So RGG dropped another trailer for VFC, this time for Lion...el? Rafale. I'll just drop it here:
Hot damn. I haven't seen a trailer this cool for awhile. Now we dunno yet what's going on. Is it Lion? Is it Lion after J6 fuckery? Is it Lion's son? Problem is we have no idea how far in the future after VF5 this game is(or if it's something weird like a Slightly Different Timeline, which might explain the Suspiciously Similar Substitutes, like Stella...though Akira, Pai and Wolf are there, so...?)
Over my years in VF, I've done a lot of character swapping(though only because they kept adding very cool characters.) In VF1, I had grabbed Jacky. In part 2, I indeed picked up Lion and mained him through 2, 3, and 4 base, though when EVO hit I grabbed Brad and Goh and played them a bit more often than Lion, and those stuck until Jean, who became my main in VF5, and stuck since. So far, since we haven't yet seen any of them, I do believe I'll be maining Lionel in this like the old days. Everything old is new again, etc, etc. (Of course, they could introduce some crazy heavy metal newcomer dude who's me-coded, but for now, Lionel seems to be it.) I think I know what the kids mean these days when they say 'aura', heh.
As for some moves, I believe there is a 66KK with an elbow follow up(or at least it's a 66K, with another kick and an elbow follow up), and the wall throw, but besides all of that I am not sure even yet how all of the VFC controls are going to be like so that's anyone's guess. (I assume they'll be close enough to VF.) The knee to the double high spin kick probably has circular tracking I'd guess at least. I am even wondering if there's some stances happening here or revamped animations-but time will tell there. This is a lot more than a standard sequel, and Lionel looks to be the most revamped style wise so far of the little bits of returning characters that we've seen. (Which to be fair hasn't been everything by any means.)
The story is getting a lot more emphasis; VF has never been a story-driven game, each character gets like a couple of paragraphs. But I think the devs know modern FG folks expect more in the way of story in their games nowadays, which I totally get(robust single-player modes are a necessity nowadays.) So seeing a story driven VF will be something new and I hope they deliver with it.
Anyway, I was VERY happy to see this trailer. Sometimes a trailer just sticks with you and this is one of them. Easily their best trailer yet IMO and honestly one of the better FG trailers I've seen in awhile, though that...is not a very high bar to clear these days. (Sett's trailer is also one of the top ones I've seen in awhile.) The overall feel and vibe of this trailer just nails it. I also think I have never seen Mantis repped so...brutally or heavy handed before? This dude stepped it up. He's downright nasty and I'm here for it.
Anyway, hype for this game, and I'm glad I have plenty game-wise to keep me busy with through 2026 and into 2027, so waiting on this isn't so bad!
Alrighty! Well Orktober is behind us, and it was quite a bit of fun. I liked getting to get to paint a bunch of old vintage models. As I've said in the past I have a soft spot for those old, clunky metal miniatures, even though they might not be the most sleek.
However, I'm also happy to move onto some more modern ones again; I DO still have some vintage minis to put paint on when I want to, but it's a mood thing. (I did get plenty of cool metal minis from Reaper-but those are modern sculpts, like the fighter/cleric I did, so they're much more detailed than the old ones.)
So doing a bunch of random models from Ruglud's Armored Orcs, as well as some Rogue Trader boyz, I went for a variety of painting styles to keep things fresh for me. I was also reminded on how bad I am at painting armies; after just 12-13 of these boyz I was ready to move on. (Remember I took months to do my Court warband.) ONE day, I might be able to do a bunch, but given my penchant for TTRPGs over wargames, I haven't had a reason to yet(though Age of Sigmar boxes have been tempting me, as have Old World.) We'll see though.
For starters, we have some good ol' fashioned traditionally painted boyz. Nothing fancy here. And yes, they are stealth oriented. I wanted to keep that old timey painting style, as well. Most of the paints used were The Army Painter, though, as I have a bigger bunch of them than Citadel(though I do have a variety of those, and some were used.) Some Villainy Inks were used on the grimdark piece.
Of course the bases are green. The first guy was the Ruglud's leader, and the other three are two Rogue Trader boyz and one Ruglud's trooper.
Next up, we have some speedpainted boyz. These are all Ruglud's troopers. The metals do include some standard acrylics. Speedpaints do work on these, I found! I think they work a little better on more detailed modern minis, but they are certainly usable here. Two are done with one coat over a drybrush zenithal, but two are done 'double chopped', where I did a zenithal highlight, one dark speedpaint coat, another drybrush, and then a lighter color.
Next up, I decided to mix things up a little bit, with one boy done in the Zorn palette. I used just 4 colors from the Army Painter's John Blanche set, The Darkness, Ivory White, Fiery Vermillion, and Sunburst Ochre, and mixed them the best I could. I did allow myself 1 effect(Grim Rust), 2 Washes(Voodoo Shade and Grimdark Shadow), and 1 Metallic(Heavy Metal), also all from the JB set. I kept the washes ochre and black, as well, to stay in the spirit. The other one was done in a more grimdarky style, using some enamels and rust effects. I used the old Warcraft 1/2 art as inspiration since that had the sort of exaggerated styles, but a darker edge.
