Joey...you like blog posts about Gladiators?

2013-08-11 18.44.55, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

So I picked up a bunch of Crusader Gladiators at Historicon 2012-- woof, no, make that 2011!! Wow, how time flies, I swear I thought these hadn't been sitting around that long. Anyway, over the years, I also grabbed a few different rules to try out with Number One Son, who-- at twelve-- knows more Roman history than I do. I finally got around to painting up enough gladiators to play some games, as well as a few animals. And Number One Son and I sat down and finally played our first game!

Infinity PanOceaniac Fusiliers

Infinity PanO Fusiliers, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

A couple of guys in the game group were talking about starting Infinity up. What the hey, I already have plenty of the figures, so after seven some-odd years, I have started painting them up. Here is a photo of the first three. I see now that I didn't finish highlighting the blues on the two men. Naturally. They are based temporarily on the regular bases. I'd like to do something more interesting, although I'm not sure what. I also think I'd like something more hefty, as many of the figures will be quite fragile and I'd like the base to strike the floor first when I drop them!

More Saga

Playing Saga, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Last Friday, we broke out Saga again. I was hoping to run the Escort scenario, but the player with all the wagons canceled at the last minute. We fell back on killing each other's Warlords. We set up with six points each this time, and one army of each faction. It wound up going a little long, though, and I think it probably would have been better to have stuck with either four point armies or a different scenario. Still, everybody seemed to have fun. I was reminded to take stop motion video of this game, click More to view it.

Playing Saga

Like most of you, probably, I've been hearing about the Dark Ages skirmish rules Saga lately. I played it at Historicon and was intrigued. It has something of a board game mechanic added to it, which reminded me a lot of Alien Frontiers. It's not strictly historical, outright attempting to recreate the tall tales of the Viking Sagas. The leaders stand head and shoulders above the rest of the field, although we're not really talking the excesses of 40k here.

Guest Star: Dragon

DSCN0261, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

I went with Reaper's Young Swamp Dragon for Black Fang. He was about the right size and shape. I didn't really try to follow the module concept art for this, I just painted him black.

Supporting Cast: Reefclaw

DSCN0251, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

As I've mentioned before, I had to custom convert a miniature for the adventure's Reefclaw. I started with a Reaper moray eel familiar, and added claws from the Creature Components pack, bulked out with a little sculpting putty. If I'd had more time and energy, I might have added the antennae and such, but as it, it's an acceptable figure, I think.

Supporting Cast: Spider

DSCN0259, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Here's the Reaper figure I painted up for the spider in the Beginner Box adventure. He's just a little guy for a giant spider, so I went with a realistic paint scheme on him based on some stock picture I found on the Internet. I was pleased with how he turned out.

Pathfinder Iconic Character: Valeros

DSCN0233, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

My version of the Pathfinder iconic fighter, Valeros. I wanted to make his stone mug a touristy one for Faerun, but it was pretty darn small and decided against it! I'm not very satisfied with his eyes-- but I'm done!

Iconic Pathfinder Character: Kyra

DSCN0225, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

My paint up of the Pathfinder iconic Cleric, Kyra. The eyes are a little sloppy in the magnified pictures, but in real life, her eyes are spot on for the artwork, it's really nice. Again, I totally missed that red sash. Someday-- maybe-- I'll fix it.

Time Keeps On Tickin'

Pathfinder iconic characters, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Holy Schnikes!! It seems like just a week ago I had two weeks to get the Pathfinder figures done. According to my calendar, I'm down to just one week now, as Number One Son's birthday is just next Sunday! Fortunately, I was able to bang out two more characters this weekend-- Merisiel and Kyra, the two ladies of the pregenerated characters. So I have the female-friendly angle down, and hopefully can get Number One Daughter, 12 years old, to participate with us. She is not big on gaming, but she seems to be able to feign enjoyment when I force her-- but, she does love acting, so I will be emphasizing role playing as "improvisational theater" to to hopefully pique her interest.

