My first wargames tournament has come and gone. It is now nothing more than a slowly fading memory of a good time spent with good people. I must say that I really enjoyed myself despite loosing all my games. I am definitely looking forward to next year. I should probably plan my army now though, so I don’t face the same crunch I did this time. Much has happened since Part 2 which hasn’t been covered in my long post the day after, so I’m going to start from the beginning.

Finishing the Army

In Part 2 I was half-way through painting the forces I was planning to bring to Cangames. At the time I was afraid of not finishing. It was a good fear. It kept me motivated to work hard and not waste any of the time I had available.

Early in April I was putting the finishing touches on my first General Purpose squad. A month later I was only half-way through the Fire Support squad, with a whole General Purpose squad still in its box. At this rate I could expect to finish mid-June. With the fear of failure growing stronger I needed to speed things up if I expected to participate. A fully painted army wasn’t actually required to participate, but I would not let myself play with an unpainted army. I would have missed a great time through a combination of laziness and pride.

My completed army. The drones were not part of my army, but I painted them as they were part of the Fire Support squad.

As I went I started dropping parts of my painting combination. I kept things basic so that I would not get bogged down in details. The first step cut was the weathering of the knees. Not only did it take time, but I prefer the look of a clean Gear for armies. Optics will make the miniatures look muddy enough on the table without me adding to the effect. Better clean and bright in my opinion. Painting a one-off miniature, definately weather it. However, I was trying to get an army painted without having as much time as I’d like.

Other details were sacrificed to improve my speed. I spent less time on the metals. While it shows, the metals can actually be considered a detail. The tan and buff are the main features of the paint job, and if they look good, the miniature will look good. The same goes for things like the sensor eyes and rocket pods. One coat of Pale Bluegrey, then a coat of some bright colour like red or turquoise was all that was done for them. Sure, I could individually shade and highlight each, but unless you are looking it isn’t very noticable on such small areas.

This was the first GP squad I painted. I hadn’t yet started to feel the time crunch, so I spent a lot of time on it, including adding some scuffs to the lower legs to show the result of making such a huge machine kneel in sand.

I did keep the unit markings as well as the bumble-bee hazard stripes around the rocket pods. The unit markings were key for keeping track during the game, and the hazard stripes were too noticable to leave off. I did rush them. They are a little sloppy, but still servicable. Unless you are paying attention it isn’t noticable on the tabletop.

Cleaning and assembly was one of the longest steps of the whole process. I think that the Fire Support Squad was cleaned and assembled over two weeks. I started on the General Purpose squad with four days left before Cangames. Fortunately, the first three were my days off from work. I definitely didn’t have two weeks to assemble the GP squad before painting.

Luckily I had finally found some decent superglue and was fully switched over from my old habit of using two-part epoxy glue. I’ve always hated superglue, I found it a pain to use, it wasn’t as strong as epoxy, and no matter what brand I purchased it always dried out in the tube after its first use. However, I have two small tubes of a supermarket brand which have not been drying out at all. I haven’t even had to clear the tip of the one I’ve been using. Working assembly line style I glued together all five Gears of the GP squad in record time. I was even able to put a couple coats of primer on them before bed so that they could cure overnight.

The Fire Support squad was the most interesting to paint with the big Grizzlies. This is the first unit I completely assembled before painting.

I was painting, basing, or waiting for varnish to dry right until the end. I think Friday night I tidied the black edging around the bases before bed. As I went to bed I kept swearing that I would not be painting any Heavy Gear Blitz! miniatures for a long time to come. Not only had I had some bad luck with miscasts, but I found the miniatures difficult to paint. They had plenty of nooks and cranies and other small detail that needed to be picked out. It’s not a sculpting flaw, it’s just that mechanical items can really be a pain to highlight and shade.

Normally a 28mm humanoid takes me 1 hour to paint. Heavy Gears, while similar in size and shape, were taking me 3-4 hours to paint. I only managed to bring that down to 2-2.5 by cutting corners and rushing. A tip for quick painting: don’t bother fixing mistakes unless they are very noticable.

The last squad I painted. I spent maybe 10 hours over two days and, to me at least, it really shows. Many corners were cut to get these guys ready for Cangames.

