More Work

I have been playing around with some more Vikings. There are a couple of warriors that I have finished off but for the most part they are civilians. These are pretty close to being finished. It's just down to a few small spots that need attention and some detailing before varnishing. I have started flocking and painting the bases before I start the paint job. This may be a bit of double handing which is not something that I normally do. I'm doing it because I seem to knock more paint off when I am doing the basing so have to touch them up after I've finished.

I am wondering what to do next. I have the Viking game coming up so should really crack on with stuff for that. I could always use some more monsters but have kind of run out of what I can paint without some more scab red. Unless I take on one of the big ones which scares me.

Paint Table Saturday - It's Big And It's Long

My offering for Paint Table Saturday has been less about painting and more about hacking stuff up with a Stanley Knife. With the Viking game on the horizon I ask myself what does every good Viking need? Pillage? Plunder? The other one? No, they really need a long ship.

Now I could go out an buy a long ship. It's not like I want the cheap and cheerful look...but. It might have been easier that what I have done here but I wanted to have something that would be a bit more game table friendly. So the ship is essentially 3" wide by 16-18" long. I have used cuts in the wood to give approximates of the inches on the deck. It's a touch wider and longer than it needs to be so that it's easy to move figures around on it. It wouldn't match up with a game table but I guess it won't need to.

  It is a little on the clunky side but it will work well with stuff on the tabletop.

As you can't see, the main body is made from foam core board. The deck planking is made from coffee stirrers from a dozen different coffee shops. I've even got my other half picking up a handful of stirrers when she goes for a coffee now. The sides of the ship are made from some pieces of balsa wood that I got specifically for this. To give it more of the right look, I score the balsa to make it look like wooden planking.The figurehead and tail are also made from the same balsa wood with a bit of whittling to give it the right ship.
The time consuming this was cutting the planking. When I get to the next ship I do, I will probably just score the wood rather than cut it. I will look to do a smaller trading ship and maybe a few even smaller ships. If I get the urge, I would like to make another long ship. If I really get the time, I might think about doing something a little more foreign like an Arab trade ship.

Now that it's finished I think it's a bit too big. It might be fairly close to what they would have been but it's a little too big for gaming.
I have also spent the day spray varnishing some stuff that I have already finished. Some of it is the stuff you have seen, some of it is stuff that I did years ago but I thought I'd give a coat of varnish to as no paint job survives first contact with the players. I'll take some pictures and post them soon.

Ambiguous Blog Post Title

The last couple of days have been fairly busy so I have only been able to snatch the odd moment. Most of it has been taken up with adding the finishing touches to some existing figures. I have added a lot of weapons and putting transfers on shields. I still have a few bits on pieces to do, tarting up the shields mainly but I might do some more detailing on the bases.

I got a citadel giant, for about £8. it's a sizable chunk of metal for that price. I am guessing that there is a fair amount of lead in it.  I am hoping that when the time comes, the players will be bright enough to run away. Players are a bit dumb though. I have a few GW trolls to use but one of them needs some work doing on it. Then I have a Heresy dungeon troll with is  it something you want to land on your foot. All these are on the cards but may take a bit of time to finish off.

I am planning something interesting for paint table Saturday. Big enough to be interesting and a little bit of DIY to keep me interested.

For those of you who are interested and paying attention, this is what the mineral gel looks like when it's dry. The texture is much larger grained. Unlike sand, when it has dried, it stays put.

2300: Tour The Universe And Kill Things or In Space No One Can Hear You. It's Physics

Another night of 2300 on Monday. This is the first time I've played a space combat in a while. I did some 2300 many years ago and remember that the ship combat was pretty deadly. So obviously this was the day the players with the ship skill set were not going to turn up. Can't blame them, it was Easter Monday after all. So all the more dice rolling for me as the other players were all grunts. One of them had the ability to pilot drones but had stratospherically bad luck and probably managed to melt a little paint.

So the story goes we are taking the new ship on a bit of a shakedown and we pick up a jammed message, well just about. It turns out that it's a distress signal so our attention was peeked. What we find is two, old, surplus Chinese ships chasing down a merchant ship. This is a bad thing. The ref tells us that loads of these were sold as surplus so no one knows who they belong to.

So, mainly due to a lot of luck I draw bead on one of the bad guys. This did not work out well for the enemy. Six hits later and it goes boom.

