Oh boy, that time again.
So you may have noticed March was a little bit quiet. Going to admit, I’m not having the easiest time at the moment in the old head box – finding it really hard to just sit down and focus on things in general so hobby stuff falls slightly down priority when trying to get out of bed is a pain in the ass. This might explain the shotgun blast approach to the hobby this month, lots of iron dropped into the fire but not a huge amount of finished stuff (blog posts, images or games). Which sucks!
Next month is going to be better – mostly as I have a lot of cool and exciting things I want to do.
COLLECTING
With my need for full ultramodern platoons, I returned to Empress for (what I hope) is the last order of US Army soldiers from them. This is nothing bad against their figures (I wouldn’t be buying more if I didn’t think they were pretty great) but in the process of making a platoon I’ve hit my third purchase of several packs. I doubt this is problem for most people but it’s amazing just how much modular and 3d printing makes it easier to assemble full platoons.
I also picked up the Middle Eastern sniper figure. Yes, I appreciate I’m adding to my pile of prone figures that are annoying for skirmish games but I adore how Empress have brought this figure to the tabletop. I’m looking forward to painting him up as the latest incarnation of The Fox, notorious MENA sniper that has appeared in multiple scenarios so far and even surviving into the ChargeReal.
3D PRINTING
For the last few months of owning the Saturn, I’ve had the occasional issue of pieces not printing properly, of split layers and other minor imperfections. Part of this comes down to dialing in the settings but after a few weeks I discovered that some resin had ended up on the screen protector and set into place. Thankfully, I had a screen protector installed, meaning it was easy enough to swap out the cover rather than needing to replace the screen.
And shock horror, I’ve continued printing. At the moment, I’ve been working through some additional models for fantasy gaming – mostly it’s been Last Sword’s collection, although Highland Miniatures militia that came out last month are perfect for the world I’ve been building
Its quite telling how nice the models are when I actually choose to print cavalary models. I hate painting horses due to the pile of details on even the simplest. But on the other hand, this pair seem ideal for the type of encounters that my fantasy game will include.
I’m printing tiny tanks! A friend of mine has a hankering for Ha-Go tanks, tiny adorable Japanese light armoured vehicles and asked if there were some STLs available. After a quick look around, I managed to find a pretty decent wargaming quality set of pieces on Thingiverse and got to printing. They work out pretty cheaply and I’ll be getting ready to print a few more for my friend.
BUILDING
As mentioned above, I’m onto my third purchases of some US Army figures. Because of this, I decided to really go to town on these guys – swapping heads, reposing bodies, playing around to make thing into an interesting force on the tabletop. I’ve already managed to turn my most hated model in the Empress range into something cool (don’t worry, a sitrep is coming on him mostly so I can rant) but I have plans for the rest. I want to write more on it soon, to give a better overview of the whole setup.
During a particularly bad mood dip that left me unable to sleep properly for several days, I decided to spend the time productively and assemble up my Severina Raine model. Sadly, this was a release from the bad old days of Finecast (” high-quality Citadel resin” in the blurb, shitty resin for anyone not in the GW sphere) so that was a fun time, including a badly splitting bolt pistol. Luckily for me (and explaining why she’s not on her regulation base size), she’s not going to be used in 40k. Instead, she’ll be joining the necromunda gangs, bringing that sense of style to my Eschers. For this reason, I had to give her some tweaks – most of them will be in the paint job (vibrant neon hair under the hat) but also by replacing the trusty bolt pistol with a needler. A very definite sign that she might be a touch shady.
PAINTING
At the start of the month, I wrote up a quick thing about this trio of SAS troopers from Crooked Dice. Honestly, it was a nice thing to quickly paint up – not for a game, not for a long term plan, just some fun models to paint. Also not especially accurate or realistic. It definitely made me think more about just sitting down and putting paint onto a model for the joy of painting.
Ironically, the end of the month saw me working on another group wearing gas masks, the Aftermath team. Technically these were actually finished off on April 2nd so technically outside the month but hey, you get to see them now.
Finally, a pair of fantasy figures ready for the skirmish table. Both are from Last Sword and another sign of how happy I am to give them my money each month (even if I’m unlikely to be using the Lizardmen any time soon). The Halfling Paymaster I’ve already covered in a SITREP, but the other figure is one of the Purifiers. I’ve got another two to paint up which are a bit closer to the Witcher inspiration so expect something once they are all done.
GAMING
I had a visit from friend from t’up North (who may be popping up more often soon) and we decided to get some games in before airsoft the next day. We ended up putting another game of Ultramodern Chain of Command on the table including some vehicles. Overall, it was a good time, although we did have a few things that need tweaking as well as some activation concer. It’s on the list of things to work on.
In the evening, after dinner, we managed to also get a quick game of BPRE in. I’m continuing to really enjoy that game – it’s fast but not brainless and manages to nail the feeling of close quarters gun battles. I really want to play more, but I’m also wanting to get some “nice” versions of the cards as my terrible printed versions are not particularly fun to use.
WRITING
Main writing this month was mostly putting my Fantasy gaming together. Well, after taking a look, it’s less just fantasy and more going to be the basics for small scale RPG-esque games going forward. Above is the WIP combat matrix, something that makes me quite excited (even if its terrifying) along with some of the other D100 mechanics I’ve put together. I really need to put it all together and get it on the tabletop but sitting down to roll up a load of characters is not the most gripping thing.
Aside from fantasy, I’ve also been looking at my ChargeReal setting more. I actually started writing down some short stories around it, particularly involving the pirate/PMC nation of Libertalia and how it’s forces will tie into the current conflict I’m writing (that of Albion vs Bazistan). These ideas I’ve sketched will need to be written up at some point, but I managed to get a bit more energy to go back to the pint size campaign featuring a raid on a Bazi Empire held island. The idea behind the campaign is to have the first few missions be the initial commando raids (of which you only have one go at each), with victories in those then affecting the main raid (where you have a certain number of turns to achieve the objectives).
BLOGGING
March was not a very good month for blogging – I only managed three posts and my progress on starting Youtube stuff was much slower than I wanted. Blame my bad brain.
As part of my own development though, I did pickup an LED light block to mount on the camera tripod. This is partially just to make sure things are better lit when taking the nice photos to show off the models, but it does also allow some fancy coloured lights for getting more dramatic things. I’m really interested in improving my photography (even if I did manage to get a camera without manual focus) and getting a suitable lighting setup I can cart to games definitely helps.
If you want to know what’s coming next month, why not jump over onto the Patreon? I’ll be putting up a preview post there around the same time as this goes up, detailing what’s on the docket for next month. If you like the sound of what I mention, then you can become a patron to help fund it. There are no tiers to choose between – just pay what you want and the support is much appreciated. Click the button below or follow the link to my Patreon page