Hochland - Gargobot's Imperial Log (currently painting BB Amazons)

[juicytomatoes]

Those swordsmen look really good! And I'm chiming in on the army shot

[Gargobot]

Not really, looks great mate. As usual.

Thank you very much. As usual.

The addition of cream to the colours is very visually pleasing, nice one!

Thx mate!

I love how you paint so smooth, these swordsmen really "pop" also. Top job!!

Thank you. Smooth painting that pops? Sounds like a slogan for sodapop miniatures ^^.

They look fantastic, man. As always your highlighting skills never cease to amaze me. I will say I think I prefer less cream on them just so it doesn't threaten overwhelming the model, but they still look awesome.

I do too, but the swordsmen unit is still pretty much green and red only, so these go a bit over board with the cream to break that up a little.

they look great gargobot, i think a new armyshot would be in place here!

ah nice....you finished them....they look really cool...and i agree with coalesce here actually..im curious to see what you have of empire by now...

I agree with those two from The Netherlands! An army shot!

Those swordsmen look really good! And I'm chiming in on the army shot

Thanks guys! I have a tournament in February for which I still need to paint some stuff, after that I wanted to go on a painting hiatus at least from the Empire. I'll take a picture of the army then.

Amazing painting as always... when are we having our next game?

I hear murmurs of the 21st, assuming you have the day off.

So I didn't get much painting done just one measly flamer. I know it's not my best work, but the goal here is tabletop standard and I guess that at least has been achieved.
Judge for yourselves:

[mrtn]

Of course it's table top standard (plus!), don't be silly.

[Demoulius]

Nice plog you have here Abit misleading for Gargobot Imperial log but still plenty of pictures of Empire minis

And yea, dont worry about the flamer. Hes defenitly table top(plus) standard

[Kaos]

Very cool flamer Garg!

Cheers-Kaos

[Astraeos]

That flamer is more than table top standard I reckon!

[sigur]

Happy new year and a nice flamer you got there. I'm not awfully fond of the miniature design but the paintjob definately is very cool. The Swordsmen are nice as always. I like the silver on the shields. Looks neat.

[grhino]

Empty your mailbox mate! Also: update your blog!!!

[Gargobot]

Of course it's table top standard (plus!), don't be silly.

Having been to a couple of tournaments in the last months, my perspective on TT standard was somewhat lowered. You're right of course, and thank you.

Nice plog you have here Abit misleading for Gargobot Imperial log but still plenty of pictures of Empire minis

And yea, dont worry about the flamer. Hes defenitly table top(plus) standard

Well only a bit, the majority of posts is about the good men of the Empire. And I'm fairly positive this will be even more so in the upcoming month.
The title is just to keep people of questionable character out, people who don't like what's good and right in the world, or in short: The Empire.

That aside, thanks man!

Very cool flamer Garg!

Cheers-Kaos

Looks like he caught the eye of a Kaos-god, that's good news... for him. ^^

That flamer is more than table top standard I reckon!

Good thing there seems to be a consensus on this, because I didn't change anything on the other flamers.

Happy new year and a nice flamer you got there. I'm not awfully fond of the miniature design but the paintjob definately is very cool. The Swordsmen are nice as always. I like the silver on the shields. Looks neat.

Wow this happy new year part really shows that I didn't update my log in quite some time. Still, happy new year to you too!
Also thanks for the nice comment.

Empty your mailbox mate! Also: update your blog!!!

Done...

For the tale I did a lot of procrastination, spiced by the occasional session of "slapping-on paint", which got me this:


I also had to get 16 halberdiers done for a tournament in February.





And then listening to the Painting Tabled podcast I decided to finally dabble in freehands:


The Wizard who should ride that horse has been shelved for now, I don't like the mini that much, and I'm not sure if that's something I even want to have when the new book comes out.

So for now I'm working on the command unit for my halberdier horde, including the standard on which I'll try some more freehanding.
I'd really appreciate some comments on the freehand work, cause I think there's obviously room for improvement.

...and done!

[dwarfhold13]

Man, I wish I could paint as much as I use to. School has kept me so unbelievably busy, but I seem to have stopped by here and I have to say, awesomesauce! Freehand really isn't that hard, and once you get the idea of 2D depth down, it gets better quickly with practice. Keep it up!

