Last Ditch Painting of 2015

...bring on 2016! But first, I had to finish a least some of the figures that I had lying about. These Imperial Assault figures were started months ago but somehow I got bored and painted other stuff. (Story of my life, basically.)

Three Imperial Officers...

...and three Rebel Troopers.

More pictures after the break.

Snow White and the other eight dwarfs

I hope I don't get sued by Disney over this one :-)

The end of the year is fast approaching and it's time to finish those nearly completed figures and get them up on the blog for the end of the year tally. First up is eight dwarfs from Avatars of War to go with the first eight I painted a while ago.

Insanely hairy vertically challenged homicidal hammer wielders

Oooh, shiny!

It's almost Christmas, and I haven't written anything for more than a month. I had a slight burnout during november because of too many things going on at once, and then there was Star Wars. In order to avoid spoilers I didn't keep as much tabs on the online community as usual, instead I was following John Boyega on Instagram and other sites. I tell you right now, John Boyega seems like a very funny guy to be friends with.

But that's not what I wanted to show you today. Instead I have found some other new shinies.

"Mein Gott, was ist das? Essen mein flammenwerfer!"

Yes, it's a Ghar battlesuit from Beyond the Gates of Antares, Rick Priestley's new sci-fi game. "But what of Frostgrave" I hear you cry. Fear not, I'm plodding along with that one as well as all the WW2 and Star Wars stuff I have. It's just that a couple of my work mates go Gates of Antares crazy recently and I bought the Ghar stuff from the starter box off one of them.

Thaw of the Liche Lord unboxing

I got a package from the Dice Bag Lady today which included my Thaw of the Liche Lord loot. It's not as much of an unboxing as it's not a box, it's a book, but it came in a box. You get the idea. More interesting perhaps is that I'm also taking a look at the cultists also released.

Enjoy!

Feeling Frosty

I suppose none of you lot has missed this new game called Frostgrave? Well, if you have it came out about a half a year ago from Northstar Military Figures in collaboration with Osprey.

The cover of the rulebook, (c) Osprey Games 2015

Frostgrave is set in an ancient city which was buried in a magical blizzard hundreds of years ago. The city has begun to thaw and you play a Wizard venturing inside the city in search of magical secrets and treasures. You compose a band of followers to accompany you and your apprentice into the city, where you clash with other wizards and the magical inhabitants and monsters already present in the city.

Trollololol :-)

Well, while thinking about Kings of War, reading the rulebook and fiddling with an online army generator, I remembered the goblins from the old Battle for Skull Pass box I bought in oh, 2006 or something... If I remembered correctly there would be a fair amount of gobboes in there. A quick google confirmed that yes indeed, there were over 60 goblins, ten spider riders and a troll in the box.

Lots of goodies back then. Sure, everything was monopose, but it was still a decent set of figures.

While the dwarf units are a bit uneven in size, the goblin units are the exact size of Kings of War Regiments. Even the picture on the back of the box puts all the heroes out by themselves like Kings of War instead of inside the units. It didn't take long to enter the units into the army builder and here's what I got:

• Sharpsticks (Goblin spears)
  Regiment(20) - 95 pts
  Regiment(20) - 95 pts
• Spitters (Goblin bows)
  Regiment(20) - 85 pts
• Fleabag Riders (spider riders)
  Troop(5) - 95 pts
  Troop(5) - 95 pts
• King (Goblin Big Boss) - 90 pts
• Wiz (Goblin Shaman) - 45 pts
• Troll Bruiser - 125 pts

A total of 725 points if I split the riders into two troops, which coincidentally is almost the recommended starting points in the KoW rulebook. Just add 25 points of magic items and I'm there.

Gearing up for Kings of War

Well, after getting the finger from GW in the form of their Age of Shitmar ruleset I have been thinking of other rules to try out. Open Combat seems like a good and well produced skirmish set, but I like to maneuver blocks of troops around as well. Fantasy mods of Saga or Hail Caesar has come to mind, but as I don't play very often I don't want to have to tinker and house rule a lot. I downloaded the free Kings of War rules and they seemed to be what I wanted. Some novel ideas - to me at least - like no figure removal enticed me further and I bought the gamers edition of the rule book. This is without all the background of the hardback book but with complete army lists compared to the free rules.

