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.