2013 Round-Up (just 19 days late...)

Hi guys - I've been meaning to write this post for a couple of weeks now but I have only just gotten around to it! A quick recap of what I got upto in 2013 and my next post will cover my current projects and my plans going forward...

The most important part of 2013 (with regards to my blog) is that GAMES ARE BEING PLAYED! It's difficult to underestimate how good this is - I've been "back in the hobby" for 5 or so years now, but even before my break in wargaming, I rarely played (once or less a year, despite having multiple armies!). In the latter half of 2013 I played multiple games of Flying Lead and Songs of Blades and Heroes - I've been planning out games and settings for years and it was a great feeling to see my painted miniatures and terrain on the table! I even got a couple of my non-wargaming friends to start playing (my housemate and another of my best friends) and, most importantly, they kept asking for more battles!

I've actually gotten a really decent amount of figures completed this year for various different projects and I got stuck into my zomb-apoc stuff during October with Zomtober 2013 - here are a few examples of things completed this year:

Michonne and her two "camoflage" zombies - I'm very fond of her paintjob - she was a gift to myself when I'd finished half of my Studio Miniatures plastic zombie horde! Painted as part of Zomtober 2013

Chosen Space Marines of The Desolation - In The Emperor's Name

Goblins from The Hobbit - this was a lovely plastic kit! Lots of variety too. They're to be used as devolved humans in Necromunda/Space Hulk/post-apoc

Some Private Military Contractors from Empress Miniatures (sold as SAS, mine have a couple of headswaps) - these are for zomb-apoc

Wasteland Sniper - this guy is intended as a scout/herald for a new (Caesar's Legion-inspired) faction in my post-apoc. Warmachine/Hordes

Misc Studio Miniatures plastic zombies - I did enjoy painting the ones in the prison jumpsuits and the Drive-inspired one in the front! Painted as part of Zomtober 2013

A biker survivor (em4 Miniatures) and misc feral ghouls (Mantic Games plastic zombies). Painted as part of Zomtober 2013

Missing from the round-up are various different figures, an orc and goblin warband (Celtos miniatures, for my fantasy skirmish setting), 19 pirate scum (40k Chaos Cultists), 30 or so plaguebearers (plastics and kitbashes!), more zombies... A good painting year in general!

Zomtober - Week 2 - Feral Ghouls

These Fallout 3-inspired feral ghouls were painted over a couple days earlier in the week - they're the Mantic Games plastic zombies based up on GW round bases (always my favourite, as I can weight the bottom of them with pennies, essential with plastic miniatures in my opinion!). I managed to buy around 30 of these off one of my mates (30 Mantic, plus 20 or so Westwind Soviet zombies for £10 posted - bargain!). The ones left over will become rage zombies for my normal zombie apocalypse, whilst these are painted up for my post-apocalypse setting.

In the Fallout universe, ghouls are for the most part zombies. They're caused by nuclear radiation burning out the higher brain functions, sort of preserving the human body as a walking (and in some cases talking) undead creature. These miniatures have always reminded me of them - to be honest, they've always struck me as being a bit too animated to be your traditional shambler zombie - they look like they're running forward to take a bite out of your brain!

Whilst painting these I was trying to stick as close as possible to the look of the ghouls from the game - their skin is almost a leather/completely sunburn effect - in the joints and creases of their leathery skin they're very red. I spray-basecoated these light brown, then gave them a light coat of red. I then drybrushed them in various flesh tones, followed by a dark tone wash. I did one final highlight and then created a Tamiya Clear Red wash for the creases in their skin, in the joins and the like, followed by the various details (bones, teeth, eyes). The details then got another wash and after basing them a few got some blood. Whilst painting them I selected a few for darker skin tones to mix it up a bit. Hope you guys like them!

Zomtober 2013 - Week 2

Feeling pretty happy with myself again - here's my Zomtober 2013 Week 2 completed miniatures! The biker is an em4 Future Skirmish miniature and the feral ghouls are Mantic Games plastic zombies. Posting these a couple of nights before the deadline as I'm in work all weekend! I'll be posting about these individually throughout the week.

