A Call to War: Clan Coyote Epsilon Galaxy

[cavingjan]

I wish I had time for regular battletech games. Those days are behind me for the next couple of years. I preferred MechWarrior: Dark Age due to the simpler rule set and faster game play. Don’t get me wrong. A classic slug fest is always welcome but I actually enjoy games that you can complete in an hour or two. Being able to set up several games in an evening with friends is icing on the cake. Alpha Strike seems to bring back that type of game for me provided you aren’t trying to play cluster on cluster or regiment against regiment.
 
As some of you may know, I enjoy painting even if they are not top notch paint schemes. Lately, I’ve found myself painting various different schemes and don’t often use the same paint scheme on multiple units. I’m going to make an exception here as a unified paint scheme for a smallish clan series would be interesting.
 
A few years ago, the local battletech group started doing a painting version of Secret Santa. The second year we did one, I pulled the Lord of Reaving himself. I opted to do a society mech and chose the Septicemia in the ATM/heavy laser configuration. I ended up painting it in Clan Coyote Zeta Galaxy colors. Since my freehand isn’t the best, I painted two of them so he could choose which one he liked. The symbols were mostly the same. That was the first time I had tinkered with alternate configurations for clan omnis.
 
When Savage Coyote brought up this project, I decided I wanted to do some things that I hadn’t done before. My first goal was to do a clan nova. The second was to make a cohesive force that the minis actually match the configurations. This will prove interesting. The third was to keep adding some Society mechs.
 
I started to work something up in Coyote Zeta colors around that Septicemia A (AZ actually). Looking around, I also had a Cephalus D and an Osteon D that I could paint. I sat down to see what kind of star I could put together. I was going to go with a Striker star but the Osteon is a deal breaker. The Battle Star would be an option but I’d have to carefully select some units.
 
Switching from the mechs, I started looking at my options for battle armor. For a nova, the infantry do not count against the requirements for the lance or star. Going to the MUL and then looking up my options for Clan Coyote in the Jihad era, I discovered my first major hurdle. The most expensive infantry I could work with was 18 points each. That is only 90 points of the 360 to 400 points allotment. That isn’t good. But we will charge ahead and see what we can do. At this point in time, we are looking at 240 points.
 
I need two very expensive mechs to make this work. I spied the Timberwolf Z at 60 points. After looking up the stats and the fact that it was a Skirmisher that I need for a Battle Star, I added that to the list. I also checked to make sure it was going to be something I could build. It is, so on the list it goes. The last unit needs to be in the same ballpark for points and it needs to be a at least size 3 and a brawler, sniper, or skirmisher.
 
I guess I should back up a step. What is a Battle Lance or Star? It is just a plain brawler style formation. They are found in most forces as your typical line troops. The requirements are pretty straight forward: 50% must be size 3 or higher. At least three units must be a Brawler, Sniper, and/or Skirmisher. They get a Lucky Special Pilot Ability. (We will talk about that in a later article.)
 
At this point in time, I have one of each of the sizes (1, 2, 3, and 4). I also have a Striker (no help towards the requirements), a Brawler (required unit), Skirmisher (required unit), and a Juggernaught (no help). The last unit will need to be expensive and from one of my needed roles and also a size 3 or 4. Clan Coyote isn’t known for fielding a ton of Executioners but the ATM version caught my eye. Unfortunately I needed the points and instead went with an Executioner D instead. Looking them up and I see I can build them all.
 
So that was the original army. And it was soundly set aside to be rebuilt into something different. Why? While it was slightly below the point value, it was the NOVA and damage profiles that made me decide to drop it. In Alpha Strike, you can’t shift the NOVA around like you can under traditional battletech. I essentially had to pair two mechs together and hope for the best. I had some mechs that were monsters in short range and paid a pretty price for that damage. I just didn’t have the longer ranged firepower that I thought I would need to be able to survive on the charge in.
 
Thus Clan Coyote Zeta exited stage left for a Clan Coyote Epsilon from stage right. This will be where we pick up next time.
 
         
         
         
         
         



You can also follow along on warrenborn.
http://www.warrenborn.com

[wantec]

Twin Beriths? Oh noes.

The thing I liked about MWDA was lits of places ran their events on weeknights, so even though my weekends were typically busy, I could get in one or two game days a week and still have my weekend schedule.

