2020: What a Year

It's the now traditional look back at painting and gaming highs and lows for the past year, and what a year its been.  Obviously the current situation has impacted on life as well as hobby, and I'm certainly one of the lucky ones.  I've avoided the virus so far and family seem to have been the same.  I was furloughed, which should  have been an ideal hobby opportunity (but wasn't) and then took early retirement (ditto).  What I have done is look closely at what the hobby means to me, and how I can get the most out of it.

The lack of any face-to-face gaming beyond February meant I didn't have target games to paint towards.  I know many hobbyists have taken the opportunity to paint a brand new army, or finish some awesome terrain.  Unfortunately I found the lack of targets to be paralysing, so I've probably painted less this year than in any previous year.

I have managed to keep an online D&D game going. It's set in Teramarr, like my normal Thursday night game was, but in a very different area. The players are three of the Thursday night group, and its good to still get some gaming in.

Also my son is running a D&D game for me, just two characters, a paladin and a cleric, both Dragonkin. It's been great fun, and quite an eyeopener, as I had always thought I was a GM not a player. This has been a valuable experience for me.

I've also blogged a lot less, partly because I've had less to say since I've done less, but also because I now have to use either my phone (and I really don't get on well with the Blogger app) or on an old, slow tablet, occasionally borrowing a laptop where possible. I've started many posts that have been abandoned. I still post, but it has to seem really important to me at the time to get a post finished. 

One bit of good tech news is my new phone. It's nothing special, but the photos seem better than most of my earlier efforts. At some point I'd like to update some of the photos on early posts where possible.

Still, I have managed some painting, so lets look back at how well I managed the targets set in January (spoiler: not well) and what unforeseen projects sprung up.

Briefly my targets were; 

 

Finish Star Saga minis and terrain.  I finished the minis, but not the terrain.  We got several more games in before lockdown 1, but the lack of more Star Saga games on the horizon meant I wasn't motivated to finish the scenery items.

 

Paint more 15mm ogres. Yes, I got a couple more regiments of ogres done, along with some more heroes.  I have plenty more to paint in the future, but I have enough ogres (and red goblins) painted to give me some choices when putting together an army for the size battles Merlin and I usually play.  We were going to play an Ogre vs Goblin campaign, but of course lockdown got in the way of that, and since then we have always lived in different tiers, so no mixing.

15mm Ratkin. No, I have collected them together, but I made the decision to leave them for a while and concentrate on other armies long before lockdowns and tiers etc.  I may get them out and do something with them, but they are not high priority.  I haven't rebased my Greeks for sale yet either.

15mm and or 28mm League of Rhordia.  I haven't touched these, partly because I am not entirely happy with the changes Uncharted Empires brought to the lists (I know Merlin feels the same about his Herd), and partly because I was painting ogres rather than halflings.  Still, I have seen pictures of the forthcoming Wargames Atlantic Halfling Cavalry, and they make the idea of using my old Empire as a 28mm League of Rhordia more appealing.  Besides, its time I sorted through my rather large collection of unpainted Empire and decided what to keep.

28mm Varangur.  No, I found a different use for my Frostgrave Barbarians, as you will see later.

28mm Trident Realm. No, once again I've failed on this.  I have various excuses for this, but regardless, they remain mostly unpainted or part painted.

 

28mm Lord of the Rings.  Yes, I got quite a bit more added to my Mordor force.  I've got plenty to choose from now, (though I've got plenty more to go at) and even got some Nazgul done.  I suppose I should get another force done at sometime, perhaps I should have a look at my old Rohan minis?

I even got some scatter terrain done, though not enough to class as the box of Middle Earth terrain I ambitiously suggested.

D&D minis and terrain. Finally, I had the continual demand for stuff for role-playing to satisfy.  Well I finished the cultists, but then that campaign went on hold. The online game needs lots of maps, using Dundjinni mostly, but painting is no longer a requirement.

So those were the goals, what about the extras?

In April I started a new project, GWs War of the Ring reimagined for 10mm minis. 

This was another idea shared with Merlin, and we both got some minis painted, mostly Copplestone Castings. However, the lack of opportunity to playtest meant that my enthusiasm died.  I will get back to it though, the idea of mass battles in Middle Earth has always appealed to me.  If we can't get our stripped down version of War of the Ring to work, we will have some minis for the Battle of Five Armies (itself a variant of Warmaster).

