Last ditch of 2014 painting part 2 -- A thrilling triple trio.

So, the last day of 2014, and the last chance to accomplish something. Some of these were finished some time ago but lacked basing, or just one splash of colour or... well, the days since Christmas I have really tried to finish as much stuff as possible. What I really wanted to do was to paint my Secret Santa panzer IV, or start building the Stompa I bought for the Christmas money I got from my mum.

Can't wait to build this bad boy for my orks. Question is... Zimmerit or no Zimmerit?

So today comes a mixed bag of stuff really. Pictures after the break as usual.

Last ditch of 2014 painting part 1 -- Deutsches Afrikakorps

So, these final trembling days of 2014 one should reminisce, spend some time with your loved ones and maybe think of the coming year. Not me. Now's the final chance to get some painting done to try and better the painting tally somewhat. More specifically I'm trying to finish all those nearly completed figures that been lying untouched for some time. It turned out to be a bigger task than I thought, but here's finally some german Africa Corps.

"Drive Tommy into the Nile! Schnell, schnell!"

More pictures after the break.

Thank you Santa!

Well, Christmas came and went and I opened my parcel from Secret Santa.

Weeee.... A tank!

A plastic Panzer IV from Warlord games... but there was something else in the box...

A dismounted panzer crew, nice.

THANK YOU SECRET SANTA!

Yule tidings

Merry Christmas my dear friends! Or God Jul, to my swedish-speaking compadres. Let's just say Happy Holidays.

Nah, just kidding. I like Christmas, I just don't like the religious connections.

...I like getting pressies though.

Ok, have I offended enough people now? So most people do end of the year summaries right now, but I won't do that just yet. That's because instead of cleaning the house for Christmas like SHMBO commands, I have been furiously painting stuff to be able to submit to the this years painting quota.

Like these late war germans from The Assault Group.

I have a bunch of stuff that is nearly finished and it seems daft to leave them like that until next year, especially as I know I will be diving into some new stuff that I have bought. A German late war platoon from the Assault Group for instance. I couldn't resist test painting three of them as you can see above. And let's not forget my secret santa present that I have no idea what it is. I think honour demands that I at least make a start on whatever it is.

A raid into my man cave reveals several forgotten treasures.

I was also drawn into a challenge between Mike Hobbs and my mate Thomas about painting up the old Battle of Five Armies game from Games Workshop. It contains a bucket load of 10mm fantasy figures inspired by the end battle from The Hobbit (the book - not the movie) and use a slightly updated version of the Warmaster rules that Rick Priestley wrote. It's been sitting in my stash for a long time now, I did paint some of the figures though so I have a small head start, I think.

So I have a bunch of stuff lined up for 2015. I did manage to finish a couple of Brimstone heroes and a bunch of Perry Africa Corps figures, but haven't had time to photograph them -- as I actually did some Christmas cleaning too. I will try to take pictures so they can count towards 2014's painting tally.

I'll end with a small video from Terry Gilliam. Merry Christmas!

Timeline Miniatures 28mm Normandy Farmhouse Ruin

In my last post I reviewed the Timeline Miniatures 28mm buildings. However, I didn't have time to build both houses. So without further ado, here's the building (pun intended) of Timeline Miniatures 28mm Normandy Farmhouse Ruin.

The Normandy Farmhouse ruin costs double the amount of the other ruin but contains many more parts.

Timeline Miniatures 28mm ruined buildings review

When I started gaming WW2 I naturally used my 1/72 or 1/76 scale figures on my Märklin model train layout. This was a very long time ago and I used my own homebrew rules that had grown out of simple play. I then discovered "proper" wargaming in the way of Warhammer and was instantly drawn in. Years later when I returned to WW2 gaming I naturally chose 20mm and 6mm as my preferred scale, but secretly I yearned for the magnificent Wargames Foundry figures (I even bought a few) but I realised that terrain would be a big problem, and by terrain I mean buildings.

Two ruins were my choice to test out the range, there are unbombed versions of the same buildings available.

