The Actual Lock Down

Well no good news today...

After Sunday and hearing about all the people that were out and about, I thought I would order some more gaming stuff before everything shut down. At the end of last week I was expecting it to be at the weekend. Oh well. Right now I am not sure if what Boris has said tonight means I am in work or not, but I suspect I am here for the duration.

Bad news in general but good news for the blog. 😕

One of the things I ordered (and the only thing I think I stand a chance of getting) is some more primer. I ordered some brushes and a whole load Copplestone Miniatures. All sorts of stuff but really aimed at the post apocalypse. Doubt I will get that now but you never know.

So I have been priming sme terrain and I have done a little bit of miniature painting. Mostly it's been the Star Wars Legion stuff but I still have a few bits and pieces of other stuff to finish off.

The Big Lock In

I have been off work for a few days now. I've not got "it" I don't think but I have a cough that wakes the kids up. Not that I am getting to see them as I am currently in "splendid isolation". Still the bench is in good shape and I don't handle boredom well....so....

These have already been strange days for me. I went from working from home for eight years back to the real world of work. Mainly because I was about to become a dad, which I now am. This hasn't allowed as much me time. Until now.

At one point last year I really was getting back into painting and then the job and then the baby came along. No such excuse but good problems to have. In fact, as I am not allowed to go anywhere I have no excuses.

So back to the paint table. There are some figures to paint but I am currently feeling the terrain side of things, with maybe a little bit of figure painting on the side. So I have some post apocalypse stuff in mind.  For years now I have wanted to do some junk fences and, since around 2015, I have really been looking for the bits. Just about have enough now but still feeling the urge to over supply myself. There are a few bits that might make it useful for other things like modern or even sci-fi but they were really aimed to have the end of the world look. There is some junk piles. Always good for dressing up the battlefield. When I was having a tidy up I found some aquarium plants that I got to make trees for 6mm sci-fi in the mid nineties. They are getting incorporated into the junk, the fences and some areas of scrub. Last summer I started working on some mesa type terrain. I hope to get them finished off too. There are some scrap cars (some all out war and some really cheap stuff my mum got me before she died, imagine, still having toys brought for you in your fifties) that need that post apocalypse vibe finishing off. I have been planning a post apocalypse game set in London for a few years now and wanted to do something for that too. I have some ideas for scrap vehicles and thought I might do a scrap tank and a ruined scrap tank too. There are also some toy vehicles that I would like to make a bit more table top friendly. There is also some quasi industrial stuff to do. This is all scratched built but I am aiming for the higher end of scratch built so very little in the way of soup cans and bottle tops. The plan is a real deep  dive into the bits box I have been sat on for thirty years topped off with all the bit I have been acquiring over the last few years.

A long time ago (twenty plus years ago) I wanted to do something a bit more in keeping with more modern 28mm terrain alongside a version of the building that has been post apoclyfied (it is a word, I made it up). If time and the current pre-apocalypse allow, I might get here too.

I am also liking the sci-fi vibe at the moment with X-Com leading the way. I can see some terrain and maybe even some figures being done for that. Some of what I am doing and planning will work across a number of genres. I have been playing X-Com 2 which covers sci-fi and even post apocalypse which works out fine for me. Some of it should also work with the concepts I have for a mecha game.

There are some All Out War minis to finish off which I guess are also post apocalyptic. I was in the very early stages of doing a doom lords Blood Bowl team and there is also a Nurgle team which is just about ready to go. There are a whole load of random stuff on the bench to. There is stuff from twenty years ago from the future wars range by Foundry and some wild west stuff, which may also be foundry or Northstar. On a number of occasions I think I have said that I have finished off all the dark ages stuff. I just found some more so they are going to go into the queue to.

My main interest this year has been the Star Wars Legion game. At some point I would like to give it a go but my main interest was in using them for roleplaying as the only game I am in (was in/on hiatus). I ordered some more yesterday and I have a pile on the table.

There is a lot of stuff going on in the big wide world. Not sure what to do about it in this forum as there is plenty of good information out there. That said Now that I have a reason to pass stuff on to the next generation, maybe I will chose to post some stuff here.

