Category: Update

Jesus Christ, last month was one from hell. Sleep pattern gone to heck, generally feeling worn out and tired most of the time and all this in spite of having a week off at the start of it.

On the plus side, I got stabbed in the arm by some Pfizer so I’m hopefully on the way to actually playing games with people (as well as other hobbies outside). So swings and roundabouts.

Project 365

So you may notice that the graphs for this month has changed. As I mentioned in last month’s project Database, I’m now tracking terrain purchases and painting. This required some back end tweaks in the sheet I use to make the graphs and such, which meant I had to rebuild the graphs. On the plus side, terrain now counts when I’m working out my numbers.

Speaking of, lets see how I did last month.

We’ll get into the purchases below, but I’m really happy I managed to hit my goal of 31 models painted this month. Overall, I’m doing okay I think, keeping up with the target without the purchases going too far out of control.

Battered Brush 2021

Something that comes from having a whole bunch of wargaming friends in a different city means that I get dragged into some strange arrangements. In this point? Battered Brush 2021.

As the image above shows – 100 models, in 100 days. This is something similar to project 365 but just a little bit more focused in terms of days and model makers. I’ve been using this to get to work on all the GW figures I’ve been picking up, especially with the Cursed City box. I’m planning to keep working through GW stuff with one of two other items sneaked in (such as the Imperial Dwarf I painted this month).

At time of writing I am 29 days in with 30 models painted.

Project Database

Adding terrain to the database is still an ongoing process. I have a lot of more than I expected.

Another new element to the database I’ve added is a list of games. Partially so I can keep track of how often I actually use my models, but also a fun way of logging my hobby time. This required some database shenanigans (turns out storing lists of values in a database entry is a big no-no, in comparison to my more programmatic approach). Instead, there is a few more tricks to make the various tables link together. This is probably the final aspect of tracking the three parts of the hobby – Miniatures, Terrain and Games.

Project Fantasy

First up for Fantasy – Conversion work! When Cursed City had just been released (and I was unsure if I would get my copy) I picked up some bits from it (Namely the Human Captain and trio of Bloodborn Vampires). When I actually got my copy of Cursed City, that left me with some duplicates to assemble.

I still haven’t decided on that I’m doing with the Vampires, but after the arrival of the pair of Witch Hunters, I got inspiration. I decided to assemble the elder Van Denst as a dual pistol gunslinger which left me a pair of gloved hands with torch and sword. Combined with how the female captain goes together, the gloved hands would fit perfect with the style of the model. Combined with a head from the Stormcast head (complete with warrior braid) and some chopping/greenstuff work, I’ve managed to assemble a human captain I’m pretty excited about in a very commanding pose. The next step is to get her painted up, which I think I’ll do around the same time as the Van Densts and the Witch Hunter from Cursed City.

In terms of completed projects, we start first with the Chaos Barbarians. Made out of the Darkoath champions, Godsworn Hunt and the Ogroid Myrmidon I finished off last month, I’m mostly pretty damn happy with hwo they turned out. It’s a very different project for me – lots of exposed skin and naturalistic materials (leather and fur) rather than more processed materials.

I’ll go into more detail on them in a post, but the feature I think really worked was making sure each model had the clan colour (Red) and the Leader colour (Purple) so that they looked like a family clan that has joined with my other Chaos warriors.

However, my favourite project to finish this month was the skeletons from Cursed City.

I think I really like painting skeletons.

Blog post coming soon.

Not quite finished in time for this wrap up but I have also been working on the zombies from Cursed City. These guys were a complete 180 from the skeletons, with lots of a details to pick out and lots of colours to work through. I couldn’t batch paint them anywhere nearly as quickly as I usually manage but by the end managed to work out some techniques that I might be able to use going forward.

