Week In Review: Frosty 12th Heroes!

This week I managed to finish up a project that I've been working on for a while now.  It started as something simple and then... yeah, I might have gotten carried away but I'm really pleased with how it turned out.  What is it?  Let's find out!

Auril the Frostmaiden

Yep, that's right.  It's another Auril, but this time I think that she is a bit more impressive.  Here she is in all three forms.

These are a set of figures that I purchased on Etsy from Light And Luck Minis, and they did a really good job with this.  Nice and clean prints with very good detail as well.  The biggest difference between this set and the official set is... well, they're bigger!  The third form on the right is mounted on a 25mm base but the first two forms are both on 40mm bases.  This technically puts them out of the medium size category but it's still shy of the large so hopefully it works out for my friend.

Of course since I painted up this special set of minis I decided that I needed to make a box to put them in as well.  I could have just gone with a plain old box but what fun would that be?  Time to get creative with foamcore and hot glue!

I used the glue on the foamcore to give the box a frozen look to it, which I tried to emphasis with the blue white paint scheme.  My daughter suggested putting the window in the top, and I love how the frosting effect turned out to make them look like they are inside a block of ice.

The cover goes almost the full depth of the bottom and I lined it with some white felt as well.  This should protect the icy detail that I did on the bottom plus it gives the box a bit of friction so the bottom doesn't just fall out.

I've been working on this project for a while so it's good to see it finally complete.  On to more projects!

Daqan Knights for Song of Blades and Heroes

With my elves done, I pushed on to get my Daqan knight troops done as well.  First up was one of the missing crossbowmen.

I didn't write down my process on this one so I was kind of winging it, but I think I am close enough to have it consistent.  I did decide to paint the helmet and torso armor as well, which I hadn't done with the spearmen but I really like how it makes the figure pop.  In fact, I liked it so much that I touched up one of the spearmen so that it would match.

This change will help to tie them together and gives them a more finished look.

The other troops for this little force will be the Outland scouts that I already painted up.

When I looked at the artwork later, I realized that they did the chest armor as metal instead of leather, but I like the hardened leather look.  Not sure if I'll do the rest of them with leather, but I'm happy with these guys so far.  Once I finish up the one remaining crossbowman then it will be time to get back to some Songs!

The 12th Company for Bolt Action

The date for the upcoming Bolt Action event was finally announced so it's high time for me to start working on the 12th company again!  To that end, I decided that I needed to dirty up the Opel Blitz that I'd already painted.

A little bit of rust and a lot more dirt, and I like how worn it looks.  I still need to mount a machine gun at the front of the bed, but that should be a quick addition.  For vehicles I still need to pick up another truck and I'd really like to grab an SdKhz 251 instead of just running the regular M3 half-track.  It's not essential, but I love the idea.

And that was it for this past week.  Things are going to be getting... interesting... as well.  Shorter week for me this week, plus I'm looking to come home from the field for a couple of weeks to help with a project at the office.  Perfect timing since I just got my hotel work station set up just the way that I want.  LOL.  Is what it is, right?  Until next time...

Week(s) In Review: Whoopsy! Missed A Couple There!

Yeah, I missed a week... or maybe two... whoops!  To be fair, my schedule has been a bit hectic but, hey, it is what it is.  So did I actually do anything during that time?  Heck yeah, so let's take a look!

Trollbloods of Erehwon

That's right, more Trollbloods!  In fact, I figured out a few units that I have completed!  First up, my Trollblood stone scribes (aka crazed psychotic axe wielding maniacs).

I know that I had mentioned using Madrak as my chieftain (aka the lord) but after thinking about it, I decided that he would be the perfect leader for this unit.  I still have one more of the regular scribes that I could paint up but it's that whole two sculpt problem, especially since I need a leader for the unit.  Throwing in Madrak breaks up their look and he does look pretty badass as well.  Perfect!

Of course this means that I'm missing a leader for my army... or am I?

No I'm not, because I finally repainted Borka!  This picture is kind of dark but I think you get the idea and I just love this sculpt!  He's just an absolute bad ass and I love the idea of being able to use him in a game again.