New Project - Post-Apocalyptic Gladiatorial Combat

I've recently started new project that I've been thinking of for a while - post-apocalyptic gladiatorial combat. Inspired by the brilliant gladiators of Carmen's Fun Painty Time, I bought the fantasy gladiator Red Sand Black Moon rules from Two Hour Wargames and downloaded the free Red Sand Brown Sky post-apocalyptic add-on. 

The add-on actually uses Carmen's gladiators, and rightfully so - they're brilliant post-apoc savages! The first of my gladiators are from Urban War's Junker Gladiator range - I've previously bought and painted one of the characters from the range, a portly brute with long hair and beard, who is the current leader of my post-apoc raiders. He'll work well against these too. My plan is to link the warbands I currently game with into the fighting pits - with them betting on matches or even entering their own fighters.

Feel more than free to comment - I regularly post on Instagram (easy from my iPhone) and I'll get around to posting up the various other bits and pieces I've recently finished/been working on shortly! Still getting in lots of games of Flying Lead!

Newsflash - Actual Games Being Played!

Since getting back into the miniature wargames hobby about 6 years ago, I've always been planning to run various games in a post-apoc universe (or fantasy, or Necromunda, or a Firefly-esque...) with my circle of friends. I've always put it off - it's always been too much hassle to set it up spur of the moment, or I've always wanted to "just finish off this last [piece of terrain, miniature, objective]" - I'm sure that anyone that still reads my blog will be happy to hear that I've finally started gaming!

These are some snapshots from the bunch of test games I've run in the past couple of weeks - I'm so happy with how things are looking all set up! It's also spurred on a flurry of painting and planning! This setup was the first game - an outpost of the shanty town being attacked by raiders and the scavenger militia responding.

This game was somewhat evenly matched with no true victor...

The rules we're using are Flying Lead from Ganesha Games - I've now got a good handle on the rules and I've began importing some scenarios from Necromunda and other sources - we started a Scavenger Hunt scenario last night and I'm planning on drawing up a map of the main town and surrounding areas. I'm also going to use some rules from Fear and Faith to represent rad-ghouls and other beasties. 

A ruined suburban setup. 

Another shanty outpost.
The main inspiration for the choice of Flying Lead and my plans for a co-operative setting for my friends is Dawn of the Lead - a great blog, whose author is running a great narrative "warpg" setting, combining the likes of Aliens, Predator and Terminator into one epic sci-fi setting. This would be my future plan for my setting, but instead of the above sources, it'll be closer to Fallout, Borderlands and Firefly...

Wasteland Town - Shack 4

The last of the shanty buildings - this one uses one part of the recycled cardboard packaging that you can see on this entry on Terrain From Junk (the other blog I write for) as well as one of the camper vans reclaimed in this article.

I added various parts, including plastic tubing, plasticard scraps and corrugated card and turned the remains of the camper into an extension of the building.

The side of the building, with waste pipe - I should really add some sort of gunk to it...

I plan on adding a bunch of posters to these pieces. Posters for wasteland circuses, propaganda, wanted posters etc. - I think they'll add a lot to the lived-in feel and really dress up some of the more boring sides...

Salvaged

Another of my shantytown dwellings - a stripped-out campervan that has been patched with grating and corrugated card to turn it into one of the townsfolk's homes.

The campervan began life as a kids toy I picked up at a car boot sale. I turned it into a piece of terrain a few years back - basically a wrecked camper from a post-apoc convoy. I thought I could do better (the fact you could see the unpainted innards from various angles annoyed me...) so recently took a pair of pliers to them! I've written a post over at Terrain From Junk about salvaging materials from old terrain jobs with a bit of extra detail!