Big fantasy news for this month (even though it counts for July) was getting the Age of Sigmar Dominion box. Now, I’m not keeping it all – I’ve split it into three with two fellow hobbyists and will just be keeping my hands on the new Stormcast figures. I’m honestly surprised how excited I have been for the new Stormcast models. I will raise my hand and include myself among those people who found the original Liberators kind of… dumb. But, with the addition of the robes and armour design, they have become a much more dynamic and overall better looking version of the fantasy knight archetype. I also adore how GW has used the Stormcast to push a great diversity of characters and people. There are some fantastic heads in the new releases, perfect for letting you show a real mix of glorious warriors, rather than just more angry shouting bald men.

Yet somehow, despite not getting in Age of Sigmar (all these figures are going into Open Combat duels), you’re also going to see more Stormcast! After I’ve done cursed city, I’ll be working through my collection of armoured warriors and maybe even adding some of the upcoming releases such as the Vigilors and Vanquishers that were announced during the launch stream.

Project Necromunda

Funny thing about Dominion – it’s also kicked off another project.

During the run up to it’s release, my local wargames shop Leodis had several deals to sell off stock to make room for the new releases. One of these was the Hive War box for Necromunda. A few moments after I shared this news, one of my former uni-housemates appeared with a cunning temptation to split the box.

A few purchases later, and I’m building an Escher gang. Much like with the enforcers I made last year, I decided to go all in, getting as many options as possible so I can mix and match from the start. I’m still working on the theme for them, but I think a focus will be to make it colourful – I find myself often just focusing the effects of washes and dark colours, so making a group more vibrant.

Project 3D Printing

Remember this? Yeah, it’s been a little quiet. I still need to write up my blog detailing my initial thoughts on 3D printing – I’ve been pushing it back again and again until I was really in the mood to write it. Hopefully, that should be done soon with the bonus of six months of printing and playing around.

My first 3D printed Kickstarter has delivered – Dogs of War offered a good set of Imperial Mercenaries, perfect for any number of fantasy skirmish shenanigans. By which I mean Mordhiem style things. Overall, I’m really happy with the quality of these models, they definitely show off what the printer can do. On the other hand, less happy with how much fucking around there was to get them fully printed – there were about four batches of prints with a few minor issues on several models each time.

With the grumbling over however, I can now focus on other things. Like painting them.

And speaking of painting, here is the first 3d Printed model I have actually painted. This Imperial Dwarf is from Last Sword, a Spanish miniatures company currently working on units that strongly evoke Warhammer Fantasy’s Lizardmen, Chaos, Empire and High Elves (with elven vampires and other more unique units on the way). I’ve got a lot of thoughts on these patreons, which I’ll get into at some point but I think this one is definitely one that works for me personally.

This guy sits among the Welcome pack, a great model to get into their style. As someone needs some adventurers for upcoming campaign missions, this guy seemed pretty perfect. Printing was easy (unlike other Last Sword STLs which have some risky supports), painting even easier. I added some Frostgrave rope (rather than his shield) and a treasure chest from another Last Sword figure (an elven bard that mis-printed) but I’m happy with the final effect.

As well as joining the Patreon, I also went deep into their back catalogue and picked up most of their STLs. Among them were a really cool set of Golems. I had to do some repair work in Windows 3D Builder to get a good print, as well as adding supports. But the look of this guy gave me some really good ideas. I actually used the arm from a different golem, as well as a base I had prepared for another 3D printed model. This is definitely a model that I looked at and got really excited about, so keep your eyes open for when I actually finish this guy.

That’s it for this month’s update, I’ll see you in a month!

Welcome to June! May was busy and so I ended up…

Wait. That picture seems… different to last month. Something is off. It’s almost tidy.

Oh yeah – I upgraded my office/hobby room with a new piece of furniture. I’m probably going to do a little thing on it (mostly because I love it) but it’s an Eket setup to give me a little more storage space.

Project 365

So lets take a look at the numbers for May.

Well good news! I painted more than I bought (by a fair chunk). I missed my goal by 1 (and more until I did my terrain painting on Monday night). On the other hand, the month was quite busy for work, I had some pretty bad brain days which made painting hard to do and A LOT of time was spent assembling models (thanks to Cursed City).

