Week In Review: Wait... Where Did The Weeks Go?!?

So as I previously mentioned, there had been a lot of packing as I moved back home for a few weeks.  On top of that was a ton of driving with me heading down to Boston one day, back to home the next, then back again, then home again... So much driving! On top of that, there has been snow storms, birthdays, medical things... it truly has been interesting times!  That said, I have been able to squeeze in a tiny bit of hobby so let's take a look!

Eastern Reinforcements From The West!

I picked up the last of the vehicles that I need for the 12th Company... a GAZ-AAA from Rubicon Models!

Yay for generic box art photos... since I threw my box away too soon.  Whoops!

Now for those of you with some knowledge of WWII (which didn't include me until recently BTW), the GAZ is a truck that was built by the Soviets which means it's in entirely the wrong theater for me to include with the 12th, right?

Nope.

The GAZ-AA is actually a version of the Ford Model AA that was licensed to the Soviets by Ford motor company.  Besides the USSR, the Model AA was also produced in other European countries including France.  So yes, in this case, I can field a GAZ-AA... I just decided to go with the Rule of Cool and slap the extra set of wheels on it as well.  The rivet counters are just gonna have to deal with it.

This was also the first Rubicon model that I've purchased and overall it's pretty nice.  There is a bit more detail than you typically find on Bolt Action models, plus their range actually covers more vehicles as plastic kits.  In fact, the only downside that I could find was gluing them together.  All I had on hand was Testors glue in the blue bottle.  This works great for Warlord stuff but Rubicon... not so much.  It still works, but the time that it takes to get a solid bond is much longer. Once I realized the issue I did a search to see if this was just me or if this is just something I'd not realized. Apparently Tamiya plastic glue is the recommended type, so I'll have to try to get some of that in the future.  As it was I made it work with the Testors with only a minimal amount of swearing so that seems like a win.

And with the Ford assembled, it also means that I have all the vehicles I need for the 12th to be fully mechanized and ready to go!

My motley mechanized force. Can't wait to finish painting them up!

I have no idea how this motley assortment will fare but even unpainted I love the feel that it gives.  The two trucks have MMGs attached to their roofs like they were pressed into service, and I swapped out the MMG on the from of the Hano for an HMG more fitting for the US M3.  I'm hoping that I can start painting them this weekend, plus I still need to make sure that I have all my ground pounders sorted as well.

The Building of Decks And More!

Other than picking up and starting to assemble the GAZ, there hasn't been any mini related progress.  There were boardgames though!  Dominion, Trash Pandas, Radlands, Splendor, Clank! Acquisitions Inc... so many games which has shot me up to 35 games this year!  Soooo much better than last year and the best part is the time that I've been able to spend with friends and family.

And that has been about it! I will be heading back out to the field soon which will in theory mean more time for hobby, but I'm starting college a week after that so... yeah, more interesting times. Still, I want to focus my hobby more while I am away so I'm going to narrow down the things that I bring down to work on. Variety is good, but too many options mean nothing gets done. I have some ideas that I want to try out for Core Space, plus I have all those minis that I painted! I also picked up the Outlands Delta Garrison terrain set from Battle Systems which I think will add some interesting variety to what I already have for Core Space. Oh, and there's a dragon that I want to paint. Until next time...

Week In Review: Hanos And Heroes!

Things happened this week!  In fact, I even managed to play a game!  Shocking, right?  So without ado, let's dive right in!

Harry the Hanomag

The first bit wasn't painting but it's a step forward for the 12th Company!  Introducing their captured half-track, Harry the Hanomag!

Going with my theme for the 12th Company, I had to include a Hanomag in their force.  I have always loved the look of the Sd.Kfz 251 and this is perfect excuse to put one into my army.  In this case, it will be as counts as M3 since the stats for the two vehicles are very similar but it will still let me run with the German version.  This leaves me with one more vehicle to buy but I've already got my eye on one that will give the 12th a wonderfully ragtag look that I am going for.  More on that soon, plus it's time for me to get to painting these guys!

