CD Terrain

These have been sitting around for a while now, just awaiting some flock to be called done. CD base, bark mulch for rocks, spackle, and sand.

Fina and Gretchen approve!

I had wanted to spend the afternoon getting a start on painting my new Cthulhu warband for Of Gods and Mortals but those girls decided to build a fort in my painting spot. Ah, well. They played together all day with only one minor fight. That's a triumph right there and well worth a minor delay in my hobbying. Plus, I got to finish some terrain (something I struggle with at times).

A Departure!

A friend's wife, Tory, asked me to paint a mini for her role playing game. The miniature is Lini, a 28mm gnome druid from Pathfinder. Tory showed me some artwork she liked with Lini casting a spell bringing forth vines from the ground. So here's my interpretation. The rock and vines are greenstuff. The leaves are from some aquarium plants I had lying around.

Greek Villa!

Since I'm waiting on my Khurasan order to arrive (he said he should start shipping his back log next week) I decided to make a terrain centerpiece for my Greeks. A little googling later I decided on a fairly simple Greek house.

Foamcore base structure.

Doors, shutters, and roof added. 15mm GZG mini for scale.

Quite proud I remembered to add extra strength with these bamboo skewers. 

Primed house. Sand and plasticard pavers added.

Mostly finished. I've since done a black wash on the tile roof that I am not entirely happy with.

Yesterday I bought a canvas drop cloth and some caulk. I'm going to try my hand at a battle mat to match the arid basingI've used for my Greeks.

Still haven't played a game of Of Gods and Mortals yet but it feels good to get back to the hobby.

Movement Trays!

More on the Greeks...

I have never used movement trays before, let alone scratch built them. But Of Gods and Mortals suggests them and, especially for the close order troops, it just makes more sense. OGAM suggests using a compact disc for the open order troops. But that's for 28mm. Much too big for seven 15mm guys. A trip to the craft store got me these nice oval blanks:

I found plastic card the same thickness as my penny bases, taped it to a board and used a 3/4 inch drill to make the holes. A little spackle and sand later...

You can see I also made some plugs to fill in for casualties. I made enough plugs to also use as condition markers. Nothing specific, just general reminders about who jas activated.

Here's a few in progress pics of the closed order tray:

My very anal setup.

If I had it to do over I would have the hoplites a little closer together but they work for now.

Thanks for looking!

Of Gods and Mortals Greeks!

Well, it's been over a year since I've posted anything. And truth be told, I haven't done much hobby-wise during that time. A friend and I heard the call of Saga, even got some minis but the will and the staying power just wasn't there. They are all sitting on my dresser gathering dust right now. 28mm too. That might be why they languish. 15mm really has gotten it's hooks into me.

So I finally took the plunge and splurged on the rule book for OGAM and a handful of Xyston Greeks. I cannot express how much I love these minis. The are simply beautiful sculpts. I was going to buy some 28mm mini to use as a god by then my daughters found this old (pretty crappy to be honest) GW plastic minotaur on the floor in the basement. Fortune favors the parsimonious I suppose.

So here they are in their phone-pic glory. There's a few shields missing that I need to glue back on. And I was much more pleased with the minotaur's skin tone before spray-coating him. The purple is so much more purple now. Oh well. The warband is done and ready to play.

Now I'm waiting on an order from Khurasan for my Cthulhu warband. I have a feeling I'll be waiting a while. My friend ordered some vikings at the beginning of December and didn't get them until after Christmas. Not a huge deal but the waiting is making my eyes wander over toward Japan and a possible samurai warband. Damn you lead addiction.

A Game 6 Years in the Making

This past Saturday my 6 year old daughter, Gretchen, asked to play a game. She'd asked a few times over the past few months and despite my fear that I would get everything set up and she'd have changed her mind I decided to give it a go.

I gave Gretchen 7 "girl" minis, all from GZG's Spaceship Crew and Ravagers sets. The Not-Inara mini was the prisoner of an evil witch doctor whose 9 zombie guards were patrolling the small town (I used some Whitewash City paper models along with some of my sci-fi shanties and the comm bunker made a good "dungeon").

The rules were inspired by Ganesha Games Song of Blades and Heroes mechanics but considerably simplified. All the minis had a single Skill that could be used for everything. Need to shoot a zombie? Roll and d6 and add your skill. Need to pick a lock? Roll a d6 and add your skill. I gave Gretchen's ladies a skill of 4. The zombies would shuffle along with a 2. We used long match sticks for movement, the ladies could run on there turns using two match sticks but the zombies could not.

I spread the zombies around on the main road through town and Gretchen set up her ladies in a corner where she quickly established all the relationships in her group. There were sisters, cousins, a mom and daughter, and I'm pretty sure a few of them didn't like each other.

After she killed the first two zombies she realized how much tougher her girls were than the zombies and she just knew she had the game in the bag. But then she got within range of the witch doctor who promptly turned one of the ladies into a zombie. Gretchen was gobsmacked. She didn't want to attack the new zombie because that was so and so's sister. But she didn't want orange girl to get eaten either. She solved her problem by concentrating fire on the witch doctor, who dodged many a bullet (much to Gretchen's dismay) but fell in the end. The girl was unzombified, the princess was rescued, and there was much rejoicing.

This was so much fun. I loved how quickly she just made up personalities and backstories for her minis. What would take me a half hour and a whole set of tables to come up with she effortlessly produced within a minute. And the math! This is a great way for her to practice her math! I threw in some plus and minus modifiers on the fly and she worked right through them.

She has now decided that we are doing this every Saturday. That sounds pretty good to me.

New Armor and Some Repeats!

The past few weeks I've been slowly but surely working through the APCs and AGS. I've had these models for what seems like forever and I finally got the motivation to work on them. I decided to try weathering with pastels. I think I might have tried it before (some of the sticks of chalk show evidence that I have) but I can't remember what models or if I was just trying it out. It went on a little thicker than I would have hoped for. Part of that is that I had to do two coats... the first layer was much too dark. But overall I'm pleased enough with these to take the pics and call them done.

In that last pic I threw in the flat-bed. It will eventually carry a MRL but I had a little trouble with the primer. I don't know whether the humidity was too high or I didn't shake the can well enough but the paint really bubbled. And then, being a resin newb, I tossed it into some nail polish remover. Mistake. The resin does not like acetone. Ah well. Lesson learned. And now that I look at the missile launcher pod again I don't think it's all that bad. I'll prime it this week and get it painted.

Thanks for looking!