PROJECT Database

And so, having painted some terrain for a game, I have triggered a trap in my work. To make sure my data is correct, I now need to add all of my terrain to the database to bring the overall number of items up to the correct level, letting my overall completion percentage actually be accurate.

I’m setting up another table in the database and will start filling it with all the various items. The main problem with terrain vs miniatures is going to be cataloguing it, tying an entry in the database to the actual item. Part of me is tempted to start assembling asset tags to stick to the bottom of them, although I fear that may be a step too far.

PROJECT FANTASY

Although the painting numbers aren’t the highest, I think the main focus this month was fantasy. This is because there has been a lot of assembly this month, both starting from scratch but also finishing off some partial assemblies that have been sat around.

First up we have the entirety of Cursed City. 50 models and 10 tokens is a pretty hefty addition, and took me a while to build and then undercoat. These are going to be painted up as part of the Battered Brush challenge Games Workshop York is running in June (which due to the Dastardly Regular Opponent being based there is going to drag me in to it).

I actually have some duplicate models to assemble as well, three of the posing vampires and the heroic captain. I’m still debating my exact plans for how to assemble them, but I’m thinking of some weapon swaps for the vampires (using some Elven weapons I have) while the Captain might get a headswap and weapon tweak.

As part of my tidying up, I bit the bullet and finished off my Chaos Lord’s assembly. This required an evening of green-stuffing fun to rebuild a hand at the join between the arm and the Keeper of Secrets spear I was using. After originally doing it with way too much greenstuff (so that it looked like it had swollen up) I had to frantically trim big chunks of it away as it started to set. However, now that it’s been done and undercoated, I’m really happy with how it’s turned out. More pictures of the process once I finish him off.

And speaking of green stuffing, I also finished off building my Keeper of Secrets. From the start, I’ve always declared how much I dislike the crab claws. As I was building her as a Warrior Queen turned Greater Demon, I wanted to use weapons on all four arms. this required a little bit of cutting and green stuffing repair work to the arms, covering up the joins between the hand and the crab claw wrist. I had planned to be a little bit more experimental, bringing the shield a little closer to the body. However, when I got round to actually assembling, I decided not to risk it; the default pose is perfectly suited for the pose of the giant warrior creature casually advancing on her opponent. The model is now undercoated and at some point, I’ll get round to painting her.

The final bit of assembly and mod work for this month was the Soulblight Vampire Lord. I adore this model but I thought the bats in the hair were a little over the top. It was also confirmed when, upon assembling the model, I realised the larger base was only need to make sure the bats in hair actually fitted. Wanting this lord to fit with the Crimson Court band I got last month, I decided to give her a haircut – of course, this required me to then add some tips to the hair. My first few attempt was purely green stuff (as you can see above) but I could get the detail I wanted. Because of this, I decided to instead use some donor parts from some left over Dark Elf pieces, giving me the sharp points and meaning I only had to fill in the gaps with liquid green stuff. Now she’s undercoated, I’m really happy with her. You’ll see the results once I get to painting my vampires.

Now for painting, I finally took a look at my Swashbucklers. Getting the first two painted up as a test, I’m really happy with the models, perfectly suited for what I have in mind for the Swordmasters in my setting. I am looking forward to getting the rest painted up and ready to be used in games moving forward.

The other fantasy painting was the Ogroid Myrmidon. This, I believe, is the single largest model I’ve painted so far. He’s a glorious model, a Minotaur like creature with shield and spear that towers over it’s opponents. It took me a couple of days to paint him up, but I love how he looks and I’m really excited to get him on the table. More details and photos once I finish the rest of my half naked Chaos followers.

And yes! Terrain! During my week off (which I’m currently on) I decided to arrange a game with the Dastardly Regular Opponent so we could roll some dice. I’ll talk about all the joys of Open Combat (the ruleset we used) in the battle report but more importantly, OH MAN, it’s nice having painted terrain to play over it. As much as I dislike how much time it takes and how much it murders my paint brushes with slapping paint all over it (not helped by my brain preferring to work from a black undercoat) but on the plus side, I really like how it’s turned out. Now I just have to work on the rest…

Uh oh.