The tournament has come and past and I had a great time. I think everyone involved had a great time. This is not my final report, just a quick post to capture my thoughts while I can still feel the afterglow. I did poorly, scoring points only in my last game against Philippe Le Clerc, Dream Pod 9′s sculptor. He was playing to bring the player count up to 8, so that no-one had to sit out any rounds, but wasn’t going to include his final points in the final ranking. While he still won, he was very patient and took the time to explain some of the game’s tactics to me in a way which I found very agreeable. It was a little obvious that he was trying not to roll over me, which I found funny.

A shot of my deployment for the second game. At first I kept things counter-light, but eventually I realized that I liked being able to easily see what the status of my units were.

Most people don’t believe me when I say that I rarely win at most games. They think I’m being negative or am exaggerating the situation. Truly, I really don’t do well at miniature wargames. For me, it’s a fact and I don’t get upset when I lose, as long as I can understand why. In one game I was up against an opponent who outnumbered me in combat groups and seemed to have units which, individually, were stronger than mine. It felt like I had brought a 750TV army to a tournament for 1500TV. After Philippe’s tutelage I understood that I had mishandled my Gears, making them very, very easy to destroy.

All my opponents were great sports and easy to play with. I had felt very self-conscious not having played yet, but everyone was so friendly that when it came time to play I felt very comfortable. It helped that I wasn’t the only Blitz! rookie at the tournament.

When the smoke settled we had each played three games and enjoyed ourselves immensely. Dream Pod 9 surprised me (this is my first ever tournament) by having prizes. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, but everyone there had been so nice and friendly it felt more like playing with a bunch of friends than a high-stress tournament with prizes on the line. First place received two Squad Boxes of their choice, plus two packs of the new Fighting Piranha decals. Second place received one Squad Box and one pack of decals. All participants received a pack of decals, even last place, held by yours truly.

My tournament winnings. I was thinking of picking some up, being sick of hand-painting the numbers on my Gears, so was happy to win some.

There was also a prize for best painted army. Fortunately for most participants, Mason hadn’t finished his army although he did take 1st and 3rd in the Cangames painting contest. Ahhh, the dangers of painting every Gear like a miniature work of art. To compound the problem, his army was a single squad. With Mason not qualifying I was rewarded with the Best Painted Army title and a Squad Box and decal pack. So, despite my rush-job I guess they turned out pretty good. I may have to write a painting article, but it isn’t likely to end up here. The article will first go to Battlegames, although I’m not very confident that Mr. Hyde is looking for any sci-fi painting articles in his predominantly but not exclusively historical-focused magazine. However, I’ll make the query none-the-less. Failing that, the article would go to Aurora. One might argue that it should go there first. In my opinion, there’s more publicity having an article in an independent magazine than a free, in-house PDF publication. That, and Battlegames pays. Call me a mercenary.

This post has gone unexpectedly long. It was just supposed to be a quick note before a more detailed write-up next month. I’ll end here so that I’ll still having something to say. In the meantime, look for a little intermission next week as I paint the last 6 miniatures from my first 1812 battalion. Although Thursday I swore off painting for the next few weeks, the sense of accomplishment of having a full painted army at Cangames has put my mind to what my next painting would be. With some new, free miniatures courtesy of Dream Pod 9 I’m also in the mood to paint more Gears, even though I was feeling pretty sick of them as I was putting the finishing touches on my Cangames army.

Tyler

Traditionally, I have always been a no-deadlines wargamer. I take my time on projects by rotating between 2-3 in order to keep things fresh. I do try to paint efficiently but will sometimes take a week off from painting to do other things. This cangames tournament is one of the first times where I’ve taken on a deadline and am really sticking to it. It can be stressful, the line between ‘plenty of time left’ and ‘am I going to make it?’ slipped by un-noticed. I’m half-way through painting my army and have two weeks left before the tournament.

I haven’t had a chance to play any test games with this army, nor am I likely. The best I will be able to manage is to play some solo games with a GP Squad vs a Strike Squad. I have some old DP9 hex-maps and while the game isn’t suited for hex-based play anymore I will use them as flat terrain and measure normally.

Hexmaps make quick terrain, just ignore the hexes and measure normally.