Back then during the late 90's the only 28mm buildings available were the expensive Grand Manner models in resin easily setting you back 50-80 pounds for a house. Not so much now, with the advent of CAD engineering, 3D printing and computer programmed laser engraver and cutters everything is different. There has been a number of small (and large) companies providing laser cut MDF terrain springing up here and there the last couple of years. Timeline Miniatures appears to be the latest in a market that is not yet saturated.

The small ruin opened up. The loose pieces are the left over squares from the window and not used.

Dipping disasters! Secret Santa Surprises! Tentacle Terror!

So the end of the year is coming and I'm desperately trying to finish all those nearly-there figures. Last night I was putting the finishing touches to a bunch of Perry's Desert Rats that I started just befor summer but have been virtually untouched for six months.

As the previous Desert Rats had been painted using Army Painter Dip I decided to try dipping the Stranglers from Shadows of Brimstone too. When I opened the can I noticed that a thick crust had formed on the dip, apparently I had not closed the lid properly. Getting rid of the hardened layer I stirred the dip, noticing it had thickened quite a lot. Using an old wash brush I dabbed it onto the first Perry figure. It went on ok but a bit thick, and as it wasn't as runny as normal it didn't really flow into all the crevices. Using the brush I managed to smear it around so it looked ok.

I decided to try and dilute what was left of the dip and tried first Thinner, but it didn't mix properly. I then figured I could try Future Floor polish (that I have been using when making my own dip) and first it looked like it would work. I didn't dare try it on one of the beautiful Perry figures, instead I gunked it onto a Strangler.

The ugly, the ugly and the ugly.

As you can see from the pictures it didn't work as well. While the dip was a bit less thick, the paint itself glooped together inside the varnish/dip mixture and didn't flow at all. The middle figure in the picture above was the first try. Not perturbed by the horrific result I tried again, this time wiping most of the gunk away with a cloth moistened with thinner. Slightly better result on (on the right) except that the thinner took off the base coat as well in some places. I gave up and binned the can of Army Painter and mixed my own wash, which I used on the left strangler.

So what happened to the Perry figures?

Night Terrors from Shadows of Brimstone

I have been slaving away here and there on the Brimstone figures. They key I think is not to see them as wonderful miniatures or models, but as boardgame pieces. Nicely sculpted, 3D boardgame pieces, but boardgame pieces nevertheless. This way you can gloss over the somewhat vague details and large mold lines on some of the models.

All the miniatures from the two boxes in various stages of painting.

I still try to do my best and yes, the biggest gaps need to be filled. But I have no intention of re-sculpting details that have been marred by mold lines. On the Night Terrors I filled in the worst spots with milliput, namely around the groin and neck, doing my best to match the fur texture.

The Night Terror before painting, the worst gaps have been filled with milliput.

I also tried my hand at converting one of the three Night Terrors to get some variation, you will see the finished model at the end of this post.

Dear (secret) Santa

This year I signed up for the "Secret Santa" that Ian of The Blog with No Name is arranging. Basically you are buying a christmas present for another blogger while someone (you don't know who) is buying one for you. A sure way of getting at least one games related pressie :-)

So, dear Secret Santa, here is my wish list.

• WW2 in 28mm: anything British or German that can fit either North Africa, France 1940 or 1944, or Operation SeeLöwe.
• WW2 in 20mm: almost anything for western or eastern fronts, anytime. Yes I'm a WW2 whore, and I can't keep faithful to one scale either.
• Wild West in 28mm: I have a friend who plays Dead Man's Hand. I'm thinking of slowly building a gang so interesting characters are of interest (they can also be used in Shadows of Brimstone as alternative heroes).
• Fantasy in 28mm. I love dwarves. Anything that would fit with old GW or Marauder Miniatures dwarves from 3rd edition is welcome, but other stuff like orcs, goblins or oddballs that can be used in skirmish or roleplaying games are welcome. (Avoid current GW models as they are overpriced and look like crap.)
• I like building terrain, so any terrain items that can be used with the above is good.

Got that?

