I Am a Bad Man

I know, I’ve been mainly absent from updating this blog lately, but it’s not because I’ve not been gaming and doing game-related activities. I’ve actually been doing a lot of them, including work on the upcoming OshCon 2009 tabletop gaming convention on October 10-11, a Half-Day Game Day at House of Heroes a few weeks back, and working on starting a new miniatures wargaming club here in the area. I’ve also being painting zombies and RoboRally miniatures for an event at OshCon, I’ve been working on my modular urban terrain system, and I received my copy of the new Space Hulk, and those terminators and genestealers aren’t gonna put themselves together, no matter how much I wish they would. So I’ve been doing stuff.

Anyway, I’ll post some images of my urban terrain system in its starting phases this weekend, I believe. Plus, I have another terrain project that I need to get finished for OshCon, so I have photos of that process soon enough. Stay tuned.

Long Time No See

Or at least, a lot longer than I would have liked. Work was mainly to blame, as it is every year at this time. The company I work for hosts a big event (convention, trade show and more), and by big, I mean officially seven days long (but in actuality it’s much longer) and 578,000 people this year. For me it meant 10+ hour days for 21 days straight, so I wasn’t much in the mood to do much painting or terrain work. I barely even played any games. After the event finally ended, I did start working on cleaning and organizing my work area at home, and that has finally spurred me to get back to work. Well, that and reading all the coverage of this year’s Gen Con that I was missing (grrrrrrr).

Tau Stealth Suits and a new(ish) piece of terrain

Here’s some Tau Stealth Suit figures I built from Warhammer 40,000 (Games Workshop). As I have mentioned in the past, I don’t play that game, but they make the best darn figs in the industry in my opinion, so picked these up at last year’s Gen Con. I still need to add some basing to them (I think I’m going to use the tiny foam bricks I’ve been punching out) and then they need to be primed and painted. I’m going to use them in the new miniatures game that Peter and I are working on, so I might actually buy another box of three just so I can have a squad of six of them.

That odd looking thing behind the Stealth Suits is a piece of terrain that I got a few years back at Gen Con that I’ve recently started sprucing up. I’m adding some pieces from the Hexagon Chemical Plant set and some small plastic tubing and other greeblies. It’ll be some sort of holding tank or mini-reactor when it’s done.

Blue electrical box soon to be a LOS blocker

Lastly is this other terrain piece that I’ve been working on. It’s a blue plastic electrical box available at pretty much any hardware store. I used my Dremel tool to grind off some of the sticky-outie bits and have been adding more bits from the Hexagon kits to it. It’ll be a power transformer or a substation or who knows what when it’s painted and done. The Hexagon kits are really helpful to the DIY terrain creator. They’re great plastic kits that can be used by themselves, but I think they work better as add-ons to your home made projects. I’ll have to try and do a write up of the kits soon.

Saturday Night Gaming

My friends Peter and Lee came over on Saturday night and we played some Space Hulk (Games Workshop) on my dining room table. I forget the name of the scenario, but Lee and I each had a squad of five terminators that consisted of a sergeant, three soldiers and a soldier with a flamer gun. Peter had an infinite number of genestealers, and needed to destroy (in close combat) a back wall in a certain room by the end of the 16th turn. It had something to do with the genestealers stopping the terminators from using the vent systems to gas all the genestealers in a large portion of the ship, or something. Mainly, the issue was this: Lee and I had to survive and defend for 16 turns versus as many unholy genestealers as Peter could throw at us.

Kinda got a clump going on over here, guys. Guys?

I, personally, made a few small tactical errors. Also, my dice rolling was absolutely cursed. So as that progressed, most of the genestealers were finding it easier to traverse through the side of the complex I was trying to guard. You might say I was the weak link in our two-link chain. It was problematic at best.

The three of us just came by to say hello

In the end, our last two terminators fought valiantly in the control room they were tasked to defend, but the onslaught was too great, and they finally succumbed to the horde of ripping claws and gnashing teeth. However, we actually survived until turn 14, which upon seeing my earlier tactical mishaps and epically foul die rolling, was a lot later than we had suspected we would last. Our soldiers still died in vain (some more than others) but at least it wasn’t a total blow-out.

I think we all had a lot of fun, and playing with Peter’s painted Space Hulk set was awesome, as usual. I would like to host more game nights like this at my house. Hopefully, when our new miniatures game gets closer and closer to beta, we’ll be able to play more games like this. I do really enjoy the modelling and painting and terrain building and all that, but it really becomes fun when you can (finally!) actually get a chance to use all the little bits and buildings.

A Quick Video

Here’s a trailer I made for this year’s OshCon Tabletop Gaming Convention in Oshkosh, WI. It’ll be held on the UW-Oshkosh campus at the Gruenhagen Conference Center October 10-11, 2009. You should totally check it out and you should totally show up.

The Finished Manhunter

After all the finishing touch-ups and little niggling bits here and there, I finally committed and varnished him, and then added a little bit of static grass to the base. He’s finished, and I’ve moved on to the next model(s).