Daqan vs Latari in Song of Blades and Heroes

Next I finished painting that one dude I needed for the Daqan force so it was time to dust off Song of Blades and give it a go again.  I stated up the two forces, set up a table, and away I went!

On the Daqan side, we have three Outland scouts, two crossbowmen, and a single spearman.  This gives the Daqan a good variety of units; the scouts are light while the crossbowmen and spearman both have heavier armor.  Not necessarily that relevant in SoBH given the high level view the system takes of things but I think I was able to capture the different feel of them?  Maybe?

Meanwhile, on the Latari side there are a whole two swordsmen and two bowmen.  That's it.  Nothing else.  When I did their stats I gave them all Forester but... yeah, we'll see how that plays out.

So with the forces set, it was time to hit the table!

For this battle, I decided to just go with a basic meeting engagement; two forces are walking through the countryside and stumble into each other.  Obviously, only one of them can leave here alive.

So... I actually did play through almost the whole game.  I even took pictures of each figures actions going back and forth across the table.  It sounds great, right?  Unfortunately it wasn't.  The lack of any real forests meant that those points were wasted on the Latari and left them at a numerical disadvantage.  Add that to a bunch of horrible dice rolls... yeah.  Back to the drawing board.

The Forester ability isn't worth the points sink that it became and I think that the Latari needed a bump to the Quality.  I had them at Q3+ but I want to kick them up to Q2+.  This will still leave them at disadvantage but the high Quality should help to balance it out better.

And... yeah, that's about it really.  I've been recalled for a few weeks so this week will be focused on packing and moving.  Hopefully there will be some mini time in there as well but... just gonna have to see how this plays out.  Fingers crossed!  Until next time...

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 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...

Week In Review: More Frosty Core And Murder Hobos!

And another week is in the books!  The question is what did I manage to get done this time?  I'll admit that it feels like less than last week but this is also my 5e week which does take up part of my schedule.  Even so, I'm feeling pretty happy about the progress I made so let's take a look!

BrushFu For Core Space

Two more for the horde.. of random civilians!

Picture is a bit washed out but hopefully you get the idea

These last two are a corporate and a kid.  Only logical for a cyberpunk style game, right?  You've gotta have a corporate in the mix somewhere for things to be truly cyberpunk, and the kid just seemed like a fun addition.  This model is also available on a hoverboard which could be an interesting twist as well.

And that takes me up to nine civilians... or workers?  Since I have Black Star Rising, I can throw that little twist into the game as well, which I think will add an interesting depth to the game.  And as for the miniatures, I really like them.  These are printed by BrushFu Studios, but the sculpts themselves are from Papsikels. I love the variety of the sculpts that they offer, and I've really enjoyed painting up the minis that I've purchased.  I can't help but notice that the first batch I'd received seem to be larger than the second batch.  I kind of wonder if they might have been 32mm instead of 28mm but either way works for me.  If anything it gives them a mix.  After all, we aren't all the same size, right?

That said, it felt like the details were easier to pick out on the larger figures which makes sense in the most basic way, but it seemed like the sculpts are probably designed to be printed at 32mm height.  The 28mm still look good, things just seem to get a bit cramped on them which makes sense.  Think of a river running between two mountains.  At one height, it is clearly there but if you move higher up the detail of the river starts to fade until it becomes a meaningless line between the two ridges of the mountains.  Now translate that analogy to a fold between pieces of clothing and hopefully you can see what I'm getting at.

Next I want to mix things up a bit and grab some aliens.  There's a collection called Novus Landing which has got a great mix of civilians, bounty hunters, merchants... I think it'll add an interesting dynamic to the whole collection.  The store that I'm looking at for these, Resonating Prints, lists all of these minis as being 32mm so I want to see how they compare with my current collection.  Plus I'll be honest, I'm just having fun painting up all of these civilians and populating an imaginary world.  How can you have a fight in a bar without their being anyone else around?  Or in a market?  It just doesn't feel right so adding these characters just feels right, even if they just stay in the background.