[cavingjan]

Last time I discussed the failed army that was my Clan Coyote Zeta Galaxy / Society force. I just didn’t feel like I did Zeta justice. Looking at my shelf, I see a couple protomechs, a Cephalus, and a Septicemia painted in Clan Coyote Epsilon Galaxy colors that could use some company. I see an Osteon Prime that needs painted. I still want to keep the nova concept. Instead of making too much of an overt Society force, I want to just hide a simple Trey in the Star.
 
For those who have not had a chance to read The Wars of Reading (I’ll pause and let you read that magnificent book... Yes, I’m still waiting…I was released exactly four years ago…Yes, Ben, it has been that long… You’re finally up to speed? Good.), The Society operates in a different organizational structure based upon the Un, Trey, and Sept. For this army, I’m only worried about mechs so it boils down to an Un being one mech and three Uns make a Trey.
 
So I’m looking at three mechs to hide in this nova. The Cephalus Prime is just not going to cut it for me. The lack of damage in such a small force is going to be a hindrance. If I could rotate the NOVA between pairings each turn, it could be effective but not in its current rules iteration. (I think changing it to the way it is in TW would greatly help the poor Cephalus Prime but it would just make NOVA overpowered. That is an entirely different matter.) I mentioned that I have an Osteon Prime so that is a nice start. It is a nice Juggernaught that is a whopping 75 points. I prefer the D configuration but I have a Prime ready to paint and the iATMs are calling my name.
 
Continuing on with my unholy fascination with iATMs, I have a couple options for the Osteon’s Society friends. I like the evilness of the Turkina Z but I want to keep my forces a little more mobile than that. I would prefer to stick with the Battle Star formation and it would be nice to have four units that meet the Battle Star’s requirements to help reduce the odds of the ability going away with the loss of a single mech. In addition, I’m trying to make for some easy conversions. The Timber Wolf Z is a simple one. It has good speed and decent long ranged firepower. In addition, it is a Skirmisher of size 3 to fill out our Battle Star’s requirements.
 
That leaves me with one more NOVA unit to find. I added NOVA to the MUL as an AS Ability to search. I’m bouncing between the Summoner Z and the Stormcrow Z. They are similar units. The difference being jump jets and one point more of long range versus faster ground speed without jump jets and higher short and medium ranged damage. The Stormcrow also comes with a higher price tag. They are both Skirmishers so they both work for the requirements although one is a size 3 and the other is a size 2. The Summoner is going to win out for me in this round. I’ve always liked the looks of the Summoner and enjoy working on the mini. The Stormcrow is hurt by the fact that I just finished painting two of them recently. It has been a while since I’ve done a Summoner so it gets the nod.
 
So where does that leave us? We have three Society mechs hiding in Coyote skins. I mentioned that I had a Septicemia D already painted that I’m building this army around. That one is also a Skirmisher but it is only a size 2. This just helps reinforce my decision to pick the Summoner over the Stormcrow.  I know it will be a nova so I’ll have five battle armor units being added. From our experiment with Zeta, I know we are looking at no more than 90 points. Most battle armor seems to be in the 15 point range for a squad of five. So we have 226 points in mechs with another 75 to 90 points in battle armor. I’ve got anywhere from 44 points to 99 points. Remember that Executioner E that I was eyeing up for Zeta. It sits nicely at 55 points and works nicely for a Battle Star being a fourth Skirmisher and fourth unit of size 3 or higher.
 
With our mech forces complete, let look at what we have. We have three mechs with NOVA that will feed off of each others’ targeting data and all have at least decent long range damage and good medium ranged damage. Most move 10 inches with the Osteon being the only slow one at 6 inches. Three of them have jump jets. The Summoner and Septicemia are the light weights in the armor department but still able to soak up 6 points of damage before going internal.
 
Let’s take a look at our battle armor options. They will need to have the MEC special ability. Looking at the MUL for Clan Coyote in the Jihad, I spy a couple of options. I can use tried and true Elementals, Coronas, Gnomes, or Salamanders. I have 79 to 119 points with which to work. The most expensive of my options are the AP Gauss elementals at 20 points each. I don’t think I have to worry about going over. They all have MEC so we are good there.
 
