Saturday Night Is Zombie Night

Well...Painting is not on the cards today and probably not tomorrow. I have managed to do a bit of tidying on the bench. The house is clean for the first time since Christmas. The amount of bits of Christmas tree that has been brushed up was nearly enough to make a small tree. there has been a lot of household chores done and now I am too tired to paint. So I am sat in front of the TV playing on the laptop and all I can think of is zombies.

Not my best effort but not too bad. I am still learning.

Apocalypse Art

Some more art. This one is more distinctly post apocalyptic. Ruins, especially over grown ruins, always say end of the world to me.

Target Reached - What's On The Workbench

Sadly for last year on the blog, my current blogging target is to put up as many posts in January as I did in the whole of last year. Target achieved. So I am a bit happier. Hurrah. I have managed to put up some new stuff I have been working on and dig out a bit of all of the hard work that I should have blogged about last year.

Anyway, now I just need to legitimise this post and make it a post about something real, I thought I'd show what is the work in progress on bench at the moment. This mostly Frostgrave stuff with a couple of Crusader Franks. Some of the Frostgrave minis are the original run and some are from Thaw of the Lich Lord. I dropped one of the Franks and the sword dropped off. Which is a shame but I have a sword I can replace it with a Gripping Beast sword.

With the amount of time I have at the moment, These will not get finished this month. Tax return is pending I am have a lot of family commitments to see to will stop me getting too far.

So now I have two targets. firstly, I want all my paint in dropped bottles by the end of February. The second one is to paint two hundred 28mm figures in 2016. When I have done the paint, I might look at redoing the work bench, again.

Moving Towards The Target - A Viking Shield Wall

Playing about with CorelDRAW again. This time it's an attack on a Viking Shieldwall. This is another picture for my up-coming Viking game. Using photographs and images from TV is great but making something look a little more homegrown gives the players a little more of a buy in.

Viking Shield wall

I doubt I am going to win any awards for my artwork (or my painting for that matter but it makes me happy and it keeps me out of mischief).

Normans - Really Bad Guys

Norman Knights By Crusader Miniatures

My ideas about Dark Age fantasy really involve more people than monsters. So I am always on the look out miniatures that will do for human bad guys for my Vikings and Saxons to stand up to. For the British (apart from the southerns descended from them) the Normans make good bad buys (even though a lot of us are descended from them). Being from the North (and from an area that particularly hammered during the Harrying) and probably of Celtic/Viking descent, the Normans are the prefect bogeyman. I know they are of Viking origin but they are heavily tainted by being at least part French.

Must Not Quote Monty Python

I had a small binge last year on stuff from Crusader Miniatures (Northstar) with Franks and Normans being the main part of the purchase. The Normans got done as a batch whilst the Franks are getting done a few at a time. I really liked the posing of the Crusader stuff, they seem to have a lot of life.

Normans = Dastardly French/Vikings

The Normans were done as a batch mainly because I didn't buy that many of them (only 16) and they were for the most part they are a simply paint job. It's all chain mail and helmets. This wasn't a long job and it was fun. 1066 is probably the biggest date in British history. If I was going to do another Saga army (a game I have still to play) it would probably be Norman as it would be a quick job to finish.

Urgently Need Funnier Captions

Small Steps - Or Practical Procrastination and Prevarication - Games Workshop Night Goblins And Frostgrave

I have found a little more time to myself today to do some paint. The dog got walked and everything else that needed fettling got fettled. Not enough to get a meaty amount of work done but enough to do a fair bit of prep.

I got the Night Goblins base coated. I don't do a lot of base coating because, despite what people tell you, I prefer to paint on the bare metal and then give the minis a couple of coats of spray on varnish. By the time I have finished painting them, there is usually to to three coats at a minimum on all areas. To my (bespectacled) eye, this allows the details to show through a bit more. These are not especially dark age miniatures but with the shields, they are not so far off the mark and will do for some bits at a pinch. To me goblins are a bit smaller and I have some snotlings that fill that role nicely. I am sure that they would fit in well with a Skyrim module. Maybe they will do as hobgoblins but I have some old denizen half orcs that fit that role to. I guess I am going to do these because they are easy and they were cheap.