Devastators for Core Space

Back in the beginning of the year, I put paint onto my Purge for Core Space.  I'd painted up the harvesters and devastators in the same color thinking that they would be easy to tell apart.  After playing a few games... yeah, not so much.  Instead, I decided to fall back to the original color scheme (at least partially anyway) and I repainted my devastators red.

And man are they red!  The Menoth white that I'd painted them with was a perfect base.  I'd thought that between the off white color and the shade that was on it that the red would be darker but this definitely works.  I did consider painting the heads white but I like the way these pop.  Really need to get this game to the table again soon, especially with all the new minis.  Really need to make some stat cards made up for them soon, or at least rework the ones that I've done.  The captain seems to be about right, but I think some of the crew need to be toned down a bit.  Might work on that this weekend.

Auril the Frostmaiden for D&D

I also wrapped up painting the three forms of Auril this week as I got paint onto her third form, known as the Winter's Womb.

Compared to the other two minis, this one felt like the details weren't quite crisp enough.  They are still there, but no where near as pronounced as the ice shards on the Maiden or the fur on the Crone.  This is also the smallest of the minis which is saying something as the other minis already seemed kind of small.  Even so, they were fun to paint and interesting change of pace for me.  Plus, they led to me picking up another trio of minis but I don't want to post about those yet.  I don't think that my friend even knows about my blog, but I don't want to spoil the surprise in case he does.

The 5e Waterdeep Murder Hobos

Last but not least, we had our biweekly 5e session and man did it get dark!  We've really been trying to stay clear of the law but this week... yeah, it's gonna be rough.  There was a gang fight that quickly escalated ("What do you mean we are doing non-lethal attacks?") followed by a visit to a shopkeeper.  My connection lagged out when we went to his shop, and when I got the connection back a couple of minutes later we were killing him.  Ummm... okay?  I guess?  Thankfully we have several players that can heal.  As long as he didn't take enough damage for an instant kill, we should be able to salvage the situation... maybe...

And that about sums it up for this week.  As I mentioned, I want to work on stating up some of the Core Space characters so I can get that to the table again next week.  Plus I have some terrain that I need to put together for my next Five Parsecs scenario...  really feel like I need some canals for this one... so we'll have to see what I can get together.  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...

Core Space: The Black Star Is Rising

While I'm waiting for my new cyberpunk minis, I decided to take stock of what I have to look at making them into characters for Core Space.  While I've got lots of options, I really was feeling like I was a little limited in the options that I have.  The rules from the basic rule book are civilians and I was looking to make some of these characters more tied to some of the locations.  Based on what I've read, it sounded like the worker rules are what I'm looking for so I decided to bite the bullet and order a copy of the new Black Star Rising expansion.

Black Star Rising is one of the new expansions for Core Space and features rules for both workers and scavengers.  Instead of just wandering around aimlessly, it sounds like the worker rules tie the characters to a specific location so I really want to see how they fit in with the regular rules.  All told, I will have nine NPC characters just from my Etsy orders so I'm excited to see how they help to flesh out my universe.  On top of these figures, Black Star also comes with four more NPCs which means I'll have a ton of options between the existing crews, civilians, workers, scavengers... it's going to be just like its own little universe and I'm really excited to explore it more!

Now I just need to wait for Black Star to arrive... plus my Brush Fu minis (which have finally shipped!)... yeah, gotta love the waiting game.  Until next time...

Zona Alfa: One Crew Done!

Well, it's taken long enough but I finally finished my first crew for Zona Alfa!  Huzzah!!!  The last man for the crew is Chatterbox with his friendly LMG.