Left: Zorn Rogue Trader boy. Right: Grimdark-ish Trooper, tho he is still stealthy. Also paints used on the left-side fellow.
Finally, for some reason, I decided to do some synthwave boyz. Why? Just because I could. I can't lie, these were very fun.
Also had to of course use some fluor effects.
And there we have it there; I'm happy and they were fun to do. For November, I'll be doing just random models(also working on an autumn diorama). I have a Reaper Bugbear that I'm basing up that I'll show soon! I have some very nice Ironshield Minis that are all fantasy based, and I'm going to be gluing up a bit of a custom Chaos Chosen for a little bit of fun, though I think he'll be some practice for something or other. Also I think I'll be doing that Army Painter Starter Set review, which I did grab! (As said, I needed Ultramarine Blue still and I am low on Matt White, Matt Black, Leather Brown, and Brush-On Primer. Getting 5 paints I needed, which would have been about 20e, with the bonuses for just an extra 15e was more than worth it, and having spare other colors isn't bad either!)
December will be more Reaper minis(really! I am telling myself we'll get that AD&D game going!), more Ironshield minis, and (High) Elves on the Shelves, where I knock out some White Lions of Chrace and Korhil Lionmane(tho I might be tempted to start him in November, we'll see.)
Warhammer Tone Pro
So, is it good paint? Yeah, it is, actually. It does cover nicely(I just did some tests over some 3D printed models-FDM, as well, and they covered them nicely), though I'll do a little more there. The white really is excellent and is great for painting eyes, and I can see myself using some of these for small details-but in the end, they're paint. Good paint, but very expensive paint, and not paint I really need to replace my workhorse Army Painter paints with. (Oh yeah, they're teaming up with D&D-so I might have to try to paint something with them to tag them or something.)
The pots still suck, of course. The Shade Medium is pretty awesome-you can mix your own contrast paints and shades with it and that is very damn cool, I think, but I immediately dumped it into its own bottle because you need to be able to measure it in drops to get good mixes for that. I think I'll be transferring the other colors to droppers, too, to be honest. So my suggestion is to grab colors you might want to use for fine details(it does stay quite nicely on a small brush and covers well), the white(which is called Blackstone Void 5), and...otherwise, stick with your workhorses, whatever that may be. If they're Citadel/Warhammer anyway, then yeah, these are 1000% a direct upgrade to the other paints, just....more expensive.
Oh yeah, I messed with the white, Blue Gorkshroom 1(very nice dark blue), Stormwolf Blue 3(very close to Fenrisian Grey), Shalaxi Violet 3(a bluish-violet that I'm quite partial to for a royal robe look), and Craventhrone Cloak 3, which is a nice desaturated blue-gray which I think has a hint of green(I am bad at greens, though.) All really nice colors, FWIW. I really think the biggest flaws of these paints are just-packaging and price. The quality is there, though they are, again, Good Paint, not Magic Paint. (Except for the white for eyes. That white is almost magic. It stayed workable on my 10/0.)
But yeah, they'll be 'selective pickings' for me.
Alrighty! Also happy 33rd anniversary as of Oct. 25th to Dark Medieval Times, one of my favorite Autumn albums. Go listen to it and allow the tones of Walk the Path of Sorrow to soothe you.
Just giving a lil' Orktober update. I started on the first day, and I've knocked out a few models in the first week! Two were done with speedpaints in a classic way(some drybrush zenithal, 1 coat of speedpaints), and two with 'double-chop'(or, double-glaze over grisaille; basically a drybrush zenithal, dark speedpaint coat, a smaller, bright drybrush, and then a lighter speedpaint coat for more richness.) One was done a little more classic(the Leader with the two swords). Mostly sticking to my Army Painter Fanatics/Speedpaints for these so far, with the occasional dip into a Scale 75 metallic or Citadel paint.
I do plan on rocking a couple of grimdark ones at the end(grimdark-style oldschool over the top minis? Why not see how it turns out?), but for now here's the finished ones! With, of course, green bases. I couldn't do these in anything else with good conscience.
The Leader Waaagh! (From Ruglud's Armored Orcs, circa about '87. All of these following ones are done from that box.)
Leader:
Speedpainted Four:
Here's another Trooper, and two Rogue Trader era boyz, all also done more in the traditional style(acrylics, washes, some effects paints.)
Currently I'm working on a Trooper that I'm gonna attempt in the more grimdark style. They do have the goofier over the top appearances, but I think I might be able to go into the direction of the old Warcraft 1+2 orc art for that, which seemed to marry that darker style with more exaggerated features. Another is also probably going to float that way since he'll be done in Zorn colors(close to it, at least), using just 4 colors from the Army Painter's John Blanche set(The Darkness, Sunburst Ochre, Ivory White and Fiery Vermillion). The Darkness I personally count as the 'black' of the Zorn palette-it's a cool black(it's really a black-blue-green), but those extra pigments kinda help with mixing(the traditional Zorn black IS a cool black, FWIW, that ends up as a bluish-grey when mixed with the ivory), so I think it works.
