My first Malifaux crew

This weekend was quite productive despite a whole afternoon and evening dedicated to the pursuit of beer, and the entire morning the following day in the pursuit of sleep and a painless head. Undercoated the Death Marshals and got the first bit on colour on Lady Justice and The Judge. I decided pretty early on not to go with the white coat scheme for The Judge – I wanted him to look more of a Death Marshal leader than some shiny individual, want my crew to have more of a unified look to it.

To say these weren't my best painted miniatures would be an understatement. Six months away from the paint table, after twelve months of nothing but marines does not prepare you for painting a slender, busty, blindfolded assassin with more hair than clothes. I also think that my enthusiasm to get started on these lovely miniatures got the better of me and I didn't plan my approach very well. But it's all a learning curve – they will look great on a gaming table, and if I don't get to play them I can always buy individual replacement models and sell these on Ebay.

Hopefully a bit more paint this week before Salute at the weekend. I must try and not buy any more models while there, but the temptation may be too great. I do hope to pick up the expansion rulebook and maybe a carry case of some description.

The story so far…

 Over the last three or four weeks I've been trying to decide which new games sytem to look at. The main driving force will be the miniatures – you have to enjoy what you're painting or else you will run out of enthusiasm very quickly… one thing I have learned and continue to be reminded of – I won't get much playing time so the minis have to be the main focus.

As I mentioned before I am currently designing the rulebook for Critical Mass so used that as an excuse to order several different books from various sources, all in the name of research. Then I sat back to await the influx of parcels. The order list included Infinity v2, MERCs, Warmachine v2 and Malifaux. MERCs was coming direct from the States so wasn't expecting that for a good week or so; Warmachine arrived the next day from Firestorm Games in Cardiff; Infinity and Malifaux rulebooks were coming from Wayland Games and after a fortnight still hadn't arrived. Frustrated, I ordered the Malifaux A5 rules manual from Firestorm (having been so impressed by their speed of service so far) – it arrived the next day!

After lots of reading and net research I was ready to start building and painting – just about the time my Malifaux starter crew arrived from Maelstrom Games (took about a week). Lady Justice is an awesome model, as are the rest of her crew. I found the models quite delicate kinda like Rackham's so some of the pieces took a lot of effort to stick securely. I had also ordered some resin bases especially for these guys, from Fenris Games, and after a couple of evenings had the models ready.

A spray of black primer yesterday morning before work and we're pretty much ready to go. I have to say I'm really looking forward to painting these models.

As for the other rulebooks, they have all arrived now and I've had a good look through. Warmachine was good, but I've played that in the past so there were few surprises there. The MERCs rulebook is beautiful and although expensive to have sent over I went through it cover to cover. Their miniatures are equally as stunning but I just wasn't taken by the rules. Similarly with Infinity, fantastic models but the rules were confusing and the rulebook (as nice as it was) was all over the place and very difficult to follow. Shame really, but I think I have found my next project.

Been a long time coming…

Well hello again.

It's been quite a while since I last posted – about the same amount of time since I last picked up a paint brush. Anyone who knows me a little will know that I've been playing WoW since the cataclysm expansion was released (mainly due to being easy to pick up and put down as I don't have a dedicated modelling area). Maintaining my enthusiasm for 40k – indeed anything GW related – has been quite a battle over the last 6-9 months as I'm just not that excited by it anymore, to be blunt. I'm just not liking where it's all going – the models, the rules, the cost.

After a lot of soulsearching I have decided to sell everything – almost. My ongoing Dark Templar figures will stay along with a few OOP models I've always had earmarked for them, but everything else will hit Ebay over the next 6 months – including the Blood Angels many of you saw coming to life, my Nurgle marine project that never really got going, and my long-serving Iron Warriors that will break my heart to see go.

Anyone interested in owning some/any of these models should bookmark my ebay link. This week it is mostly WH Fantasy stuff, but the 40k items will be up in the next few weeks – probably after the Easter break. I will post again nearer the time to give you folks a heads up.

So am I quitting the models completely?  Err…no.

I am currently in the process of designing the Critical Mass Games rulebook (not the actual rules just the layout/graphics/etc.) because, well, I'm a graphic designer. Part of the prelim process was to research other rulebooks, many of which I actually own or have owned a copy of over the years. What I realised was how fantastic some of these games are, and how I'd forgotten that caught up in the GW marketing machine. I like the idea of playing skirmish level games – we don't have the sapce or the time for anything else – and they need very few models that can have care and attention lavished on them. I don't feel the need to convert them because they are beautiful in their own right. In particular my old Rackham collection stood out, as well as the current Malifaux range. I have been putting together a Guild crew on custom bases and look forward to painting them.

With Salute 2011 coming up in less than a fortnight I can safely say there will be more purchases made. Photos will follow for the blog and hopefully the odd game now and again.