What do you call a lot of magic?

Answer: a Storm of Magic.  Yeah, such a witty entry, I know.

Of this kind.

So, got my Storm of Magic book yesterday and I'm slightly in love.  Not with the game system itself, I haven't had a chance to play a game yet, and likely won't for a while, but the book is stunning, the spells look fantastically fun, and there are all sorts of little details and rules that makes this a truly characterful book.  I do love destruction universally in games, especially of the unplanned kind.  Mages miscasting, land raiders exploding, battleships disappearing in a flash of Sturginium, all these are fantastic, whether they happen to me of my enemy.  Which is why I particularly like the Wrath of Khorne.  While all the other Chaos Gods get a Lore of Magic each, Khorne doesn't because he's the warrior type and really hates wizards.  So, his contribution is to throw giant Brass Skulls (read: stone thrower shots that don't scatter) at wizards who miscast when using a cataclysm spell of one of the other three Gods' Lores.

    The normal eight Lores get some good tricks as well, the Lore of Metal can give an entire unit 2+ ward saves, the Lore of Light can plonk hills on top of units, which should be devastating against Dwarfs incidentally as it gets worse if you fail an Initiative test, and my favorite lore (Shadow) gets to move terrain about- hampering high-risk units, move friendly units about- awesome repositioning, and also gets to reduce an unit's Movement, Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Initiative and Leadrship to 1, as well as preventing that unit from casting any spells.  I could go on for a while about the spells, the insane magic items (there's a sword that hits automatically, wounds automatically, ignores armour saves and causes 2D6 wounds) but this will be a long post, so I'll finish up on the Storm of Magic rant with a little about the monsters.

There's 58 pages of them. From your stock regulars- the Chimeras, Hydras, Manticores and Dragons (of which there are 10 varieties) there are also rules for many of the Forge World monsters like the Chaos War Mammoth and the Spined Beast as well as some comebacks, like the Zoats, the Fimir, the Fenbeast, the Lammasu (also known as the worst model in GW history) as well as many monsters taken from some of the normal Armies.  It all looks very exciting, and I really wish to get a game of Storm of Magic in the near future.

Right now, however, I'd like to show you my new friend.

In conservative circles, this is considered a good start to painting a 'Black' Dragon.

I haz a Dragon, if you'll pardon the lolcat.  A Dreadlord on Black Dragon, which can also be assembled as a Supreme Sorceress on Black Dragon, and that's were the problems begin: choice.  As in: there's so much of it.  I'm almost hesitant to begin assembling my Dreadlord without the safety net of being able to magnetize it all.

Pictured: too much damn choice.

First off, there's two heads for the dragon, one roaring its fury to the battlefield, the other horned and aloof.  I spent a good half an hour pondering before choosing the first.  Then there's two torsos each for the Dreadlord and Sorceress, three Dreadlord heads and two Sorceress heads, three crests for the Dreadlord's helmet, two shields, a lance, like three swords; the Sorceress has a whip, quite a few knife options as well as two ... maces?  Mini-staffs?  I dunno, two different right-hand weapons of some description.  I am so torn for choice, on the one hand, I want the option of a mage on a dragon, but I also fancy the idea of taking one of the female heads and plonking it on the heavy armour to create a female Dreadlord (which technically exist), but I'm also considering taking the surviving female torso and head, bonding them with some corsair legs and creating a kit-bashed Death Hag.  *Sigh*  It was almost easier back in the day when you only had the one metal blister that you had to be happy with.  This won't affect the dragon of course, so I can paint him straight off.  I think I shall name him 'Greg'.

Finally, I mentioned INFINITY last post somewhere.  Well, the sudden arrival of Greg will almost certainly send them back a bit, but here are some pictures of three basecoated soldiers of the Japanese Sectorial Army, part of the Yu Jing faction.

Keisotsu Butai

Keisotsu Butai #1 (Mustachio)

Keisotsu Butai #2 (The Girl)

Keisotsu Butai #3 (Baldy)

Very basic first coat, much more work will happen to these fellas before I'm done with them, as Infinity is a skirmish game, and will rarely (if ever) have more than 10 models in a force.  A little bit of the fluff for these units first, and then we'll be done.  The game is set about 200 years in the future, where humanity has spread into 11 known inhabited systems and have fractured into several factions.  One of these is Yu-Jing, which was essentially China before it expanded and now dominates the entire far east.  The Japanese, therefore, are secondary rate citizens, and the low classes have a very poor standard of living.  The only way to advance their social statues for many is join the army.  These troops are often thrown into the most dangerous of war theaters, and their survival rate is incredibly low.  Those who do survive however, are justly rewarded.  My aim when painting them is to generally make them look quite poor and shabby, to conform with their background.

    That's all folks.