The Final Push – Lawnor approaches 100% painted

Models remaining:
Batch: 0, Normal: 15, Luxury: 7, Modular: 37, To Ship: 33+
(Plus 2 more that aren’t mine)

I took a week off of painted due to actually playing games.  I’m half way through my KDM Campaign, having finished my first playthrough.  I was able to sling 6 fully armed characters back through time to the beginning of the game, rather than have them die to the Gold Smoke Knight, who they were not equipped for.  I’m a few games in and without having to make gear I’ve already got most of the innovations and I’m getting ready to start work on end game gear.

I also went to my friends house for a weekend of Gloomhaven.  I retired my character.  I had the 2 box guy who was interesting, but his unique mechanics meant some scenarios were basically impossible.  I now have the Eclipse and we’re staring down the barrel of the last few missions.  This means I’ve unlocked a new mini to paint, and I have the expansion mini to get ready for when we start that.

The following week I got some actual painting done.  I’ve a Loka Fire set I got free a while back, and they’ve been sat primed on my desk, ready to be painted in case they’re ever useful for D&D or something.  I’ve got the 5 unique minis painted now, and left the repetitive orc pawns for later.

With them done, I had half a day spare so I built up the Hide and Lion armour kits for KDM, and got all the new naked minis primed and ready for later.

I’ve been using Gorilla Glue for a while now and liking it.  I am getting fed up with how it clogs after it’s had it’s seal cracked for a while.  Constantly jamming paper clips down it to clear it between models gets frustrating.  Can anyone make any suggestions of how to prevent or deal with this better?  Or perhaps a superglue that has less issues that I can readily get in the UK?  I don’t want plastic cement.  I work with a variety of materials and want one glue to rule them all, and in my studio, bind them.

Models remaining:
Batch: 0, Normal: 12, Luxury: 7, Modular: 45, To Ship: 33+

Over the weekend I finished off the four unarmoured survivors, with a selections of weapons so I have options when I start a new game.  My next mission is to finish off the odds and ends already on my tray, and build the next few KDM minis I know I want:

• Lion gear with paired beast knuckles
• Antelope gear with shield and lantern glaive
• Hide with Cat Gut Bow, and perhaps a sword?
• Maybe an Antelope with Lantern Sword and shield?

I’m in Year 23.  On 30 the Gold Smoke Knight turns up and kills me.  I doubt I can stop him.  I’ve got Kings Man turning up in a few years too.  This gives me 5 standard hunting years to farm, build, and get the Phoenix to send a party of 6 back through time with all my best and hardest to get gear.  I’ve got 3 Ageless survivors, 2 more who could go Ageless on the hunt for the bird, and another who needs 3 more points of Understanding.  I figure 2 more years of farming to take me up to 4 oxidized weapons, although the Butcher just cost me all my resources so that might not happen, and then I look in to performing the time warp.  There’s a 67% chance of the card I need being in the birds deck, so having a hunt or two spare gives me some flexibility.

My goal is to have a time loop of 6 survivors who keep gaining stats while sat in the settlement and get sent back every 28ish years, and only ever fight to perform the time loop.  The whole settlement is based around powering them up, like a cult worshiping their gods.  Then, after a few loops, when they’re true monsters, they can face the Gold Smoke Knight.   I wonder if this is how the game is meant to be played?  I’m not sure how else people are supposed to beat him, but I’m still new to this.  It’s definitely emergent story telling!

Models remaining:
Batch: 0, Normal: 16, Luxury: 7, Modular: 45, To Ship: 33+

It’s taken almost 2 weeks, but I finished Razduun this weekend.  Someone at work has a lathe and likes wood turning so they kindly made me a plinth from off-cuts.  it was stained many many times, airbrush varnished with vallejo gloss a few times, and then given a few rub downs with furniture polish.  I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

I also got a little ground work done on the next few models, along with killing The Watcher in KDM.  Only 9 more lantern years to go.  Advice for the Gold Smoke Knight greatly appreciated.  I’m not seeing how I can hurt him yet.

Here we have some Loka Fire models, Ronaldo the Bard for KoW, and 4 unarmoured survivors for KDM.