I have done a bit more painting of what is on the desk too. Not as much as I would like but better than nothing.  What I have done is stopped thinking about ordering some bottles and magnets and got on and done it. With what is going on, I am struggling at least as much with concentration on painting as I am with time to do it. I am finding it a lot easier to do prep work than actual real work.

I got to spend a bit of time doing other things I enjoy (such as blogging) so really not a bad day all round.

Saxons or Playing Around With CorelDRAW

I am redoing some rules for my Viking game. Which is still in the offing but is on hold for a bit. I was going to put a few more illustrations in it things time so I am occasionally doing some illustrations in CorelDRAW. This is one I was mucking about with earlier.

 It's a little cartoon like but on the hole, it's good enough for all gaming purposes.

Weekend Nearly Over

I'd be a liar if I said that this was the best weekend ever but I have had worse...I think. Everyone but me is ill. So not a huge amount of time to spare. I did get a bit of time yesterday to do some work and I was hoping for a little more today but that didn't happen.

I have started using old GW paint pots to put the figures I am painting on. In my searching the internet for ways to improve my painting, I have seen people using this a lot. The older pots have a bit more heft to them and the base (with a little clipping) is almost the perfect size for 2p bases. I don't know why I didn't do this years ago.

Another thing I intend to change to this year is a wet palette. To do this I need to use paint differently and the GW paint pots make this a bit of a problem. So I think I am going to buy some dropper bottles to put some of the paint in. This will mean a hundred plus bottles. My current work bench is not the most stable so I am thinking about putting small magnets in them to keep the bottles on the racks by lining the racks with steel paper.

There are a few potential downsides. I am pretty sure that rare earth magnets should not effect the paint. The magnet should also help with mixing the paint when I shake the pot. I will also lose some paint in the process. Looking at the pots I am using for basing, I have taken huge amounts of dried up paint out of them which has air dried over time so maybe it will be cost/waste neutral. Then there is the time.

Dwarven Dark Mages

Dark Mages

RPG characters are currently my thing but these are something I finished these what seems like an age ago. I wasn't going to post the pictures because they are a little overdue but then I remembered telling the guys at Midlam Miniatures that I would post the pictures. These are their Dwarven Dark Mages (the clue is in the title of the post).

Gratuitous size comparison

This is a close up of one of the above and I also painted some old Grenadier dwarves which are currently produced by Mirliton Miniatures. I liked the way the guy in purple turned out and the jeweled rings end up looking pretty good on the table.Anything that can fit into a dark age setting, especially if it's vaguely Viking does me well.

Grenadier Dwarves

Four more grenadier dwarves. I think these were a good buy on eBay when I got them. I got a really nice mix of miniatures without any duplicates rather than buying so multi packs and specialists which would have cost me a lot. I had a few grenadier dwarves from back in the day. I liked them then and there are not too many that can compare even today. Some of the Midlam figures can be a little on the small side (less than heroic scale) but these dwarves work very well with the rest of my collection.

More Stuff Just About Done

I have lot a little titivating of some 28mm Frostgrave miniatures today so that they are more or less done. Not a lot of work but at least something has been done. I might actually meet my blogging target but more of that at the end of the month. I can't remember what this figure was called but it was a bonus figure from the original Frostgrave Nickstarter. He has been floating around the desk for a while now. Guess it is time to put him to bed one of the huge number of foam trays.

This character is the Marksman from the original Nickstarter. I don't have too many crossbowmen and I think this guy is the only metal one The casting fits in well with all the dark.Viking stuff that I already have.. He will fit in well with the Norman figures that I have to do even if he is a little over armoured for a Norman. Nice figure apart from the two piece crossbow.

The last guy today is and isn't a Frostgrave figure. When the Nickstarter narrowly missed one of it's goals they decided to give a Crusader miniature away as a bonus. I don't tend to paint much in yellow because it is a bigger to get an even coat. This one however turned out okay.

