Black vs. white

The title isn’t about racial tensions in modern America, but rather the (probably slightly less important) issue of choosing an undercoat.

I may have mentioned this before, but I always used to undercoat my figures in black (it was all the rage in the late 90’s), and so it was natural for me to continue to do so when I got back in to painting.

However, after painting a few figures that arrived from eBay pre-undercoated in white, I’ve slowly come to realize that it is a better fit. It’s generally faster for me and it mitigates my penchant for painting fairly dark and muddy colors.

It’s probably not the best demonstration, since they aren't totally alike but here’s two Skaven I finished recently:

The clanrat (to the right) was undercoated in black, while the globadier was undercoated white.

I’ve also tried a grey undercoat, but as I haven’t really been able to make the most of it, so I’ll stick with white for my old Citadel.

Croaker

Fimm’ishing whay you’ve started.

You may or may not recall that my very first painting project for this blog was a set of five Heroquest fimir.

I’ve already finished three of them and shelved another (didn’t want to waste time on it), but the last one has been standing around next to my painting-station in a near-finished state for almost a year. I left it after painting the skin (so about 90% done), but never got around to doing the last details.

Well, after rediscovering my painting mojo, I finally decided to finish it, so here it is:

I experimented with wet-blending the skin (using a retarding medium). The end result is fine (not great), but it took way too long to do, so I haven’t reused the technique.

The main problem is that the paint still dries too quickly when the area is this large (it works better for faces and hands), so I couldn’t really get as smooth a blend as I’d wanted without spending way more time on it than I’m prepared to. Maybe if I’d used oils things would be different, but I’m not really ready to go that old-school yet.

Croaker

P.S. Sorry about the pun by the way. It’s terrible, but I couldn’t resist it.

Sweetwater

Since the baby started going to sleep a little earlier in the evening, I finally had the chance to get caught up with the rest of the internet (at least the small part of it that I frequent) by watching Westworld with the wife.

It’s a great show, but it had the unfortunate side-effect of really making me want a western-themed set of terrain for Malifaux.

In the end I simply couldn’t resist the temptation, so I went to TTCombat’s Wild West section and went to town (pun intented).

£50 and a few of evenings of cutting and gluing later I arrived at this:

I haven’t actually played using this terrain, but I really wanted to see how it would look in action. It’s a strangely calming process, just setting terrain on a table, so now I guess I at least know why people get into the whole model-train thing.

Croaker

Relight my fire

During the second half of last year, I was starting to burn out on Oldhammer in a pretty heavy way. The added strain of having a baby in the house didn’t help, but I have a tendency to lose interest in hobby projects anyway, so I guess it was to be expected.

I remember once trying to paint a beastman army during the 6^th edition all-brown-all-the-time days. I think I might have finished two or three of them before giving up. Not two or three units but two or three individual beastmen. Yeah…

I can see from my own blog (very useful really), that I haven’t done very much related to Oldhammer since about august.

Anyway, now I’m getting tired of painting my Malifaux figures instead, but this little time-off has relit my appetite for old citadel miniatures. Yay!

First off the block are a couple of figures that have been standing around undercoated since last summer, a dwarven fire throwerteam:

They are kept in my usual red and blue colors, but as befitting people who are carrying large amounts of flammable liquid strapped to their back, they also wear a lot of leather. I’m cutting corners in a major way here, only giving them a base coat of Army painter “leather brown” followed by a coat of brown ink and finally a coat of black ink. As you can see, this results in very dark leather, but I like the effect, and it’s very quick.

Croaker

Terrain matters – buying recommendations

We all have to balance considerations of time versus money versus keeping-your-significant-other-reasonably-happy when dealing with our hobby. Nowhere is this truer than when it comes to terrain.

You can see some truly astonishing home-made stuff on the internet, but much of that takes a long time (and a certain amount of talent) to make. Conversely, you could buy everything you need as pre-painted resin sculpts, but probably not without selling your car to raise enough money.

Like most other adults with families and full-time jobs I know, I’ve certainly got more money than time, but even so I cannot afford to buy everything I’d like to. For a long time that meant not buying any terrain, as I don’t actually play very many games. I did print out some paper buildings and even assembled a few of them, but that was it.

However, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve actually been playing a few games of Malifaux (a game that’s heavily reliant on terrain) recently, so I really couldn’t wait any longer.

Knowing that I’d have to get things that didn’t take too long to put together, but still having a fairly low budget, I turned to eBay.

Here’s a few shots of what I’ve got so far:

The shots are taken from a couple of Malifaux games, just before deployment.

As you can see, it’s basically the same pieces of terrain, but I think we managed to create two fairly dissimilar setups.

If you don’t include the mat (which isn’t strictly speaking necessary, though it absolutely enhances the visual appeal of the game), this setup cost me around £57(+postage) - a very reasonable price if you ask me. I also got a few additional pieces of terrain that aren’t shown here.

The table is set for Malifaux, which dictates a fairly dense setup. I’m confident that the same amount, more spread out, would be perfectly fine for a game of Warhammer.