Shantytown Walkways

Just a little "proof of concept" - I picked up some I-beam plasticard and some balsa wood at the local craft/hobby shop on Friday and knocked this together quickly. The idea will be to put a good few of these together, to link up various rooftops in the shantytown. Thoughts? I'll embellish them with graffiti and bulletholes - should add nicely to the "Necromunda in the post-apoc alien desert" feel that I'm aiming for in my games... 

Black Cat Bases revisited...

Managed to get some assembly and basing done last night:

Black Cat Bases not-Claptrap from Borderlands.

Better detail of the objective market one, now undercoated (black and then over-sprayed white).

The Brain-in-a-jar-on-tracks - bit of a bugger to assemble, slightly miscast. The jar and lid are loose for painting.

The not-Left 4 Dead Hunters. I do like these, quite menacing I think!


Overall, a nice bunch of figures. Casting is fairly mediocre though - lots of moldlines on the robots, which took a good bit of filing. They're all undercoated now, in the same way as the objective marker Claptrap - black as a base with a slight white overspray - the same way I've done the rest of my zombies and survivors for the post-zomb-apoc games.

Fallout Girl

This is "Fallout Girl" from the RAFM USX Modern Day Heroes line (the same as "Scourge", the not-Army of Two miniature earlier in the blog).

Quite a nice and detailed miniature, but somehow "lacking"...

The casting is quite nice, but unfortunately, due to the slightness of the figure, what moldlines are there are rather difficult to remove. I'd cleaned the mini up, spray undercoated and basecoated it before realising there were a bunch of moldlines on the legs I'd missed.

"Fallout Girl" and "Wolfman" (Copplestone Castings) are going to become a team, both being refugee-adventurers from the same Vault (21). I'm quite happy with the way they've turned out - both are rather characterful and I like that their Vault-suits are just about barely remaining...

Name suggestions on a postcard please...

Scavenger and what's up next...

Another miniature done...

The em4 Miniatures "Road Hero" - another "decent enough" miniature, but I thought his weaponary was lacking in detail and a bit underpowered for someone who is meant to be a "hero" in my game, so he got the silenced pistol and assault rifle.

I do rather like him, but can't help but feel that he's somewhat lacking...

Finally based up this rather random Orc character - I'm used to Warhammer Fantasy's Orcs, so the noble attire is something a bit new and interesting to me! I'm not sure how he'll be painted up, blue and yellow spring to mind or the dark green and red of my Mordheim human mercenaries...

This bunch is what I currently have on the workbench - an Ogryn for Necromunda, the Anti-Pope from Spinespur, a Techmarine and several servitors, a Scaly/Big Mutant (in the yellow - he's going to be painted Fallout 3 Big Mutant style), a Sabertooth Tiger man, some WWWII Nazi scientists and some Darkson Designs "emaciated German troopers". Quite a mixed bag!

...and looking forward...

Well, this is another post that I've been meaning to write for a few days now, with real-life intervening in various ways to delay the post - I actually started writing it a week ago now, but I'm always too tired to finish it off!

Happy New Year to anyone reading - it's been a bit turbulent in the Miniature Woes' household, with various family gatherings, neighbours having heart attacks etc. etc.

What have I got planned for the year ahead?


Possibly my favourite present from Christmas, I really can't gush enough about how fantastic this is. The whole format is rather opulent, with fantastic sculpts, great accessories, great art...the whole package. In this new year I intend to get everything from the box assembled and painted for gaming with a non-wargaming friend. He's already said that he'd like to try it out and I'm rather looking forward to it! I'd also like to play it with some of my other friends, who might want to use their own forces in it (I also like the idea of using it as a "dungeon" for Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader) and I will be putting together a few variant forces for it. Namely, a Chaos Space Marine force and a force of Marines in Power Armour. They should be rather fun to do, and will be mounted on plasticard bases instead of the normal GW round ones.

2010 is going to be the year of Chaos - I currently have 3 Chaos armies that are work-in-progress, in varying degrees of completion. My Fantasy Warriors of Chaos, for example, have barely been started, whilst my Chaos Marines and Chaos Daemons have sizeable portions completed.


