Broken Hearted - Halloween Is Coming

Halloween is coming. My dad really wanted me to be a vet. Of horses mainly. I was never going to get there. He would have wanted my daughter to be a vet too.

So we were preparing a pumpkin earlier. There is a lot of gooey kack inside a pumpkin. Obviously this is a job for dad. There was a degree of disgust if not revulsion as I pulled the contents out.

Having seen the look on her face 🤮whilst I was, shall we say clearing out, I'd say that there is a fairly good bet she is not going to be a vet.

Hexes Again

Another distraction. Again. It has been a busy but fun day and I even managed to dodge the rain. I have moved back to doing some more hex terrain. A while back I came up with an idea for using my dining table for wargaming. Being a round table, and not especially big, it isn't all that useful so I had to figure a way around it. So no squares. Hexes on the other hand work fine.

So the plan was I can manage to fill a table with hexes about four hexes to a side with connectors to secure it. To my mind five would be better but the table just isn't big enough. My cutter won't do four hexes but it will do three. I was also thinking I might need a bit of flexibility if I want to use the existing road and river hexes. So a set would start with eighteen tiles

In an ideal world I would like a set for each of my planned biomes. This would start with the standard green fields and the ruined urban set would be next. Then there are some mud tiles, bad lands, desert and my sci fi urban set (a hex with hexes on it). These all need to be able to integrate with transition tiles. The sci-fi urban set probably need a full set but the other only need a half set at most. Along with a load of transitions.

Halfway With The Halflings

In truth I am a long way off halfway through the project. It's been a busy day with a lot of distractions. The weather would prove the Americans view of the UK quite badly. Still it will only get worse and I feel like I am tempting fate as I type.

There is some progress. Not enough for me to think I am about to finish any time soon. There is a lot of detail in modern G Dub minis. Whilst I hope to get stuff done quickly, it is seldom the case with Blood Bowl.

Wash Day

So I have done some terrain painting over the last couple of days. Most of which is still wet. I've used a lot of wash to get this done. Not something I have bought. This is way too expensive for this sort of work. So I make my own.

It's mostly water with some matt medium and flow improver. Lastly, a bit washing up liquid, measured in drops. Aside from the ink, it was about £12 all in. Another £4 for each colour of ink you need. So far, it's lasted about four years. So probably another two to go before I run out. I probably won't run out of ink by then. Well maybe the black.

I have used it on minis. It works fine. The pro stuff is a fraction better. So I probably wouldn't use this on anything I want to be the best it can be. It is perfect for terrain. So I call it terrain wash.

Moving on to the next project....

End Of The Week - With Added Zomtober (25)+(2)

Note to self. Did send it to be published on Sunday. Instead I booked to be posted at point in the future. I hit the wrong button apparently.

...

It's been a week of some progress. Not the greatest in general though. I have hit and surpassed the painting target for the week. Which is nice. The New Cruelty is happy. There are some new budget toys and even a bit of progress on terrain.

Starting with the zombie. Just the one. Another Warlord Konflict 47 mini. This one is for my sUnderDground project. Along with a big pile of other stuff.

The first bit of the terrain stuff is the Dwemer scenic bits from Skyrim: Call To Arms from Modiphius.I didn't want to use the original bases that came with some of it. An aesthetic choice 🙄. So it should fit in with the rest of my stuff. I did take a copy of the surface of the original bases to make this happen. Not finished, or even primed yet. There are a few other random bits of terrain that needed to be prepped, so they are in there too.

I've had a pile of wooden terrain features (yes made of plastic) sat around for a few months. Mostly for fantasy games but I figured I also needed terrain for Sludge. It got primed a month ago so I figured I better do something with it. It's had a couple of colours put on the plastic and a wash. Once the basing is finished, I will give everything a dry brush to make the colour pop a bit. This includes assembling the last four 20' cargo containers from Wargames Atlantic.

These are the last eight of the Warlord  28mm WW2 Soviets in the active queue. All good so far. Think I need another box to finish off some options. This project can stay on hold for a bit. Maybe come back to it in the new year.

