A necromancer walks into a bar…

Preparing for the project after Rangers of Shadow Deep, I’ve finished another three miniatures for my Frostgrave warband:

First, the most evil wizard I could find in my lead mountain to represent my necromancer:

Tim the Enchanter expy, bought at Salute many moons ago from Studio miniatures I believe?

A lovely little sculpt, detailed but not overly fussy, which made him a pleasure to paint.

Next is his apprentice, who is a sculpt from Heresy that I’ve had for absolutely years that I hadn’t thus far built due to option paralysis (as there’s a choice of 3 heads, and a Black Mage esque hat, any of which I’d have happily painted), but the need for an emo looking apprentice wizard expedited my choice!

You can’t really see it from this angle, but I’ve even given him a little smudge of eyeliner, as this is clearly the wannabe goth student that my necromancer has picked up from the local wizard college to do his bidding (largely lighting candles and carrying things so far, but I’m sure unleashing the mighty energies of death is just around the corner…)

I used Mephiston Red as a unifying colour across the pair - while the Necromancer has his fancy red cape and cloak (accessorised with a black tabard, for maximum gothic street cred) he’s just given his apprentice a matching capelet that he has to wear over his otherwise quite austere robes.

Proving that there’s someone on an even lower rung than the Apprentice, the final figure for this post is a zombie:

The zombie, whilst not technically a member of the warband, and will instead be summoned into play each game, on the other hand is literally just a corpse they found and have tied a matching red cloth around his waist to denote ownership:

And when we say ‘found’, it’s probably a warband member that didn’t survive until payday, and is now doing some involuntary pro bono work for the Necromancer, probably not best to ask too many questions…

The model is a plastic Frostgrave figure with a metal zombie head (from Westwind, if memory serves). I gave him a sack and a grasping hand (converted from an archer arm, I seem to recall) as I imagine him being like the butter passing robot in Rick&Morty - they reanimate him, hand him a sack, and say ‘you fetch the treasure. That’s your purpose, now go fetch some treasure’ as my plan for him is largely that (well, and being a speed bump to throw in the path of marauding monsters, but he doesn’t need to know that). I know I could have used any of the hundreds of zombies I’ve already got painted, but I wanted one that looked slightly more controlled and purposeful than the usual wobbly biter.

Tally: 

42 vs 23 = +19

Next, who knows? I had started prepping some figures that were easy wins to get my numbers up, but seeing as I’m only 10 away from my target of averaging one a week I might just dabble in whatever odd single figures take my fancy, probably including some more figures for the Frostgrave warband so that I can be ready for some solo play in the New Year! On that front, I have something of a dilemma - when I first selected my warband, I chose an Apprentice, as it’s just good sense to take one. Then I decided to play Dark Alchemy, during which you don’t get to take an Apprentice if you have one, leaving me torn between leaving the warband as-is, or taking a Captain instead and buying an Apprentice once I finish the solo campaign, which feels a little meta. I already have my Captain picked out, and have vague plans to play through one of the solo scenarios from Spellcaster magazine with the Captain, leaving me unsure which choice to make…

Zomtober 2020 week 4: I don’t want no scrubs

This year’s big finish for the final week of Zomtober is the cast of Scrubs as zombies, another set from Studio Miniatures:

 

And now, a number of pictures that mostly show that I need to give the backdrop in my light box a good dusting:

It’s JD, I think they captured his haircut quite well.

It’s Dr Cox! Another good likeness, although admittedly the proportions are a little cartoony.

It’s Bob Kelso, curmudgeonly head doctor man. This sculpt is pretty much the Dr Cox sculpt with a new head and added paunch, one of those details that once you’ve noticed it you can’t unsee it...

Carla! Normally my zombies are all the same shade of grey, but as these sculpts are based on actual people, I tried to paint them to actually reflect their actors rather than whitewash (greywash?) them. I mean, they’re still pretty grey, but you get what I’m shooting for.

Turk! Another slightly bobble headed sculpt, but I absolutely love his expression...

