Paint What You Got Update #3

     Continuing my quick descent into all things Battletech, here is what I should have posted a couple days ago.

House Lyran Commonwealth - Lyran Guard

Atlas, Banshee, Hunchback, Clint, Commando

I'll be writing up a page for all the Battletech stuff, breaking down the Battle Values for each lance and writing a bit about each house. If you are interested, stay tuned!

House Liao - House Ma-Tsu Kai

Awesome, Trebuchet, Assassin, Hermes II, Catapult

    I only have two more mechs left from the Intro Box, then it's onto the beautifully crafted current line of Battletech mechs. Below I have the final Great Houses, House Marik, on the paint desk. The Mad Cat and Cyclops, are the two left. Not sure which those are? They have a neutral standing pose and a smaller base. Now you can see why I am excited to paint up the dynamically posed newer sculps!

    After the Great Houses are finished, I have all these remaining. ComStar, Clans or mercenary groups? I haven't decided yet. ComStar is basically the phone company of Battletech, which felt the duty to protect the knowledge and technology of humanity from being destroyed by war, later becoming splinted into Word of Blake. Maybe I'll just have to buy more Battletech mechs to do it all!

Next on the Hobby Desk

    My Battletech crusade continues on! I do have some variety on the way and the Paint What You Got Challenge 2025 Challenge is almost over. I only have till the end of February. I need to get cracking. I did 3D print some bits and models for my birthday. I should probably have a post about that as well.

Paint What You Got Update #2

    I haven't played any Battletech since I first was introduced to it, which was probably about a decade or so ago. Right around the time I picked up the Introductory Box that these mechs came from. But I am really enjoying painting these miniatures up, especially now that I have paint schemes picked out for each Great House. 

House Davion - Davion Guards

Zeus, Battlemaster, Quickdraw, Dervish and Vindicator

    Picking out the mechs for each house, I went with a more balanced approach. Mixing heavy, medium and light mechs. I say that, but this particular lance has mediums and heaviest without any light mech. I do have some extra mechs to paint up from buying blind boxes and the random Star lance boxes, so I should be able to fill in the holes as I go.

House Kurita - Sword of Light

Grasshopper

    Here is one such hole, now House Kurita has a heavy mech to it's name. Just need a medium mech now.

    Jumping in feet first into the painting, I began painting up a Clan Ghost Bear lance as they had a sorted history with House Kurita, fighting several wars within their territory. 

Clan Ghost Bear

Panther, Awesome, Dragon, and Enforcer

    I guess these aren't technically "Clan mechs" but I guess these are salvaged from war, especially that Dragon. Dragon mechs are synonymous with House Kurita, being a battle standard for their army.

    And to finish off with a non-battletech miniature, here is Ariane from Zombicide. 

Zombicide Wulfsburg - Ariane

     Only three more characters to go for Wulfburg and I will have all my Zombicide finished up. For Battletech, I have two more great houses for the intro box and 2 lance boxes, 2 blind salvage boxes and a couple odds and ends from a lot I bought awhile ago. Will I paint it all? I might just do the 2 lance boxes and salvages after the intro box. We shall see!

Next on the Hobby Desk!

More BATTLETECH!!!!!

Paint What You Got Update #1

    This year I want to get better at posting my finished miniatures as I paint them. Usually the case is that I want to complete a unit before posting. Can't post this mini, he doesn't have his base done! Now what colour of base.... etc.

    So these miniatures are leftovers from last year that just needed a couple minutes to finish up that didn't quiet make it into 2024.

    First up is some quick Battletech buildings. Cleaning up the Hobby room I came across some packaging that I intended to use for building in Battletech. Still have the packing, I might make something more hex map friendly. These could be used for Mech Attack! if the rectangle bases are too unclear for opponents.

    My brother came over for a paint night in December. He was painting up his newly acquired Battletech A Game of Armored Combat TM Box. I decided to grab my own unpainted/ foolishly painted ( this is a Clint, I should paint it like Clint Eastwood in The good, the bad, and the ugly...) mechs. Reading into the universe of Battletech, I decided to paint up a lance, four mechs, in the colours of each of the five major houses. Well, four, as I painted some mechs up as Clan Ghost Bear, who has a sorted past with the Draconis Combine.