There are some more Imperial Assault bad guys complete too. I am a bit taken aback by the size variation in some of the models. But, well, you know. I have plenty more to do on this project. This includes some more bad guys and a lot of heroes. Still finding that I like this project. There are a few more bits to buy, so I doubt that this project is going away soon.

Whilst I want to get these finished before XCOM arrives, I want to start and finish another project. So Blood Bowl it is next week.

I got hold of some budget metal 28mm Normans a few weeks ago. Whilst I should put a bit more texture on the bases, I am calling these guys done.

I got hold of some more budget stuff (in the region of 20p a figure for most of it. This includes a load of old, old school G Dub skinks. I I already painted up an Imperial ?£#@ton of these a few years ago. I figured what the hell. This would make them into a small, or rather short army.. They have been trimmed from their original bases and I've glued them to smaller bases. There were also a dozen or so Kroot and a couple of random metal minis.

Thanks to the decision to pull out into my lane and stop because they realised they couldn't turn right without hitting another car, I crashed into them. Not my fault, definitely on them. The car is still drivable but even with the minimal amount of damage done to it, there is a good bet it will be a write off. I don't see how this ends up not costing me money. I had hoped to get some more done this week, but my left shoulder is killing me. In the round, I suspect that things might slow down again for a bit. It's probably going to put a dent in my purchasing plans too.

Still I got a bonus day with my daughter, so on balance, an okay week.

Start Of The Week - Blood Bowl Halflings (No Real)

I have a soft spot for hobbits (or halflings if you don't want to get suded). I think it's between my ears. Personally I blame Tolkien (and the thing with elf's ears still annoys me). I have been running a dark age game which I try to secure in myth and history. This kills me because there are no halflings. So any way I can angle them into a game, I will probably take it. I am still looking for the right halfling mins for RPGs. Most are just too 17th and 18th century for my taste. This aesthetic does fit with G Dubs overall Old World vision

Over the years I have not be a big player of G Dub games. Except for Blood Bowl. I have kinda promised myself I will paint at least one Team for the game every year. There is a backlog. Oddly. Part of the great plastic mountain that I hide by trimming stuff from the frames. I brought a box and then got a treeman. Then picked up another team with another treeman on eBay a good few years ago. This Gives me a pretty solid team.

All Star Players are still a bit of a work in progress. I struggle with the idea of a squirrel blitzer, but you know, the older I get, the more open minded I become. If I struggled with that, I really struggle with a blitzer on the back of a sheep. There are a couple of other Star Players as well. In general, I don't see this as a team I would play competitively (but then nobody does), so buying them is a lot of money when I could probably proxy them. Well maybe not Rumbelow Sheepskin (the most 1980s name there is). not sure I could get hold of a suitable sheep.

So there are two Hefties, two Runners and twelve Hopefuls, along with the two treemen. Past experience with the current batch of modern G Dub mins, this is a bigger project than it looks. There is as much detail on was stunty as there is in two regular historical 28mm plastics. The plan is to give it a go. Its a short week for me. 

My usual free time is starting to fade away. I will be happy if they all get finished by the end of next week. In fairness I will be happier still if I can finish this Team before Sunday. If I can stay disciplined, I might just get it done. Just in time to finish off the Imperial Assault stuff before the XCOM package arrives. So the Start Of The Week post is done. Time to get on with it.

Limited Progress

So it is now stupid o'clock in the morning. Insomnia is fun. I should be making a determined attempt to get some sleep. Just a quick post first. Tomorrow should be a daddy daughter evening but she is away, so I am at a loose end. I would much sooner be spending time with her than blogging to be honest.

I have made a bit of progress. Not to mention getting some getting some other jobs done. Today feels like a positive break. I've put a few jobs to rest and can move on.

After getting my second box of Wargames Atlantic Cargo Containers, I have got them glued together. So I now have eight of them. I will look at priming them is the weather is good. Nothing too fancy. Will attempted to give them a coloured prime, rather than a fancy paint job. Hopefully these will be ready by the time the XCOM Miniatures Game comes around.