Let’s look at what we can get for our points. All of my choices have two points of structure. Coronas and Salamanders only have one point of armor. Elementals and Gnomes have two points of armor. Coronas and Gnomes have higher damage. They each do 3 points of damage out to medium range. They are also both slow at four inches of movement. I’m going to cross the Salamanders off the list as they are currently archived. The slow speed of the Coronas coupled with their single point of armor, even if they are good value for their stats, just isn’t for me. That leaves me with Gnomes and Elementals.
 
So my choices are big beat stick and a more flexible suit of armor with nostalgia value. For the Gnomes, Clan Coyote has access to just the standard version. They do 3 damage out to medium range and have 2 points of armor. They are slow. They say fire power, staying power, and speed; select two. Gnomes skipped on the speed. They still have jump jets but they do not have any anti-mech capabilities. We will be using them solely for the damage output. I grab two of them at 15 PV each.
 
That leaves the classic Elementals. There are effectively three varieties: AP Gauss, flamer, and everything else. Well that isn’t entirely true. Clan Jade Falcons have their fire resistant models. There is also a space version that lacks the SRMs thus losing a lot of their damage. I’ll stick with the classic suit and its various weapon configurations. The plain basic versions (MG, HMG, ER Micro Laser, Laser, and Micro Pulse Laser) are all the same. Six inch move with jump jets, mechanized, anti-mech damage, with 2 points of short ranged and 1 point of medium ranged damage. The flamer version is the same but add 1 point of heat damage at short range. The AP Gauss version forgoes the heat for a second point of medium ranged damage. I would like to have the heat special ability handy so I’ll take two of them and for the final point of battle armor, I’ll opt for the AP Gauss. The extra damage could be handy.
 
This leaves us with a final army consisting of a Septicemia D, Summoner Z, Timber Wolf Z, Osteon Prime, Executioner E, 2 Gnome Battle Armors (Standard), 2 Elemental Battle Armors (Flamer), and an Elemental Battle Armor. It comes to 363 points. The mechs form a Battle Star with the modified Lucky SPA. That will be it for now. I need to go finish my order for IWM so I can start assembling and painting.

         
         
         
         
         


Septicemia ready to go.

[worktroll]

More light in the photos, cavingjan! Can't see much of the darker minis' details :(

[cavingjan]

Behold! The power of auto color correct in Irfanview.

I'll still see about setting up the light box for a better one.

[jimdigris]

Nice job!

[ColBosch]

Now that's a flavorful unit! Are you going to be using IWM or MWDA models for the battle armor?

[cavingjan]

IWM. Just ordered them last night. Gnomes are on archive special return right now.

I will probably do one set of the resculpted elementals and two sets from the older sculpt just to help distinguish the variants.

[Louie N]

Enjoyed the "sneakiness" of the Society members in the Nova.

[cavingjan]

I just discovered that not only do I have a timber wolf prime that I can start cleaning up but I also have a summoner with the arm I want to use at the house already. Now I just need to find them in the box of minis and parts bin.
Looks at the savage coyote already base coated and washed. To paint or to file? That is the question.

[Daemion]

Yay. Pictures.

[cavingjan]

My IWM order shipped. I guess they had to cast some of the omni parts I ordered.

Hopefully I'll get an updated posted tonight. It has been a very hectic week.

[cavingjan]

This was supposed to go up last night but the 8 month old had other plans. Sorry for the delay.

Last week we finished up the long and winding road that was the army building. This week we will start on the units and minis. As I appointed out last week, the Septicemia was already done. Before I talk about the Septicemia and its role, I want to talk about the mini.

These Clan Coyote armies started from a Septicemia that I painted for Ben for Christmas in 2011. I didn’t want to do just any mini. I wanted to do something special and unique for him using something from the Wars of Reaving that he wrote like one of the new variants. The AZ seemed to fit the bill.

The Septicemia was first introduced in Technical Readout 3075 as the Pariah back in 2008.  The mini was introduced in the following year and included variant parts. The mini in the blister comes with parts for the Prime and the D. The mini is well thought out. It uses two chest plates to handle the variants. The Prime uses one set of plates and the D model uses the other set of plates along with the jump jets.

The A configuration requires the purchase of additional sprues that include an ATM plate and trio of the heavy small lasers. Two of these sprues are needed to complete this configuration. An additional mini for the E configuration came out several years later that included redesigned torso and arms. I have not had an opportunity to assemble one of those. You can easily build four of the known variants without having to alter pieces or get fancy with a kit bash. The mini is fairly easy to assemble.