A unit of Dwarf Shieldbreakers for Kings of War. Why do leaders have to stand in that come at me bro" pose.

I have been playing Dwarfs since Warhammer 3rd edition but Games Workshop essentially killed off my interest in them with their latest army book and figures. Too silly for my taste. I still don't like Mantics bucket-headed dwarfs, but the GW figures are worse IMO. Getting blasted by magic in every game without any effective countermeasures also helped, so I turned to Chaos. But my love for short, hairy things didn't end there, and I continued to buy Dwarf figures from other manufacturers like Avatars of War instead.

Tanktober is here!

Well, it just happens to be October 1st, and it just happens that I have painted a tank. So Tanktober it is!

The tank in question partway painted, a Rubicon Panzer IV.

I was really surprised on how easy it was to get this one painted. I think the good details helped a lot. If you are interested you can read my full review of this kit here where I compare it with Warlord Games' Panzer IV kit. Basically, in the picture above all I have done is sprayed it Desert Yellow (with an Army Painter rattle can), washed it all over with my Future/Devlan Mud mix, painted the tracks and other metal parts gunmetal and the rubber tires dark grey. While nowhere near finished in my eyes it does look the part and could be used on the gaming table without anyone lifting an eyebrow.

Crimson Empire

Well, as I promised earlier, I have now painted my winning Imperial Assault team. It proved to be quite frustrating.

The winning team, in their winning colours.

I used some different techniques mostly because my GW Mephiston Red had dried in the pot. Damn Games Workshop, I almost think they do it on purpose with their crappy paint cans. I have other paints more than a decade old but GW paints seem to last a year at most.

Champion of the Force

By chance I happened to participate in a local game night tournament of Imperial Assault. I had only played the game with my kids previously and wanted to try it for real. At the last minute I threw a list together consisting of the Royal Guard Champion and two pairs of Royal Guard (one elite). They are all hard hitting close combat troops with the Royal Guard figures able to support each other when defending. I had five points left so I added an elite Probe Droid for some ranged support. Completely oblivious how command cards worked I selected all cards that had the keywords "brawler" and "guardian" as the Royal Guard and the Champion are both.

The furious six in all their unpainted glory... 

At first I was going to take as many painted figures as possible but that would have been a rebel list with many different characters and probably very hard to play. As it was my first proper game I thought it would be better to keep things simple.

Picking low hanging fruit.

I have been kind of unfocused lately, not really being in the mood for painting stuff. They new Basis base pads were fun to use, but then I had to put some figures on them. And paint them!

Last week's project.

So I did, but it was more or less a forced project to be able to show off the bases. And it got more complicated than I had anticipated. But then I saw this video:


If you don't have time to watch it he speaks about picking low hanging fruit when your mojo is down. That is, when you feel your motivation drop, finish those nearly completed figures you have had lying for a while. It might not be projects you need to finish the most, but you will accomplish something, and it will feel good, hopefully getting your motivation back. And if it doesn't work, at least you have finished some figures.

Three germans walk into a bar.

Actually it has nothing with that meme floating around...

Yeah, this one. Though judging by the background I think he's fighting japs somewhere in the pacific.

...it's just that I happened to paint three Germans.

Can you guess another meme that fits with this image?

More after the break.

Basius 2 review

Another Kickstarter pledge that finally arrived. Kickstarter is a bit like getting Christmas or birthday presents -- sometimes it takes so long that you have forgot that you backed the project in the first place. Even if you do remember you are not sure exactly what you plegdged for, how much money did you sink into the project and what options did you finally choose? Exactly like opening Christmas presents, you sort of know what you wished for but not exactly what you are getting. And since it was so long ago that you paid for your pledge, it feels like you are getting the stuff for free...