Draconis Combine - Sword of Light

Cicada, Jenner, Spider, Whitworth

    This lance would be used for scouting, or a quick strike. I will be painting up a Grasshopper to add a heavy class mech for options. A standard game of BT is usually around a Battle value 2.0 of 6K or higher if you want a longer game, you could also use tonnes as a points system but I am told it's less accurate to the mech's actual fighting power. For this lance's BV 2.0 it would look like:

Cicada - 659 

Jenner - 875

Spider - 622

Whitworth - 982

Total: 3138

    The Grasshopper would add an additional 1,400 to get close to a standard game, but a lower BV might be good for a learning game with my brother.

    Before Christmas I had started to paint these older plastic Chaos Space Marines for Space Hulk as advisories. There was a fan made rules for all the factions, splitting the factions up as horde or tactical, dictating how they played. Sweeping the internet, I found they have been taken down as a C&D  action. I have found some more traditional rules for Space Hulk here. 

My original idea was to paint up a 10 man squad with a matching colour scheme, but I changed my mind, deciding to paint them as one off enemies that could be encounted on a derelict hulk while fighting off tyranids.

Chaos Space Marine Captain and special weapons marine.

Two The Scourged Chaos Space Marines

Tzeentch is my least represented in my hobby collection. I really enjoyed the lore of The Scourge. They hunted heretics for inquisitorial questioning. Hundreds were found guilty, some innocently killed. They preyed to the emperor for divine guidance to know when someone was lying. Tzeentch answered their cry for help, blessing the chapter to hear all the truths of humanity. The chapter soon went mad from the lies they were fed by mankind. I'll probably paint up more Scourged Marines as well as a sorcerer and some cultists.

Heroclix Sentinel

Had this one on or near the Hobby Desk for sometime at about 90% done. It is now done. I do have two more to paint up as well. I sculpted a mouth on it that is similar to the sentinels in the 90's X-men animated series.

Electra for scale

Next on the Hobby Desk

I have more Battletech to paint up and some projects that need only an hour or so more time to finish up.

New Years Resolutions!

     So, I did go a bit overboard with miniatures at the end of 2024. I would say that I won't do that again, knowing myself, I have a hard time saying no to a bargain! My pile of opportunity has a lot of miniatures that I have been/ still are excited to paint, it's a matter of reminding myself of what I could currently paint without spending a dime!

    Looking at my 2024 resolutions there are some that started off well then interest waned. Here is a summary of 2024 goals:

1) Paint what I got! Started off well. Around June I saw a really good Haradrim lot on Ebay, which was the first major purchase. 

2) Schedule gaming nights: With Rachel and I working shift work this can be tricky. I have gotten board games semi regularly woth my brothers and I have also joined a monthly Descent campaign that is ending soon. The plan is to transition to Gloomhaven, which I haven't played despite it's glowing reviews. Seemed daunting to me. Matt, who is running it, suggested to buy a new copy or start from where his family stopped playing. The gaming group wasn't too particular about starting fresh, so we will be in the middle of a campaign when we start.

3) Learn Easy convention games: The local FLGS Comic readers hosts Prairie Game Expo quarterly throughout the year. I had planned to run something for it but it somehow always scheduled on a day I or my family were busy. Finally, in October I would have been able to go, they lost their convention location. Guessly, I'll need to find a small group to convert into wargamers on my own. I also didn't read/ play much of the smaller games. 

4) Solo wargames: I did test out Song of Blades and Heroes, One page Rules firefight and Blackstone Fortress. Had about three games of BsF but didn't get fair in any of them.

    Now, what's next for 2025? I think my goals are similar, but I want to focus a bit more on focusing my painting to things that I'll immediately play with.

     I did paint up all of my Zombicide Black Plague, it was nice to be able to play it with all the miniatures painted up. There are a couple of board games that I'd like to see completely painted up, Rising Sun, Unmatched and Resident Evil 2 come to mind. 

Let's get to the Hobby goals!

1) Paint what you Got!!! Like I said, my pile of opportunity has lots of exciting projects ready to be started, so let's get them finished! And if I am not excited about a particular game, mini, terrain, then maybe it's time to sell or trade them off. Rachel mentioned that she would like to play Unmatched. I currently have Adventures, and Jurassic Park (Raptors Vs. Ingen & Dr. Saddler Vs. T-Rex) and just acquired Cobble & Fog as I heard it was out of print. 