Very Brief Update

This is more about what I have done than one I am doing at the moment. These were more or less finished at the beginning of the month but I am only just getting around to posting the pictures. These first three figures are all Crusader Miniatures Franks. They fit well into a role I have for them in the Viking game I run. They are effectively fleeing refugees looking for somewhere to live.

This one is slightly better equipped than the others, and the model of what I saw the refugees looking like. I have some shield painted up which will need to be glued on. There is still scope for a bit more work on the base but I will spray varnish the figure before doing that. The spray tends to make some of the more fluffy stuff a lot less fluffy.

The last one of the Crusader Miniatures figures is this naked fanatic. The tash on this one would make me nervous just looking at him in real life. I can see why naked fanatics were suppose to cause such fear in the enemy. I can just imagine turning up to a rugby match where the other team turned up naked, not a pleasant image.

There is a little left to do on the basing (as was ever the case). I guess these are figures that are as finished as much as they are going to be at least until I get them varnished.

Major Achievement - Hurrah For Me

Well not so much, it's not like I have killed some big bad in Fallout 3, I am a gamer not a formula one driver or Max Rockatansky after all.  My biggest achievement of the day, well perhap it wasn't that big. No Golden Demons trophies for me today.

My major achievement of the day is simply this. I have rescued two aerosol  cans from the garage. One to base coat some essentially black figures and the other is some spray varnish. It has been a very hard day in a lot of respects which I am not really going to go into but by god I am glad it's nearly time for bed. I am not sure it rates the disco ball but if today has had a disco ball moment, this was it. Yes it was that bad but it wasn't as bad as yesterday or the day before that.

 

I have managed one more thing. That is to tidy the workbench, It is probably tidier than it has been in for several  months. I have run out of space for paint. I am planning to do something about that but it is just a plan at the moment.

Still things are looking like I might do some more actual painting. Painting that is more than a black undercoat. I don't undercoat anything like as much as people recommend. I usually depend on spray on varnish to keep the paint on. One less layer of paint usually helps the details show through.

 

Anyway, for the most part at least, these are Frostgrave stuff. I am liking the minis at the moment and they seem to fit nicely with what I have already painted. I will probably end up with a few too many wizards. There are a few Gripping Beast and Crusader minis in with the Northstar Stuff.

Miniature Painting Guides On YouTube

I have been looking for inspiration a lot lately. Or was that I have been lacking inspiration lately. Normally I look at a lot of forums to see if I have lost my direction there. All the pretty pictures. Recently I got a new TV. The thing is huge. I am going to have to build a new TV stand to cope with it. It has a voice activated search facility. This has revolutionised my life. I used to occasionally use YouTube on the TV but typing all the info in took an age and was about as user friendly as a 1980s word processor. Voice activated YouTube is way much more fun. For the most part it is great but sometimes it goes wrong. Try explain why suggestions for lingerie keep coming up when you were in fact searching for 4K.

When I started painting, I had a guide in the back of an old Games
Workshop Catalogue. It hadn't realised that it was that old, I have been painting longer than I thought. This was good to start with but I git all I was going to get out with it by the time I had finished my first batch of figures, Where to go then? Well nowhere really. There were a few articles about painting in magazines, maybe about one a year and they usually covered the same old ground. There were a few books but these were not cheap.

These days, you can learn a lot of stuff very, very quickly. That is the power of YouTube.

Dr Faust's Painting Clinic. The Doc is one of my personal faves. It is a difficult between the Doc, ASS and Tabletop Minions for my real faves. The guy has been around a long time and has a lot of skill. He has got some good ideas for airbrush work. Mainly fantasy stuff but some good sci-fi stuff for GW as well. Doc Faust has some skills and is all about the painting. It's

Tabletop Minions. If I had to pick a site I like the most I am not sure I could do it. Tabletop Minions would be pretty close to the top of the list. he has given me some great ideas. He is easy to listen to and has some insights into the wider hobby. There is stuff here that is useful for speeding up the painting process and other stuff for putting in more detail. He is more about fantasy, with a little bit of sci and even some modern ish stuff there as well. He also has a lot on interesting polemics about the hobby.

