May the Fourth be with a really big gun

As is traditional, May the Fourth means I’ve painted something Star Wars themed, and this year it’s ‘Mandalorian with large weapon, Paz Vizla’:

I have a bunch of Star Wars minis in the backlog, but this one got chosen because it looked cool in the cabinet while we were chatting with Tim Prow at the Diehard Miniatures stand at Salute, so he got bought and accelerated up the painting queue. I also tried painting heat stained metal for the first time (inspired by the studio paint job), which came out… fine. Something to work on in the future perhaps (as every tutorial I saw said use an ink and dry brush, but whenever I went to dry off my brush all the pigment leached off completely, so I tried to glaze with washes instead which could have benefitted from slower going, but a deadline is a deadline).

While the miniature isn’t completely identical to his inspiration, I did use stills from the Mandalorian to work out which bits of armour should be which colour, as his colour scheme is pleasingly slightly asymmetrical.

Then it was a case of adding a little weathering to make him look suitably battle worn, and job’s a good’un!

He also is the first recipient of one of the grass tufts that I picked up at Salute, which are a lot bigger on a mini than they look on the paper!

Fun fact - Most of these base coats were applied in a Holiday Inn in Basildon:

Speaking of things looking bigger, this mini is actually surprisingly small - I was prepping him at the same time as some Tangent minis, which I thought were giant, but they actually looked larger next to this chap. Here he is next to a Warlord mini, to give you an idea of scale:

Which is interesting, as I remember the Mando that I got from Diehard being on the larger side. Alas, he’s boxed up, otherwise I’d dig him out and compare the two…

As well as painting this mini, I’ve also received a couple. The sample mini from Gringo 40s arrived:

As did a Made to Order Warhammer Empire Battle Standard bearer that I preordered a while ago:

So all in the Tally now looks like:

9 vs 206 = -197

What’s next? I’ve still got some Superheroes in various states of completion, and I really want to crack on with some Alamo project miniatures, but on the other hand I also watched the entirety of the Third Doctor serial ‘Spearhead from Space’ today while cooking a roast, so who knows…

Number Five, I presume

I know, I know, it’s been a while, I blame Cyberpunk 2077. My desire to paint miniatures hasn’t abated though, I potentially have more ideas for projects on the go than ever before…

That aside, I’ve actually managed to finish a miniature for the first time this year:

It’s Five, another miniature for the Umbrella Academy board game. Honestly, 99% of this paint job was completed last year, but I managed to get it over the finish line and then set about reducing the number of half painted minis I currently have piled on my painting tile…

The back is a lot more straightforward than the front, I’ll give you that.

And here’s how the game looks so far:

As well as finishing this miniature, there have also been a couple of Mini of the Months to drag the Tally in the opposite direction though:

A Striking Scorpion, in case I ever get round to doing an Eldar Inq28 warband

And a couple of Skaven, which can be sprinkled in with my existing rats to give a little more visual variety. 

Which takes the Tally to:

1 vs 3 = -2

So admittedly not the strongest start to the year (if you can call March the start of the year), but there’s still time to claw it back; until Salute that is, where the Tally will likely take a hit or two. Or the postman arrives, whichever comes first…

Zomtober 2024 Week 3

Another week, another zombie (he types for the second time, as apparently Blogger is having a day of it and rather than publishing this post just wiped the whole thing, so I’m starting from scratch):

I decided to quickly convert another zombie beastman this week to get back on the Zombieslayer theme - he’s a fairly simple conversion, being just a reposition of the original miniature rather than adding any specific zombie parts.

The arm hanging off by a thread (that I realise you can barely see in these pictures, annoyingly) was something of a happy accident - where I was cutting the shield arm off to reposition it to look like it is dangling uselessly rather than being brandished, when I went to pin it back into place, I realised that leaving the central pin showing would look like a bone of strand of gore!

If the gore looks wet, that’s because it is - it was applied about three minutes before this picture was taken, and then I had to go out in the rain to photograph it!

I also have this chap to offer, a backup that was painted just in case I wasn’t able to convert and paint his bestial brethren in time for the Sunday deadline:

Another TTCombat zombie halfling, this time looking like a tiny zombie publican.

As well as finishing these two miniatures, the Tally has taken some swings in other directions too:

@tmcllghn_paints sent me some heads for a conversion for the Alamo project (because apparently I’m of an age where I want to convert things based on something I’ve seen in a picture in an Osprey), but there’s a whole mini left there so it counts:

I also discovered that a friend’s partner had expressed an interest in trying out miniature painting, so after picking his brains in the car after coming back from a wildlife park last week I pulled together a gift of a sprue of Vikings and a handful of LOTR minis to have a bash at.

