WHQ - Treasure cards back from the printers

So i have kinda stalled my progress on my original WHQ recreation purely for the sake that early last week i sent away my first batch of cards to trial printer studio out. Having completed the graphics for all of the Treasure cards from the Base game, Catacombs of Terror, Lair of the Orc Lord and couple of white dwarf entries i decided rather than send everything off to the printers only to have an error. i thought i would send over a test batch..

so 1 week later these little babies turned up in the post. and i have to say. I'm really pleased how they turned out.

now whilst they aren't perfect. they still came out excellently. they are a little darker than i would of hoped for. but that's more my issue in design.

overall I'm chuffed to bit that they came back so quickly and how they also turned out.

now all i need to do is get the rest of them sent over and that will be every card at the printer.

oh and i still have to make treasure packs 1,2 and 3 eek!

but at least i will know how they will turn out.

anyways..enjoy :)

WHQ - 6 GOBLINS WITH SPEARS

SO!!

i am achingly labouring through making many many cards for my warhammer quest recreation.
having sent my first trial prints last night for a full set of 54 treasure cards that include the treasure from the base game and the 2 expansions as well as a few thrown in from the white dwarf articles.
it turns out the template i downloaded from the website was an absolute load of pants so i had to create my own template and redo every single card so that they utilised the card sizes better.
users of printer studio beware this nonsense!
but heres hoping that the cards turn out good at least :)

anyways i made 6 goblins with spears as well....well sort of.

I originally wanted to use the myriad of night goblins i have sitting in a box for the gobbos with spears. but upon realising many more night goblins are introduced in the expansion Lair of the Orc Lord, i decided it was best i steered clear. which is ashame becuase those night goblins from the batle for skull pass are pretty cool gobbos, anyways i remember i had made some gnoblar mashups a few years back that never really got any use at all! and in turn seems a massive waste to of done most of them and never had a use for them. LINK


so all they needed was spears! i raided my bitz box and there was nothing to be found that fitted. I then remember i had a goblins regiment box sitting under the stairs. of which many of the bitz on them will never get used. they are pretty awful to say the least. oversized heads huge muscular arms. massive hands...not great...other than the bodies which were used here.
but those spears set a light off. 'Kaching!'

 simple!!

and all i had to do was clip the old hands off pin the spears in place and sculpt a new hand around them. and also repaint the bases.

oh and make 1 more goblin as i only had 5 originally
say hello to Burt!

SHADOWS OVER HAMMERHAL - THE JOURNEY - PART 5

So tonight we had a little bit of a mix up. In part 4 we introduced some of the new rules found in the past couple of months worth of White Dwarf. introducing the cards and the new locations

from the heroes previous venture into the dungeon it was time for something different.
we had picked up a bounty RAZE THE TEMPLE OF SLAUGHTER and we decided we would utilise this as a way to swap out who played the GM. My eldest daughter has a flair for literature and felt she wanted to have a go at 'driving' a dungeon.

i asked her to take a look through the fold out for the quest and tell me what other models i might need...turns out it would of cost me around £100 to flesh this out with pure Khornites. however the good thing with these bounties is that it gives the option to use the models from the base set..so you can mix and match them a bit. regardless I had an order on for new paints and dropped in another £18 for Skullgrinder, who just happens to be the boss baddie for this bounty.

additionally to this i wanted to get the Bloodreavers painted up. and wanted to utilise a painting process ive been trying out as of late whereby washing the model first with nuln oil would help pick out the details and settle in the recesses. then washing over the model with the various colours would..in theory allow me to paint up unit much quicker...8 hours worth of work and i had them painted up to what i feel is a decent enough standard for any table.

these guys were also featured as stand in for the khorn models i didnt have.

well this quest was a fun one indeed. as it was something a little different, swapping the GM around. With my wife slotting into controlling the Cogsmith and Fleetmaster.
she did pretty well too. kept things fluid and told the tale well as we fought our way through the dungeon. The wife however. not so well being her first outing as a hero..required a lot of hand holding. but then thats all part of the experience right?