Wargames Soldier's and Strategy. I am loathed to put up this page because it is much more of a comercial site that the others. It is included for one reason, it's good work. There is a range range of figures from all sort of periods and manufacturers but pretty much all in 28mm. The tutorials are good and have a lot of tips in them. This is a great place to go if someone has a particular project that coincides with what is here.

Engineer Jeff. Another nice site, A lot of his stuff concentrates a lot on Reaper Bones which he seems to back heavily. As it is all about the Bones, there is some good advice about painting them. Although not the best painter of the bunch (which is no criticism) but he has some solid painting advice which is worth listening to. A great site for fantasy ideas, especially reaper.

Miniwargamer Jay. Perhaps my most recent, good find on YouTube. He has a huge amount of very specific tutorials about how to paint different colours, skin tones and furs. There are a lot of videos. He has helped me painting yellows, which for a long time has been a colour I have chosen to avoid. The guy has some good skills which are easy to digest,

I don't think any of these guys are winners of any major painting awards. This was kind of a choice. They are all pretty good practical painters who do work solidly above my standard. To put it another way, these are the guys just about anyone can aspire to. They have skills to pass on and some have nice ideas about the hobby that are worth a listen. If you watch what they do and put it into practice, you might get as good as they are.

More Thoughts On 2015 & 2016 & Zombies & Workbench Update

2015 was set to be a big year for me. I was hoping that I was buying house last year and now it looks like it's no one wants to take my money because I am a special kind of self employed. So I got a new car instead and still ended up moving but not buying,

Probably not the first course of business (when we moved) was going to be the wargame room. I am currently thinking about buying an old site cabin or a shed but struggling with somewhere to put it. The site cabin is winning out on most levels but my other half is not liking the look of them. For my money, the fact that it is secure, is plumbed in for utilities, already insulated and a quarter of he cost of a big shed wins for me though. Not to mention the portability. My uncle has one and he has kind of sold the idea to me. It would be big enough for game table, storage a workbench and a painting station. What more could I want? I would like to keep a room in the house for me to keep some stuff but I will see what happens when the horse trading starts.

An improved work bench, a coffee table suitable for wargamming and even a gaming table are all on the cards. Mainly I am looking for a new game to play. I am liking the Dark Age fantasy thing. I am just wanting to try something else. I have the figures but not the inclination.

Well the next idea is zombies...obviously. I want to run some more zombie stuff, I might even get some more painted. I have several boxes of plastic miniatures to paint as well as many metal mins waiting to get done. I am feeling the urge to get some more Cold War minis but mainly because I just want them to match what I have done today which was playing about with some zombie miniatures. I am still also thinking about getting some studio miniatures stuff and of course The walking Dead is coming. I have a game in mind, after a fashion and of course the Walking Dead is on the horizon

I have piles of figures in the old lead and plastic mountains. I have started referring to them as Twin Peaks. I will also have to finish up all the things on the workbench which should keep me busy for the next few weeks.

The skellies are what I would like to finish first. I was about to finish them off when I found out the bone coloured paint I was going to use had gone all but dry. So I will leave them until I get a layer of dust or I find some more paint.

I did a test on some goblins before Christmas. I remember seeing old GW Night Goblins and Lessor Night Goblins back in the mid eighties. Some later age Night Goblins were the staple of my groups gaming. They were the only type of figure we had in any numbers so they doubled for everything from orcs to drow. The said resemblance that one had to George W Bush was mentioned every time. So I wanted some of my own. Not quite the same figures but close enough and I have a load of them. They cost pence per figure on eBay. Bargain.