Then the next one goes boom. this was followed by a boarding action. It seems thta the Kafer had gotten control of the ships. Sadly the boarding party (my character doesn't do vac suits or floating around in zero gravity, yet) didn't manage to take any of the Kafer alive. What's next ref?

Easter Monday

Another entertaining day. The work bench is all change. I have managed to do a few bits and pieces but not as much as I would like. I'm going out to the 2300 game in a bit so thought I would do a quick update. I have been trimming some spears so that they will fit in the foam trays. Splashing a bit of ink around on some stuff that has been sitting around.

I decided that it was time to finish some figures. there were some Arthurian figures that were all but finished but I had no spears at the time. Since then, I got some shield transfers. They don't fit on the shields so I swapped them for some new shields. Some of them needed texturising so I thought it was time to try out some of the Mineral Texture Gel. It hasn't tried yet, but so far it looks okay. It was really easy to put on the base and seems to be drying quicker than sand and PVA, my usual stand by.

Paint Table Saturday - The Dark Age Continues

Things have a habit of going slightly off course I my house om a typical weekend. This weekend being one of them. Easter happened. Or was it Happy Zombie Jesus weekend. Pagan festivals with lots of chocolate? It's like it's fated that LARPing would start. This all served to make it slightly more complicated than normal but lets face, normal is a fairly abstract concept  at the best of times.

So this is paint table Saturday. I did most of this on Saturday with a few bits finished off this morning. It started with a brew, a change of water for the brushes and a clean up. This where I started:-

I had spent a bit of money when I went shopping. I had wanted to try some Windsor and Newton ink and whilst I was out I got some mineral gel to see if it worked for basing.

This is where I ended up. It was a day of finishing things off and starting a few new things. most of this had already been started, but now, short of a spray of varnish, a lot is now finished.

If you are wondering what the big pile of wood is, it's set to be the deck of a home made Viking Longship. It might take a bit of time to finish it and I have to work a few things out as  do them but it should be ready in a few weeks. the idea behind a lot of this stuff was to make the table top world a bit more interesting. I like games with a visual element and I was hoping that the world would look a bit more like the villages in Skyrim.

This is a big celtic cross from Ainsty. One of the images that started me going towards the Viking game was a celtic cross in a graveyard in the Lake District. If  was going to do a dark age game, I would have to have one. I swapped out the original base because i wanted something that would work better with grid movement.

 The sheep are from gripping beast. I thought I was doing okay but I have seen some done much better recenty that ut mine to shame.

More stuff from Ainsty. I like the way the cabbages turned out. Not much use for their wares but will hopefully trip the layers up.

More Gripping Beast stuff. A hand cart. This is more for trip hazard and cover than anything else. as I don't usually undercoat, it was hard work to get the paint to stay on. Once it has been varnished, it should be fine.

This is a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the barrels are Rendera and some I was given a long time ago. There are a few gripping beast bits and the rest is more Ainsty stuff.

Lastly, I got a bit distracted, I had some paint left on a brush, So I ended up dabbling with these figures. There was a zombie as well but I haven't got a clue what happened to that one. These are obviously a long way from being finished.

Army Of The Dead Part 3

I have finished the twelve Army of the Dead figures I got on eBay. I thought I'd post them alongside the ones I have already done. These followed the same pattern as last time. They were a quick easy paint job. The highlighting gives them a nice ethereal feel.

 Hopefully, they will be strong enough on the table to give the players something to worry about.

Having spent a lot of time on line last night, I thought I would make today a quick post and hopefully spend some time painting tomorrow. I might have a play about with the Kobolds you can see in the background but I also want to move on to finishing the scenery that I started a few months back. I always have some more civilians to paint. It being a Viking game, I have a few armed peasant Saxons to paint so that they can go raiding if they want.

2300: Trouble On Beowulf

Three posts in one day. I must be doing something wrong. Last night was Mark's 2300 at the club and an enjoyable bash it was.

One of the things I like about hard science fiction is that the planets, even the habitable ones, are pretty unpleasant places to be. Beowulf is probably not a place to go on holiday. I don't see many all inclusive package deals being set up. Assuming the resident life forms which are big and lethal, don't eat you, the weather, including twelve meter high tides don't drown you, it will be the five day, days that send you barking.

