A New Challenge

Long time readers know that I occasionally indulge in hobby challenges. These are usually between Bodvoc and myself, such as our 6mm Fantastic Battles challenge during last October. We've even gone international with the First and Second International Townscape challenges, including Merijn from across the German Ocean.

A New Challenge

But now I'm joining someone else's challenge; Paint What You Got, organised by Dave on Wargames Terrain Workshop.

The gauntlet is thrown

I learned about this from long time commentator Snapfit of Da Green Horde, and it seems to be just my sort of thing. Basically, finish something between December 26th and February 28th. It can be something already begun or something new, just as long as it's finished within that window. This is just my kind of 'fuzzy target', pretty much anything I finish over the next several weeks would count.

But what to submit? I've some Rangers that I recently finished (must get their post completed), I'm nicely on with some Reaper zombies and some spiders, and I've got some Companions just started.

Perhaps a collection of stuff for Rangers of Shadow Deep? Maybe a Company plus Creatures for the first mission? Possibly adding in some terrain? 

Now the cynics out there might suggest that this will make no difference to my hobbying, but they're wrong.  What it will do is focus my mind on actually finishing things, something that I traditionally have difficulty in doing.

So thanks Dave for having me along for this.  I'm looking forward to it.

As I'm still not quite sure what will be my actual submission, I'm going to tag everything that is actually finished in the time window with PWYG so you can follow along.

A New Q

The weather is so cold at the moment that I can't use my rattle cans to varnish painted minis. Fortunately, I can brush on primer, so painting continues.

This means that I've not just got a painting queue, I've now got a varnishing queue as well.

This has got me wondering. The current cold snap (hovering around 0 degrees Celsius daytime and dropping to -8 to -12 at night) is unusual for Yorkshire, especially when prolonged over many days, but it is due to end soon. How to hobbyists cope in climates where this is a regular occurrence? Please let us know.

Reaper Bones Townsfolk Old Man; Slapchop Experiment

As part of the Grand Clear Out I found a bag of Reaper Bones Townsfolk from a previous Kickstarter. These are lovely NPCs; understated, but with character. They are also far closer to medieval dress than the previous lot of villagers. They are made from the newer 'Bones Black' plastic (actually grey), which is harder and seems to hold better detail.

As these are lowly villeins and cottars I felt they'd look good with fairly washed out colours, which got me thinking about Speedpaint and Xpress Colour. While my Karpath army uses Speedpaints and I kind of went for a Slapchop method with the zenithal highlight, I never really got it as good as I felt was possible. Good enough for massed units, a bit lacking for individuals.

I've seen some great results with this method*, and I was sure I could improve.

Preparation

Firstly, a little mould line cleaning and a good wash in hot soapy water. Then I gave the mini a wash with a 50:50 mix of Army Painter Dark Tone and paint thinner. Once dry I gave the mini a heavy white dry brush. This provides additional shade and highlights, which the Speedpaints will (hopefully) accentuate.

The Painting 

My Speedpaints are from the first release, and they do reactivate. It's not really a problem as I know it can happen but it does mean that I can't layer different paints, it's got to be single coats only. 

I chose fairly simple colours as I wanted him to look like he was wearing clothes using natural dyes. The skin is Crusader Skin, hose is Pallid Bone (which has turned out darker than I expected). The tunic is Malignant Green, the sleeves are Sand Golem and the hood is Slaughter Red with a little Palid Bone. The boots are a mix of Hardened Leather and Palid Bone, with pure Hardened Leather for the belt (less difference between these than I expected). The staff is Grim Black and the beard and eyebrows are simply the washed and drybrushed plastic from the preparation stage.

Finishing 

The mini was given a spray varnish (gloss then matt) then the base carefully removed, pins inserted into the legs, and a clear base attached. If you think it would be easier to remove the base before painting, then you are right. But the base allows both the shading wash and the Speedpaints to pool slightly, giving a nice dark line along the bottom of the feet. I'll not do this in the future though. Bones black plastic is much harder to cut through, and it took longer to remove the base than the actual painting.

