Annuntio: Old Shatter Hands' Shameless Plug

Old Shatter Hands was interviewed for this week's 11th Company podcast (a most excellent podcast BTW). And in said podcast, Tim gives a shout-out to 23LINES (completely unsolicited, I swear)... hence the shameless plug!

Seriously, OSH and Jawa are plugging (pun fully intended) the Heroes of Armageddon charity army that they and a group of other painters are rabidly working on.

So check out the HoA link and drop a donation if you haven't already.

Indicium: Head Asplode - You, Me and Kuang Shi

Lo Pan's Yu Jing list includes a bunch of re-educated political prisoners known collectively as the Kuang Shi. These are the poor bastards that the great and benevolent Yu Jing empire has taken a slight disliking to and decided that they have a better use within the greater good - namely as that of living explosives.

Leave it to Infinity to have a mechanic worked out for how models involuntarily Explode should they fall into an unconscious state. Furthermore, this model can voluntarily choose to Explode by making a Willpower test - you would think he'd need a Willpower test just so that he wouldn't explode. Really?! You want to explode... is life really that bad off? Apparently, prisoners of the Yu Jing seem to think so.

In Infinity, if you have a Doctor or medic on the board and one of your miniatures loses its last Wound, the mini is left on the board and your Doctor can use his Willpower to possibly revive his fallen comrade. However, for a model with the Explode characteristic, unconsciousness turns out to be the final solution - no chance to recover someone whose limbs are littering the battlefield.

But of course, the Yu Jing have to take it one step further and equip all the Kuang Shi with a remote detonator. So Lo Pan is required to field another model with a Kuang Shi Control Device to keep these mindless zombies in check - oh and to be able to explode them at a moment's notice. Using a Long Order, with no dice roll required, the controller can choose to immediately detonate all Kuang Shi on the field of battle. That's, like, just really mean, man!

So there you have it... how to explode your mindless, re-educated, wrongfully imprisoned minis in the brave new world that is the Human Sphere - enjoy!

Exemplum: Lo Pan's Yu Jing Imperial Service Army

As a way to inspire myself to get painting (and a way to keep the pressure on Lo Pan), I have posted some WIP images sent to be by Lo Pan of his burgeoning Yu Jing army.

So far he has all the makings of a strong Imperial Service sectorial army. The Imperial Service lets him field Celestial Guard and Kuang Shi to his little heart's content. The latter of course being the enemies of the state who come strapped with explosives and ready to rumble (literally) the battlefield.

Here is the complete set, based and primered. The models in the initial image have been basecoated and built up to some highlighting and are now just waiting for a wash. To get started, LP picked up the Infinity box sets for the Yu Jing Imperial Sevice and the Kuang Shi.(4 kuang shi in the set). This is a good way to start a small, strong list and keep costs down until he gets a better feel for what he wants to play in Yu Jing.

If you want to see more of Lo Pan's stuff check out his webzone Cinema Fictions.

Annuntio: Support your Local Armageddon

In the ongoing fight to encourage and support the benefits of Armageddon (Negative Population Growth, less competition for resources, fodder for 24/7 cable news, etc.), 23LINES figured we'd drum up a little good will in the community and donate a Storm Raven to Old Shatter Hands over at Tau of War so that he could paint the thing pretty and provide it as part of the Heroes of Armageddon campaign to raise money for Doctors Without Borders.

Granted, the grin on Shatter Hands' face is really saying, "Oh great something else I have to paint.. when does this have to be done by?!" Meanwhile my wife caught me mid-sentence saying, "I'd never run Blood Angels gear in my Grey Knight list so get this thing off my hands right now!"

Seriously, this is a good cause. Check out Shatter's blog for a donation link.

Annuntio: New Order Sergeant with Spitfire

Beasts of War managed to snag some sneak peek images of the Corvus Belli release of a PanOceania Order Sergeant with spitfire. The model looks absolutely amazing and even seems to push the limits of what CB is capable in terms of dynamic posing and sculpting.