The one I have done were just a test. Mostly complete. Now I have another dozen to do. I just need to take them outside and spray them black. I don't normally spray them with a base coat but as they are going to be mostly black, I will make an exception

Finally, last summer I found a D+D boardgame on a local flea market. Most of what was there was pretty rubbish but as I paid a pound for it, I cannot really complain. I think these were meant to be carrion crawlers. I wasnlt fond of what was dangling down from their neck so I have chopped it off, along wth some of the base so that they can be re-based properly.

Skeletons - The Good, The Bad And The Neutral

Skeletons...A bit of a fantasy staple, especially for RPGs and 28mm undead are everywhere. Something that I have never owned in any quantity. I have owned one GW fantasy tribe skeleton since the mod eighties. I thought about buying some of them on eBay but they were pretty poor compared to the stuff available today.

I have spent about an hour painting and another hour farting around. So obviously time for a blog post. The fact that I haven't really got anything to post, well that's by the by. So...I have been painting skeletons and I have a few that have caused me to stop and think.

This figure exemplifies the worst of GW (there is some good in there to). It is a bit more baroque (maybe even Heath Robinson) than it needs to be. Well maybe a lot more baroque. But that seems to be the way that they are going with the latest incarnations of their minis. There is more of an anime feel to it. I guess that goes with the tentacles of chaos.

I was struck more by what was in storage more than what was one the table. I got all this stuff on eBay. I was wondering what the reason why someone would write dad on the bottom of a skeleton. When I first noticed it, it was a bit less poignant than it is today.

Sorry if I seem to be doing a bit of GW bashing at the moment.

By Grabthar's Hammer - Alan Rickman RIP

Another RIP. If you ever run RPG games you need a good character to give your NPC a sense of them coming to life to the players to interact with. My favorite way is to think of a film character and channel their personality. Alan Rickman not only had the best villainous roles but could make his sense of disdain palpable.

The role I will remember him for the most for his role as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood the Prince of Thieves. This is the best character to model a fantasy villain. He had two killer moments,

      Guy of Gisborne: Why a spoon, cousin? Why not an axe?
      Sheriff of Nottingham: Because it's DULL, you twit. It'll hurt more.


      Sheriff of Nottingham: [to a wench] You. My room. 10:30 tonight.
      Sheriff of Nottingham: [to another wench] You. 10:45... And bring a friend.

He did a good job as a more modern villain in Die Hard. As Hans Grubar he made villains look a bit more suave and suddenly all bad guys were a little more euro trash then ever before. As Lord Shabandarin Gambit, he was the ultimate $%^hole boss. He reminded me of so many of the people that I have worked for only he was much better dressed and spoke with a perfect voice for the part.

I guess the role he will be most remembered for (sadly for me) the role of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies. He was the embodiment of evil in that but every now and then, there was more human side to the character.

As a class A nerd, I have always loved Galaxy Quest in which Rickman okay Alexander Dane, an actor famous for one role that has long since ended. You got the feeling that this was really what Leonard Nimoy was like in life. He manged world weariness and contempt like no other actor.


It's a pity as there are not many as good as he was.

White Wolves

Even more 28mm games workshop wolf miniatures, not quite still wet with the final touch up. Great you might say. Nine you ask? Well nine fit into a single row in the foam storage I use, so it seemed like a good idea. Not that I am getting OCD or anything. Mehhh. I got the set figures of eBay and painted a few brown and these white. The bigger group are the white ones because they fit with my idea for the Viking game and might handle double duty for Frostgrave as well.

Quick and cheap and plenty of it. It sounds like I have just cooked a meal for the family. I am hoping they will get some play rather than gathering dust, Along with the rest of a metal draw full of figures, they need spray varnishing

Wolves

Another fairly recent purchase from eBay were some part (poorly) painted GW wolves. There were quite a few of them and probably more than what I wanted. This is what happened to the excess. I was hoping I could take them apart and re-glue them. Sadly that was not to be. Whoever put them together must have used a whole bottle of superglue...per figure. They say the camera never lies but a wobbly hand and poor auto focus makes you doubt that.