The Todd! This was the additional miniature gotten for purchasing the horde pack, and was an opportunity to both try out another skin tone as well as some wonky freehand (that is supposed to be flames on his bandanna)

Ted! The only two part sculpt in the bunch, his briefcase is a separate tiny part. I really like this sculpt, and it’s not just fondness for the character - I think the pose is so different from the rest that he stands out to me. I may have gone a little too heavy on the blood splat on his shirt in hindsight...

I also painted his briefcase to look like he’d been using it as a weapon, but presumably it wasn’t enough as he finds himself shambling round as a zombie now...

Eliot! Not much to say about this sculpt, other than to remark that I really enjoy grunting up zombie miniatures. I mean, a lot of the time I could probably get away with just basecoat and washing before applying weathering, skipping highlights entirely, and achieve much the same results...

The Janitor! Did he ever have a name? Again, not much to say on the sculpt other than my enjoyment painting the plunger (which reminds me, I must get round to working on my zombie rules again, and write a plunger weapon card...)

Finishing these draws this Zomtober to a close, and brings the Tally to:

42 vs 111 = -69

Also, something that I unusually haven’t done before,  Zomtober totals to date:

2020: 17 zombies, a full Studio Miniatures box set. Hospital themed, including the Scrubs personalities set.

2019: 5 survivors, no theme beyond being all survivors, as well as a belated ‘big finish’ of Alexia and the Risen for Warmachine

2018: Walking Dead themed, 18 zombies and a corpse pole spawn point

2017: 5 Wizard of Oz themed survivors, 2 zombies, and a zombie reindeer for A Song of Ice and Fire

2016: A Song of Ice and Fire themed, 3 White Walkers and 24 wights

2015: my first zomtober, 1 survivor, 4 zombies, 3 spawn points, and a horde base that had 20-something zombies on it!

Zomtober seems to have been dwindling in popularity over the last couple of years, but I pledge to do it again next year, and will continue to post about it on Instagram and Twitter too, in the hopes of encouraging people to join in!

Special shout out to Colgar6 and Miniature Mayhem who have both also been plugging away this year! Disappointingly, if you google search for Zomtober in the last month, I don’t appear in the first few pages of results, but instead several other more popular bloggers appear as they have my posts coming up in their blog rolls! Ah, c’est la vie...

So what’s next? It’s only 10 more minis to hit that one a week average for the year, so watch this space,,,

Zomtober 2020 week 3: here come the girls

Week three brings the female counterparts to last weeks crop of zeds:

Apologies for the super dark pics - they were even wonkier before I got the light box out!

The zombie on the left being clearly pregnant made me somewhat uncomfortable given the implications, so she was left entirely blood free. The other two were given the usual liberal dousing of gore though!

I went for a variety of colours for their gowns and hair just to add a little visual appeal to the horde (there’s well over a hundred painted zombies in my collection now). You might also notice that out of the over a hundred zombies, the one in the middle is the first of my ‘proper’ zombies (the Walking Dead ones don’t count, I guess?) that has grass on their base. I could claim that again it was to provide some visual appeal and break up the expanse of grey in a horde of bases, but really I spilled water on it and it turned out it wasn’t actually as dry as I thought when I started dry brushing the base, resulting in a chunk of material coming up, leaving me to cunningly disguise it with foliage rather than trying to re-sand it!

As well as completing that particular Studio Miniatures pack, finishing these three (and in a shocking twist of events, for the first time in living memory I finished the miniatures for a Zomtober post during the week rather than midnight the night before the post is due to go up) brings the Tally to:

33 vs 111 = -78

What’s next? Will there be a big finish, or more of a whimper? Tune in next week to find out (hopefully)

Zomtober 2020 week 2: the boys

 Well, to a certain degree of boys:

More hospital zombies from Studio Miniatures joining the two from last week. 

Tee hee, zombie butts.

I love the Studio Miniatures zombies, they’re beautiful sculpts, but they sure do love to recycle sculpts with slight details changed. I mean, I know the classic GW Nurgle Champions did the same thing, but with them at least the majority of the model was different rather than just moving the arms and adding a bandage to the head... it’s not a dealbreaker, and not something you’d notice once they’re in the horde, but something that grabs your attention when you’re looking at them in a small batch like this. 

