Spooky Scary Skeletons

    For October I like to paint up something suitable for the Halloween Season. I already painted up the core set of Don't Look Back in February because what's scarier then winter in Canada, am I right? So the next logical step should have been the Nighthaunt Broken Realms box I picked up two years ago? Nah, it's a horde of skeletons, most that were bought earlier this year. 30 from Oathmark's skeleton infantry range, 20 from an old GW kit I picked up awhile back and 8 from RuneWars, the reanimates. For a total of 58 miniatures.

    First pictures are of the GW range. These surprised me with how posable they can be if you aren't concerned about fitting them into a rank and flank square. They also look good with the other skeletons in the group albiet from slightly thicker bodies, maybe like a beastman or a nurgle blightlord. I also am detailed about the options for a flail and the scimitar instead of straight blade. Grave guard are on my short list of additions I would like to add to this undead army. The warcry box for Legions of Nagash contains 1 necromancer, 5 grave guard and 10 skeleton warriors. I would prefer more guard, but that might be the best option unless I want to pay $60 for 10 grave guard, which I am not that into.

    Next up is the Oathmark Skeleton Infantry. The set comes with four options for weapons, sword/axe and shield, spear and shield and bow with arrows. Axes being less numberous then swords I mixed the two together and did ten of each weapon type. Each sprue has 5 of each weapon (besides axes) so I have plenty of spare skeleton arms which can be used for base decorating or kit bashing with other Northstar miniatures, like the undead, cultists, gnolls or knights boxes that I have. Oh boy do I need to get on those! Wargames Atlantic has their own skeleton infantry box that I almost picked up instead. Their skeletons look similar to the GW models which I didn't feel like I needed to double up on as I had 20 to paint already.

It's a living!

Sometimes you pick up the wrong arm in the heat of battle.

    The Runewar aniMATES, brought back to life to share a pint at your local pub, at least that's what goes through my mind when I hear their name. The necromancer must have been lonely drinking alone. Runewars miniatures seem to be on sale most places I shop, they were picked up on my last board game bliss order at the beginning of the year. Their size and small amounts of armour would make them stand out as a hero or special in song of blades and heroes or other such games. Definitely some nice miniatures in that range, and is being phased out so there might be more joining my ranks in the future.

The animates and Oathmark Skelestons

A graveyard full of bodies

    That's my scary contribution to the month of October, I have some frostgrave zombies and the Sorrowmourn Choir Broke Realms box to add to my undead army in time. 

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Now that I have my painted out of the way, I feel a bit better about sharing what I have bought in the last few months....

Character of the Month - Orc

 So I actually this miniature close to finished in August, but got side tracked and didn't put the small amount of time on it during the season of scenery. Gotta work on this challenge now, this one will be for July. I have 5 more to finish before the year ends or maybe just two more as it's A character a month challenge after all.

Dictating the narrative with his snowy base, another two pack from Wizkids 72560 Orcs. This is a full Orc, no human in this one. 

Time to get going on the 5 more?

Shadows of Brimstone - For a Few Dark Stone More

     We picked up from the campaign we started way back in May. That is to say that we continued our paused mid session game with Rachel joining at the halfway mark. SoB makes it easy to add player mid way with it's scaling difficulty by using the next tier of monster cards available. With 3 players, the game gives you a free revive, as if you had a had extra life instead of the 4th player. To fit Rachel in, we just removed our revive token.

Hmmm.... I was going add some pictures of the play through but it seems I might've deleted them off my phone to make room for Rosie pictures. 

After clearing the summoning circle of enemies, the daring adventures pushed further into the mine. A stench intruded on the party's olfactory receptors, the marshal shines the lantern into the room. They pause, gasping as they see a massarce unfold before their eyes. Several bodies were scattered about in various pieces. Seeing as I lost or deleted the pictures I took, here is my daughter's reenactment. Okay, I didn't actually ask tell her that, it was just a rare moment she laid on the ground beside me. Normally she doesn't do that, you know the sitting still thing.

    This room drained sanity while in it, but also let us search for extra loot. Our adventurers must have smelt dark stone on the other side of the wall because one of the events allowed us to use our whole turn to smash the wall which would guarantee a clue on the next tile we reveled. Rachel usually leaves us to explore the two times this card has shown up and in hind sight, maybe triggering the final boss beside the corpse sanity draining room wasn't the super best idea. 

    The final encounter was a Goliath (think Cthulhu's prettier step brother), a handful of Stranglers and I believe tentacles or void spiders. The Goliath drains sanity for being on the same tile or adjacent tiles to him, which with the room of 1000 corpses, spelt a bad time for the party. We all ended up going insane. I thought would be the end of our characters, but instead the horrors of the mines escapes, destroying a random amount of buildings in town.

