The Elder Diary: #20140418
As my spare time becomes more scarce and I prefer to write fewer blog posts but with more interesting content (at least more focused and containing less offtopic clutter), it's been quite a few months since I posted something about my painting progress or CRPG related entries.
As a summary, that I will probably do again in the future, this is more or less all what I've been doing:
Boardgames
D&D Castle Ravenloft: Not much to say, we played the first missions, it is interesting but hard to win the bad guys!
Our ongoing Risk Legacy campaign: Finished battle 9, really cool how the game develops, and still way to go until the map "becomes fixed".
Descent 2nd edition: I liked it so much I bought the base game. Expansions seem a bit meh, until I get tired of the base game I doubt will buy anything else.
Flash Point: A collaborative game where up to 6 firemen try to save 7 people from a house while fire and smoke spreads and causes explosions.
CRPGs
Braverly Default: I'm loving it. Same as Final Fantasy series are dead (last games being a disgrace), this is a nice spiritual successor, combining Final Fantasy III job system with summonable friend special moves and combat tweaks, plus configurable difficulty setting and encounter %. And lovely graphics. Did I already say I'm enjoying it a lot?
Zelda: A link between worlds: I was reluctant to play this because the 2D Link wasn't appealing, but I tried and I actually like a lot the puzzles, but I agree on the general consensus that it is quite easy. I haven't finished it yet, but due to lack of time.
Project X Zone: More tactical than RPG, it's very similar to Final Fantasy Tactics but with simpler "fighting-like" battles.
Diablo 3 expansion: Now it finally is a roguelike and action house went to hell, so has become what it should have been two years ago.
Warhammer Quest on iOS: Along ALL expansions, and now I'm playing the additional characters, so you can imagine how much I like this game. One of the best purchases for my iPad, it's so great to have a "portable WHQ" even for holidays.
Space Hulk: One of my big dissapointments, and not due to the game itself, because the mechanics are so nicely replicated, but due to the mess of technical issues and bugs that come and go on most game updates. From neverending turns to glitches, sound muting or crappy 3D performance (I recently updated my graphics card, which makes the situation even more absurd), if the game worked tecnhically correct it would be great.
Also the DLC plague made it a "just buy the basic game, and if on sale, better" approach.
Shadowrun Returns: After finishing the main game, how with the Berlin campaign/addon free for being a backer I'm having more netrunning and turn-based combat. I still have my hopes in the fan-made content for the long term, but even without it is a nice old-school like RPG.
Fire Emblem: Awakening: This was a cool strategy-RPG mix, that hooked me to my 3DS for weeks. I pumped 30+ hours to finish the main story and didn't managed to do every side-quest and character sub-plot, so it can become a really long game if you want.
RPGs
Not much, although I'm reading a lot of Warhammer 40,000 codexes for the lore and background (literally skipping the rules). I must have read around a dozen codexes, along with companion books (new Games Workshop way of squeezing more money, put half of the lore in another book), and of course the books which I still do reviews here.
But no pure RPGs since a while...
Painting & Assembling
I'm still assembling all Deadzone minis, plus a cool Imperial Knight and some unexpected things; GW's new website and the exclusive minis touched my collector weak point so I grabbed my wish list and now have a few more things to take care of.
I'm currently painting the Imperial Knight, and had some started minis pending (some old Rogue trader-era MKVI Space Marines and some Necron basic troops) also on the queue for whenever I want to change a bit.
As usual, with my rate of painting It'll take weeks, but I prefer to go slow but leave it in a decent painting level (decent for my skills, not for normal standards which are way higher).
Apart from normal miniatures, I've finally started painting a Star Trek Enterprise model I had from my trip to Australia a few years ago. I expect to finish it soon as I don't want to ad too many details.
Tags: Boardgames Deadzone Final Fantasy Miniatures Offtopic Painting Risk Legacy Roguelike Shadowrun Space Hulk Videogames Warhammer 40000
Painting Progress 20130113
I am pretty happy because I've done two things this weekend.
First, I built an spreadsheet with all my Citadel paints, their equivalent with the new GW color names/chart, which ones are semi-dry or almost-dry (to buy new ones next week) and to have some kind of general look of which paints I might need in the future and plan accordingly.
And second, I've been painting a few hours, with the following minis being the winners.
Here is the 5th edition box plastic Dreadnought, with some specific Dark Angels props and banners. I had it half-painted so it's been more of finally following my past schema and ideas. Nothing special to remark except that it has my first attempt at Dark Angel green highlighting. I need to practice more and the photo does not show it so much, but it looks better so from now on, at least one highlight layer will be in any DA scheme miniature.
I also had from last year a lot of necrons pending painting. As they were a gift from my girlfriend it is "critical enough" so I've started the task... and they are fairly easy and quick to paint, so here is the first one I finished:
 
As I wanted to paint more necrons, I decided to start first with a small conversion I made months ago and I wanted to paint, a necron "specter" lord.
Apart from filling the gaps of the scythe, leaving plain the handle, a bit of green stuff to leave the hands more plain like necron ones and attaching a small "necron core" inside was not in need of more modding, so for once I built it a decent base.
As you can see it is not too complex, a bit of crappy "green lighting" inside, and playing with interlacing a mixture of greys with black washes until I like the cloak color. And the base is pending too, just the ruins have some color.
But I like how it really looks like a scary necron.
 