By May I had pretty much given up on painting anything.  I was busy trying to sort through and thin out over 30 years worth of collecting minis.  I needed something short and sweet to do so I tried some ruined walls This got me painting again, but I realised without a game in the offing to paint towards, I'd have to choose something that was quick to finish to give me the 'reward buzz' I needed to continue with more painting before apathy set in.  This also meant that I had to abandon, for the time being, the five box system.  Normally the five boxes work very well for me, but now each box was already full of unfinished stuff that had the effect of demoralising me rather than inspiring me.

In June I decided to try 8 orc skulks for Kings of War.  This worked well enough that I set to and painted a demo orc army over the next few weeks.  Unfortunately, I haven't yet based them, so they don't count as finished.  I'm going to get on with basing them early next year.

Not much happened painting wise until the end of September.  I got a copy of Never Mind the Billhooks, a set of rules designed to play Wars of the Roses games of up to 100 minis a side.  Whilst I have no interest in historical gaming any more, I thought these would be great to try for games set in Westeros of the Song of Ice and Fire series.  There are plenty of people over on the Lead Adventure forum creating their own ASoIaF minis from various bits of historical minis and I've tried this sort of 'kit bashing' before when I made a skald for my Vikings.  I've collected a fair few sprues of suitable minis over the years and a wide variety of single sprues are available on eBay, so I had a go, starting with one of the Stone Crows.  I've since built a handful of Night's Watch and some Wildlings, mostly using Frostgrave sprues.  

Night's Watch

Wildlings

Another motivation for this was buying Wiley Games' A Fistful of Lead, a skirmish game that needs just a handful of minis per side.  Ideal for these short projects I'm looking for at the moment, and also great for using some of the many miscellaneous minis I have in my collection.

I also built a 28mm cottage based on one of the old Warhammer card buildings, and challenged Merlin to a 'build off''.  You can see mine here, and you can see Merlin's cottage here.  I tried another building, but that is unfinished.

Sticking with the idea of small projects I finished a Dreadball team, and most recently a crew of Star Wars aliens for Galactic Heroes, the Sci Fi version of Fistful of Lead.

For Christmas I got Armada, Mantic Games' latest offering; fantasy naval combat in the world of Mantica.  I like naval combat games (I still have loads of GWs Man o War) and I'm interested to see what Mantic make of it.  Actually, the rules are based on Black Seas, Warlord Games' set of historical rules, which seem well received, but the minis are pure Mantic.  I got the starter set including 4 orc ships and 4 Basilean ships, plus an extra big ship for each fleet.  

In summary, a lot of missed goals but a few new projects.  I have learned a few valuable lessons though.  I paint for pleasure, but I now realise that I need a purpose for my painting.  At the moment this needs to be something fairly short term, I can't just paint in the hopes that I will get to use the minis at some vague point in the future, I have to have an actual goal.

I've also realised that I have far too much stuff.  I'll continue to sort through and thin out the collection, If nothing else, any sales can be used to fund further purchases.

Despite the uncertain times, I'll set myself some targets for next year in my next post.  Hopefully I'll do a bit better with those.  

 

  

Scum and Villainy for Fistful of Lead Galactic Heroes

While I'm working on small, discreet projects such as the Dreadball robots I've been looking for a game system that only requires a few minis a side.  

I recently got Fistful of Lead, (FfoL) by Wiley Games, along with their Sci Fi version, Galactic Heroes. It's a fun looking system, not tied to any specific background, but with suggestions for covering many popular IPs.

I wasn't sure what to go paint for this, but whilst doing some sorting out in the loft of shame I came across some old pre-painted Star Wars miniatures from Wizards of the Coast. Like their D&D minis these came in blind boxes; they had their own skirmish system as well, similar to the D&D skirmish system. It seems a bit clunky now, with many many modifiers and conditions that I remember didn't add much to game play, certainly not fast game play, but then the game was designed to sell more minis, so I suppose it worked in that respect.

The range covered the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy, and eventually some of the expanded universe ideas, including the Force Unleashed video games.  As it was pre sequel trilogy, some of the minis seem a bit odd, such as Leia, Jedi knight, but there's plenty to go at. 