    This was temporary for our next visit, we rolled 3 destroyed out of 6 I believe. Everyone who was knocked out also had to roll on the Madness table. These insanities can be cured at the church, which I believe my brother Shawn was able to do. Lloyd Bristle, my character got Delusional, which makes the next rolls on the madness table worse and gives a -1 to Exorcism rolls at the church. Meaning that I could die trying to curse myself of it if I rolled a 1. A bit of delusion didn't hurt anyone, it's better then death. 

    We all levelled up, gaining new abilities, picking one of three paths to potentially follow or mix them up as you go. Once done with our town visit we started the second mission, but didn't get too far. 

    That was in September and since then I painted up the Doc, both genders, and the Undead Gunslingers and his outlaws. We also haven't played again since, but when we do we will have to prepared for some ranged enemies!

    Was thinking Rachel would be interested in playing the nurse, but she seems to be enjoying playing the Saloon Girl, beside the connotation that her character is a sex worker. 

Billowy smoke for effect

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Uh, I don't know, actual content in like three months? I have my poor buying habits, what I have been playing and painting to cover. Also what next for the rest of the year.

Season of Scenery 2022 Part 2

     So as with the last SoS post, let's start with what new shiny has distracted me in.... ONE MONTH! I might have a wee problem... let's call a dragon's horde of opportunity as a result of my habits. Lately, painting up Dark Eldar for Space Hulk (mostly) has peaked my interest. Someone was selling all his army, so I picked out a Talos, a squad of 5 Scourges and a squad of 5 Mandrakes. In my head, the Talos could be used as boss in Space Hulk. There are fan made rules for a Dreadnaught so why not try fitting a Talos, clearly a less bulky cousin. Harlequin have rules, which would probably play similar to Dark Eldar.

    The other pick ups are for Cities of Sigmar, Black Arc Corsairs was a box sitting at my FLGS that was pre-pandemic priced. I always liked the look of them, with their Cthulhu inspired armour and PIRATES! YAR! And a random Battletech mech for.... fun! Wee! The other Cities miniatures, are Great Swords, Demigryph Knights (recast), a metal Battlemage and Free guild pistoliers (recast). I am not one to buy recasts new as they are usually on some Chinese site, but these were local. That should be enough to give me some options for a warband!

    I start a terrain challenge only to be drawn back to miniatures. After painting up the Lucky Gods terrain, I wanted to continue with the samurai themed miniatures. The Reaper miniatures kickstarter Daimyo set has several dinosaurs kitted out in ancient Japanese wear. Nice little break between terrain, I would have done some more, but realized I was just procrastinating on the terrain.

Parasaurolophus Kyudo

Samurai T-Rex

Ninja Dactyle

    Typical Jon, I get a bit stalled out on terrain sometime, especial ones that I am making myself. I get about half way through a piece and doubt my process. That's too big, I need less of that, why did I do that? Yadda ya all these pieces! Yadda, yadda. You know, hobby hang ups. This time I took a different angle, what if I don't make clean terrain? Lets get dirty with it!

First up, multi-use tree, cave people for scale, I wanted to allow movement underneath the tree. The tree is ancient, life always seems to cling to it despite almost looking deceased . Generations of tribes tell of an evil that lurks beneath this undying sentinel, one that has pushed the earth and uprooted life. Nature keeps this darkness at bay... for now.

    I also did a few objective markers for PrimEvo, resources to find or fight over, some bones for weapons and shelter and flint for warmth. Make a few more for food and hides too. This piece of terrain turned out fairly heavy with the plaster of paris on the tree. I probably could have just painted up the cloth mache that was over my wire frame. I picked up some winter trees at Michael's on my last visit, these would be good for a winter board for PrimEVO, but could be used for Super Mission Force or Don't Look Back as well.

    

    My first thoughts on this 3D Space Hulk piece was to throw on everything but the kitchen sink and grime it all up. BUT what if the ship had lower decks that some cults were worshipping chaos gods? With a peak into my bits box, I didn't really have the right stuff for an ritual alter. However, maybe it wasn't Chaos, but Dark Eldar having a bit of fun with their victims.

    Filleted flesh pinned to the wall, a massacred Salamander Space Marine left as a warning to those that would enter into their territory. I made a flesh sack of body parts from multiple victims too, but didn't find a good spot on it for this walkway with out impeding functionality. Which is to accommodate 40mm Terminator bases and visible squares to actually play the game. I left the back of the harddrive mount open for now, mostly didn't know what material to use for closing it off. I don't have much for sculpting tools, something which should get fixed in the future.