Happy New Year Or 2020 - The Plan

Well here we are at the end of the year again for I think the seventh time and after nearly eight years of blogging. More time for reflection and planning. Yes it's me and it's been a bit of the blast from the past, I haven't posted in months. This has been a year of a lot of health problems. A couple, well several (I lost count) of minor operations got rid of a couple or armpit abscesses. Painting was difficult and typing was even harder. This was followed by a cough so bad that I couldn’t really paint. With a few other bits and pieces, this has been an entertaining year. Yet all is good now. So after a god start to the year things tapered off. Twelve hour days will do that to you.

I haven't stopped painting but the amount decreased. I went back to the real world of work largely because a small change of in circumstances which arrived on Christmas Eve. I am sure that this change is going to keep me busy this year and for years to come. This will undoubtedly lead to at least one more move this year.

All this seems likely to reduce my painting time. I still have the urge to paint. THINGS ARE LIKELY TO CONSPIRE AGAINST ME. No bad thing but pretty bad for the blog. I will keep blogging and hopefully things will get better.

The plan, well, this is going to be cut down. The New Cruelty will hardly deserve it's name this year. There is a lot I would like to do but I am not sure what I am going to manage. Without sounding too much like a politician, this is more about aspirations than realities. Money has been tight again this year but in the new year things are looking brighter. I have spent a bit of money on figures mainly in Star Wars Legion so this means that there have been fewer new figures than most years.

As money has been tight I have looked through what I have got stored away and gone through and painted some figures that were long overdue. The average age of figures in the lead mountain has probably dropped by five years. I have also painted a fair amount of figures that I have brought this year with the other stuff I have acquired being mostly prepped and ready to go. I have also been lucky with Christmas and Birthday presents this year, I would guess my total spend for the year would be around £200 with about as much in presents. In the coming year I think I will be back to being able to spend a bit more money.

Blood Bowl is still something I like to look at on line. I managed a full sized team of the Chaos All Stars this year. I didn't put a lot of effort in but they are a touch more than tabletop standard. Another team is ready to go and I got more for Christmas. Another team or two looks like it is on the horizon. Nurgle and probably Skaven would be my first targets with Black Elves and Dwarves are also in the wings. It would be nice to get an actual game in.

Having played Star Wars as an RPG this year I would like to paint some figures. I have spent a bit on it this year since getting the starter set last Christmas, this has been the main object of my figure buying and presents for the year. This has also probably been influenced by one of my step kids being a fanatical member of the dark side. I have even spent some money on it this year. My plan it to do some conversions. My plan involves creating figures that can be used for role playing and the rebel troopers box is cheap enough to make this feasible. This should be this big focus of the year. Who knows I may even get into the game. I could see me painting more than a hundred of them if I don't get board. So far I have two sets of Stormtroopers and one of Rebel Troopers. I can see this being my main focus this year.

My plan had been to do Zomtober again and maybe get some All Out War figures painted. Well Zomtober didn't happen mainly because of the coughing. I did start painting some of the outstanding All Out War figures last week and a few are even close to being finished. There are a few figures I have in mind to buy but they are not high on my list so after I finish what I have I doubt there will be much progress beyond the 15- 20 I am currently working on.

Post apocalypse has, over the years, been my most beloved genre for gaming. Earlier in the year Ross took me down to Salute and I spent some money on urban stuff and rubble as well as the This Is Not A Test rulebook. This was with the idea of playing some games. Well no games so far. I haven't painted that much. I have probably painted less than ten figures but I have painted and in some case built a lot of scatter terrain. This includes some of the stuff from Salute, bits I already had in, some bits box work to create scatter terrain and six foot of fencing and gates. 

On top of the post apocalypse terrain I have worked on other stuff too. Over the summer the weather was good enough that I could work in the shed. For some reason I have always wanted mesa terrain. I found myself with some thin fiberboard and a whole load of polystyrene. So now I have mesa terrain. I prepared a load on fibre board bases cut and ready to go, The advantage of bit power tools I guess. You would be surprised how many bases you can cut if you have the right power tools.

Fantasy was an area I didn't do too much of although there was a fair bit done which was a bit of a shame. There still isn't much I want to do. There are a few figures for the Viking game I would like. I have my eye on some hobbit and gnome figures. As they don't really fit what I am doing I haven't brought any although that didn't stop me painting the lesser lizard men. I have been looking at the gaps in the figures I want for The Viking Game. Right now the most pressing thing is light elves. For these I was planning on using early Saxon nobles with a suitably different paint job. I am still taken with Frostgrave and that looks likely to feature at some point. There are still a number of monsters I want to paint.

