Glowing…

One of the key features of the Cryx army is the power source of their machinery… souls. And it seems that souls give off an eye-watering green glow when used as fuel, which is as intriguing as it is disturbing.

Nevertheless, I had to learn how to paint a green glowing power source on my Cryx Helljacks – not to mention warcasters – if they were going to look the part. You've already seen my green glow attempts with Asphyxious and now it was time to paint the big dog – the Slayer.

More so than almost any other Cryx 'jack, the Slayer has a lot of glowing elements. Having already painted the surrounding areas to an almost finished state I set to work, mixing some Black in with my Vallejo day-glow green paint.

The problem is that the green paint is very transparent, so it took a lot of coats to get a solid foundation. I then added pure green layers before starting to add some white to the mix. By the time I'd reached an almost white layer I realised that it was all a little too light. I then added some thin green layers to build up the colour in the shadows before adding some GW Thraka Green wash in the dark corners.

It turned out to be quite a messy process, as you can see, with areas of my 'finished' model covered in bright green paint. So, with this in mind, I have done some forward thinking with the next 'jack. I used some of the leftover highlight paint to get a couple of quick undercoat layers in on this Bonejack. This gives me a decent base to work up the glow from, before I've spent too much time on the surrounding areas. Hopefully this should give me a better result.

Painting Update…

Given that it's been over a week since the last blog post – something that hasn't happened in a very long time – I thought that I should show my face.

The last week has been quite trying from a personal perspective; there have been several visits to hospital and lots of relaxing – little time to sit and paint in isolation. However, painting has occurred and here we go…

After the introductory game of Warmachine I was inspired to add more paint to my Cryx 'jacks. As you can see the Helljack is almost complete (top photo), just final touches here and there. Having painted up all his armour I had fun with the day-glo green paint, lots of layers and inks (more photos soon).

The Bonejacks are a little way behind but the two Deathrippers have seen paint this weekend. One is prepped for his green glow, the other has just had some metallics done. They're slowly starting to look like the making of an army. Exciting times.

Elsewhere in the Warmachine/Hordes universe I've constructed my first three Legionnaires for my Everblight army. Not necessarily the best unit choice for Legion, these guys do look very cool and should be quite straightforward to paint. I have another three waiting in the wings but looking forward to getting these guys finished first. They remind me of the GW Dark Elf Executioners, who similarly looked cool but fell a little short on the gaming table. If I refer to these guys as Executioners by accident in the future you'll know why.

As you know I've been spending a lot of time on my secret project with Romans, Vikings and Celts. In a battle last week with Fugs some heroes have emerged that required a little extra paint attention.

After being skewered in a number of games by Roman pila, this Viking hero has been dubbed Ragnar Pincushion. Some alterations to the model were required (arrows in the shield) and he got some more paint and some blonde streaks. His fortunes haven't improved much since but there is hope.

This Roman hero is Crixus. He has played a major role in Fugs' battles this last week, yet only had a black undercoated to wear for the entire campaign. After skewering poor 'Ragnar Pincushion' and holding the line against marauding Celts, Crixus had earned some new paint. Whilst still not amazing to look at, he does now fall in line with his fellow legionaries.

More updates soon…

Warmachine Intro Game

With a small hobby window on Sunday afternoon, Fugs came round for a game. 'The Secret Project' is undergoing a few changes so wasn't available to play; I took the opportunity to teach Fugs (and myself) how to play Warmachine.

I've had the Mercenaries starter box for many years now, left over from when Bull and I first dipped our toes into the Iron Kingdoms. Last year I built the Cryx starter box so they would be our armies for the day.

Magnus the Traitor was a great warcaster for me when we played Warmachine Mk I (only a few games I grant you). He made learning the rules easy and was quite forgiving. At the time the Mercenaries weren't the established faction they are now, so there were limited opportunities to expand. As it turned out we didn't play much as the models have been in stasis for the last 8+ years.

Needless to say Fugs took to him (and the game) very easily and we will no doubt see more battle coming soon.

Cryx warcaster Deneghra has always been one of my favourite characters and in the latest set of rules she is really quite good (on paper at least). I had not actually played a game with her prior to the weekend so it was a bit of a trial run for me.

We played on my old Malifaux board with a handful of scenery. As expected the game was relatively slow as we were constantly checking rules and definitions as situations arose.

As far as the action goes the game did not disappoint…

Magnus's light Renegade warjack launched his Obliterator bomb at my heavy Slayer helljack, doing significant damage. The Slayer then charged Magnus's heavy Mangler warjack and (with a little experience under my belt) smashed up the Mangler quite badly – Fugs was on the back foot a little.

The Mangler did heavy damage to the Slayer in return, ably backed up by the Renegade's chainsaw arm. The Slayer finished off both the Mangler and Renegade and turned his attention to Magnus, who had taken down a Deathripper and a Defiler bonejack. Fugs' only remain warjack – a light Talon warjack – had killed off my other Deathripper and had moved in on Deneghra.

In the final turn I managed to walk the battered Slayer into Magnus and promptly tear his head off, ending the game.

Cracking battle that ebbed and flowed and managed to show Fugs how the game works in the process. He came away rather fired up by the experience, no doubt looking for revenge. I'm hoping that him experiencing this game, on top of the others we've tried, will help 'The Secret Project' going forward.

I came away quite fired up to paint some more Cryx models. Although I have threatened to bring out my fully painted Legion of Everblight models next time.

We will see…