I am allowing myself 1 metallic, 2 washes and an effect paint from the JB set(Heavy Metal, Grimdark Shadow, Voodoo Shade and Grim Rust) to polish him up with, but the limited palette sticks. (Voodoo Shade and Grimdark Shadow are dark yellowish and black washes respectively, so they actually do fall pretty nicely into it.) This guy will be the one that falls out of the stealth mode-I can get a *kinda* purplish color with the red, but vermillion was the better pick between the Blanche reds, and it's quite warm, so doesn't quite work out too much, but I'll see if I can pop on some embellishments with it.
There will be 3 more boyz(I do have a Goblin from the set but maybe he can be an honorary member at the end), which I will still decide how to do them. If I finish before the end of October, then I'll probably do up the Goblin for funsies and start assembling new models. November I will be doing a lot of fantasy stuff(I think I'll do some dwarf models here and there for No-Shave November), otherwise no real theme, I got some nice new Reaper Metal Miniatures, 3 old White Lions of Chrace and a Korhil Lionmane(also metal) model, though I think I'm saving most of the elves for December(Elf on the Shelf.) But no real set lineup, I'll probably do a couple elves in November too, and whatever else I get my hands on.
I am also considering a Starter Set Challenge. This is where I grab a starter set(I will be getting the Army Painter one), and put it through the wringer painting not only whatever comes with the thing(if anything), but also painting up some other models using what's only in the set, plus a couple of mundane, around the house items a new painter might have(a water cup, a paper towel, sand for bases since I'd think a lot of people might have some kind of glue in a drawer somewhere.) This is to partially review a set, and to give myself some practice, too! The Army Painter Starter is only 30-35e depending on the shop, a real steal, and while I have most of the colors in it, I can always use extra black, white, brush-on primer(for those cold days), and Strong Tone wash, all of which get a lot of use from me. Between those and the missing color(I think I am only missing Ultramarine Blue at this point), and the miniature(worth a few bucks alone) and a brush(another fiver, even if it's just a basic one), I think it's not too bad of an investment. (One goes through a lot of black and white for mixing.)
I do have one more piece that wasn't Orktober, and that was a frost-based Death Commando! I did a lot of tweaking, and while I think the effects could've been better on him I'm pretty happy overall.
Fighting Game News?
Yeah, fighting game news! So you might've heard of the game 2XKO, the ill-fated Riot League of Legends fighting game. With a lot of development issues over about a decade, they decided to release it F2P, which I think was the biggest mistake overall, though perhaps well-meaning. It ended up getting news of being made evergreen not long ago, with just one last character-servers would stay up, you can play offline, they'd unlock a bunch of stuff and so on. So it'd be playable, but no longer get active development.
It had a small but dedicated playerbase(I think it could've done better with better marketing and a lot of other stuff, but I think that would need a postmortem from all involved), but I will say for me, the roster was quite lacking. LoL has way too many characters to fit in, but it was a small launch roster with a lot of Arcane characters(Netflix series-wasn't really my cup of tea, I'm a bit more old school with LoL, tho my fav character IS one from the past six years....more on that in a minute.) The choices were oft seen as a bit questionable-there are a lot of really fitting characters for a fighting game on LoL's roster(Lee Sin, Sett-AKA the best boy, who's literally the boss of a FIGHTING ARENA, like he's straight up a Fighting Game character), and so on. Samira is suitable-a Dante-esque character who goes stylish, and she was going to be the final release.
Well, lo and behold, one weird site leak later and it seems like the developers rallied, and in six months managed to make The Boss himself(after some vague tweets about every fighting game needing a final Boss-yes, that's his nickname), Sett, and get him on the roster, and he is glorious, and I'm totally going to be playing him.
He's basically a giant wolverine-man with super strength who is one of the best brawlers in the land. He fights with good old bashing, kicks, slams, and stomps and he has charisma out the ass. His parry is him pointing at himself. He can armor through supers. They basically copied his kit over and expanded on it. Kudos for the devs for managing that perfection soon and I hope he is gloriously busted like in OG fighting game ways.
I wish this would've happened at launch, but I am a 'better late than never' type.
Alrighty, that's the update for now, probably back fairly soon again!
I'll be bringing forth a bunch of old-school metal minis for this, including some old Rogue Trader Space Orks, along with some of Ruglud's Armored Orcs, and some other odds and ends from the late 80s and early 90s.
I am aware there's some non-orks here, but I was doing a big priming, so wanted to include them. They'll be painted after Orktober though!
I'll be painting up these boyz in a variety of styles, though I think they will be the Hidey Boyz, which means purple and you won't be able to see them.