There's quite a bit of waiting for stuff to dry, especially in the preparation stage, but the actual painting took around ten minutes and I'm very pleased with the results. If you compare this with my first Speedpainted mini, I hope you'll see an improvement.

I like the desaturated look, to me it's just right for the type of fabric I imagine such villagers would use. I recently visited Castle Bolton in the Yorkshire Dales where they have a Dyers Garden. This gives some indication of what colours would have been readily available in the Middle Ages, in brief, bright colours were very expensive, and certain colours very difficult to manufacture.

I like the grey beard and eyebrows; I had planned to use a light grey Speedpaint, but I thought the white drybrush looked good enough. 

The only bit I wasn't keen on was the flesh, so after varnishing I touched up some highlights with Vallejo Game Color Dwarf Flesh.

This chap is ideal for RPGs, he'd make a great quest giver, or even the McGuffin. He's certainly going to get some use in Rangers of Shadow Deep as several of the scenarios involve rescuing survivors.

There are a load more villagers in the set, and I think they'll all get a similar treatment. There are also some nice zombies that are obviously reanimated peasants in the same Kickstarter. I'm sure they'd look good using similar techniques, and be equally useful for Rangers of Shadow Deep

* There are lots of great YouTube tutorials on Slapchop, just do a search. 

Janus Post 24/25

It's that time of year when bloggers traditionally try and remember what they did over the past twelve months and set unrealistic goals for the next. Who am I to argue with tradition?

Janus, god of mini painters and hobbyists

Targets Set 

Firstly, what did I set out to do last year?

6mm dwarves; I wanted to get a few more companies and characters finished, sadly very little progress here. Worse, I put 'magnetic paper' on the bases for safe storage and transport, but it has proven not strong enough. The tin wasn't stored level and everything slid to one end, resulting in some bent pikes. Nothing that can't be fixed, but dispiriting. This needs sorting.

Similarly, I haven't sorted through the remaining pile of unpainted 6mm stuff - with one notable exception (see below).

Neither have I finished my MESBG Haradrim, nor any Orks.

In fact, none of my existing projects really got much further.

But looking at my actual post, these were hopes rather than goals. My goal was simply "". And I think I accomplished that.

Looking Back 

Last year saw me reorganise my Old School project (yet again) and a considerable increase in my Oldhammer orcs. I've nearly finished painting the minis required for the Severed Hand orcs in the classic Warhammer Fantasy Battle scenario pack 'Bloodbath At Orc's Drift' (just seven Hobhounds to go at time of writing). This led to Bodvoc and myself, always searching for the perfect set of rules, to try out Warlord Games' Warlords of Erehwon, written by Rick Priestley. So far they seem to give the right sort of feel for the size and type of games we want to play with our Old School stuff.

All this Oldhammer led to me attending BOYL for the first time. Not actually my idea (Andy first mentioned it, and I'm very pleased he did. I'd never have gone on my own, but it was great to have a group of us there, three quarters of the MEGAforce).

My only bit of 6mm painting was my Orctober project. Bodvoc and I tried to get at least 500 points of Fantastic Battles stuff painted, including scenery. We both managed it, though mine are not really a balanced force. Most were restored previously painted minis, which gave me the opportunity to sort through what I have for orcs, and an opposing force for my dwarves.

I took part in the RPGaday project during. This was fascinating idea, and it got me thinking about what I play and why, and it should help me decide what games to keep and which to let go or avoid in the future. I had hoped for more engagement with my blog as a result, I'm not sure that happened. Perhaps next time I'll do something that provides more generally useful content?

The tail end of the year saw me finally get round to playing Joseph McCulloch's Rangers of Shadow Deep. This cooperative skirmish game seems to be a hit with the MEGAforce (though Grim has yet to try it) and has inspired me to build up some more of the various plastic minis that I have (OK, yes, and buy some more), and build up some more suitable terrain. 

For various reasons, I played far fewer wargames or skirmish games than 2023. While disappointing, it gave me the opportunity to concentrate on just a few things. This certainly helped me to really enjoy painting. Although I'm still not where I want to be regarding hobby stuff, I can see where I'm going with it. 