2) Schedule Gaming nights: Rachel suggested to bring back the two game nights a month from 2022. I should make a point of rereading rules and setting up nights in advance to make sure we keep to a schedule. Plans on the calendar are set in stone. 

    Gloomhaven/ Descent nights are still be scheduled every month if possible. As well as, my friend, James, wants to get a Stargrave campaign going, so I'll need to fit that in too. Plus my eldest brother, Shawn, is getting into Battletech. With book keeping and complex rules, Shawn was thinking of learning the game in smaller 2 mech per person narrative style games. I haven't played in over 8 years, I will need a refresher too.

    If I can find a local group, I would also be interested in running some one off RPGs, but that's lower on the list of items.

3) Learn Easy Convention games: I would enjoy going to local conventions to show off Song of Blade and heroes, Space Weirdos, One Page Rules Firefight etc. With Prairie Game Expo in limbo, this will probably be on me to start up. Maybe I could rent out a room in the library monthly? In Regina, I feel that a lot of wargamers stick to non-indie wargames. I would love to run an Inq28 event, a movement in the community that focuses on rules light, narrative heavy gaming set in the gritty dark corners of the 40k universe. I just need to start a narrative.....

4) Dungeon 23 Community Event: Dungeon 23 started in 2023, but has continued throughout the years since. Simply create one room in a dungeon every day throughout the year. By the end of the year, you'll have a mega dungeon on paper with summaries of each room. For mine, I will be switching to 40k instead of fantasy with a focus on different setting elements each day. A hive city, Space hulk, planet, and major characters that inhabit each.

5) Solo Games: I'd like to start doing a more narrative focused for the solo wargames I play. I also want to do more board games solo. Mage Knight, Shadows of Brimstone, Conan (which has a solo variant) and Firefly all would be interesting for me to play through.

So there we have it. Goals are set, ready to tackle 2025!

The other horde....

    Alright, I have been dreading posting this for awhile now,. This hasn't been just this month, I believe I picked most of it up in October. I would say that I fell off the hobby wagon, but it was more accurate to say that I had guided the wagon down a shear cliff, hitting every rock on the way down. There might not even be enough pieces of a wagon to get back onto, only piles of plastic.

    One of my friends, James, has been getting out of Warhammer. He bought into Kill Team 2021 and is done with updating every few years. He wanted to give me a really good deal on several kill teams as well as terrain from the sets he has bought. I am now a proud owner of these kill teams:

• Ork Commandos (12)
• Extraction Squad (11)
• 2 x Death Korps Krieg (22)
• 1 x Gallowdark terrain set (10)

    Part of the deal was also trading my Darkoath Savagers, so I did relinquish some of my sweaty angry barbarians.... for even more sweaty angry barbarians!

    Conan, from Monolith Games, is a scenario based cooperative board game set in the brutal world of Robert E. Howards imagining. One player takes on the role of the Overlord and up to four others playing as Conan and his merry bunch!

    Over at Lead Balloony, he has painted up all the miniatures with a really nice paint job, despite the poor quality of plastic. The kickstarter version has more poses for the general rabble, this set only has one and some weapon swaps.  

60 Minions

A mix of Heroes, Minions and beasts, 46 in all

    On market place, someone was selling the intro set to the first edition of Age of Sigmar for a good price. 

4 Liberators, 2 Retributors

  

 3 Blood Warriors & 5 Bloodreavers

    

    Could use these in Warcry as allies/ adversaries in a solo/ co-op game. The Arkanaut Company could be used in Warcry, but these are my only sky dwarves. More likely they will be used for kitbashing chaos dwarves and the pistols used for mordheim.

10 Arkanaut Company

    I picked up yet another lot of Heroclix, I took the first picture then realized I had much more separated out. There is even MORE then this but I have deemed those as "kitbash fodder" and won't be adding them to my miniature total. Yes, I would be making new miniatures out of kitbashed ones and thus be counted against my total of purchased miniatures but I am sure there will be some that are only partially used. I am adding too many to my purchased pile okay!? 

All the hero..clix

Aww crap there is more!

Henchmen

    These next ones seemed odd to me, Frankenstein as like a pirate? a flaming monkey man? a human tornado? (don't think that's his actual name)

Choice heroclix

    Early heroclix sculpts are just plain silly. Doomsday is almost the size of Blade, a regular human vampire. Blade himself is also very chunky which probably a limitation of heroclix when they were first being produced. Dr. Octopus just looks he was a nerd they pulled out of science class, I guess that's not entirely untrue. 

