Start Of The Week. On A Thursday. Again

So I've gone to the queue. I'm finding it harder to pick out something I want to paint. At least paint right now. So as it's late in the week again and I plan to finish twenty figures this week. The plan calls for limited colour palettes to help speed things up.

A few years ago I got into the idea of running a game of Titans grave: Tha Ashes of Valkana. This is a sci,/fantasy RPG that at the time was being championed by Wil Wheaton (so it must be good). I have some early 40k minis and I wanted to use them as a starting point. One of the things I wanted was the old genestealer hybrids. This was pre genestealer cults. The prices for what I was looking for would have got me a second hand car. Then I found these guys from Macrocosm. They do old style squat soldiers as well as cult ones, and I have some of them here.

Just to make up the numbers I thought I would add in some Stargrave stuff (Stargrave, Frostrgrave, Tiransgrave I am starting to see a pattern). When I was last looking at the figures I had painted I realised I had relatively few heavy weapons. This is mainly because I hadn't painted any. So probably not a bad time to start painting some.

So I should probably get on with it. I've done some tidying up and sorting out. I've even had a bacon sandwich. Time to pick a brush up.

End Of The Start Of The End Of The Week. I Think (25)

So I have finished last week's twenty five minis. The last three days have flown by with little real progress on the bench. There has been some fun and I have put some problems to bed. So reasonably happy. I'm tired but fairly happy. 

First are what will be the last of the main protagonist force, the men of Regional Control. I say the last, I will almost certainly do more. There are another eight of them. All still looking British but as rag tag as I can make them.

Then there are the thralls. Compassionless, unstoppable killers that never stop coming for you. They are unrelentingly but are not the fastest enemy out there. 

Then there are the ghouls. Most think these are either the early or late stage of the thralls. Whilst fierce in combat, it is their speed that makes them deadly. 

Lastly are my first real attempt at the fascists. There are only four of them. The short term plan is to get up to about twenty. The minis are a sludge of British and German kit with some random bits included.

This was a hard week. This week is also going to be a hard week. It's my clubs show this weekend but I am going to miss it because I have my daughter and I am going to a birthday party. I think I know what I am doing. More stuff from the backlog. Mainly because it's easy. I don't have any work to do. I'm not close to finishing the pre based and primed backlog but I am already a lot closer to finishing it off than I was this time last year. More on that soon.

The End Of The Week And Father's Day

So today was father's day and a fantastic day it was. I got to spend some time with my daughter which is always good time. So basically I am a happy boy. Smiles all round. The only down side is that it had to end.

I've spent most of the day wearing a baseball cap that belonged to my dad. I'd owned a few but never really worn them much until I inherited a few from him. Hard to think it's been over nine years since the he passed. This is the first year that I have really felt that things were trending upward since he died. With the notable exception of my daughter.

Progress has been hard won this week. I feel like I have made less advances than a Russian conscript army. Like an American soldier celebrating Trump's birthday, I just haven't hit my stride let alone made any marches forward. It says a lot when four times as many people turn up for a firework display as turn up for a parade honouring the army, just because someone else made it about them and not about the national military tradition. I feel for the guys wearing the boots and more so for the ones that used to wear them. That said, America seems to treat it's soldiers better than us British.

But I digress 

This is probably because I haven't finished anything. After a slow start to the week I thought I was going to finish things off after I got in after dropping my daughter off. What happened was I sat down and dozed off. When I woke up I was pretty much done. It took me about six hours to get off the sofa. The New Cruelty is extremely unhappy. Things may be a little better organised here. So....You know.

So looking forward. There isn't that much work left to do. Monday looks busy, at least the morning does. Wednesday evening and much of the weekend is also looks busy. I have no new figures and no plans to put anything together. So it looks like I will be diving into the backlog. If I can find some more stuff I have purchased this year, that will be at the front of the queue.

Insomnia Rules

It's the wee small hours here as I type this. I can't sleep. I can't do much if anything else. Over the course of the afternoon I did get some painting done. So the biggest block of colour is done on all the minis. 

Givern the short amount of time I have allocated for painting this week this is going to be some rough and ready work. Fortunately about half of the minis should be rough and ready by design. I am not using the Z word as I don't think they fit the classically accepted definition. That said, they are not exactly human anymore either and tending to injuries and self care are no longer priorities.

I actually fell asleep whilst I was typing this up. So my blog even puts me to sleep.

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.

End Of The Week (23)

Another step closer to my goal. The New Cruelty maintains a sufficient level of acceptance of my commitment to the cause. It has to be said that I have been drifting in and out of things this week. Various stuff but nothing major. 

