The Seeker of Truth

I'm happier with the paint job than I am with the pictures, but my first Battlefleet Gothic cruiser is complete. This Lunar class cruiser has been christened the Seeker of Truth.

The model had a lot of burrs and defects not noticeable until the paint was going on and I was not going back to remove them all. They don't jump out too much until I take photos of course. 

I'm happy enough with the result for getting back into the saddle for the first time in 12 years. I'm going to finish the two sister ships and see what we have from there.

Cycling Through Standard

I needed a new deck for grinding in Standard on Arena this month and with Ikoria released there was a plethora of choice (even in some flavour of Fires of Invention or Wilderness Reclamation are still the meta to beat). I looked at my options and decided to go with an aggressive RWB cycling deck with a Lurrus as companion. 

The idea is, you get the Valiant Rescuer, Flourishing Fox, Dranith Stinger, and/or Improbably Alliace on the field in some combination and then cycle yourself to board stalemate until you can cast a Zenith Flare (or two, or three) to win the game. If you so happen to win with going wide soldiers and fairies or going tall with Flourishing Fox, so much the better. Lurrus is really just a trick to recur a few things from the graveyard if needed.

Its not the greatest deck in the format but its solid and has the advantage of lending itself to quick games; you either win early or you know its over.

With a 56% win rate over 57 matches I got to Platinum 4 last week which was nice for a deck I was just playing around with and didn't require a ton of wildcards to craft. I'm still replenishing my stockpile after crafting the Temur Reclamation deck that I struggled with. Might have another go at that now that aggro decks are shifting out of the meta some.

Painting the Fleet

Its been over a decade since I picked up a paint brush and tried to paint a miniature. And because I left off at a point where I felt my skills were developing nicely for a casual gamer, I am going back in with a certain degree of expectations. Expectations which I need to temper since my eyes have gotten worse with age and my hands have not gotten steadier.

Fortunately, Battlefleet Gothic ships have an advantage over say Space Marines or Eldar: they are generally big hunks of metal all the say colour except for a few highlights and contrasts. It makes them a good place to begin.

There is one problem though. Most of my paints have not been opened in a decade and a few of them have dried up into solid masses of pigment. I find myself with a more limited palette than I expected, and with the quarantine in full effect no easy way to replenish my stock. Nevertheless, I persevered. 

I have an air brush I got a rarely used years ago, so I broke it out for the base coat of the "chaos" ships, but the imperial cruisers I did not have the right colour for the air brush so it was back to the regular brush for them. I went with a dark green for the imperial cruisers, planning on bringing out the details with lighter drybrushing. The Chaos cruisers I planned to do a dark wash over bright red. I'm trying to remember all the tips and techniques I used to use and its harder than I remember. I forgot how much experimentation there is.

After a couple of coats of the green, I did a dark black wash for the crevasses and than the base green as a drybrush layer followed by a light grey drybrush very gently for the really raised edges.

Now on to the details.

The prow was hardest, getting white to look right without losing the silver contrast.

The engines I tried to make look like a blue to white glow without blending.

I'm now at the point where I need to decide "Am In happy with the result?" Or "Continue on!". I've heard it say that a painted never considers a painting finished and I really know what that means right now. I think I might attempt a bit more before I call this one done.

Getting Back In the Painting Saddle

I talked recently about the Warhammer Itch that has sprouted up under my skin:

Combine all of those alone with playing Armada II and it reminds me of the fun of the tabletop version of the game and has got me asking around about buy a handful of models to try out some games with the kids.

I swear, Mrs Kodachi, its gonna stop at just a couple models! I swear!

Well, my inquiries reached an old Warhammer club friend from back in the day and he offered to print a handful of Battlefleet Gothic models out for me and they arrived this past weekend.

I've got three Imperial cruisers whose prints come in 4 very detailed pieces (Port side, Starboard side, Prow, and Engines) and three light cruisers. I've also got a chaos cruiser and battleship coming in the mail (the Ninveah will live again!). 

Now I just have to remember how to paint miniatures. 

Its funny how this blog is coming full circle back to its Warhammer modelling roots.