The thinning out process started very well, clearing a lot of RPG minis, several whole armies and quite a bit of Lord of the Rings stuff, but slowed towards the middle of the year. The arrival of Bones 6 has got me looking through my roleplaying minis again, and I'm in the process of further thinning.

Looking Forward 

'More of the same' is too broad and unhelpful, but, in essence, I want to carry on as I have been doing. 

The thinning exercise must continue, and linked with this is the ethos that collections of minis and terrain must be as useful as possible. Either relevant for a game I really enjoy, such as my Kings of War armies or my Middle Earth stuff;, or useable in several games, like my terrain or the Old School orcs. 

Thus I've made a set of generic tokens that I can use in Rangers of the Shadow Deep as well as Frostgrave and many other wargames, rather than model dead bodies, cocoons and other scenario specific objectives.

This is the secret motivation behind the Orc's Drift project. Once I've painted the minis and built the terrain, I'll have plenty to use in many different games.

So for 2025 I'm going to steadily build up terrain and armies so that I have stuff ready for play. I may revisit some of my Kings of War armies (it's too long since I played) and I certainly want to get further with both the Rangers of Shadow Deep stuff, which is really generic fantasy skirmish stuff and most of which is good for RPGs as well, and the Old School Orc's Drift collection.

Terrain is an issue for both 6mm and 10mm games, but I have some stuff, I just need to make a few more bits then I'll have a set for each scale.

As I've said before, if I have a deadline I might achieve the target, but it will be rushed, probably incomplete and I won't enjoy it, especially towards the end (it'll feel great having it finished though). If I have no goals at all, I'm lost, unable to decide amongst the many possibilities. I've wasted a lot of hobby time this way.

'Fuzzy Targets' are best.

Above and beyond  these worthy goals, there are three things I'd like to explore.

Last year my blog hit 75 000 views, and is moving nicely towards 100 000 views. It seems appropriate to have a special battle report for the occasion, but I'm not sure what. 

One idea is to return to Mars. I still have some 18mm Mars stuff. Not much, but enough for a skirmish game or two, perhaps Fistful of Lead? It would mean starting from scratch though with terrain and minis, and I don't see it as a game I'd be playing a lot.

I've also got a lot of 28mm Star Wars minis from the WotC pre painted ranges. I've repainted some in the past, but never done anything with them. It would be nice to have some games, probably using Fistful of Lead as it worked great in our 20mm scale games. A short campaign with competing gangs sounds fun, but it would need terrain building.

One final possible diversion is Trench Crusade. My son-in-law is very interested in this, and I'd happily scratch build some terrain and models. It breaks my 'rules' in that it would be very specific in use. Fun though.

Painted Hobhounds; Various Options

A Hobhound is for Life...

I realised that I never posted my first four painted Hobhounds. Back in July I spent a while trying to decide what to use for the Severed Hand's four pawed contingent. Here are painted examples of some of the options I mentioned. I'm trying to decide what works for me.

A Hobhound, two demons and a Blink Dog walk into a bar...

Actual Hobhound model 

Blink Dog 

Karmanthi demons 

These are two of the three poses in the pack.  They are available from Ral Partha Europe.  

I don't have any more Hobhounds, but I've got seven more of the demons and four more Blink Dogs. I've also got a selection of other dog models from various manufacturers. 

All the minis were painted to suggest actual dog breeds, maybe not very well, but the intention was there. The Blink Dog got a standard 25mm round base, as this was an AD&D mini, it would originally have been a hex base, but round fits in with the rest of my old school collection. Hobhounds were classed as cavalry, so gets an oval base. These are from Fluid 3D workshop, and I put magnets in for storage/multi basing.

Further thoughts and choices 

On reflection I'm not going down the Blink Dog route. I do need to keep the original Hobhound mini, after all, it's official, but the rest of the unit will be the nine demons. This fits well with my long ago belief that Hobhounds were something a bit more sinister and fae than just big dogs.