"BASIUS 2 - Deluxe Miniature Wargame Base Stamp Pad System" is the full name, and as it implies it's a sort of stamp that you can use to imprint a detailed texture onto a base using green stuff. It sounds more complicated than it is, at least in theory. The Stamps themselves are big chunky squares of resin, textured on both sides.

The two pads used to impress the texture. As you can tell by my glasses in the picture they are big.

WarColours paints review. In other words, I got new paints!!!

Hi gang. I'm in the middle of vacation, which involves dragging the family around Sweden to various tourists traps. When we're home I'm hoping for bad weather to get some hobby time in, because otherwise I have to paint the house... yep, 1:1 scale painting.

Speaking of paints I have been trying out a new manufacturer named WarColours, based in Cyprus.

Don't you just love trying out new paints?

This new range of paints are supplied in dropper bottles with child-proof caps. The consistency is smooth and they should be suitable for airbrushing as well -- the website claims that but I haven't tried it myself.

The Empire's Finest apprehend terrorist scum...

I have finally finished another two characters and three stormtroopers for Imperial Assault. I still haven't got a game in, but I have five weeks of vacation coming up in a few days and have managed to buy all the extra figure supplements released so far. Now let's hope it rains a couple of days.

Our heroic troops have spotted terrorist intruders in a medical facility and take action! 

I had devised a plan for painting the stormtroopers quickly, using a white undercoat and a fine diluted black wash. The wash backfired and turned the white armour into grey dullness however, so I had to manually highlight all the armour back up to white.

The cowardly terrorists are caught and soon surrender,

The stormtroopers had quite a lot of mold lines that I had missed when I trimmed and undercoated them. Since the arm and leg armour pieces had some ridged details already I thought the mold lines were part of the design, but the wash showed all too well my errors, so I had to fix those as well.

So long and thanks for all the fish - being a rant of epic length.

(Disclaimer: Some of the pictures on this page is (c) Games Workshop and is used without permission for discussion purposes only. No challenge of copyright is intended.)

I guess it hasn't escaped anybody that Games Workshop are doing a new version of Warhammer. Like Microsoft they have dropped the numbering system (except that Microsoft is counting again, just not correctly) and gone for a brand name instead. Sort of like Ikea.

Funny cause it's true.

But instead of Warhammer Bönkfjordnurpur it's called Warhammer Age of Sigmar and is a big change from the previous version. (If you haven't heard about it, go check it out, the link is above.) Now it has divided the internet gaming community in two halfs, each about as rabid as the other. It's hard to say which group is the largest though, and I don't doubt that GW will sell tons of boxes and call AoS a success.

The new Logo.

First, I understand why GW is doing this. I'm not opposed to change, I'm just opposed to stupidness. And change for change's sake. I think GW are grasping after straws. They need to reinvent themselves. The Hobbit license has failed so miserably that GW didn't even put out a boxed game for the third movie and hardly any models. Most of GW's sales are related to either the hobby in general (paints, etc) or Warhammer 40k. So something needed to be done with Warhammer Fantasy.

How to paint vehicles the Viking way

This one's for Anne, who asked how I had painted my little Kübelwagen.

The vehicle in question

Well, unfortunately I didn't take many WIP shots while I was painting it, but I will try and explain using photos of other vehicles I have painted the same way. So, where to begin? First of all, painting vehicles is nothing like painting figures. Although in theory you could employ the same techniques you can't use them the same way.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgh! Roowwrrrr... Grrrrf!

[Translation: Let the wookie win.]

Friends, let me introduce the mighty Chewbacca and Gaarkhan, fierce warrior.

In case you didn't get it. Let. The. Wookie. Win.

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. I finally caved in and bought Imperial Assault, Fantasy Flight Games' dungeon crawling skirmish boardgame with a Star Wars theme. I actually had given in some time ago, and started to buy the expansions a couple a time some months ago. I knew I was only prolonging the inevitable and how hard it would be to catch up with all the expansions later, so why not start buying them in advance?