Sector Mechanicus Forgeshrine is up next, corrosion on the sides adds a nice lived in feel to the board. But is it enough? My inner nurgle player side says I didn't go far enough, coat the whole model in decay! If I did that, what's the point of spending my Jon bucks on featureless blobs of entropy? To please Papa nurgle of course!

Next on the Hobby Desk!

September is here! And with a month away from spooky month, what does a closet vampire work on between challenges? Why his skeletons challenges in his closet of course! Time to get back to the character of the month challenge and either actual skeletons or something to prepare to play Don't look Back in October.

Season of Scenery 2022 Part 1

    We reach the halfway point to the Season of Scenery. Summer is slow for painting for me, we have been camping in Kenosee with my family for a couple of days and trying out tenting with our 15 month old daughter at Echo lake. It was only one night, and it went well with our dark room tent that we purchased, hoping to use it regularly in the summers to come. 

    To start off the challenge. I actually made a purchase off of Thunder Games & Gifts. On Canada Day, they have a 15% off their Used and New GW produces. I focused on getting miniatures for Warcry, and Space Hulk. Warpfire Thrower and a Warplock Jezzrail to add some range to my rats. This will go nicely with the 40 some clanrats, a Clawlord and Warlock Engineer that I picked up a few months ago. I also picked up some Bestigors, mostly enjoy these models, and 10 of them would be a solid start for a warband. This is the same reason I picked up the Shadow Warrrors/ Sisters of the Watch, great models, good start for Warcry. I could also assemble it 5 of each unit. The Contorted Epitome can fit in with AOS or Warycry. A Chaplain and Grey Knight Terminator for Space Hulk, hope to use them as auxiliary units to Imperial Guard or Sisters of Battle squads. And finally, a piece of Cities of Death terrain. I originally wanted to dismantle it and use it for bits, now that I have my hands on it, I really like this terrain. Tight corridor on the bottom, nice walk way on top and of course loads of skulls!

    Alright, so that's what I bought, what did I actually paint? The first thing I painted was the 3D printed modular dungeon tiles I ordered from the library in October of last year. 

32 Cavern Tiles

Descent miniature to test scale

    The tiles work best with 25mm or smaller bases, the dead ends and hallways get a bit tricky to see which "square" the miniatures are in. I painted it up with underwater theme in mind, I would add more details to the tiles, but as you can see, space is pretty limited.

    I am a frequent patron of second hand stores, usually wandering down toy to find inspiration for terrain. On a recent journey, I found these two Japanese statuettes which seemed like they would fit in nicely as cover in a game of Ronin. Being the rash painter, I didn't actually snap some quick pictures before slapping paint on them. They were a pale white, one idea was to make them look like ancient stone, instead I went with a more worn red wood look. 

    I still need to spray some glue/ water mixture on the growth to keep it in place. Digging a bit deeper, I found out that they are two of the Seven Lucky Gods.

Hotei, the god of contentment and happiness

Bishamonten, God of Warriors

    After finishing this piece, I finished painting some Rising Sun's Koi Clan Bushi (Samurai) to show off the scale of the statues, formerly on the heap of abandonment. September might turn into a board game miniature painting month, just need to come up with a catchier title that will inspire me to start. I picked up Dragon Tides and Zpocalypse from Amazing Stories in June on their dinged and dented sale. Zpocalypse comes with a boat load of zombies and Dragon Tides has Bruce Lee and Brandon Lee figures.

    That's not all I have been working on, just what I have finished. I have a couple WIPs to show off too. 

    Using a computer hard drive mounting bracket as it's base, with several items that I have "saved" from the recycling bin, I have started on a Space Hulk passageway. Printing off a few of these Zone Mortalis style tiles, I have found that they all are different scales, and the two on here are the best size for 40mm bases. 

    The second piece of terrain I have in progress, is a tree I made with cloth mach back in 2018 when I made my homemade Feculent Gnarlmaw. This was the first time I dabbled with Plaster of Paris on a model, it looks fine, beside the fact that I wasn't sure on which way to orient my tree at the time. The plaster makes the tree quite top heavy, to the point that simply gluing it down might not hold it very well. Remembering I had some twine... somewhere, I thought it might be a cool idea to tie the tree down to the foam rocks. As if the tree was a site to hold some evil beneath the ground. Now to just find where the heck I placed that twine!

Next on the Hobby Desk

    I don't have a running theme with the terrain, but I do have a butt load of recycling to pick through for the next/ current projects. The pentium 3 that I dismantled also has a lot of fun pieces to use up. So probably more Sci-fi terrain? The Reaper Bones Kickstarter pledge I bought was Japanese inspired miniatures. Anyone up for dinosaur and undead samurai?