Kingdom Death Monster is still a game I would really like. I have put it off buying because of the cost. I might look at making this as my big purchase for the year. I just need to find some players.

Sadly I haven’t had the money and whilst I could be looking at it it as a present that is just too much money to spend. This project looks like it has died on the vine.

Titansgrave has crossed my mind a couple of times. That is as far as it has gone. I still like the idea but don't see it coming.

World War Two became a thing for me this year but not in the conventional sense. Six or seven years ago I was set on doing a Weird War Two Game. Most of them are now painted with only the Germans left to do. I may go a bit further with these this year and if I get the urge to run the game maybe I will buy some more figures. I think I have painted about sixty across the year with another thirty Germans to go. With the thirty plus British paras this is not a bad size to start running a game.

I am not sure about the overall totals this year. There have been at least three hundred 28mm figures painted. I think I painted about three feet of post apocalyptic barricades and ten supply tokens which were mostly made up of things from mantic. I lost count at about thirty small pieces of scatter terrain most based on 2p coins but there were a few bigger pieces. The mesas were a big piece of work as were the post apocalyptic walls but these are not fully finished yet.

X-Com. I think about this game every year. I was planning on using figures from a game I brought off Kickstarter. Not only did it take three years to get into production but I still haven't had my copy yet. Thus has kind of put me off the idea. Still a back burner.

I have been fooling around with a game that was originally big mecha but has developed in to power armoured troops. My brain has moved over to using 25mm figures. I have a lot of old stuff which would work the bigger suits. Maybe I will get onto this at some point. A nice story line is developing in my head and I like the idea all round.

Random was the interesting find for me this year. Normally I like to paint stuff in batches, It makes life simple and the painting quicker. The necessity of finances made me paint what I had. This forced me to paint to paint odds and sods figures simultaneously. Oddly my productivity went up not down and up by a lot.

The aim for the year is about 240-250 figures or about five per week. Normally I say five a week and hope for ten but this year I think that this is optimistic because of the recent arrival so no bad thing. Star Wars Legion is looking like it will be the forerunner with some Blood Bowl too. I would hope that there is going some terrain complete with post apocalypse looking like the main target.

Thanks for reading the blog this year. I really do do it for me but it is nice to know that somebody else is out there and reading what I have to write. A happy new year to you all. Hope it’s a good one and brings you everything you want.

Start Of The Week - The Weird Wild West

When I started blogging I was all about 15mm miniatures. Most of what I had done over the years has been 28mm but I was finding that I liked 15mm minis better. Then I started painting 28mm again for some games I was playing in or running myself. Which I how I got into painting stuff for the Wild West, specifically for Deadlands: Reloaded.

Back then I painted about a dozen of the figures I had before the game fell through. Since then they have mostly been sat around. Now I have the urge to paint some more oddball stuff again so why not cowboys and zombies. Oh and the Mexicans and Indians and eventually everything else. Maybe at some point they could be a project in the future.

So now for a painting plan. On top of the twenty wild west figures I have already done I have another twenty to do.They are a mixture of Artisan Designs and Wargames Foundry I think. I am going to look at doing them in batches of ten with the Indians and the few remaining western types to do. Then the next batch in some Mexicans and some harrowed/cowboy zombies. The plan is to stick with the first batch in the main, maybe work on the second batch a bit. If in doubt I have a background project which is a pretty mixed bag but mainly Wargames Foundry Street Violence stuff.

I will happy if I get ten figures done this week but I would hope to get more done which would be a bonus

End Of The Week - And I Am Reasonably Pleased (35)

This week I am more than happy with my painting performance. I am getting closer to having a completed force for my Viking RPG game. Thirty five figures done and dusted (well varnished) so I am quite content. Admittedly the majority were relatively simple and most were on the small side. Still a fair amount of work has gone into them so I am not counting them as a half figure.

I have a figure that I used as a black elf  (svartalfar) leader but when I saw these I thought they would do what I wanted. A king queen and a couple of palace guards. The touch of purple is possibly too much but I thought it gave them a nice imperial feel.

Every king and queen need a few hench elves. I am not sure about the pointy hats. I did think about doing a christmas game featuring black elves so maybe it will work.

Three more of the black tree designs high elves painted as black elves. I have already done a set of these last year but a few more can't hurt.

