Prime Day!

 No, I'm not talking about Amazon. Today I sprayed all my terrain from my Warcry Heart of Ghur box in anticipation for Season of Scenery 2025 challenge. The wargaming sculptor, Dave, requires as much line of sight blocking terrain as humanly possible to be painting throughout July 1st to August 31st. Terrain can be fresh, at "the ugly phase" or 90% completed as long as you get the last blobs of paint on between those days. If you'd like to participate,  comment on here.

Over the last week, Rachel and I have been watching "The Residence", which was a good time to build all my terrain from Warcry Heart of Ghur. I will say, these trees were a bit of a pain to assemble as if you glued anything slightly off, it built off the previous piece so I had some bad gaps. Which I didn't worry too much, wax from baby bell cheese was used as filler.  

       I primed yesterday in the beautiful weather we are having here. Seems to have turned out well. Though I did notice how top heavy a lot of the pieces are, bases will be a must. 

         I picked up Blood and Plunder earlier this month from Sentry Box as my co-worker was able to pick it up in Calgary. I have heard good things about the game, and I was going to use the boats for Ghost Archipelago as well. Opening the box last night revealed that I had a missing sprue of Robert Maynard. Emailed firelock games, hope it will be resolved soon. Luckily, all the ships are here and will be assembled shortly.

Next on the Hobby Desk

Probably assemble the boats and get them primed. I have a megablok skeleton pirate ship that I am debating if I should paint it with more ghostly colours or touch it up how it is.

Trash Terrain

    Quick update, I need to get better at posting my finished works, this has probably finished for about a month now. Besides the small ladder, all of this terrain was made with trash, looking up techniques on YouTube. I hope to build enough to play a skirmish game on it with multiple levels of height. 

    My garage is where I pick away at these projects. Here is what is currently on my workbench. This particular build prominently features parts from a printer I dismantled. It's tempting to pick up more printers for scraps as they are usually free and there are so many good details on them. This one printer has given me a lot to work with already.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    I have some more Conan miniatures on the painting desk that should be finished soon. I have also started to assemble the terrain from the second edition of Warcry starter box. This terrain is a pain as there is usually small contact points and multiple interconnecting pieces that don't always fit perfectly. They do look good once assembled, just might be a lot of cursing the terrain designers at GW.

Monster Mayhem Challenge 2025

    While I wasn't as motivated in sitting the hobby room this month, I did get a few things done for the Monster Mayhem Challenge.

    First up, and I am not sure how much these would count, but these five hyenas from the Conan board game. Judging from the size they look more like dire hyenas, towering over the NPC character, Yselda. This seems to be a common theme with my monsters this year, super sized animals/ dead humans. Giant Snake for example. With these enemies painted, I can now play the first scenario with all painted enemies that is, still have the heroes to work on. 

Focus!

    One model that has loitered on, near, around the hobby desk for far too long is my Colossal Skeleton from reaper miniatures. Purchasing the metal figure for way too much money, double the bones version and probably half the headache. It was one of the monsters I was going to paint in 2024, but with a bent base and a snapped arm, I found every excuse to set it down for anything else! I am going to call it a Ogre or Hill Giant Skeleton, which makes it sound more monstrous. I am also going to call it done!

    Last but not least, while out searching Value Village, I found a megabloks set with a large scorpion. The limbs were ball joins that swiveled around which I removes to glue them right to the body with some green stuff for support.

    It was not my intension to paint up monsters that all could fit into Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago, but it is a nice happy accident. 

Next on the Hobby Desk!

    I finished painting my trash terrain, time to post it. Also a glimpse of my next garbage build.

Consumerism and Painting

    Can you believe it? This will be my first post without any Battletech miniatures in it. Fear not! As I have purchased more, just no progress on the pile I already have. No, I have started painting up Zogar Sag with all the Pict Hunters included in this box. Fifteen mono pose warriors. The kickstarter had, I believe, three versions of each enemy, two variants of melee (sword and spear) and a ranged weapon. But this version is from my friend James, not sure if it was kickstarted or not. 

Zogar Sag

Pict Hunters

    During the winter, I started to throw some junk together and call it terrain. Now that it's nice out, I finally spray primed a couple pieces. The first one is finished, though I painted in my basement lighting and taking it out into natural light, I will probably throw a wash on that silver. 