Early Heroclix sculpts are fun

    And last but not least...I picked up some wargs and goblins as well as Ghost of Archipelago. The Mordor force is an idea I had to add in additional players into games of LotR. A raiding party of goblins and wargs could wander into a battle between Rohirrim and Haradrim. 

    As for Ghost of Archipeligo, well, pirates plundering forbidden islands has a vast potential for terrain, and monsters. I did pick up a megablok skeleton pirate ship, from value village that might host an undead crew in the future. 

Painted: 139  Troops, 8 Mounted, 8 Monsters/ Vehicles, 12 Small Terrain, 2 Large Terrain

Purchased: 559 Troops, 35 Mounted, 1 Monster/ Vehicle

Traded: 20 Troops

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Okay, so no more purchasing till next year! Got it! I swear I am actually working on stuff. It's a bit all over the place and I need to reel it in a bit and just focus on one thing. 

Zombicide - The Horde

 If you procrastinate long enough, you can just post all the finished painted zombies at once. I blame this on being a completionist. Only 15 zombies! I can get a picture of all 63 zombies, that would look way cooler on the blog!

Here it is, all 64 zombies (and one necromancer) ready for a feast!

I was right, it does look cool! I went with the heroclix approach to painting. Major areas have paint but don't look too close at the details. These shambling undead won't be on the table long enough to enjoy the spotlight anyways.

The only miniatures left is the heroes to paint, I have 3 painted already. Three more for the base set, and the base set will truly be completed. Another 4 for the Wolfsburg expansion, completing it as well!

Painted: 139  Troops, 8 Mounted, 8 Monsters/ Vehicles, 12 Small Terrain, 2 Large Terrain

Purchased: 195 Troops, 22 Mounted, 1 Monster/ Vehicle

This total isn't quite accurate as I have made purchases since...... but I'll get to that!

Next on the Hobby Desk!

Other projects have crept onto the table... like a Mordheim lizardmen kitbash? If anyone saw that coming you are probably psychic and should get some lottery tickets.

 I have some old metal lizardmen that were added to a trade awhile back. Didn't have any plans for them so Mordheim is giving these minis a new lease on life. 

Slaves to Darkness - Choas Knight & Chaos Murauder Horsemen

         I have been playing in a Warcry narrative campaign with some other locals. I have only had 3 games since September when it started. This is mostly due to having to start after 9pm, after my daughter is sleeping. My warband doesn't have much of a story as I haven't had the will power to write something up. I was thinking it would be a scouting party made up of mostly cavalry with the members all worshiping their own gods, united to seek out artifacts of power. This is basically as far as I have gotten.

    I initially started the Scorned Anguish as a chaos murauder only warband. A chieftain as the leader, three horsemen and seven chaos murauder. The idea was to grow the warband from weak roots, acquiring supplies as they grew in power. 

    The first couple game I got knocked around hard as expected with a horde of low tier minions. I recruited a chaos knight after the first game. He hits much harder then a murauder, that's for sure.

Magnetized weapon arm for fun posing and transport

Probably could have glued the legs to the horse then magnetized the torso. I might do that instead in the future. With the knight painted, I focused on the horsemen that already had a few colours on them.

The three horsemen of the apocalypse... Tzeentch be damned!

    Yes, Tzeentch is missing, I enjoyed painting brighter colours for, probably could go a bit more experimental with Slaanesh horsemen, maybe have a body swap for a female or non binary rider. 

    These were just for Warcry. If I wanted to bring in say, a seeker of slaanesh, I would need to roll on the aftermath table for an ally or heroes. Might not be a thing that I see happen as the last 3v3 battle will be happening next Friday and I don't think I'll be able to get another game in till then.

Painted: 86 Troops, 8 Mounted, 8 Monsters/ Vehicles, 12 Small Terrain, 2 Large Terrain

Purchased: 195 Troops, 22 Mounted, 1 Monster/ Vehicle

Next on the Hobby Desk!

Zombies! I should get these zombicide minis off the table! They are just a horde of bodies, I need to just get a quick paint job on them to start playing. I have 8 done as well as 2 heroes and the necromancer. I focused on what as necessary to play the game.