And with that, it means that it's time to start working on getting a board together so I can actually start heading out into the Zone.  I have decided to shelf the Southwestern Exclusion Zone idea for now, just because I have terrain that I can already use for a more temperate region.  Where will it be set?  No idea, but it will be somewhere green!  I do want to get some deciduous trees as all I have right now are the old standby Christmas pine trees.  At some point I want to make these look... well, like they aren't covered with crusty toothpaste, but for now they will work.  I'm also going to focus on a more rustic setting so I'm going to break out my Battle Systems fantasy village to get some quick country terrain.

I do need to also throw together some of the Zone floral that I'd picked up months ago.  It's literally right next to me in the hotel room, just waiting for me to finally throw it together.  I'm thinking that will be on the table for next week, depending on when my Brush Fu order comes in.  I missed out on being able to leave a review for my first order because I didn't realize that there was a limited window for leaving reviews, and I'd like to avoid that this time.  Barring that (and work commitments... and... believe it or not... college... because I've decided that it's finally time to get that piece of paper), the Zone terrain is at the top of the list.  Until next time...

Random Updates: More Brush Fu For Me!

I've been sitting on another order with Brush Fu Studios for a bit now, and since they just started a 20% off sale it seemed like the perfect time to pull the trigger on it.  In my first order, they were nice enough to throw in a bunch of cyberpunk bases which I really appreciated.  I wasn't planning on using them at first but I'm glad that I decided to.  Rather than just hope they threw in more freebies, I ordered 10 of them so I'd have them on hand just in case.

Next there is a droid waitress, a street kid, a techie, and a corporate woman.  These are all minis that I want to incorporate into my Core Space/Five Parsecs universe that I'm working on building up and they will be interesting characters to have floating around in the background.  The kid could be some kind of informant, the techie is a store owner, the corporate is a Mrs. Johnson, and the waitress... probably just for the background but she seemed like a fun addition.

The last two minis in the order just seem like they will be fun to paint.  One is definitely an homage to the Knight Sabers from Bubblegum Crisis.  Might not be too easy to incorporate into the game but I think it will be fun to paint.  And then there is the dwarf barmaid pinup.  She doesn't fit in with the rest (in case you didn't notice) but she amused me and she was only a buck.  Easy way to kick the total up to get free shipping so why not!

I'm still waiting on this order to ship, but I'm very happy with the other prints from Brush Fu so I don't mind.  I have another set of minis that I ordered as well which I'm currently working on, but more on those soon.  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...

Zona Alfa: First Crew Almost Done!

I managed to get a quick paint scheme on a couple more of the members of my Zona Alfa crew.  First up we have Potshot.

For his scheme, I decided to go with a basic olive green uniform with dark grey armor plates.  I thought about adding a camo pattern to the uniform but I really like the basic look for him.  Perhaps not the best for a sniper, but I like the end result.

Next up is the other red shirt... I mean, recruit... for the crew, Shades.

For the rest of the crew, I tried to follow more of a military appearance but I wanted to do Shades a little more civilian.  Generic dark green pants with a tan jacket, with a mishmash of colors for the improvised armor plates.  Only one left to go and the crew will be ready!  Now I just need to start figuring out some terrain.  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...

Five Parsecs From Home: Introducing The Crew Of The Avadora

Last week, I managed to get more paint onto my crew for Five Parsecs so I thought it was time to start introducing them.  First we have the feral of the group, Vargoth Mistrunner.

Vargoth is from the lower levels of the hive world of Tasoth.  An explorer by trade, Vargoth explored the lower levels of the hive looking for "treasures" that he could sell.  This went well enough until he stumbled into the territory of a group of fanatics known as the Sapphire Angels.  While Vargoth was able to escape, the Angels have been pursuing him since then.

Next we have Aris Salia, the resident agitator from the industrial moon Vilia N65M.

Aris managed to cross the Todov Consortium, the group that runs most of the operations on N65M.  With time running out and the goons closing in, Aris signed up to be part of trader Fol's crew.  This left his trouble behind for now, but the Consortium has a long arm.

We have the unlikely duo of our Engineer and Soulless up next.