 This is not really a black elf but a mage from thr Frostgrave Nickstarter. I could think of no really useful purpose for him before but he seems to fit with the bad guys.

I have done two batches of lizardmen skinks. The onl small one in a mix of plastic and metal. The first batch was almost all metal. These were quite well detailed figures.

The second batch of this week's skinks. These are almost all plastic and relatively simple models to paint so a very quick job. I really didn't put that much effort into them.

Finally a group shot of all of what I have done. So I now have 36 in total. I have some of the newer plastic skinks too. I might get them done in the not to distant future. I have to say that I think the older figures are much nicer even if they are mono-pose.

An Elf Problem - Open To Suggestions

At the moment all I do is think. It’s becoming a bit of a problem for me. At the moment, as well as all the other stuff, I have a bit of an elf problem.

As I am in the process of finishing off the dark elves (svartalfar) I have been doing this week I have had a cause to think about what I am doing with elves over all. When I was originally thinking about the first batch of these a few years ago I was pretty certain that I didn’t want them to look like D&D dark elves. One of the big things was that I didn’t want them to be all purple and silver. What I wanted was something a bit more along the lines of the dark elves in Thor: The Dark World. This time around I have relaxed the no purple rule, well at least a little but only for the court characters. I still need a shield type and I haven’t really worked it out although flat rectangular shields and those of the Norman type might do.

Still this has caused me to think about some of the stuff that is missing from my figures collection. Some would say I have a bit of a problem but I like to be able to cover most eventualities. When it comes to RPGs this means that I like to have at least one of each character class in both genders and a bunch of warrior types. A task that I have just about managed with humans but that is about it.

I need more elves. I have been running and designing a RPG based on dark age Norse myths and a changed version of Viking and world history. My plan is to run a new campaign featuring white elves. My games are mainly role playing but feature big battles so a range of RPG types, enough for a small army (at least thirty figures) and it would be nice if there were some civilian figures. Some sort of kings court figures would be nice. I have some wood elves which I think at one point were going to do double duty. After some thought they just don’t have the right vibe. I want something more majestic.

So I am looking for some appropriate 28mm figures for the light elves. In the myths these are not very well described but the words white luminous seems to crop up. I am thinking something more like Galadriel than Arwen. Given that Nordic elves are not referenced as having pointy ears (damn you Tolkien although some people say different) I could actually get away with human figures.

They need to be relatively in keeping with the dark ages and less D&D. So far I am thinking early Saxons with a strong Romano-British vibe but maybe late late Romans might do it but I doubt it (but I am willing to be convince). I like the more ornate style of armour that they have which looks a bit more advanced than that used in the dark ages (simple chain mail or padded clothing). The Oathmark elves are not bad but their just isn’t the variety. The GW style does not really do it fo me Some even have wolf tail helmets which I think I could make work. I would be looking at very pail if not white (or almost white) skin tone. I wouldn’t want the traditional round shield or kite shield either. In the game the Romans were a thing (some time in the past) and I was thinking using a Roman type shield, either the large oval or the more rectangular, indicating that they have been around a while.

So I don’t know if anyone has any ideas about figures to use. If you could think of anything that is stylistically white elf that would be great too. On the off chance that you do I would really like to hear from you.

Borak The Despoiler

Blood Bowl is still a game I love. There are some teams I love more than others. In most games I play I generally want to be a good guy. I am of the side of the light, right(as opposed to wrong), the force and occasionally even the law. I don't do bad guys. I might pick a team that is a little less close to home if I think I am going to lose a lot. IT IS A RULE THAT I FIGHT FOR THE GOOD GUYS. Except when I play Blood Bowl. Then I am just nasty.

My favourite teams for Blood Bowl are basically the evil ones. I'm a bit meh about the good guys. Except elves. I don't like them so there is a special place in hell for them. What I do like in the game is chaos and death. Anything undead, skaven, nurgle and specifically chaos. Chaos is the right mix of violence and, well, more violence. Nurgle has its moments too

Both have been a bit light on star players and there is only the one, the only one is Borak The Despoiler. I have plans to use one of the spare figures I have as a proxy but it looks like that might not be necessary.

In truth, despite being an iconic character in the game, he is not the most skilled star player out there. Skill is not what he, or the teams he plays for is about (did I mention the thing about the violence). He is however a tough and strong SOB. Knocking him down is a tough prospect.