I'm not going to do a full review, other saying that it's awesome! Go out and get it now! If you don't trust me, watch this review by Tom Vassel and Sam Healey on Miami Dice:

More pictures after the break

Doing a headcount.

As I mentioned previously I happened to aquire some Wargames Foundry German infantry -- a friend gave them to me, honestly -- and was thinking about how to use them. I then bought the Warlord Games German engineers to use the engineery bits to convert Perry DAK figures into... yes, engineers.

A good start for a platoon, although there are far too many officers!

So, my plan is to use the left over Warlord figures along with the Foundry figures to build an early war platoon. Not sure what I'm going to use it for, but I do have some early war British infantry and if Thomas buys the Home guard he has promised to, we can play Operation Seelöwe, the (planned but not executed) invasion of Great Britain.

However, I wasn't sure exactly how many figures I needed for an early war platoon, and when reading up on it a bit it varies quite a lot between the invasion of Poland in 1939 ) and Fall Gelb, the invasion of the low countries and France 1940. I don't know what organisation they used during the invasion of Denmark and Norway, but it's bound to be one or the other. In the interest of flexibility and be able to adapt my platoon to various different historical scenarios I plan to paint enough figures to be able to switch between 1939 and 1940 platoons.

The wheels and tracks of the Afrika Korps

I almost called this blogg post "Dune buggies". Anyway here are the Afrika Korps vehicles I did for the convention this easter.

My platoon commander and his second in command.

 If you missed the infantry just go to the previous post or click here.

A captured Bren Gun carrier in gerrman service.

More pictures after the break.

The Might of the Afrika Korps

I have finally got around taking pictures of my Deutsche Afrika Korps force I painted for the easter convention.

Platoon commander, 50mm mortar team, AT rifle team and the platoon sergeant.

To be honest they are not 100% completely finished; when taking the pictures I noticed some stuff I forgot to paint here and there, and the bases really needs a unifying drybrush to tie them together. I have used textured paint from Tamiya and Vallejo and they differ slightly in shade despite both of them being called desert sand. The vehicles could use a dusting with pigments and perhaps a few decals, but by and large I'm calling them table ready. (A proven fact since they have been used on a gaming table!)

The rest of the figures behind the break.

Rubicon and Warlord Games 28mm Panzer IV, a comparative review

Warning, long post!

After getting back from Gothcon (still need to do a photo report I know) I decided to reinforce my Deutsche Afrika Korps with another box of Perry figures and a Panzer IV. Having received the Warlord Panzer IV from my Secret Santa I ordered the Rubicon Models' kit which is a more recent release. Rubicon models are 3D designing their kits as I think almost everyone are nowadays, but they share the design drawings on their forum, which gives a lot of people the chance to chip in their view and expertise. I have been frequenting it for a time and was really interested in trying of their kits. I will be comparing it to a Warlord Games Panzer IV which I realise I haven't done a proper review of yet, but you can find my first thoughts about it here.

The first sprue of Rubicon's Panzer IV. Note the tracks assemblies.

The Rubicon Panzer IV comes in a standard sized box with three sprues; one smaller than the others, along with a set of decals and a comprehensive assembly guide. The kit does not feature a crew or commander figure. The plastic seems a bit slicker and of a different kind than the ones used by Warlord games, Italeri and Renedra for example.

Warlord Games German Pioneers open box review (sort of)

Continuing from yesterday's post, here is the last item in my self-gratulatory shopping splurge:

German Pioneers, or assault engineers.

A box of German assault engineers, pioneers, or Sturm Pionier.

Opening the box reveals a lot of plastic frames and two zip-lock bags with metal bits.

The box contains 31 plastic and metal miniatures, allowing you to build german assault or combat engineers. These were highly trained, highly motivated and heavily equipped assault troops as well as regular field craft specialists. They operated in their own platoons or companies within an infantry regiment, often spearheading an assault.

For some reason I only got 20 Renedra bases and five Warlord bases... for 31 figures!

