Well, I have obviously been away for a very long time. Boy, how life moves on. I hope to get a fresh start with gaming, the hobby and collecting my favorite set of toys....

BATTLETECH

I started playing back in 1987 with the 2nd edition box set. My friends and I poured over the designs and used the heck out of those card standees. We designed mechs by the reams and dreamed of glorious mech battles. The novels and more specifically Technical Readout (TRO) 3025 filled my every waking moment. It was a great time for me in my last years of high school.

Fast forward some and I was swayed to the dark side of Games Workshop and played their games exclusively and heavily especially from 1999 through 2010. I was an Outrider, tournament player, etc, etc. But as I learned it was fleeting to me... personal life helped me refocus and I came back to my first game love, Battletech. I now collect more than game but enjoy the hunt for new items...over 35 years of Battletech around the world means I am constantly finding new things I didn't even know existed.

My search and hunt as a collector opened a door for me to flip Battletech items to others. I do this on the side from my real life job as an elementary Principal, but it is rewarding just the same. I enjoy seeing the items of old find new homes and to see the hobby grow. Thus, my already existing blog fed into the name and function of my side business as a purveyor of used mechs and materials, Causalities of a Paint Brush.

This blog will become a hybrid of sorts. For me to talk about Battletech, painting, life and yet serve as a small platform for the business side of items as well. I hope you enjoy and please feel free to comment away.

The mech below is a sample I've painted for our lance playing in Wolfnet. Fortunately we are able to play our lance on table top. By the next few weeks I shall hopefully have many more mechs completed for this and for Kerensky Con coming up in April.

I also included a few from my "Frost" lance. Think of the mechs powering up in the early morning frost as the day begins. Kind of as a rekindling of this blog and the greater world of Battletech. I also included a picture from my own chapter I had for the Space Marines. I enjoyed painting this army more than any other. I plan to renew that love for painting BT minis soon :)

Thank you all
Bobby

Progress of my army...

We have a local tournament quickly approaching. It is Brawler Bash. This great tournament is in its 5th year and current projections have it scheduled to possibly have over 75 players. This is amazing and will be a real blast. In preparation for the tournament I set myself a painting schedule to complete a 3000 point Ogre Kingdom army in less than 2 1/2 months. Some of my earlier post were showing the Leadbelchers and the the color I was going to be going with. Well, I am fast approaching the deadline, the tournament is April 13-14 in Raleigh, NC. I have the bulk of the army completed or almost completed. I thought I would post some pics of the army as it stands right now.

I'm going for the freehand painting points by having over half the pants either in a stripe or checkerboard pattern. No 2 pairs of paints are the same color either, I feel they would find what they can, not all be looking alike. Please give me your thoughts and opinions.

The Stonehorn is almost completed. Note the gems growing in the stone tusks.

 The Ironblaster is done just waiting to get to the bases.

 The Mournfang cavalry wait to charge.

 I decided to use the new Fell Wargs from LOTR as Sabretusks...What's your thoughts?

 

Prepare to Fire...

I got the first full unit of Ogres relatively completed. This unit of Leadbelchers will provide the fire support to the Ogres as they rush into combat. They are not done yet. I still need to add some rust effects, add the Gnoblar head to the unit leader, and bases.This is just a unit of 6 with a bellower. The bases won't be done until all the models are complete for the entire army so I can do them all at once and match them up properly. I also plan to add the fine detail items to the army all at the end too.

Let me know what you think... as I think I will now move onto my unit of 4 Mournfang.

 

Blood Bowl commission work

I mentioned that I would post on some previous commission work I had done. These are some Blood Bowl minis that I painted for a friend. I had previously painted the entire Chaos Dwarf team for him. These were some additional star players, coaches, cheerleaders, doc, etc.

I should be getting a batch of 4 more Star players to paint for him in the near future. Once I get them in and start painting them I will post pics about them as well.

As always feel free to comment...

OK, the start of something new...

Well, unfortunately I have been out of touch for a very long time, almost a year from my last post. I am hoping to use this as a way to get back into the gaming and painting scene. I've been gaming and painting some commission stuff, but not really focused on the hobby I love. I just got back a bit over a week ago from a Fantasy tournament in Columbia, SC...Scarabcon. It was a great event and I will post a different blog post on how things went there next time.

Playing in the 2 day tournament got me stoked about painting again though and so here I am. I have a new army that I have play tested some, but unfortunately is relatively common....Ogre Kingdoms. I wanted to start off by showing a few of my demo paint jobs until I decided on a color.

I wanted to avoid the flesh color and greys that are common and thus decided on something with a bit of green to it. I don't feel I'm done adding rust effects yet to the final Irongut you see below, but its a start.

