warlord games ruined hamlet

In the previous post I briefly mentioned putting together bolt action scenery and posted some pictures up of the hamlet and church. 

These, along with the fantasy temple and tower, were ridiculously easy to paint. I picked up some grey car spray cans in dealz for €1.49 each, sprayed the buildings and dry brushed them a lighter colour. Then I painted quick shade dark tone over the entire thing, left them to dry for a few days and then sprayed them with a matt varnish. Simples!

All of the pieces were based on 1ft square MDF boards I had cut in B&Q. 8x4 boards are fairly cheap and they have a free cutting service in there. The bases were sanded, painted with generic brown house paint and then flocked. You can buy testers cheap enough in any paint supplier. This is a much more economical technique than painting large scenery pieces using GW paints as their guides would have you do.

Using this method of painting meant that I could get a large amount of scenery done fairly quickly and it looks decent on the table too. Much better than it sitting in boxes for years!

A Scenery bender

Last year I decided that all the things in my shed needed putting together. I figured if I don't have time to paint everything then the best thing to do was get it put together and on the table. At least that way I get to use it, painted or not. All my fantasy figures, hundreds of orcs, goblins and dwarfs got assembled, along with dozens of Space Marines and Tau. I also got stuck in to a load of scenery I had lying around the place. 

There was a temple and tower, both plaster kits I bought from ebay years ago (pictures to follow), along with a good few pieces of terrain for Bolt action (The Waffen SS are assembled but as yet unpainted!), the hovel set and a plastic church. I also built a modular 4ft x 4ft island for pulp alley, which also doubles as a huge hill for battles on a 6x4 table. This turned out ok. It looks nice but I forgot to take into account the bendiness of a stanley blade at full extension so there's some fairly visible lines that need hiding with scenery. Still... it fits together at least! Lastly there was the fort I started, using tips from the old generals compendium. This is still a work in progress though!

Here is a few pics of what I put together. I'm going to follow up at a later date with posts on how to build the island (and what not to do), and a step by step tutorial for the fort. I also purchased some fairly nice roads from Small Terrain on ebay, and at a little more than 11GBP for over 4ft of roads they are fairly cheap. I bought 2 packs to give our gaming groups all we would likely ever need. 

Reaper Dwarf Lord on bear

I've finally gotten around to painting my Dwarf Lord on his bear this week. Its a great model from Reaper Miniatures. I love some of the Reaper sculpts and have a few hero models for my WHFB Dwarfs. They stand out nicely without being out of scale and come in some nice poses, being generally more dynamic than their GW counterparts, which can be very static (but still lovely models). 

The base isn't done yet but the model is completely finished and just needs some varnish. He is going to look great as the commander of my Dwarf division for Hail Caesar Fantasy!

Painting challenge 2015 Part I

I'm terrible for getting models painted. I'd consider myself an above average painter. Not brilliant but decent enough. The main problem is my interest often bounces from one system to the next and I rarely finish painting one army before moving on. Like many gamers I own a large number of half painted armies, including the WHFB dwarfs I originally started 8-10 years ago. I find these days that working, having a 1 year old boy and a pregnant wife isn't helping my painting either! Last year I think I only painted about 20 models, and many of them were Space Marines for Skibbcon.

I've recently started getting bits and pieces done in the evening with the GW painting station on my lap and that seems to be helping, even if it is only a small amount done every night.

This year my goal is to get back to these armies and finish them off before I start any major new projects. First off I'm taking some advice I saw online about the best way to finish painting all your models. Stop buying new ones! Therefore this year I've a self enforced buying embargo in place. Will have to see how long that lasts though :-)

I think to see this through, with huge amounts of dwarf and orc and goblin miniatures to be done, I'm going to have to get the main infantry dipped and then concentrate on more detail for character models.

As we are planning to start playing Hail Caesar fantasy (hail Caesar using fantasy army lists) it's the turn of the dwarfs to get painted first. I'll concentrate on getting one division painted at a time. I may even go over some of the early Dwarf models I painted, back when I took up wargaming again after a 15 year break, and give them a coat of dip to add some shading!

The aim for 2015 is to get 200+ points of models painted with the scoring worked out as follows

Infantry 1pt

Medium sized model/scenery 2pts

Large model/ scenery 3pts

Very large model/scenery 5pts

Finishing previous year models 1/2pts
Retouching older models 1/4pts

So far this month I've gotten 40 dwarfs painted, although these were all half painted previously so only half points!

Warhammer Trafalgar

I'll say this first. I love this system. Now before anyone argues against this I'll admit the system isn't without its faults. Firstly, it needs a good few tweaks to make it better and I plan to post these up sometime in the near future. Secondly, it isn't the most historically accurate system. However it is a good place for Napoleonic naval beginners, which we are. It's rules generally try to reflect a historical condition, such as movement of ships, which start from that most downwind first, to reflect the advantage of having the wind gage. Having recently had a brief look at the old Man o' war system I can definitely see the similarities between the systems, but Trafalgar has more emphasis on sailing vessels and wind direction.

A nerdy gaming weekend at JustJohns

So JustJohn had a few people over for the weekend in his purpose built mancave. In attendance was myself, MrSaturday, Cheetor, The Otto Von Bismark and Craig, who has just moved back to Limerick and I'm unsure if he has a blog... Sorry Craig.

A few games were sampled including Man O'War, Bolt Action, Pulp Alley and a number of boardgames. Most of the games this weekend were to introduce new people to systems already played by others and good fun was had by all!

Unfortunately Inquisitor Thrawn and his retinue suffered from a malign curse and fared rather badly in the Pulp Alley game, pretty much getting wounded in every combat they participated and never passing a single health or recover check. Arbitrator Callaghan and Commissar Holt (both ally characters) even lost their lives trying to climb a wall into the ruined temple. Assassin 46, usually a terror in Pulp Alley game, came a cropper as he tried to snipe opponents from cover. Shocking! Below is a series of photographs from the Pulp Alley game.

Pulp alley 40k style

I've recently started playing Pulp Alley with a few others. Its a skirmish game with a bit of munchkin thrown in. Cards can be played to buff your own units or hinder other players and is a good addition. What I love about the system is how generic it is. You can use pretty much any models for it. There's no equipment, everthing is based on stats and the rules for characters can be individually tailored to fit what the model is armed with. In general it's easy to look at a model and wonder what it would be good at. Is it a shooter? Brawler? Sneaker? Thinker?

While I do have some Foundry English chaps to put together for a 1930s Pulp Alley league I'm also getting good use out of random 40k models I've had lying around for ages. It's a good excuse to put them together and get them painted. You only need 5-10 models so it's a painting project you can accomplish in a short period of time. It is also really easy to put together sci-fi terrain and having played 40k for years that's something I have lying around in abundance.

Recently I put together Inquisitor Thrawn and his retinue from random models I had collected for various reasons. These currently include an imperial fist, vindicare assassin, arbite, commissar and cyberhound. I've a daemonhost and a few old style metal imperial guard yet to finish and they will be added to the warband, although it's doubtful all models will make it on to the table at one time. Unfortunately in their last outing they fared rather poorly as the dice gods were against me that day, but that means they can only get better!