End Of The Week (0)+(32)

This has been a week of prep. I had envisioned getting a bit more painting done. I have been whinging about this al week. Still I now have enough stuffed primed and ready to go to just about see me through to spring. 

Since the last post I have gotten some of the Fallout stuff I got for Black Friday last year. Not all of it, but a good chunk of it. I have finally got some mojo back for the project. This is mainly down to Modiphius having another stock clearance sale. Much of which fits in with my idea for NukaLand (which is not Nuka World). Maybe a story for another time. I am guessing there are about thirty minis on the way. 

Some are actually Skyrim: Call To Arms minis. Not a full army but rather some terrain and some odd minis. Dwemor robots, flame atronarchs and sprigans, along with some terrain. This is the stuff I have wanted for a while. I wasn't going to by them because they were a bot pricey and in general I wanted them for other fantasy games. I may just give it a try now and I am tempted to go out and buy some more.

As for actual work? The Crusader Quar are he biggest project. A box of twenty four infantry, another four specialists and twelve mounted and dismounted cavalry. There are three boxes of the cadier mounts. I had originally envisioned them more as dragoons but maybe I will give the riders helmets and call them hussars an light infantry. I could always use some more specialists and there is plenty of metal stuff yet to buy along with STLs and vehicles. I should also get round to finishing the Coftyran Quar first. This is a fairly addictive project. Well as much as my non-addictive personality will allow. I can see a few more armies are coming out but I will finish what I have first.

Next are the Elf and Dwarf villagers from Wargames Atlantic. Twelve of each, split between male and female. I started with the regular villagers set and the guards. These were finished a few months ago with a view to get some more or maybe even move into Baron's War. I have enough suitable stuff to start at least but I keep looking at that starter set. The plan was to use the villagers for games other than Guards of Traitors Toll, mainly for the Nornmen project. I now have a hankering to play GoTT. A few more arms would have made things easier but there is a lot if good stuff on the frames. The elves are pretty good but the dwarves are amazing. Really what I have been after for a long time. Human civilians are easy enough to get hold of but demi human, not so much. I may get another box and finally do some Titansgrave.

My bench is always full of projects. One of which is the sUnderDground. I have some police which were brought for several previous iterations of the ideas. These have had some webbing and gear added. There are some more general minis and the last of the Athena Miniatures. There are also quite a few rando soldiers for the game. These needed a little fettling and some green stuff to finish off. I do like these guys. Whilst at Tabletop Scotland (that was a fun weekend) I purchased five Bad Squiddo minis, four armed ATS and a Scots Officer. You can never get enough female minis for most of my games and these fit in nicely. Not sure how I feel about painting tartan.

The largest total number of figures for any project is for Star Wars Imperial Assault. Some were already primed when I got them so I can't lay claim to them all. There are about ninety of them. Some of which are fairly chunky. I was somewhat non-plussed when Legion came out in a different scale. This initially put me off both. Business is business and I do love me a bit of Star Wars. This is a project that is giving me ideas. A lot of them. It's also one with a few more purchases on the horizon and a desire to integrate it with Descent.

There is a lot of random stuff here too. Some trench works, gladiators, fandom Frsotgrave bits, and bits of scatter terrain. There are also all the minis out of Frosthaven which even if they wrest of the game was disregarded, are a bargain. I spent a fair bit of time hoovering up anything that was left on the bench. 

Then there are also a whole load of wattle fences and gabions. Not to mention some cheval de frise (which I recently learned effectively means something like Spanish cavalryman). Some of this was purchased for Sludge, the cheval de frise and especially the gabions. They do have a lot of uses. The wattle fencing will work best with the dark age stuff and anything up and even beyond the renaissance. These should be an easy job although there is a lot of them. A couple of anvils from the Dwarf and Elf box found a way in too.

Finally these is the recently acquired Paranoia stuff. Not too much of this although I may well get some more. I have some smaller bots I also got at Tabletop Scotland.  The plan is these will get rolled into the project. I even have some old GDub metal Paranoia stuff. More bots I think although I will have to find them. 

Winter is coming. To coin a phrase. This little foray into prepping and priming is to make sure I have enough to paint over the winter. Which I have probably already said. It is not always raining in England. As the summer will attest. It is however easier to prime in warmer temperatures. So better to do it now.

The world news is looking a little bleak at the moment. Diesel is just hitting the £2.00 a litre barrier. I currently can't fill the cars tank with my card at the pump. I have to go into the kiosk if I want to fill up. Everything else seems to have started a slow creep in price increases. But not hobby stuff. There seems to be some element of price drops. This may be good for me but may be a bad sign. This is starting to make travelling any distance painful. So I am guessing that I will get a bit more time for painting. 