Minor grumbling about sculpts aside, finishing these brings the Tally to:

30 vs 68 = -38

...or at least it would have done if I hadn’t won a competition on the Wargames Foundry Facebook page, where they sent me enough miniatures to destroy any hope of crossing off ‘end the year with the Tally in the positive’ from the Challenge this year:

Once these are factored in, the Tally plummets to

30 vs -81

Which means I’d need to paint (brief pause to do some quick mental maths) exactly one miniature a day for the rest of the year, which while pleasing how exactly it matches might be a tall order, having a full time job, two children, and dare I say it other hobbies too...

Even if I don’t get the Tally back into the positive, I’m still shooting for the ‘average one miniature a week’ goal, which at one miniature every three and a bit days still seems manageable!

So, what’s next? More zombies, of course, and given that I’ve painted two thirds of a pack over the first fortnight, you can probably guess what’s coming next if you’ve been on the Studio Miniatures site... after that, back to making scenery so that I can play Rangers of Shadow Deep, although that doesn’t help with the painting totals challenge... 

Zomtober 2020 week 1: bagged, tagged...

...and ready to frag:

Not that I actually talk like that, but it fit the rhyme scheme...

So, Zomtober is here, the one month of the year where I take a structured approach to my hobby and posting schedule! Sadly, it looks like Zomtober has been in decline in the community over the last few years (looking at various hashtags on Instagram and Twitter reveals... well, not a lot actually). Colgar6 from Colgar6 and the Infinite Legion of Toy Soldiers and the Infinite Legion of Toy Soldiers has vowed to participate, so have a look over there too! Also, they have not posted in several months, so if they don’t make some sort of ‘back from the dead’ pun with their first post that’s a missed opportunity...

This week’s offerings are a couple of bodybag sporting zombies from Studio Miniatures, who were selected as they were the two in the mass of minis I prepped with the least extraneous details, and thus most likely to actually be finished in time for the first post whilst potentially giving me a head start on next week’s painting target too!

Painting these two brings the Tally to:

27 vs 68 = -41

So, over the halfway mark to the goal of finishing 52 miniatures over the course of the year (which the next couple of weeks of Zomtober should hopefully push me towards completion of), but it looks like I won’t be able to make my usual mad dash between Christmas and New Year’s to get the overall Tally score into the positive, as I’ve just won a load of miniatures from Foundry! Expect a pic of me cradling a hamper of miniatures like a newborn in the near future...

So yeah, when I said I'd returned...

...that might have been a little premature.

Son came, and all productivity went out of the window.

(this is the day he was born, he's bigger now)

One of his middle names is Cassian (at my wife's suggestion, to my surprise), so we have an action figure ready for when he's older:

As alluded to in my previous post, I'd been trying to convert some additional Traitor Guard to make the squads in Blackstone Fortress up to ten man units, but after some fun kitbashing I just couldn't seem to get the heads to a point I was happy with them...

I struggled to find any donor heads that I liked, so tried to cast some, but results were... mixed. I think maybe since I had already built the miniatures it was a little tricky to make an easily useable mould...

Enthusiasm faltered somewhat after this. If anyone has any ideas for suitable heads (or spare heads from the BSF traitor guard left over from a conversion) let me know so I can rescue this project from limbo...

After this, I had a hankering for some 40k (a friend of mine had recently rekindled his own enthusiasm for 40k, and I'm easily swept along by enthusiasm), and dug out my abandoned paused Chaos Space Marine project. I mulled over what to do with them, and had a weird epiphany where suddenly the Black Legion made sense to me. Previously, they'd seemed like the Chaotic Ultramarines, the vanilla option, but as I was sifting through my bits box thinking what colour scheme would work for an army with Noise Marines, Plague Marines and some weird Dark Mechanicus stuff, something clicked in my head and I realized that the Black Legion are the best of all worlds - slap a snazzy black and gold paint job on any chaos mini and you've got a great looking veteran of the Long War ready to roll poorly shooting at less pointy Space Marines.