The ESA have sent us there and we are waiting for our ride. Just whilst we happen to be at a lose end we are sent into the middle of nowhere to go and look at something that crashed there. We are not the only ones. The French (bad guys in 2300, but not as bad as the Chinese, or was it the Americans? Things are a little ambiguous from the point of view of a Brit) in the form of some militia, who are not local and in British territory, have come looking for what we are looking for. Which is a French, Military surveillance satellite. These are illegal after a planetary treaty. When we found it, it had a bomb in it and some unknown alien technology, probably Kafer (the real enemy).

Anyway, we come to blows with the French and an APC. So whilst me and and the rest of the team start shooting at the enemy Dave's character (an Anglo Danish Marine Lieutenant with the same level of education as a tapioca root) jumps on top of the APC and shoots the gunner and causes the driver to crash.

All in all a good firefight, I've nominated the marine for a medal and of course we have managed to annoy a lot of people despite saving the day, again. Thanks to my huge medical skill, everyone made it through and get some damage back.

Next week, our ship will arrive to pick us up and we will see where that takes us.  

Jokes Can Get You Into Trouble

My other half just asked me how I was going to commemorate our anniversary. Now I'm not sure that we actually have an anniversary. So when she asked me again, I made some off the hand comment that I couldn't commemorate our anniversary as tesco wouldn't sell me more than 32 asprin. For some reason, she did not think this was funny.  

Cads Against Matrimony

Have you ever played Cards Against Humanity? If not, go and buy a set, gets some beers in and invite some friends round. Most o the time you will be laughing so hard you will be praying for stronger bladder control. The rest of the time, you will be giggling because it'd just filth.

I've just seen a promo for Cads Against Matrimony. I don't normally push kickstarter but suggest that this page might be worth a look. There is so much I like, I can't risk looking at it.

Two Years Old, 300 Posts And 50,000+ Hits

Well the figures are all about right at the time of posting. I don't usually stick with stuff like blogging for this long but I am still feeling the urge to put something out there so obviously it's having some positive effects and I am still enjoying it. My output still seems to be up as well. I seem to have got the blog on a roll at the moment so I want to keep that going. If you want to help me out give me a plug or better still help me out by giving me a small corner of your favourite blogs. If this doesn't work, maybe I'll try bribery.
I have been as busy painting as time will allow and there is a lot more stuff approaching completion so there should be plenty of content in the next few days and weeks.

Last Saturday And Sundays Dwarves

The dwarves are now properly based. I like the old Grenadier stuff. I might have said that already. They go back to a time which for me was the golden age. That is, I had some money I could afford spend on gaming stuff for the first time. A certain British based company was still producing fantasy figures I could use and the internet wasn't showing me that my painting was terrible every time I logged on.

These are the real deal. Although I now have a lot of Mirliton stuff, I got these cheap on eBay a while back. There are a lot of character poses in the stuff you get as well as a lot of nice rank and file types. there are never enough none human "specialist" types though. the odd wizard, like this one but no obvious clerics or thieves.

Anyway, there is another batch to go yet. I'll post them as soon as I can them done. Don't hold your breath.

Paint Table Saturday - Dead And Wounded - Some Dark Age Types

A paint table Saturday post? This is my first. I am not sure I will be able to stick with this but I guess I will give it a try. I have had a little bit of moral support around this from  the bogosphere, so I figured - what the hell. So I hope the group will accept me. I managed to borrow my other half's phone so the pictures are a bit better that they have been of late. Thanks sweetheart. I am sure I will be able to pay for it later.

I spoke the other dead about doing some casulty figures for the Viking game I have coming. I wasn't sure about doing a proper paint job. It takes a lot of time and I really wanted something that would stick out a bit on the table. So I thought I would try some in shades of grey. I liked the look of some zombies I had seen over at Carmen's Fun Painty Time. So after a couple of test paints I decided I could make it work.

 The figures are made by Warlord Games and Gripping Beast. Strictly speaking, the Warlord games stuff are Celts but I figured that they were close enough. There are a touch cheaper than the Gripping Beast stuff and they make a nice all round look.

The figures are a pretty simple three grey highlights. I think I actually spent more time on the bases. I added a few weapons and shields on some of the repeated figures to give them a bit of a different look. I was quite pleased with the end result and it was a project that was pretty quick to complete.

I have moved on to the next project as well as finishing some of the other stuff I have started. I'll post the pics when I have some more time.

