3d Printed Infinity Base Marker Widget and More with Shapeways

     Marking the Front Arc of a base is crucial for Infinity, but is inaccurate to do using your eyeballs or a paper template. Thus, it was time for some quick engineering!

     This tool was designed in TinkerCAD, which is a free website where you can create 3d models for 3d printers.The tool uses the 3 base sizes of Infinity; 25mm, 40mm, and 55 mm. I made one for Warmachine/Hordes base sizes too since I am a nice guy.  If you do not have access to a 3d printer, you can get objects printed on professional grade printers at Shapeways. I am looking over Shapeways' miniatures page looking for neat additions to enhance to my games, like 3d tokens for Mice and Mystics or the Starbago from Spaceballs for X-Wing.

     There is a lot of potential for tabletop terrain on the miniature railroad page. as well. For instance, dumpsters for scatter terrain in Infinity. Coke machines or astromech droids as objective markers? Window vents to spruce up buildings, like my electrical box buildings? Every table needs a TARDIS, right? Ideas abound!

   

Not Dead, Just Dad

Sorry for the silence. My wife and I just had our first child, so that is a thing....Anywhooo, I painted these 4 figs for my Ariadna Infinity force. Nice to know that I can still find time to hobby with a baby.

Also, I am TOing my first Infinity event this weekend. A 150 pt Beginner's Bootcamp. The Kansas City area's first Infinity tournament. Woot!

Arena Rex - Bloody Fun

Finally, I assembled my Arena Rex since a friend just bought some models from their, now public, online store. http://arenarex.com/collections/all

The miniatures are beautiful. They are like miniature statues, as opposed to simply game pieces. Their detail goes above and beyond anything that I have handled before, be it Forge World, Malifaux, Infinity, or Warmachine. Also, the models were not as difficult to put together as I was dreading, with them being resin. 

The minis were so much fun, that I felt the need to pose them into little action scenes. Too much fun, or perhaps too much exposure to super glue fumes (Untrue, since I was wearing a mask to protect from resin particles)/

 Miniatures of this quality deserve cool terrain to match its flavor. Thus, I 3d printed up some dangerous hazards and obstacles for the arena. https://www.tinkercad.com/things/3Jv9PeGTovP-gladiator-arena-2x3-spiked-pit-trap 

 We played a 3-way battle with 3 gladiators each to test out the system. I was curious to try multiplayer since most miniature games fall apart in multiplayer. I am happy to say that the game was balanced and quite fun. It came down to a lone model surviving, and 2 gladiators met their untimely demise to the spiked pits. Definitely, want to try and get some more minis, after I paint up what I have. 

I will go into more details on gameplay, if anyone is curious, but I was surprised how approachable/complex the rules were. I would say that it gave me the feel of something like X-Wing miniatures in that anyone off the street could play Arena Rex, but a newbie would have a hard time at beating a veteran player.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday - Malifaux Minis

     Had some fun painting up Killjoy and 4 Canine Remains for Malifaux. Blood effects were done with GW Technical Paint "Blood for the Blood God."

Shark Week!

Shark Week inspired me to finish up some partially done Space Shark projects. I knocked out 2 Rhinos (which I minimally did since I do not enjoy vehicles), an Ironclad dreadnought, and the FW Carcharodon squad that I converted, the Red Brethern, which is a Lightning Claw troops choice, if taken with the named Carcharodon, Tyberos the Red Wake.

I admit that these are not going to win any Golden Demons, but I rather focus on making things look good in Malifaux, Infinity, or Warmahordes. 40k has too many similar sculpts and too many required models for me to keep my interest.

Malifaux Tara Crew - Finished

Woop! There it is! The Tara crew is done. Malifaux is just super duper fun to paint.

Here is how I did it the green beasties

1) Prime White, so I can see the details
2) Basecoat in Vallejo Olive Green and Bright Pink
3) GW Nuln Oil wash
4) GW Biel Tan Green wash (This step really brightened everything up and made it pop)
5) Go back and highlight a tad with the same base coat colors.