As a Star Wars fan they seemed just what I was looking for for a small project, but rather than use Rebels or Stormtroopers I thought I'd choose some of the many different aliens available. I can imagine them as a gang surviving by carrying out various jobs in the shadows of some back water planet like Tatooine. 

The whole gang 

Chagrian leader and Wookie specialist 

, 

Snivvian, Ishi-Tib and Devaronian thugs

Nikto, Trandoshan and Bothan gang members 

They were great fun to paint.  I particularly like the Wookie with heavy blaster.  In Galactic Heroes, specialists usually carry some sort of heavier weapon, usually teamed up with another crew member to make a weapon team.  However, if the specialist has the 'strong' trait they can use some heavy weapons on their own, a Wookie seemed just right in this role.

I had tried painting some of the minis before, but I think I've improved on the earlier paint jobs.  In most cases I have used the original paint scheme as a guide, though with more detail.  As with the D&D minis they had a limited palate, depending on the rarity of the mini, these are mostly common minis so only used three colours.  None of them are really exciting minis, but they certainly work as a gang of scum and villains.  I've plenty more to add should I want to; perhaps a rival gang?  Leaders and ordinary crew members are easy to find, Specialists are a little harder to source as most of the minis have pistols or rifles.  There are one or two with larger weapons which will do as heavy blasters or similar.  I've already sorted out a crew of Clone Troopers to give them some opposition.  

I may even sneak a few of them into my Deadzone Rebs, simply use the profile for a human Reb trooper.

I'll be busy being 'festive' over the next few days, but I'll try and get the traditional review of the year (and what a year) up in the next week.  Happy Hogswatch!

A Bit of a Change

For lots of reasons I'm finding it harder than ever to stick with one project, and it seems especially difficult for me to finish anything at the moment. So I'm trying lots of short projects to try and get more painting and modelling done. In fact I'm deliberately choosing to switch projects to avoid getting stuck on any one thing.

I've just finished an old Dreadball team which I've had for years. I backed all the Dreadball kickstarters and collected nearly all the teams from the first three seasons plus Dreadball Extreme. I really enjoyed playing the first edition but I've not really played much of the second edition; it does look at least as good, and I hope to get some games in once its safe to do so as I've discovered one of my online D&D players is also a Dreadball fan.

In all that time I've only painted two teams, the Marauders and the initial Human team, so it's long past time I got more done. 

I chose the first robot team, the Chromium Chargers. I had a colour scheme that I thought would be easy to do and give me a quick result. It also gives me the opportunity to reference a couple of TV shows I enjoy. 

So here are the Telosian Toasters.

 The team, well 13 of them.

Examples of the different models. Guards, Jacks and Strikers

The paint scheme was designed to be easy to do to give me a quick result.  A white undercoat followed by a VGC Chainmail Silver basecoat.  Then a Black wash, and when it was all dry, a drybrush of the Chainmail Silver followed by a lighter drybrush of VGC Silver.

I used the Citadel Soulstone Blue I used on the bakehouse windows on the Dreadball glove, and I have since discovered that they do a red, so I might try that on the 'eye'.  The white plate on the back might eventually have a number painted on it, or I might look for some transfers.

You will see that I paint the bases to show the player's role.  Blue for Guards, green for Jacks and yellow for Strikers. I find it helps as some of the models are not obvious as to their role.  I also highlight the front arc on the base.  These are all painted with Vallejo Fluo Colors

If you don't know this team, the robots can transform between roles, initially starting out as Jacks.  I suppose the three Guards and the three Strikers are actually replacements for the Jacks. Ideally I should have enough to replace the entire team, but at the moment I don't.  I think I must have some more somewhere, as I found a bag of the arms, but they will have to wait.

Apart from Dreadball, I'm sure these would fit in well as combat robots in other Sci Fi games, and I have some ideas for that in the future.

Another Building

I had so much fun with the Bakehouse that I decided to do another building, this time a bit smaller and simpler. I wanted some very rough drystone huts, inspired by this; 

"Four tumbledown one-room houses of un-mortared stone surrounded an empty sheepfold and a well.  The houses were roofed with sod, the windows shuttered with ragged pieces of hide"

Clash of Kings p185

I remembered the Sod Houses in the old 'Tragedy of McDeath' warhammer pack and thought these might be about the right size and shape. I don't think they made it over to the Warhammer Townscape set, but I still had copies of my original, and I even found my first attempt at building one of them. 

