Rangers of the wldlands

    Again, while I should have been getting on with the big projects (and I promise that I am) another small project that has been sitting on my shelf for way too long has managed to jump the queue. In this case, it is the rangers that were the reason I actually did the Midlams order, with the gnomes, earlier this year.

   The idea behind these was that I could play a themed warband for Rangers of Shadowdeep, Open Combat or Frostgrave but I'm now also thinking of adding my other two rangers and using them as an elite unit for Dragon Rampant as part of my 'Baratheon' army. Either way, it'll look like a good little unit for fantasy games.

Thanks for reading

Mild Winter Snow Trolls

   With my Vikings project over and zomtober on I don't want to get too heavily into my next project just yet, I am happy to sit back for a few more weeks and slowly paint anything that I fancy and this is another one of those*. I am down to my last few Frostgrave figures to play through the campaign in the core book ** and it seems daft not to try and shift some of them out of the painting queue while I have some time to play with.
   I picked up two Heresy Miniatures Snow Trolls in the add on stage of his kickstarter with the plans to use them as Snow Trolls in a set of rules I had just picked up and when they arrived I dumped them in my 'to do box' and carried on with what I was doing. Recently I sat down to work out what I would need to run a Frostgrave campaign for about 4 players - warbands, wizards and monsters. With the list written and marked with what I had painted, I went into my box to see what else I had and these guys came up as obvious contenders to get painted.

* Don't worry, I have loads of

projects waiting in line.

** The pile for the supplements

is a little un-nerving

   All the photos online are of these guys painted various shades of white, and that was my plan, however, my version of frostgrave is not that frosty as I am keeping my generic fantasy figures as multi-use as possible, so the more I thought about it the more pure white didn't fit, so I settled on a colour scheme that suggests cold but not the arctic.

   Below I have added a scale photo with a Frostgrave wizard and a Heresy Miniatures barbarian just to show that these are big monsters.

Thanks for reading

Zomtober 2017 - Week 1

Zomtober zombie count: 1

   So Zomtober is here again, and much as I spend all year holding off my zombie themed projects and trying to plan what I want to do when it does happen, it always sneaks up faster than I am actually prepared for. With this year being even worse - a single day to get my first entry finished - I need a plan.
   With the deadline fast approching I decided to do the most logical thing, paint a zombie from a project you are already working on, in this case, Frostgrave. I have been sorting out my remaining sprues and bags of metal from the nickstarters and the various bits I have picked up on my travels and trying to get them ready for the table, in this list were a zombie and skeleton that I wanted to have as options for a bit of necromancy. Using left over mercenary bodies and upgrade bits from the cultist sprues I kit based one of each, aiming for the zombie to look fairly fresh, while the skeleton has been out there for a while now.

   While I have been mostly working on my Vikings recently, it hasn't stopped the steady trickle of Frostgrave related bits getting painted and while I am doing a post on Frostgrave undead, it made sense to include these guys too.

Check out Pulp Citizen's blog for more details on the Zomtober festivities.

Thanks for reading

Odds and Sods 3

   It has been a while since I did an Odds and Sods post - this time last year almost to the day weirdly* - but my painting desk is so full of bits of projects that this was unavoidable to someone like me. This post has Dinosaurs, a WW2 Soviet tank, Star Wars droid and Frostgrave, so lets begin.

*Must be something about the first week of September

   First up are the Oviraptors that I picked up from North Star. I was in the market for more of their wire spears as mine have gone walkabouts, but they have some of the most dangerous emails in the hobby and I am afraid I was one such casualty. I did my customary research into this dinosaur and basically came back with the knowledge that it is another 'do what you want' as the scientists don't know, so I picked my favourite scheme and went for it. I really do need a ruleset to play with these figures now, as this collection is getting a bit out of hand.

   After nearly a year of break from Bolt Action, I have picked it up again and started organising games and a couple of tournaments. The army I enjoy playing the most are my Soviets and my favourite tank to use is the SU-76 but I have always wanted to try it's up-armoured brother, the SU-76i**, so when I found out that Company B sold one (via Great Escape Games in the UK) it was a must buy.

**Actually based on captured Pz3 and stugs

   Carrying on from last time, I still have a fair few Frostgrave figures on my desk, of which these 3 made it through the painting process; another man at arms, a white gorilla and a medium construct. The man at arms is from Ladies in Sensible shoes***, the white gorilla is North Star and the medium construct is from Black Hat Miniatures and was bought without a plan, but with my Frostgrave resurgence I knew exactly what to use it as.

***Like the unknown templar from last time.

   Last up is a test model I bought from Tritex Games. I was after a better Owlbear model for D&D**** and spotted they had a Star Wars Miniatures category, so I bought a couple of bits as test items for size comparrisons with Imperial Assault.

****My character now has a magic item

that summons an Owlbear on command.