All in, the Tally now stands at: 

53 vs 192 = -139

What’s next? At least one more zombie, hopefully!

The adventures of Time the Necromancer: Ishtar’s Weapon Shop

It’s my birthday today, so while my wife was baking me an Eton mess cake and slow cooking brisket, I decided to play Frostgrave with my children. No full report as usual, as I figured it was a recipe for disaster with regards to my children’s patience if I stopped to take notes every time anything happened, so here is a handful of pictures and some key happenings:

My daughter (9) took charge of rolling for the monsters, and my son (5) took charge of rolling for the ‘heroes’ and providing tactical advice. This largely led to multiple castings of the Grenade spell, regardless of what the optimum choice would otherwise have been. So, not much different from when I play solo I guess…

(If you look carefully, you can see the cabinet that I built specially for this game, and also my son’s one - his is the one in much brighter colours!)

The thing with my daughter is, she tends to roll more 20s than I do. Like, a lot. Tim’s group took their usual approach of having a strong force race up the centre planning to smash a path to the cabinet with two faster flanking forces sneaking up the sides to hit the magic locks, only for a pair of goblins to smash my strongest fighters down to 2 Health each in the very first combat of the game.

On the other hand, my son had some amazing rolls too - there was a single combat where my daughter rolled a 20, and so the only way to win was if he could also roll a 20 - which he did! That was pretty cool, as we all absolutely lost it, even dragging my wife in to clap appreciatively…

This next picture is my daughter showing that she’s enjoying the game, just before the Captain used one of their irreplaceable magic arrows with an explosive tip to wipe out half of those goblins, and seriously injure the other two, with some amazing rolls on my son’s part!

It largely went downhill from there though - my daughter continued her hot streak of rolls, taking warriors out left right and centre, and only my tactical nous (and careful hiding, mostly) carried me through.

Both thieves were able to sneak through and unlock the cabinet, but unfortunately one of them got shanked by a goblin, leaving Tim to have to pick up one of their treasure tokens himself with his own hands.

In an incredible display of sense Tim even chose not to cast a spell one turn to be able to put more energy into beating feet back to the exit door, helped along the way by his Apprentice (who had largely been skulking behind various ruined walls by the exit door desperately trying to avoid being spotted by goblins)  poking his head round a corned to cast Leap on Tim, launching him away from a pursuing goblin and closer to safety. 

By the time the game ended, only the spellcasters and the thief with the Treasure Token escaped, leaving a lone zombie doing their best distraction routine (arms waving and ‘kick me’ sign, presumably) surrounded by goblins, and everyone else in various states of unconsciousness.

Post-game, Tim gained enough XP that he could have gained 4 levels, but having no Grimoires to learn new spells from only gained 2, gaining another point of Health (as both spellcasters took a bunch of damage, entirely from failed spell rolls and cutting to empower spells), and improving the Brew Potion spell (because it sure would be handy to have a bunch of healing potions!). I realised that I’d accidentally cheated in the previous game, as you can only improve one spell per game (when I was planning to also improve Strength and Grenade, as the spells which get cast the most), but I’m not going to go back and undo it at this point, I’ll just have to make sure I remember for next time!

The Captain also gained a level (due to making 9 kills this game, which I’m fairly sure is more than they’ve made in the rest of the campaign so far), gaining another point of Health.

For treasure, in this scenario you have the choice of taking a special magic weapon per token, or rolling on the usual treasure tables. While unique weapons are cool, I left the magic vampiric crossbow in favour of rolling for treasure, hoping to get a pile of money and maybe a Grimoire so that Tim could learn a new spell. Unfortunately, I rolled 20gc and a scroll of Banish, which is better than nothing, I guess. The Sword of Wounding & Healing goes to the recently recovered Knight - I would have preferred to give it to the Captain, as it’s basically their magic sword with a fringe additional benefit (and her pockets are full, so it’s not like she could carry a healing potion anyway), but she wouldn’t have given back her existing sword, so I figured it was better to improve the overall combat abilities of the group! Speaking of the Captain, making money (from this treasure, and also finding a handful of coins at their base) meant that she took her cut as usual - 13%, now that she’s levelled up.

Of all of my wounded warriors, everyone was fine apart from the Man at Arms who died, but Tim was able to afford an almost identical replacement. I was tempted to try a different soldier type, but that’s the toughest frontline fighter of the basic soldier types, so we’re sticking with it for now.