For Auld Lang Syne 2012

Welcome 2012! I really can't believe it's 2012 already... I elected not to violate any local ordinances this New Year's Eve, as Mik and I took my gun-controlled European brother-in-law to the shooting range and laid out a good old-fashioned American amount of ammunition for us to shoot.  Fortunately, a fellow New Year celebrant stepped up with the greatly impressive All-American Premiere.  That is definitely on my fireworks list from here on out.  Now, to reflect upon 2011, and see what's upcoming for 2012...

Blu-Tack holds the hobby together

DSCN0058, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

An amusing little snapshot of my workspace. I got the urge to put a few things together, which required a fair amount of epoxying. In the process of curing, I propped all the guys into position as best I could using one of my main stay hobby tools-- Blu-Tack. I wanted Orangatango as soon as I saw him. Super apes are fun, I already have handfuls, and one more is always appreciated. Still, as Orangutan-based super apes go, I still think Harangutan is my favorite, just for the pun. Reaper's mummy pharaoh Khalith is waiting some finishing touches that don't require any Blue-Tac-- although I used that craft paint bottle topped with Blue-Tac as a handle while painting him. I also have handfuls of Reaper Egyptian figures. They hit the table about as often as the super apes...which is to say, not very often... Speaking of super apes, or their mechanically augmented cousins, I recently stumbled across Ammon Miniatures's Cyber Monkey and couldn't let that pass by. Now he was a chore, lots of fiddly gluing and soft resin in an awkward pose-- can't wait to drop him and ruin him! Which I'm sure will happen eventually! And, speaking of resin, with Blue-Tac holding up his atrophied little wings, I assembled my ShadowSea Skullcracker Bird. I picked him up at Fall-In! and he will presumably be fighting my Neanderthals at some point as an only slightly anachronistic Terror Bird.

Bugs, Mr. Rico!

One hundred of 'em! As Nick Hawkins has noted, rubber cockroaches look surprisingly effective on the table, and are extremely cheap. I finally got around to ordering 100 of them off eBay, I really have no idea what I'll do with them, maybe 5150 with Nick's modifications. They just looked too cool not to have.

5150 40k game

Coming out of playing an FNG game at Fall-In! and not having anything planned for gaming this week, I threw together a quick 5150 game using 40k figures last night. I found some QRSs online that looked reasonable, and had about 65 Tau infantry of various stripes up against 10 Space Marines. The Marines were all Rep 5. The Tau squad leaders were all Rep 5 and the troopers Rep 4. About halfway through the game, we decided that was too high given the odds I was going for, and dropped everybody on the Tau side by 1. Otherwise, I thought it played well. I thought the table looked pretty good, too. My trees are falling apart, though. I need to figure out what I'm going to do with them...

The kids are painting well

I've been painting a fair bit with the kids lately. Here is a bunch of long out-of-print Harlequin Nightlings we've been painting. Once they're done, it's hard for me to tell which ones I've painted and which they have. As I've mentioned, we've used what I call the Velas Technique: stain painting over white primer, followed by a dip. It's very forgiving to beginning painters, and the GW Devlin Mud wash makes a non-toxic, water clean up dip that even the kids can apply. We still have several Nightlings to paint, although right now my son and I are painting Primaeval Designs Woolly Mammoths and Neanderthals. He's very much into prehistory, which is largely why I purchased them, and has repeatedly begged to paint for free, but I force him to take wages! "Son, if somebody offers you money to do something you really want to do, you say YES!"

Painting With the Kids

Back before Fall-In!, I painted a little with the kids again. We haven't done it in a while and it was nice to get back into it. We've been painting up a bunch of old Harlequin Nightlings I got on closeout somewhere along the ages. We've painted 27 foot and 4 mounted now, and they really look great. I need to run a game with them for the kids. We choose a painting style really great for inexperienced painters (what I've dubbed the Velas technique after the Velas brothers who used it to great effect as a speed painting technique)-- I prime white, then the kids stain paint with thinned paint. I go back and wash the figures with Games Workshop's Devlin Mud (an easier to clean, non-toxic version of the Miracle Dip) and then flock the bases. I've seen worse looking figures at conventions! I'd be proud to run a game with the figures my kids have painted.