Godtear Ascended Pledge Painting by Lawnor

I’m back up to date with my collection.  I still need to pick up and paint Jaak, Lilly, and Durthax and I’ve got everything.  It’s almost Christmas, you now.  Hint hint.

A few weeks back I attended the Melee In The Midlands tournament.  I didn’t do very well (I came in 10th), but I did win best painted.  That’s 2 for 2 for Godtear events, and my third lifetime Best Painted award.  Zatu also had some dscounts so I was able to pick up Fenra at a small saving.  He’s currently being worked on.

We went to our first tournament a few weeks ago.  I’ve done events for Warmachine and Guildball in the past.  This felt more relaxed.  It was a fun day for everyone.  No one took anything too seriously.  No game ever felt rushed, and I never felt like my force was countered by my opponents at list building time.  Every round felt like it was a good, balanced game that I was in with a real chance of winning.  We’re booked in for another in September.  if you’ve ever been tempted to play, or to attend an event I highly recommend it.  events can be found HERE.

I painted 2 copies.  One for me, one for a friend (the 7 year old’s dad).  They have different basing schemes, and I painted the Gearhawk eyes differently.

This leaves just 3 more warbands left to buy and paint (Jaak, Lilly, and Fenrir.  Donations and links to bargains gratefully accepted) and I’ve finished the entire range.  There’s a 4th being teased right now.

I painted 2 copies.  One for me, one for a friend (the 7 year old’s dad).  They have different basing schemes, and I painted the wood on the shields differently.

I painted 2 copies.  One for me, one for a 7 year old friend.  They have different basing schemes.

I found another Godtear warband going cheap on ebay.  It was broken.  His arm had come off so it was clearly trash no one would buy it so I haggled him down as I would have to go to all the trouble of repairing the model.  If only I knew anything about building toy soldiers?  However will I cope?

I’m currently signed on for this UK event if anyone else is going?  It’s my first Godtear event.

I won me a Golden Button this week for this project.  Thanks, OTT.

Community Spotlight

I got Godtear painted and table ready about 5 minutes before Covid and lockdown kicked in and I wasn’t allowed in the same room as another human for around 18 months.  This meant the game never got played.  I assumed it never would as it’s moment had passed and the world had moved on.

However, about a year ago a friend of mine who also backed the KS decided he really needed to give the game a fair chance to decide if he was keeping or selling his stuff, so we tried it and we loved it.  It’s a great game.  It’s simple.  There’s not much you can do, so that makes everything you do feel important.  In a full size 3 champions vs 3 champions game you only get to make 12 action per phase (2 per champion, and each champion has a unit of followers who can also take 2 actions), 2 phases per turn (Plot and clash.  The plot phase is about getting in to position, and setting up for the clash, and the clash is mostly about fighting and stomping banners), with a max of 5 turns in a game, usually ending sooner.  Despite this, it’s a challenging, fun game.  You get very few actions, so every action matters and you can get lost in analysis paralysis so easily.  It’s simple enough that my regular opponent is a 6 year old and he always poses a challenge and occasionally beats me (usually with a little help from me or his dad in the final round.)

Everyone should give this a go.  The starter boxes say they’re enough to try the game.  They lie.  They have 2 champions in, but a 1v1 game has nothing to it.  You’re not making any decisions.  You’re just doing what the stat cards say you can.  A 2v2 game is a full experience.  All the rules and stat cards are free online so there’s no reason you can’t mock up a pitch and proxy the whole game, or buy 1 starter set and proxy a couple of warbands.  The KS models often appear cheap on eBay.  I have printed up all the cards at double size for the 6 year old as he is still learning to read.

I picked up 4 new champions during Black Friday and got them painted over Christmas.  I’ve already used Jeen and Keera in a game.  Here’s my results.

I entered the weekend with one days work left to go, and an unexpected toddler wanting to play with me, so I was just about able to finish everything Sunday night.

And there we have it.  an 86 model Kickstarter fully painted in under 3 months since it arrived (First post Nov 25th 2019, last post Feb 17th 2020).  A new personal best.  And its done with enough time for me to do a project or two before 126ish Reichbusters minis arrive (Due in Antwerp Feb 28th, then being shipped to backers soon after).

Here are some group shots:

I tried my hand at fixing that broken sword.  I was going to put a pin down the middle of it to act as a scaffold for green stuff but the drill bit was wider than the blade.  I was able to pad some green stuff around the end, but I’m not very good with this stuff and the blade was too close to the body for me to work with.  As such he is now holding something of an iron sausage with a hilt.  I tried and it’s a learning experience at least.

I made more progress than expected this weekend.  Lorsann is all done except the base, which I’ll finish of when I do Finvars.  I made a good start on Finvar too.  I see dark leathers, and some bronze and iron in his future.  If I’m left alone I expect to have this Kickstarter fully painted this weekend.  Of course, it would help if there was a Weekender to paint to….

I was starting work on the elven flesh tones last night and I noticed this broken sword.  I was getting ready to email SFG about it but as I had this project I thought I’d check the pictures.  It appears the sword arrived intact and broke at some stage between removing the packaging and priming and I didn’t even notice.  Thankfully, everything else appears fine.

