Almost Christmas...

 Here’s a peek at what I’ve been up to lately.

I am painting this fellow for my son.

Some objectives and hazards

Working on Asurmen

Piece of ‘Nid-world

 

More of Asurmen. Plan to change his base. 

Some Work from Zach

A collection of Zach's works

The Great White Ape of Barsoom

He did a good job on the white fur

Woola, the Calot

I forget which Barsoomian critter this is... 

A Chaos Warrior

Also, the flank of a Banth (Barsoomian lion)

 Chaos Beastman Army Centaur Banner

Another Chaos Beastman. Zach has an entire army of these fellows

End of Campaign: Dark Heresy

   We finished off our Dark Heresy campaign on Monday night. We had all sort of lost our interest in the game after almost a year of play. The last few months we have also had several challenges with getting together as a group to play, and that certainly didn't help things.

   So, how did it end? Well, we had just captured a dangerous psyker named Molokoff from Hive Tertiam on Fenk's World and barely managed to escape the planet before it was pulled entirely into the warp. Once aboard our vessel, the Cudgel of Drusus, we turned the prisoner over to the Inquisition. That's when things went to Hell.

   Literally.

   As our ship entered the warp to travel to our next destination, something went wrong. Horribly wrong. Demonic creatures began to pop up all over the ship. We fought like heroes, but watched our companions go down one by one.

   First to die was our 'tame' psyker, Volk. The power of the warp invading the ship began to overwhelm his mental defenses, and I was forced to put him down with a bolt pistol shell to the back of the head. Next was our favorite pilot, "Mad" Murdock (an NPC). On the hangar deck, as we were making our way to the main engineering area, he was dragged down by a horde of smaller demons.

   Third to fall was our chirurgeon, Sister Scythia. She burned down a few demons with her meltagun before a flamethrowing fiend doused her with a barrage of unholy napalm. Probably for the best, as she was not very careful with her shooting and a meltagun firing off in the engineering spaces would have been catastrophic.

   Fourth was our newest recruit, an Imperial Guardsman from the 24th Canopus Heavy Foot. Corporal Jones ran out of ammunition for his heavy stubber - which he toted about with his Bulging Biceps as if it were nothing more than an autogun. After spraying hundreds of rounds into the enemy, he heard that fatal 'click.' Before he could locate any more ammunition, he too was torn apart. Thankfully, he died before they began eating. I think.

   Adeptus Arbites Belisarion Graecus was the last to fall. Using his skills with a bolt pistol, he took out demon after demon with precision aim. The holy inscriptions on the sanctified weapon glowed brighter with every shot, and the Emperor's wrath flowed through the explosive shells, overcoming many a demon's unnatural toughness. But all things must end, and Graecus finally ran out of shells as well. He met his fate, praising the Emperor and pistol whipping a final demon into death as the hordes tore into his armour.

   The Cudgel of Drusus is marked as lost in the warp on Imperial records.

Project Review, Fall 2016: 25/28mm

A recap of what's going on:

    With the start of fall coming on, I decided I need to survey my madness. To wit, I am looking at each wargaming project I have ongoing, and what the status of said project currently is. 

   To define, a 'project' is a faction or force for a particular genre in a particular scale. Therefore, 15mm British WW2 and 28mm British WW2 are two different projects, as would be a 15mm DAK force, as would a British Paras vs. a British 8th Army force. Since there are so many and in so many scales, this shall be a short series of posts rather than one mega-post.

   For status, I shall use 'planning' (want to buy minis), 'active' (not playable but I am currently working on it), 'inactive' (unplayable but on to-do list), 'dead' (can't play, not doing anything, don't plan on it), 'playable' (enough to play, still adding to it), and maybe rarest of all, 'finished' (can play, no plans to add to it).

   I've already done the Small Scale projects, and the 15mm projects, if you missed those.

25/28mm

1. VSF Eureka Pond Wars: dead
2. VSF Lizardmen: inactive
3. VSF/Colonial British: playable
4. VSF German: playable
5. VSF Automaton: finished
6. VSF Martian: inactive
7. VSF Vardu: inactive
8. VSF French: inactive
9. VSF Russian: dead
10. VSF Japanese: dead
11. VSF Turkish: dead
12. VSF Parrotmen: inactive
13. VSF Characters (HM Victoria I, others): playable
14. Skyrunners VSF Racing: dead
15. EOTD/IHMN Werewolves: finished
16. EOTD/IHMN Gentlemen: finished
17. EOTD/IHMN Police Constables: playable
18. IHMN Lord Curr's Company: playable
19. IHMN Servants of Ra: playable
20. IHMN Society of Thule: playable
21. Colonial Boers: dead
22. Gutshot Cowboys and Lawmen: finished
23. Gutshot Banditos: dead
24. Terrain Old West: dead
25. Terrain Sci Fi: inactive
26. Terrain VSF: inactive
27. Terrain Fantasy: inactive
28. SAGA Normans: dead
29. SAGA Vikings: dead
30. SAGA Arabs: dead
31. Roleplaying Heroes: playable
32. Roleplaying monsters: playable
33. Doctor Who Daleks: inactive
34. Doctor Who Doctor and Companions: active
35. Doctor Who Angels: active
36. Doctor Who UNIT: planning
37. VBCW Free Welsh: playable
38. Warmachine Cygnar: playable (marginally)
39. Hordes Circle Oroboros: inactive
40. Hordes Minions: inactive
41. Warhammer Empire: inactive
42. Warhammer Lizardmen: inactive
43. WH40K Imperial Guard: inactive
44. WW2 British Paras: planning
45. WW2 Germans: planning
46. AT-43 Therians: dead
47. AT-43 UNSC: dead
48. AT-43 Red Blok: dead
49. Star Wars Prepaint: dead
50. Warhammer High Elf: dead
51. Warhammer Bretonnian: dead
52. Highland Badgers: playable (old and need re-paint)