It’s basically made up of three parts:

First a couple of walls (including a set of older citadel plastic walls) which I got from a random seller. You could probably get a good deal on something similar with a few minutes of searching.

Secondly a “12-piece universal battlefield set” from “terrains4games-com”. They make some very good looking, and quite cheap stuff. If I do have to criticize something, I’d say that the hills are too low (barely 1”) and the woods could use a few more trees. Other than that I’m very happy.

Lastly I’ve got some buildings from “thetrolltrader” (ttcombat). A fairly well-known eBay shop that also has its own line of laser-cut MDF buildings. I bought the “Moonshine distillery” (which came with a lot of crates and barrels) and the “Market set”. They aren’t the most detailed MDF buildings on the market, but they still look very nice, and they are hard to beat on price.

Do be warned that they are scaled to fit with the “new” 32mm standard and would probably look too big for proper Oldhammer games. Looks great with Malifaux though. Also, you will have to assemble them yourself, which might take some time, depending on your personal expertise with this kind of stuff.

I’m honestly not sure where the game mat is from (I got is as a gift). It might be a “3x3 mousepad mat” from http://www.deepcutstudio.com, which would set you back another 35€. It looks very nice though (and comes in different sizes and qualities).

So there it is: a way to get a table ready fairly quickly and cheaply.

Croaker

LINK’D - The Enemy Within: A Companion

We finally return to something actually oldhammer-related.

Over the years the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay community has produced some truly great fan-made content, ranging from excellent one-shot scenarios to full campaigns and fanzines (Warpstone and Liber Fanatica). 

I’m planning on getting back to some of that stuff eventually, but today I want to mention Gideon’s “The Enemy Within: A Companion”.

I’ll let the author introduce the document himself here, where you can also find a link to the 6th edition of the companion as well as the first part of the 7th edition. You read that right: Seven editions. If that isn’t dedication, I don’t know what is.
I’ve used the companion myself when GM’ing TEW, and it was a great help.

The rest of Gideon’s blog is also a very interesting read if you are at all interested in the early days of WFRP. Give it a look.

Croaker

We can do it!

From what I understand, Johan is near-universally accepted to be one of the better models for his point cost – even if you have to pay an extra soulstone outside of Outcasts. What’s even more important to me is his ability to remove conditions; especially as I’m playing a campaign against my brother’s Guild crew, which loooves to set things on fire. As a consequence, I always knew that he’d be one of my first additions to the crew.

I’m not really that big a fan of the model, and I’m currently rocking an all-female crew anyway, so I picked up the female version (Johana) last at the Black Friday sale. 

I don’t know why, but she always reminds me of Rosie the Riveter.

Here’s my take on her:

I’m trying to stay fairly close to the “original” colors, so she’s a bit dark, but I’m fairly pleased none the less. The leather pants did give me a bit of trouble as my usual “quick” method didn’t work out (leather brown followed by washes of brown and black ink), but I think I managed to fix it up fairly well in the end.

After three games with her, I’m not all that impressed, but it’s likely because I’m playing her way too aggressively. I have to earn to hang back a bit more, and not rush in like I sometimes do with Cassandra (who is harder to kill and is better able to disengage if things get too hot for her).

Croaker

Those who can, do…

So… It’s been another month with no word, and like so often before, it’s partially due to life conspiring to fill all my spare time with things other than painting and playing (the other part usually being a lack of motivation). This month, however, I have actually been painting playing stuff (Malifaux and other games), which simply didn’t leave me a lot of time for writing.

My brother came by for an extended stay and we got started on a two-man Shifting Loyalties campaign. As I said last month, I really needed a Silent One and a December’s Acolyte to round out my crew, so I had to get my painting station set up again. Here they are:

I’m quite happy with the Silent One (though the cape could have turned out better), but I’m not all that pleased with the Acolyte. The flowing grey robes were especially tough to get right. I’m currently working on another one, which might turn out better.

We managed to get four games into the campaign and I’m currently at two wins, a loss and a draw. Not too bad.

Hopefully it won’t be another month till the next post. At any rate, this month has invigorated me quite a bit, and I have a few ideas for posts…

Croaker

Happy New Year

I’m not getting any points for originality with that title, but I wanted to get back to the blog.

For most of December, I’ve been suffering for a total and complete lack of interest in painting.

This has been the state of my hobby-gear for the past few weeks – unceremoniously stashed on a spare couch in the office

The only hobby related thing I’ve really done is trying to fill in the gaps on my Snowstorm figure using the “Liquid Green Stuff” that Games Workshop put out a few years back. I’m “happy” to report that it’s exactly as useless as you’ve been told. After applying about five layers, I’ve barely filled in the gaps, and it’s left some grainy patches I’ve yet to sand off. Don’t bother.

I do have to get back in the game, as I’m going to play in a Shifting Loyalties campaign in a few weeks and I need the Silent Ones and December’s Acolytes. Best get painting.

Croaker