Kultak ne Tenalu hails from the Tenalu enclave (hence the name... see what I did there?) located on Rivis.  While most Engineers focus on the technical, Kultak is actually a bounty hunter by trade.  His last contract was to track down a Soulless that had become severed from its hive mind and started calling itself Oracle.  Kultak found it on backwater trade hub and learned its true story.

Oracle had actually escaped from the Tenalu enclave and they were the ones to sever its link.  Kultak and Oracle quickly became companions and decided they would be better off forging their own path away from the enclave, which lead them to employment with trader Fol.

And finally we have the core of the crew, Zav Dezaran and trader Randis Fol himself.

Randis was a member of the Fehyn merchant family.  During one of his trade negotiations, he came across a text for the long dead Neknima sect which contained a damaged map to one of their lost holy sites.  Much to his family's chagrin, he decided to pursue this lead and struck out for the Wilds with his merchant cruiser, the Avadora, and his friend Zav Dezaram.

Randis met Zav when he was on one of the mining stations orbiting Sebunus.  The two quickly hit it off and Randis offered Zav a position on his merchant ship.  Since then, the two have been inseparable so it was no surprise when Zav helped Randis when he decided to head off to chart his own course.

I'm quite pleased with how my crew came out, and I'm glad that I've been able to churn my way through the boxes of Stargrave minis that I bought.  Between this bunch, my Zona Alfa crew, and my nameless heroes for Core Space, I've gone through sixteen of the sixty plastic minis so far... and that's without making up some targets... I mean opposition... for those two games.

And speaking of opposition, I started by first campaign turn for Five Parsecs!  I'm going to grab the board I'd done for Deadzone, throw together some opponents, a bit of quick terrain... and them we'll see how this ragtag bunch of ruffians fare!  Until next time...

Zona Alfa: Mountain Maw And Crew Update

Well, it been a while since I dabbled with the Zone but since I had free time I decided to finally put some paint on a mini that I've been sitting on for a while.  Introducing the mountain maw!

While there is only speculation on the origins of some of the creatures that have appeared in the Zone, the mountain maw was pretty easy to track down.  Some kind of mutation of the common mountain lion, the maw is a ferocious beast that exists only to kill.

This is one of the nexu from FFG's Imperial Assault.  I've thought about painting this one for a while but I've always been on the fence with it.  Sure, it's an interesting looking critter but I've never seen how it fit in with anything I was working on until I started picking critters for the Zone.  The nexu is a really big beastie next to a human so it's a perfect fit for the large mutant.  Not sure what I'm going to use for the regular mutant but I'm sure I'll figure something out.

And that's not all!  I've also been working on painting up more of my first squad.  In addition to Jonesy and Walker, I've also painted up Doc.

Though he seems to have some kind of actual medical training, Doc doesn't talk about his past.  Whatever demons and skeletons might lurk in his background, the crew knows that he can pull them through in a pinch and in the Zone, that's all that matter.  For his gear, I went with a mishmash of patterns and colors since I don't see him being concerned with such things.  As long as it's rugged and durable, nothing else matters to Doc.  I also did a bit of a shout out for his blue gloves... Browncoats forever baby!

There are still the last three to paint up for the crew, plus I still need more bandits and a few other beasties... plus figure out some terrain... it's getting there though and as erratic as my painting has been, I've really been enjoying it and dare I say I even feel like I'm getting slightly better... man, I hope I didn't just jinx myself!  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...

Song of Blades and Heroes: For The Kriel!!!

Lately I've been looking at my dusty and little used Trollbloods.  I LOVE these minis!  The lore for the Trollbloods is great and the minis are so full of character!  It is a damn shame that as an army, they were so lackluster.  I tried to field them a couple of times back in the day when I was playing Hordes, but man... they were just a grind.  I've even thought about selling them but... I just can't.  The minis have just always spoken to me, ya know?  But what to do with them...

The Kriel in all their glory!  Minus a little bit of paint...