   The one I bought to actually use in games - probably as scenery - was the astromech droid ' Red' which was the one that malfunctioned when Luke bought it instead of R2-D2 in the 4th film. A quick ink wash and basing brought it up to gaming standard but size was the big issue, but as you can see below, while the model is smaller than R2, it isn't massively smaller, so I wouldn't be upset using it in the same game.

   The only other thing to test was the human sized characters, so I picked up a Sith Nobel with plans to use him as NPC in D&D, but he does seem to fit Imperial Assault's scale, so there is a risk I might bulk some units out with figures from this range, especially if some of the worst priced units work out scale wise (thinking Jawa's here).

Thanks for reading

Back from the [Frost]grave

   Over the last couple of months I have been sorting out my man-cave to create a home office and this has lead to a few changes in the way I treat my hobby, but the important ones for this post are the figures I have uncovered* and the rulesets I have decided to either drop** or start playing again.

   One of the projects that has been brought back to life is Frostgrave. I last played this in 2015 when I got 3 mates together and ran a mini day campaign using my own figures, but for some reason we never did it again and so, with no deadline looming, no more figures were painted even though I had to strictly enforce what soldiers the players could buy as I didn't have enough figures to allow multiples of pretty much anything.

*My lead pile isn't bad enough that these figures are a shock, more

that they have been pushed up the queue by having been found.

**I now have more non-GW rules and supplements than I 

own of GW's, for the first time in my gaming life, after

clearing off two shelves of old rulebooks and codexes.

   So focusing on the base rulebook (my Gnolls and Cultists are an issue for another day) I went through my lead pile and picked out anything interesting looking figures. First up were two knights, from Crusader Miniatures who were a by product of another project, and a templar who is either a nickstarter exclusive model or a Wargames Illustrated show model, I forget which.
   I went for 2 different tactics with my painting, the knights I decided to go early medieval with basic heraldry, while I went to town with transfers on the templar. For me this is the biggest joy of a warband style game like this, you can just pick up a figure and paint it how you want as long as you keep the basing standardised.

   Last up are a bunch of the North Star plastics. I literally just went through my last couple of sprues and built figures to fill in gaps, so I bulked up my men at arms so every player can now have at least one and added more crossbows although I still have more to paint up.

Thanks for reading

Odds and Sods 2

    Just a really quick post this time to show the odds and sods that have worked their way across my desk in the recent week or so.

   

     First are more German tank crew from Artizan Designs' pulp range. They are early war but fit in really nicely to fill out both my squads, while the female crew(wo)man was just too cool not to pick up at the same time. Thank you for the suggestion Simon!

    Next up are yet more fantasy figures I bought when I first started looking into Frostgrave. I suspect I went too heavy buying up random interesting figures for the game but while there is no pressure to get them painted and I can just do them as I fancy, they have been really good fun in between other projects. There is generally one on my desk at all times.

I'm aiming for a slightly more substantial post next time, so, thanks for reading

Gribblies

      After a weekend fighting my own little gribblies and aware that my painting desk is looking as full as ever I picked an easy looking unit to paint before at full health I could go straight back into something more complicated.

     These are what I picked: some more Heresy Miniatures in the form of the Terror Grub and Giant Slugs. I just need to put some thought into what the hell I plan to do with these now, and why I have the niggling feeling that I want some more?

Thanks for reading

Odds and Sods

     After another long, and particularly busy, week at work, the best thing to do on the weekend is to clear out your man cave (and the dreaded cupboard which is only held closed by mdf gaming boards leaned on the door) and sort it all out, no wait, that doesn't sound right. But it is what I did. 

     Now with a man cave that has a carpet, or at least carpet I can see again, I can get on with all those weird and wonderful figures that I bought without much of a plan for and put away to do later. This post is all about those.

      Back in 2014 (I think) I got involved in Heresy Miniature's Return of the Monsters Kickstarter to buy a big demon model, but as the kickstarter carried on my pledge level rose and rose, and then when it came time to confirm what the pledges were for I might have added a bit more, and added a little bit more since and just asked for the lot to be sent when the kickstarter was posted. All good and well, but that is 2 years of ideas and projects that I have completely forgotten about or moved on from. I picked up the first chunk of my pledge at Salute and promptly packed it away until I had time, but going through my cupboard means I have pulled out some of the models I really wanted to paint and the Cyclops above is one of those.
       The Cyclops is one hell of a sculpt, he was one of the most enjoyable figures I have painted in a long time. There was a lot of gunk on the model (I assume this was the stuff that stops the model getting stuck in the mould) but once he was cleaned up, the casting was crisp and beautiful. Nothing on this model was anything more than a base, wash and highlight and I am really pleased with the result. I just have no idea why I bought him.