I got some Crooked Dice minis last week. These are now all done. This was a fairly easy ask as they were all in a standard uniform. Whilst I was tempted to do the jackets in DPM (but not the trousers oddly) I decided against it. I may go back to it. As the minis are a touch bigger than the other figures, my min tells me that they were probably from a guards regiment. I just have to decide which one.

Then there are some more regular army. Another mixed bag. The aim is to get the infantry to look like an extremely rag tag bunch so I limit the commonality of kit as much as possible. 

More druids. I couldn't find the unarmoured ones. Whilst my priginal plan was to have something a little closer to natures,  I figured a few with chain mail would be fine. I have been thinking abour race, For Atomfallish I am pretty sure the number of people from ethnic minorities would be pretty lose to zero In the ruined streets of London's SUnderdground, this would not be the case. In my vieew this group spends more time on the surface. Whilst not The Children of Atom, they have a more unhealthy skin tone.

I have an idea for a group that might be a militia or even a mercenary unit. These need to have a military look to them. What I didn't want was for them to have anything that looked like standard issue gear. If they appear to have looted their equipment from the dead I would have achieved my goal. If Regional Control look rag-tag, then these guys should be more so. As a military force, they will get some military gear but on average this will be less than the RC.

Lastly there are some more armed civilians. There isn't a lot of stuff to say about them that hasn't been said already.

Changes

My original plan was something akin to Atomfall. So Atomfallish suited as a name. It wasn't going to be a big game. At its maximum size it was going to be a skirmish game with a number of opfor. This would allow running a game like Five Klicks From the Zone. I was thinking about a dozen forces and maybe about two hundred figures in total. A good chunk of which had yet to be available. Everything would fit in a storage box.

Somewhere along the lines it has morphed into SUnderdground. This is more of an RPG project. Some of what we planned for Atomfall probably won't fit for this project but most of it will. It also calls for some more forces. If it goes along the lines of the Viking Game, I am looking at three storage boxes. 

So why mention this? There is a thing called mission creep. The biggest force I initially planned was the equivalent of the Protocol which was Regional Control and was set at about twenty minis, which requires some bits that aren't available yet. I'm already up to about thirty and another ten for next week. I'm a WYSIWYG kind of guy so it's always bound to creep. Just wasn't expecting the creep to turn into a sprint. 

I have been looking at the military news a lot lately. The British government seems to be experiencing what I am calling Mission Sprint. I think it applies to most of Europe. It's like mission creep but working at pace.

It is looking like another thirty British WW2 infantry are inbound. I want some British communist forces. These will be a mix of stuff. I have a source of minis, but I don't know what is coming yet. Then there are the fascist forces. So far I have a few German figures. Nowhere near enough but it is a start. 

Plastic Minis

The first plastic fantasy mini I saw was attached the front page of White Dwarf. I had been playing with Airfix stuff for years as a kid but this was different. In fact it was playing with Airfix figures on the first day at school that started me down the whole wargaming thing. It has to be said that the Dwarf was a step ahead of of anything from Airfix. It was still a lot more basic than anything they were producing in metal. It was a nice idea nt it was never going to catch on. Beside, who wanted to do all that gluing?

I seem to recall that a box set with seven lots of ten different monopose minis came out which had core units for different Warhammer armies. This was great if you played dwarves, elves and skaven etc but no so good if you only had the one. The space marine set was better. You could even pose these guys. Things got better after that but it was almost a couple of decades before I became aware of any serious attempts to manufacture historical minis.

For a longest time I was still against them. I have precious little time to paint and I didn't want to waste the time I had gluing them together and chasing after the bits on the floor or digging them out of my feet. The detail still felt a little soft. I was and still am mostly a painter of minis for RPGs and skirmish games and rarely needed thirty of something. Metal minis still had the better detail, they bent rather than broke and you have to admire the heft.

For some time I was searching the internet for gaming inspiration. One of the things I did see a lot of was kitbashing. It wasn't for me but I liked the look of it. People were taking bits and some green stuff nad making something unique. Then I did one. One became a few. And so on. You get the idea.

My opinion didn't really changed until Frostgrave came along. Even then, I was really after the metal minis. The Plastics were nice but they were not to scale compared to the metals minis. It was some time after I got them, maybe when I had about four of the kits, that they really began to appeal because I could see the interchangeability and the choice that this offered. Stargrave would only add to that (and I have even come up with an idea for Ghost Archipelago recently). Both continue to add to my collection but not as fast as I would like.