Well they were cheap. I have others and they were planned for a one shot scenario and will have a different paint job. Someone I know had a few of them in a display case and I liked the look of them, I am such a kid looking into the sweet shop window. I am generally not a bog fan of GW and their current incarnation especially, Not that you would know it from a number of recent posts, but every now and again something comes along that fits my needs,

For repaints, they didn't turn out to badly. Especially as there were a few that I had over from the other canine project which is coming. I didn't spend much time on them. So cheap and cheerful all the way round. Not sure I'd like paying full price for these but as cheap stuff from eBay, They'll do nicely.
They are really for fantasy games with the Skyrimesque viking game being their main reason for painting these. I can also see them as being useful for some post apoaclyse stuff to.

Pig In Lipstick

This is work in progress with the emphasis on progress. Another 28mm Viking.

I was watching something on Dr Faust's YouTube  about the Painting Slump the other day as part of my desire to rekindle my gaming mojo. Doc Faust was talking about throwing figures that turned out badly in the bin. The thought had never occurred to me.  To me it's a bit like throwing away food. You just don't do it. Bad form if you do it.

Pig In Lipstick

I have had this figure sat on the desk for ages which I think comes from Gripping Beast and it is still yet to be finished (I mean look at his chin and the eyes). It is one of the figures I got for the Viking game nearly two years ago.

From a distance (some would say 3.2 nautical miles) it looks pretty good. It has achieved the almost legendary status of a background project (something I pick up when what I am unable to paint something that is still wet.). It was a nice looking figure until I painted it. I say that, he looks like a Klingon admiral in chain mail (old school Trek, not TNG pastie heads and probably a Klingon cosplayer at that). Has anyone seen the series Wilfred?

Cosplay Is Wrong

Now is looks like aforementioned Pig In Lipstick. it's not that bad I guess, I am just really not happy with it. there are a lot of older sculpts that I don't seem to be able to get my head around (a bad workman blaming his tools I guess). It's a shame really as I had a nice role in mind for the figure.

I am not really about throwing things out, you will be well aware of that if you have looked here. And a painted figure is a painted figure. Still, I have found my hammer and it might do me some good to let lose.

I may be having a bit of a painting slump but my blogging seems to be getting the attentions it deserves. Go figure.

So...
1 Keep?
2 Hammer?
3 Bin?
4 Do over?

David Bowie RIP and More Troubling Things

Jeez, David Bowie, gone at 69.
This has not exactly lifted my mood today. The fact I don't really care as my dad has seen the Doctor and has been told that chemotherapy is not only unlikely to do much to help his cancer but that he might not be well enough to deal with it. He has a few months, or there about. No one wants to be too specific.
Not the best day at all and now I have to watch Sponge Bob.

Im A Painter Not A Hoarder....Honest

No really, I am a figure painter. Maybe I have moved on from 15mm to heroic 28mm but I am still a painter. I decided to do some painting earlier on. Some day to day stuff got in the way, whinging pets and hungry kids. But now thanks to the miracles of Fifa 16, Spongebob and kibble, I have some peace.
Then I decided that the bench was too messy to paint so I decided to tidy it up a bit. There was just too much stuff on the bench. Soo much I couldn't see it and I have managed to fill a small bin. Then I decided to take it a step further, spring cleaning for the desk.
I remember watching a comedian called Kelly Monteith back in the eighties "suffering" from writers block. He spent the day sharpening pencils instead of working. I already possess enough sharpened pencils but clearly I don't have enough brushes.

Pontificating Painter

Most of these are far beyond use between various kids and me, I have killed a lot of brushes. There are only so many dry brushes I need so I think a few are destined for the big paint brush heaven in the sky (I mean garage) where I usually keep dead brushes.
You see, I am a painter. I must be, look how many brushes I have and these are just the ones on the desk.
This almost looks like a work of modern art. I think I''ll call it "pontificating painter."

The Walking Dead As A Tabletop Game

I like Mantic. They have given me some great, scary zombies over the years. They do well for fantasy but are not so good, I think for modern but that hasn't stopped Mal from using them to great effect.