Latari Elves for Song of Blades and Heroes

I've had an itching to play this game again, and I finally finished my little elven warband.

I thought this would be a good starting point for this force.  It has some balance between ranged and melee so it should be interesting to field them again my Daqan Lords... when I finish them.  I wanted to have a balance force on their side as well but I haven't painted up two crossbowmen yet.  They are started though so I should be able to finish them this week... or I could just be a rebel and play them withoug finishing them!  Craziness!

Funko Madness!

So Funko isn't painting but it is something that I have collected a lot for.  In fact, a lot more than I had realized.  Behold the wall of Funko!

I had stopped picking up sets for this but my friend decided that I had to have some more, in this case the Avengers four pack and the Thanos single.  There are plenty that I missed but I'd completely forgotten how much of this game I had picked up.  As I've said before, it's not a bad game and there's a lot more to it than I expected.  So many combinations you can throw together just for the insanity of it all.

So one of the big problems with this one, is actually what you see above.  There are so many boxes!  It's just not easy to cart around, ya know?  But... I think I have a solution.

This is a Rigid tool case and as you can see, it fits all of the Funkos that I have (30 figures total... for now...) and there is some room to spare in the middle for the tokens, crystals, and dice.  Of course there isn't anywhere for the maps and cards, but I figure I can consolidate most of those into one or two of the four pack boxes.  Overall, this will be much more portable, plus my daughter calls it my murder box.  I mean, look at the thing.  It kind of makes sense; this thing is a beast!  Now to finish packing up the last of the bits then there will be Funko pandemonium!

And There Were Games... Lots And Lots Of Games

Last year, I track a whooping 45 boardgame plays for the entire year.  45!  What the heck, right?  Well this year, we are already up to 25 plays.  In 10 days!!!  It's crazily awesome and I really hope that we keep this momentum going because I've really been enjoying it.

Beyond all of this, there has also been some role playing, both playing and running so there has been map making as well.  Lots and lots of stuff, and it's been a lot of fun, and now I'm headed off to do some more stuff.  Until next time...

Week In Review: Heros Clicking With Trolls!

With Christmas falling on the end of the week, this was a short week for hobby but I'm happy with what I managed to crank out.  So what the heck was it?  Let's find out!

Trollbloods of Erehwon

Slow but steady, I managed to get a little bit more done to move my Trollbloods towards the finish line!  Another stone scribe joins the unit, leaving just two more to go!

I like these models but... yeah, I'll be honest, the whole two poses that they come in makes it a challenge.  Just kind of gets to be "Oh look, it's another copy of the same miniature."  Yeah, it's only five minis for the whole units but still it feels like it's a bit of a grind.  That said, I've been making sure to mix up the colors for the clothing.  This is a minor touch but I feel like it breaks up the continuity some which is good.  This is just a base unit so it comes in at 117 points.  Feels pricey for a unit with no armor but I'm hoping that them being stubborn psychopaths works to my advantage.

Next is my impaler with his whelp "crew".

Yeah, I've already shown this one a couple of times but think this is the first time to have the finished unit together.  I love how this unit looks, especially the contrast between the massive impaler and the tiny whelps!  This unit is a whopping 111 points and I was thinking this would be a unit I would expand to include later, but it's just too fun not to have in the army!

And last but not least (so far anyway...) is my chief and his bodyguards.  Again, it's not Borka (yet...) but Madrak is still a pretty cool mini with that giant axe.

For this unit, I've kicked them up to big axes and stubborn which brings them in at 127 points.  I'm really tempted to give the chief either wound 2 or tough 2 but I want to give them a try as is first.

So all of this gives me 355 points (once I finish those last two scribes) which isn't a bad start... but it still needs more which they will get in the form of a unit of scatter gunners!

Yeah, more work to do on this one as well but there is progress!  Once completed, they will add another 110 points to the army, taking the total point value up to 465.  I still want to add more troops to force (namely some regular troops to bulk out the ranks) but this is a solid start.

Random Heroclix Repaint

I also decided to get some paint onto one of the Heroclix that I'd picked up.  She's been sitting on the painting table for a while but I finally decided on a paint scheme and got to work on her.

