Hotlead 2023 is over

Hotlead 2023 has come and gone. I had a fantastic weekend catching up with old friends and rolling some dice.

I’ll probably divide this post into two parts.

One of the best parts of Hotlead is the “Bring and Buy”. Think of a giant miniatures garage sale.

I brought 29 items in 4 bankers boxes. It’s always a difficulty between I want to price the items so they sell but I also don’t want to give them away either.

I ended up selling 25 of the items for a profit of $340.00. I also pumped $82.00 into the Bring and Buy (47 Brigade Games 28mm WWI French, TTCombat cargo ship with extension, some 3D printed and painted obstacles and a Canada Post 1/43 scale truck). Furthermore I purchased three boxes of Battletech miniatures and a newer Osprey book.

My good friend Dave snagged a Salute Wargames LTD edition Russian standard bearer for me and I reciprocated the favour by giving him a Judge Dread decal sheet from a previous issue of Wargames Illustrated.

So budget wise, 314.04+202 is 516.04. However, I recouped 340.00 so I’ve spent $175.09.

Here’s the haul:

Salute figure, WWI French and Sci-Fi barricades 

The TTCombat ship. It was in mint condition until I asked my son for some help and he bashed the side into a door absentmindedly. I’ll have to glue and reinforce it. It was $8.00. I’m not too upset.



The Canada Post truck and Osprey book. I see more weird/colourful units in my future.

The BattleTech beginner box.



Two BattleTech expansion boxes. I wanted to take a picture of the front with the models but my kids ripped them open when I got home. 

I also received some painted figures from my commission painter. I have 31 RCW Ukrainians, 4 RCW whites, a red, one German Freikorps, an NPC and 4 horses.

2023 Lead Mountain (mountain of unpainted miniatures) is as follows

Acquired:

12 Cavalry

74 Infantry

1 weapons team

2 vehicles (both painted)

Sold:

89 Infantry (unpainted)

3 vehicles (unpainted)

Painted (commission, purchased painted, or done by myself)

41 Infantry

1 weapons team

How I calculate it is any unpainted miniatures/vehicles acquired adds to the Lead Mountain. Any painted miniatures/vehicles acquired does not add to the Lead Mountain. Anything painted (commissioned or by me) decreases the Lead Mountain

So adding everything together I have decreased the lead mountain considerably. I likely won’t be selling anything else for the rest of the year so just have to paint more then I buy.

+ 12 cavalry

- 56 infantry

0 weapons teams

-3 vehicles

I took a few pictures of the games I played so hopefully will post them soon.

New cabinet

I’ve been looking for a new cabinet to display miniatures in for quite some time. I scoured the internet for quite a while.

Typically I would grab something from IKEA but they really let me down. The Billy bookcases were out of stock. Besta no longer sells the narrow depth cabinets in the 6 foot tall version and Kallax has these really cool clear door inserts that aren’t available in Canada.

I was thinking I would be stuck waiting until Billy came back in stock or having something custom made, when gate smiled down upon me.

A large steel cabinet with sliding glass doors was being tossed. I asked nicely and was told I could have it. Success!

It is ugly, heavy and doesn’t have the modularity of IKEA or something custom BUT the price was right so I’ll make do. 

However it was going in a dark corner of my basement (no electrical plug available without extension cord) so I needed to source some type of lighting for the cabinet.

I found a three pack of these motion sensor, LED, rechargeable, and magnetic lights for $35.99 on Amazon. Added them to the cart (total $39.53) the next day I had them.

My budget this year is now $274.51+39.53 for a grand total of $314.04. Not bad by Hotlead is just over 2 weeks away.

I removed the shelves and the glass doors (so heavy on their own) and cleaned the tracks. I added graphite to the wheels. I brought everything downstairs and reassembled it.  I added the lights to the top three shelves. I also added an old IKEA mirror I had in an unused cabinet to the top space for extra light.

Here’s the overall look. The bottom space is dark. I’ll likely store boxed projects there for the time being.

The top space contains my RCW Makhnovists to the left of the tank. The tank to the right contains my WWI Germans. In front of the tank are some pilots and assorted NPCs for RCW/WWI.

The middle shelf had my RCW Bolsheviks and allies.

The bottom shelf has my RCW Whites and allies.  

Below is my wall mounted shelf which used to hold most of my Reds and half of my whites plus the Back of Beyond characters, vehicles and Turks on the third shelf. My WWII American 101st airborne now occupy the top two shelves.

That’s all for now. Til next time.

Kickstarter, 28mm Germans and terrain build

As stated in the last post I needed some more metal washers. A quick trip to Home Depot got me sorted. 8x 1-1/2” and 4x2” washers and now  I have a small surplus  going forwards. But I saw some 1”x 2’x2’ insulation boards. I have long since thought of making some modular terrain boards using these. They are just shy of $8 each. Which is a lot considering a 2’x8’ board is about $16 (double the cost). However my local places only have shiplap sides instead of a butt end so it is worth it for me.

I picked up 6 boards (enough for. 4’x6’ table).

I also bought some black duct tape to cover the edge to prevent chipping/dents/damage. The washers, tape and insulation cost $73.03. I used up all the tape to line 3 full pieces and 1/2 of a fourth. 

I need some more tape before I can crack on.

