lördag 26 augusti 2017

Back To Basics: Wargames Foundry Home Guard

(Warning: a small rant ahead. Pictures of models after the break, if you want to skip ahead.)

So I've sort of hit painter's block... I do paint... but I seem to take ages, not finish stuff other than the occasional odd miniature here and there. I buy stuff, build them, start paint a couple and then... I loose interest. It's just not the Wargamer's Attention Deficit Disorder, otherwise known as the Magpie or "OOh shiny" syndrome. Oh I got that too, but this is something else.

I was thinking back to when I started in the hobby. You bought a thing. Built it. Painted it. Played with it within a week or so. Sometimes you had a big project (like that Tamiya 1:35 Möbelwagen). If you didn't have the correct paint you used another, or mixed a couple of paints to a rough estimate of the box cover art. Things were simpler back then, I thought.

No this isn't a "Things were better before" post.


But no... things weren't simpler, my methods were. Now we have 200 or somewhere abouts paints in the GW range, many of them technical paints, some are dry, some are layer paints, some are washes and some are glazes, some are base paints. Back then you had paints, and inks. You could thin the paints to make washes, use the inks for pin washes or glazes, and you could wipe all of your paint from the brush for drybrushing. You drybrushed or highlighted, washed or pin washed, and that was it.

Don't get me wrong, all the new techniques, all the new kinds of paints are fantastic. You can do some amazing things. But they also lead to overcomplication. Do I need to paint every model like it could belong in the 'Eavy Metal section of White Dwarf? No, but I try to. It's partially because the models have become better and more detailed so they lure you into a complicated paint job. Back then the models often had unadorned armour, maybe the odd spike or symbol somewhere. If you wanted to you could freehand something or put a decal on it. Nowadays the armours are sculpted with lots of details and 3d insignia that beckons to be painted, highlighted, washed, weathered and then some git are doing them in non-metallic metallics. (Don't get me started about that... the Emperor's new paint scheme I call it.) But I'm setting my ambitions too high. It's not that I can't paint that fine, I can. But I don't need to, and it takes too long time.

My stash of Home Guard. Also includes some Crusader and Warlord figures in the top rows.
So I dug up a bunch of Wargames Foundry British Home Guard that I have had in my stash for a while, and decided to go back to the basics with them.

onsdag 2 augusti 2017

The Adventures of the Dice Bag Lady in the land of the Vikings.

So Baggy of Bad Squiddo Games decided to have a holiday adventure in Sweden. Of course dice bags are not allowed out of the UK without their herders, so Annie had to come as well. Actually it was Annie who needed a well deserved vacation and decided to pester her customers visit some random internet dudes friends she met online.

For one reason or another almost everyone dropped out, except for the Scandinavian Lardies (that's me, Jocke, Thomas and Koen) -- from now on known as Annie's four Swedesketeers.

Annie Arriving at Stockholm Arlanda Airport.