Yeah, she's mainly dressed in red which is kind of predictable but I like how she turned out.  Rather than just start with a dark red, I actually did a base coat of bloodstone before bringing the color up with a dark then regular red.  I like the depth this seemed to give her kimono.  For contrast, I just went with a basic white but again I used a different color for a base, in this case Menoth white which is more of a cream or tan.  After that, I used white to pick out the raised portions on the neckline of her kimono, the torso, and her head band.  I might go back a try to freehand some flowers or something similar but... I don't know.  It's good to push yourself to improve but I'm pretty happy with how she looks.

She fits in nicely with the other repaints that I did for our Betrayal Legacy game for the male and female companions you can meet in the game.

This also gives me a good comparison point since I did red for both of the female characters.  I feel that the folds on the kimono are more distinct than on the skirt.  I might try a quick repaint on the woman's skirt, plus I have several shades of yellow so I might try hitting her sweater with that.  I think that would help add a bit more definition to some of the details on the sweater that are pretty muted right now.

And that's about it for now.  I did also do some work on stating up my new crew for Core Space, and I've got another couple of ideas for my campaign reboot but these are still in progress.  More on that soon!  Until next time...

Random Updates: So... That Was A Week...

So I got back out to the field, and started painting like crazy.  The BrushFu minis had come in, then Black Star, plus a friend asked me to paint his Auril the Frostmaiden minis...  I'd even put together a post with pics of the stuff that I'd painted but... yeah.  Just wasn't happy with them.  Very flat and just blah, ya know?  Really uninspired so I just set the blog aside for a bit to think about things.

I realized that I was pushing to get the painting done so I could post pictures of what I'd painted, but they were just meh.  Honestly I thought about just putting the blog on hold for December while I figured things out.  Once I stopped focusing on the blog and just painted... well, it seemed to go better.  So for a while, I'm just going to switch to posting on the weekends and do more of a recap.  Just feels like it will be a better fit, so let's look at what happened this week!

BrushFu For Core Space

At the beginning of the week, my BrushFu minis came in.  Huzzah!!!  With the first order, some of them came with bases as part of the print but this time they were all loose.  I kind of wondered if that might be the case so I ordered ten cyberpunk bases so I could keep that basing scheme going through these minis.  Not only did I get the ten that I ordered, but they also included enough extra bases for the minis that bought with this order, which I thought was very cool!

As for the prints themselves, they all looked very clean and crisp again.  I was a little worried because one of the minis didn't have a head, but then I found it in a ziplock by itself.  With that panic sorted, I grabbed the glue and got to basing.

The first two minis that I painted were the droid waitress and the techie.  The initial paint scheme... yeah, they just didn't work.

The color combo on the techie wasn't bad but she just needed more, and I wasn't sure where to go with it.  The droid on the other hand... yeah, she was a failed experiment.  My initial thought was to go for a tarnished and worn look for her since she's a droid out on the frontier.  Maybe she wasn't serviced as often as she should be?  Maybe it's a lack of supplies?  Either way, she was just way too dark.

It was pretty disappointing because I thought that things were flowing better and these were just... well, crap to be honest.  I set them aside and decided to come back to them later in the week.  As I thought about it, part of the challenge that I was facing was the details are almost too fine.  Might be time to grab some magnifiers but for now I just decided to pull up the images from Etsy and enlarge them.  Man, did that make a difference!  This helped me identify some of the details that just wasn't seeing, and I decided to hit them for round two.

This time, I'm a lot happier with the results.  On the techie, I painted some of the base colors on her skin, top, and coveralls to add a bit more depth.  I'd initially only done the base followed by a shade, but I think that the extra base helped pull out the details more.  Looking at the enlarged pictures, I noticed the trim and belt on the overalls so I painted these up as well and I really think this helped.  No, it's not display quality but I feel like its perfect for gaming.

For the waitress, I tried to pick out her body panels with a bright gold that I have, but it seemed to thin to give good coverage, kind of like you usually find with yellow paint.  I could have built it up but decided to grab the cold steel instead since that has better color density.  A short time later, I had the raised and more shapely panels painted up and I like how they contrasted with the recessed spaces.  Her calves and feet are far more industrial in appearance, so I left those the original color.  Overall, I'm much happier with how these two ended up, and I think that stepping away for a day really helped clear my head and refocus.

