Miniatures Galore - Malifaux, and Warmachine!

The last couple weeks have been very busy, especially on the miniature painting end of things.  Since i was without my camera for this duration i haven't been able to update the blog, but now that i have my camera, i can show you what i've been working on!
I've been very excited to dig into these Malifaux minis by Wyrd Miniatures for awhile now.  Ever since i saw them sitting on the shelf of the FLGS (Friendly Local Gaming Store) i've wanted to get a coat of paint on them and learn the rules to this enigmatic game.  It turns out the rules lend to a rather intuitive if not indepth skirmish game with a host of beautiful miniatures devided into five different factions.  I instantly took a liking to Kirai and her Crew.  I found the spirits to be entirely unique both in this game as well as other games, so i took the opportunity to paint something different for a change.

The initial box set came with six miniatures (the five right most, plus one that isn't displayed in this picture) to which i added two additional models that i ordered separately.  the models from left to right are as follows, Gaki 1, Gaki 2, Ikiryo, Kirai, Datsue-Ba, Onryo 1, Onryo2.

The first two minis of the set that i painted were the Gaki.  In general i found these models to be good sculpts although the joints were a little messy and required modifying and pinning to keep everything together, the head on the second model also didn't fit as well as i would have liked, but in the end they turned out pretty well.  I opted for a different paint scheme from the ones indicated on the box/cards as i found it to be bland consisting of mostly greys and browns.  These models reminded me of the pink horrors of Tzeentch models so i decided to go for a vibrant pink and green paint scheme (i also wanted to try out a few new P3 paints that i had purchased, carnal pink and necrotic green).  The shading and hilighting process on these models was somewhat more intensive than i'm used to doing.  The pink was achieved by painting a base colour of vellajo pink highlighted up with carnal pink, and washed with warlock purple, and a bit of liche purple.  The green was painted with a necrotic green base coat, washed with trollblood base and finally giving a shading of Asuman blue wash in the depest recesses, the green was that brought up with a highlight of necrotic green and finally highlighted by adding underbelly blue to the necrotic green.  For all the blues i used in the painting of their robes, they turned out really green.

The next two minitures i painted from this group were the Onryo.  These minis were incredibly interesting to paint, they have a great amount of detail for a single piece model.  The robes allowed for a lot of blending work.  I don't usually use a great deal of red on my models but i really liked the paint scheme on the box so i decided to go for something similar.  The red cloaks were painted starting with a mechrite red base coat, followed by blood red highlights, washed with ogryn flesh wash, highlighted again with some blazing orange mixed into the blood red and finally some trollblood highlight (like deneb stone) into the mix for a final highlight. The blue i painted very similarly to the robes found on my retribution of scyra models.  This consists of a trollblood base, washed with asurman blue, highlighted with a mix of trollblood base and underbelly blue.

Kirai was painted at 4 am over a coffee in a rest stop along the side of a highway.  I had a lot of fun painting this model.  I hadn't decided on a colour scheme when i first started painting this model, but it gradually evolved as i went.  The orange kimono was painted with a base coat of Iyanden Darksun (ochre) and highlighted up with bad moon yellow.  from there it recieved successive washes of increasingly darker mixes of blazing orange and blood red, every time highlighting up again intermitently with bad moon yellow (highlighter yellow).  The green was a more simple process of jade green highlighted up with adding underbelly blue to the mix.  Quite the awsome model, i love the finished result, the flower blossom motif turned out better than i thought it would.

Ikiryo and Datsue-Ba were my least favorite of the set to paint.  They are great minis, but they just didn't resonate with me.  I put minimal work into Ikiryo and it definitly shows, i may go back at a later time and touch up these models if the mood ever strikes me.

All in all i'm really looking forward to getting in some games of Malifaux, now on to Warmachine.

I added a heavy rifle team to my force this week to get some anti warjack fire in the force, these guys to alright, but i find Khador is still a particularly difficult opponent, even with added fire support.

Enter the Ghost Snipers, same point cost with 5 heath boxes, small base size and a defense 18! when in cover.  These work great with two of them in Ravyn's Veil of Mist.  They also deal an auto 3 damage if they hit (which isn't hard with RAT 8 when aiming).

If that doesn't work there's always the Mage Hunter Strikeforce contingency plan.  The jack hunter rule really makes them ideal for putting hurt on jacks with armour 18 or less, they still have a little trouble with armour 20 or higher.  This is also the new paint scheme for my Mage Hunter Strike Force, only one model completed so far.

...and lastly Garryth also got a new paint job.  So thats it for now, with plenty more on the way and maybe some games of Malifaux in the near future!

Cheers
-Mallius