This should at least help me get used to the rules of the game. I originally was disappointed that the advanced morale rules were not to be used. Now I’m grateful. It’ll be hard enough playing complete strangers in a very competitive environment, but I’d hate to do so and be unsure of rules. At least I’m generally a good study for this sort of thing, and will be bringing a heavily bookmarked rulebook to the tournament.

Marking important areas with Post-it flags will make them easier to find in the heat of battle.

Progress

The biggest time-consumer in this process is definately prepping the miniatures for painting. I’m a dis-interested modeler at times and can get very bored with fiddly filing and sanding to clean up mold lines. To compound the problem I’ve been unsatisfied with the castings coming out of DP9 lately. There’s a lot of pitting and rough surfaces to contend with. Not to mention that although the Grizzlies are sculpted and designed to have right and left rocket pods, only left rocket pods were produced. They are not symetrical in a way that I could mount one backwards without it being very noticable, especially since I paint the rocket pod front with hazard stripes.

The painting hasn’t been without problems as well. There’s a certain amount of frustration trying to paint detail that didn’t fill crisply in the mold, but my thick application of Gesso didn’t settle down in the normal way. I have put on a burst of speed and hope that if I don’t get held up too long prepping the next squad, I’ll be done in time. My weekly WIP posts will follow my normal schedule, however, so if it looks like I haven’t finished in time fear not, as I’m sure I will. I’ve started a 4×10 shift at work, giving me three consecutive days off in which to work on my army.

• Painted

• Un-based General Purpose Squad
• Half-finished Fire Support Squad

• Need to paint

• Northern General Purpose Squad

As you can see, I’ve reduced what I’m planning to paint. Some of it is because of lack of time, such as the LAC-armed Hunter to give me the option of a MBZK-armed Hunter or Grizzly with linked MRPs. The infantry squad I ordered was a confused mess. It came in a Northern Infantry blister, contained Northern Infantry Officers and Southern Infantry troopers. I’ve contacted DP9 for a replacement, but have yet to receive a response.

Everything so far. It seems so small.

Over the next two weeks I’m really going to put my nose to the grindstone in order to make sure everything is finished.

Tyler

Being able to file parts to fit made posing easier. Bad-ass!

I know what you’re thinking. Where’s the finished pictures from the last squad? They are coming, I promise. However, I’m waiting for all three squads to be finished before I paint their bases to ensure consistency. You will see the finished images of the entire squad once that is done.

In the meantime, I’ve begun the Fire Support Squad. I have this squad, then another General Purpose to finish. I’m looking forward to painting the Grizzlies in the FS squad, so I chose it as my next squad. I’ll finish up with a bare-bones GP squad.

The first thing you’ll notice is that I’ve assembled the miniatures before painting. Painting them as sub-assemblies makes part of the painting easier, but it is also a lot of work, makes posing hard as I cannot modify the pieces after they are painted and makes figuring out the location of highlights complicated. We’ll see which I prefer once I finish this squad. I’m having trouble hitting locations right now. The jury is still out.

The damage doesn’t look so bad from out here.

Priming was troubled, not just because I couldn’t get everywhere easily, but because the primer tended to clump and leave a rough surface. I’ve been using Gesso to prime for a while, and have never had trouble with it. I wonder if I played with it too much as it was drying. It can be applied liberally straight out of the bottle and normally snugs down very quickly. I don’t have my own Gesso article, even though I’ve been using it for a long time, so check out Hyun’s article at WeeToySoldiers.com. It occured to me when trying to find a good primer for soft plastic miniatures. If they bend and cause normal paint to flex, I need something designed for flexing. Gesso is designed to be painted on canvas, which moves and flexes constantly as the artist applies paint. I’ll have to wait until the miniatures are finished to see how bad the effect. It’s easy to panic early in the painting process only to have things come out fine in the end.

Next week is the monthly feature, where I’ll sum up my preparations for Cangames and maybe share some pictures of the work in progress.

Tyler

You ruined my paintjob!

Fwew. These miniatures have been on my workbench for a while, so it’s really nice to be getting near the end. Aside from the normal jewel-like sensor eyes and hazard stripes on the rocket pods I decided to dirty up these Hunters. Inspired by the more active poses of the new Philippe Le Clerc sculpts I pondered the effect kneeling would have on such a large machine’s paintjob.