Trollbloods Of Erehwon

In between the other projects this week, I also grabbed by impaler to get some more work on him.  Initially, I wasn't too pleased with him but then I started to pick out some of the contrasting colors and it really helped bring him to life!

There is still more to do with him (the bases, the tree trucks aka spears) but just adding the touches of the cloth wraps and the bronze trim add so much life to the figure.  I also love the two chickens hanging from his belt!  Just an example of the fun little details that the Trollbloods have.  This guy is gonna look great on the board with his two "crewmates" and I might have to paint up the other one just because!

Auril the Frostmaiden for D&D

A friend of mine is running the Rime of the Frostmaiden adventure for one of his many D&D groups, and he asked me if I could paint up his Auril minis for him.  "Sure!" I said, and then realized that I had no idea what I'd agreed to.  Thank God for the internet, right?

It took a few weeks for us to actually exchange the minis but he was finally able to get them to me last weekend.  I'd hoped to be able to get through all three this week, but the cyberpunk bump that I had really through things off.  Even so, I was able to rally and push through two of the three forms.

Her first form is known as the Cold Crone.  This was an interesting one to paint because of all of the rich details that are sculpted into it.  The ridges in the horns, the texture to the fur, the drape of the robe... all of these are very pronounced details so they just came screaming out of the mini when I painted it.  Love it when they make things easy like that!  The fur was done with three different shades which let me keep around the eyes darker so they could really pop when I painted them.  I do still need to give the claws a touch of black but overall I'm really happy with it.

The second form is the Brittle Maiden.  Again, the details on this mini are nice and crisp so washes and drybrushing were my friends.  I ended this with a thinned white that I painted onto the ends of the crystals to make the edges pops.  I like how the figure ended up but I've got to admit that I'm not that big a fan of the sculpt.  I get what they were going for but... I guess it just seems really clunky.  Not that I could have done better, it's just that compared to some of the other collector series minis GF9 has released, this one seems to be on the lower end of the quality scale.

I still have yet to tackle the third form, the Winter's Womb, but since it's the smallest of the three I will be able to knock it out this week.  Heck, I could have done it today if my supplies weren't down south but I really don't want to get into hauling all of my painting stuff back and forth every week.

And there we have it, the week in review!  Think I'll start calling this segment that in the future but I'll stick with Random Updates for this one.  There might be the odd post that I throw up during the week, but for now I am going to shift my focus and just be posting on the weekends.  Until next time...

Trollkin of Erehwon: More For The Kriel!

Edit: Huzzah!  I was going to post this yesterday but Blogger wouldn't let me upload the pictures for some reason.  Apparently things are working normally now so on with the Kriel!

Yeah, so I was a bit of a slacker this week.  Well, not really but one of the things that I was working on I can't post yet.  I did make some time to work on my Trollkin though and I've got to admit that I'd forgotten how much fun they are to paint!  Of course I didn't have time to break out my light box for the photos, but still think these give an idea how they are coming along.

First up is my chieftain with his bodyguard.

I'd originally planned on using Borka as my chieftain but I had Madrak done so he will do for a stand in.  The two bodyguards are champions that I'm using for now.  I might switch them out for Warders eventually, but for now these guys will work perfectly.

Next are my stone scribes.

Yeah, still only two of them are painted but I added some finishing touches to them.  I was going to wait on these ones in favor of filling out the basic kriel warriors but I think these guys will be amusing to play so I think I'm going to but them up in the cue.

And last but not least is the first of my two impalers.

Just the base drybrushing done on him but now his two buddies are by his side to give an idea how the unit will look.  The whelps are just a riot and remind me a lot of the snotlings of old, though I think that a whelp would probably kick a snotling's butt!

Next week, my BrushFu order should arrive so I'll be digging into those minis ASAP.  On top of that, Black Star Rising is supposed to arrive on Wednesday so even more goodness to get into!  Plus, a friend of mine just gave me some minis to paint up for his D&D game so even more for me to paint on top of wanting to keep pushing on with my Trollkin!  Definitely looking forward to see what I can knock out this week.  Until next time...

