Arena Rex Forums

Ack! Working on painting Viatrix, and her flimsiness has brought woe. One of her helmet feathers broke off, and I've decided that her sword is too crooked to be acceptable - it's wonky and won't go straight. I understand why Septimus' spear is cast in metal. So I've replaced her feathers with small paperclip horns and her sword with a GW plastic bit.

In other news... I made a beast-chaining-hazard. I ended up cutting the centre out of my old duelling ring and placing the chaining post in there. The edge of the old ring is now a thin donut which I'm thinking will make a cool sacrificial pit.

The chained beast, post and beast both still unpainted:




This hazard was and is super fun to make. I put a magnet on Proximo and a magnet at the end of the chain, so the beast is chained up when I want it to be, but can easily detach. Then if I put collars and magnets on all the other beasts I get too, I can chain any of them up at will. Or chain them to each other, if I make a chain with magnets at both ends.

The next beast I'll be getting is Caho-Ta though. I'm not sure if the Atlantean horse will look good with a chain around its neck. And I'm really not sure what part of Sereqet can have a collar put on it. And Leo already broke his chain... oy vey. The questions.

I wanted to make the hazard as heavy as I could to try and keep it from being bumped around during play, that's what those little golden rocks are about. I hope it actually will stay approximately in place in reality... fingers crossed. The radius of the hazard is about an inch and a half, so I made the chain 6,5 inches long, so it is 5 inches from the edge of the hazard to the beast's collar.

_________________
My Arena Rex painting log

I looove this.

Is it the chain post you like? If so, I'm really happy with it too. I started a thread earlier to talk about the idea (http://redrepublicgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=33987) and actually doing it feels great.

Working with the magnet and the chain was tricky though. Since the chain is metal, the magnet really wants to stick to it at a different angle than how I wanted to glue it in place. Took a lot of fidgeting. Maybe if I do another chain, I will start out attaching the chain to something non-metallic, and then stick the non-metallic thing to the magnet. Create a non-adhesive barrier.

Anywho, I also painted two of the Ludus Magnus fighters, my wonderful avatar representative being one of them.





I also made a little measuring widget out of a popsicle stick. Most of you guys probably have these already, but I didn't have one, and it was super easy to make. Measures one inch (for pushes and engagement), two inches (for momentum etc), and three inches (for reposition, Zahra, living hazards, etc).

_________________
My Arena Rex painting log

Man, I really love your color palette. And yes, I am also way into the chain thing.

Thank you. When all of the gladiators are painted, which is basically now, I can start playing 3v3 demo games. Looking forward to this a lot, even though I'm not sure who I can play against. I'm not really into finding strangers - especially since some of these models, notably Zahra and Viatrix, are super fragile. If I give them to someone else to play with, and they break them, I would not be happy. If it's someone I know already, it would be more palatable and less likely I figure.

Which is a point. If I'm going to be demoing the game with people I don't know, I will want sturdy(er) models to lend out. I'm thinking Micon or Otho for the LM and maybe Khepros for the MT. The next model I was going to get for the MT was Tiet-Khebi, but as another girly dancing gladiator, she is clearly going to be just as fragile as the other two.

I'm feeling like I maybe want to wait until I get my arena mat before I can really try out the game though. Otherwise it'll just have to be on a plain table. I don't have any space to build or store a full 3D arena of my own. And I imagine I will have to bring the game with me when I want to play, either to a club or friend's house.

Once I get Caho-Ta, one of the first things I will do is see how to get her magnetised for chaining her up, as well as for the mounting and dismounting of Hroka. I'm thinking of doing the same kind of collar for the horse, i.e. a leathery one. I think that will look nicest, and break up the large empty areas of skin on her neck.

For Sereqet - whom currently I have not ordered yet, but I plan to - since she doesn't have a neck, I'm thinking that wrapping a chain around her thorax makes most sense. In which case I could possibly use the same magnet for dual purposes - it could both be the magnet that Zahra attaches to when she sits on the scorpion, and the same magnet that the chain attaches to when the scorpion is a hazard. I'll have to see how the pieces fit together first though. But I love making plans in my head.

I wonder if it makes sense to chain two living hazards together, in practice? If you take two living hazards and place them side by side in the middle of the arena, won't they just move together in unison against models that approach them, so the chain is effectively irrelevant? I guess it could be relevant if someone attacks them and tries to push them apart. I wonder how long such a chain should be - 5 inches like the rules suggest seems a bit long for two animals being chained together. Ponder.

I'll probably need some new magnets, starting to run out.

_________________
My Arena Rex painting log

Iason is done now too. Except that I am thinking of making his shield a little bit more red. I think he could do with a little more colour.

_________________
My Arena Rex painting log

So right now, I only have Proximo and some terrain pieces left to paint. And if I keep spending all my free hobby time working on AR, those will be done pretty soon, and I suspect I have at least two weeks left until my next order arrives.

One thing I could do in the meantime - if I want to avoid working on models for other games, or playing video games, both of which would most likely break my streak of productivity - is think of more terrain hazards to make. But something that might be more fun is to go back to the putty and make another model from scratch. Here's the fantastically illustrative minimalist concept art, as if it was needed...

_________________
My Arena Rex painting log

Hahaha. Perfect!!

_________________
Morituri te salutamus.

Hehe, thank you.

Here is Iason with a modified shield.



And the finished chaining hazard. Proximo still just black.



Grrr, beware the chained up shadow Proximo!



One thing that quickly bothered me that when the chain wasn't being used, it would just hang there or flop around. So I put a magnet and some handles onto the sides of the pillar, so that I could wrap the chain around the pillar and stick it in place, so the chain would be neatly packed away for transport and so on. When packed up, it looks like this.



And just for fun, some gladiators facing off against Pseudo-Euryale.



I can't decide if I should try and magnetise her so she can be chained up too. Maybe. I think it would have to be by a manacle around her arm. No space to get anything around her neck. And adding a belt would spoil some of her unclothed monstrous look.

_________________
My Arena Rex painting log

Hmm, now I've made the chaining hazard, and it doesn't have a black edge, I think I've decided I like that better than the black edges on the other hazards. I think I'll go back and repaint them in brown.

_________________
My Arena Rex painting log