The first question I had to answer was what material is a Gear’s armour made of. It’s not steel, but some composite of ceramics and alloy mesh that gives it protection from kinetic and HEAT weapons, much like modern Chobham armour. Instead of complicating things I decided to paint the scapes as if the armour was steel. Most people looking at the miniature won’t be aware of the game background, and steel would play better. The next hurdle was deciding if I wanted to use my simple NMM technique, or metallic paint. This didn’t take long, any metallic paint would make the NMM confusing. It wasn’t too hard though, honestly NMM is just normal highlighting using appropriate colours and more contrast to show the shiny finish of the surface.

Essentially I painted the scaped areas black, then used my NMM recipe to show the metal, leaving a rim of black to add shading and contrast. The rest of the miniature has been left pristine because I didn’t want to over-do the effect. My next batch I may paint some field-markings on and distress where the new paint is flaking off to reveal the more rugged factory-applied paint. Personally, I’ve always been a fan of clean paintjobs for wargaming. Artistic weathering is best for show-pieces.

Tyler

A simple NMM technique

Once again I’ve decided to use a simple NMM technique to paint the metal areas. I just prefer the scale effect of NMM to the overly shiny, plastic toy look of metallic paint. I think it doesn’t look right on miniatures because of the low surface area.

Soon I’ll be finished this squad. All that is left is the details such as sensors, hazard striping and some weathering. Once that’s done I will base the unit, varnish with Pebeo Arcylic Matte Varnish and they will be the first unit painted for Dream Pod 9′s Heavy Gear Blitz! 2nd Canadian Championship Tournament at Cangames.

Liquitex Airbrush Medium

The NMM technique is simple, I base with a mix of VMC 153 Pale Greyblue, 169 Black and 179 Gunmetal Grey. There’s only a little Gunmetal and I’m considering dropping it on the next batch. It’s mostly Pale Greyblue and Black. Once this dries I apply a quick wash of black thinned heavily with Liquitex Airbrush Medium. The reason I like Airbrush Medium, which I just picked up for this project, is that it’s a combination of distilled water, flow-aid, slo-dry and Acrylic Polymer Emulsion. So, it’s almost exactly like the current thinning medium I use, which is a home-made recipe of distilled water, flow-aid and slo-dry.

The advantage of the Airbrush Medium, aside from not requiring I have all these ingredients around, is the Acrylic Polymer Emulsion. This is the stuff in acrylic paint that breaks when it is overthinned. By including it in the thinning agent it is impossible to overthin, because no matter how much you add, you will always have a proper ratio of emulsion.

The only disadvantage to the Airbrush Medium I’ve come across is that it dries very slowly and very shiny when paint is heavily thinned with it. Someone who doesn’t varnish will find this troublesome. For me, it is fine, as I use the above-mentioned Pebeo Varnish. Plus, it occurs to me that the slow drying of a wash made with the medium would be easy to pull off unwanted areas, giving a lot of control. I’ll have to create a quick experiment to test this.

Next week will be all the details, like sensors and hazard stripes.

Tyler

In 41 days I’ll be participating in my first wargaming tournament. It’s the Second Annual Heavy Gear Blitz! Canadian Championship and will be held this year at Cangames. As I said, this will be my first tournament. I wasn’t planning on participating until my wife decided it would make for good motivation to get my Heavy Gear forces painted and ready to play. She suggested that I put together a list of everything I would need to build an appropriate army, order it and work at painting it in time for the tournament.

Cangames May 18th-20th 2007

Painting for a tournament is a great idea for those that have trouble finishing projects. Most of the projects I’ve finished have had deadlines where I was trying to get something ready to play in a club campaign or with my wife. When I have only a vague idea of when I’m going to play something I find myself less motivated. To combat this I switch projects rapidly, painting something different every week. This does a good job in keeping me productive, but it does nothing for getting a force painted and ready to play.

I’m a very isolated wargamer. I don’t have a group of friends who follow my interests and are willing to jump on the bandwagon when I get interested in a new game. This means I need to look for new friends to be my opponent, or paint both sides of a force in order to convince some of my non-painting friends to play. I find it hard to start looking for opponents without a painted force though, especially when I’m aware that I’m a slow painter. I’m afraid to commit to something I won’t be able to achieve. With a club campaign or a tournament it is different. I’m not seeking someone to play, I’m participating in an already established event.