The Blink Dogs will come in useful for guard dogs or similar, indeed, one of the set is the official mini for Fritzi, the Bogels' dog in the Terror of the Lichemaster scenario pack (annoyingly, I can't find that particular pose).

So the decision is made; one original Hobhound and nine Karmanthi Demons. I just need to get the remaining seven done then the Severed Hand will be scenario ready!

Rangers of Shadow Deep - A Token Effort

Clues and Treasure

Most of the scenarios for RoSD require objective markers. The first scenario, for example, has five 'clues' scattered around the village. When we played we used Frostgrave treasure tokens, which did the job, but really they should have been the corpses of villagers. The second scenario has five cocooned bodies that can be searched. 

It's very tempting to try and model these. Indeed, when I went to RECON I was looking for some medieval style bodies and some cocoons. I failed to find the former (though I have since seen some nice ones on eBay).  Cocoons are available in the Wargames Atlantic Spider box (along with two different sizes of spider), I was sorely tempted.

However, the box contains far more than I would need, and I'm trying to avoid having too much limited use stuff in my collection.

Generic Stuff

It's easier just to make generic tokens, maybe a few different types.  These have an added advantage if I can use them in multiple games as well as multiple scenarios.

I can always upgrade these if the game proves really popular with the group.

I used 25mm round bases for the tokens. These are the flat ones from Renedra, and they were included in the Frostgrave boxes I bought. Since I'm going to use clear acrylic bases for the minis, they were going spare.

It was a simple matter to prime then paint them. I left them on the sprue for convenience. 

Some of the scenarios require a couple of different kinds of tokens, Clues and Treasure, so I painted two different designs, I'm sure you can work out which is which.

There. Simple.

And I can always model some specific pieces later.

Rangers of Shadow Deep; Building the Company 2

Previously I showed three of the Companions from our Ranger Company. They were all built with a combination of Frostgrave Soldiers and Oathmark Human Infantry bits. I still have one more Companion and the two Rangers to build.

All three are female heroes, which is why I got the Frostgrave Soldiers II and Wizards II sets at RECON.

Portus Fell

She was the easiest to build, simply using bits mostly from the Frostgrave Soldiers II sprue. Her head is actually from the Wizards II sprue, as Andy wanted her to have obvious red hair, and the hooded heads on the Soldier sprue had most of the hair covered.

Not shown on the picture below, I added a backpack and blanket roll from the Soldiers II sprue, apparently for carrying lots of treasure.

Besaria

I spent far too long dithering over what I wanted Besaria to look like. Although she is a Ranger, and wears light armour, I did want her to look like someone with some magical abilities, hence the Wizards sprue for the more magical bits. My thoughts were to either use a soldier torso with bits from the wizards to show the magic side, or a wizard torso with solder arms etc to show her martial side.  In the end I decided she is a Ranger first, so went with a soldier torso and helmeted head. The left hand is gesturing as if casting a spell. I wanted her to have a weapon held at the ready and this rather nice one matched the other arm for sleeves etc. I added a quiver and bow on her back, as she's a reasonable shot with it, though she tends to use her magic first.  The book ended up being rejected, she looks busy enough without it.

Ellen the Archer

Ellen was the most fiddly, as I wanted her to fit in with the rest of the Companions using Oathmark torsos.  I was sure I could model a female archer based on the Oathmark torso in a tunic.

I removed the knife and gave her a quiver on one hip.  That and the pouch on the left hip help to disguise her rather chunky waist. A bit of greenstuff/milliput to slightly bulk out the chest (and rebuild the collar) and female heads and arms gave a good enough result. In fact I'm rather pleased with it.

I didn't take a picture of her components, but you can see her completed in the pictures below.

L to R, Portus Fell, Bessaria and Ellen

So that's the company built, now I need to get them painted.  I'll probably take inspiration from Joseph McCulloch's own blog, The Renaissance Troll,.  His rangers primarily use browns and greens.  I'll use a similar colour scheme, but I'll probably go for yellow cloth on the Companions, rather than brown, it seems more appropriate for a uniform.