For this army, I chose the version that I had built years ago: the D configuration. So what does it bring to this army of mine? It is a pretty straight forward medium mech. Most of its damage is in the short and medium range. It only does a token 2 points of damage at long range. It does 4 points at short and medium range. No fancy specials to go with it other than the OMNI and CASE which we will see on every mech in this army. An overheat value of 2 will help apply damage when it is needed as long as I can land the hits. The Battle Star’s special ability could help with this.
The structure and armor is pretty standard fare for clan medium omnis. It has 6 points of armor and 3 more points of structure. It will take some abuse but not a lot. It is best to get it in range and dishing out the damage quickly to drop targets before they can send a lot of damage back at it. The 10 inch jump jets will help in moving around the field but it isn’t a speedster. Looking at my army, I don’t have any true speedsters but overall my army is speedy.

So how to use it? Keep it moving and shooting each and every turn. Get within medium range and stay there. It will fight equally well at medium range as short range. No real need to get into point blank range. It doesn’t have a NOVA system to help its star mates (we will be getting to that little trick later.)

Let’s switch gears to the paint scheme. If I have time later in the series, I will try a true paint along but I’m not sure I will have the time to do it. I want to at least explain how I painted these mechs in the hopes of helping someone learn to paint. Of course learning to paint takes practice and a lot of it. Epsilon’s paint scheme is described in Field Manual: Warden Clans as “Epsilon paints its units a dark blue with light tan highlights.  Due to their stealthy nature, Epsilon will sometimes alter the base color to a single color that matches the terrain, keeping the tan highlights.”
I will start out with a clean, assembled mini primed black. I prefer black primer due to inevitably missing some small nook or cranny under an arm or around a leg joint. The black tends to work as shadow and blends in better than a lighter color. This does tend to darken your base color unless you take extra steps. In this case, my blue is intended to be on the darker side so I don’t have to worry too much about it.

All of the paints I mention will be from Vallejo’s Game Color line unless otherwise noted. The first layer I’m going to apply is Night Blue. This should be a solid color so a second or third coat may be needed depending upon if you thinned your paint. I typically do not thin my Vallejo paints. Night Blue is a very dark color. It is a cross between blue, purple, and black. Next, I applied a very heavy drybrush of Imperial Blue. This was almost a full base coat. The only places where your Night Blue should still be visible is in your joints and maybe under some hard to reach parts like arms. If I were to start this paint scheme today, I would probably skip the Night Blue and instead apply a wash of Drakenhoff Blue by Citadel over the Imperial Blue followed by a drybrush of Imperial Blue to bring the color back up. I want to keep this army consistent with each other so I’ll stick with my old recipe.

Now we’ll begin to lighten the mini. I’ll apply a drybrush of Ultra Marine Blue to the areas that would receive light from wherever your light source would be coming from. I keep it simple and assume the light is coming from directly overhead. Look to do some on the upper torso, head, top and outsides of arms, and maybe knees or other parts of the legs or feet if they would be exposed to the light. Next I mixed up some Ultra Marine Blue with just a little Stonewall Grey to lighten it. I used a couple of drops of the blue and placed a drop of the grey beside it. I pulled some of the grey in until I was happy with the lighter color. This will be drybrushed very sparingly on the upper most surfaces: On top of the head and shoulders. You may want to do an arm or hand if it is extended and out of the mechs shadow. You may find yourself going back and pulling a little more grey into the mix as you drybrush higher on the mini.

For the trim, I started with Khaki. After coloring in the areas I wanted, I used a 1:1 mixture of Khaki and Bone White to give the trim some depth. I applied this mixture around the edges of the trim and on the upper edges of the trim. Lastly I used straight Bone White on the upper most edges of the trim to give it even more of a gradient.

The cockpit I did for this scheme was an experiment. It turned out okay. I may redo all of them in gold with a Sepia wash but I think I’ll continue with what I did. I like to use metallics on my cockpits. I don’t like a heavy jewelling that seems to be typical of mech minis. I prefer to let the overhead light do the heavy lifting. I like some gradient but not much. I’ve tried a couple of different techniques over the years. For the Clan Coyote Epsilon minis that we already done, I used a Festive Green metallic from DecoArt. The cockpit was fully covered with it. I then applied Waywatcher Green glaze from Citadel. It brightened the color of the green towards the middle of the cockpit windows. It worked well on the smaller cockpits of the Septicemia and Cephalus. I’m concerned for the Timber Wolf that I will be doing. The Summoner and Executioner shouldn’t be a problem. If the Timber Wolf doesn’t work out, I’ll switch all of them to a gold cockpit.