There Really Is A Difference Betwen This Post And The Last One

I've had a bot of time on my own today. So between chores, power outages, dog walking, house cleaning, child wrangling, I got some stuff done. Again, not much actual figure painting but there was a little bit. I have finished the last of the Army of the Dead which leaves with twelve including those seen here. When I have access to a better camera than mine, I will post the pictures. I've also done a little bit on the dwarves I started at the weekend and yet to finish. They are all but done, I think I just can't let them go. then there are still some Saxon/Vikings to finish off. They only need the shield transfers putting on, another task I love to avoid.

I have done some work on the bases for the Kobolds but in all honesty, they haven't progress much. I got a huge batch of eBay several, maybe even ten, years ago. I almost finished half of them (twenty one) some time ago and went on and forgot about them. I was going to finished what I had started and then start on the untouched ones but the colour I used last time has dried out. If anyone has a tub of GW Scab Red they don't want, please let me know. So I guess they may just have to wait around for a bit. I'll see if I can pick some up on eBay or at a show.

So after yesterday's blood, sweat, sand and glue mission, I got round to painting the bases. I've dry brushed some of them and put some texture on a few. I might get round to doing a bit more to give them a bit more colour. This again became a bit of a mission so lots of stuff got dragged into the bash. Most will need a little bit of ink to give the base some depth and then I might get some static grass out.

The next project looks like it will be some casualty figures. I am planning to use these on the table in the Viking game. It will give the players something to move around and maybe trip them up. Just a tabletop complication. I haven't made up my mind f I am going to do a proper paint job or just do something very simplistic. I've like what been done for some zombies on Carmen's Fun Painty Time
 so I might give that a try.

A Busy Day But Nothing Finished

I've done lots of stuff done today, but finishing anything proved to be impossible. I have done a little bit of figure painting but I've spent more time painting bases. I spent a lot of time digging out some old kobolds which I think are going to be my next project.

As part of finishing of the dwarves, I painted their bases. Then I foolishly got some sand out to do a base. Then it didn't stop. Anything on the tabletop that needed sand n the base got a dusting, The few that have dried even got some paint. It started with the Kobolds, then moved onto a few Vikings some sci fi stuff and finally some zombies. When I get the urge to do some basing, I tend to go for it in a big way as I hate doing it. I might get something finished tomorrow but as I have parents evening, I doubt I will get much time to do anything.

Paint Table Monday?

Again, I have managed to pick up a brush and paint. My drive has taken me to a few different places today. I started off with the dwarves  I was painting yesterday. I wanted to do some work on the bases before starting on dry brushing but the glue on the bases is still wet and wet enough that I don't want to move them. Then I moved on to doing some Mirliton female magic users. Got bored and moved on to doing some more of the Army of the Dead miniatures. I've a nearly finished them. They just need dry brushing and a bit of tarting up the bases and I'm done with them. I was painting some (about fifty) kobolds a while back.

I have a few other choices for what to do next. I really need to focus on the Viking game but I keep wanting to do something else. I have some ideas for RPGs that I want to work on but need something to focus on. This might be down to low blood sugar because I am on a diet. I've lost just over half a stone already so something is going well.

My blog is going well. there seems to have been an upsurge of traffic of late, some new members and new follows.  I've gone over the fifty thousand mark, I've nearly got to three hundred posts and my blog is nearly two years old.

I seen a lot of people doing Paint Table Saturday so I thought I'd have a look. I'm not sure I can commit to enough to make it worth while me doing it but I am still thinking about it. Watch this space but until then, I think you should have a look at it. It might help you get some painting mojo going, go knows I need some at the moment.

I Found A Brush In My Hand

For the first time in a while, I have found some space and time to do some painting.

Whilst I have been doing that, I have been watching a load of post-apocalyptic dramas on cable. There was a TV show in the 60s called The War Game. I have heard a lot abut it over th years but as far as I know it hasn't been on TV. It's not quite as shocking as Threads which makes The Day After seem like a very cozy catastrophe. Threads is on the list so I expect that will be on the list to watch. I don't want to watch it with the kid in the house and I am not sure that I want to watch it before going to bed.

These are pretty close to being finished. I haven't done all this work today, I think I had about half finished them and then put a few more colours on them. The ink is still drying so I can't really do much more at the moment. Hopefully, I'll find a bit of time tomorrow and I'll do some dry brushing and maybe finish off some basing. I apologise for the quality of the pics. I've had to electronically retouch them and they still are not up to scratch. When I have finished them, I will use a better camera.  

Then I have some Mirliton stuff to do. More clerics and mages mainly although there are a few barbarian types I could do, they are not close enough to what I am looking for to make them a priority.

