The Light Elves are finally done

Quick post today. 

I managed to put some texture paint on the bases of 27 light Elves a week+ ago. All that was left was the flock. 

I don’t want to say I found the time but more like decided to get off my but and base them.

Here are the all of the completed Light Elves. Need to get a picture with the “regular” Elven figures.

Covid 19 gaming

It’s been a rough 10 months for everyone. 

I miss seeing family and friends and going to gaming conventions. I am fortunate enough to be an essential worker and my wife is able to work from home. We have been able to cancel our child care needs so are saving a bit of money in that regards.

I’m fortunate I have two sons who have been gaming with me for a few years now and are getting better at grasping technical games.

October: We played the now OOP Pocketmodels Pirates of the Caribbean game. Pirate, French and Spanish fleets took to the seas in a three way battle.

November: Zombicide season 1. My kids really like Black Plague so getting them to play the modern one was a struggle but they enjoyed it. 

In the Hall of the Mountain King. My buddy ordered it from Kickstarter and promptly gave it to me. Lol. We really enjoyed this one. The cascading mechanic is a very cool concept.

Eldest son got Risk: Europe. I don’t mean to brag (and I haven’t played a super serious game of Risk in over 10 years BUT I was a very good Risk player. 

This was very different but I enjoyed it. I lost. Waawaa.

Happy New Year!

Wow, I really lost track of the time there.

Things have been busy since August, hobby wise and in real life. 

Here’s a quick recap Of the hobby stuff:

Purchased:

( and built) 2 Aberdeen  class airships from Crossover Miniatures

16 French Foreigh Legion and  16 British Northwest Frontier from Artizan Designs (Christmas gift for myself from the family) for a VSF setting. 

Oathmark undead box and two metal blisters.

4 Tier one operators sets from Spectre (Christmas)

1500 3/8x3/4 foam bricks off of Etsy.

Ltd Edition GW Gamling on horseback.

Painted:

Received the rest of my 28mm 101st Airborne from Karl at Kura Creative

Oathmark Goblin Wolf Riders (only rider figures) metal heroes and resin Ltd edition hero painted by Karl at Kura Creative.

I finished 30 Oathmark Elves, 10 light Elves, 4 hounds, 4 humans and one necromancer. 

Why did I purchase 1500 3/8x 3/4 inch foam blocks? I hear you ask. Because it’s cheaper than buying a Proxxon foam cutter and I’m not burning time cutting foam blocks. The reason is Jeremy from Black Magic Craft (YouTube) posted a dope video on modular rules that I wanted to try. The results will follow in a separate post.

The plan for 2021: Major Projects

Continue plugging away with Oathmark

I have to built, Prime and paint the 30 plastic and 6 metal Undead figures from Oathmark.

Finish painting 30 Dwarf heavy infantry.

Base 30-40 Dwarf Infantry and 30-40 Goblin Infantry.

Paint 21 Wolves (for the painted riders to ride)

Base 27 Light Elves.

VSF project

Finish assembly (on one) and paint both Aberdeen airships (other is primed). 

Paint 14 FFL and 16 British NWF using sweet contrast paint scheme found on YouTube

Purchase rank and file British troops ( 7 packs of 4 figures from Artizan). Paint  them. 

Star Wars Legion (or Chain of Command) this is my nice to get to 3rd project.

Assemble Count Dooku, Anakin, box of B1 Battle Droids (omg the pieces!), and Phase I clone troopers.

Purchase Clone Wars starter set.

Paint them all.

Minor Projects:

WWI terrain board - finish building both sections. Paint both. ( WTF is this really a “minor project?)

Have Karl finish painting my WWI Germans (under 50 figures-easy).

Have Karl finish painting my Wild West figures (under 50 figures-easy).

Foam brick terrain (about 750 have been made into terrain - needs to be mod podged and painted other 750 need texturing before building.

Would be nice Projects:

Try to finish painting my Frostgrave/Rangers of Shadow Deep, The Walking Dead All our War greyscale project ( purchase saviours and whisperers).

Tackle whatever GW lord of the rings I can (for the boy).

Stay away from anything new (looking at you  Stargrave).

Cheers and good luck to you on your Projects this year!

It’s like Christmas in August

I had three orders I’ve been anxiously awaiting. One each from Northstar Miniatures, Wargames Illustrated and Green Stuff World.

They all came today which was both awesome and annoying as I muttered it’s like Christmas in August and the Mrs heard it and proceeded to ask various questions about finances etc. Oops!

