The Dark Ages Are Coming (One Big Pile Of Lead)

Now just taken off the workbench is the box of what I have ended up with for a Viking Fantasy game. I'll have a load of stuff I can borrow as well. It doesn't include all the boxes of building I now have but it does include some smaller elements of terrain

Gripping Beast have kind of sold me on their figures. I was thinking in terms of a Samurai or Viking game as a project. As much as I love the Samurai, the Viking have won out because there are lots of people that want to play the Viking game. Maybe that says something about the British mentality. There is a lot of Viking blood in us after all.

So where else have I got stuff from? eBay? If ever there was a way to separate a man from his money it's Ebay. Some of it is just too shiny not to buy and some if it reminds me of days long gone by. I went on something of a binge in the last month or so. I have twenty more stars on eBay than I used to have and I am still owed a fair bit of feedback.

I got the usual mixed bag of stuff. most of it has been for the Skyrim game that the new year will great. I have been promised that I can borrow some figures but those people are a bit light on types that don't just carry big swords and axes.

There are even a load of fantasy stuff. It being a Norse (well Norse lite) game, the figures need to have the right look. I found a moderately bag grenadier dwarves. I know these models are owned by Mirliton now but I wanted a variety and it's difficult to get what i wanted out the range without a lot of stuff I didn't want and getting a load of duplicates. Nordic elves are a little harder to come by but these will do the job. I didn't want anything that was too GW dark elf but something that could be painted to look evil.

I got a bag full of paitned terrain,

I got some Apaches and zombie cowboys. These will do for someone a mates game which come along at the end of the year.

All in all, one big pile of lead.

Just Made Myself A Liar

Something has got me going. Think it must be the Zomtober thing but it's probably just self imposed guilt from not posting enough lately. Not sure ice zombies count for Zomtober. I've mention the not really Viking not really Skyrim a few times. One of the things I need is monsters. Plagiarism (no really it's research) makes up a lot of what I do.

So... I wanted something that was vaguely undead, blue skinned (almost Norse I think) and like the things from North of the wall in Game of Thrones. This is the first test. The figure has red eyes but they really don't show up too well. It's my first try out with shield transfers and I am not all that impressed. Better than painting, I guess. I think the figure is Gripping Beast. there is no weapon as I am a little short on weapons and equipment at the moment,

What do people think?

I plan to try something that looks a little more ice like or just a series of shades of blue. Not quite ice golems not maybe not unlike them. I had them pegged as something not unlike the statues created by the White Queen in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe but ice rather than stone.
Any suggestions?

Zomtober Part Deux

I had to resist the urge to subtitle this post "The son of Zomtober". No cliches here. Honest. Definitely. This figure is something of a quickie paint job. It's the only figure I think I am going to get done this week because I am really short of time and sleep. The only reason I have had the chance is that me and the cat are hiding from the new puppy (and the smell of what are being called piddle and poop).

I've just watched a PBS UK programme about Custer which seemed almost appropriate. I have this mentally image of a Zombie Custer roaming North Dakota. Given that this figure was painted for Deadlands I'm not even sure that Custer would be dead in that alternative reality.

This for me is an old school zombie paint job. Most of the zombies I have painted over the years have been of the early Romero type (or very low budget makeup so lets just put green grease paint on the white guys and blue grease paint on the black guys). My painting techniques have progressed a bit since I last painted zombies so I think it's not too bad a show. Not sure I would win any prizes but I am quite happy.
 

Zomtober

Well I'm trying to add my name to Zomtober. I am a little worried that I might be taking on more than I can chew but I have a few good reasons for wanting to try. Firstl one of my mates is planning to run a Savage Worlds Deadlands game at some point in the near future and this might well be my character. I got some figures of eBay relatively cheap so I feel duty bound to paint the. The way my mind works is that it's just one figure. I have a load of dark age stuff to do which is kind of my current temporary obsession so doing something else is always good. I assume that as I am running a 15mm fallout game that I might get side tracked anyway.

So this is the figure of choice for the week. It has just been based and the glue is still wet. Let's see what happens.

RIP Richard Matheson And Donald Featherstone

I get back into blogging and suddenly I find that even more of my heroes and passing away. I suppose it should be a sign that I should seize the day.

Donald Featherstone died at the beginning of the month. The name may not mean a lot to none British gamers but he has been described as the grand daddy of British wargaming. I own a couple of his books and have done since I was a teenager. These were not books that would change your life but the did change wargaming. They were the point that modern wargaming really started. Most of the tabletop stuff we do today can trace it's origin back to Don Featherstone.

The writer Richard Matheson also  died recently. I seem to have done a few too many obituaries for my writing heroes in the last year or so. He is perhaps not  the most famous horror, fantasy or sci-fi author of all time but his work really does stand out particular was "I am Legend." I am guessing that if yu are reading this blog then you have probably heard of that. It's one of the best pieces of post apoclyptic writing. Good enough for it to be made into a film three times including the Omega Man. Many of his books have been turned into films, I am not sure of how much of a tribute this is but it says something about the reach of his work

Busy Times But Some Work In Progress

Where does the time go? With summer holidays, illnesses and work time has just shot by. At the moment I am trapped in home work hell. this is a mixture of trying to do some coursework for myself and proving that I am smarter than a twelve year old (which apparently I am but it has left me with something of a headache). I've found a little painting time but not as much. I have been largely distracted by the real world. It looks like I may be moving soon. It's looking like I will be in North Wales in a few months. I know I don't have a good word to say about welsh fish and chip shops but the place is pretty nice and may even be zombie proof.

First a big plug. I have been playing board games with a guy with an online shop called Monkeys With Fire. He is a decent bloke and offers good deals on  board games, comics and memorabilia. His site is well worth a look.
 
I haven't had much time to work recently and less to work on the blog. Even so It's been a few months since I posted anything so I thought I had better do something even if it is a fairly short post with no pictures today.

There has been some work done on the Victory Force stuff that arrived the other week but at least it is some where to getting them done. I still have some work to do on the Crooked Dice stuff but I guess this is my latest temporary obsession.

I've also started a 28mm Viking project and been doing some role playing stuff. The plan is to run a game that is vaguely based on Skyrim sometime in the new year. I have some vaguely Norse fantasy stuff to go with it as well. Instead of painting I seemed to have spent a huge amount of time on Ebay buying up stuff as cheaply as I can find.

I will be doing some more fallout stuff in 15mm as the game is coming around again.

There is also a plan to buy some stuff from MinintureMOJO. This is going to be more post apocalypse stuff. I fancy the figures but not sure I want them for a winter apocalypse. I fancy something more like the Summerland RPG. I really like the MiniatureMOJO figures and he seems to be supporting the game. There will even be zombies.

Thanks for reading.

The Federales - Federation Internal Secuirty Forces

It's been a busy month for my blog so I thought I would finish it off with one last post in June. So I thought  I would post something I have been sat on for a few days now. I like these guys, as figures at least. There are five of the six I have done so far. The last one lacks a head because I wanted one that was bareheaded for a sergeant. They have since released another pack with an officer, a couple of mutoids and the really ridiculously low budget security robot from the TV series.

Black is always hard to get right (not as hard as yellow or white perhaps) but I have manged to pick out the details pretty well with these.

Crooked Dice minis. What else can I say. Nice. Very nice. They have managed to capture that cheesy 60s, 70s and 80s low budget scifi look perfectly and do so with really nice sculpts. I have some astronauts and scientists to go up on her when they are finished (which will be soon).