Note: EotD is "Empire of the Dead," IHMN is "In Her Majesty's Name," VBCW is "A Very British Civil War."

   As you can see, there are a lot of dead projects in this scale. Ambition and ooh shiny got the better of my good sense over the years, and I almost never get rid of anything. Most are things where I have only a few figures, just testing the waters really. Which is good, I suppose. It's also by a fair margin the single longest list, which honestly surprised me. I thought the 15mm list would be the biggest.

   Also, I am shocked to see that I was considering up to 20 (!) different VSF projects in just 28mm. Twenty! I'm a sick man, really, I need help.

Flee! I mean, Flea!

   Here's the finished Battletech FLE-15 "Flea" 'Mech. Painted in red and white scheme to go with my other light 'Mechs. I painted them about six years ago, thinking I would do different lances in different Warhammer Fantasy Battle Empire Elector State colors. I posted about that a long time ago here. These are Talabheim, I think.

Zach's Been Busy, pt. II

  As promised the last time, more of Zach's progress. I'm showing off his, because I haven't made much. However, I am starting to feel like painting again, so maybe something good will happen.

   This first mini was painted in one hour of brush time. It's a 40K figure, supposed to be a Dark Angel Space Marine, I think.

Not bad for just 60 minutes of brush time.

Zach reminds us "Strong Tone Ink Wash is Your Friend."

   This next one is for Infiniti. She's not finished yet. Me, I don't even know exactly to which faction she belongs. He's used a metallic blue paint for her armor. Which prompts the poll question.

   Well, that's all for now. Hope you liked them. Today I am supposed to play in a Flames of War North African campaign game. (I'm scheduling this post for later.) I will try to get a few shots of my brave Sikhs and British Tommies fighting Rommel's Huns.

Lots of Objectives

15mm Black Faced Sheep

Objectives/Scenics

Food sources are a great target for a raid.

25mm Native Pots

Objectives/Scenics

   Each of these is numbered on bottom. The number corresponds to a chart. On the chart is the result for searching the objective: friends, foes, treasures, or traps! I stole this idea from Frank Chadwick. So you know it's good.

15mm Swine

More Objectives. See Sheep, above.

A new tree, and a Marksman of Miragliano.

A little scenery and another trooper.

The tree has four more like it. Steel base, too.

Terrain Mat Photos

The Jungle Mat

   This is a 6' x 9' canvas tarp, dyed with a variety of greens and brown, and then misted with water to get the colors to bleed into one another just a little. Basically, I used a spray bottle with RIT dye in it to color the cloth, changing colors as needed, and then following up with a bottle full of clean water. If you do this method, DO NOT OVERDO THE WATER. I tried washing the first mat after dying it, and it was a disaster (see the other post on mats)!

                                   The Martian Mat

   This is a 5' x 9' piece of good quality canvas from the fabric store. It took the dye better and I think will last longer than the tarp. As mentioned previously, this was the first and suffered a series of mishaps. I am pretty happy with the results I came out with, considering all the mistakes I made. I think it looks Mars-y. And definitely more durable than the old felt mat.

   I'll be making two more mats in the near future: a European fields mat (5' x 9') and a smaller gray concrete area mat (3' x 5'). The smaller mat could be placed on a large mat for an urban area. It is going to be designed for a Car Wars autoduelling arena, however. I even have a neat idea for some bunkers to place on the mat, and gate markers. The concrete bunkers will get advertising posters on them! I may even get really ambitious and do up arena walls for the outside edges of the arena. I have some old styrofoam that woudl be close to perfect for that, and then I could build the gates into the walls... Sliding steel doors? That really slide, of course!

   One last photo for tonight, of some random jungle scatter I have been making:

That's a GW metal stegadon for WFB in the background, and its all on the new jungle mat. Just aquarium plants glued to fender washers and static grassed. Nothing fancy.

European Gothic structures

If you follow my other blogs, you know by now that I have been sucked into the Warhammer world again. It's a great setting, I'll give it credit for that.

But I have virtually NO scenics for the Empire other than generic terrain. I already had a few things for the Lizardmen I was using for VSF, with a similar tropical feel. But half-timbered buildings? Wattle and daub? Nein.

Anyone have easy ways to make these buildings? I will need at least:

• Tavern or coaching inn
• Farmhouse
• Two or three townhomes
• Barn/stable
• Outbuildings
• Sigmarite Shrine