The bases are pumice that was painted with Vallejo Yellow Ochre and washed with GW Agrax Earthshade. I need to go and glue bits of vegetation to the bases.

My W.I.P. Tara Crew aka the Fightn' Frog Brigade.

I waited a long time to paint my Tara crew because I couldn't find a scheme, so I decided to just paint them up like frogs. It's fun!

Kinda like this guy in a way.

Painting/Playing Malifaux and Xwing

     Thanks to a game store opening up close to where I live, The Geekery, I have been getting in weekly games of X-Wing. I am definitely more of a hobbyist, but I enjoy gaming more too!

     Here is a WIP of some spirits that I am adding to my Ressurectionists. I really enjoy the Asian horror theme the most of any other Ressurectionist units.

     My home table so far for Malifaux/Warmachine. The white chunk pieces are all things that I have been 3d printing for scatter terrain.

My pool of models that I used to make my crew since in Malifaux, you make lists after scenarios and factions are decided. Neat!

My gggggggGhosts! try and kill a gremlin riding a giant rabbit, as I hum, "Kill da wabbit, Kill da wabbit, Kill da wabbit!"

Warpwolf Alpha: Leader of the Pack.

I painted up the Warpwolf Alpha unit attachment for my Circle of Orboros.

He gets a red cape because he is the fanciest!

I am expanding on an army that I bought from a friend, so I am attempting to match his style. His model is on the left, and mine is on the right.  Ugh, I am trying to learn a bit about highlights with this army.

Wyrd Iron Painter Round 1 - Donkey "Cojo" Kong

     I am participating in Wyrd Game's Iron Painter competition, where you need to assemble and paint a miniature from any manufactor in 2 weeks with a theme. It is a one-on-one painting competition that works out off of a single elimination bracket. This round's theme was "Fool's Gold."

     I did not like Cojo's open hand. Originally, I was going to put bananas in his hand, but then I remember my love of Donkey Kong the arcade game, and the movie "King of Kong" (check it out). Thus, it was time to 3d print up some barrels for Cojo to toss at Italian plumbers. I simple sliced off his thumb, rotated it, and greenstuffed over the cut marks.
     Cojo, much like all Malifaux models so far, was very enjoyable to paint. I challenged myself this time to have more detailed eyes, instead of simple 2 color ones. I met my deadline, and let's see if I get to push on to Round 2. Win or Lose: I am going to keep going in the challenge unofficially, in order to get my Malifaux Crews painted.

The Start of my Circle

     So far for the Riven Bonds league, I have more paint points, than gaming ones....It is fine because I wanted this to be a reason to paint up models that I have had for over a year, and I love painting Privateer Press models.

Best Gorax or Greatest Gorax?

     Blanka's back baby in Gorax form.

Multiplayer Infinity: Aristeia Gladiator Battle

     We ended our "Welcome to N3" 7-week league with a big event. The first league, I tried to have everyone fight a giant robot, but that failed, since they killed the robot too easily. Instead, I took some ideas from other Infinity events and a Malifaux brawl that I ran to create this mission. The link will take you to the Google Doc, which you can feel free to edit and or use to your heart's content.

     The rules work fairly simple. Everyone can take a single multi-wound model, either 2+ wounds, Dogged, or No Wound Incap, that isn't a TAG or Achilles. You roll Initiative to see who places their figure first, and activates first. Then you play 5 rounds with the following scoring.

• 3 points for knocking an enemy to Unconscious or Dead, but not points for both. No Coup de Gras can be executed. Unconscious models will just die at the end of the order that they will killed. Exception: Regeneration, but the killer will still score points, as if their target died.

• 1 point for assisting in a kill, which means causing at least 1 wound to a model. Immediately score this point, when the Armor roll is failed, no matter if the model is healed later.

• 1 point for turn in which you didn't die.

• -3 points for a death and get sent back to a random deployment zone on the next turn.

Players’ scores cannot go below zero.