The web is telling me that The Walking Dead miniatures game is coming soon.

The Walking Dead: All Out War

YouTube in the form of Beasts of War and Wargames News and Terrain are both saying
As the Walking Dead is currently the only TV we can agree on, I get to watch it more than any other show (apart from The Last Kingdom which almost makes Saxons cooler than Vikings) I not only love the show but it makes me want the end of the world by zombie look appealing (you would feel that way to if you lived where I live  this (a cars wars style end of the world is also up there too)).

They seem to be telling me that there are initially 120 figures being planned and maybe some 3d terrain might make it in too. Cars were being talked about. The mechanisms for the game sound pretty good too. Terrain, or the absence of it, usually breaks a lot of games for me. As a post apocalypse fan, I figure that there are a lot of uses I can ut these too so I might heavily invest in this.

Looking at the pictures, I am thinking that it might be more the comic book than the show but that is pretty cool. So the waiting begins. This will be worse than waiting for Frostgrave.

Well It's Not That There s Nothing Going On

I have been doing something more than watching people paint figures on YouTube. Just not today.

I guess it is time I posted some actual painting. So here it is. Well some work in progress. I did a couple of test skelies before Christmas. I managed to get a load of second hand skellies over the last year. Some were definitely in better condition than others. Some, not these obviously, were pretty well painted but were white. I still have these somewhere on the bench but they are probably hidden under the junk. I hope to do a bit more work on them over the weekend.

I am still half tempted to get into Frostgrave and they have some use for that but I guess these are destined for fantasy RPG games. The idea is to get some dark age round shields and use thm for the Viking game.

I can't claim responsibility for this although I do admit to sniggering a little. Now if only I could offend D+D players a little.

http://newsthump.com/2016/01/04/warhammer-players-seize-branch-of-games-workshop/

Monday 4 January 2016 by DavyWavy

Warhammer players seize branch of Games Workshop

Protesters have occupied a branch of Games Workshop in protest at rules changes which mean they may lose their favourite characters.
Described as ‘militant’ warhammer players, the group of 150  seized the Stevenage branch over New Year when it was lightly guarded and announced their intention to ‘kill or be killed’ in order to defend their expertly painted miniatures.

Warhammer fans are known as a tight-knit and insular group who live in seclusion, shun outsiders and massively overreact to any perceived threat to their highly prized armies.
Recent rules updates to Warhammer are believed to have sparked the protests, with thousands of players expected to lose to prized heroes and years of effort in learning complex, byzantine rules exploit, and this is seen as another flareup in years of conflict between Games Workshop and their customers.

Calling themselves Aelf-Queda, the group have confirmed their willingness to stay for years, as they’ve now got loads of figures and paints which will keep them occupied pretty much indefinitely.

Speaking to us through a pair of tin cans and a piece of string, Aelf-Queda member Simon Williams told us that the group had to take a “Hard Stand” over Games Workshop’s treatment of loyal customers.

“We’re calling on other groups to stand up and join us”, he said. “Especially anyone with a Chaos or Slaanesh army, as those bad boys can really tip things in your favour”.
“Why, no, I’ve never felt the loving touch of a woman, why do you ask?”
Games Workshop are reported to be ‘not that fussed’ by the protesters as they might not like the new rules but they’re still buying them.

Savage Wolrds RPG Figure Basing Conventions

I have been working on some basing rules for my 28mm Savage Worlds games so I thought I would put my ideas on here and see if anyone had any other ideas. It stops arguments and makes "everything" clear. This gives the players some consistent ideas about size and bonuses to hit.

Tiny Base. The smallest base size. Things on truly tiny are difficult to represent and easy to lose. As there aren't so many of them, I tend to use Small Bases instead of a different size as they give enough of the flavour needed but 10mm bases give something more like the right size. Things like cats and smaller sized pet dogs and anything smaller use tiny bases. Tiny bases are placed on a single square and two to four bases can easily fit on a single square. Attacking a Tiny creatures typically incurs a -2 to hit penalty.