Warlord Games 28mm Universal Carrier review + build

I'm taking a short break for all the Shadows of Brimstone stuff to bring you my views of Warlord Games' Universal Carrier.

Looks quite alright, doesn't it? But yet it looks strangely familiar...

When Warlord released their plastic SdKfz 251 Hanomag about a year ago rumours emerged that it was really made by Italeri. A rumour that I can't substantiate or offer my own views on since I haven't built the kit and as far as I know Italeri does not have a Hanomag in 28mm or 1/56th scale. However, early this year Warlord and Italeri announced a partnership that would involve Italeri making four vehicle kits for Warlord Games: a Sherman, a Panther, a Cromwell and a Puma (you can read my views on the Panther here). The deal allows Italeri to sell the vehicles as well as Warlord Games plastic miniatures under their own brand while Warlord also can sell the vehicles under their own brand. Both companies are credited on the box covers though, so there is no doubt.

So when Warlord Games released a plastic Universal Carrier I was intrigued. Was this too manufactured by Italeri, or was it something else? I was then utterly confused when I saw the box cover, it looks exactly like the Plastic Soldier Company model available in 1/72! (You can read my review of that kit here.) So I had to order one to compare.

Assembling the Shadows of Brimstone: Swamps of Death miniatures

After rifling through all the components of the City of Ancients box I turned to the Swamps of Death. I won't do a proper unboxing since most of the tokens are the same in both boxes; contents are similar although some of the floorplans are different, and of course the theme-specific cards and tokens are different too. (If you missed my City of Ancients unboxing click here.) Instead I will be focusing on the miniatures in this post.

All the models in the Shadow of Brimstone games are cast in a semi-soft plastic. Not as soft as the traditional soft plastic figures like Airfix, but not as hard as say Games Workshop or plastic model manufacturers like Tamiya. They take both plastic glue and super glue and are supplied with 30mm round bases for the most of the figures. There are some mould lines on the miniatures that need to be cleaned up but generally the casting is good.

I couldn't resist starting with the big baddie, the Harbinger.

Both core games contain four different Heroes, six Tentacles, six small monsters, twelve "hoard" monsters, three medium monsters and one large monster. Some of the larger monsters have 40mm bases and the big bosses have 60mm bases. The heroes and monsters are different between the core games except for the tentacles.

Shadows of Brimstone unboxing and first look.

So on Wednesday the mailman had tried to drop something off at my place when I wasn't at home. He left a note saying I could get it at the local post office the day after on thursday. Strange, I hadn't ordered anything large, or had I? I did some thinking and thought that maybe... just maybe it could be my Shadows of Brimstone kickstarter finally being delivered. (If you have no idea what Shadows of Brimstone is about, in short it's a co-operative dungeon crawl boardgame, with a cross-over Wild West and Cthulhu theme. If you follow the link you can watch the nice intro video, then come back here.)

Maybe "S...ws B...stone... C... of the Ancients" could be a clue?

Come Thursday I rushed home from work (after picking up my wife at her work, shopping some winter clothes for the kids, shopping food for me and wifey) to get the package. It was BIG and HEAVY.

Still can't really make out the text...

And yes it was the first delivery from Flying Frog Productions! Would the games be as good and as shiney as the kickstarter promised? Click to see more, but beware, lots of pictures after the break.

October is Tanktober, Italeri 28mm Panther Review

So, for some October is Orctober, for others it's Zombtober, and for yet another bunch it's Tanktober. So which is it for me? Well a little bit of both (but no zombies yet).

(found on the web and on is featured on various other blogs too)

Talking about tanks I couldn't resist the new Italeri 1:56 scale models.

Ahhh... happiness in a cardboard box, complete with glue and paint.

October is Orctober!

Wow, a month since the last update. Well, I have been busy, but for some reason I haven't completed anything until now.

Excuse me Sir, do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Saviour Gork? Or was it Mork?

This is a trukk mob of Evil sunz made up of mostly Kromlech torsos and heads, as well as a lot of parts from GW Ork Bikerz. More pictures after the break.

 

Something old, something new...