Customisation is the name of the game for me. It usually works better across minis for a single manufacturer than those from multiple lines. But I am working on some stuff for Atomfall ish/SUnderdground and its no problem to have a partisan with a crossbow and another with a medieval handgun (homemade black powder rifle) assuming you have a knife and a pin drill. I am thinking in terms of a resurgent British Union of Fascists as a opfor for the SUnderground game, so WW2 German bodies, with a few German style helmets and weapons but overwhelming British weapons and equipment or homemade kit would if I can glue it together. The druids from Atomfall become Wiccans or Pagans and I have some Viking bondi that might work.

My plan for Sludge could only come to life if I used plastics and second hand plastics are even better than new ones. It was really getting hold of the stuff for this that has changed  my mind the most. This was despite the fact that a lot of the minis I had were deus Vult who used the same heads, bodies and arms across multiple sets (not a fan).  Even my bete noire, the Wargames Atlantic The Damned project seems to have a delivery date. This will push forward a few projects. And I do like the stuff they do, I really do. Even more so now they are talking about 2300AD.

Now I have gotten into buying up single frames instead of boxes. My current project is a post apocalyptic one. For this one I want a broadly generic British post World War Two vibe, which is basically World War Two but more chaotic. Basically late war uniforms, but some early war, paras, commandoes and a lot of winter uniforms when they come out, Maybe even some other uniforms with the right pouches added. I wanted some SA-80s. I was about to buy some metal ones when I found a plastic frame with the same number of them and a load of other bits. What's not to love?

Middleweight Middle Week

So all things considered I am a little ahead of where I was expecting to be. Not everything has a base layer but almost everything has. Right now I am thinking that maybe I could have set myself a slightly higher target. Maybe next week. 

It's late and I am still awake. My usual Wednesday post contact high. This is despite fighting a bug. It's affecting my sense of smell. Currently everything smells of burning cat shit. Believe it or not it is actually a medical condition.

Had a good night but it wasn't sat in front of the painting bench. Some more random frames came my way today. With this, and the odds I have hanging around, I should have enough to be able to keep going next week. If things go to plan, there are a couple of sources for some more stuff.

Within my campaign the troops of Regional Control represent what is left of the former government. They might be small in numbers but have the best kit. The Brethren are a religious group which are now a pagan crusade. They have acquired a lot of kit but this is irregular in nature. The next two groups are ones I haven't touched yet. The first is the British Union of Fascists. The game has plenty of alternative history and Germany didn't do as badly at the end of the war. The have supplying an insurgency in the UK. This includes things like updated stg 44. Any German models in winter gear work fine. Moderate numbers good kit but not as well trained as the men of Regional Control.Then there are the communists. Pretty much what you think. Copied stg 44 or Kalishnikov. Lots of them but most are pressed men. Then there are plenty of regional powers.

I got some VBCW stuff today. Nicely painted second hand stuff. Good news for me but sadly not good news for the original owner. 

Movement Bases

Just doing some bases for somebody else. Nothing major. Kind of a distraction but an interesting one. It k makes you think about the materials side of the thing and the physicality.

By physicality I mean the difference between 2mm and 3mm. This sounds nothing right? These are two of the standards for mdf. and one is 50% thicker than the other. Ask a woman the difference 50% can make. Except that this is wood and dimensions, especially thickness are....er..somewhat national. They are what the manufacturer was aiming at. There can easily be a 10% difference either way on any given manufacturer and a specific manufacturer might not be much better. Them hope the moisture content in the air isn't that great. I originally thought it would only be natural materials but the depth variance happens with acrylic too. Once its cast it isn't affected by moisture.

3mm is a lot stronger. If you are using 15mm minis 3mm bases look massive, they look pretty big even on 28mm. So I used 2mm, even though I think their main use is for Warhammer, The figures being used will mostly not be Warhammer figures. They are also using a lot of 2p bases which are close to 2mm than 3mm.

If they were for straight GW minis planning them would be a little easier. They have standard base sizes so they need a standard area, with maybe a little bit of play. 2ps are 25.9mm. If you fail t clear a bt of sand or flock off the base you knock it over 26mm. Some minis have a habit of just hanging over the edge of the base. So for me its always best giving enough space on a base for a little extra play. 2mm on a 5 figure wide base is an extra 10mm, which is a lot.

The lips are also an issue. The absolute minimum, with mdf at least is 2mm. People seem to like things in 5mm increments, So sometimes I round them u to get me to the right number

Start Of The Week With Crooked Dice

I know Games Expo isn't really a wargames show. This is a good thing as I only came back with eight new miniatures. Lots of board games there but I didn't really feel the urge. My plan for the week is to stick with the plan. Currently this means Atomfallish / SUnderdground.

I've acquired some moree plastic minis which arrived with enough time for me to put them together, attache them to bases and provide these with some texture. 

