Tale of 4 Gamers – October Update

Well, here we are in the middle of October and it seems as if I’ve already completely abandoned the Tale of 4 Gamers within the first 6 weeks!  I’m happy to report that is not entirely true.  I did miss out of my September painting commitment, sort of…  Here’s a shot of my monthly commitment and all of them would pass the three-color minimum at least.  However, I obviously hold myself to a higher standard than that.

With this army, I’m trying to learn to do Non-Metallic Metal painting.  Not entirely sure how I’m doing but at first glance I think the models look okay.  Learning this new technique has definitely slowed me down quite a bit.  Add on top of that a very busy non-hobby family schedule and I came up short this month.

So what did I get finished… I’d say that 5 of the dwarves are 90% done.  I just have some highlighting and shading to do on the non-metallic parts.  I really spent a lot of time working on the metallic armor and weapons but don’t have much more than a basecoat on the other parts of the models:

I also did some work on the other five models.  The armor is done on the Bow-armed dwarves.  The Dwarf Warrior with the chainmail needs some work still – I’m trying to figure out how to paint NMM chainmail.  I also started painting Floi’s armor and I just wasn’t happy with how it came out so I might have to start over on him.

So that wraps up September’s commitment… or lack of commitment.  I’ll give myself +3 points in the painting requirement as they are “modlels completed late”.
Now, its mid-October I guess I should lay out this months commitment.  I’m going to small in model count this month and hopefully still have a fighting chance to finish up.  I hurt myself already since I haven’t started and its October 14th.  I’ve been traveling a lot this month for work and I’ve got this little Lord of the Rings tournament I need to finish planning:  http://bilbosbirthdaybash.wordpress.com.  So we’ll see how much I can get accomplished!

Here’s the commitment:

• King’s Champion
• 1x Iron Guard

That’s 150 points and only 4 models!

Wish me luck.

To4G – Month 1 Commitment

Time to start off the September painting commitment.  I wanted to start off with a LOME legal army, even though we aren’t going to start playing games until both Month 1 and 2 are complete.  So my commitment is:

Floi Stonehand

5x Dwarf Warriors with Hand Weapons and Shields

3x Dwarf Warrios with Bows

1x Dwarf Warrior with 2-handed Axe

Here’s a picture of my “unpainted” models:

As you can see, some of the models have been primed black and even have some red paint on them.  I’m going to re-prime these with white and start from scratch.  I’m probably going to go with a blue and golden color theme I think.  Haven’t really decided yet for sure though. I’ve got a nice mix of metal and plastic models here for month one.  One of the things I’m going to try to do is make sure every model is uniquely posed.  This means as the months go on, I’m going to have to do some conversion as well.  However, for month 1 so I can get my feet wet, just painting stock models!

Dwarves of Ancient Realm of Khazad-Dum

Time to kick off the Tale of Four Gamers!

After my experience with the Unexpected Party, I felt certain that I was done with Dwarves; however, in 2011 I managed to win a few of the new dwarf models (King’s Champion and Floi) and decided that maybe, just maybe, I should start a “proper” dwarven army.  The King’s Champion is a beast and I haven’t yet seen the new Floi model in play so I built an army around those two “models” (granted the King’s Champion is really 3 models).

Here’s the “Master” List I’m going to build off:

1x Floi Stonehand
1x King’s Champion
8x Khazad Guard
4x Iron Guard
10x Dwarf Warrior w/ Shield
5x Dwarf Warrior w/ 2H Axe
13x Dwarf Warrior w/ Bow

44 Total models and right at 600 points

As anyone who follows my army building, you know I’m a big fan of conversions and striving to make each model as unique as possible.  The dwarf warriors I’ve chosen to work with aren’t especially amenable to many conversions.  So time will tell how successful I am with this venture.  In order to help make this army stand out, I’m going to try to learn and apply a new painting technique for me – non-metallic metal.  Hopefully all goes well, otherwise this could be a collossal failure!  Wish me luck!

My next post will be my first month commitment!

Tale of Four AWC LOTR Gamers

Inspired by the rousing success of the Tale of Four LOTR Gamers from our friends in Phoenix, four AWC LOTR Club Members have taken up the challenge and are starting their own Tale of Four Gamers.  The participating members are:

Brent Sinclair – https://thereandblogagain.wordpress.com/

Jeremy Williams – http://chefofwar.blogspot.com

Jamie Welling – http://www.fivearmies.blogspot.com

Chris Balke – http://galadriels-mirror-cbalke.blogspot.com/

Our contest will last for the next 5 months and will culminate with each participant having a fully painted, based, and displayable Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game army.  To accomplish this task, we will paint 150 points of models each month to a grand total of 600 points (after four months).  The last month will be used to “finish” any of the bases and build the army display.  Since some participants may be starting with armies that have already begun, we are agreeing to the rule than no more than 50 points per month can be previously painted and still included in the competition.  While some may view this “cheating”, I think its still in the spirit of the contest!  What we are trying to do is get motivated to get a 600 point army painted and ready for battle, if we have some models already done but not enough for a full army, why not flesh it out!   The last month will be used to “finish” any of the bases and build the army display.

Each person will be responsible for posting an update on their blog by first of the month to announce their monthly commitment and then at a minimum a post at the end of the month showing their completed progress.

To follow the competition, the following points will be used:

Models painted on time +5pts
Models painted late +3pts
Models Not painted +0pts.

In addition to painting models, we are all hoping to get some more gaming in using these armies as they build up.  We will be scoring the results of the gaming using this format:

Major Win: 5pts
Minor Win: 4pts
Draw: 3pts
Minor Loss: 2pts
Major Loss: 1pt

Games can begin anytime after the first two months so that each player has 300 points available.

I’m wishing my fellow competitors luck!  Stay tuned to this and the other blogs as we do brief introductions and what we are planning on doing…