Another of my main projects will be the Wasteland setting - a skirmish game with miniatures from various different companies. The plan for 2010 is to take the bits and pieces of background material I have noted down/is whizzing around my head and formulate a cohesive background for at least a portion of the game world. The best way I can think to explain it is that it's something like Fallout3 meets Firefly. It's a sci-fi Earth-like world that was racked by civil war, which left the world irradiated and humanity almost thrown back to the stone age. The rest of humanity, in the stars, blockaded the world, leaving the space around the planet mined and a small fleet to keep out the scavengers. The war did not rid the world of all it's humans - pockets survived in underground bunkers and in the wilderness, where the bombs did not fall, others were mutated or stripped of their humanity by the radiation. In the aftermath of the war, settlements arose, maps were re-written, leaders arose. From time to time, ships land, smuggling various items to the surface, taking refugees at exorbitant prices...
That's about it! I have ideas for a number of towns and characters, with 5 gangs and counting, with another 3 or 4 in work-in-progress form.
To begin with, the setting was created to fit into the GW background, but since then I've decided to keep it as it's own setting. Hopefully I'll be able to have some games over the next year!

Other projects will include completing the Space Marines I currently have work in progress, and eventually starting my Imperial Guard army properly and a selection of Battlefleet Gothic miniatures and other space ships.

On the gaming front, I'd just love to be able to game more often. I need to find a decent local wargames club, as well as getting in touch with some of my old gaming mates. I have forces for a number of different games now - it'd be awesome to have a little Blood Bowl tournament, or a Mordheim campaign. A 40k campaign could also be on the cards.

In real life, I want to use 2010 to sort my knees out. I've had problems with my right knee for 4 years now, and varying degrees of problems with the both of them over the past 10 years. It's about time I had something done about it and I would be more capable of living my life.

On that note, you have my regards if you've read through all of this!

Looking back...

Well, I have been meaning to write this since somewhere near Christmas day, in anticipation of the new year and obligatory "resolutions" post :)

This is a look back over some of my projects of the last year, all the miniatures and terrain shown are examples of the work I got finished in 2009 and should give some nice indicators as to the direction of my projects in 2010. Click any of the photos for higher resolution photos - if anyone wants to see any of the minis in more detail, ask in the comments section and I'll post up some nicer pictures...

These are my Imperial Space Marines, a custom Chapter - the Shadow Wraiths. These are my largest army - I currently have something near a Battle company of Marines for these and have a number of squads to finish off - the 15 Terminators shown earlier in my blog, a Tactical squad, an Assault squad, a Sternguard squad also shown work-in-progress earlier in the blog, various Chaplains and Librarians and plans for a dual Thunder Mace-wielding Chapter Master.


My Chaos forces are a project that started sometime in the past year or so - I've had a bunch of stuff work-in-progress for a while now. It's actually two armies - a mixed force of Chaos Daemons and an army of Chaos Renegades named the Vulture Legion, who are a piratical warband drawn from various Chaos Legions and Renegade Chapters, who ceremonially strip their power armour back to the ceramite in vats of chemicals, then repainting half blood red in dedication to the overlord of the Vulture Legion. They also take on Mercenaries and Cult Troops - for example, the Tzeentchian Vorpal Brotherhood shown in the picture. In the next year both armies will be gaining reinforcements, with a squad of Plaguemarines, a squad of Havocs and a large murder-squad of Beserkers on the way for the Marines, and Fiends, Beasts and more Flamers on the way for the daemons.


This really began as a side project this year - a skirmish game combining elements of Necromunda and Gorkamorka, with a distinctly post-apocalyptic feel. Yeah, I was playing a lot of Fallout3! I have a number of ideas for this buzzing around my head, with a Fallout-like not-Earth planet combined with a Firefly-esque universe. I think I'll have completed somewhere in the region of 100 miniatures for this project this year alone, with another 60 or so miniatures rebased to fit with it. At the moment I have 5 full gangs/warbands for this, with more planned. I also have the zombies shown above, then 40 "rad-ghouls" made from the GW Fantasy plastic ghouls. I recently added some scavengers to my collection from em4 Miniatures and Copplestone Castings, so these will be seen in the new year, as well as even more...