Models remaining:
Batch: 0, Normal: 16, Luxury: 8, Modular: 45, To Ship: 33+

I was able to finish off the 10 Asterians I got in a goody back a while back.  I’ve gone for a quick and lazy paint scheme as I don’t think I have enough for even a Deadzone list and I don’t plan on getting more, so it’s unlikely they’ll ever see the table.  I’ll record the paint scheme here in case that changes:

Asterian Khaki

Base with a mix of VMC 00.988 Khaki and VMC 70.340 Highl. Afrika. Tank Crew
Wash with P3 Gun Corps Brown
Wash with P3 Bastion Grey
Drybrush P3 Hammerfall Khaki mixed with P3 Menoth White Highlight

Asterian Black/Purple

Base with VMC 70.995 German Grey
Drybrush with HP3 Hammerfall khaki or a bone or anything that’ll blend in with the armour colours when you make a mess.
Wash with GW Druchii Violet

Asterian Dark Turquoise

Base a mix of VMC 70.309 Periscopes and Miniature Paints 13 Deep Bronze Green, favouring the blue
Wash with Miniature Paints 13 Deep Bronze Green
Drybrush with Panzer Aces
Drybrush with a mix of Panzer Aces and Miniature Paints 17 Aquamarine
Drybrush again adding more Aquamarine
Drybrush again, adding Reaper 09150 Bloodless Skin or any other off-white

Asterian Glow

Base with white or silver, based on location
Apply a single coat of undiluted Com Arts 1.035 Op. Bright Rose

Asterian Blade

Base with P3 Murderous Magenta
Wash with GW Nuln Oil
Drybrush with Warcolours Pink 3 (It didn’t do much.  Skip it)
Drybrush with Warcolours Pink 1
Glaze with undiluted Com Arts 1.035 Op. Bright Rose

Asterian Basing

Base with VMC 70.869 Basalt Grey
Wash with Jan’s Magimix (See elsewhere in this thread)
Patchy wash with Handcraft Tabletop Algenmoos 267.03 Terrain Wash
Drybrush GW Karak Stone
Make a thick wash out of Vallejo pigment 73.109 Natural Umber and apply to earthy bits
Repeat drybrush over that

Working out what each model is called was a pain as they’re only sold in mixed packs and mantic have an annoying habit of making things vanish off their web store.  There was no image anywhere saying what each piece is.  I think I’ve worked it out though.  Correct me if I’m wrong.

I’ve been loving Kingdom Death (I got 3 more games in this weekend.  Butcher 2 died, with only one casualty that was probably my fault), so I’ve worked out what I want to make from my sprue of 4 unarmoured survivors.  I’ve ideas for some of the other sprues, but not enough to build all 4 people yet (Suggestions based on experience are appreciated).

Once I was done varnishing the Asterians I figured I may as well prime everything that’s ready as the airbrush was out already, so I primed the KDM people, and my Loka fire minis.  These were in the same goody back as the Asterians.  I have no interest in Loka, but perhaps these minis may prove useful, should I ever get D&D back to the tabletop?  Anyway, I thought someone might appreciate a primed pic of them so you can see the detail a little clearer.  Naked plastic or fully painted images don’t show you everything, quite like a zenithal prime does.

Until Aeon Trespass turns up, I’m left with one last Hobby Pledge for 2022: A bust or similar type model.  I’m going relatively simple to begin with.  Razduun, Undead Lord bust.  He’s a 3D print I found for free on MMF when I was trying to use up the last of my resin last year.  I’ve begun blocking out base colours, which has revealed access issues with some recesses I hadn’t realised would be problems before.

Models remaining:
Batch: 10, Normal: 12, Luxury: 8, Modular: 49, To Ship: 33+

Across the week I was able to make great progress on my skeletons, finishing them off on Saturday morning, and varnishing them on Sunday morning.  The rest of my weekend was spent playing Kingdom Death.  I’m 16 games in and still loving it.  I expect to play another campaign when I’m done with this, hopefully with real people, but I’d be happy with solo again.  Does anyone know how often playable content like the Dragon king or Sunstalker appears in the shop, and what such things are likely to cost?  I know KDM isn’t cheap, but its definitely earning it’s keep.

Here’s a little maths.  Each game cycle (hunt, showdown, settlement) seems to take 2-3 hours right now (I times myself once. it might not be accurate).  Lets say 2.5 hours average.  Its 30 cycles to meet the BBEG, with possible extra cycles in the mix.  That’s 75 hours.  I paid £275 new, after P&P.  That’s £3.66 per hour of fun, even if you ignore painting fun, planning fun, and second playthroughs.  At £400 (fullish price) that’s still £5.33 which isn’t too bad either.  Thats still cheaper than the equivalent time at the cinema these days, and you have something you can sell along after.

Anyway, maths over.  Here’s my finished skelebobs.

Movement trays.  I’ve not got any and I’ve got a moderate sized KoW army.  What’s the best way to make movement trays without spending any money?  There’s got to be a way to make them using stuff I already have lying around the house, or from household/office waste, or can “borrow” from the office.  I know I can just cut out sheets of card and maybe even glue rims on them, but I doubt that’ll survive repeated transport.  Corrugated card has good depth but the edges will look horrible.  What’s acceptable when it comes to rims?  Increasing the footprint by 5mm in each direction to provide a rail/edge, or keeping the intended footprint and having one less row and column of troops?