Start Of The Wednesday

It's been a busy week and not the good kind of busy. Still here I am. Given the almost total absence of time poverty, I can't believe how far behind I feel. I can't even blame Skyrim.

Earlier in the week I got some stuff done. It is mostly Wargames Atlantic minis. The Crusader Quar stuff is now based, textured and stuck together. This will fill in the gaps in force. Well most of them. I'd like some more individual units. Some artillery, high ranking officers and specialists, like a medic. I had thought I would be pretty close to done with these. 

I've moved on to the Wargames Atlantic Dwarf and Elf Villagers. I would like them to fit in with what I have already. These have been focused very much on Viking mythology. So effectively light and dark. For the light elves I have already started a plan. These look like Saxons in blue with literally white skin. I've used metal stuff in the past. So I wasn't thinking of anything other than dark elves. What I have is actually designed as high elves but painted black with a minimal of purple with a lot of variety in metallic paint. I am thinking these will work.

The dwarves bring up an existing problem. I have about forty metal ones. Most are older metal sculpts which were done by Grenadier. Very much back in the day. I have been thinking about using the Oathmark range. Not to mention the long standing plan to buy Celtic and Roman dwarves

 from Checkpoint Miniatures. Despite what you might think, these fit better with my "Viking" world. The plastic is a much cheaper option. 

A while back I had wanted to do a project based on Titansgrave, the RPG. The plan had been to to be able to use figures with the rules. Which didn't really work so I progressed to the standard fallback, Savage Worlds. The project kinda died as I had problems finding suitable minis for the dwarves and elves. Some of these, with the Oathmark stuff might just work.

Then we are on to the Imperial Assault stuff. I'd really like to get these painted so I can get a game in. I am running out of storage for other projects, so I might try and use one of the boxes to store the minis. This may be an ordeal so maybe not.

This all needs priming. The plan is to do that tomorrow and hopefully start work on painting tomorrow evening. It will give me an excuse to sort out the shed.

Start Of The Week. Insert Eye Roll Here

I am kind hopeful that normal service will resume. My recent house guest is now on his way out of the country. I've only just got back so its not going to get there tonight.

With a bit of luck I will have another batch of Soviets completed. I have some more to prime but I also have some more Star Wars Imperial Assault stuff to prep and prime. Imperial Assault is the current Shiny and I may have to put the Soviets on hold. There are still quite a few Soviets to finish.  Indeed there are some more still to buy. I remain hopeful for another freebie. I've gotten hold of a box set and a couple of villain packs for Imperial Assault. I was expecting another set with some extra minis for a knock down price, but no luck so far. Despite it showing as being delivered.

A few weeks back I put in an order for some more Wargames Atlantic stuff. Not from WA direct but with a really nice deep discount. I wanted to finish off at least one of my Quar forces. Well finish for now as I need to stuff I cant get hold of or print. So another box of infantry, another cavalry and a single frame of specialists arrived. I've also got a box of Dwarf and Elf Villagers which I think are for Guards of Traitor's Toll. 

There is a single box of shipping containers (which is odd as I ordered two). I made some of these a few years ago but could never get the paint to look right. These will have a multitude of resources. Right now I am looking at them primarily for XCOM. Eight seems like a lot and I suspect there will be few times when they all make it onto the table together but I still want to use one or two on multiple boards.

End Of The Week - Croftyr (22)

I am not feeling my normal chatty self. I still need to keep the record going. And maybe bump up my numbers a bit.

So this has been another Quar week. This finishes off what I have available for the Quar (apart from some vehicles and some figures that don't fit in with the plan). So I am pretty happy that a project is more or less done. For now. More purchases are planned but not right now.

There are twenty Coftyrian Infantry above and two hastily put together tankers (not my best work). 

Moving on....

End Of The Week - The Crusaders Are Ready (49)

The New Cruelty is content with my output for the week. It has been a week with a project that should have felt like a bit of a slog. I've put some effort in but it has felt easier than I might have feared. Some of it has even been quite pleasurable. There are now 40+ Quar Crusaders ready to go. Enough for a basic force and really enough for most purposes. I am still thinking in terms of what's next?

A Clash of Rhyfles is apparently doing fairly solid business. I have felt like it might be me judging by the money I have already put into it. The thoughts in my head are already moving towards the next move. This will be adding more to both forces. I can see the need for some more support weapons and another infantry squad for each army.