[Astraeos]

That freehand looks good to me, maybe the star in the lower picture could use a little adjusting but other than that it's great.

[Jon Kerr]

Beautiful paintjobs, you really are an excellent painter!

My only slight criticism might be the static grass on the bases... its VERY bright green. Personally I'd be tempted to mix in some patches of more neutral/green grasses (usually known as burnt static grass colour I think) to tone it down and make the bases look as realistic as your paintjobs.

[Breazer]

looking good Gargo... im liking the horse a lot...incredibly smooth painting that

[Elfboy]

Sprung that one on us, came from nowhere! Very nice surprise, good to see your stilling doing some Empire.
Horse looks great too, will you be converting a wizard rider for him instead?
Freehand has come out nicely as well. While I'm no expert, I've found so far that keeping the paint very thin and building it up bit by bit
helps to keep it look a bit more delicate and natural (as in doesn't look like it's paint sitting on the surface of a model). Hope it helps.
Look forward to the halberdier command.

[Lord Dan]

You make me feel a lot like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cnss3F6yxA

Insert your updates in place of a van.

[Gargobot]

Man, I wish I could paint as much as I use to. School has kept me so unbelievably busy, but I seem to have stopped by here and I have to say, awesomesauce! Freehand really isn't that hard, and once you get the idea of 2D depth down, it gets better quickly with practice. Keep it up!

Thx man, I'm doing more freehands now, trying to get better. I recently found some of my old minis and I've really come a long way. I hope it's gonna be the same with freehand painting.

That freehand looks good to me, maybe the star in the lower picture could use a little adjusting but other than that it's great.

Thank you, I'll get back to it once I paint the rider. Lore of Heavens looks pretty sweet to me right now, so that might happen rather sooner than later.

Beautiful paintjobs, you really are an excellent painter!

My only slight criticism might be the static grass on the bases... its VERY bright green. Personally I'd be tempted to mix in some patches of more neutral/green grasses (usually known as burnt static grass colour I think) to tone it down and make the bases look as realistic as your paintjobs.

Well I mixed in a bit more of the darker grass I have at home, hope that'll help. Thanks man.

looking good Gargo... im liking the horse a lot...incredibly smooth painting that

Thanks man trying my best here, always if somebody appreciates it.

Sprung that one on us, came from nowhere! Very nice surprise, good to see your stilling doing some Empire.
Horse looks great too, will you be converting a wizard rider for him instead?
Freehand has come out nicely as well. While I'm no expert, I've found so far that keeping the paint very thin and building it up bit by bit
helps to keep it look a bit more delicate and natural (as in doesn't look like it's paint sitting on the surface of a model). Hope it helps.
Look forward to the halberdier command.

The rider will be one of the 6th ed wizards. Most people don't use mounted wizards anyway, so he'll stand out enough as it is. Also I suck at conversions.
Motivation has been low the last couple weeks, so I'm still plugging away at the command unit. At least the banner itself is done.

You make me feel a lot like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cnss3F6yxA

Insert your updates in place of a van.

Thanks, maybe one day it'll not just be the build-up that's awesome, but the actual product i.e. painting.

So what do I have for you today? Well I finally finished that freehand banner, and although I'm not that convinced myself I'll post pictures. Comments and criticism are welcome, but I'm pretty self-conscious about this, so be honest, but not too honest.



What else did I do in the hobby... Ah, yes. I went to a tiny local tournament yesterday. 1 day event, 16 players.
This was a small 1800 pts tourney. Probably the last one I attended with the 7th edition army book, so I felt like writing this down for old time's sake. I really enjoyed the old army book.

So this was my list:
General of the Empire, General, Shield, Full Plate Armor, Ironcurse Icon, Dragonhelm - 110 Pts.
Wizard Lord, lvl4, Talisman of Preservation, Earthing Rod, Lore of Death - 280 Pts.

Captain, GW, Armor of Meteoric Iron, BSB - 104 Pts.
Battle Wizard, Scroll, Lore of Death - 90 Pts.
Battle Wizard, Seal of Destruction, Lore of Death - 110 Pts.
Warrior Priest, Shield, Heavy Armor - 96 Pts.

25 Flagellants, C - 260 Pts.
40 Swordsmen, M, S, C, 5 Archers, Standard of Discipline - 320 Pts.
39 Halberdiers, M, S, C, 5 Archers - 255 Pts.