PROJECT WW2

Offt okay. So I am very close to finishing off my Brits but man it’s a bit of a slog. I don’t know if it was just this month or if I’m getting bored of painting green and brown but it was hard work kicking my way through the rest of the figures.

That said, I did rather enjoy converting and assembling my sneaky recce boys. I really like the camp comforter look and, with several duplicate figures, I decided to make some special figures. As well as the green-stuff’d cap, I also painted their faces with black contrast to tone it down and look like it had been blackened prior to some sneaky business.

As well as the recce boys, I also finished off a few extra riflemen, a pair of prone support teams (giving me an extra PIAT and Bren gun), the spotters for my Vickers guns, four SMG soldiers and Agent Carter. This is the Wargames Illustrated “Pulp Agent” but lets be fair, it’s obvious who it is. I’m… Not Really a fan of this model. It’s definitely a much more heroic/pulp figure, with different proportions that don’t quite fit my painting style. I would definitely love a version of this character with the same style as the Paul Hicks Brits, but for now she’ll work as a little bit of fun.

In terms of the project, I now have two vickers machine guns, two radio teams and a platoon of Churchills to do to finish off the projects. With lockdown easing, it’s likely that soon my British will be clashing with Germans under the control of the Dastardly/Creative Regular opponents.

That’s it for this month’s update, I’ll see you in a month!

Welcome to May! April was a pretty successful month for getting stuff done but oh boy do I have some cool stuff to get to work on, as well as it murdering my ratio!

Project 365

First up, lets take a look at the numbers and oh god…

Well in good news, I continued to exceed my target of 31 models a month painted. I also managed to prevent figures dropping into the shame pile by getting the Insurgent PMC and the Chaos Warriors done.

So as I predicted last month, the release of Crimson Court and Cursed City bumped up my purchased to a ridiculous level, not helped by a sudden project appearing in my mind (more details below). Looking at the numbers from this, I’m going to hold off on picking up anything for the next month or two. I already have plenty of things to work on, especially with the addition of a boxed game I can play with my sister. Looking forward, there are a few things I’m very interested coming up (such as the recently previewed Witch Hunters or whatever Spectre is working on), so I’ll be saving my hobby purchases for them. Until then, the goal is getting the stuff I’ve purchased painted up.

PROJECT FANTASY

I have spent a lot of time this month painting boys and girls in black armour. After my experiment with the Underworld warband last month, this month I decided to get to work on the main line troops. It was a great bit of experience, a very nice change from the painting style of the WW2 figures I had been working on. I’m also really enjoying just how useful Black Contrast paint is, even though I’m not using it for it’s original purpose. Painting it over metal to do the black armour meant it took a fraction of the time and saved me a lot of extra work. I also made sure to do a fair number of guys with bare heads, just a little more practise with painting facial features.

Of course, just after I finished the first set, my Dastardly Regular Opponent (while we were having a social distanced BBQ) decided to add some extra bad guys to the pile by gifting me a box of the old Chaos Warriors (complete with brown box). These took a little bit of work and cleanup to get ready (and there are still gaps I only noticed when I started painting) but they are still that gloriously iconic look, the looming metal black slowly marching forward. It was also fun putting the same scheme on the older figure, you really see how the level of detail has improved in the sculpts as well as just the general quality.

Oh boy, and then Cursed City. This was some real Games Workshop shenanigans. As impressive as it was seeing them continuing their aggressive release schedule, the experience of actually ordering it was a nightmare. My local wargames shop was out of stock before the pre-orders even went up and my second choice put me onto a future wave list. Even then, I didn’t know if I would even get it until I had the dispatch email. I was actually thinking it was almost time to cancel my pre-order, assuming that I wouldn’t be seeing any sign of it. In fact, I even managed to order the models I really wanted separately just in case I missed out on them. But luckily, I got the email and then the box through the door the following day.

