Basing

I have no idea how to base my Martian SRO, so I'm throwing it out to my loyal readers. Any ideas?

So far I'm leaning towards a rocky/rubble type setting. I could do it then ink it red, like Mars. Or I could do more grey and black motiff. I simply don't have any idea.

Help...

Game of Battlestar last night

Tom, Jeff, and Wayne came over last night to play some Battlestar Galactica boardgame last night. Players were Helo, Tyrol, Starbuck (respectively) with me playing Roslin.

Pretty much a near perfect game for the humans. Tyrol (Jeff) was the Cylon from the start but got found out very early. Jeff and Wayne put in cards for a test, and out comes 3 negative cards. So sombody's a Cylon. During my next turn I use Roslin once-a-game skill to draw 4 Quorum cards, hoping to get the one that lets me look at a player's loyalty card. I do and look at Wayne's card. Not a Cylon.

So I know Jeff is the Cylon and I out him. The funny thing is that Wayne acts incredibly guilty, because both Tom and I thought he was the Cylon.

Anyway, its Jeff's turn next and he makes a critical error. Instead of revealing himself, he takes some actions, drawing a crisis card. Then Tom throws him in the brig. Jeff spends a couple of turns in the brig, trying to cause problems.

During that period, I convince Tom to take a -1 Morale that puts us in the red because I know the collaborator card is coming soon and if we're in the red then the collaborator stays human. At that point we were doing great with none of our dials in the red.

Sure enough, come the sleeper agent phase, Wayne is the Collaborator. Within a turn we get not one, but two Cylon battle cards. The first one places a bunch of civilian ships behind Galactica and the second one is an ambush with a basestar jumping in back of Galactica with all those civilians nearby. But, Starbuck uses her secret destiny to ditch that card and draw another one. Humans jump away.

From there it just goes in the human's favor. Jeff finally reveals himself, drops his super crisis card, putting two centurion tokens on Galactica, but Wayne and Tom take care of them. Our dials start going down with Morale, Food, and Population at 4 (Fuel never got into the red). A few more crisis later, with Jeff trying to cause problems but the humans containing them and manage to jump to Kobol, losing a population on the way.

So humans win. We pretty much had it wrapped up once I outed Jeff, but it still felt a little tense. We went from one dial in the red to three in the red in what seemed like the blink of an eye. Having only played two games it makes me wonder, if the humans winning handily is still having 3 of 4 dials in the red, then close ones have to be real nail biters.

Anyway, fun game. Hoping to make this a monthly or otherwise semi-regular thing.

Corey

Where the hell have you been?

From the Dictionary of Life's Ironies:

Plan: (n) 1) A list of things that don't happen. 2) Existential proof that God finds your frustrations funny. 3) Job security for psychiatrists.

So after three weeks of football (my prime painting season), I had a total of 3 models painted. My test models of the paint scheme. I mainly painted them during week 1. Why you ask? Well, for week 2, my wife had an event for her school, so I was with Jocelyn. It was okay, I passed the time teaching her the words "touchdown!!" (in a high cheering voice) and "football..." (in a low growl).

Week 3 was the local art 7 wine festival (my wife loves going every year). This time was miserable because I was hot and hadn't slept well at all. Followed by a visit to the in-laws for dinner in the evening. With my niece stopping by in between.

This is also compounded by the fact that the 49ers don't seem to made of suck this year, so I find myself watching the niners games. Which means I really only paint during two of the football games, with liberal stops for daughter-time, food, and shower (ranked in that order of importance).

"But Corey, there's Monday Night Football. Perfect painting time!"

Yeah, it would be. Except Mer has enrolled in a Masters program. Guess what night classes are. . .


So yeah, last weekend I was on a "screw it, I'm painting all day today" binge. I got five models about 75% done. This is a far cry from last year when I'd get 12 models done over a day and a half. I blame myself, because after I assembled the models I said "egh, this shouldn't be hard. it's like 60ish models."

God was listening. And he has a twisted sense of humor.


Anyway, pics in the sunlight of my test models:



So, I like them. I intentionally kept the paint scheme simple. Or again, that was the Plan. I guess when you're painting different shades of black, you're not being simple. But I'm not painting eyes on them. I'm going to go with "they're all squinting." Really, I just don't think it adds anything.

The black clothing is Reaper's master series Pure Black, which gave a nice matte black. I then highlighted some places with Vallejo's Black Grey from the model color line of paints to provide a little depth. The boots, belt, and gear (canteens, pouches, etc) were painted with P3 Greatcoat Grey. The boots and gear were then hit with a smoke wash.

The gun was done with Vallejo Game Color black, which is a glossy black. I picked out details and the stock with the P3 Greatcoat Grey. I wanted the gun to have a very artificial feel, since these guys are from Mars, so I labored over what to paint the gunstock to make it look like a synthetic substance. Finally, wayne suggested just doing it the grey.

The armor plates were done with Vallejo's Burnt Cadmium Red from the Model Color line. It's my absolute favorite red. The skin was Vallejo's Dwarf flesh with a smoke wash. Finally any metal bits were Vallejo's Gunmetal Grey.

Like I said, a minimal effort paint job. Hopefully it'll be somewhere between "able to sell for a decent price" and "not going to drive Corey crazy painting it."

K, hopefully more to come before too long.