Trygon!!!

Last weekend contained two events for me, the Anderson Paint fest and the Warpstone Painting Contest. The Warstone contest was held at local GW stores across the country, with the challenge to paint one of the new Trygon's in a weekend. At my local GW, this entailed a time line of Noon on Saturday, with judging at 4pm on Sunday. That's right, for those mathematicians out there, that's 28 hours. Pictures of my Trygon follow:








I have to say that I was very impressed with the overall contest. There were 15 people pre-signed up for the challenge and there were 12 Trygons on the table for judging. I kick myself for not getting great pictures, but I can say that my model was in the bottom 3 on quality (in my opinion). There are a couple techniques and "tricks" that I picked up to improve my model in the future. First of those is gloss varnish on the shell/carapace. The majority of the models, and 3 of the 4 winners (1st place, 2nd place, and a tie for 3rd) had their carapace glossed. This had a couple effects I noticed. First, it drew the eye to the model. Second, it seemed to hide small blemish's and mistakes on the carapace.

The second technique which was on all 4 of the winning models was "hash's" painted onto the shell. This is a style that seems to be very popular and certainly showed its strength in this contest. Here is a sample picture of what I mean:



I am not sure how much affect this will have on my Eldar models, I expect very little. Its a technique that is very suited for carapace/shell but I do not feel it fits with the Eldar models. This is something I will have to think about.

Anderson Painting Fest
In addition to assembling and painting my Trygon for the paint competition, I also had the first Anderson Painting Fest on Saturday. The idea was to get a group of friends together specifically for painting in a group. I offered drink, food, and snacks along with the use of my paints (I have the full GW paint collection) and my Spray gun/Compressor for the groups use. In exchange, I asked that the focus be on painting the large collection of unpainted terrain that I have. Disapointingly, this was not a huge success. Of the 8 people invited, only 2 showed up. Now, the three of us had a great time working on both terrain and our Trygons and actually completed 7 pieces of terrain. This still leaves a fair amount in the bin, but it was a definite chunk.

So I need to do some thinking if I plan to do this again. Overall, the initial idea seemed to be well-received but there were a variety of reasons people did not make it. Moving past those who were sick, I need contemplate where things went sideways.

Painting Points Update / Change

Ok, I am headed to bed after spending a full day painting. Good news, I think my model looks good. Bad news, its a Tyranid and not an Eldar. Now, have no fear faithful readers, I am not pulling my Tyranids out of the closet and sinking the DTP. I did, however, assemble and paint a Trygon today for the local GW Warpstone painting contest. This was done in concert with my "Anderson Paint Fest" which happened today. I will speak on that in another post.

I did realize that there is something lacking in the overall Painting Points system I have. A Trygon is twice the size (and overall work) of other monsters in the WHFB and WH40K systems. Its twice the size of my Carnifex and/or Hive Tyrants. With this in mind, I am adding it to the same category as Vehicles, adding a "Large Monster" category. I am also adding a Gargatuan Creature category to the Superheavy points.

• Infantry = 1 point
• Cavalry or bikes or DTP Exarch Bases (40mm bases)= 2 points
• Monster or Dreadnought = 5 points
• Vehicle or Large Monster = 10 points
• Superheavy vehicle or Gargantuan Creature = 20 points

No pictures yet, but I will get some tomorrow after the judging.

Adepticon Model Approval

I have been preparing for Adepticon in March of this year and realized that I have non-standard models which should be approved prior to my heading out there. I have not finalized my list yet, but I figure if I get approval for the different modified bases on my models up front then I will not have to start every game with:
"Hello opponent, I run non-standard bases on my models. Even though they are clearly not modeled for advantage, would you like to object and win the game that way or would you like to actually play a game?"
Now, typically the answer is "no problem, lets play a game", and to be honest, my opponents have little to fear as I am rarely (if ever) on the top tables. Then again, I may get much better at playing over the next 3 months and it might matter. More importantly, I can reach out to the Adepticon crew and get approval ahead of time, which will make this a non-issue.

As I was already taking pictures, I figured I would post them here. Taking another look at my various models is always a good thing, especially when those who I do not play regularly get to see the comparisons. In addition, I think this might be the first time I am posting a picture of a Grav Tank on the Tank bases.

Enjoy.