       The priest was just an extra Andy from Heresy Miniatures threw in to say thanks for the pledge. As I already had one in my Open Combat/Frostgrave collection I decided to add it to my only other suitable army, my Lion Rampant force. I'm not entirely sure what to do with him in that force but he'll fit in somewhere.

       The Frostgrave Templar was, again, a free figure for backing last year's Nickstarter, but as I had painted up a whole load of Frostgrave figures I had run out of steam and had to put the rest away for a while to get my enthusiasm back. While I was painting up my Arthurian troops it dawned on me that I hadn't done anyone in my Frostgrave collection in anything like their colour scheme and this model seemed to fit the bill.

       Another model from the Heresy Kickstarter, this one was for my Frostgrave collection and, again, one of the model enjoyable models I have painted for a long time. Something about the way Andy casts just gives great figures to paint, it's just the building of some of them that is daunting.

        This is an old GW Dwarvish Troll Slayer that I started to paint probably 10 years ago (no idea where the rest of his unit went). All I have done is tidy him up and change his base, reckon he will end up in Frostgrave but I'm not all that sure.

      I think this is an old GW skeleton but I'm really not sure, I remember this guy floating around my bits box since my first trip to Salute in the early 2000's I think. He's finally been pulled out, given a shiny new shield and will be added to my undead force that went on the back burner but I keep meaning to add to.

      Last but not least, a Reaper Miniatures skeleton jester that was bought last summer as part of a big Reaper order with one of my mates. This guy has been sat on the corner of my painting desk since then, surviving every desk clear up but never getting any further than being sprayed black. 

Time to get back to my real projects again I think.

Thanks for reading

Gaming mats

     It's been another couple of weeks with very little hobby to put to my name, a mix of extra hours at work and spending time trying to bond a newly adopted rabbit to our current pair, but that doesn't mean I haven't got anything done.

     A couple of months back I backed a gaming mat kickstarter from a company called Ceri Designs. The guy behind it wanted to make great quality, versatile, but most importantly, affordable, cloth mats and as I have been on the verge of buying some mats for a while, I took the plunge, backing it for 2 of the 3x3 mats. First things first, this is the first kickstarter that I have backed that has delivered on time, that definitely deserves a mention, secondly, much as he has taken a bit of slack for the designs being fairly modular (you'll see that on my second mat) it's not something that I am overly worried about, the actual printing quality is really good and if his claims are anything to go by these things are wash proof and game proof, I'm not sure you can go too far wrong. These are definitely some of the better quality mats I have ever seen, so I am looking forward to seeing them in bigger sizes next.

     The first mat I picked was a modern urban one, I have a slowly growing collection of urban buildings that I am building and painting/spraying as and when I get enough time, my lead mountain now includes a secondary mdf peak. The mat itself is a simple crossroads, which is the basic layout I generally prefer, you can make sure both sides have a fair game, but can block off roads to get rid of lanes of fire if you want.

       The second mat I got was the basic flagstones mat that every gaming mat company has to have on their books. I picked the most basic one in the range, simply because I felt I could get more use out of a basic one used well than shoehorn a more specific mat into other uses. I can definitely see this being used for small games of VBCW, Frostgrave, Open Combat and maybe even Lion's/Dragon's Rampant.

Thanks for reading

*Edited* - The website is now live; http://www.ceridesign.xyz/

Foray into Frostgrave

      Whenever I start a new project (and yes, I do this a lot) I always start the first paragraph with who it is a blame for being a bad influence this time. This time is no exception, I blame the guys on the meeples and miniatures podcast for making me weak. Now that is out of the way we can get on with this post.
     
      This project was very much a raid on my lead mountain and work out what I can turn into a fully functioning warband and the depth of my pile of shame meant that I'm actually pretty pleased with what I got together. If I have worked out the points correctly, I think I have my 500 point force plus a spare tracker, who was on my desk when I started with project, which means enough for a game . . .

 Illusionist and his apprentice. 

I genuinely have no idea if these guys are any good in game, but as they were the wizards I already had on my desk they were the first ones to lead my band of men.

 Templar and Infantry. 

This is my biggest hitter and his 'apprentice'. The templar is from Hassel-Free Miniatures.

 Tracker and Warhound. 

The tracker is the only model not in my initial band.

 Two Thugs.

Cheap muscle and objective grabbers.

Two Archers.

No-one likes being turned into a pin-cushion without a reply.

      This is probably the cheapest project I have jumped into, in terms of buying specifically. I was given a box of the plastic frostgrave figures as a birthday present a few months back, the tracker was for a lion's rampant idea that didn't make sense about 3 hours after I ordered him, while the wizards were bought to expand my collection of generic fantasy heroes, all I had to buy was the rulebook and that was stupidly cheap compared to most new rulesets.
      The more I look at these pictures the more I am starting to think the colours are too bright, so they might get an ink wash in the future, but for now I need a game. And an opponent. . .

Thanks for reading