Next, Tim thinks he needs to learn some new spells, so is going to follow up on rumours of a hidden underground library that has recently been unearthed…

It being my birthday, the Tally also took a little hit, as my pile of presents included the latest Warhammer part work, after I asked my wife if she could grab me one during the week when she had to nip into town, and she was then secretive when I asked her if she’d been able to:

At this point in life, I’m not super fussed about 40k, but I can’t resist a bargain - and anyway, I’d still be tempted by something narrative like Acolyte or Kill Team…

The Tally now stands at:

45 vs 198 = -153

Handy is as handy does

Several weeks ago, like many people we watched the Fallout TV show, and it made me want to revisit my Fallout project, so I dig out a Brother Vinni robot that had been sat unbuilt in his baggie for far too long. After putting together so many tiny fiddly bits, it looks real nice, and several applications of dirt grime and rust over a shiny chrome basecoat later looks like this:

The flying stand is slightly wonky, but let’s be friends and pretend that was intentional to create the illusion of movement.

I’d long ignored the Modiphius Fallout game, as the minis for it are on the larger side and so wouldn’t match anything that I’d previously painted for the project, but thinking about it I could just use the rules with my own minis, which a timely Humble Bundle furnished me with. I’ll probably pick up the two player starter at some point in the future too, as I figure Super Mutant miniatures looking over my survivors would look less out of place than a survivor being head and shoulders taller than is companions.

Although…

Speaking of looming head and shoulders over a survivor, here’s our handy robot chum next to a vault dweller to give you an idea of scale:

The Tally has also take a couple of bits in the opposite direction.

I popped into GW before picking my son up from Squirrels during the week to grab a pot of paint, and also grabbed the latest mini of the month:

As there’s always space for a lady barbarian in my life, and doubly so if she’s free.

Also, it’s Father’s Day today, and so I was gifted with this:

A kit with a miniature, a couple of brushes, and some little pots of Vallejo paint, which was nice. Funny story, my wife asked if there were any particular miniatures that I wanted that she could point the kids towards, so I explained about the Monstrous Alphabet project, and told her that I’d actually made a list recently of what monsters I still needed to do, explaining that the ones in brackets were the ones that I didn’t actually own yet. She had it backwards though, and thought that the ones in brackets were the ones I didn’t own, so I should probably dig out all of the other Yuan Ti minis I already own so that he can have some friends on the painting tile!

All in all, the Tally now stands at:

23 vs 149 = -126

Next - something that’s been alluded to a few times in previous posts…

Salute 51

This weekend was the annual pilgrimage to Salute, to stock up on plenty of miniatures without having to pay for postage, mostly.

There was a wild number of prizes to be won in goody bags in the queue, but alas myself and my companion didn’t win any of them. Here’s a picture of that queue though, in case that is what caught your attention:

As ever, I was very bad at taking pictures, being more concerned with wandering around peering at shiny new miniatures, impressive game boards, and handing over money to traders! To that end, here’s a series of pictures in no particular order:

These dinky little ECW minis were very nicely painted, so me and my compadre spent an amount of time cooing over them even though it’s not a scale or a period I’m into!

This castle was very large. I’ve no idea if there were any minis inside it, or how you’d move them if there were!

I wanted to have a look at Mantic’s new Halo game, mostly to see how the minis scaled up with the old Actionclix minis that I have bucketloads of. If I were a more diehard Halo fan I’d be all over this, but…

Silver Bayonet Egypt! We didn’t get to play this year, as last year we only finished our initial go around of the show at closing time, having played a game at the start…

This was a cool table! I’m sure I’ve got a set of quick start rules for this game in my bag somewhere too…

This picture was mostly to remind me to look up this range, as it’s not one I’d come across before, and they had a variety of Mexican figures on offer…

This was a cool forced perspective display! Not pictured, the working servo skull camera on the table behind this display

Excellent 7tv board that was absolutely surrounded by people, well worth looking up better pictures than mine!

Indeed. Wrong scale for me though, sadly…

Wizard of Oz mass battle game, flying monkeys and all. Must remember to google Wars of Ozz…

Childish fun for all the family!

Just a nice board, I forget what for…

Once we’d finished out initial circuit of the show, we headed over to the Griffcon make and take to spend a pleasant time digging through piles of sprues.

Unfortunately due to the lateness of the day there was a distinct lack of torsos left on any of the sprues, but I did manage to make this skeleton happily tooting away on his spooky horn.