One of the sod houses from McDeath made, as was all my terrain at the time from thick card covered in filler.

There are two different huts in McDeath that do duty for the clans in the first game, the malters in the second, and the orcs and goblins in the third.  I chose the smaller as a base to see if my ideas worked. 

The walls are made from offcuts of XPS foam. When I make some more I'll cut pieces specially, these pieces were slightly different widths and in some cases of varying thickness. 

I traced the plan onto the foam, cut it out with a sharp craft knife and then glued it, pinning it and putting rubber bands round it to keep it square (ish).

I glued some card on the top to help keep things together for the texturing stage.  This will come off later as the original has a timber frame below the roof, so I'll add some balsa. 

Once the glue was dry I drew on a very rough stone pattern with a pencil, then cut into the foam along these lines. Then I deepened the gaps with a sharp pencil. 

I textured the foam with a ball of foil, but I felt it still looked too flat. So using a filing stick I pushed some of the stones further in and also rounded the edges to make the stone look more worn. Now I think it looks pretty good. 

I'll need to give the whole thing a coat of modpodge to strengthen the foam.  There are some bits of balsa to add for the various wooden features.

Then I have to think how to model a sod roof.  Has anyone done this?  If so, please share your techniques.

The Great Terrain Build Off- part six

I've finally finished the Bakehouse. I took longer than I thought, partly because I kept 'messing' with  it, hoping to improve it, but probably making it worse.

I did have a minor disaster when I gave the whole building a wash. This is a step I do as standard when making dungeon terrain, but for the bakehouse I think it made everything too dark, and killed the rather nice brownish tan I had.

Trial painted panels, I went for the one on the left

Still, a couple of drybrushes later and I don't think it looks too bad.  I also added some 'bits' to the base to reinforce the story behind it.   

The woodpile, very important for the bakehouse ovens.  Sticks dried and coated in PVA, then washed in Army Painter soft tone.  I also painted up an axe, but it's gone missing.

That chimney looks suitably impressive

Barrels of something important to the baking, or maybe just small beer for the baker.  Renedra barrels, with a poor join between the two halves.

Sacks of flour ready for use, kitchen towel with a suitable texture folded and soaked in water and PVA glue.

The least interesting angle of the building

The windows were painted black, then when all the rest of the painting, washing and drybrushing was finished, I carefully painted white between the glazing bars.  When everything was dry I used a tip from Merjin's Another Wargaming Blog, Citadel Soulstone Blue for the glass.  I haven't quite got this right, but I'm please with the results, and I'll certainly use this technique again in the future.

I added some moss made from old sawdust flock to the roof and washed some green ink along the edges of the timbers, anywhere where I felt dripping water would allow algae to grow.

If you think the idea of a bakehouse or bakery sounds a bit modern, they date back to at least early medieval times.  It was common practice to leave either flour or unbaked loaves to be baked.  Loaves or cakes would be marked, to identify them after baking.  This is why, in the nursery rhyme 'Pat-a-cake' the cake is marked with a 'B'. 

Well this was never really a competition, but I have enjoyed building this along with Merlin, and seeing how different they turned out. You can see his version here. I have thought what I want to build next, though I may do some very ordinary buildings to try something out first.

The Great Terrain Build Off - Part 5

The Bakehouse is now complete, I just need to paint it and base it.

I used the thick card from envelopes again for the tiles. I had planned to use cereal box card, but I think I prefer the slightly thicker tiles.

Rather than stick individual tiles on I cut strips. Each was 15mm wide and overlapped the roof by 5mm either side. 

I have a craft guillotine, which makes it quicker and easier. 

Then taking three strips at a time I cut in every 8 to 12 mm (roughly) and then clipped off corners, shortened some tiles and generally made them look uneven.

Preparing three strips at once helps add to the random look. 

The main roof and the extension had strips glued on every 7.5mm, I had the lines as guidelines, though they were every 5mm, meaning a bit of fudging, but again, that helps with the hand-crafted look. The lean-to had smaller tiles, I imagine it's a recent addition.

