Having been insanely busy recently I've not had much time for scenery or painting models - however the upcoming Autumn Challenge at the end of the month has prompted me to get some new scenery done!

Having received a big order from Antenociti recently, I started with the acrylic Police barriers.

The 2015 Winter Challenge - Welcome to N3 Third Edition!

The first UK Third Edition event! Following on from the Autumn Challenge 'preparation for N3' event we will get to play with all the new rules! This will be a fun weekend to introduce new and old players to the rules, with tutorials, a seminars and demo games on Saturday followed by a tournament day on Sunday.

Saturday - Intro/Training

This will be a day geared towards new players and people who want to learn more about the game and background. On top of the usual demo games, advice sessions and scenarios there will be a seminar on third edition.

Saturday Painting Competition

There will be a painting comepition for 1-3 models on a linked theme. Judging will be by a select panel. All decisions by the judging panel will be final.

Sunday - Tournament Day

N3 is go! This is currently planned as a 150pt doubles tournament but depending on numbers and when we get the ITS2015 missions it might be split into two seaparate tournaments for newer players and veterans.

The results for the 2014 Summer Challenge for the 400pt Campaign Tournament on the Saturday and 300pt Classic Tournament on the Sunday.

The Autumn Challenge will be a 'preparation for N3 Third Edition' weekend with demo games, tutorials, fun scenarios and more on Saturday, followed by a doubles tournament on Sunday pairing newer players with more experienced players.

Saturday - Intro/Training

This will be a day geared towards new players and people who want to learn more about the game and background. Details are still to be confirmed but events will include intro games, tactics and list-building advice. There will also be plenty of tables and scenarios set up for open gaming.

All attendees on Saturday will get a goody bag.

Saturday Painting Competition

Class 1 - Single Figure. Any Infinity model that normally comes on a 25mm base. Also includes Sappers.

Class 2 - Large Figure. Any Infinity model that normally comes on a base larger than 25mm, for example Ajax, TAGs, Bikes, most Remotes.

Class 3 - Group. Between three and five Infinity models on a theme.

Models can only be entered into one class and must be painted by the entrant. Judging will be by a select panel. All decisions by the judging panel will be final.

Sunday - Tournament Day

This will be a '2.5 edition' doubles event with pairings decided on the day. This will not be an official Infinity Tournament System event.

The current plan is to use these rules from third edition:

• Weapon Range Bands
• Loss of Lieutenant makes everyone Irregular for a turn.
• Using the Lieutenant's Order automatically reveals the Lieutenant.
• Combat Camo is replaced by Surprise Shot.
• Slhouettes for Line of Fire.

The overall winners will be decided by objective points from the games, but prizes will be awarded based on in-game achievments for silly kills etc.

In our business we started using SKUs (stock keeping units) very early on. Mostly for my benefit because the difference between "Games Workshop Plastic Dwarf Warriors on Sprue" and "Games Workshop Plastic Ork Warriors on Sprue" is too subtle to quickly compute. My only other excuse is that I love numbers. They are so clear, appealing and often well rounded ;-) 

In the last couple of weeks I have sorted through hundreds and hundreds of Epic models. You could say it was an epic sort. (Ouch, ouch, stop that, Lele.) To be honest, sorting Epic can be a bit of a challenge due to the discrepancy between size of the models and the accuracy of my eyesight. But it's now all sitting there in little tubs waiting to be photographed.

This is the next bit of fun, taking 3 minutes to line up 65 bases for one photo and then repeat that a hundred times...

I tend to run a lot of 'multi-wound' war machines in my Epic Death Guard forces so decided to do a war machine status sheet to keep track of damage, void shields and blast markers on multiple gribblies at once. As this required a photo-shoot to have photos of the actual units on the sheet, I took the opportunity to do a group shot of all the painted models.

So, group shot!

Status sheet:

There's no 'Free Postage' like there's no 'Free Lunch'
 
For a while now eBay has been pushing sellers to offer 'Free Postage'. Well actually, they are encouraging sellers to integrate the postage & packaging costs into the item price. So postage is still not free, it has just become a hidden charge.

Yes, we as a seller could just add £3 to each item we sell and only charge an additional P&P fee to international customers. But we see a few problems with this concept. 

I've not had much time for painting Epic models recently but thanks to a bout of insomnia managed to paint up one of Micro Art Studio's alien objectives (available online here, hint hint ;-) ).

Having previously noted it's scale-less nature I'd based it to match my Epic Death Guard force on a ply base with Vallejo Sandy Paste for texture.

To give very vibrant colours but plenty of depth in tone and variation of colour I started with a white undercoat over grey and worked down from the palest areas with multiple layers of washes, glazes and thinned paint. This let me add lots of different colours while working down into the shadows, making it a very satisfying model to work on. The pink areas then got a little bit of edge highlighting at the end. Overall I used something like twenty different paints/glazes/inks on this!

Here it is with a Nomad Moderator.