I built and undercoated a small force, but apparently I only managed to take a single picture of a chap that I converted to be wielding a melta gun before my attention wandered again:

(I also added a couple of bits to the Tally buying some Plague Marines, mostly because it was one of these minis that I saw a very nice Black Legion paintjob on that started the ball rolling in my mind...)

Taking a break from miniatures (because why focus on one hobby when you can spread yourself over three or four - see also videogames, binge-watching Parks and Rec with my wife as she's on Maternity Leave) I built some Gunpla:

Build Burning Gundam, beautiful and delightfully poseable, and also a valuable learning experience - don't use Tamiya panel liner accent colour like it's an ink wash, as it will eat through plastic:

(they were fixed with judicious application of glue, then sanding it back down and painting them to look like they had never been carelessly ruined).

Also - Wing Gundam Fenice, which is built, but still needs going back over to fix any seam lines, then painting and posing:

It's been a couple of months since reaching this point though...

Then, inspiration struck for a long back-burnered project:

Had a hankering to re-watch the film while my wife was out at a hen do, and set to digging out a selection of gribbly bits (and then watching the 2011 prequel, which honestly I enjoyed)

Ah, horrific aberrations in miniature form presented without comment. Inspiration burned fiercely and I finished building half a dozen or so miniatures, but ground to a halt somewhat when I couldn't find a suitably sized dog head that I liked. To see someone that actually finished their Thing project (and also that is good), click here for inspiration. If I make one more man-sized Thing, two more Spawn sized Things, and one boss sized Thing that should be enough to knock up some rules...

Then, running into a friend of mine, the conversation ran over a selection of RPG topics, touching on the Iron Kingdoms RPG, and I was reminded of how good the fluff is for Warmachine, with a complex, mulit-layered plot that actually advances. I had every MK1 book, and decided to go back and get caught up with everything I'd missed in the last decade (seriously, if you've never read any Warmachine lore, give it a go - I think they set up a company to generate steampunk war fiction and the wargame was just a happy accident that spun out of it). As these things tend to, this gave me a hankering to paint some miniatures. Handily, I already had a selection of miniatures in the Lead Mountain, and thus was able to dig out some bits and bobs without spending any money.

Well, that was the plan anyway.

What can I say, I was minding my own business trawling eBay and I'm a sucker for a bargain. Also for classic sculpts like this Haley. 

Side note: reading old issues of No Quarter, Kev White sculpted way more Warmachine and Hordes miniatures than I had previously realised. 

So yeah, Haley (because I love her in the lore. Not because she's an epic time controlling protagonist, but because she spends an amount of time going 'oh bugger it' which amuses me) and some Stormsmiths, because I like their triangulate ability, it appeals to the maths side of me.

Also, since I got Haley, I got her character Jack Thorn too so she'd have a friend. And a Squire, because I've wanted a little robot battery for a while.

So into the stripping pot they go:

(with a few chums)

Not everything I wanted to strip would fit in the pot though... There's a lunchbox full of leftovers I've got my eye on though as soon as I can slip it past my wife...

While we're on the subject of hits to the Tally, I found myself with an hour to kill between visits at work (darn trains) so nipped into a games shop that I'd never been into, and as you should always support local businesses that you enjoy or else they will disappear treated myself to some Thri-Keen from the Nolzur's miniatures line:

Probably not something I'd ever use, but I've got a soft spot for those wacky bug men. Anyway, there were no beholders.

So, four months of purchases brings the Tally to:

2 vs 27 = -25

Honestly, could have been way worse. 

I looked over the 2019 Challenge just in case I'd accidentally knocked something off, but no such luck. If I finish a miniature every other day until the end of the year, I should be able to cross off at least one thing...

While it may seem that I've mostly been building and accruing miniatures, some painting has occurred, it's just that I've generally got someone with me:

So, expect to see some finished miniatures in the near future...

(check out those liver spots - thanks to the Midwinter Minis painting videos for inspiring that)