it's a pretty decent sized quest too. The one thing to note. that my Castellant seems to of really stepped up a gear. my dice rolling seems to of taken a turn for the good. but its the skills i have combined in with him (i wont give them away as i want you all to discover this for yourselves)
But he is literally smashing his way through everything at the moment.
a few rookie mistakes from the young GM cost her giving us any real challenge. there is a very clear tactic within this quest which could of made it much more challenging if a more experienced GM had of seized the opportunity to pop a door open!
we simply kept everyone behind the battering ram of a Castellant.
even upon reaching this guy.

we swept him aside in a swathe of halberd and grudge raking.
he stayed on the board for a whole turn! yup skullgrinder was dust in the blink of an eye!
taking us about 3 hours or so. It's a multi layered singular dungeon with plenty going on.

again to state here. having the option to switch out the models for options provided in the main box set really is something i would of wished to of seen in other games of old. this isnt 100% driven on hard selling all of those extra models. they are nice to have, but not a neccesity!

so quest creators take note!
that the recent adversary cards released all have very clear indictation that for every adversary set there is a relevant adversary set avaialable. in this case the wrathmonger are to khorne what the blight kings are to nurgle. and so on. so this is a very healthy way forwards i feel..that wont burn too much of a hole in my pocket.

anyways we cleared up the dungeon. due to the multi level nature we had missed part of it. so we decided to go and explore further even after taking out skullgrinder. we cleared the whole dungeon. with the castellant leading the way.

we left the dungeon and headed upto the city to collect our bounty, but alas a huge carnival was taking place and we had no way of getting across town. so we headed on into the next mission.

not much to report on this one other than we found it pretty easy at this point.
we had our first meeting with Lord Redomir (who is due a paint job)
we finally met up with the Gryphound.
we progressed another level allowing us 3 skill cards now.
since i seem to of found the magic number with the castellant and his skills it is starting to feel a little bit too easy. adding the gryphound into the mix as well gives another attacking option along with the extra skill for each of the heroes made this entire quest a little bit of a let down. it was simply too easy!
it seems the balance with the castellant that struggled so much very early in the quest as swung the pendulum the opposite way. and he seems to be taking out an easy 60% of the kills

the other characters plod on. the loremaster has a set of skills all garnered around protection. he can shrug off blows at will.

the cog smith can even break away much easier now due to his skills, allowing him a very easy ride for keeping out of the way and firing shots off from his guns.

and the fleetmaster..is kinda boring..he is...it kind of just feels now that he is just coming along to hide behind everyone and then jump out at the last minute to kick a dying bloodreaver in the head and shout "yeh come and have a go now bitch!" :)

but that aside we wrapped up another mission. with all of our playing time clocking in at around 18 hours or so with another 3 quests to go. and still 2 more bounties to take hold of i can see us coming in at around 30 hours total play to wrap everything up.
the game is starting to feel a little too easy now. so in the interest of keeping things challenging. we will most likely move the difficulty level up to see how it goes.

and this last dungeon unveiled a surprising twist to the story..not going ot give it away...but not all of the quests are in a dungeon.


i think i may well wrap up my journeys in the next post. not really able to give away too much for fear of spoiling the plot. i have had to take a different angle on how i discuss the game. i feel ive given plenty regarding the heroes. and how they progress. a good insight to the city phase. and a good idea of how the game at least plays through.

so part 6 will be the last of the journeys where i will give my final synopsis :)

peace all

Putrid Blight Kings

as mentioned in my previous post i have had a swathe of painting buzz hit me early on this year.
in total i reckon i have painted up about about 100 minis (including all of the zombies from zombicide which i will post up soon)

but with my most recent buzz at the gaming table being shadows over hammerhal i have been eager to get it all wrapped up.

so the next part was the putrid blight kings. which i first need to say..are pretty fucking amazing!
i mean the sprues give so much choice. and they are fabulous characters. and were also fun to paint up as well.

the only downfall i had was that because i have been doing plenty of unit style painting recently, and quite successfully at that, painting these guys kind of broke my flow.
because i had to paint 5..they are sort of a unit.
because they have so much character. it would of been ashame to paint them all the same.

thats not a bad thing. but i did find i went from painting at 100 mph to about 10 mph.

painting up the previous khorne dudes only took me about 8 hours. these took about 15 to 20.
i just seemed to of lost my stride!

but again. they look great on the table so it was well worth it.
anyways here is a closer look at them all.