I'll admit that my first impulse wasn't SOBH, even though it makes sense.  The system is open ended and encourages you to bring whatever minis are in your collection into the game.  For some reason, my brain side stepped this one and went to Warlords of Erehwon... but I'll delve more into that in the future.

I'd already been looking at pulling my Wrath of Kings minis into SOBH, and since they are on the large side, they will fit in nicely with the trolls.  Of course I'll need to get them stat'd up... oh, and painted too.  It's good to finally have a plan for these guys though, and I'm going to fit them into my rotating painting queue.  Very excited at the idea of finally putting these guys to good use!  Heck, I might even expand my collection a bit more as well, but more on that later.  Until next time...

Random Updates: Five Parsecs From WAAAAGH!!!

So short week in the field, but between last week and this I was able to get some stuff done.  First and foremost are my crew for Five Parsecs!

There will be a more "formal" introduction of them soon, but wanted to show what I'd been up to.  There is one more member that isn't present because I left him back home, so I'll grab him over the weekend.

On top of that there are a couple of more Orkz for da Waaaagh!!!

These two were my conversion for Kommandos.  In addition to the face mask, my Kommandos are all wearing backpacks just to make them a bit more distinctive.  Pretty minor changes, but they worked for me.  Oh yeah, and one of them isn't quite done but he's coming along nicely so that works for me.

And as you can see from the group shot, I'm really having fun playing with the various skin tones as well.  I first did this kind of thing with my Trollblood Frostgrave warband and love how it looks.  Just grabbing random shades of the base color and then hitting them with shades to add some depth.

And... speaking of the Trollbloods... they will be heading out into the field with me next week!  I want to try something crazy and put together a Warlords of Erehwon army for them using the Dwarf list.  Might work!  Might not but... we'll have to see.  Until next time...

Random Updates: Aaaand... Done!

I did it!  I finished my Core Space minis!  Well, my new Core Space minis... still have some of the actual minis from the box to go but I'm really excited to have the last of my custom batch ready to go.

I really wasn't sure which way I was going to go with this character, but I like how he turned out.  Of course it might be pretty close to the original color scheme for the Tau Ethereal but I'm really not sure.  The colors just kind of spoke to me and it only felt right to listen.

And he's not the only one making his way to the finish line!  I finally actually painted a Teknes union worker and a defender lineman from Wrath of Kings!

I really hemmed and hawed on this one but the color scheme finally came together.  Blue feels like the best choice for their common color, and I'm looking forward to pulling more skin tones into the other works as well.  There is some repetition in the sculpts so I'm hoping switching around some elements of their colors will break them up visually.

I also decided to pull in grey for the clothing on the lineman to break up the colors.  I also painted some of the bands with white and threw in a little Rhulic gold to spice things up.

And on top of that, I broke out some of my Ork boyz to get some paint onto them too.  Well, only one for now but ya gotta start somewhere, right?

I'm trying to use a variety of different shades of green to add some diversity to the mob and so far it's working.  Here he is with a few of his buddies who I painted earlier this year.

There is only... four or five dozen more to go?  Plus a konverted Ork trukk, some kustom killer kans, some kopters... yeah, I've got a lot of Ork stuff floating around right now.

And last but not least, I also finished painting up Walker, the leader of my independent Zona Alfa team.  Here he is pictured with one of the recruits, Jonesy.

As I previously mentioned for Walker, he is a former member of the Institute and it shows in his kit.  The armor is mil-spec armor from the Institute and so is his battle rifle.  I did mix things up a bit though with his shirt, backpack, and sidearm.  All of these bits are done in different colors from the Institute's grey to give him a subtle difference.

And there we have it!  A busy few days painting and I'm really pleased with the results.  On top of that, I also took all these pictures with a new light box that I picked up from Amazon.  I was struggling with the camera settings to get things to appear as I was seeing them but think I've nailed it down... at least for now anyway.  Looking forward to working with this particular piece of kit more in the future, including a possible review!  But more on that later.  Until next time...