March painting, finally.

     After a productive first two months, I have started to slow down on the painting it seems. Not because I don't have stuff to paint, but I am a bit directionless as I don't have any specific wargame that I am currently playing. This blog entry is well overdue, as a lot of the miniatures have been finished in March and it's apparently mostly thought April now!?

    First up, a triple threat of metal harpies from Gamesworkshop. I bought these when Thunder games and gifts closed in January. Frostgrave has peaked my interest recently, so now I wish I had painted them in cooler colours. Doesn't matter, still enjoyed painting them, pick out more metal minis to paint soon.

S'Kara, female Skoli (reaper miniatures) was painted up to about 90% last year, adding I couple more colours has now taken her off my painting desk. Was going to be part of the Paint an Adventuring Party Challenge for last year, but didn't get much finished for it.

Obligatory battle scene

    Mech Attack! is a skirmish game that simplifies the rules to Battletech for those that don't want to read through all the crunchy rules. (though I might dip into the lore a bit more). I have Alpha Strike on PDF, a simplified version of Battletech and it is 250 pages? That doesn't sound very streamlined to me. I first heard about Mech Attack from the Chicago Skirmish Wargames blog. They take the game to a whole new scale, a scale I'd love to build for but for now, I'll repaint my heroclix.

Slattern and Coyote Tango rebase and repaint

Scunner and Gipsy Danger WIP

        A friendly local game store one town over called Dragon's Den has had a couple Resident Evil 2 board game expansions on their sale rack for over a year now. I offered to buy both for an additional discount on one expansion. This was my second big purchase of miniatures this year. B-Files came with 8 zombies, 2 Lickors and 2 forms of Mr. X, the stalker type nemesis that hunts you throughout the game. Survival Horror adds a PVP mode adding 7 survivors to play as in the main game, as well as 2 Ivy plants, 2 Giant Spiders and 2 zombie survivors. A grand total of 25 miniatures to paint up. I also traded away a box Kabalite warriors for 3 Space wolf Thunderwolf cavalry as well as 2 Space Marine Captains and 1 Dark Eldar Incubi and wytch. Broke even on the trade as it would be 10 points total for both. 
    

Hunk and Tofu, yes, a walking piece of Tofu

    In the Resident Evil game, when tofu gets damaged, he turns pink and has chunks bitten off of him. Hence the pink colour scheme.

Painted: 8 points

Purchased: -38 points

Total: -30 points

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Birds! Well actually mice and rats. I have been working away on Tail Feathers and have finished up all the infantry in the box. I just need to get some pictures taken.

"They are the Nazgûls, Ringwraiths, neither living nor dead."

    So far so good for the painting challenge this year, I haven't purchased any new models yet.... well, that's not quite true. I did buy some X-wing miniatures used for Full Thrust but I don't plan on painting those and thus not going on my pile of opportunity. Now to actually read the rules for Full Thrust to play with them! 

    

    Hot on the heels of the fellowship are the Ringwraiths. These beings that are devoid of anything expect their will to hunt down the one ring were great to paint up. I thought that using the blue/ purple on their cloaks would make them too bright and cheery but it seemed to work out well. I do have more to paint, I just picked out models that didn't need much work to get to painting. 

Nine would have been a better number.

Mounted Nazguls

Ringwraiths on foot

Forces of Evil

    A good start to my Evil forces, I would be able to run the trolls and wraiths together. Next would be to paint up some minions to be led by these leaders.

Painted: 10 points

Purchased: -32points

Total: -13 points

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Not much painting going on the desk right now, making some 10mm buildings for a game called Mech Attack! which is a simpler Battletech game. Nothing to show yet, but hopefully I can get some time to tinker around with it.

"I will take the Ring to Mordor!"

    The fellowship of the ring is ready to go on their perilous quest. I really enjoyed painting these up, they have good detail and the hobbits didn't take long at all. 

The Fellowship

The Hobbits, the hobbits, the hobbits! To Isengard!

    

    I appreciate the tutorial that I used gave each hobbit a distinct colour pattern. Merry and Pippin are pretty interchangeable in my mind, so giving them different coats and cloaks helps a lot.

Gimli, Aragorn and Legolas

Gandalf and Boromir

How are the fellowship boys going to get out of this situation!

    I was going to post earlier, but I have a bad habit of waiting till a set of minis are finished. It just seems like I would get the social media endorphin hit before actually finishing what I started, making me less eager to finish the miniatures? Maybe that's just me. 

    The fellowship themselves is around 600 points for the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game. Not the easiest list to field as they are all heroes with special rules, but still can be done. I looked through the Quest for the Ringbearer rules, which follows the ring to Mount Doom with like 28 scenarios. Might be a bit expensive to find all the different models for said scenarios though, but I would work with what I got. There is also a Fantasy Fellowship section in the book that allows for building your own fellowship. Basically a "What if..." rule set, which does sound interesting.

Painted: 9 points

Purchased: -32points

Total: -23 points

Next on the Hobby Desk

    *Soul piercing scream* That's right, time to finish up some Ringwraiths! They are getting their best cloaks from the drycleaners and will be ready to hunt for the ring.

2024 Hobby Resolution

    This year has been pretty crazy for the old pile of opportunities. You can check out my wild and out of control purchasing habits here. There were a few times that I was giving myself some "retail therapy" after some longer days of parenting alone. Last year this happened quite frequently as my partner went home to support a family member.