Please provide your thoughts on the colors, minis, painting, etc... I am always open to thoughts and ideas. Hopefully I can get this entire 3000 point army completed by Brawler Bash in Durham, NC...April 13-14. We shall see...I will also post my list ideas in another blog posting soon.

Glad to be back

Project update- Vampire Count Army build

Sorry for the long delay to my postings... life happens.
I intend for the next several post to be about my current building project. As many of my gaming friends know, I have a tendency to build an army, play it for a while and then sell it. The last few years I have used our local GT, Brawler Bash, to give me inspiration for the building of new armies. Previously it was an all Troll army led by Throgg, last year a Wood Elf army was taken to the fight. This year I have chosen to do a Vampire Counts army. This may be my biggest push to complete an army in time though...

I have 71 days to buy, build, and paint my army before the tournament. Unfortunately, my real job has to get in the way for many days and some nights and weekends. But with that goal in mind I trek forward. The army is slightly different then what some may run for the VC. I don't mind folks knowing what I will run, so I am going to post the whole list...the tournament is 3000 points. Feel free to let me know your feelings on the list as well as painting thoughts.

List:
1 Ghoul King (Skabscrath, Beguile, Aura of Dark Majesty, Red Fury, Dragonbane Gem, and Trickster's Shard)
1 Terrorgheist (mount for the GK)
1 Level 2 Necromancer (Cursed Book)
1 Corpse Cart (mount for lvl 2 with Balefire)
1 Level 2 Necromancer (Dispel Scroll)
1 Corpse Cart (mount for lvl 2 with Unholy Loadstone)
30 Ghouls (with Ghast)
30 Ghouls (with Ghast)
20 Zombies (with banner)
20 Zombies (with banner)
5 Hexwraiths (with Hellwraith)
6 Vargheist (with Vargoyle)
1 Varghulf
1 Terrorgheist (with Infested)
1 Terrorgheist (with Infested)

I also plan to have a display board and mount the 3 Terrorgheist on special bases. This will entail a lot of terrain from the Garden of Morr, Dreadstone Blight tower, and walls from the Fortress Manor scenery sets to complete the display ( a ruined tower overlooking a grave guard). Grand plans for the army...we will see!

The first piece that I put together and painted for your review is the Varghulf. I purchased the Finecast version and I have to say I was extremely pleased. I had no bubbling, missing details or any problems with it. It also painted very well and I don't have to worry about scrapping paint off of metal points and tips. I tried to go with some varied color tones for it to really stand out. I intend to use a very similar paint color scheme for the Vargheist and ghouls. Let me know what you think...

Da Orks...

I thought I would roll things off for my next few blogs by taking a look at some of my existing armies and getting folks feedback. First up our my Speed Freek Orks for 40K.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have a tendency to build and paint an army, play it in a tournament or two and then sell it off and start over. Not my Orks. They have sentimental value beyond their true cost (I believe they would fetch a good penny if I did decide to part with them). Their story starts while my dad was going through chemo. I would go with him for his weekly treatments and we started to discuss my next 40K army. Eventually we fell on the Speed Freeks. We discussed options and looks for all of the bikers, nobs, riders, conversions, etc. In the end, you get the army you see above at 1850 points. (My dad is still going strong after 2 bouts of cancer and chemo in the past 4 years, so the army keeps rolling on too).

Some of the interesting facts about this army to consider (at least to me).... it took 5 weeks of planning (after selecting the army with my dad), laying out each bike, rider, and buggy. It then took 5 weeks to paint the whole force (in was in preparation for a local GT). The army consist of 44 bikers and 3 skorchas. Every single bike is different and every rider is different. There are no duplicates at all throughout the force.

I figure I will post some photos of my favorite riders and significant models of the force throughout other future posts (wait until you see "Need for Speed", "Indiana Jones","ATV", "Scout", "Star Wars Speeder bike", "Gobbos Revenge" and many others). So to start with, I give you Wazdakka Gutsmek, the army general and reason I can take 3 units of 12 bikers as troops. The Dakkakannon is converted from 4 IG autocannons (it is strength 8, 4 shots after all), and he has the wicked power claw/buzz saw. The trophy skull is from the Helcannon model.

Next up is the army's Warboss. This bad boy allows the unit of Nobz to also count as Troops. It's nice to have everyone count as troops for most games. One thing you will notice in the army is that all the big orks (Nobz and HQ models) have head trophies on the fronts of their bikes to help show they are the toughest. Our Warboss had the pleasure of ripping the head of a visiting Carnifex to add as a trophy. His power klaw helped a little bit in the fight.

I actually enjoy painting the checkerboards, so you will see this on many of my models.

Enjoy! I will soon be posting details for this year's local Games Day Event (December 10th).