Around this time I also backed the Hero Realms Kickstarter for 99 USD which was roughly $134.00

This brings my 2023 hobby budget from $67.48 to $274.51. Yikes. I was doing so well.

Lastly I based the last of the Germans.

I decided to pull out all of the Germans and take an army on parade photograph.

Here’s a few close ups of the army.

Here’s the unpainted 3rd Platoon, a flamethrower team and some casualties.

This is the first platoon, cavalry wing, field gun and machine gun. 

At the rear are an anti-tank rifle, mortar, 3 snipers, another machine gun and an anti-tank gun.


Lastly the HQ group, a mortar, 2nd platoon a tank, assault squad and another machine gun.

Lots of variety to field a number of options. I think I’m March I’ll be dropping off my WWI British to be painted before the unpainted Germans so I can get some games in.

Bases and buildings

My oldest has a 24 hr bug that caused him to miss a really important soccer game today so what better way to spend the day than to plug away at the piles of shame.

I also took the youngest to practice as there is a Home Hardware nearby. I needed some larger metal bases 1-1/2” and 2” widths so the casualties, snipers and heavy guns.

So I spent another $5.15 on metal bases. However I had a gift card so I’m debating whether that counts. I’ll count it bringing the 2023 Hobby expenses total to $67.48. 

Anyways I picked up 4x 2” washers and 4x 1-1/2” washers. I got home and quickly realized I probably need another 2-3 of the 1-1/2” size.

I based some of the figures.

I put a bit of plastic down first as there’s some type of chemical reaction that occurs between the glue and washer hole apparently that leaves marks on the table. That was a fun discovery last go around.

Pictured L to R top to bottom are the grenade launcher and 3.7mm TAK anti-tank gun, the casualties, a sniper and the machine gun. I left most of the crew off of the weapons teams for east of painting.

I have 1 sniper, another flamethrower team and an antitank rifle left to base.

I also put together four sprues of Warlord Games’ plastic ruined hamlet I got before Christmas. I had tested out one building so now have the set done.

Shown are two sprues worth. I opted for 6 pieces of ruins to allow for various configurations.

The weather was atrocious this week but it’s finally warming up. Hopefully I can prime these ruins quickly.

January update

Here’s a quick update,

Hobby expenses:

$18.43 on 2x 1LB boxes of 5/16 metal washers. 

$43.90 on  50mm x 50mm plastic bases and Jan/Feb issues of Wargames Illustrated (shipped for UK).

Total $62.33

5/16 metal washers are my go to for my 28mm metal figures. They give a nice heft and make the figures harder to knock over. They are about 25mm across. 5/16 is the interior hole size. My individual German infantry are now all based. I need a few larger bases for things like snipers, the machine gun and the anti tank gun.

I also need (sometime this year) 50mm square bases. So I placed an order from Northstar. I also added the two WI issues. February seems extra appealing as it has some RCW articles.

This week I started basing my 30 Oathmark Dwarf heavy infantry and 4 metal characters.

I cover the base in GW Stirland mud and then add static grass. I did the mud stage. I do a heavy-ish coat to hide the integral base of the miniature.

Then I’ll static grass the base and use the geek gaming scenics spray to lock it in.

I also put head on my 30 Oathmark orcs and built 10 of the 30 newly released Goblin slaves.

I have 30 more Oathmark Goblin infantry to build as well. That’s all for now. Hopefully I can find little bits of time to keep plugging away.

Happy New Year 2023

We’ll it’s been quite a year.

I finished only a handful of figures myself, a whopping 9 28mm NPCs for my ongoing RCW project. 

I have another 9 RCW figures in some state of painting. I have 6 pirates about 20 Afghan War and another 20 Barons War figures also with some paint on them.

Pretty disappointing to tell the truth but I found some painting mojo and expect to exceed these numbers this year.

Vehicles wise I primed two MDF airships from Crossover Miniatures, and put paint down on a Sarissa Precision train set (tender and 4 carriages) for the RCW. I also assembled an Ainsty Castings Man o’ war pirate ship and have mostly painted a Firelock Games sloop.

My plan for 2023 is:

RCW project

Finish painting the Sarissa train.

Base the Sarissa train tracks.

Finish painting the NPC characters I have for the RCW

Pirates

Get some paint on the 60+ figures I have.

Finish painting both pirate ships.

Oathmark

Finish building my Oathmark Orcs, Goblin slaves and Goblin boxes and get them commission painted (100ish)

Paint my oathmark wolves for the Goblin wolf riders.

Stargrave

Finish building the rest of the Troopers (20ish) box set.

Paint them (60ish)

Baron’s War

Finish painting the figures I started.

Assemble/paint the 40ish figures I have still in the blister.

Assemble/paint the new kickstarter figures whenever they get delivered.

WWI/WWII

Get my WWI British (90ish figures) and remaining Germans (40ish figures) to the commission painter.

Get my WWII German tanks to the commission painter.

There aren’t any major projects I’d like to start this year so hopefully just some small purchases here and there to finish old projects.

My wife thinks I spend $200/week on figures. I actually spend less that $200/month so I’d like to also document my hobby expenditures. I’ll also include supplies like glue and baseing materials etc.

So far I’m at $0.00 Hahaha.

That’s my plan so far.