The last step is to paint any interesting parts like gun barrels in Gunmetal. I apply a Nuln Oil wash by Citadel over the Gunmetal to dirty it up. Apply your basing material (which I haven’t done yet) and you are good to go.


Septicemia D.


Ben's Septicemia AZ clone.

IWM's Septicemia Prime/D
IWM's Septicemia A parts
IWM's Septicemia E


         
         
         
         
         

[cavingjan]

A box from IWM came today.

Timber wolf + two ATM launchers: check
Summoner + two arms and an ATM launcher: check
Executioner + torso, arm, and ATM launcher: check
Gnomes
Elementals
Kit fox + launchers and arms: check
Adder + launchers and arms: check
Mist Lynx + arm and launcher: check

I guess I know what I'll be doing for the next week.

[Savage Coyote]

Good write up!  The only correction I'd like to make is that Field Manuel Warden Clan doesn't include any Coyote paint schemes beyond the general "Coyotes like to use blue, grey and black."  Most of the Coyote schemes (for better or worse) have been my brainchild with the exception of Rho and Alpha, though I still had a hand with Alpha :)

I like your Septicemia.  I have two I have done so far in Epsilon with my own A/AZ primed and based but languishing in my box.

[wantec]

My favorite Coyote scheme is Omicron, kinda funny that they were the galaxy traded to the Wolves.

I can't wait to see these painted. Hopefully I can get mine primed tonight or tomorrow morning.

[IAMCLANWOLF]

Yeah, nice write-up. Nice to see some brush-to-metal action. Looking sharp!

...I also received a nice hefty box, chock-full of metal goodies from IWM yesterday... {>{>

[cavingjan]

I don't know. Can we trust a guy named Savage Coyote about some Clan Coyote related? ;) you are right. The logo is the only thing from the Field Manual. Give credit where credit is due (times two). Thanks for the correction.

I'm looking forward to working on these. I have another little surprise for next week though.

[wantec]

I don't know. Can we trust a guy named Savage Coyote about some Clan Coyote related? ;) you are right. The logo is the only thing from the Field Manual. Give credit where credit is due (times two). Thanks for the correction.

I'm looking forward to working on these. I have another little surprise for next week though.

There's also the color palette in FM:WC that has a Timber Wolf from the Golden Keshik, but it looks like it might just be some kind of desert camo.

[Savage Coyote]

I don't know. Can we trust a guy named Savage Coyote about some Clan Coyote related? ;) you are right. The logo is the only thing from the Field Manual. Give credit where credit is due (times two). Thanks for the correction.

I'm looking forward to working on these. I have another little surprise for next week though.

Naw, I'm not looking for credit; just wanted to make sure someone didn't run to FM Warden Clans and not be able to find the scheme!

 :)

[cavingjan]

It is all good. I was hoping to assemble three timber wolves tonight but after the two hour battle to get the 8 month old down to bed, I think I'm going to skip any mini work tonight.

[worktroll]

My challenge yesterday was taking the married daughter & her husband to the airport at 5:30am ... the more things change ;)

The better lighting gives the minis their due. Great stuff!

[wantec]

My challenge yesterday was taking the married daughter & her husband to the airport at 5:30am ... the more things change ;)

The better lighting gives the minis their due. Great stuff!

"Hello airport taxi..."

[wantec]

My challenge yesterday was taking the married daughter & her husband to the airport at 5:30am ... the more things change ;)

The better lighting gives the minis their due. Great stuff!

"Hello airport taxi..."

[cavingjan]

I managed to get two timber wolves filed and ready for assembly. Only one is for this project but I'll take the progress. Maybe I'll get the third timber wolf cleaned up today too.

[cavingjan]

Two straight nights of a troubly nine month old has stop all miniature work for now.

