in total).

I don't have the skill and the painted army for this tourney but I helped with some of the organization and it was really fun.

The night before, we installed the tables and terrain:

Then the tournament took place. I helped out with appearance judging and other little things here and there. There were some really beautiful armies:  

The overall appearance winner (including painting, basing, theme, extras...):

A nifty status effect/spells/token holder designed and built by one of the players. It saves time when you are on the clock!

[A Tale of Four Gamers 2013] A winner !

I was very surprised and pleased to be the winner of the Tale of Four Gamers 2013 painting challenge at my gaming club with my Circle Orboros army. There were many many beautiful armies and much better painters than me but I think the mass effect and the winter theme were strong points in my favor. I am very happy and humbled by this win.

Here is the family portrait of the army finished:

And here is the great prize I got. The guys hand picked a bunch of paints for my brand new airbrush. I am really lucky for such a great gaming group!

AToFG: Circle Orboros Final Family Portraits

And after almost a full year of the Tale of Four Gamers Painting Challenge, I finally completed the final and 10th set this month. Here are a couple of family portraits of effectively 11 months of painting Hordes Circle Orboros:

AToFG: November Painting Circle Orboros Woldwrath Gargantuan

And here is the final set, set#5, for the Tale of Four Gamers Painting Challenge which was started in October but I couldn't finish it in time due to a heavy workload and business travel. I finished the model in November and used one of my two joker cards for October.

Here is the Woldwrath Gargantuan in winter theme:

'You' talkin' to me'?:

This model was a lot of work to paint and took a lot of patience. I am happy with the end result but it was one of the hardest models I worked on, especially in terms of modelling (pinning and stuff) and painting (there was no end in sight for a while...).

October Gaming: Flames of War Early War and Warmachine-Hordes Journeyman Campaign Final

September and October were two busy months so far gaming-wise for me with the start of the new gaming season at my club. 

My first game of this year was a 1500 pts Early War game of Flames of War. I played a French Infantry Company of Fusiliers-Voltigeurs and my opponent played the Germans (including airplanes). Needless to say, the Germans won.... Here is a picture of the table from the French point of view: 

The second big game was the final giant game ending the Journeyman campaign for Warmachine-Hordes that had been running all year ; it was an scenario-based escalation campaign throughout the year in 4 rounds (first round 15 pts, second round 25 pts, third and fourth rounds 35 pts or more). In the final game, the faction leading in terms of points (Orboros) had some advantages it could pick from in a list made by the organizers. Everybody started gaming on their own table (see picture of my own army below) and could use teleportation zones to move to the central table. There were also control pods that allowed the person controlling them to take control (or break control of an enemy) of a Colossal/Gargantuan on the central table.

  

 Here is a picture of the central table and its Colossals/Gargantuans before the start of the game. 

 

Once the game started, a lot of people teleported to the central table and its was quite a fun mess!

Everybody could gain victory points by fulfilling different objectives either public or personal. It was a lot of fun and at the end Orboros did quite well although Khador won overall.

Next up this month, 40K is back on the table. I am dusting my 5th Ed Crimson Fists and finishing to build my new Stalker to accompany them. It will be my first 6th Ed game, let's hope it goes well!
 

AToFG Circle Orboros September painting Megalith

Here is my painting work for September :

Set #9: Megalith, Heavy Warbeast -aka Baldur's bestie

AToFG Circle Orboros August Painting Woldwarden

Here is my painting work for August :

Set #3: Woldwarden, Heavy Warbeast

The nice thing about this time of year is that you get to paint your minis outside at your holiday place! :)

Tutorial: Spring Bases

And here is the tutorial for the bases of my Spring themed Circle Orboros army.

The steps and material are the same as the tutorial for the Winter Bases that can be found here all the way through the Third Step included:

http://harald85hobbyblog.blogspot.fr/2013/08/tutorial-winter-bases.html

The only minor difference is that for the spring themed bases, I try to use a larger branch that I glue vertically to serve as a trunk for a bush:

This is what the base looks like without the rocks drybrushed:

•  Material needed for spring additions: 
• GW Static grass
• GF9 Clump foliage with a variety of greens
• Tuft flower beds from Army Painter 
• Tuft grass deep green from Army Painter

 
Here is a closer look at what the Army Painter tuft products look like. You can pluck them with tweezers and apply the plucked tuft with superglue:

• Fourth Step: Glue the static grass with the PVA glue. This serves as a base and gives an impression of generous grass and plants.

• Fifth and final step: Superglue clump foliage to the trunk, the branches. Then add the tuft tall grass and the flowers. Here are some pictures of the final result: 

Tutorial: Winter bases

Following a request from my gaming group, here is a tutorial for the winter bases I used in my Circle Orboros Winter themed army.

• Materials for base without the snow: First I use actual branches: 

Fish tank rocks: 

GW sand mix: 

And Hirst Arts blocks (not indispensable but looks cool): 

• First Step: I use PVA glue to glue the rocks, branches, broken blocks and sand: 

• Second Step: Once the PVA is dryed, I use superglue to fasten the rocks, branches and blocks a little better. Once the superglue is dry I wash the entire base with watered down PVA glue. This helps the sand stick a lot better. 

• Third Step: First I apply some watered down Games Workshop Scorched Brown paint on the sand and paint the branches in GW Scorched Brown: 

Once dry, I drybrush the branches with GW Bestial Brown and GW Dry Tyrant Skull (I highly recommend the GW Dry compounds for clean drybrushing). Finally I wash the branches with GW Badab Black and Devlan Mud.

The rocks are then painted in GW Foundation Adeptus Battlegrey, then drybrushed in GW Codex Grey and GW Skull White. 

• Material for snow effect: Here is what I used to create the snow effect: 
• White acrylic paint
• PVA glue
• Modeling snow

• Fourth Step: Create a paste with snow, PVA glue, acrylic paint and water with the consistency of toothpaste: 

Then apply this paste to the base and sprinkle with modeling snow before it dries. Let it dry fully before tapping off the excess snow:

Here is the final result: