Assembling an Assortment of projects

 Another quick post to show off some more minis getting assembled this past weekend. Had hoped to get a little painting done too, but getting this lot off their sprues, connecting areas and mold lines trimmed & filed, resin parts washed in dishsoap and warm water and then painstakingly glued together was a lot more work than I had anticipated!

3D printed vehicles and the resin bits either about to be scrubbed or drying. Damned fiddly business

Starting off there are four WW2 Winter German Grenadiers for the final infantry squad in my planned German Bolt Action army. Kept the builds simple and left off all the gear (Water bottles, pouches, bayonets, etc) to keep painting simple and hopefully a swift effort, but I may come back to this and add them afterall as they don't look "right" I think. Another five to build and basing material applied before I'll prime and then add them to the painting queue.

Couple of riflemen, a bloke aiming a Panzerfaust and an ammo-carrying assistant to the yet to be built squad LMG support trooper. 

Next up are the contents of the Relic Knights starter set by Ignition Core Games - teams from the Radiant (Good guys) & Void (Bad guys) factions. Lovely sculpts produced in a decent resin material (Thankfully not that awful Restic used in the game's 1st edition sculpts.). Details are very crisp and cleanup was very minimal. These are now primed grey and ready for paint.

Radiant faction figs. The tiny guy at front right is missing a rear leg so I contacted Ignition Core Games who are sending out a replacement this week. Great customer service!

Void faction figs. The small 3-man squad was super fiddly to assemble and I spent more time ungluing my fingers from bits than anything else!

And lastly, another Relic Knights sculpt, this time from their 1st Edition range. This model is a large lad, standing at almost six inches tall. (More on him in a later post, I want to get the above starter set figs painted up first before I move on to stuff from other factions in the game.)

If you were a huge Space Oni sporting a massive Tetsubo (Japanese war club), you'd surf on the back of a giant robo-lion too!

I'm soon to have the next couple weeks off from work so I'm hoping to get some opportunities to paint some of the above if my real life responsibilities allow. Watch this space.

Also I have a game of Bolt Action calendared for this Thursday so expect a post on that too thereafter!

Hope all are safe and well,

- Dai

Another Year Incoming

Things here have obviously been quiet. 

As the none of you who've noticed, I haven't posted. There's been relatively little to post about in my hobby. Real life right now just isn't presenting many opportunities for hobby or gaming. I did not manage to get any more East Front scenery painted up as I'd hoped. 

I did manage to attend a 3-game Bolt Action event on Veteran's/Memorial Day last month with my goodest mate Densmol and finished middle of the pack. Fun three games with very pleasant opponents, two of which I'd never played against before. (No pics were taken though as I'd managed to guzzle a beer or two after meeting up with the estimable Stew from the Terrible Loss of Lead and Wealth blog. - He's a very bad influence I tell ya!) 

 Here are two old resin minis from a game that was originally Kickstarted (1st Edition) in 2014, Relic Knights, then a 2nd Edition was Kickstarted in 2017. Neither Kickstarter project was run well and only the first was actually fully fulfilled by the creators who are now a bankrupt entity. (I even posted about hobby activity on those original minis back in 2014!) So where does this leave the game? (I hear you not ask) Well dear reader, a new (way) smaller but far better ran game company bought the rights to the game title and all of it's existing sculpts based out of Texas (Ignition Core Games) and they have very selectively, slowly and cleverly been releasing product for the game's 2nd Edition under their own banner. So far it has a small and enthusiastic following on Facebook and Discord and I like the way the new owners are so interactive with that following. I hope to be afforded time next year to work on a number of minis for this new edition of the game in 2026 and even to try out the rules. Watch this space!

These resin figs are from the Cersi Speed Circuit faction. The guy on the left is Asger Faust. I kept his paintjob simple as his game art shows some designs on his coat, but I was not in the mood to try freehanding such nonsense. The pink-haired filly on the right is one of the Pit Crew girls (There is a second girl of the team half-painted as I type this) and with that quite insane facial expression she has, I fully do not trust her intentions on where she thinks that huge wrench should be placed. 

As far as Real Life: I got a small promotion at work in August and am currently doing my best to pass a 12-month probation period, so I've had to apply myself rather more than normal LOL. This blog also had a birthday at the beginning of October, turning an impressive 14 years old. AND I turned 49  that month and found myself regularly dour at the realisation that this is my last year of my 40's. So things have happened, just not much hobby. I'm not sure if I'll even have anything blog-worthy to post up before the New Year; free time as mentioned is hard to come by and there are a LOT of seasonal gatherings coming up. But you never know, lady Fate may well smile upon this humble hobbyist and afford him 2-3 hours for painting before January and the peace he finds in it?

Regardless, with a new year on the horizon, I once again turn to hope for opportunities to reveal themselves so that I might be able to work on some of my unpainted mountain and even manage to get some gaming in. Wish me luck. I have tried hard to not add much to my pile'o'shame, but priorities for my hobby this year are looking like: 

1. Painting more armour for my WW2 Greeks (Picked up a trio of rubbish light tanks on a Black Friday sale just to have more options for list building in Bolt Action)

2. Painting my WW2 Late War Canadians, namely that pair of Buffalo transports, outstanding infantry squads and the new pair of WASP Universal Carriers that were also bought in the Black Friday purchase.

3. Relic Knights - me and J bought into some of this new stuff. It arrived at his place yesterday. We are both jazzed about it, so out came all the 1st Ed stuff from my storage to see just how many options we'd have including the new additions for future games. Yeesh... that's a LOT to paint up. 

4. I need more time.

This short post ends with "Merry Christmas", "Happy Hannukah", "Happy Kwanzaa" and enjoy whatever other holiday celebrations are important to you at this time of year with your loved ones; I certainly intend to do so with my own. Stay safe out there in this far too frequently frightening world.

Much love, 

- Dai  

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Betty and Lug

Alright - Alright! Last time posting on these two, I promise.

Simon wanted a team pic, so here they are together. After a swift paint session last night to fix Betty's face I'm finally happy with her eyes. Not perfect, but far more "anime" than they were previously. Also added a spot of light blue in her goggles lenses and a bit of pink to accentuate her lip more. I think they make a really cool looking team.

The California morning sun is bleaching out some of Betty's colours in this pic, but it was the best I could do.

As well as adding a brown to create an iris, I aslo added some skin colour under the eye to lessen the gothy-looking mascara mess that was there before. Paint came out a little thicker than expected, but on the tabletop she'll do just fine.

Started work on a Relic Knights "Pacer" robot thing too - though I'll post more on that when it is further along. Going again with the studio scheme as I've never been that comfortable painting "pink", so we'll see how that goes!

Also got another pair of zombies swiftly painted. They just need slight blood effects and eyes dotted in. (Only 34 to go...) I'll get them finished and photographed this weekend and maybe they'll have some mates join them too.

Blackeyed Betty

I will say this now - I really dislike trying to paint Anime style eyes. 💀💀💀

And, as you'll see below it shows. So apologies right up front for the shitty effort at painting them, I do very much intend to return to fix them at a later date when I am not nearing the urge to just feed her to an effin' blender.

Here's Betty, partner to previously shown Lug. She's a mechanic and Pit Boss to a racing team in the Relic Knights setting.That big yellow and grey gun thing she's toting is also some sort of future-tech wrench I believe. I tried to stick with the studio scheme to match Lug's paintjob and the illustration above. Painting chequers is a pain in the arse by the way when your brushpoints are all shot to bollocks.

*edit* I just realised that I forgot to paint the lenses of her goggles! 

Also picked up very affordably a Reaper Bones "Pillar of Evil", which was a stupid quick paintjob. Wanted it to look a bit like alabaster or some such. It has three sides, but all are identical. Wanted to test out Reaper's claim that their Bones plastic "needs no primer prior to painting", guess they were correct, at least on this piece. Very cool. Will make a nice rpg item of interest or something I can stick in photos of minis as background decor.

Also, after Simon posted up his lovely Dark Ages sheep at his blog from www.war-bases.co.uk, I just had to get a set. And I got a set of geese. and a wee pack of wolves. And a pair of Highland coos and their coo calf. Blame Simon and visit his blog - he churns out a lot of cool stuff and it's a varied so there'll be something for everyone's gaming blog tastes!

Lug versus the Undead

Done, in all his wasp-y finery. Lug is the 1^st Relic Knights mini I’ve painted in a rather long time. I tried to stick to the colour scheme of his artwork from his stat cards and also in the rule book as I liked how it stood out and because I hadn’t painted that much yellow at one time in a long time.

The mini was produced in horrible restic plastic, but thankfully no detail was lost or was softened (As happens a lot when minis are produced in this medium in my experience) due to Lug being a larger sculpt. The mini was primed grey like 90% of my figs and then base coated in a mustard yellow (Proper paint name escapes me.) and Codex Grey and then washed with Gryphonne Sepia Wash and Nuln Oil respectively. I built up the grey’s with successive layers of Codex grey lightened with white, and the yellows likewise with the mustard colour lightened. The black areas got a little highlight with P3 Cryx somethingorrather and then Nuln Oil wash applied on top. All green areas were painted with a Vallejo bright green/German-camo colour, lightened with white and a wash of an older Citadel green. The base is pretty simple Army Painter Gunmetal washed with Nuln Oil and highlighted with the Gunmental again, with an old Citadel Bronze here and there as spot colours.