[Louie N]

understand completely.  Hope things get better

[cavingjan]

I’ve been trying to get some minis assembled. I think I bit off more than I can chew on that. I just finished a Fire Falcon, Adder Prime, Adder A, Adder H, Lancelot, Naga, Executioner E, and Gurteltier.  I currently have a Mad Cat III, Timber Wolf C, Timber Wolf D, Timber Wolf Z, Tundra Wolf, Owens, JagerMech, Victor, in various stages of being glued. I still have a Hellion, Mist Lynx B, Kit Fox D, Hellbringer A, Hellbringer C, Hammerhands, Marauder (MAD-4X), and King Crab (KGC-009) cleaned up awaiting glue. I’d like to get them all assembled so I can prime them in the next week or two before the weather makes it more difficult to spray prime things. I will probably end up waiting to build the Summoner Z until later so that will have to get a coat of brush primer. The battle armor I plan to use will also be getting brush primer as I think it will just be easier all around.

I hate feet on molded into the base with separate legs and hips with a passion. It will probably be a mini like that which forces someone to build extra arms like Doc Octopus and makes them go mad. I feel better. Sorry for the interruption.

Let me get back to what I’ve managed to do since the last edition. The Osteon is done. Last time I talked about the Septicemia sculpt. We will continue that trend and talk about the Osteon sculpts. There are three of them although I only have the Prime and D. I know some people didn’t care for them but I like them. The mini comes with a torso plate that contains the torso weapons. The arms are different between the Prime and the D also. Everything else was the same as far as I remember. I don’t know if the Jaguar follows the same pattern. For the D configuration, I did not install the hand actuators as I didn’t like the look. (That configuration is currently two tons underweight so I don’t know if we will ever see errata that adds heat sinks or something else that would necessitate removing the lower arm and hand actuators.

I do want to note that the Cephalus uses a very similar torso plate system for its Prime and D configurations although the leg section was reworked between minis. I think it was for molding purposes.

So what does this big boy bring to my little army. It is the slow moving wall of armor and guns. It has NOVA so it can use the range modifiers from the Summoner or Timber Wolf. Unfortunately the long range damage is only 4 points so I’m not going to be hitting hard while camped in the back field. Once I get into medium range, the damage goes up to 7 points with a whopping 10 points at short range. I don’t think this mech will ever get into short range with anybody other than an immobile building or very slow and short ranged infantry. I don’t think anybody would be willing to risk getting hit by that. It could make a pristine Summoner go away in a single hit.

The iATM, which features prominently in my army, does come with some fun features. It will allow me to make indirect fire attacks as if it had an IF special. I could also opt to reduce the damage by one point and use either an advanced inferno (AKA providing a HT attack) or a Magnetic Pulse round. Both of those munitions only work in the short range band. In the case of the Osteon, I don’t think it will be very useful just because most targets won’t be around for the extra goodies to have an effect. Now the Summoner and Timber Wolf are different stories. Looking through the MUL at units with iATM, I see a Mist Lynx that could be very interesting to use.

As I mentioned before, the Osteon includes the Society’s wonderful NOVA system. It behaves like a C3i system but cannot be jammed by anything other than another NOVA system. (This was brutal in our Society vs WoB game from a few years ago but that was under the Total Warfare rules.) Unfortunately, it is limited to three units being linked together and unlike the version under Total Warfare that can switch configurations every turn, it is limited to how it is configured at the beginning of the game. I expect the more nimble Summoner and Timber Wolf to provide the easier shots. The Summoner will be trying to get within short or medium range to utilize its damage.

That is all I have for this week. I’ve included the picture of the Osteon Prime for this army and also the Osteon D for comparison.


Osteon Prime.


Osteon D.

IWM's Osteon Prime/D
IWM's Osteon D
IWM's Osteon Jaguar


         
         
         
         
         

[wantec]

Dang those Osteon look nice. Oh and btw, looking at the pics on CamoSpecs, the Jaguar variant looks to follow the same pattern of variant parts for the Osteon http://www.camospecs.com/Miniature.asp?ID=6727

The Osteon can also work as a slow-moving shepherd or bubble-'o-doom. With a high damage value, all that armor and structure, plus the combo of CASEII & CR, not much is going to take it down easily, and I wouldn't be surprised to see your enemies run from it. While an enemy might stand and fight against the rest of the Binary, they won't want to spend too much time up close with that Osteon.

[IAMCLANWOLF]

I hear you. So many miniatures to assemble, and so precious little time to do so...

I'll echo Wantec, though. Beautiful work. I'm really interested to see what you do for the Summoner Z.