The first four are sine Crooked Dice stuff with SLRs. I wasn't planning for the good old SLR playing a major role in my game but I only have one mini with one. In my timeline the Brits used the Jenson/EM2 rifle. S I guess I need a reason to have these,

Again within the timeline the Sten would be out of date, The Kenson was supposed to do double duty as assault rifle and SMG, Still, I thought a few would be nice. I like these figures but they are a bit bigger than the plastics and the plastic has a base attached to the mini itself.

More druids / pagans. Slightly more heavier equipped this week. The plan calls for them to have some more equipment than the civilians and outlaws. They won;t have heavier weapons like the military but I am happy to give them an extrenmely nixed bag of weapons. I am debating giving them an M3 grease gun, a Schmeiser and drum fed Tommy gun as well.

More civilian / militia / outlaws. I have been trying to figure out what to use for shotguns. There were a couple of rifles that I figured would be find for single barreled shotguns and I have a BAR which if cut in the right way looks like a magazine fed shotgun. Yes one of them has an AK. The background calls for there to be an opfor that i essentially communist and the main bad guys are German funded fascists, Both have a suitable assault rifle.

End Of The Week And Ready For Bed (20)

Last week was a busy one. Apart from the bits where I slept. Somewhere along the way I got enough time to finish the target for the week. Again I haven't managed to paint the bases.

No real plan this week. It was about grinding through the back lig. This is stuff I could easily find the enthusiasm to paint.

Next week is back to Atomfallish / SUnderdground. I have another twenty plus minis to do. It will be another mixed bag. There are some more coming with enough for another twenty for the week after next. If things go to plan, I should get some more frames second hand, either as freebies or at a knock down price.

Somewhere down the line there should be some winter British, Germans and Russians.

UK Games Expo Day 2

Whilst I appreciate this is arriving on day 3 I was just too tired to do anything else yesterday. It was another good day, if a long one. 

The first thing I wanted to tell you about is Emesh. He has a game called Black Metro. Of all the people I spoke to over the weekend he was the one I most enjoyed speaking to. If you like cyberpunk as a background and board gaming, go and have a look at Black Metro.

My pace was a little slower on the Saturday but it gave me more chance to dick about doing some painting. I intended to try out the Two Thin Coats stuff but as I was at least two foot taller than all the other participants, I went back to where I was yesterday.

Since the start of the year I have really concentrated on using Contrast and Speedpaints. I have been reasonably happy with both. I've been a little disappointed that I got the Speedpaints before 2.0.  The average is still better than Contrast as some of the GW is little better than a wash.

So my paint trials had me playing around with Vallejo Express paint. I have some Vallejo regular paint and like it. I started with GW paint and never really had a reason to change. It was good enough and it was always available. But it's in GW bottles, or at least it used to be. 

Then I was given a box set of the Army Painter range. I like it although it does have it's detractors, it is a dense high pigment paint. Not good for everything but pretty good. 

I still wanted to have a mess around with the Express. So over the course of a couple of days I have gone through about a dozen colours. I started with the flesh tones. I have a variety of flesh tones from GW and AP. None of them are great but can give some exceptional colours if you go over a regular skin tone and then hit it with a wash. Which kind of defeats the point.

The two I have used were much better and even have some texture. I still think they need a bit more detail. I have some photos but I was painting without a magnifying lamp and with a ten year old kicking me in the back every thirty seconds. So I have no intention of showing them here.

The other colours I used were also pretty good. As good as the good ones from the other ranges, I just haven't found a duff one yet.

One of the other things that went on was the chat I had with the mega game people. I've been involved in a few of these in the past and had a giggle. Whilst I didn't get involved in one, there are a few up north now. Which is better than driving six hours.

I went down there with no plans. No games booked. I'd not even looked at a map (which I think was actually three or four maps). We were talking and there is a very amorphous plan to go next year and maybe stay over. I would certainly be feeling less crap than I am feeling now. I would also be going there with a plan. Which has got to be good.

Some of my mates play a lot of BattleTech and I play a bit of it. It was one of the main reasons for turning up as a group. My brain would struggle with a day of it (it's struggles with a game of it) so I was really just tagging along. So a couple of them were looking for something to do and there was a get a salvage box, paint it and play a game event. It was really aimed at kids, not men in their fifties.

So two of them were playing a ten year old girl. One of them died twice. Then it turned out she was five. I will of course use this whenever I can. But, he's a dad. As a dad (and hopefully as a functional human) you want the kids to have fun. I sound like a YouTube host on a sugar rush when I talk to my daughter. It's good to find time to spread a little happiness.