Anyhow, one shouldn’t dwell on trivial matters like money. LMAO.

I should start by saying I have a pretty big Wild West collection and have been looking to grab some more. I’ve also been into Rangers of Shadow Deep and think it could be re-skinned to a Wild West setting.

Lastly, slavery was and is bad and the south who fought to keep it were wrong. I purchased the following figures first and foremost for the zombies.

First up is the Artizan Designs, the Risen South box set. Two confederate necromancers and 8 confederate zombies.

Next up is from Dracula’s America. The Dark Confederates boxed set. One Necromancer (evil looking dude in white) 5 ragged confederates and 4 confederate zombies.

Lastly on the Wild West frontier, I picked up three new single figures from Artizan and 5 foot and mounted packs.

From Green Stuff World, I got two packs of barbed wire for my WWI trench boards and some fallen leaves for scenery.

From Wargames Illustrated, I purchased the August issue and a Giants in Miniature figure I plan on leading a future expedition to Mars.

Plugging along...

Here’s those Elves I was talking about. Front middle is the Metal Maquette that is limited edition from Northstar reserved for pre-orders and such.

Here’s the humans. Sorry for the botched picture. Three metal champions and 5 plastic figures.

I also painted some Nolzur’s Spiders. Black contrast and brown paint slapped on the furry areas. Eyes picked out in red. The white spider obviously uses white instead of brown or red. He’s the leader. I kept two cocoon bases separate as they will make good scatter/objectives.

Just a small update from my Mantic Games The Walking Dead collection. One of the Scavengers (Andy or Jud) and a walker as well as the giant resin one. Having discovered Contrast paints these guys paint themselves but I’m stuck with about 1/2 my stuff done the old way (layers and dry brushing) and he other 1/2 using contrast. They look ok together but don’t match 100%.  It shouldn’t but it does bother me. I dunno. Also all the new kits are resin which is an improvement for details but takes a bunch more time to assemble.

Today I slapped on some glue and flock for another 20 Oathmark figures. My “regular” Elves are almost done. I think I have 14 or so archers left to base. Up next are the light Elves which are all painted as well. Just need basing.

There are (all plastic) 6 archers and 10 spearmen for the Elves.

The 4 figures on the right are metal. Three come from the King,Wizard &horn blower pack. The 4th is the Limited Edition maquette.

More Walking Dead

I’ve been on a bit of a painting break the last few weeks. 

I’ve had a bunch of miniatures arrrive during that time but I was having some problems with my posture. Basically I sit all day at work and as a result my upper torso is bunched up a lot. I had some pain as a result. Stretching and breaks have since alleviated the discomfort and I’m more or less back to normal. 

Some of what came was some more of Mantic Games’ The Walking Dead line. Resin exclusive King Ezekiel and Fear the Hunters expansion. 

I decided to work on some of the older TWD stuff as it’s super easy with co yeast paints. However, I had run out of GW’s Contrast spray primer Grey Seer. 

I looked at my local GW $25.00 and an independent retailer $19.99. Are you kidding? I had no choice however as the spray paint I’ve been using lately has not been working great and I don’t want to mess up the figures.

Here’s the giant walker. The shirt is the spray primer. The rest is contrast. The Bones have been highlighted in white.

I tried to do a plaid shirt. Utter failure. I didn’t have a paint pot of Grey Seer either so I couldn’t tidy up my lines. Looked horrible so I repainted it a darker grey and have thrown down a wash as well.

Scratch building forests

I took advantage of the warm weather and being ahead of schedule painting various bits around the house to break out some terrain pieces and get stuck in.

I had another Charlie Foxtrot building (boulangerie) build so I spray textured it and eventually primed it grey.

I also glued some twigs collected during evening walks with the family  to some MDF I trimmed down several weeks ago.

These stocks have busted tips and will be used as a shell burst copse of dead trees for WWI.

I had some other twigs with flat cut edges which were glued onto the MDF. I shaped two pieces of Pink insulation  and popped them on top. They will be the bulk of the foliage.

The pink insulation was painted green using craft paint and will be covered with lichen and clump foliage.

I drilled into the bottom of the styrofoam so the “tree trunks” insert into it. It is fairly sturdy.

I made two pieces. I have another 7 MDF bases to fill. All in all it was a quick project. It cost me next to nothing as the sticks I picked from the forest. The insulation was blowing down my street two years ago from a nearby job site. The MDF was a protective floor covering the I needed 2 years ago when I remodeled the kitchen.