I have one more week of vacations so let's see if I can finish either a bunch of necrons or a few other minis. And I also need to work out how to improve room lighting for the photos, colors are not well captured.
Ork Stompa finally finished!
When I assembled my warhammer 40,000 ork stompa at 2009, I thought it would be a huge effort to paint. For multiple reasons I've needed 3 years to finish it. But I just ended painting it finally last night.
My painting skills need lots of improvement, I've read about some techniques for things like rust or dirt that I haven't applied, I could have given it more color (or at least the typical Goff B&W stripes and/or more red areas), but I was needing to move on to painting other of my hundreds of pending miniatures and hade auto-promised me to not paint anything else until I had finished with it.
What I had pending painting were some gretchins and the left arm, containing the cannon and missiles. If you want to see images of previous states of the stompa, check this old posts: Post I, Post II, Post III.
Behold my mighty Goff clan ork stompa:
The pictures don't do justice to some of the details, but also hide other less skilled ones ;)
Now probably I'll finish painting some pending miniatures (Dark angels space marines) and paint some Necrons, at least the ones that my girlfriend gifted me also a while ago. This 2013 one of my self-imposed goals are more painting (miniatures) less playing (videogames) so let's hope I can keep it and post lots of painted minis.
Note: Some weeks ago, I finished implementing a simple photo gallery slideshow viewer and setup a page linking to all my photos and pictures ever posted. You can also access the galleries from the right menu.
Although nothing incredible (and a bit chaotic inside galleries due to terrible naming of old images) at least allows for quick view, and in the future I'll make sure all uploaded photos are arranged correctly so that you always see them in chronological order with the newest ones displaying first.
Tags: Painting Warhammer 40000
Painting Progress - 2012-06-17
I have retaken the Stompa project, and while I still have some gretchins unpainted along the hulk and windows of the "body", I managed to paint the whole right arm practically in one morning (a record for me, considering how much the Stompa is taking to get painted).
I still feel that it is too black and I should add more red, but probably will wait until the other arm and all gretchins are painted before taking a decision of adding more red (and where).
I am not going to paint anything else (see the exception below) until I've finished the huge ork machine.
I recently searched for and ordered some "biohazard suit minis" for the Pandemic boardgame, because the infection strains look quite cool, the map looks quite cool, but the player "pawns" were too simple. So after some googling I found cheap and good looking minis and ordered a pack of 5.
As an exception to finishing first in progress minis, I have painted them today. They are missing maybe one or two details, plus filling the holes in the bases, but taking into account I did a quick low level painting with 3 colors per mini and that they don't have much detail, the result is acceptable anough:
 
After the stompa, I still have to decide, if painting buildings (not much detail/attention needed), warhammer 40k minis (got lots and varied ones) or my recent purchase, Blood Bowl teams (Humans & Orks from the gamebox and Skavens from my friend's gift). We'll see :)
Terminator Inquisitor WIP
The truth is that I have few things in my wishlist of miniatures.
I started very young with Warhammer 40.000 so for example I am proud of owning a Rogue Trader Space Marines box (almost two squads), MK.I Rhinos (two), a Predator and a Landraider.
I've been collecting for years some wanted miniatures, and for example my Eldar army comes almost fully from second-hand miniatures (like 90% of the army). Everything except a Falcon, the dreadnought and some plastic troops are old metal units.
I might try to get some old Genestealer hybirds somewhere in the future (for my genestealer cult) but it is really low priority.
But... when I was young I always wished I could have tho specific miniatures (I didn't ever saw them in local stores), the two Inquisitor Terminators. One with a breathing mask and a hood, the other with beard and a cybernetic leg. Specifically, this two dudes:
My friend Vicente told me a while ago that one of the shopping websites we use (Noble Knight) had all kinds of second-hand goods, not only books and boardgames. So a few weeks ago I tried finally to actively search for this inquisitors, remembered that comment... and found one assembled and base-coated in black for just 15$ (At ebay I've seen things like 50$ minimum for a sealed box one, without detailing the pieces inside apart from a crappy photo).
I risked and bought it... And I made the right choice, because it arrived in really good shape and I've just started painting it:
So far only has a finished black base coating, dark grey for the armor and light grey tending to white for the hood and skulls.
No highlighting and most stuff not even started, but the color scheme is in place and I'm glad with how it looks.
Also as you can notice it has some excess lead not removed in some areas, the original owner didn't cared much when assembling it... But I have already taken them out (were not so easy to spot with the black mini).
One of the two Inquisitors obtained, one left :)
Update: Thanks to ebay I was able to find the other inquisitor, yay! My greatest collector's dream came true :D
Tags: Painting Warhammer 40000
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