     I took a HoloProjector lvl2 Selpuchere Knight that disguised himself as a lowly Fusilier. He battled bravely against Ajax, Phoenix, Father Knight, and a Chronotid. Sadly for the Church, the evil E.I. won the day with the Chronotid punishing the other combatants with its cowardly Plasma weaponry.

One thing that I would change, is that I would let any respawning players be able to place their model anywhere on the board on the final round, so that way people can get some revenge kills. The mission was a hit, everyone enjoyed themselves, and they said that they would like to try it again.

Relearning WarmaHordes with the Riven Bonds League: Circle of Orboros

Here are my 15, 25, and 35 pts lists of the Path of Devastation: Riven Bonds 4-week League. I have Cygnar all painted, but I want to play Circle since I love the game for the big base models, like Warbeasts and Warjacks. Here is what I have to work with models wise.

I am going to play pBaldur to learn with since he seems to be a balanced caster that can support beasts and infantry. He can control the board with his feat and forests, and he can do an assassination in a pinch.

I have to run a Blackclad in my lists since I can upgrade him with XP bonuses to buy new skills for the model. I love the idea of the league because it is a participation league that rewards game play and painting.

Infinity - Knights...IN.SPAAAACCEEEE!

     I broke out a dream team list for my Military Orders of PanOceania at my 300 pt League night yesterday. Magister Knights have always been my favorite models, rules-wise, in Infinity, but they are actual good models in N3, where they were gimmicks in the last edition.

     The trick with this list is to use the Joan of Arc with the Magister Knights as a Coordinated Order. This way, you can use the Magisters' Panzerfausts, which are Burst 1, and Joan as the SpearHead to shoot her Spitfire with 2 dice at a single target. Coordinating, like this, only gives your enemy a single ARO, which can really take away the power from an enemy Link Team.
     Another trick is to start the Magisters linked, so they are not Impetuous. Alternatively, you can start them Impetuous on Turn 1, in order to use their Impetuous as free movement, dubbed the "Slingshot." This tactic would burn a precious Command token to form the link though, so it probably is not worth it in N3.
     Either way, it is nice that you can load up on Knights now, where in N2, Military Order lists lived and died by the lowly Order Sergeant.

Warmachine Riven Bonds League - Steelhead Insignia 3d Model

I designed this Steelhead Insignia for my local WarmaHordes league since you can get an XP bonus for designing a piece of terrain with the logo. I am going to 3d print these, and give one to whoever beats me, which will be a lot of logos since I have played regularly in years......

Here is the original logo. You can download the 3d file that I created for free at https://tinkercad.com/things/2djXpuMMEhR. Enjoy!

3d Printed Malifaux Proxy - Steam Trunk

The Steam Trunk for Malifaux is notorious for being a beast to put together, and it is! Thus, I decided it would just be easier to 3d print one. 

If you cannot tell from my blog's name, I am a classroom computer teacher, who won a 3d printer from a Coding contest. So, I have access to my own printer. 

My First Painted Malifaux Crew, Yan Lo and the Ancestors

I had always looked lovingly towards Malifaux since I like the setting, the focus on objectives, and the Fate deck (everything is cards, no dice). Also, I don't have any Undead armies in my other systems, so Malifaux time for this guy!

The figures are very tabletop quality, but I had fun painting them. If I got bored painting one of them, then I stopped. I picked Yan Lo because I always loved "Big Trouble in Little Chinatown" as a kid.

I wanted my big samurai figure, Izamu, to look ghostly since he is a spirit, but he came out looking like Mr. Sinister from the X-Men comics, which is okay with me, too. Chiaki (the pink dress wearing model) was very fun to paint surprisingly. I like all of her little details, and the chi wave she is riding on.

These skeletons wear a big boring to paint, and I disliked how their spears and flags were constantly moving during paint. The Malifaux plastics can be ridiculously fragile. I decided to paint them in the colors of the Foot Clan from TMNT. Toshiro (the samurai with his guts out) was fun to paint since his guts are hanging out.