Sister of battle for scale

    The next piece I used pieces from a printer I scrapped for parts as well as car parts that had emerged from the spring melt. I took inspiration from a YouTuber called Scratch Bashing. I intend to do several more of these to link/ stack together for Necromunda or something similarly grungy. Still need to finish painting it. 

    And now for the purchases. First up, Darkoath Savagers. Now veterans of this blog will say, "Hey, Jon? Didn't you just trade that box?" Why yes, yes I did. Warcry doesn't seem to be making a return and the product seemed to be on it's way out. I really like this warband so I purchased it again. They are in the Darkoath Raiders Spearhead, but I wasn't interested in the rest of that box.

Like I mentioned, Warcry is being discounted at Comic Readers. These comes with some nice jungle terrain which would fit right in with Ghosts of Archipelago, as well as two warbands, Rotmire Creed and Horns of Hashut. Rotmire Creed have been on my radar for awhile and the Horns, might grow on me. 

    I have purchased the Battletech Alpha Strike box as well, but more on that when it arrives.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Planning my entries for Monster May(hem) challenge? Painting?

Q1 Wrap Up

     Cleaning up the hobby desk, I snapped a few pictures of these freshly varnished miniatures. While looking around for miniatures that were 80-90% finished for the Paint What You Got Challenge 2025, I found some skeletons and a golem.

    All of them are from Reaper Miniatures. I picked these up back when I brought the first edition of Frostgrave with the intension of using them in my warband. I might still do that in a pitch. The warband is on lipped edged circular bases which might make my hobby heart hurt if I mix bases within the warband.

    

    This is the one exception, for this construct is from Dreamblade. I finished it last year, it was only one model that I randomly finished for Frostgrave so I didn't bother posting it. But now that I have other Frostgrave minis to post about, here it is!

Filling out my random encounters for Frostgrave

    This tree I made some time ago when I was making my own Feculant Gnarlmaw. It has sat on my hobby desk nearby just hoping to get completed. With some basing and a few 3D printed gravestones, I can now call it done and toss it off my desk... gently into my terrain container.

Close up of gravestones

    And what's a painting update this year without Battletech? Non-existent, that's what. Here are two staples of Clan Jade Falcon. Summoner and Timber wolf. 

    

That's it for the painting, now we get into the purchases. In February, I commissioned some gaslands weapons and accessories to be 3D printed so I could have an impromptu vehicle make and take. My friend Victor brought his son, Roberto, of seven, who really enjoyed the activity. His are the two on the top left. My friends Todd, John and Vic all worked on a vehicle or two, as well as my brother Nathan. Might be a fun idea to run a game with a kitbash station? I'll think about that one.

    The other commissions were these, a graboid and two shriekers from the Tremors films. I'd like to create unique rules for these monsters to be used in Don't Look Back. 

    Someone was giving away Chaos Warhounds on our local wargaming FB page, so I now have 9 said hounds. I'd like to paint a couple up for Mordheim, if I do play that.. or even Frostgrave.

    And finally, I bought Blitz Bowl from London Drugs on sale. It was a late night purchase that I didn't look all that closely into, as I had thought it came with the new orc sculpts from the 2020 edition of the Blood Bowl box, but they are in fact the same orcs from the 2016 box I already had. I recently discovered that London Drugs seems to carry Warhammer.

Next on the Hobby Desk!

    Hopefully some more painting!

Paint what you Got Update #4

    Looks like this will be the final update for the Paint what you Got 2025 Challenge, as today is the last day of the challenge.

House Marik - Marik Militia

Cyclops, Cougar, Griffin, Warhammer IIC, Sentinel

    Here it is! The gang is all here!

    The Mad Cat (Timber wolf) is basically done, just need to throw some colour on the base and varnish it. It is painted as Clan Jade Falcon. A metal Thor has appeared on my paint desk, it will also be part of Clan Jade Falcon. Once the Mad Cat is finished, so too will be the Intro Box! 

    I only have 10 mechs left, okay, I think like 4 or so more from a market place pick up awhile back. But I am interested in painting up the 10 mechs that I posted on the last post. Ten is a good number, I can add two more to Clan Jade Falcon to finish off a lance... I think Clan lances are usually 5 mechs? Then the remaining 8 can be two more lances or fill out the Great Houses to play Alpha Strike. 

    Looking up the points value for AS, most Houses need about 2 or 3 mechs to get to 250 PV, the standard game for AS.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    And now for something completely different, and more the same too.

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 Steiner - 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

Jagermech, 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.