The ridge tiles were glued on as individual tiles, I used one of the folds already present in the envelope, great for this and also for gluing on the edge of buildings. 

I've also gone over the daub, adding a second coat to fill the panels out a bit, and added card hinges to the doors. 

Just the painting to do now, oh, and a base of course. 

The Great Terrain Build Off - Part 4

I see Merlin has been working on his cottage, so I've got a bit further on the Bakehouse.

Like him I have made the windows separately, they will get glued in place as I timber the building. 

I like the effect that Merijin of 'Another Wargames Blog' gets in his Warhammer Townscape builds (he talks further about it here), so I bought some plasterboard tape and cut coffee stir sticks into 2mm wide strips to build some frames.

I laid two 15mm long strips down on masking tape 5mm apart, then cut two more strips for the top and bottom of the frame. 

Then plasterboard tape was carefully placed on top, using the tape to represent glazing bars. The tape is slightly sticky on one side, so this helps keep everything together. 

Then I ran a thin bead of superglue over the joints and the tape where it touched the wood and gave a quick spray of superglue accelerant. 

Apologies for the blurred photo, I hope you can see what is going on here.

Two completed windows

Once I had the windows built I was able to start the timbering. 

I started with the timbers along the base of the building, I presume the builders started out with a wooden frame marking out the footprint of the building. I then moved on to the corners, which ended up as pretty chunky bits of timber. 

I then superglued the windows in place then added balsa around, roughly matching the pattern of the original model. 

I used three different thicknesses of balsa to try to emphasise the main frame and the secondary support timbers, I'm not sure how well this comes out. 

The daub texture was simply filler, watered down slightly to help coverage and applied with a stiff bristled brush. 

Finally the wood for the doors and the lean-to was added, thin balsa with planks marked in first with a craft knife and then with a pencil. 

A bit of extra texture was added to the woodwork simply by carving off a few corners pto make the building look worn.

Next, my favourite bit (not).  Tiling the roof.

The Great Terrain Build Off - Part 3

Still more progress on my version of building 19 from the Warhammer Townscape. You can see part 1 here, and part 2 here.

I've got the base for the roofs done. This is simply a card cover that I will later tile. The card is another delivery envelope from that well known online delivery company; its just a bit thicker and stronger than cereal box card, and I'm tempted to use it for the tiles as well.
I also drew guide lines at 5mm intervals to help when I stick the tiles on later.

I pinned the card in place while the glue dries, after first making holes in the card.

You can see where I've sketched in the positions of the timbers, though I've still not finalised this.

I mentioned previously that I suspected the scanned Warhammer Townscape might not be to scale. A quick bit of comparative measurement proves it, the Townscape is about 115% the size of the originals, at least with the buildings from Terror of the Lichemaster. It doesn't matter of course. In any case I suspect minis themselves have grown more than that in the thirty odd years since original publication.

Next will be timbering and texturing.

The Great Terrain Build Off - Part 2

I've made a bit progress on the Bake House, as I am calling my version of building 19.

I've made a suitably imposing chimney out of an odd piece of XPS foam. I cut a notch so the foam would slot over the wall. The gaps between the stones were lightly penciled in, then I used a scalpel to make cuts along the lines and then textured the foam using crunched up foil. The cuts were deepened with a pencil and I hollowed out the top of the chimney.

The chimney was then glued in place with tacky glue and pinned while the glue dried.

When I built the extensions I added foam board strips along the base to strengthen them. This was a last minute thought, mostly because I had just trimmed the lean-to down and so had a piece already the right size. 

I decided to do the same for the top of each extension to give the roof bases extra stability. These were cut to size, chamfered to match the slope of the roof, then glued in place. The main roof got a double thickness piece along the ridge. 

These would, of course, have been better fitted as each extension was built, though the bake house bit has had a section cut out to fit around the chimney.

Next up will be fitting the roof base.

Gunthor Son of Gurn of the Stone Crows

You might have noticed this chap in the background in the last post.

He is my take on Gunthor, described as a thin man in a horned helmet armed with a long knife.

The body and arms are from North Star's Oathmark goblins and the head is from the Frostgrave barbarians set.

