Diesel DM

Anyone who follows my work over at Hand Cannon Online may have noticed I did a writeup for a Kickstarter last week titled Wild West Exodus.  Up to this point I’ve stuck to a single tabletop wargame (Warmachine, of course). But something about the WWX appealed to me.  I think it’s partly from watching a lot of Spaghetti Westerns featuring Clint Eastwood.  Combine that with some Civil War themes and notable characters from American history (Grant, Lincoln, Sitting Bull, etc) and color me interested.  Also look for the Firefly-themed Merc crew. Now add in some really good-looking minis and I was willing to read through and watch the videos.

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I finished painting my ATGM a few weeks ago, but am just now getting around to posting the pictures to the site.  A reader of my Broken Egg Games Tournament Tray review on HCO asked for larger pictures of the ATGM, which has spurred me to actually get this post up.  I haven’t seen the original sculpt up close, but these new ATGM sculpts are very nice.  A lot of detail packed in, though painting both sides of their faces can prove difficult with those high collars.

For these guys I altered my painting technique.  Instead of using a base, two highlights and two shading colors and blending each into the others, I use a base, one highlight and one shade and did not blend them.  This resulted in a much faster paint job that still looks great on the table, but when you get the camera up close it really suffers.  If you are thinking of trying this technique to speed up your unit painting make sure to get some really deep shadows and some bright edge highlights to really get the models to pop.  Over all I give these guys an “Average Tabletop Quality”.

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages with Officer

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The announcement that Wizards of the Coast was discontinuing their line of pre-painted minis really came as a shock.  WotC had just released Lords of Madness, with much bragging of their new computerized sculpting system that allowed them to make better more intricate minis than ever before.  And then quietly, almost a footnote in the monthly updates, Wizards announced no more miniatures.  Their official reasoning was the failing economy and something about prices in China.  WotC, for those unfamiliar, is a subsidiary of Hasbro.  Hasbro is one of the largest toy makers in the world.  Among Hasbro’s more popular toys are Star Wars, GI Joes and Transformers.  I find it inconceivable that with the plastic making abilities Hasbro has at its disposal, that WotC couldn’t figure out how to sell a box of 6 plastic miniatures for $22.  Now that I’ve had some time to reflect on all this, I’m prepared to write a post that isn’t full of inane gibbering and name calling.

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