Trollkin of Erehwon: They're Impallingly Bombastic!

All of the minis that I have for my trollkin are some variation on foot soldiers.  Be they warriors, gunners, or guard, none of them really fit the bill for an artillery unit.  Of course, there is actually an artillery piece in the Hordes trollkin mini line, but I'm trying to be thrifty (aka cheap) so I decided to see what I could cobble together from what I have.

Part of the plastic kriel warriors box is three caber throwers.  The models are pretty cool and full of character as is typical for the Trollkin, but I had no idea how I could use them.  A caber is thrown, so a ranged attack of some kind makes sense.  It should hit like a ton of bricks because... well, it is a stone caber after all but this also means that it shouldn't have too much range as that would be silly.

It took some digging through the dwarf list but I think I managed to find a way to slot them into my army, complete with a crew.  In the dwarf list is the bombard which has a minimum range and a relatively short long range which seems like a really good fit.  It is also overhead attack and does d4 hits, which again seem to line up nicely.  It is a giant piece of stone that the trollkin is chucking after all.

To represent the piece on the table, I'm going to field one caber thrower with two of the old metal kriel warriors.  This gives me a crew of three, and having them move as a unit while maintaining base contact will turn them into a large miniature.  This also gives me something to do with my original kriel warriors since they are a bit runty compared to the plastics.

One artillery piece is good, but two?  Well, that sounds priceless doesn't it?  Again looking at minis that I already have, the impaler is a light beast armed with giant javelins.  Looking at the dwarf list, I can see two options that this could line up with nicely.  The large bolt thrower and the small cannon are virtually identical in their stats, except their ranges are quite different.  The bolt thrower goes all the way out to 60", while the cannon only goes out to 40".  Personally, I'm thinking the bolt thrower since literally that is what he is doing and it gives me a longer range artillery option which could be handy.  As for representing the unit, this time I'm thinking use the impaler with a couple of the trollkin whelps.  These little guys are adorable and would look great next to the oversized beast.

With these two options, I'm pretty sure that I've bumped my available points to over 1,250 which means I've got a lot of options!  Just need to keep on plowing through them with the painting while I make a list, then I will be good to go.  Until next time...

Trollkin of Erehwon: Slow And Steady, Just Like A Kriel Warrior

The weekend is drawing to a close, but I was able to make a lot more headway than I expected to with my Trollkin.  Behold, one unit of kriel warriors almost done... with assembly at least.

I've been enjoying these figures though they didn't go together the way that I thought they would.  I had plan to assemble them using super glue... unfortunately the very first one the parts just didn't line up well enough for the glue to adhere.  Thankfully I still have a small amount of the Procreate floating around so I've been packing the joints with this to make the connections.  No idea how well it will ultimately bond but fingers crossed!  I have been putting some score marks into both sides of the pieces to try to give the putty something to hold onto.  So far it's worked out?  As far as I can tell?

There are still a couple more unit choices that I want to try to represent, but that's more for my own entertainment.  Right now (once I get everything assembled), I can field field over 1000 points.  Heck, I might be even be able to push it up to 1250.  The only store that I'm aware of that plays the game regularly seems like they run either 500 or 1000 point games, so I'll be good for either of those.  I've also got a couple of ideas for cobbling together some artillery units using the minis that I already have, but more on that later.  Until next time...

Trollkin of Erehwon: And Stuff Was Done!

This is a holiday week in the States (Thank you for your service, veterans!) which means that I have slightly less time for hobby.  I could have packed up my paints and brought them home but... to be honest, I'm usually pretty busy at home so I don't know how much I would have gotten done.

That said, I did grab my Trollkin kriel warriors and scattergunners so I could work on their bases while I'm home.  Rather than just glue them down and leave the giant gaping slot in the base, I use Procreate to mold a ground and hold the feet in place.  Oh course I don't have a lot of Procreate floating around since I haven't used it since I did the Trollkin for my Frostgrave warband, but I had just about enough.  Maybe?

