Sunday, January 31, 2010

Warmachine in the Works

After years of interest in the Warmachine game system by Privateer Press I have finally taken the plunge. I must say that I love the ruleset- much better than 40K in my opinion. The main thing that attracted me was the miniatures- have to love ten ton warjacks and their magic-rich warcasters who command them!

In the near future I will show some of my first minis- I chose the very Imperialist Russian-inspired Khador army to start as my first faction. In the meantime, I have been working on some Khadorian terrain with a winter theme.

First up are my Khadorian hovels(shown below). The brickwork is sytrene model railroad brickwork, the windows are simply "granny grating", the rivet-work is all made from the very simple "glue drop" method. The Khadorian banners are hand-made(hardened paper towel) and can be removed(so that the buildings can double for 40K structures).

The next pic shows the detail of the "heat pipe" going into the building. My theme for the khadorian village I am working on is a remote, COLD community. Heat is pumped into each structure via pipes from a community coal bunker facility. Yes, that is a "bendy straw"...

I am especially happy with how the coal bunker turned out. The central, semi-cylindrical piece represents a coal-fed furnace. I simply dressed up half a toilet paper roll. The six heat pipes leaving the stryofoam base are more straws but with wheels from a 1/72 scale tank filling in as control valves. The item on a metal rod is supposed to be a 'gong' so when the furnace is fed, the good Khadorians of the village can know to open up their ducts again as warm air is on the way! The gong is simply a resistor with soldering wire looped over the top of it.

The next pic is a view from the other side. Note that the semi-circular 'granny grating' on the sides of the tube is see-through, so I can conceivably place a flickering tea light inside to simulate the burning of the furnace. The snow effect on all buildings is a little white glue with baking soda sprinkled on top.

Here is a shot of my very messy painting desk. As you can see, I have ample amounts of Reaper, P3, Foundry, GW, Ral Partha and other paints. I must say, I still have some Ral Partha paints that I bought when I was a teenager...they are now over 20 yrs. old and still great- amazing!

Like I said, my first Warmachine figures are in the works. Here's a teaser of Khadorian warjack(Destroyer) in the process of being painted.