Having had a few weeks of painting on a colour primer, this is the first time it felt it really worked. The Damned wasn't bad but this felt like it worked well. My guess is that I will try it a bit more often. If nothing else it has spread the process up significantly. I don't often get forty four figures done in a week.

I have to look to what to do next. I have a lot of Soviets to do. These will probably use an identical paint plan. The Crusaders usually appear as something closer to Vietnam Americans but I hear Soviets in the lore. I haven't got what I needed to finish the force yet, of the seventy ish minis ready to go, so maybe I need to look for something else. That said this has not caused me a problem with any other project. This is a project that seems to want to grow. I got some more minis this week but my order had some stuff missing, so a step or two away from completion

Then there are some more bits for Traitor's Toll. I have a the peasants ready to go. I have some armed peasants that have also failed to arrive. I also have some more military minis for the project that need to be built and based. This will slow things down a bit. I could see me building this up to about forty minis again.

I am feeling the urge to return to a couple of older projects. Somewhere along the line I was expecting I would do a few more units. A cavalry unit is one thing I have missed out. This would be twelve mounted figures. I need another batch of mages and clerics alongside some specialists. Not got a plan that I would describe as concrete here.

Another project from last year was Atomfallish / sUnderDground.  I got a frame of Japanese WW2 infantry. This project does call for these but there are plenty of parts on the frame that would certainly work with the cobbled together look of the force. There are plenty of minis available for this project. 

The WW2 Soviets work with the project and there are a whole range of stuff I can use. I have some more Germans for the British Fascists in the undercity. I have a couple of frames of Americans. There is an idea that there is a massive bunker under the American Embassy which could be used as one of the players in the rubble that London becomes in the game. As it's a nuclear winter scenario, I liked the idea of some civilians in great coats as well.

My brain needs to settle on a plan.

This has been a good weekend and since the car got sorted, things have not been too bad. I got to spend some time with my daughter. These are always the best days. I've also spent a bit of time with some good friends. There is also the prospect of spending time with some other friends. I currently feel like I am in pain almost everywhere. Its not a good feeling.

Just as a final hurrah is this fire elemental. This is a bigger chap than much of what I have painted recently. It's a Teaper Bones mini. It's been on the bench for a while, probably half a decade. Nice to have it done. I am calling this the equivalent of 3 figures.

Just so I have some ideas of what paint I have used, these are the paints I have used for the Quar. Thinking more about the skin tones.

Quar Crusaders - Now In Colour

It would appear that I am making some progress. The three main uniform colours are now on and I have painted the weapons. I still need to paint the shirts and the collar studs and a few more bits and I want a very Soviet type green for the helmets. After that there are a few colours on a few models to do. To even out the colours I am planning a heavy wash at this stage, before I start doing the flesh.  Then there is the skin to do. This will be a mix of fairly vibrant colours for the skin tones. This will include. pink, bright blue, lime green, orange, yellow and purple. This will involve putting them into groups for batch painting. 

To get roughly equal forces for both sides the basic plan calls for another ten man rifle squad which I should probably have ordered already.  It makes sense to get a tank as well. I can see there is some cavalry on the way so I will probably end up buying the three together at some point.

More vehicles and some artillery crews are further down the pipe. There are some heavy machine guns in the game but I want something a little more traditionally, but chunky. I kind of like the idea of pushing the envelope a bit. So more vehicles seem like a must. This probably means some 3D files. 

There will be the need to add a bit more to The Coftyr army including the cavalry and another squad of infantry.

For both sides there are things like flame throwers. It crosses my mind to do some heroes/special characters, for both side. These are not a thing in the game. As a game it is far to genteel for such weapons.  I also have an urge for priests, medics political officers and the like. I am thinking these can mostly be kit bashed. Not to mention even more vehicles.

There is another box set due out this year with two new forces. I don't actually have a starter set or an actual copy of the rules. I also already have a few Fidwogs which are a bit quickly to paint (no obvious legs). This might be a bit too far.

The grand plan was to write this up for Savage Worlds Showdown. Whilst Savage Worlds is really an RPG, Showdown is about bigger battles which can be integrated with special characters. This is a project for another date.

Start Of The Week And It's A Thursday

There has been a something of a painting of hiatus. Putting the figures together has been a major p.i.t.a. A lot of the minis needed pinning and green stuff. After all I said about plastic minis I was reminded of the downside.