The Armylist

The first step is to create an army list. This will give me a chance to start thinking about tactics and strategy, but also give me a shopping list of miniatures to order. The tournament has an army limit of 750TV. This is just slightly above a skirmish and very restrictive on what forces I can take. For example, the Strike Squad I’ve painted is 405TV. This leaves me only 345TV for the rest of my force. The General Purpose squad I’m painting is 215TV. I could add an Infantry Squad for 60TV and then find a place to spend the rest. My concern is that I’ll be low on numbers and very fragile.

After some though I came up with the following list. I’m still looking at different options within what I’ve ordered and won’t really have to decide until I’m actually painting the squads.

109th Heavy Gear Regiment

The Lionhearts

Heavy Gear and Lionhearts © Dream Pod 9, Inc.

There are three squads in the force, two GP Squads and a Fire Support Squad. The force is modeled after the 109th ‘Lionhearts‘, a UMF Regiment detailed in the Gear Up! newsletter of the mid-90s. I’m planning on writing some special rules for Aurora, DP9′s in-house pdf magazine. This force will not have any special rules other than following the UMF’s army composition rules.

This gives me 15 Gears on the battlefield, which should be on par with most of the competitors. It also gives me some heavy firepower in the form of the Fire Support Squad coupled with a lot of grunts that should be able to take a bit of damage while acting as a screen for the Fire Support Squad.

Images marked as such are copyright Dream Pod 9, Inc. Used without permission for review purposes. No challenge to copyright intended.

Red Shoulders for this squad

Painting continues as I prepare for the tournament in May. I painted the right shoulders of the GP Squad red so that they’ll stand out as a squad. The Strike Squad I’ve already finished has green shoulders. The Strike Squad will not be participating in the tournament. 400TV out of 750TV is way too much. This means, of course, that I have even more to paint. Oh well. I’m looking forward to receiving the miniatures I ordered from Dream Pod 9.

The colour was shaded with VMC 034 Cadmium Umber Red. I mixed roughly a mid tone using a 50/50 mix of the shade colour and VMC 031 Flat Red. Finally I picked out the edges with VMC 026 Scarlet. Unfortunately I rushed things and the mid-tone cracked a little as it dried. This happens if you paint too many coats without letting each coat dry. Next week will be the metal bits, weapons and various accessories.

Tyler

Slowly making progress

It has been far too long since I had picked up my brush. A combination of the luxury of a day shift and a dedication to finishing Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess made me ignore my painting and consequentially, this website. Of course, as with many things, the longer I neglected painting, the more guilt I felt. The more guilt, the less I felt like actually painting. It’s a vicious cycle I’m sure most wargamers have experienced at least once in their career.

I’m back on an evening shift now and I have a new purpose. Cangames is coming in May and I need to get ready. Last year was the first time I made it to Cangames in Ottawa. I had a good time, but wasn’t sure if I would be making it out again this year. I’d received their brochure in the mail but didn’t see anything which really grabbed my attention. My interest was definately piqued by the planned presence of the folks from Dream Pod 9. Now that Heavy Gear: Blitz! has re-acquainted me with the wonderful company I definately wanted to stop in and say hello. My concern was my new job and the shifts I would be working in May. Essentially, I have no idea what shift I would be working, and it is likely that I’ll be scheduled to work that weekend.

That’s when my wife intervened. She’d noticed the brochure lying around and had read through it. She noticed the Heavy Gear: Blitz! tournament scheduled for Saturday, May 19th. I’ve never played in a tournament before, and don’t have an army close to painted. However, she encouraged me, suggesting I make a large order from DP9 for the forces I need to finish my army, work hard at painting them in time and participate. One of the tips to a happy and successfull marriage is to acknowledge when your wife is right and follow her wishes. I’m still working on my army-list while I finish painting my GP squad. I have until the 27th to decide. DP9 is out of town and won’t be filling orders until then. I’ll be posting updates as I paint my Gears, decide on my army and figure out how to get some practice games in.

Tyler