If you buy in to Godtear use this as your warning: The thin parts of this plastic are fragile enough to break without you even noticing.

On an unrelated note, here’s a Warhammer Underworlds question:

I bought Shadespire a long time ago, played a few games and haven’t had the chance to pick it up again, although I would like to give it more playthroughs.  For Christmas I got given two new warbands as fun painting projects (Underworlds stuff is great for trying new schemes/model types without feeling like you need to buy a whole army).  “Ylthari’s Guardians” has Nightvault on it and “The Grymwatch” has Beastgrave.  They both say all I need is any core box, but didn’t Nightvault add magic and new dice?  If I try to play as either will I quickly find I need the magic dice or anything not in Shadespire?

Also, does anyone else find it odd that there’s virtually no blurb on those boxes telling you who is inside?  I was looking at Ylthari’s Guardians trying to work out if they are ghostly or undead.  They appear to be ghostly dryads.  I don’t know AoS lore.  Are all dryads like this?  Are they special?  Are they part of the ghost army, not the elves?  It struck me as odd that they weren’t including a paragraph of fluff/lore on the box to help sell the product, not just inform the buyer.

I was able to finish Rhodri and Titus this weekend, although I didn’t finish varnishing until later than I usually pack up, but I refused to call it quits when I was so close to calling them done.

This just leaves these two last warbands.  I’m really not sure what colours to paint them.  Finvarr looks ninja-ish so I’ve been thinking of multiple blacks, possibly with some brighter accent colours?  Perhaps base them all loosely on the Knights of Ren?  As for Lorsann, I was originally thinking greens, but I’ve already got a lot of them in this game.  Perhaps I’ll base her on my GB Hunters Guild scheme?

Any suggestions?

I’ve had two birthdays and Second Christmas this weekend so not much time for painting.  I’ve still got the hair to finish and the iron will need recovering and touching up, but then Rhodri will be done.  I should get to focus on Titus this Saturday.  Reichbusters leave China this week and I want to have both these two done before I’ve got all that plastic washed and ready to prime.  I’d like to get the remaining two warbands done too, but I’m not expecting that, although I think I heard its 5 weeks for the cargo ship to get to France and I imagine at least another week after that before I get it so who knows?

I finished the current batch of warbands, and started work on the last 2 that got a core colour painted over Christmas.  That still leaves 2 more with just primer on them.

It appears my lightbox is loosing its Oompf.  Its not the GreenStuffWorld one OTT sell, but its almost identical.  It has a stop of LEDs glued to the top front.  Can they fade over time?  I assumed LEDs either worked or didn’t, no in between.

The plan for the weekend was to finish off Rattlebone and then base and varnish the current batch.  However, I started thinking about how I was going to paint Raith Marid and decided I would follow one of Duncan’s Skink guides as I had no better ideas and thought I might learn something new so now he’s mostly painted and basing and varnishing can wait for him.

While watching that guide I noticed another video for painting cool looking jade weapons.  I was concerned about painting his armour steel and the blades steel so now I’m thinking this could break up the model and I’m keen to try this guide on something.  Any thoughts?  Also, what colour should I paint the shoulder gem, or his cloth/leather?

I’ve plugged my skin tones in to a colour wheel app as best as I can and here’s the results.  I’m thinking I make the coins on the skirt copper and the sash a yellow / yellowy-brown.  The skirt should likely be a generic leather matching the material on the bracers as a neutral background?

I finished 2 more warbands over the weekend and made more progress on the third. I’ll base and varnish them all at the same time once they’re done.  Then I think I’ll just have 5 more to go, 3 of which are already started.

I was also lucky enough to win a Golden Button for my efforts so far!

First day back at work (It sucks) so I’ve had very little time to paint.  I’ve gotten the black done, painted some rope on a banner, and highlighted the bone on the totems and banner.  Tomorrow I think its leather on the Orks, which should just leave the red cloths on their leader and the fire on his axe.

New years eve was a painting write off and I spent most of today babysitting, but this evening I managed to finish off the metals.  Its back to work tomorrow morning, and in the evening I have to figure out what colours I’m painting the rest.  The orks look mostly done now so those decisions should be simple enough (leather, black cloth, some red cloth and fire on the axe.  However, I have no idea how to handle the scales for Sneeki Pete and his goblins.  Some of them look like they are wearing the scale.  Others look like thescales are part of them.  I’ve no idea how to handle them.  Pics of painted pieces would be appreciated.

I spent most of today pretending to be a “responsible adult” by doing lots of housework, and I’ve a freind on his way over for some Space Hulk now so I’ve not done much painting today.  I’ve painted the hair, undercoated the metal areas, put down a single layer of bronze base coat and done a little work on the banner.  I’ve people coming round tomorrow for new years eve board gaming so I probably won’t get to pick up a brush at all.

Thats everything based and varnshed and put on one side to set properly.  Now to pick the next warband to start on.  Orky skin I think?

OK ts a few hours later and its time for bed.  Here’s my progress.