Wasteland Terrain! Note the landmines around the playground. I love this project, and it works just as nicely with Warhammer 40k as it does with the Wasteland games. In this next year I intend to add a scavenger fortress to this collection, as well as even more car wrecks, more barricades, roads and a collapsed overpass, maybes some dead giant beasts (just skeletons remaining), crashed ships, more piles of scrap - all sorts! More about this in the near future...

Thanks for reading!
Chris

Introduction

Hey folks!
Just your basic introduction here - who I am, what I game and what I plan to do with the blog...
Well, I'm Christopher, 23 year old, currently of no-fixed-occupation. A few weeks ago I had operation number 6 on my knees, this time my right knee. I've had trouble with them both for about 12 years now, which has led to me still being yet to complete my university degree, which utterly sucks - at the moment I'm unemployed and no longer a student, at least for the time being, until my knee is sorted out. It seems as though this operation has once again failed to fix the problem, but I have to give it some extra time before the consultant can re-evaluate it. Not exactly fun!

Annnyway, I'm interested in various things, including wargames, film, gardening, cooking and reading, and the primary aim of this blog is log my wargames miniature painting progress. It'll be a place where I can keep all of my projects together and plan what I'm going to tackle next. It'll also be somewhere for me to recap the projects I've already finished, with small amounts of fiction and background material. I also aim to eventually put up battle reports and the like, when I finally start to game on a regular basis - up until this point in my wargames hobby I've mainly been a modeller and painter, which I hope to change in the new year.

As for the games and forces I collect and play, they are the following:
- Warhammer 40k: Imperial Space Marines - Shadow Wraiths Chapter - these are my main 40k army, using the basic Space Marine Codex.
- Warhammer 40k: Chaos Space Marines - The Vulture Legion - a Chaos Renegade army in the vein of the Red Corsairs - a force of Renegades and Legionnaires banded together under a charismatic overlord, with support from various different factions.
- Warhammer 40k: Chaos Daemons - a side project, these are basically various minis I've accumulated in trades and eBay bulk-buys over the past few years. One of my favourite projects.
- Warhammer 40k: Imperial Guard - these are an army I've had a while, but are in a mightily busted-up condition. Numbering 150 or so Infantry, 3 Leman Russ and 8 or so Sentinels, these will be getting some love and attention in the new year. They will be urban-operations themed.
- Warhammer Fantasy: Warriors of Chaos - another army that's waiting for some attention. These are mostly still in pieces, and also eBay bulk-buys. They'll be getting some Knights in the new year.
- Warhammer Fantasy: Dwarfs - an army that was started and finished a few years back when I got back into the wargames hobby after a couple of years hiatus - these may be sold off to sustain the hobby...
- Necromunda: Escher - these are an almost-complete gang, on lovely resin bases. They also feature in my wasteland post-apoc setting.
- Necromunda: Orlocks - finished gang, for either Necro or the mentioned wasteland setting.
- Mordheim: Human Mercenary Warband - complete.
- Mordheim: Witch Hunter Warband - complete.
- Blood Bowl: Humans - complete.
- LotR: Evil force, mixed - so far, these are complete. Might sell them...

Wasteland setting: As mentioned above, I have a lot of miniatures for a post-apocalyptic wargames setting. This is one of my main focuses at the moment, with a number of factions that are currently finished or work in progress. Mechanics-wise it will be rather similar to Necromunda, with gang-on-gang scale conflicts. No real solid plans for this gameswise at the moment, but it's very fun for modelling purposes. My main sources of inspiration for this are Fallout3, Mad Max 2, various Zombie films and Firefly.

Well, that's enough of a ramble for now. There should be regular updates coming :)
Chris