Great Cannon - 100 Pts.
Mortar - 75 Pts.

Total: 1800

Game 1, Michael – WoC: Michael currently holds 2nd place on the German rankings. So despite my best efforts not to be intimidated by that, I didn't feel good about my chances. He played a Lord on disk, MoT, charmed shield, sword of might. A BSB on horse, a level 2 with lore of Death, 3rd eye of Tzeentch and a dispel scroll. He had a unit of 8 knights, two units of Marauders, one with GWs 35 strong, one with flails 30 strong, both with the MoS. 5 Chaos Hounds, 5 Horsemen and a Hellcannon.
He basically set up opposite of me and rushed everything forward, his Horsemen off to a side to go after my war machines and his hounds tried to lure my halberdiers out or to block them respectively. My flagellants reformed three wide, touching my side of the board, to secure the war machines' flank, he charged them regardless to bind them for a round while he went after my other two units. As it happened my block of swordsmen stood a couple inches further out than the halberdiers (cause I needed to move them up to have my Death spells in range, and they couldn't move back fast enough to close the gap and the halberdiers were blocked by the dogs). So he charged all his units into them. Luckily only the knights and one block of Marauders rolled high enough to complete the charge, and my unit remained steadfast, even after his Lord made mincemeat out off my General. This gave me the opportunity to charge my flagellants and halberdiers into combat and win by a large enough margin so both his units fled, his knights (with the Lord) only able to rally on snake eyes. Unfortunately I didn't realize that at the time and tried to run them down with my swordsmen, who consequently stood in a forest when the Hellcannon finally managed to charge them. They lost combat, weren't steadfast because of the forest, fled and were overrun. If I had just reformed I'd have probably kept my swordsmen, my army would've had a strong center and I could've gotten a small victory - but I got greedy. After that my halberdiers and flagellants couldn't weather his remaining forces and were destroyed. The worst was; his one remaining knight failed a dangerous terrain test so the Lord could rally on his normal LD, 2 inches away from the board edge. Which he did, 4:16 major loss.
Lesson of the game: Don't get greedy. Think and hold the line!

Game 2, Christian – Dwarfs: This was a very easy win for me. Christian's army was very fluffy. Small units and risky game play lead to a tabling. Nothing much to say here. 20:0.

Game 3, Martin – Tomb Kings: In the final match of this small event I came up against Martin who beat me 17:3 on our last encounter. I was determined to play better this time. And I did. This is actually a rather boring match consisting mostly of stalling on my part and his overconfidence in his war machines. No combat until the 5th turn. In the end 3x Caress of Laniph and 3x Spirit Leech weren't enough to kill either one of his characters. And because he forgot to dispel my WP's prayer, that made him and his unit unbreakable, neither he nor I gave up a lot of victory points. 10:10.
With my 7 points from painting and turning in my list on time this left me with 41 tournament points and 5th place. And of course I had a great time, all three of my opponents were super fun.

While there I also bought two newly released items:

So you know what's coming.

[Astraeos]

Imperium? I think you have the wrong game here mate! What's that icon on the banner meant to be?
Ooh, Demigryphs!

[Gargobot]

The one side is supposed read Rhya and to look like this coat of arms. An oak leaf with two acorns. The other side is supposed to read Taal and show stylized antlers, originally of a stag but I kinda screwed up there, so it's now half-elk.
So much for me hoping it would be discernible without explanation.
A thing though that rattles me, and has like 2% relevance to your comment of me having the wrong book, is that they embossed EMPEROR KARL FRANZ on the wagon chassis for all the altars. I get that GW is an English company and Reikspiel is apparently English with lots of nonsensical German thrown in, but still, I liked to think an Empire army would speak German in Germany and French in France, etc. I'm not particularly keen on filing that off (it's not in an easily accessible spot) and whatever I put there after, isn't gonna look as nice as the original.
Anyway, sorry I got off on a rather negative tangent here.
Thank you for your comment, is what I meant to say.

[Astraeos]

I'll admit I did suspect antlers but was not 100 percent on that. Sorry dude, I was a bit of a **** just then wasn't I?
Maybe it'd be better if GW just left blank scrolls on their models like they did with the plastic Griffon.

[Breazer]

oh dear....he is at it again....im hoping you will make something epic out of that