Ok, so, these pictures are awful, and I apologise. Light isn’t great in here right now, I’ll see if I can get a few more in the next few days.
Few things: My poor Lamassu was damaged during transport, hence the weird looking cracks on the arms. The Kdaii aren’t quite finished, yet. I plan to sculpt up the bases to be completely engulfed in fire, so that you can’t see where one base ends, and the next begins. This army was done in three weeks, so unfortunately, a lot of the little stuff had to be put on hold in favour of “completeness” for the tourney. Bases: I plan to edge the bases with a very dark brown (almost black) in order to let the models pop out a little more. Right now, the browns of the bases kind of blend everything together. The yellow light doesn’t help much either. : /
EDIT: I just realised that I put my train backwards on the display base. The hitches really do connect, I promise.
Thanks for the battle reports, a very interesting read.
I’ve also found wood elves, in the right hands, can actually be a pain in the backside. It can be a nightmare getting any points off them if they’re played right.
For some reason it never occured to me that a lammasu could miscast (I mean, obviously it can, but being a low level I thought the chances pretty small). That really is a bummer.
Nice looking army and nicley themed. It’s always shocking when you get your models together and look at it and find that there’s hardly any units.
DaCrusha: I did have a Smith initially during test games. In fact, instead of the Kdaii, I was running a Smith, and a Deathshrieker (both of which get added for this upcomming October tournament).
He turns the Dreadquake from average into incredible with that reroll, but I was finding more and more that I desperately needed a unit that was capable of taking on ranks by itself, to tie things up, and could deal out some damage on its own. Enter the brand new Kdaii minis. heh.
I dropped the machine and the Smith and never looked back, heh. I don’t know if it was the correct decision, but given the matchups I ran up against, I think it worked out well. The Deathshrieker/Smith/Dreadquake would have done better against the Orcs and Lizards than the Kdaii did, but the Kdaii ran roughshod over the other three armies.
(EDIT: Also, that Lamassu eats up a huge amount of points. It kills me to say so, but I think I’m dropping him for the October tourney. Want to try out a really fast Chaos Dwarf list, maybe mount him on a Taurus (I bought the two different kinds of Bale Taurus, one for Taurus, one for Lamassu), take a lot of Kdaii, Bull Centaurs, Iron Daemons, Wolf Riders, backed up by maybe some Blunders. Not sure, going to write up list in a bit and see what I can do.)
Thanks, Copper and Karring: I think I’m going to hit the very edges of the fire with an orange/red mixture to give it a bit more definition, as I’m not entirely happy with how it looks right now. I’ll do that after I sculpt the base flames.
Nilbog: I just had no idea whatsoever that Wood Elves could even be played like that. :P You’re right, everything but the characters is dirt cheap, and the characters are impossible to get rid of since they just hop from unit to unit avoiding things and moving through your line. It was bananas.
Thanks for the comments, guys! I can’t believe I actually got it done in three weeks!
Nice Report, and I do think that a little more orange and red would be good for the K` daii even if the pic is probably eating the existing reds. Perhaps a liitle bit soot at hte highest places, too.
Normally you would envision it from the point of hotness, the more to the core, the hotter, the more yellow/white.
With smaller fires i do it like reverse dry brushing, Yellow at the core, heavy drybrush with fiery orange, drybrush with red and stipling with black.
I have ordered mine and am waiting for them but I plan to even start with a bluish white at the bottom core and work out from there with perhaps 5 colors from yellow white, sunburst yellow, burning orange, burning orange+blood red and blood red, black soot as addition and increasing to the top.
Will try to do the armor black with glowing recesses.
Base size for Dreadquake - I just built one out of plasticard and greenstuff that would fit under the carriage to make transport/gaming easier. Since Warmachines don’t actually have bases, I figured I’d make it as unobtrusive as possible.
As for the playability: I’m a fan of the Dreadquake. It hits harder than any other warmachine of its kind (due to the AP on the shell), and continues to do a bit more damage in an opponents turn. It is virtually indestructible from shooting/magic (barring the Initiative test ones, obviously) due to it’s six wounds and 5+ save.
The downside? It’s 215 points. The bloody thing just isn’t worth ten points more than a Hellcannon for what you lose (monster stats, a flank guard for your other warmachines, panic check from the cannon, et cetera, you guys know the rules). I love it, it is easily the most gorgeous looking of our war engines, but if you take it, the same premise for the Lamassu holds; you’d be better optimised with a different choice.
I take it because I love the look of it, and because even though it is hideously expensive, it still does a lot of damage. I’d suggest bringing a Daemonsmith to the table for maximum damage.
I have these same issues with the Dreadquake, khedyarl. I absolutely love it too, but it’s not the Swiss army knife of tricks that the Hellcannon is, alas! … damn Initiative tests!
Alright, after a very, very extended break from painting, I’m back.
I’ve decided that I was out of my goddamned mind with those hideous orange sandy dune base things I had, so I spent the last two painting nights working on these:
I’m much, much happier with how these look, and they’re not even finished yet. Still need to wash the cracked earth, and paint around each edge, and I have some dead-grass clumps from GW that I plan to scatter around sparsely.
QUESTIONS FOR THE VIEWERSHIP:
For those of you that remember what my Infernal Guard look like (or just scroll up), and what my Iron Daemon/Dreadquake look like, what do you think - should I do the edging on the shoulder pauldrons, and the shield in the same “gold” colour? Or keep it dark, like it is now?
I like the cracked earth look, how did you manage it? Dry spackle? Ive fooled with it but cant seem to get a “cracked” look that I like. A tutorial would be awesome!
Gunnerson: First you try spackle, then you try wall filler, then you bite the bullet and buy 60 bases from BaseOfWar.
My first couple times out I was very unhappy with the results, then a friend of mine picked up from bases from base of war, and I really liked how they looked, so I picked some up for myself.