I had to make a hole for the head to sit in as the two makes don't always play together nicely. The long knife is a cut down sword, I may have trimmed it a bit much actually, but it will do for now. 

I need to greenstuff the cloth round his neck to cover the top of his shoulders, and a little bit in a hole in his neck as well. 

I had originally planned to use the nice new Dark Age Irish from Wargames Atlantic, but when I re-read the description the clans are equipped in boiled leather, oddments of armour and barred halfhelms. I thought the goblin bodies fitted this description nicely, I can find the heads on some of the many plastic sprues I have collected over the years.

I plan to eventually build more of these clansmen; this was simply an experiment to see how well I could match the description.  I'm pretty pleased with how he has turned out.

Why? well, I have a new project in mind, but I have plenty to do first, so you'll have to wait a while to find out more, but a no prize if anyone can identify where he is from. 

The Great Terrain Build-Off

As both Merlin and myself look at the games we play and assess what we have, he decided he needed more terrain, especially buildings. I suggested looking at the Warhammer Townscape set, as many of the buildings are suitable for fantasy and medieval games.

He decided to start with Building 19 in the set, it being a fairly straightforward build. Rather than just encourage him I decided to challenge him to a build-off, both of us producing our own take on the building and blogging our results (see his build here).

Now I have built this building before. Twice. Many years ago I made it for Orc's Drift, it's building number 2 in those games, you can see it top left in the following picture.

Bloodbath at Orc's Drift

My first build was made from really thick card that we used to get supplies in at work, (think 'chipboard', in the Wylock sense rather than the UK sense, but about 5mm thick). 

I made it again much more recently at 60% the size for 15mm gaming. You can see this version here.

My second version used thick card from packaging from a well known online retailer and major South American River. The small size of the model meant I could get away with thinner materials. 

For this challenge build I'm going for foam board. 

I was tempted to alter the look of the building considerably. I want some crude drystone buildings for a future project and this seemed a good opportunity to experiment. However, on reflection that doesn't seem to fit the spirit of the challenge, so I'll make it as close to the original as possible. 

Well, I say I'll be sticking close to the original, but I'm changing a couple of features. As I mentioned in the 15mm build, the chimney could be shifted to a wall. I'm thinking that the extension might be a bake house, so a chimney shared by the main building and the bake house sounds sensible.  Thinking about the purpose of the build will help me when it comes to painting and adding little details.  A bake house will need lots of fuel for the ovens, and perhaps sacks of flour.

I also noticed that the Townscape includes an optional lean-to. I have no recollection of this on the Orc's Drift model, and I must have missed it in the Townscape when I built the 15mm version (it is on a different page, my excuse and I'm sticking to it). Lean-tos were a common extra on these card models, it's pretty much up to the builder where they go. One of the side walls is blank, and I was originally planning to put it there. I cut the wall height down so it fit. But once I'd built up the foam board shell I decided it looked better on the end wall opposite the bake house. 

Construction is pretty straightforward. Rather than print off the relevant pages I set the pdf to 100% and measured on the screen. I did fudge some of the measurements as they were odd, leading me to suspect that the pdf is slightly out of scale. Ah well. 

My foam board is a tatty bit of old advertising, donated by T'Other One (thanks!), I think they were throwing them out at his work.  Any slight areas of damage will be hidden in the texturing. The board is 5mm thick, so the side walls were reduced in length by 10mm and the front wall of the bake house and the lean-to were likewise shortened.

The pieces cut out and ready for assembly 

Joints were glued with tacky glue and temporally pinned. I built up the main building, the bake house and the lean-to as separate sub-assemblies. The main building got triangular off-cuts to strengthen and true the joints, and the two additions got a length of foam board across the back. 

Sub assemblies

These were then glued in place, after testing different positions for the lean-to. 

Trialling the lean-to on the side wall.

The lean-to on the back wall.

Currently the glue is drying. The next step will be the chimney, probably made out of an offcut of XPS, and card for the base of the roof, then texturing and adding the timbers before my favourite stage, tiling. 

I found the following blog with a very good build of this cottage about half-way down this post.  Not only has he produced an excellent result, he has done the same for ALL the Warhammer Townscape buildings.  I have found a couple of interesting techniques I plan to try on this build, but I won't say what yet, don't want to give all my secrets away to Merlin quite yet.