I’ve started work on Lug’s pal, Betty as well, though progress is slow. Again, I’ve tried to stick with the scheme shown in the artwork, but goodness trying to paint those chequers is a pain in the arse! Hope to have her posted up sometime this week.

I also got time to finish the first 5 of my zombies I’d planned to paint this year. Just simple efforts, base-coats with Agrax wash and some simple Tamiya Clear Red+a drop of brown ink for blood effects. They are going to die in droves and I am not about to put that much effort into minis that aren’t going to stay on the table very long! They look good enough for gaming in my eye and made a nice distraction whilst watching Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny on Netflix yesterday. :)

Lug (WIP)

In my last post I mentioned I had started work on a couple of Relic Knights minis, Betty and Lug. These two are a mechanic (Betty) and her Chee (The sentient robots of the setting) bodyguard (Lug). In-game, they are a team you can choose to play from the Cersi Speed Racer faction (Mostly girl faction of very fast, but low armoured troop choices. Lots of bums and boobs though.) and can pack a punch in hand-to-hand combat.

This scheme is based off the studio scheme and rulebook artwork. I've found painting yellow isn't all that tricky and rather rewarding to be honest.

Just a couple WIP pictures of Lug thus far. I’ve still loads to get done on his grey parts, black stripes, green glowy bits and facial details. O and the base, though that’s going to be very simple metallic. I hope to get more painting done tonight and might even get him complete if I have enough time after working out.

Kind of wished I'd glued him further back on his base - the mini is a little front heavy. Might add some counter-weight to the underside of the base's rear area to compensate.

(Betty has also gotten a little paint on her, but the orange I had tried using left a horrible finish, so I may well have to strip her *ooo err missus* and start again.)

*O and to allay any fears to the contrary, I have NOT given up alcohol. The title to my last post was in response to the “World Book Day/week/month/whatever” posts I’d seen of late. “Five give up the Booze” is a book I’d recently finished reading based off of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series – some sort of parody novel.

Cheers.

Zombtober 2014!

A day of misses.

Missed that my physio appointment today was cancelled and drove half way across town for nothing. >_<

Missed that this blog turned 3 on the 1st. Am rather impressed that it's still going and seemingly stronger than ever.

Missed the deadline for posting this by 20-odd hours, but a little late is better than not at all.

Regardless, it's here and it's my first piece for Zomtober 2014. 

First zombie is done. Bit of a test piece for the rest of my small band of merry rotters. Black hands and feet cos that's where blood drains too. Fluids leaking out of orifices above the shoulders cos my wife (Who works with the carcasses of the recently expired.) says is what happens and apparently far too frequently.
All my Zombies are a mix of parts from both the Zombie and Ghoul kits made by Mantic. Can't say I'm overly impressed with a majority of Mantic's stuff, but their Zombies are in my opinion the best fantasy zed-heads out there. The Ghouls just help add some variance to poses.
Painting was mostly just a base coat then washes galore. Simple and quick and dirty as ever, but effective I think for zombies. Just need to touch up his fingers as the black wasn't evenly applied at the ends.

No idea why this one came out so dark?

One down, seven to go!

Also managed to finish up one of the Relic Knights Kyojin Beserkers. Cruddy pics, though they hide a lot of the lazy painting I ended up doing to get this off my table. :) Still, I think he'll be more than good enough for gaming. I wanted to make his club look like it's carved from a bone of a large creature.

I'll get cracking on his team mate soon.

*I've also since added a couple of dried grass style tufts to make his base look a little more interesting. And he's also gotten a flat coat spray too.

*edit* Decided to take a couple extra pics with my wife's new phone which has a better camera.

Berserker and Mr Zed for scale. I think the club toting fellow has the upper hand, eh?

I think from here on I'll ditch the white backgrounds. Seems to bleach out detail horribly. This paint desk view is way better.

Bare-chested Manly Men

Slow week of hobby progress due to health issues, but I did get a little painting started on my Relic Knights Noh Kyojin Beserkers.

Also here are a couple finished pics of that old Citadel Barbarian from my last post. (Again, like I mentioned - for these rpg minis, the paint jobs are fast and tabletop.)

And here are the Beserkers with their skin almost done and the Noh Render (Who has been surprisingly fun and deadly to play with in game!).

A little bit of this, and a little bit of that

My post for this week for the 6-month challenge.

I've been mostly putting stuff together and finishing the organising. Seems the Flames of War stuff needed the most attention, so here's what's left in my collection in a Bits'n'Pieces chart.