Since I had three scattergunners that were assembled before, I decided to base two more of them and then a full five kriel warriors.  Ideally I'd prefer to have two units of five warriors, but I'm not sure I have enough to base them all.  Then again, I do have the original metal minis but they are pretty small compared to the plastic ones.  They will work to fill the ranks but I'm glad I picked up the plastics.

Something that I did find surprising is that Privateer Press used the same bodies for the gunners and the warriors, just with different arms and bits.  Now I've just got to make sure that I don't mix up which bodies go with which sets.  Not sure how well they would swap so I'll just keep them separated until I get the arms on.

This also leaves me in something of a conundrum.  I like the plastics more than I thought I would, so there are two more sets that I've got my eyes on.  Then again, I've actually got a good number of points already so... not sure how that will play out.  Suppose I'll figure it out once I actually get the minis I have finished.  Until next time...

Erehwon: Trollbloods Of Erehwon!!!

As I mentioned in my previous post, my trollkin have been talking to me and I'm looking for options so I can finally use them.  In addition to Song of Blades and Heroes, I really want to use them for Warlords of Erehwon but how?  Naturally there isn't a trollkin list for Erehwon and while I could build a custom list for them, I want to be able to run them in casual play without the list being an issue.

Looking over the current lists on This Gaming Life, Rick Priestly's blog dedicated to Erehwon, the best fit I can find is actually the dwarfs.  Ironic since the trollkin tower over the dwarf minis in my collection, but otherwise it makes sense.  Both are clan based cultures that have access to some black powder weapons, but also tap into the power of runes.  So with that decided, let's take a look at how I'm going to line up the trollkin with the dwarven units.

First and foremost, every army has to be lead by a lord.  Of my trollkin leader minis, Borka has always been a favorite of mine so that's an easy choice!  And no lord worth his salt doesn't have a bodyguard so two of my champions will hop on over into his personal retinue.

Next is the hero and this is another easy one.  Who is the ultimate hero in a trollkin's eye?  The fell caller, of course!  A couple of big axes and a stone torch as a back banner make him the perfect hero for the kriel!

And speaking of kriel, you can't really have a kriel without having some warriors to defend it.  And this is where I hit a bit of a snag.  I never bought kriel warriors myself because the minis were (and are) very expensive.  As these were pewter minis, and hefty ones at that, I can understand the need to have a higher monetary cost, it was just hard to justify that when the unit was so... average?  The one unit of these that I do have I bought from a friend that realized the Trollbloods just weren't for him.  Sounds good, right?  Except he only had nine of them for some reason.  As a single unit I can make this work, but that's the only way it will work.  With a minimum of five models per unit, ya just can't make two units out of nine!  

How to solve this?  By slightly breaking my rule to not buy any more miniatures this year... dang it!  Then again, I was able to snag the new plastic box of ten warriors and three caber throwers for just over half price so that's not too bad.  Not sure what I'll use the caber throwers for yet, but I'm sure I can find something.  Maybe a counts as catapult?  Could be entertaining...

Next I wanted to incorporate some ranged ability for my list which made the scattergunners I'd picked up the perfect choice.  In this case, these are counts as dwarf handgunners... which seems a bit silly?  A scattergun should be a bit more potent than a pistol but ah well... these are the choices you make with a counts as list!

And the last unit (so far anyway...) are my stone scribes.  Now these are a bit different since they don't really have any armor to speak of, at least compared to the other trollkin.  Then again, in the lore they are supposed to accompany the krielstone bearer and are willing to sacrifice themselves to keep him alive... sounds like a good fit for the dwarf crazed psychotic axe welding maniacs if you ask me, which makes them a fun little addition to this list.

Of course there are still some options that I want to look at adding... a runesmith, some kind of artillery... but what I have gives me a solid core for a good sized army so this is a great start.  Now if only I hadn't left my procreate at the house so I could start working on filling their bases...  something to add to the list for this weekend!  Until next time...

Warlords of Erehwon: The Rune Golem of Lord Ramsay the Grey

I've been doing a lot of for the Zone lately, but that hasn't been the only thing on my painting table.  There have been a couple of rune golems sitting on my table for a while, so I decided that it was time to put some paint onto one of them to see how it would look.