Again like some of my more recent models i have added some new styles to my arsenal of painting so i feel i have a wider spectrum now for mixing some different elements of painting. i have taken to always using a white undercoat that i wash with nuln oil then give an overbrush of white again to help pick out all the details and leave some darker greys in the recesses

And this gives me greater control when adding thinner glazes, for example to this kilt thing.. no highlight. no shades. just a simple glaze or 3 gives a basic highlight and shade look already. and this has helped me speed up moreso on unit painting. but also enables me to utilise this at times where needed.

 But then i also mix in some old school GW style of painting, like the edge highlighting of armour.

 or wet blending like on the this fur drape

 one thing i have never been 100% comfortable with is painting metallics. so hopefully in the near future i can spend more time working on getting better results on the metallics on the models i paint.

 also adding simple little glazes of mixed colours really help add some flavour to the skin especially.

 again here you can see the glaze method over my undercoat works really well on the haft of the bell and axe. 1 glaze of dryad bark and i'm done!

 as i say these models are great to paint because they enabled me to utilise lots of differing paint styles. and whilst taking longer. they were a great experience.

 all in all i am happy how they turned out. this guy being my favourite

and now they are all painted up and look great on the table.

this also wraps up all of the adversaries in the hammerhal box set. with exception of the sorceror. and still need to paint up the gryphound. so hopefully i can lay into those soon enough.

Blood Reavers

Only just realised that i had painted these up and not posted anywhere, even after already taking some snaps.

well this is another unit type of batch painting that i have done. that for the first time ever i think i may of reached a point where i havent hated painting them.
some of it lending to the models actually being fun ones to paint.
mostly though lending to the newer styles of painting ive implemented.

this entire unit took me about 8 hours maximum to paint and complete. Now for me. this is good. over the course of about 4 days 2 hours each day. and ive wrapped up a unit.

how this would of panned out in the past. due to me not enjoying painting units i would probably of done an hour a day at very most. then taking breaks inbetween (because i wasnt enjoying it) and would take me anything around 3 to 4 weeks to complete purely based on me avoiding. and taking longer to paint in general. so to go from that to 4 days and done. i feel thats a great step forwards for me.

anyways here they are. hope you enjoy :)

SKULL GRINDER

Hello again!

with my recent shadows over Hammerhal journey posts featuring me moving through the game, out experiences as well as the model i am painting. i also paint a few other things.
this is somewhat linked. but in order to keep up with regular posts i decided to split the painting for their own features.

we only have a few quests left of Hammerhal. but the 3 extra bounties that came in White dwarf gave us a little bit more lifeblood for extra quests

and speaking of blood. i purchased a mighty adversary to go along with the first bounty mission. being Khorne themed leads us to lovely chap.

wielding a mahoosive flaming hammer head on the end of a chain should make him a mighty adversary indeed??!!

I used a variation of methods to paint up this guy. starting with a recess wash of black over the top of white, then giving him a drybrush of white to bring out all the details.

I then painted in very thin glazes to make up the skin (that shading is natural from the recess wash as the start) all i dit was build up to a lighter tone.

i used the old GW method for edge highlighting the armour

and again some thin glazes for the flames. the purple pouch is is just 1 glaze. no highlighting and no shading involved..same for the boots 

 

painting in this way has also helped me speed up my painting in general. and i am finding i am much more happy with the results because i am not painstakingly spending stupid amounts of time on them. as well as actually saving the rainforest by not having to use so much paint :)

All in all. this guy took only about 4 hours to paint and i am really happy with the result.

the model itself is pricey (18 quid!!!!) but was actually total joy to paint as well.

i have been hitting my rhythm this year. and have already painted up more minis than i painted in the entirety of last year...so more posts to follow :)

peace  

Warhammer quest spell cards completed

I seem to of found my groove with these cards.

having already wrapped up the dungeon, treasure and event cards
i have also now completed the spell cards.

opting this time for a more familiar card backing (i did consider a grimoir style leather book cover for the backs. but decided to keep it the same in design as the originals so that the cards stood out more)

Having gotten a response back from printer studio i can now confirm they will be my printer of choice. because..they offer a usable and affordable price.
i mean some of the options will only take bulk buys. and some of the prices reach crazy proportions
so printer studio it is!

only 1 snag.....card amounts.
printer studio do options in batch amounts and i think in order to maximise my prints...it would probably be worth me doing all of the addons and expansions cards as well.
due tot eh fact ill be printing a lot....it is most likely the bast way to move forwards.
not a biggie. but means more work than i originally planned.
but things are going well at the moment. so might now be too much of a problem.

onwards and upwards!

