#TOMB2 Month 1 Part Two: Zoraida, Gameplay and Month Two

Where we last left off was with me having completed painting all of my models for month 1 other than the master herself Zoraida. I had also not yet played any games with the crew (due in part to tournament burnout and a game getting cancelled two weeks in a row). Sadly I still haven't gotten a game in, but I have finished painting Zoraida after a very busy Sunday spent painting her. I am very happy with how she turned out, although she took a ton of time to paint.

I decided that Zoraida would have a pretty red and yellow polka dot dress from her early days in Malifaux when she was still human. However, it would be worn and muddy from years of wear and tear, thus I painted a very bright and pretty red dress and added yellow polka dots before hitting it with two washes of agrax earthshade to dull it down and make it look dirty and worn. I did the same thing with her shirt which I painted white before hitting it with a wash of earthshade and 2nd wash of sephia. I really struggled with her skin at first since I have basically never painted human models before (playing Neverborn in Malifaux, Tyranids in 40k, Lizardmen in fantasy allowed me to avoid it for a long time). On my 2nd attempt I finally ended up with a result I liked. The other big theme with Zoraida I decided to go for occurred to me when I noticed that her box game with 7 voodoo dolls to go on her. This of course equals the 7 factions of Malifaux, so I decided to paint each Voodoo doll as a faction. I chose to have the two voodoo dolls with the most freedom (the confused standing one and the one climbing on her back) as the two factions that I like most, Neverborn and Ten Thunders. I also gave the Neverborn voodoo doll a button eye, much like one of my stitched and the baby kade puppet wars model. Also note that the Guild doll is drowning in the water. The water effects need a couple more layers and a blue wash to be complete but that will take a couple days since the effects take so long to dry. Still working on the water effects for the rest of the crew as well. The effects should be done in time for my month 2 post.

It is hard to see from the picture below but the green Resurrectionist doll has x's for eyes. Also really like how her staff and the mushrooms on the base turned out.

Outcast voodoo doll is sad :(

The Gremlin doll is the only one smiling, because Gremlin's are morons ;). No one seems to know what the orbs at the bottom right of Zoraida's fur shawl are. I saw someone on the wyrd forums paint them as balls of yarn which I was debating copying, but then I decided that the less circular ones looked kind of like potatoes and thus the idea of her carrying her food around with her was born. She ended up with 3 potatoes, two oranges, a green apple and a red apple. The apple stems were made by layering liquid greenstuff (everything else I tried ended up being too big).

I just wanted to get a close-up shot of her face in here since i think it's the best I have ever done on someone's face. I usually struggle a lot with human eyes and I really like how her's ended up. I also painted her mouth pink and then washed it with flesh tone which I really like the effect of. Also she is so old she has no teeth. Which is particularly funny considering she is carrying around food she could never eat without teeth. You also get a better view of a couple of the voodoo dolls and the mushrooms and eyes on her left shoulder in this picture.

In the end I could not be happier with how Zoraida turned out and am now really excited to see her and her crew on the table. 

Tactics and Gameplay

Sadly due to two cancellations in 2 straight weeks followed by playing a prep game of Collect the Bounty with Dreamer before Isle of Faux 2 I was unable to get any games with Zoraida in during month 1. I will definitely be getting in a game in the next few weeks and will post some thoughts after that. I have used waldgeists and silurids extensively with Dreamer in a few tournaments and took Bad Juju to a tournament for the first time at Isle of Faux. He was a hugely clutch performer in Collect the Bounty (where he can't give up points) and the final game where he scored me 2vp for bodyguard. I will go more in depth on the crew once I have played them all together. 

Month Two

As stated in the previous post, I have £13.60 money left for month two after I went slightly over on my monthly purchase to start. The theme of this months purchases is going to be debuffing and the voodoo doll. Month 1 gave me solid core and a good Juju Recycling crew but very few uses for Zoraida's totem, as I believe it's a better target for conditions rather than damage. All my purchases this month are me taking a single model out of a group, so there will be some dividing of costs in this months purchases.

On that note, I have a solitary Nurse I got second hand (£9.00/2 = £4.50) which leaves me with £9.10 to spend.

Iggy is a great model with Zoraida, however I couldn't find his model anywhere. Instead I realized that one of the old metal Stolen is a really good model for him (especially after I sculpt some flames coming from his hands... which I have recently done. I may also attempt to turn his torn neckerchief into a proper scarf). The stolen come as a three pack (I will eventually use one of them as a malifaux child and am debating converting the girl into Candy down the road) that costs £10.80 but as I am only using one the cost for my monthly spending is going to be £3.60. 

This leaves me with £5.50 which I will be rolling over into month 3 as I want to focus on the interactions of these two models in month 2 and I have an idea for a more expensive addition for Month 3 which will need me to bank some of this month's money. That idea is.... Nekima. Mwahahaha. She cost me $25 from Black Friday sale which equals about £17 at the moment. This leaves me with £3.50, giving me £18.50 for month 4. No clue what I will be doing for month 4 yet, hopefully I will be able to spot the holes in my crew in the next couple months and figure that out. 

Hopefully I can get some more games in this next month and the Month Two post will be more about playing vs painting (especially since 2 models to paint is a big drop from 9... thank God).