The finished Khador Manhunter

Actually, he was done a while ago, but I just finally shot decent photos of him last night. Since he’s been done I’ve worked on some more terrain from Armorcast and I’ve started constructing the Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios from Warmachine (Privateer Press). She is a weird-looking sculpt, as I have mentioned before, and I had to pin her tiny little arms, which was a pain in the neck. However, she’s now built and I’m just finishing up the detailing on her base. Then I can prime her when I’m ready and get to painting.

I’m going to try to take some time out tonight to inventory all my AT-43 (Rackham) figures and make myself a list. I think that I might have enough for three 2000 point armies (U.N.A., Therians and Red Blok) but I might need to pick up a few pieces here and there to make it happen. I would like to be able to play with friends, and if I can supply the armies for them, then playtime will be more likely. Of course, I’ll have very little playtime between now and early August, as my work is gearing up for a little event that we put on anually (that draws 700,000-plus people) and I’ll be working some long days. Hopefully I’ll have the mental energy to keep up with my painting. Maybe I can find something sort of mindless to paint or do that’s hobby-related.

More Work on the Manhunter

It has been a bit too hot to paint, lately. We sort of waited a little too long to fire up the air conditioners in our apartment once everything went (literally) to hell and the atmosphere started on fire (or at least feels like it did) so, though it’s currently starting to get nicer inside than it is outside, it was still a bit too hot to sit between my two desklamps and paint little people. Or, at least, until last night.

Manhunter, shot in my windowsill again

I worked for another hour and a half or so on this Khador Manhunter. He’s been fun, but I’d like to be done with him now and maybe go on to my Widowmakers. I should be done with him soon, I think. I just need to work on his gloves some more, some other little details here and there (like his belt buckle and the clasps on his belt pouches), the detailing on his hat and fuzzy-ass boots, and then paint his base and call it a day. I figure another hour and a half and then I should be able to varnish him.

Maybe before I start painting the Widowmakers, I’ll work on constructing more of the Destroyer warjack. Putting those guys together is such a chore, they always slow me down. Maybe, just to keep me interested, I’ll alternate between painting my four Widowmakers, constructing my Destroyer and maybe building and basing a new fig, too.  Probably another solo, like Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios. She’s kind of a goofy looking fig with that big flowing cloak and odd pose that just doesn’t do it for me, but she’s pretty good in the game, so that’s why I’m adding her to my army.

Peter and I have been doing more work on our new miniatures game ruleset, and we’ve even decided on a name. Maybe I’ll tell you the name next time. Maybe.

Some Old Terrain

Skeleton Rock

Here’s some terrain I built three or four years ago. I keep it (and the little skellie from Reaper Miniatures that I painted at a Paint ‘n Take at last year’s OshCon) on top of my big four-drawer filing cabinet in my office at work. The skellie stands there and protects the filing cabinet and his rock from all attackers. People come into my office, look at the bony soldier and not-actually-made-of-rock dias, and usually move the both of them over so they can lean on the filing cabinet while they yammer at me (except for Dave, who doesn’t yammer). The poor unholy warrior just stands there, his sword raised in impotent rage.

The piece is mostly all made out of that pink house insulation foam that you see nailed to the outside of houses as they’re building them or putting on new siding. The skull on the rock totem is actually an old plastic Halloween skull ring. There’s also some model railroad talus (small rocks) and some green foam fake shrubbery (on the backside of the rock totems, out of the camera shot).

The main platform was cut with a Wonder Cutter, which is a hot wire foam cutter. It works great, but leaves the edges with a kind of tell-tale signature ‘look’. People who make terrain can tell you cut it with a hot wire foam cutter and then didn’t try to finish the edges to make it look like stone or anything.

The three totems where cut from the foam with an extendable utility knife. I used the tip of the knife to make the striations on the faces of the totems. They actually turned out rather well; maybe I’ll make a mini-tutorial about how to do that some day.

I then painted it all with tempera paints. For the grass area, I added in some painter’s texture, because I hate flock like poison. I can never get it to stick right and it gets all over everything. For the stone areas, it was a dark grey, then a drybrushing of lighter grey, then a drybrushing of white.

What would I do differently? I would finish the edges of the platform. I’d either sand it smooth and paint the edges green like the grass to make into more of a mound or I’d cover the edges with spackle or I’d just chip away at it with a knife… anything to get rid of that hot wire foam cutter look.

I’d also add more detail to the ground. I’d glue kitty litter to the area around the totems and I’d actually paint the talus rocks, instead of just glueing them down and letting them be their own color. I’d also drybrush the grass to give it more visual interest.

I’m planning on making a new version of this terrain piece, using the new techniques that I’ve learned in the last three or four years. When I do, I’ll have to post comparison shots to see if I’ve gotten any better.

Current Work and Skeletal Robots

I’ve been busy with non-hobby intrusions into my time (like working a lot, sleeping a bit, etc.) but I have gotten some hobby-related things done since my last post. I even have some pictures.