Still, it feels good to be doing a painting post rather than babble. I'll have to do some more.

Not The Only Voice In The Wilderness

I posted about recipes and serving suggestions for the Walking Dead cast. It seems that I am not the only one thinking that way. This is probably funnier than my ideas.

The Walking Dead Is Over...For Now At Least

This may be another finger on the pulse moment.

Another season over. Another Sseven or eight months to wait. This season has had a few detractors but to me, this is what the comics and I guess my view of the world, post zombocalypse, would probably be like.

There isn't much of the original cast left, four of the above and Carl with a few hangers on. I wonder how many are going to make it through the first few episodes. I doubt they will get rid of Eugene despite him looking like he was built for the cooking pot. His storyline is to entertaining for him to be served up with a salad. In the comics, Abraham also has an interesting storyline and I kind of like to see the actor come back as a regular. Most of the regulars still have a fair bit of plot left so they are probably safe. so I guess it's going to be one of the other minor characters.

I liked the bit in the prison in the first half of the season. You could see the peril coming. Who would end up killing more people, the Governor or the flu. Would there even be anyone left for the governor to kill and stick their head in a jar?
There was a nice bit at the end about where the pigs came from making the flu outbreak all their fault.
With the death of Hershel (which was a great loss for the story and pretty inevitable) the groups moral compass died. Hershel had the best attitude to what is going on although maybe not as practical as Carol. That said adjusting to the realities of the world you find yourself might just keep you Alive long enough. We still have Mr Everyman in the form of Rick who seems to go from shell shock to kick arse quite rapidly. I suspect that's what most people would be like.


Where the got really good for me was when they went on the road. Carol shooting Lizzie was perhaps the most powerful single moment in the series. Come to think of it, I am struggling to remember another moment on TV that had me on the edge of my seat like that. The episode Still, that featured Daryl and Beth was pretty good. Daryl is starting to go down a great story arc.

Still, someone has to go. The Walking Dead wouldn't be the show it is without a few dramatic deaths of main characters. As you can see from the picture from the end of season one below, lif expectancy is not good.

What about the next season? Well "after dinner", will the Governor be coming back? I certainly hope so. You can't beat a good bad guy, in this series at least.
  
Anyone with specific recipes or serving suggestions for any of the characters, please feel free to make a comment at the bottom.

Terra Mystica And Matters Arising

I have played Terra Mystica tonight. It's a vaguely fantasy, resource management game. It's not the first time I have played the game but really didn't seem to be able to concentrate on it properly. This is a shame because this is a good game. Some how I seem to have been lost in my own thoughts tonight. This was the first time I have made it out to the boadr gaming group in Warrington since before Christmas. Lots of things seem to have gotten in the way. This made my lack of concentration even worse.

The camera lets the game down a bit. For those of you who judge games by the number and type of cubes, this one is a winner. It's quite a complex game to wrap your head around when you first play but it does get easier. There are plenty of rules that seem open to interpretation but there is usually an arbiter there to explain the real way it should be played. I play against people who have played the game a lot. The trick, like a few modern games, is to know how to work the races, which being Frank (ahem), I am not.

It's worth a play if you like resources management games.

2300: A New Character

Last night was character generation. I will be playing Senior Scout Andy Smith. It took all evening for the ref to work this through with four players. I think that is more down to the players than the referee. The game will be done in 15mm.

Well the world (of the future, present or past) seldom changes. Random character generation makes for much more entertaining characters. Traveller is perhaps the most chaotic generation system it seems to be possible to create with a series of specific rules. Chaos theory will be proven right every time.


We are playing the crew of an E.S.A. ship so there will be a lot of national boundaries. In the chaos of character generation, my character ended up as a bigot with no social skills. He is however, a kick arse scout, with an obscene level of medical skill who can do just about anything on a planet (except drive or ride) \and can fly a star ship or system ship reasonably well. Did I also mention that he is a little on the stocky side? No he is 5'6" and 104kg. Just for giggles I looked up his BMI and it was 37. That is just a little past the end of the line on the obese axis (literally of the scale). His daily calorie requirement would be sufficiently met by a couple of standard British Army ration packs or any medium sized mammal.

I imagine it will be fun trying to find him a vac suit. Funnier still for the French and German characters, who the character does not like and out ranks. It has already been suggested that my character needs to go on an equality and diversity course and a diet. Still, he is tough, smart, well educated and just lucky enough to make it through. I think.