The Protectorate Battlebox

I set up this blog almost two months ago and just now I'm getting around to posting pics of my primary faction, Protectorate of Menoth. I'm going to start with the obvious, the battlebox. I bought the battlebox at GenCon last year. I plan on talking about my painting process within the next few articles so for now we'll just say that I take a while.



I finished my first model, the Revenger, sometime in September. I used mostly the P3s that I bought at the Privateer booth with some supplemental metallics I already owned. This was my first experience with what I now know are the infamous P3 metallics. I get home and my pot of Rhulic Gold was a goopy mess.



I just wasn't that impressed with the Revenger, the colors, the paint job, none of it. By the time I got to Kreoss I had made some adjustments to the scheme. The off-white came across as more of a white that I built up from tans and the wine red of the studio scheme had turned more of a typical red. I'm not really big on the bronze/gold family of metallic colors so I opted to paint the armor a golden yellow. I felt better about the actual painting for Kreoss than I did the previous model. But I still didn't care for the colors.



At this point I painted a couple of unit leaders and a solo which I will get to in another article. Then the MKII field test of Hordes came out and I bought a bunch of Trollbloods stuff and put most of it together. It was probably another six weeks before I painted another model.


When I finally got back around to painting it was time for the Repenter. I had given it plenty of thought and I really wanted to ditch those warm browns that I was using for the armor. I also wanted to try and get a colder feel out of the white. I switched the browns to grays, started building up to white from gray, instead of tans. I also decided to make more use of chrome metallics. I began using different shades of red than I had been previously which gives it more of a maroonish red feel than a proper red. I also highlighted the red with a very thin application of Citadel's Warlock Purple which gives the red tones a colder feel. It's more obvious in person than it is in the pic.



There really isn't much to say about the Crusader. I just ported over the techniques and colors I had used for the Repenter and called it a day.








I ended the battlebox on a much higher note than I had started with. A friend of mine had purchased a Crusader, Repenter, and Revenger (and a handful of Choir blisters) in a bargain bin at the FLGS back in Utah. I was able to pick those up from him in trade so I'll get the Revenger right next time. Add to that the new Kreoss sculpt and I'll have a pretty consistent and much better looking battlebox set. It should come in handy for that day when I apply to be a PG.

Our first official Warmachine MKII game day (and other miscellanea)

Well the holidays are well over and it's been over a month since I've posted. I haven't been able to dedicate much of my time over the last few weeks to Warmachine anyhow, so there wouldn't have been anything worth reporting.

I did sell my copy of the World of Warcraft boardgame to a fellow member of the Fear the Boot forum community. It was with that money that I ordered some models online. I got eFeora, Daughters, Bastions, a Redeemer, an Avatar, and a Khador scrap marker onto which I'm going to mount my Avatar so it doesn't seem so puny.

I finally got around to finishing my Protectorate battlebox. It took me several months to really settle on a color scheme I was into. I wish I could have figured that out *before* I already has several models painted. So my Revenger was the first prototype for my scheme. Kreoss, a few unit leaders, and a solo are done in a scheme that I had more or less settled for. And then I found my stride with the Repenter and Crusader. I should get pictures up soon.

I have an extra Revenger still in its packaging that I will paint up in the new scheme as I will do with the new pKreoss sculpt. I want my battlebox to be consistent in the event I ever apply for Press Gangership.

The last thing I want to post about is the recent Warmachine game day we had at our local game store. As I've lamented in previous posts, there isn't much of a Warmachine/Hordes community in my area. As it turns out there were a few people just waiting for MKII to be released. I'm not going to say that yesterday's game day went gangbusters or anything, but there was some improvement. One of our objectives with scheduling the game day just a bit over a week after MKII's release was to get some synergy going and try to create a bit of a buzz. We were hoping to get the attention of those who had played and were still interested but were just waiting to see if there was going to be some kind of local support for MKII.

We had three people show up who either had never come to a Warmachine game day before, or hadn't been to one in a year or more. I do have to qualify that by saying that two of those three weren't able to stay very long and didn't come to play. They came to see what we were up to. Not only that one of them said that his teenage sons (also players) already had plans that day, but are otherwise available. They also said that they have been working on some of their friends to play.

The other guy did come to play and with only three of us there to play WM, we played my first three-way game. It was a Cryx vs. Cygnar vs. Menoth assassination game that I decidedly did not win. I really didn't care though.

Needless to say that it was a day that presented a lot of potential. My idea for the long term is still that visibility is key to bringing new blood in. That kind of visibility is going to require the converted to get out there and be seen. Now that we can establish a small list of active players I think that we can get the kind of visibility we are looking for. And if nothing else we were able to see a few more current players get together and play the game, and if that's all that comes out of this, if that becomes the status quo...I'll be happy with that too.