The Manhunter, a work in progress

I’ve been painting my Khador Manhunter from Warmachine (Privateer Press) with the idea that some day, I’ll actually have enough figures ready to play without it just being a ‘battlebox’ game (meaning just the warcaster and the warjacks that come in the starter box for a given faction). Finishing some solo characters is a good way to break up the monotony of painting a whole squad of Widowmakers or Iron Fang Pikemen (I dread that day already) so I’ve been attacking this guy. This is just a snapshot taken with my little camera in the window on a cloudy day. I haven’t added any base colors to the gloves, the axe heads or most of the base yet, but I like where it’s going. I’ve always felt that the Manhunters wouldn’t be all decked out in red like most of the Khador army, mainly because of their ‘loner’ status. I might add some red to the three bars on the front of his hat or I may just use some thin red paint and an old toothbrush to make him splattered in blood. I’m not sure yet.

Robots + Skeletons = Awesome

These guys I finished painting quite some time ago, but with the release of the new Terminator movie, I thought I would break them out and shoot them in the old lighting box. They’re from em-4 Miniatures in the UK and they were pretty easy to paint. I did get a little fancy with the basing, which turned out okay. It was one of my first attempts to make slightly fancier bases than the usual ‘glue, sand, drybrush’ technique and I think they turned out rather well.

Lastly, on Sunday my good friend Dave helped me by cutting out a whole bunch of MDF board to my specifications (I kind of helped) so I can start my modular urban battle board. I didn’t take a picture because it’s mainly just a pile of oddly-shaped MDF pieces on my kitchen floor, but as I start more serious work on them, I’ll show you some WIP (work in progress) shots.

A Productive Weekend

I got some things done this weekend, and I don’t just mean some cleaning around the house and getting out to a few local shows. I did a decent amount of hobby work and got some miniatures further along on their quest to being finished.

There's a football in there somewhere

I bought Blood Bowl (Games Workshop) more than 15 years ago, and I played it a little, then kept it in my various closets from apartment to apartment. It’s a great little game of fantasy football, and not how the term is used these days. In this case, the ‘fantasy’ means elves versus the undead, or humans versus orks, that kind of thing. Though designed by an English company, it’s based off of American football, but it’s a lot more violent, with players being killed pretty frequently. It’s a pretty good time.

Recently I got one of those weird ‘wild hairs’ in my you-know-where and decided to get the figures all modeled and painted up. I pulled out the box, cleaned the flash off of the plastics, and based the ork team with a layer of simple sand. Once that was dry, I was ready for priming.

Since it was a nice day with little wind (important since I don’t have a basement or a garage) I decided I should try and get a few more pieces primed, as well. Besides the ork team, I also primed a unit of Widowmakers and a Manhunter from Warmachine (Privateer Press), and I primed the second half of my figures from Pig Iron Productions.

Newly-painted soldiers

These figures are from their Heavy Infantry line and are great little models. The photo above shows the first half of the squad that I just finished painting. Unfortunately, when I primed them last year, I either did it wrong (maybe holding the spraycan too far away from the figures) or the conditions were bad or maybe the primer had just gotten old. Either way, they ended up with a pretty rough, dusty texture once the primer was dry. I painted them anyway, even though they nearly looked fuzzy in comparison to other miniatures I’ve painted. I used brush-on varnish to seal them, and put it on kind of thick. This helped to smooth the texture out a bit, but I’m still skeptical.

I’m going to try to paint this newly primed batch the same way (if I can remember which colors I used) and hopefully they won’t look too weird together when they’re all mixed into one squad. If the ‘fuzzy’ ones just don’t look right, then maybe I’ll get to try my hand at paint stripping, which will mean more research time with the big global info teat. I certainly could have worse problems.

Painting Test – Oxidized Metal

A long, long time ago, a company came up with the idea to make a miniatures game with pre-painted plastic miniatures, and they would sell those miniatures as random allotments in sets of seven in sealed boxes. They called it Mage Knight (WizKids Games). Like baseball cards, the rare ones were the good ones, and there were tons and tons of commons. They sold a bunch and made a good deal of money. Then they thought, “Hey, I bet if we make metal versions that players have to construct and paint, they’ll sell great, too!”

They were quite wrong.

So, years later I find three neat metal figures in the super-discount bin at a gaming store north of town. A Steam Golem, a Brass Golem (or maybe a Bronze Golem, I don’t remember) and a Storm Golem. Back when I played the game, the Storm Golem was a rare, and really powerful. But the Steam Golem, though kind of a pud as golems go, was a really cool sculpt. So I’ve started to paint him up.

The rusty Steam Golem

I positioned him on a fancy resin base I bought at Gen Con this year. I brush primed him with black gesso (I’ll explain that another time, perhaps) and then coated him with cheap Delta Ceramcoat acrylic from Hobby Lobby. The color is Brown Iron Oxide, because I want him to look rusty and corroded. Then I covered him with another Delta Ceramcoat color, Hippo Grey.

I don’t know if I got a bad batch of this particular paint or what, but the stuff doesn’t cover well at all. Normally, that would make me angry, but what it means here is that this grey color allows the color you paint under it to really bleed through in an interesting way. In this case, these two simple colors and a sepia wash have made this figure look rusty and covered in a slightly green patina, which is what I was hoping for.

I’ll have more on the progress of this figure as it goes.