Small Base. The exact size of the base is not really all that important as long as it is obviously different from a standard sized base. Typically a small coin such as a penny, dime or euro cent works well for this size of base. I use Small Bases for anything from the size of a hobbit, dwarf, smaller goblinoids or kobolds down to anything about the size of a medium breed of dog. A single Small Bases are placed on a single square. Those targeting a small creatures suffer a -1 to hit.

Standard Base. Nearly all figures are on Standard sized bases (the hint is in the name). Anything from about 5” to 7” in height uses a standard base. Creatures a bit bigger than man size, like orcs, might attract a +1 to hit but still use a standard sized base. Smaller elementals will probably be on standard sized bases. A disk of 25mm, 2p and 1” all fit the task nicely. Standard bases are placed on a single square.

NB. There are a lot of 30mm bases, especially lipped bases, available but I strongly suggest that you don't use them as standard. 30mm bases do not fit well with just about all of the commercially available terrain mats. Whilst one 30mm base is probably isn't going to make a difference, having a complicated melee on a regular gridded mat with 30mm bases can be very hard work.

Cavalry Base. Horses, large boars, wargs, bulls, some bears, motorbike and the like use Cavalry Bases. Although not all creatures using this sized base can be mounted, they are called Cavalry Bases for simplicities sake because for the most part they are used for mounted figures. Two standard sized bases stuck together make a perfect sized cavalry base. Anything on a Cavalry Base has a +1 or +2 to hit depending on it's overall bulk. Cavalry Bases are placed on two squares.

Large Base. In SW large creatures cover a range of sizes so 40mm or 1 ½” is about best for the smaller side of Large Base such as Ogres, large bears and typical elementals. For long animals, Three standard bases could also be used. Creatures of this size suffer a +3 to hit. 50mm or 2” bases are better for the bigger size of large such great white shark, rhino, small elephant and bigger elementals. Four standard bases in a line could be used for especially long animals. This is also the same size of a Small Burst Template. They typically suffer a +4 to hit. You can use 30mm but this is often too close to a 1” sized base and many people will have figures on 30mm based and they don't fit well with mats so again I tend not to use 30mm bases. Large bases are usually put in the center of a four square, squares.

Swarm Base. Swarms are the size of a Medium Burst Template which can be divided into two Small Burst Templates. Finding enough figures to cover 4” diameter base could be an expensive task and if you want to have two Small Burst Templates as well, then that is potentially a lot of models. So I have a couple of ways of doing things. One is fairly standard whilst the other is a bit more expedient. For both, I favour using Reaper Bones swarms which comes in packs of two, cover a fair chunk of space, are big enough and the right price.

For the traditional approach, take four swarm models. You don't attach to the directly to the base instead attach them to the smallest round base that will fit the model. 30mm will be about right although standard bases make a good fit. These provide enough space for the model, give some space for scenic materials and gives you another size to play with. 40mm will still fit but only just. It will leave too little space for easy scenic work on the base. Then create scenic bases on a 4” and two 2” bases with cut outs for the smaller models

Huge Base. This is the only base size that I am not going to put a specific size to as there is no real way to fix a size as the models are just too variable. This is because huge monsters tend to take a variety of sizes. These are bases for creatures as big as a dragon or drake and down to the size of a bull elephant bull elephant. At a minimum, huge bases start at about 80mm or 3” in diameter although two Large Bases (50mm) could be used for large long animals. Realistically there is no maximum size as long as it stays in proportion to the miniature. For truly giants monsters like Godzilla or Ghaog II (bonus points if you get the obscure reference) you can have two (giant) foot shaped bases. Huge creatures suffer a +5 and up bonus to hit.

Feel free to chip in...

New Year's Resolutions

Really?

Do People still do that? New year's resolutions I mean.

I started off this afternoon with the best of intentions. I placed some half painted figures on my work bench and then realised that I was too tired to do anything. Then the whinging started and before I knew anything else I was waking up in my easy chair with a cold cup of tea.

Still, I have gotten the year off to a good start with my first post.