...but nothing borrowed and nothing blue. Instead it's mine and all green. Or it will be.

I'm of course talking about my 40K orks. I have been playing them since the second edition boxed set (you know, the one with the 20 monopose orks and 40 monopose gretchin), but since I suffer from the ever disruptive Oooh Shiney-syndrome and GW release new models faster than I can paint them I have a huge lead mountain to get rid of. Lately the lead mountain's upper portions have been more and more made of resin and plastic, but at it's core there is proper metal. When excavating in search of some WW2 stuff I came upon a suspiscious-looking box.

Note the date: invoiced january 9th 2001, arrived at the post office Mars 5th 2001.

The crucial question is, did the box still contain what was on the invoice?

May the Fourth be with you!

Could it be? No it isn't? YES IT IS, A FOURTH UPDATE!!!
(Yes I know "May the Fourth be with You is what you say on may the fourth a.k.a. Star Wars day.)

Håkan, one of my mates,  delivered a Z-95 headhunter he had ordered for me about a month ago when every local game store was out of Z-95:s. Naturally our order got delayed and the local stores have restocked in the meantime.

But anyway, I mentioned that I was going to repaint the Z-95 to match the card art for Lt. Blount and we joked that I should try and repaint it tonight and then update the blog to get four updates in so many days...

Well... I did it.

The original paintjob with blue markings. (Picture by Fantasy Flight Games.)

Lieutenant Blount's card. Notice the red markings.

My repainted Lieutenant Blount.

First I repainted the fuselage with Vallejo Khaki mixed with Vallejo Deck Tan. This produced a more grey-brown paint than the original grey, more akin to the colours of the X-wings. 

Next I used a Nuln Oil wash to bring out the details, after which I drybrushed with pure Deck Tan to lighten the paint job a bit. The markings were picked out by free-hand with GW Mephiston Red. It was hard to see what the markings were on the wings so I just went with red stripes. I touched up the lines and added a few small nicks and scratches on the red with deck tan again.

Last I added some more Nuln Oil to the engines and the cock-pit canopy where the drybrush had spilled over. I used Liquitex gloss medium to bring the shine back to the canopy. 

May the Force be with You

Figures finally finished! Frigging fantastic!

What's this, another update? Updates three days in a row? Will it start raining frogs next?

Actually what happened was that I had a lot of stuff nearly finished but didn't want to put it up before I had completed my X-wing Tournament report. It was tedious to write though, so I actually got some stuff painted in the mean time. So without further ado, pictures!

Crusader 28mm late war brits.

Repainting X-wing ships

Inspired by the fun tournament I played in and the fact that a lot of the players had either repainted or in some way touched up their ships, I decided to try my hand at painting some ships. Now, these are 1:270 scale, and I have painted tanks and infantry in 1:285 scale so how hard could it be?

The answer is pretty not hard at all, as long as you have a fine brush and a somewhat steady hand. For starters I decided to repaint one of my two HWK-290s.

Come on JJ, how do you like my lens flare?

At Starfighters everyone can hear you Pew Pew

I promised earlier that I would report on my first ever X-wing tournament. You can read an introduction and about my squadron here.

"What do you mean you don't have any S-foils?"

The tournament used a five round Swiss system, meaning that opponents would be random in the first game, but in the subsequent four games you would meet someone with roughly the same points. Winning would keep you at the top facing harder and harder (or luckier and luckier) opponents, while loosing would cause you to drift down the score list and meet less successful players. After five games the two top players would meet in a final. Each game was timed for 60 minutes play time, excluding set-up. When the time was up you had to finish the current turn and then total the points lost and incurred on the opponent.

Spellcrow Ork bits review

Just a quickie today. I recieved a small package of Ork bits from Spellcrow, a resin bits maker in Poland. Instead of taking photos I did a small video. I will definitely buy from them again, nice stuff and the freebies included were a nice bonus.

I bought the bits from their eBay shop, although they have more items on their own web-page. They are also available from Wayland Games, should you wish to buy from a familiar store.

Anyway, if you can stand my mumbling and gibberish, please enjoy the video.