So what do I think about this set? You get a lot of stuff, right? No... not quite. Or yes you do, but most of it is not stuff that is useful for pioneers. Useful for regular infantry yes. Incidentally the price difference is only £2 between the sets and they contain the same number of sprues, making the Pioneer set a very good buy if you are after regular infantry because of all the extra bits you get.

Reinforcements with a Surprise

I got a raise at work, retroactively six months back, so I decided to splurge on some toys from Warlord Games. I originally intended to buy a Sarissa Precision mansion in MDF, but it was out of stock, so I just randomly added stuff to the basket until I felt content. Well, not entirely random, but almost, since my original plan was foiled.

Weeee, lots of goodies!!!!

Let's take a closer look at what I got, shall we?

DAK Hanomag WIP

I couldn't resist picking up a Warlord Games Hanomag at Gothcon last month. This is a plastic kit of the famous german halftrack, Sd.Kfz 251 (the funny little letters just mean special motor vehicle) ausf. C (the third version which was used roughly between 1941 and 1944). It features a riveted hull which was later changed to being welded which makes it more suitable for the earlier period. This is perfect for using with my DAK which currently lacks any transports.

The shape is accurate enough, but the details are a bit crude.

Painting an Italeri Cromwell part two

At the end of the last post the basic paint job on the Cromwell was done; shading and highlighting of the main hull and turret completed. Details like the tracks and tools lacked paint however, and the application of markings and weathering was also left. Since I foolishly had left the top hatch open I also needed to paint a commander.

A Tamiya 1/48 scale crewman volunteers for duty.

Painting an Italeri Cromwell part one

Returning from GothCon (more about that in a later post) I was a bit tired of all the desert stuff. For relaxing I decided to build and paint the 28mm Italeri Cromwell I bought a while back.

Coffee, plastic glue and a sharp knife equals happiness. (Note funky Mutant: Year Zero dice on the left)

Assembly was straight forward. It's a good kit, although the instructions tell you to cut the driver's hatch in half if you want to assemble it open, when in fact the hatch already is in two parts on the sprue. Even though it's fast build there are some nice details like the headlamp guards on the hull, the possibility to leave hatches open and the optional Cullin hedgerow cutter.

Now it's very green. 

As I've said in previous posts I like building more than painting, so I was going to try some fast painting techniques to save time. To begin with I undercoated the model entirely with rattle spray cans. First it received a shot of black on the underside and sides from a low angle. Then I sprayed Flames of War Soviet Armour from a higher angle, and last -- still using a rattle can -- I used Army Painter Army Green directly from above to form highlights. 

G-Day!

G as in Gothcon that is, the largest roleplay-, war- and miniature games convention in Sweden. Scandinavian Lardies (as we have dubbed our little TFL fan group) will be there, demoing Chain of Command... the last month has been a furious painting and modelling ordeal to get everything finished, which is why I haven't updated for a while.

I won't write much, since I'm leaving for the train in half an hour, so I will simply post some WIP pictures instead.

Trying to fit stuff into my K&R satchel.

DAK, finished!

More DAK finished!

Brits and jump off points waiting to be varnished.

A well. Could come in handy in the desert. WIP DAK in the background.

An ex-camel.

British hero with looted MP40 and scoped Lee Enfield. Anyone who knows his name?

The vehicles fit! Hooray! 

The obligaotry Panzer Bucket.

Captured Bren gun carrier. One previous owner.

 Watch this space for the after-convention report in about a week.

Building Brutish British

Confession time: I hate painting.

No, no, no I don't, actually. But I like building more. I love building. Converting, carving, glueing, trying out different poses on miniatures, adding details like stowage or battle damage on vehicles. So when I bought the first box of Perry desert rats I quickly built all of the figures, and then painted a handful of them. And lost interest. Same thing with the Deutsche Afrika Korps; built every figure; painted five or six of them, and lost interest. By juggling painting projects around, switching between different subject I can usually keep my interest up a bit, but then another problem appears.