He's a little monotone but that kind of fits with the background I've made up for my Knights.  The house troops of the army will be in blue like the spearmen around the rune golem.  These units are going to form the building blocks at the core of my force.  To expand beyond the core, I want to assemble a few more blocks of 250 points so I can plug them into the army in different ways.

The first of these blocks is going to be focused around Baudric the Red (he popped up in this post here).  The next of the blocks is going to be Vallios Ramsay the Grey who will be bringing his "pet" golems to the party.  In addition to a pair of rune golems, Ramsay himself is mounted on a rune steed with two knights to accompany him.

Ultimately I'm thinking I'd like to have a block of peasants that I could put into the force as well, just to have some cheap "troops" to give me more numbers but these are going to wait for now.  I'm planning on getting some of the Fireforge Northmen Folk Rabble for these.  Since they are plastic figures, it should help keep the cost down a bit, but I just realized that I have 60 Stargrave minis, 20 Panzergrenadiers, and a bunch of other Rune Wars minis that I still need to assemble, never mind paint, so I'm thinking I need to slam the brakes on my purchases while I work on the backlog... especially since that's just the plastic figures... and it doesn't include the Ghar army box that I still have yet to crack open.

Oh boy... this might take a bit.  Well, until next time...

Random Updates: BrushFu, Badger Games, and Erehwon Assembled!

Last week was a big one for hobby, not because I was able to get a lot done, but because I had a lot delivered!  First off was an order I placed a while back with BrushFu Studios on Etsy.

My perusing of Etsy started in the beginning of the year, after I got Core Space.  I was looking for cyberpunk style miniatures and Etsy has a good selection of them available.  I stumbled across BrushFu Studios and liked what they had to offer but unfortunately they were taking a break at the time.  Still, my hobby was slowing down at the time anyway so I added to my cart and just let it sit there until they were back.

When they did open back up, BrushFu was right up front with the fact that they had a lot of orders to fill and to expect orders to take three weeks to ship.  I was in no rush and I really appreciated the honest about this so I went ahead and ordered.

Fast forward about two weeks and I received a shipping notification, and then the minis themselves a couple of days sooner than the USPS predicted.  I haven't had a chance to really start working on them, but I did check them all out and even gave them a wash to I can start work on them.

From what I have seen, the prints are very clean and crisp.  There are a couple of thin strands from the printing but they will be easy enough to clean up before I get to painting them.  All told, I had ordered ten minis.  Three of those came with bases attached but they threw in eight cyber bases as well which I wasn't expecting.  All in all a good shopping experience and I've already got a bunch more minis queued up in my shopping cart for my next order from BrushFu.

About the time that package showed as shipped, I started see people posting about the Stargrave Nickstarter coming in which got me wondering if might might arriving soon.  I tried to log into the Badger Games website but couldn't remember my password and the system wouldn't let me reset it.  A couple of quick emails to them, and they had it sorted out then my package of goods was sitting on my doorstep!

I don't have pictures of these sets, but I did take a quick look at each of the sprues and man are there a ton of options!  Lots of heads, weapons, and various little gribblies, plus the Nickstarter comes with a sprue of gnolls and cultists for even more options.  Looking forward to getting these into the que at some point and fleshing out my options for Core Space and Five Parsecs From Home.

Last but not least, I even managed to do a little bit of actual hobby! Ages ago I started buying miniatures for a couple of Warlords of Erehwon armies using the now defunct Runewars figures.  I'd made a bit of headway before I was called back to the home office last year, but since then it has just been in a holding pattern.  Last night I decided that I might as well at least assemble the figures that were sitting on my table in baggies and it wound up being a pretty impressive looking horde.

Of course I still need to paint them all but at least now I have a better idea just what I have which is handy.  I had been thinking about getting some more of the crossbowmen and scouts but I'm thinking this is good enough, especially since this isn't including all the spearmen I have as well.  I also did some quick math on the points and just these figures were just shy of 1000 points (minus the wizard and priest at the front, and the standard bearer and musician which don't have stats).  Adding in the leader, champion, spearmen, and rune golems to the mix and it's gotta be around 2000 points which should be more than I'll ever need... in theory anyway.  Now I just need to paint them... along with the Nickstarter...  and the printed minis...  Oh boy...  I think I better start painting again soon!  Until next time...