Sunday evening I put my Asterians back on the tray and picked out the “black” areas between the armours.  They got drybrushed, and then given a purple wash just before I went to bed, so they’re still wet in this photo.  Before bed is the best time to apply a wash, after all.

I’ve had a quick look this morning before rushing to work and I’m not convinced this has gone as well as I wanted.  Oh Well.  They’ll probably never see the table.  This is about getting them done and out of my pile of shame, while keeping them ready for play should I ever have a use.  I did win a set of Stargrave recently.  Sometimes a paint job can look like arse right up until a model is finished.  Hopefully that’ll happen here.  I’ve yet to pick out the guns, glows, eyes/visors, and the bases.  This could make all the difference.

I’ve got a bunch of modular KDM survivors I can build and it’s becoming apparent which ones I’ll want as my campaign progresses.  Suggestions and corrections are appreciated. I’m only in LY 14 so far. Right now I think I won’t build more until after my first playthrough, but if I had some solid suggestions then perhaps I could get some done for this playthrough?

The box comes with 2 male and 2 female of each of the following sets:

Unarmoured
Rawhide
Leather
Lion
Antelope / Screaming Fur
Phoenix
Lantern

Unarmoured: Bow, axe?  I started with 1 bow, 1-2 axes, and 1-2 bone swords
Swords: The Intimacy couple covers this for unarmoured
Bow: Male and female in hide armour
Katars: Male and female in Lion armour
Antelope Armour: Maybe spear?  Currently wielding swords.

Do the mask sculpts serve a purpose, or is that just for display?

Apparently, I forgot to mention that I finished my 10 plague models during the week too.

This leaves me with:

Batch: 32, Normal: 12, Luxury: 8, Modular: 49, To Ship: 33+

Not much to show off this week.  It was a rare weekend of Gloomhaven for my group.  We get in perhaps 4 weekends a year on average I think, and play 4-6 games each weekend.  This huge campaign has lasted us many years now and the end isn’t in sight yet.  I’m enjoying it, but I’d love the chance for us to play other campaign games eventually.  I also feel that my current character is occasionally a liability (I’m the two box character) to the group, even though he is enjoyable.  My retirement conditions also appear to be impossibly unless we go back and repeat a dungeon we’ve already done.  That seems like a bit of a waste, given how little we get to play anyway.  I hope Isaac Childres has learned from this and made the conditions for things a little more flexible for future iterations of the game.

Anyway, despite spending the weekend away I was able to prime, basecoat and wash my 22 skeletons.  I’ve also printed out some double sided tokens for Kingdom Death and I’ve been gluing them to some card.  keeping track of what survival actions have been used each round is impossible otherwise, and I’m not paying $20+ postage for 20 small cardboard tokens that should have been free in the core box anyway.

I beat the King’s Man Sunday evening too.  I’m now trying to work out what I ant to hunt next.  Am I ready for lvl 3 quarry?  Should I be able to face a lvl 1 phoenix?  His aging powers terrify me.  He can hit you hard enough to send your party back to the start of the game with all their equipment and skills and nothing else, or just erase everyone from time!  It’s my Lantern year 10.  A few more years of farming lvl 2 lions and goats is ok, right?  Is there anything I should be looking at to build for protection against the phoenix?

It was the 4 day Jubilee weekend so I made the most of it!  I had things to do like deal with a large Tescos deliver, mow the lawns, sign a double glazing contract etc, but I still managed to get a lot done.  I’d already basically finished these four models, but they still needed varnishing.  Thursday morning I got the airbrush out and took care of that, and applied a base coat to 10 Plague models and 10 Asterians.

This was all finished by lunch, and I left them well alone until just before bed, when everyone got a wash that could dry overnight.  Next morning the Asterians got their second wash.  The plague didn’t need one.  That evening, they all got the drybrush highlights I had planned for them.

By working around other things and using lazy/fast techniques, I’ve already painted the plague flesh and asterian armour colour and spent almost no time working on these models.  That’s 75% surface area of 20 models finished in very little time and with no effort.

With that done, Thursday afternoon I started my big plans for the long weekend: I started playing Kingdom Death Monster for the first time.  It arrived between Christmas and New Year, and I’d spent 3 months painting up the models for it.  I wanted a solid few days to sink my teeth in to it.  I didn’t want to learn the game in a rushed few hours after work one day.  I’ve tried rallying my friends to play, but we’re scattered around now and I couldn’t get three other interested people who could commit to turning up regularly (I already play Gloomhaven this way and we get perhaps 4 weekends in a year.  It’s fun, but very slow going).