I was so bored painting figures I bought a Tamiya model kit. Of course, now that it's built I have to paint it. Doh!

When I'm steaming ahead I usually manage to build the figures to the wrong organisation, with too many submachine guns per platoon, or not enough light machine guns, or just plain using the wrong bases. With the desert rats I built two figures per squad with tommy guns but Chain of Command specifies only the NCO has one, and I have realised that not every player can discern big men by their equipment, so I needed to rebase the leaders on hex bases. So I ordered another box, of course. I can use the extra figures for dismounted scout squads and crew figures for support weapons.

Is it just me, or do they look like badly shaved gorillas? They look better IRL though.

At the same time I ordered a box of Bolt Action late war British Infantry. Since the Perry box is quite low on extra equipment I'm going to nick a few weapons and backpacks from the Warlord box, and I have plans for a special character using parts from both boxes. Although I already have a platoon of late war brits from Crusader Miniatures it's the bare minimum of figures, so the rest of the Bolt Action figures will be reinforcements for them.

But I have painted some stuff, among others the 2-pounder I bought from Perrys.

Blogging is not painting

Ooops, nearly two weeks without an update. Well I've been busy, painting and visiting Stockholm for a work course, among other things.

The great Henry Hyde has some tips about blogging in his Battlegames magazine, which says you should update often and be brief. Well I'm just the opposite, I don't update if I don't feel I have something to say or show. And when I do, I can't keep it short. Anyway, lots of WIP stuff, but nothing finished, or rather, I have no photos of finished stuff, because that involves me getting the camera out, setting up the light booth, etc.

But I have a couple of things to show you. First work is progressing on the kubelwagen and captured carrier I wrote about earlier. They are about 90% done including crew, just small niggling stuff like details, some stowage and weather. No pictures though, except for this one.

Perry 28mm kübelwagen with Tamiya 1/48 scale jerry can.

You see, I decided I needed some extra stowage on my vehicles, and perhaps a couple of fuel drums and what not to make some Jump Off points with. (Jump Off points are sort of deployment markers for Chain of Command, marking points on the board where you can deploy your troops.) So I picked up a Tamiya Jerry Can Set in 1/48 from my local friendly hobby shop.

I went in to buy a Jerry Can set, nothing more. And look what followed me home.

I also, somehow, managed to pick up an armoured car, oh dear. I have no idea how that happened. It seems that the British forces will have a numerical superiority at the convention though, so the armoured car will come in handy.

Mean green grassing machine

Being at home with man-flu (mucus seeping from my skull) gave me a chance to try out my new static grass applicator without endangering any other family members. Since this is a highly advanced electrical device, deadly in the wrong hands and not to be used by or on children and those of frail health, you can understand my worries.

No Beatles were harmed while testing the device.

The design is simple: the static grass is electrically charged by an electric source, one pole connected to the grass container, the other pole connected to surface you want to glue the grass to. In the old days you put the grass in a plastic container and shook it violently before pouring the grass out hoping that it would generate some static electricity. Another way which functioned marginally better was a "puffer bottle"; same thing, you shook the bottle and then pressed on it to blow the grass out. Anyway, the electricity makes the grass fibers stand on end while the glue dries and thus looking more realistic.

The wire inside the container is also connected to the metal mesh, charging the grass as it passes through.

A couple of years ago Noch unleashed their electronic grass applicator on the model railway market for a cost of about a couple of hundred euros or about hundred and fifty pounds. Other companies quickly followed suit, but the more ingenious railway modellers made their own from electric flyswatters. Now the fad has reached the wargames market. There are several different designs, but they all work on the same principle and yes, you can build your own, just google it. Being somewhat lazy I decided to buy a cheap Chinese version on eBay for 25 dollars including shipping.

It even has a "NO" switch. Luckily I'm a highly trained engineer with a specialty in "engrish".

A closer inspection revealed that it was indeed, a rebuilt electric fly swatter. No worries, it's not as if I paid a hundred pounds for it. I even got a small bag of unrealistically green static grass. So did it work? Read on to find out.