At at guess, I would say the model consists of a leg/torso piece, a separate leg/tabard piece and a single piece for the spitfire arm. Should be great for anyone just looking for a single spitfire arm to convert with.

Also, the head looks a little different because it is a multispectral L2 visor. In game terms, this means that the sergeant suffers no negative modifiers to shooting at models in any form of camouflage. This is a huge boon to a line troop that already has a decent BS of 12.

Thanks again to the BoW guys for this awesome sneak peek.

Exemplum: Painting Infinity Knights

This post is more just a reminder to myself where to find the color palette that was used to paint the knights in Corvus Belli's Military Order starter set.

Studio Giraldez has done some amazing work for CB (and other miniature companies). The direct link to the knights color palette is here.

A big Thanks to Angel Giraldez for making this valuable information available through his blog!

By the way, this is what he considers to be fast painting... I can only hope to get as good as his "fast" painting.

Indicium: Confessions of a Metal Junkie

With Games Workshop's announcement and launch of their Finecast line of miniatures, gaming blogs have been ablaze with pundits opining about the move to resin. The general opinion seems to be that metal models bad, resin models good, with sundry well-meaning rationales following in an orgy of TL;DR. Well I am here to say (write) that all those pundits and talking heads are wrong... so very, sadly, maddeningly, pathetically... well, uh, wrong (just kidding, you guys are totally rad - no, really, rad, I mean it).

Where are the posts espousing the virtues of metal models?! Their ineffable pointiness, bendiness coated in a fine film of mold release cracked fresh from a blister pack, slotta base just waiting to be... uh, well slotted. In the vein of a true metal junkie, I was driven to post in defense of our old friend!

A single pose, two (maybe three - madness!) piece metal model let me obscure the lack of talent required to clip out and assemble the multitude of tiny, plastic parts required to construct even the most basic mini. Look at our friendly, neighborhood space marine - requiring no fewer than eight separate parts to complete the simplest model, he is an exercise in sliced, sticky fingers resulting in the ultimately futile adhesion of manifold parts that never line up quite like the box cover depicts. Why would I ever want to subject myself to the misery of incessantly cleaning sprue cuts and mold lines when I could simply grip the heft of a metal model and scrape a Husky straight edge, razorblade across any raised points guaranteeing a reduction in overall detail and clarity of the model? Why would I ever not want to even consider not doing that?

And now I have to suffer with brittle, resin models, sold to me in bulletproof, clamshell, slice-your-fingers, plastic blister along with a collectible trading card! Clearly resin is infinitely inferior to metal when it comes to chucking a model across the room at the annoying, unchaperoned ten year old screaming his head off at the cashier for not letting him fondle the Golden Daemon quality models hidden so tantalizingly close behind fingerprint-stained glass.

I realize that resin allows simple conversions by dipping the model in boiling hot water then gently twisting it into whatever pretzel shaped customization that your little heart might desire. Straightening metal models was always so difficult given that you had to do it using room temperature air and your naked fingers. Recounting the number of times I strained my delicate digits in this process is both a shaming and unspeakable exercise in humbling, debilitating, humiliation! I mean... room temperature air - the horror, the horror!

Speaking of customization, why would I ever want to improve on the perfection of modeling that is the Games Workshop sculptors? What level of hubris and ego would dare to tarnish the amazing grace and perfectly poised dynamism of the original sculpts? Just look at how these new "fine"cast resin sculpts lend themselves to whatever conversion your little heart might desire. With single piece bodies and separate arms, you can point the arms up or down or even parallel to the ground! And don't get me started on the innumerable positions made possible by a separate head...

So don't meddle with my metal, don't aggravate my alloys, don't piddle on my pewter... these are my static, mono-pose, multi-stripped, toy soldiers and they will quite physically crush your finecasts into a highly toxic, finely granulated, resiny grit of... resin right before your horrified, tear sheened, gamer-doe eyes!

Oh yeah and the photo is of my friend's former band, Durga Temple, rocking the Fairfax, Virginia metal scene for a goodly chunk of the 00's.