The rule book is set up very well for your first game.  You don’t need to read the rules.  It has a tutorial much like a computer game.  It teaches you by having you play.  This makes the learn super fast, easy, and fun.  At the time of writing I’ve been playing for four games and I’ve still not read the rules sections after this, although I do occasionally look something up.  If you’ve read them and you know this means I’m missing something important please let me know!

The first fight was fun, but the game didn’t grab me.  Then I went back to the settlement, and that was interesting, but I wasn’t pulled in yet.  Then the hunt phase happened, and again it was fun but didn’t make the game special yet.

I set up the second showdown and weighed my options.  Go back to painting and play again tomorrow, or play another game and apply some washes before bed?  I kinda wanted to se how my new gear played out and how different the real White Lion was to the tutorial White Lion.  It had the beginning of it’s hooks in me after all.  As I got playing and the lion died giving me new resources to spend I realised I was hooked.  Not on one phase of the game.  On the cycle.  Each phase feeds the next and I constantly want to do the next phase to see how my decisions work out.  At the time of writing I’ve just finished year 9 and I’m about to face The King’s Man for the first time.  knowing this, I’ve replaced all my breakable weapons with metal ones for the first time as I expect his armour would destroy my bone blades.  He’s got 5-6 always on powers, and the most I’ve faced is 5 on the Butcher, but I normally face 2 at the moment.  I’ve not looked at what they are yet.  Am I screwed?  I don’t know.  I am concerned though.  I’m not sure I’m going to get another game in this week though, as it’s Gloomhaven with friends all this weekend, I need to finish my models, and I’m busy Tuesday and Wednesday evening.

Does anyone know if the Intimacy couple, Old Joe and Young Rachel have a specific purpose, or if they’re just optional extras to be used any time?  I’ve seen an innovation that would let two survivors be married and gain advantages when they fight together.  I assume that’s the intimacy couple?

I know there’s a good settlement tracking app out there but I’ve forgotten what it’s called.  I can keep using the cards, but keeping track of my survivors and who’s got what upgrades based on whey they were born etc is getting to be a bit messy.

If I have one complaint about KDM, it’s that the books and cards never give you a page number for anything.  Something triggers a power or an event or something that you’ve no reason to have ever seen, IE the Butcher attacks for the first time.  Would it really kill them to put a page number with that event on the timeline?  There’s a contents page, but no index.  There is a glossary instead and every entry would be so much better with a page reference.

Oh, and the stat line on the character sheets could use a second row: Base stat and Stat with equipment.  The armours could use a second box each too.  With full equipment, and current armour.  Both of these are easily fixed though.

I’ve learned two important things playing KDM:

1. After spending 4 days stood leaning over a table my legs refuse to move anymore without complaining.  I am old
2. I cannot stop narrating out loud what I’m doing while playing solo.  Does everyone do this?  Why does this happen?  Does it help me think, or make my decision more real, or is this a leftover habit from playing games with other people and declaring what I’m up to so they know?

Every morning and evening around KD:M I would watch the UKGE coverage from OTT and do a little painting.  I’d try and time washes and long drying time techniques for jest before a game or just before bed.  The armour colour on the asterians is finished.  I need to pick out an under-armour colour next, then it’s spot colours and bases.  The plague just need their bases done an a couple of quick highlights, before varnishing.  It’s frustrating to get them this close to done, but not be done.  I hope to power through and do them tonight, but I’m not sure I’ll have time to varnish.  It all comes down to how long it takes the wash on their bases to dry.

I was also able to build and base my box of 20 KoW skeletons. I was even able to squeeze 1 more skeleton and a giant skeleton rat out of the box for 22 models.

This leaves me with:

Batch: 42, Normal: 12, Luxury: 8, Modular: 49, To Ship: 33+

I also got up to date on Kenobi and Strange New Worlds.  I’m really enjoying both.  Is it just me or does SNW occasionally contradict itself?  One week the federation uses genetic engineering to disguise people for away missions.  The next genetic engineering has always been outlawed in the federation.  I’ve seen other examples of inconsistency.  They can be argued away, but it feels a little iffy.  Good show though, otherwise.  There are moments when Pike speaks and I can see and hear Kirk.  I love that we know most of the crew will be gone before Pike ends up in the chair.  This means we know most of them can die at any moment.  They’ve gotta be gotten rid of at some point before the show ends.  Unless this is setting up it’s own “Trousers of Time” splinter universe?

Also, they are very dumb at times, when they can’t figure stuff out that’s blindly obvious to the viewers.  But that’s a plot thing and I think it’s reminiscent of TOS.  A way of drumming home the point they were making.