In Space, no one can hear you Pew Pew!

I promised you that I would tell you about the X-wing tournament I played in. This was a local tournament arranged by the Starfighters X-wing club in Uppsala. We were 16 players competing for one of two ships from wave 5, just released at GenCon but not available in the shops yet.

The prices: an Imperial Decimator and the Rebel YT-2400. (Picture by Erik Björkelund)

Why I play historical games.

Wow, it's been a month since I last blogged, what's happened?

Well, I sort of ground to a halt on my ork project, not so much for lack of things to paint or inspiration, but simply the realisation that I'm throwing good money after bad product by a company that doesn't love it's customers. (Sort of like an abused spouse staying with the abusing partner.) That put a sour taste in my mouth and I have been playing lots of X-wing (the boardgame) and Castle Wolfenstein (the computer game) instead.

You see, it started with this guy:

A "failcast" ork Big Mek with Kustom Force Field.

Despite being released with the last version of the Codex, he's not in the new one. Or rather, this version is not legal according to the new codex. In order to take a Kustom Force Field, the Big Mek needs to upgrade to a set of Mega Armour.

And will thus look something like this:

The new Big Mek, although with a telly-porta.

Ok, I know I can play with my old model and I intend to, but bare with me and I will make a comparison. 

More orks for da Whaaaaagh!

Hi gang, been painting orks for a while. I got the StormClaw boxed set with more nobs and I used the left over bits and bodies to upgrade the mono-pose Assault on Black Reach nobs. As I normally do not paint anything yellow I decided to paint up the extra nobs as Bad Moons.

The left Nob is from Assault on Black Reach with a leftover Big Choppa, the right one is a regular Nob.

More pictures after the break.

Da Deff Skull Deff Dread Done!

As I said last week I have a bit of an ork craze now, glueing and painting orks like a mad boy. But painting loads of boyz gets dull very soon, even if you vary the paint scheme between the mobs. So I decided to tackle the Deff Dread I bought at the same time as the Codex.

Bought on release day, June 28th.

So that is one built, painted, based and varnished Deff Dread in little over a month, must be some kind of record for me.

Boooh!

 More pictures after the break.

It's not easy being green

Wow, has it been that long since the last post? My apologies, friends and fellow miniature geeks and nerds. I have been playing this fascinating new roleplaying game called life.

• I have visited relatives in Greece, lived through a throng of greek aunts that all wanted to compliment and congratulate me on my two well-behaved and exotic sons, especially the younger who almost looks greek, and experienced my cousin's daughter's orthodox christening, complete with chanting priests and professional serial photographers. (50 XP, tick skill check in Urban Survival and Greek Culture.)

• Been painting the house, yes in 1:1 scale, including riding up 7 meters in a skylift, without dropping any lumber or tools on anyone below, without succumbing to vertigo, and without driving the lift cage through the neighbour's bathroom window. (100 XP, tick skill check in Handicraft (Painting), Driving (heavy machinery) and downgrade Vertigo from Severe to Mild.)

Yeah, that too.

Hobby-wise I have been lying low, secretely amassing a horde of miniatures to be tossed onto the lead/resin/plastic-mountain. The release of Warhammer 40k 7th edition hasn't yet convinced me that I need to get back to that game, but the release of the new Ork Codex with accompanying miniatures did!  Here's some thoughts on the new codex.

Hastur, Hastur, Halteres...

It was birthday around two weeks ago, and those of my co-workers that share my miniature addiction bought me a present! Oh goody!

Mmmm... a box of luuurv.

I've always been fond of Nurgle and I had been oogling the new Nurgle Plague Drones for some time, which my co-workers noticed. So they bought me a box of mutated bloated giant flies carrying Plaguebearers on their back. Nice.

Tantive IV unboxing

As some of you know I'm a huge Star Wars fan. I'm also very fond of games, so Fantasy Flight's X-wing Miniatures game is right up my alley. One of my favourite ships from the Original Trilogy is Princess Leia's ship Tantive IV that is captured by an Imperial Star Destroyer at the beginning of A New Hope.