Somewhere along the line I missed the fact that I just hit 900,000 hits. Perhaps my blog is suddenly popular. There are fewer blogs than there used to be. So if you are reading it, or even looking at the pictures, thanks for being there. If you are an AI just surfing and looking to let off steam, just stop by and save hi. Would be nice to have my own basilisk.

I am running out of things I can usefully do for Atomfallish and SUnderdground. There is a possibility that some Russians will appear this week which might make some British communists. If things go to plan there may be some more Brits too, but I don't have a plan for them right now. So I want to finish off the project either this week or next. Will then pick it back up in August when the bits I have on order should be in my hands. Phalanx is coming. I might get some stuff there but I am guessing not. 

Which puts me in a bind. Which is what's next? The Quar thing was the next plan. That would be £200 for four weeks painting. As I am trying to do things on the cheap, that is a big ask. Is it time to dive back into the backlog? I have some Sludge steady to go. Decisions, decisions.

Some guys in gas masks who will double as thralls. One of the biggest jumps I had playing Atomfall was sensing something behind me to see an unarmed soldier in a gas mask with out stretched arms two paces away. I panic fired a magazine into it. Most of the rounds probably missed but it didn't stop me thinking these things were more or less the hardest thing in the game.

These are ferals. In the game they are tough (but not as tough as the thralls)and fast and have a spit attack . These things probably killed me more often than anything else in the game. These are mostly Mantic Zombie Swarm miniatures with some Wargames Atlantic Pulp Zombies bits.

My plan calls for a fascist force. So in keeping with the WW2 these will mostly be late war Germans, with an emphasis on winter troops. As it is set in a post-apocalypse London, they all need at least one piece of British kit. A battle bowler here and a sten or SMLE there. With what is coming I expect to add to use more StG 44s. I might throw in the odd PPSh SMG for funsies. These bodies are Panzer Lehr. I was thinking about using them for soldiers in boiler suits but my backup was better. 

In my SUnderdground background the surface is extremely hostile still. It's not going to kill you quickly. It will kill you slowly. So I am thinking the winter troops with gas mask heads and more derelict looking bases for forces on the surface. Many of the tunnels aren't much better. So I have a source for gas mask heads at the right price now which hopefully will appear at Phalanx.

One thing is for certain, if I start another project like this, I will do so with all the stuff I need, before I begin. Sludge certainly went a lot smoother when it started. Although I may gloss over the bit where it took two years to get it started.

Whilst Sunday is looking busy (it's father's day so should be fun) I have plenty of time till the end of the week. Assuming I can stay away. This is good news as I now have twenty five minis to paint.

Start Of The Week - Atomfall

When I finished painting last night I realised that my brain was not going to let me sleep. I've experienced it before. It's what I call a contact high. Except this is contact with my daughter. It was a good week.

Whilst I wasn't going to fall asleep I didn't think my motor skills were where they needed to be to paint. I suspect it is the withdrawal from alcohol after tasting some beer for the first time in two years. It wasn't so bad I didn't trust myself with a knife.

So I looked into the bits box and put together another eight minis for the ideas I have for Atomfall. The new stuff is mostly WW 2 Commandos. Which made me think of my dad's uncle Harry. The game has a mainly 1960s vibe but it's a 1960s in arguably the most remote part of England, behind a thirty foot wall and cut off from supply.

I have a few Protocol soldiers here. I plan for a few more, probably using British and Canadian late WW2 from Warlord. This should probably include a couple of officers, some redcaps (that's MPs for my colonial cousins) and some special forces (I really want to use the welrod). Not sure I have enough British army primer for what I want to do now.

In the game these guys are the best equipped. Do not read this as well equipped. I can see some being painted in RAF colours and I may even throw in one in WW1 uniform. It's my game and I will do what I like. So there will be a really mix of head gear as this breaks the mass up. As they are "better" equipped, they are more likely to have packs, pouches and grenades. I cannot see the use for heavier weapons. Anti-tank and indirect fire (well maybe not a light mortar) seem a bit redundant.

The civilian minis can have a number of roles. Their primary was as outlaws but will work as characters or a citizens militia maybe. The majority of the heavy lifting is Wargames Atlantic Partizans. There are some WW1 and WW2 bits and some zombie heads which are British Bobby and hard hat/miner's helmet. These were always going to be lightly equipped. They carry what they scrounge up or loot off the bodies. So no packs and good weapons.

Next? I need some ferals. Mantic zombies seem like a good idea. They are actually twenty years old now. So about time I used them. These should be pretty fast and good in hand to hand so I probably don't need more than half a dozen.