Once again, saving as a jpeg fuzzed up the letters, but it's clear enough to see what's on the list.

I started off by building the 3 Sherman tanks and priming them. Then I thought, hell why not prime those Cromwells too. Then I sprayed the Stuart V's (Forgot to take a pic of the Stuarts though.). I guess I was high on paint fumes as I went on to prime all but 20 or so of my random rpg minis.

All the outstanding pieces for my Flames of War germans arrived too so I've been getting those ready for priming too.

Prior to primer. These are the plastic models from the Open Fire boxed set. They were a pain in the arse to put together.

Shermans in top left primed. Primered. Whatever. German platoons in the forground - SS-Pak40 platoon, 1iC et al, SS-HMG platoon. Behind them are my 3rd Panzer ivH and a wee Marder iiiM self propelled anti-tank gun.

8 Cromwells and 2 Challengers all primed and ready for paint!

I've also got cracking on the Necromancer I'd showcased previously. He's a flippin brilliant sculpt, weasily and creepy as heck. Love it.

WIP - still need to lighten the skirt some, though not much as I want this model dark and dreary with grey-black skin and ebony eyes.

Lastly I was lucky enough to have a pal at Gen Con who purchased me some Noh Empire minis for Relic Knights. So now I have two factions to play. These are put together and just need some more love on their bases. But at least I can play them as they are (Hopefully tonight!). These Oni sculpts are pretty sweet!

More to come!

Interlude Part 8

It's been a while eh?

I've been a bit off on blogging of late, so forgive the lapse in time since my last entry.

Life has been a bit busy keeping up with the World Cup and our trip to Panama took up quite a bit of my time. I did manage to get some hobby work done though nothing impressive.

The wee kitten in this image seemed to have made it's home amongst these concrete objects right next to the shoreline next to downtown Panama City.

The trip to Panama was amazing. Quite simply the best holiday I can ever remember going on. My wife's family were very welcoming and Panama itself was so beautiful and full of life (Being that it's Jungle almost throughout.). I've never seen colours so vibrant, nor experienced nights so full of the noises of local fauna. I would wholeheartedly recommend any to go there and see it all in person.

World Cup was... disapointing for Italy, but nice to see both Miroslav Klose beat the record for most goals scored in World Cup history and young James Rodriguez of Columbia getting the golden boot. Italy were taken down (In this humble football supporter's opinion.) by the terrible play calling by severely inept refereeing seen throughout the competition. Okay, sour milk set aside and bad sportsmanship hat removed. Once again, the wait for the next World Cup (This time in Russia) will be a long ordeal, but hopefully with a better outcome for my team!

On to hobby news:

On Saturday 26th July, the NorCal Flames of War Circuit will host a tournament at Gamescape North in San Rafael. It'll be a 1250 MidWar "Urban" effort, with small 4'x3' tables and some old city-fighting-type rules being used throughout three rounds - "Across the Volga" (Allows Artillery to be off-table support [as it should be imo.] choice.) and "Sewers" (For sneaky, tho unpredictable infiltrating fun). Playing space should hopefully be packed with houses, so I expect A LOT of infantry lists.

For my own list, I've gone with the 8th Army Infantry (Italy) out of the North Africa book. I'll post up more on what my list contained and who I played in my next post, including a report of my resounding victory [not]! So for this tournament, I only had one platoon to paint up to field a fully painted force - a requirement according to my Pride and Ego - ugly buggers at the best of times. I wanted some elite infantry in my list so bought some Mid War Commandos. These boys are flipping cool models with even cooler rules. a 2+ in assaults has seen them carve through german grenadiers in practice games and I can't wait to try them out on Saturday.

Here's a phone camera picture, I'll take better ones after the tournament:

Comin' at you!

I've also been slowly, slowly picking up all the pieces for my planned German "Kampfgruppe Arnheim" list so I'll have that "bad guys" force to play against my son in teaching games. Pak40's, Jagdpanzers, "SS" this and that - just to have really bad, guys. Not sure when I'll get around to painting them though. :P

Lastly, My Kickstarter stuff from the Relic Knights Kickstarter finally arrived and I've been gluing together all my scantily-clad anime racer girls from the Cersi Speed Circuit faction. I've only fumbled through one game so far with my mate who also went in on the Kickstarter and thus far I like what I have played. The game is a refreshing change from regular rules sets and I really like the setting too. I'll be reporting more on this on a separate blog altogether along with links to a podcast I'll be co-hosting with a forum mate dedicated to the game Relic Knights itself. Links will be forthcoming as and when I have them ready.

Cheers.