"I have a bad feeling about this."

Originally called just "Rebel Blockade Runner" it was ret-conned to be a Corellian Corvette going by the name Tantive IV. (I wonder what happened to Tantives I-III?) Anyway it arrived in local shops yesterday and I had to pick one up immediately. Everyone was surprised that it turned up right on the heels of the Rebel Transport that have been delayed for some time. So suddenly there were two ships to buy, and I naturally bought the biggest one first. Enough talking, I did an unboxing video which you can see right after the break.

What goes around comes around... the Return of the Liebster Award!!!

In november 2012 I got a Liebster Award. It's a blog chain thingie to get bloggers to promote the blogs they like, spreading the love around. As with all chain letters it takes on a life on it's own after a while. So now it has mutated a little bit since I last got it and I'm thinking it's reason enough to make the effort once more.

This time I was nominated by itchy's wargames of the Wargames and Walking blog.

A little bit of this and that

Just some WIP shots of things I'm working on right now... I'm all over the place it seems!

Started on the first section of Crusader late war British.

Three finished. Was a while since I painted eyes...

 

Basecoated and did some colour modulation on the SdKfz 222 in front of the telly.

Additional bits from the Tamiya kit. Just decals, chipping, pigments and painting the commander left to do!

I also started painting Nurgle plaguebearers. Love these figures!

And that's that as they say.

The scale conundrum

No this isn't a previously undiscovered Sherlock Holmes novel, it's just the matter of which scale our small figures are? I will ramble a bit, do some math and then reach a surprising discovery in the end.

This whole scale creep issue is annoying, but the whole thing is muddled because when we talk about our beloved wargames miniatures we are talking about  a size, not a scale. (I will assume you do know how to calculate scale, if not then read this first.) As a metric person I can't understand why stuff aren't in easy scales like 1:100, 1:50 and so on. The blame lies partly with the imperial measurements. Dare you read on, fellow gamers? I promise there are some shots of miniatures after the break.

Tin for the Tin God! Tin for the Tin mountain of Laffe!

Just a quickie to show what the postman brought me yesterday!

It's a parcel!

Hooray, it's my Chain of Command starter set from Rich!

I'm normally more of a coffee guy but tea is essential when sorting figures.

More pictures after the break

Convention report, CoC sale and planning ahead

Phew, I managed to paint all the figures and finish nearly all terrain for GothCon, the biggest gaming convention in Sweden. But I will tell you more about that later on.

First I want to mention that Chain of Command has been nominated for an Origins Award in the Best Historical Miniatures Rules category. Rich is celebrating the good news with 15% off on Chain of Command until 1st of May. Now is a good time to pick up those tokens or jump off points you need, or why not the campaign supplement At the sharp end? And if you are like me and already have the rules and all the tokens and bits you need, then you can always splurge on one of the 28mm starter sets available: late war Germans and British.

Yep, you heard me, I have bought late war 28mm figures... I wasn't going to do that, it was an honest mistake. I was just going to complete the early war figures I already had, late war was always meant to be fought in 20mm... but those Crusader figures are just so damned nice, and 15% off an already discounted price was just too hard to resist. Add to that the fact that Italeri is collaborating with Warlord Games and will be releasing a line of 1/56 scale models -- rumours have been flying that Italeri already was doing the plastic hanomags and M3 halftracks for Bolt Action, but this new info is confirmed from both Italeri and Warlord Games. They will start with a Sherman, a Cromwell, a Panther and a Puma eight-wheeled armoured car, all late war stuff fitting for Normandy. There has been no announcement wether the kits are upscaled versions of their 1/72 models or not. I was also expecting some new terrain items, but instead Warlord Games will be selling Italeri's 1/72 scale stonewalls as 28mm, increasing the price without increasing the size, something that didn't go down well on The Miniatures Page.

The original kit...

...and the Warlord Games set. It's even the exact same pieces rearranged slightly.

So how did the convention go? Read more after the break. (Warning! Pictures of hairy wargamers!)