With Cursed City’s arrival, getting the Crimson Court undercoated and the upcoming release of the Soulblight Gravelords later this year, I’m really falling in love with Games Workshop’s undead models. Age of Sigmar has definitely become much more interesting over the last few years, and the reccent releases keep giving out models I’m really interested in. Plus, zombies, skeletons and more are perfect for games like Frostgrave or other fantasy skirmish things, and you can never have enough zombies.

Of course, the vampires aren’t the only set of fantasy figures I’m eyeing up. At the end of last month, I mentioned taking a look at painting up the easy build Sequitors in a more realistic method. As you can see, they came out rather well. These three look like some hardcore templars. now, Having painted these, and spotting that Leodis had more models in stock…

I picked up a few things. The Evocators and Sequitors are the exact look I’ve been wanting, and raising up to squads means I have plenty of people to assemble in the different loadouts each squad can prepare. Despite having enough troops to form a small army for AoS, these guys are not going to end up filling boards. Instead, they are all designed for Warcry. I really like all the small skirmish games, mostly because you get to make each figure a real character. I’m looking forward to continuing the fun I had with the trio of Sequitors above.

And as my friends continue to point out, I now have four factions worth of Age of Sigmar (Stormcast, Daughters of Khaine, Undead and Chaos), something pretty amusing having only really got into it last year.

PROJECT WW2

I took a little break from my WW2 British platoon to work on fantasy stuff and now I’m back and ready to finish off the final tray of WW2 Brits (23 in total). Once done, I’ll just need to spray up the platoon of Churchill tanks and my first WW2 force would be done.

Of course, there is another reason for wanting to get these guys done. As you can see above, Mr Hicks (the sculptor for this range) has completed work on a 3inch Mortar team to go with the existing figures, showing off a great mix of the different clothing styles one might encounter. This is probably a sign we’re about to see another set of releases for the Late-War British. As you may have worked out from my repeated ramblings, I’m very excited for a 6pdr crew to go with the rest of my force. But at the same time, the soft spot I have for the troops in greatcoats means that I might potentionally be interested in expanding my British force to another platoon, which can be combined with my tanks. However, I wouldn’t dream of starting this until I’ve finished off my current collection and got to the stage I can actually get some games in.

PROJECT MODERNS

End of the month, I took a look in my drawers and realised I had a pile of ultramodern vehicles that just needed the final touches applying to them. Again, this a case of using the Black Contrast paint and being amazed at the usefulness of it. Black Contrast over tan for the tracks and guns does the job of highlighting, only needing a final tan drybrush after the wash to look great. I also made sure to mop the wash off carefully, rather than letting it pool too much. Finally, arabic-indic numerals on the turret side helps to mark the vehicles individually.

I also have a few more vehicles to paint up, including a technical with a bed full of guns. Expect to see them at the end of next month when I’m looking for things easy to finish again.

Little update – Anthalonica Miniatures just finished their Kickstarter. I decided to go in for the ever useful PMC squad, a set of figures that have a habit of turning up anywhere. These guys should be out in August, and I’m looking forward to seeing how they turnout.

Perhaps more exciting, I’ve been inspired by some of the work coming from the Modern Miniature Warfare group. These are the Sarissa Alamo buildings that were kickstarted last year before being released as a general product at the start of this year, painted up by Richard Fry as modern compound buildings. Seeing them painted up and ready to game over got me thinking about the pile of buildings I have assembled.

Here are mine. Now, after playing around with the layout with what I had, I started getting a few ideas about what I could do with them. With a few more extra buildings and terrain tiles for more open spaces, I might be able to get a 4ft x 4ft board together for a CQB maze. This would be ideal for a quick demo game, something I haven’t run since Operation Dragon’s Hoard in 2018.

Expect to see some pictures of this as I get work on them – this will be the first step in getting my MDF terrain all textured and painted.

That’s it for this month’s update, I’ll see you in a month!