Warhammer quest more cards completed.

I have now wrapped up the Event cards as well as the Dungeon cards.
And i'm really happy how they turned out.
i also received a message from the friendly generated email folk at printer studio who assure me ordering through the U.S website.

WARHAMMER QUEST EVENT CARDS - Help needed!!

So first phase of my warhammer questy quest thing starts in photoshop. approaching a recreation of all of the cards.
i have wrapped up all of the base game event cards.

ive gone for a familiar but cleaner design to the originals. mimicking the design just with new graphics. i also wanted to give them new backs. again something fresher and high resolution.

the next part however i require assistance. so i'm putting out a call for help

LIGHT THE BEACONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So...how the hell do i get cards printed in the UK?
i have no idea. everywhere i have looked points to a website called printerstudio

there is also a UK version of the website.. i follow the steps to create the cards and
its broken!!!!

404 Page not found (Unexpected Event)

Oops...Sorry!

The page you have requested cannot be found. Please try looking again or you could contact our friendly sales team for a direct repsonse!

so lets contact your friendly sales team via the link.....oh guess what? BROKEN ALSO!! (TRAP - take 1D6 wounds with no penalty from armour or toughness)

now printer studio appears to be the best i have found. but highly suspect i will be better of using something UK based than getting my cards created in america and shipped over.

so the call out for anyone uk or european based that may of printed custom cards or the likes...please please. someone throw me a lifeline?

it would be very much appreciated.

anyways here's a few close ups of some of the cards :)

SHADOWS OVER HAMMERHAL - HEROES

You may of seen some of my journey posts chronicling our adventures into Hammerhal.
you may well of also seen the odd picture of thier mini's as they have been getting painted.

well here is a better look at all of them

I decided that whilst i have been trying out different painting methods the last few months. i would simply trial how the paint guide within the box set fared. And whilst i was missing a couple of colours to do exactly the same. i was still able to find the odd replacement or mix up something similar.

LORD CASTELLANT

My guy during our campaign. i never really liked these gold shiny dudes when they first came out..sigmarines right?? regardless he was fun to paint up. retributor armour paint is by far the best quality gold paint i have ever used. the pigmentation is so full and the paint still doesnt clog up.

rather than paint using the colours provided in the paint guide. i went with retributor armour. washed with reikland fleshade and then simply built up in layers using chainmail (some of my paints are old!!)

regardless he was fun to paint. 

BLACK ARK FLEETMASTER

he was a pain to glue together and that anime hair needed a few touch ups. this figure isnt one i would of ever thought of purchasing. but now i have him. its a pretty cool mini. i love that cloak and the blade leg. also he was bloody hard to take any 'sweet spot' style photo. so apologies for lack of face shot.

LOREMASTER

This guy i painted up first out of all of them, due to my youngest daughter having this guy as her character. i had to lie and say it was a girl so she would play...c'mon GW sort it!

regardless he came out really cool. and im glad how the paint job turned out.

I have never been a fan of elves. but painting this one made me start to look at other alternatives as well. so may well make a few purchases soon.

COGSMITH

This guy in game is a total beast for ranged attack. that axe though, leaves a lot to be desired.

i'm not too keen on this sculpt. and due to his range. i was seemingly a little too far away when i primed him too! hence the graininess. but he came out well enough.

Ive actually painted all of the minis except 2 now in the hammerhal boxed set. So coming up soon will be the gryph hound and the chaos sorcerer. I also have to take some photos of the Putrid Blightkings who have also been painted up now. my next hammerhal journey post will add a few more too. and we are close to completing the campaign so will wrap everything up in a conclusion post. however based on the amount of posts ive put up about this game. that may well tell you how well it has gone down in this household.

Anyways enjoy. and have a nice weekend all :)