Which brings us to the meat of the day - my Salute haul:

Some Perry Napoleonics and ACW minis, to make into Alamo appropriate minis (although annoyingly I’ve realised that I bought the wrong box of French infantry - I meant to grab the 1807 line box, but bought an elite box instead);

This year’s Mantic Hellboy show exclusive, because at this point in the game I can’t really not buy one;

A set of plastic boardwalks and other cowboy scenery;

TTCombat superglue, because it really is better than the Poundland stuff;

A Mantic sample pack that had some ogres inside;

A bear, because my daughter’s D&D character is a Druid;

A freebie mini from One Page Rules;

A copy of Five Torches Deep;

A Stormcast Eternal mini that came in a mystery bag;

Some Old West types from Foundry, as well as a flesh triad that will hopefully help me paint some Mexicans;

A Doctor with a long scarf and a big boss looking Thing from Crooked Dice;

An Infinity miniature that for some reason came with the base of a Salute 2017 show mini;

A drunk cowboy from Black Scorpion (they’re all lovely, but so much bigger than every other cowboy I own, but I figured the slumped drunk wouldn’t look overly large!);

A tiny Grogu from Diehard minis, because May the Fourth is coming up and my previously painted Mando needed a friend;

A sprue of Ray Guns from Anvil Industry, because I’ve got some minis in pith helmets that are in dire need of increased firepower;

A blister of Japanese Villagers, because Ronin of Shadow Deep needs some civilians;

The Salute show mini;

A copy of Super Tiny Sorcery and some colour in and make foldable minis from Mammoth Minis;

A couple of minis from the Griffcon Make & Take;

A dice tray, since my youngest has a hard time keeping his dice on the table during D&D

And so many flyers, stickers, and quick start rules, as well as a handful of free dice.

Totalling everything up, this brings the Tally to:

7 vs 146 = -139

Unsurprising, as this tends to happen whenever I start a project with a Salute splurge (and will probably take a swing further down if I decide to rebuy the correct Perry Napoleonics box)…

Unusually, I’ve already got about half a dozen minis from this lot cleaned up and stuck to bases, so hopefully that means I can get some things painted up quickly! Part of me wonders if I should write a post where I go back to a previous Salute haul, and work out how much of it I’ve actually painted in the intervening years, and how much just loves in my lead mountain…

A beardy lad with a big hammer…

Finished last week around the same time as the pair of werewolves from my previous post but only getting posted now is a converted Sapper for my Silver Bayonet Unit:

A beardy lad with a big hammer indeed. I imagine he’s a no-nonsense Scot who survived a vampire attack with the unit’s leader, and ever since has been seconded to him to open doors, as it were.

Terrible photos again due to the lack of natural light, but you get the gist.

He’s made of mostly Perry bits, with a Napoleonic British Command body combined with the hammer wielding arms of an Agincourt archer, a Frostgrave beardy head (as Sappers were apparently allowed to have beards, so I figured that mine should too). The musket on his pack had a hand shaved off of it so that it could be stowed, and although I had originally planned to turn the hammer into an axe (which seems to be the default equipment for most sappers) the idea of a chap wading into a fight with a vampire swinging a massive hammer was too funny to ignore. I haven’t yet selected his special equipment, maybe the hammer is silver, and so good for bashing in monsters but less useful at being used as a… well, a hammer.

For his apron (essential fashion for every Sapper, practical and stylish) I’d originally planned to copy the detail of an existing sculpt, so as to give some nice folds and whatnot without having to rely on my hamfisted attempts at sculpting, but that came out looking terrible every time so I gave up and just stuck a bit of green stuff on and went at it with clay shapers until I had something that vaguely approximated an apron, and it looks… fine, I guess.

Painting him brings the Tally to:

4 vs 14 = -10

Those numbers are a little different to last week, I hear you cry? That’s because I nipped into GW and built a free ghoul:

I was never entirely sold on the ‘new-style’ GW ghouls (‘new-style’ in this case actually meaning ‘released in the last twenty years’ I believe), but in hand they’re actually quite nice, and I might like some more of them at some point…

I also spotted that Arcane Models and Scenery are having a closing down sale (as the owner is retiring), and despite my usual ‘no purchases between Salute and Christmas to save up all my hobby funds for one big splurge’ rule I couldn’t help but treat myself to a few heavily discounted packs of Artizan Alamo minis:

The Alamo obsession seemingly continues unabated, but more on that in a future post…

I also got my copy of the new Frostgrave book Mortal Enemies this week, and set about rolling up a mortal enemy for Tim the Necromancer, which has been interesting, and set me scrabbling through my drawers of unopened miniature blisters when I realised I had the perfect miniature for what I had rolled…

Other than that, I’ve been prepping some VSF minis for an upcoming Alien Safari rule set designed by Titus Painting on instagram, we’ve ordered the minis for the children to paint for their D&D characters (next session this afternoon hopefully, not at my suggestion I might add), and even finished my next Silver Bayonet conversion:

So surprisingly busy on the miniatures front! Now I just need to paint some more! And prep some more. And convert some weird aliens out of kinder egg toys and my bits box…