    With the variety of painting and crafting I did, I made a system of points to see exactly how much I accomplished. Troops would be +1, Mounted +2, Monsters +3, Small terrain +1 and Large terrain +3. I calculated that my yearly hobby debt was -180. Half those points came from the Zombicide Black Plague and Wolfburg expansion I bought preowned, a total of 97 points in Troops. This has got me looking through all my miniatures, thinking about exciting kitbashing, and sparking the joy of some of the miniatures I had when I picked up the model. 

Here are my 2024 Hobby Resolutions:

Paint what I got! I am privileged to have so many miniatures in my collection. It's time paint up what I have. My lizard brain was working when I saw that Thunder Games and Gifts was closing down, so being the sneaky hobbyist I did make an order and I DID order it LAST year.... but they arrived in 2024. I will be starting off with a small amount of miniatures (only about -32 points) in the 2024 purchase pile. Sometimes you just need that cheesecake when you are on a diet, don't judge me.

Schedule board game/ wargame nights: Between my partner and I working shift work, getting in board games at night is a bit challenging. Usually it needs to be at our house or one of us can go out. I'll try to get better at getting out with both of us.

Learn and play easy convention wargames: I have bought many indie wargames, Planet 28, Song of blades and heroes, Space/sword weirdos, Brawl Arcane 28, etc. These are mostly super simple systems that are designed to get miniatures on the table fast. It would be great to teach it at Prairie Expo, a local convention put on by Comic readers or put on something myself.

Play Solo: There is a lot of solo RPGs and wargames, it would be great to get them on the table instead of video games. I have had a bad habit of staying up too late and the extra screens don't help this. This would help with the previous resolution too, letting me learn at my own pace.

That's all for now, maybe there will be more as we go through this year.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    I have started to paint up the Fellowship from Lord of the Rings. Two are done, with a third on it's way. They are dogged of course by the Ringwraith that share my paint desk as well.

    

Rebel Troopers, zombies and the rest of 2023

Looking at how many miniatures I picked up this year, I blame you Zombicide with expansion secondary market purchase, I have started to look through all the miniatures that I own. After all, these were fun projects that I was interested in at one point or another and can rekindle that spark of inspiration. Star Wars Legion is one such project, I had painted the Imperial side of the starter set awhile ago, it was time to start the Rebels

At first I painted 10 rebel troops. But decided to finish the full set, 28 infantry, 2 AT-RT walkers and Luke Skywalker. For how slow I paint it has taken me to right before Christmas to finish up. The white spray primer I used, I believe it was a rustolium, made my paint hydrophobic, forcing me to use more paint to get it to stick. 

By the end I just wanted it done, so some of the Rebels look better then others. Alas, they are done.

Star Wars Legion Starter Set Rebels side

Two All Terrain Reconnaissance Transport

Luke Skywalker

    And now for the random stuff that I painted that isn't Star Wars related, oh, wait, Ron Perlman was a character in the Clone Wars series? What a good segway! Man, that guy is in everything! Without further adieu, here are some zombies I painted and Ron Perlman, both from Zpocalypse.

Zpocalypse zombies

Zombies and deranged Ron Perlman

Okay, he looks more like Ron in person

    Also one hero from Descent first edition, not sure about the base so I left it black for now. I looked up her name after I painted her all pink.

Red Scorpion

     That's about it besides some adventures I painted up, but I will post them once I get better pictures of them. 

Next on the Hobby Desk

Time to ring in the new year and paint what you got! I recently cleaned my hobby space and found many purchases that I'd love to paint! It's time to colour, and kitbash their world. It's time to dig into my pile of opportunity! Resolution time!

Season of Scenery 2023

     Alright, recall the search parties, and take my picture off the milk carton. I was always here, just a bit busy with childcare and working. Though I did manage to get a few terrain pieces done for Season of Scenery this year. 

    I picked up some MDF modern house terrain from cardboard dungeon two years ago or so. These kits are pretty cheap at $20 CND or sometimes less, so one of the reasons I hadn't had the energy to tackle the two houses I had picked up is due to the lack of detail. Coyote Manor doesn't have detail on the exterior. I started cutting out cardboard to look like vinyl siding, this I didn't finish as my mind thought other things to add. Wires? meters? A basement... somehow? The Grey Harbour house C that I painted, at least had laser cut details on the walls.

    You'll notice that the windows on each floor look different, that's because I made my own on the top floor when I couldn't find the ones that came with the kit. I tried to remove the bottom ones, this made the carboard rip or remove the paint. I might come back to it later, but for now, I am fine with it.

    I only did the exterior as the interior would need a lot of detail work, stairs for the second floor, wallpaper, furniture, etc. Design wise it also doesn't really led itself to a real home structure. I can't see stairs, kitchen and a living room being in that small space. Upstairs could easily fit a bathroom and a bedroom with stairs going down.

    I also finished some 3D printed doors, six of them to be exact. These are to be used in Resident Evil 2 board game. 

    I also played a solo game of Don't Look Back, a co-op survival game that emulates 80's slasher flicks. Some interesting mechanics, hopefully I can run a group through a game or two during October. 

    Black Magic Craft does have a video on how to transformer these Christmas Trees from Michaels into regular looking tree, so I am working on getting them done soon.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Finishing up some of the adventuring party challenge, some have been finished for awhile and haven't had the motivation to post on here. Five are done... and it's basically October.. I gotta get moving on them if I want 7 more before the end of the year.