Workbench: Spearmen, Space Barrels, and Some Gardening Too!

More progress on the painting challenge but things have been going... a bit... slower...

I've started work on the spearmen that I had drybrushed and I've gotten half of them painted already.

I decided to split knight army up a little bit to add some flavor to the whole thing.  The soldiers in blue are the affiliated with the Crown and will form the core of my army.

In addition to these core troops, one of the two leaders for the army will be Baudric the Red (aka Lord Hawthorne from the Daqan forces of Runewars).

His set comes with a mounted figure and one on foot which will give me some options in the army as well.  Baudric is definitely the more imposing of the two figures so if I field the full army, then he will move into the champion slot.  Beside Baudric is one of the mounted knights that will accompany him, plus I will be painting up a unit of spearmen in his colors as well.

The next items are terrain pieces.  Nothing too fancy but I'm excited to have them to add into the mix.  What are they?

Spaaaaaace barrels!!!  (this is a call out to Table Top Warlords YouTube channel... check them out if you haven't already!)  I'll admit that I have no idea what Kevin made his out of but I made mine from assorted plastic bottle lids hot glued together, then painted.  Quick and easy!

Last but not least, I added some detailing to my plant terrain.  Originally I was going for quick and easy so I didn't bother with any ground cover.  Well, I decided that it was time to change that up so I hit Michael's and grabbed some lichen.

This is just a sample of but you at least get the idea.  It's just a minor touch but I really like how it added some realism and depth to the pieces.  I've been holding off on setting up my full terrain board since I'm going to be bouncing rooms again soon but once I'm in a more permanent location, I'll have to see what I can do.  Still more to do this month but this is a good start for this month!  Until next time...

Workbench: And the Painting Continues!

January is wrapping up and I've made great headway with my painting challenge!  I posted earlier that I was up to 21 minis painted but I've blown past that all the way up to 33!  On top of that, I even made a cheap little "light box" so I can take some better pictures of my minis as I go along.  So without further ado, let's see what I've gotten done!

After picking up my tectorists, I had to grab the next mini that has been on my radar ever since it came out; the Hukk bounty hunter for Gates of Antares.  In addition to the hunter himself, the blister also comes with three angkriz hunting beasts.

These take up a tactical slot and operate together as a unit.  They can also be used by all of the factions, including the Ghar due to their alien nature.  The unit is highly customizable (as long as you have the points that is)  and gives you number of options for the models to go with him.  In my case, I maxed out his drone compliment, giving him a spotter, medi-probe, and two shield drones.

The trickiest thing about these minis is figuring out what to paint which color.  These are completely alien beasties so it really is just up to your imagination.  For mine, I decided to paint the hunter and beasts with bone colored carapaces, while the skin tones are similar to the one paint scheme that Warlord has shown for these critters.  As for the drones, these were an open canvas as well.  Since these are buddy drones that the hunter has picked up over time, it really opens up the palette for them.  I even custom built one of the shield drones just so they would look more ramshackle.

And next is the first mini for my Warlords of Erewhon knight army.  I was originally looking at going with an undead army but it sounds like they're pretty popular at the store (go figure) so the knights were a good second option.

These minis are some of the Daqan outland scouts from the now defunct Runewars game by FFG.  In addition to this set of minis, I also grabbed not one but two core sets so I've got a bunch of minis to work with.  There are a few more figures that I need to pick up to round things out but by the end I should have two full armies for a discount price which is always a plus in my book.

For next month, I've already got a head start as I have 16 Daqan spearmen already drybrushed just waiting for paint so I should be able to push through those really quick.  Of course the Antares Facebook group is trying to distract me with talk about running Zona Alfa reskinned with an Antares flavor.  This sounds like an amazing idea and has me thinking of the possibilities of sci-fi/pulp adventures.  Must stay strong and focus... argh!!!  Until next time... unless I get lost in some long abandoned research station looking for the lost arc of the Concord.  Wish me luck!