Aquatic Plant Terrain

     On my hobby journey, I have acquired many plastic aquatic plants for use as terrain. Krazy bins has been a good source for bulk amounts of 'terrain potential'. Three bucks for a medium bag of rubber tubes! Hells ya! Another three for a large bag of aquarium plastic plants? Don't mind if I do!

    So after collecting dust for sometime, they are now glued down to CDs and painted. Behold! My terrain for underwater/ alien planets!

    

    Took them out on my official studio transfer canvas, of course Stan Lee really want to make a cameo for scale.

    The snake skeleton was from dollarama, probably around Halloween, I figured this planet had chemicals in the atmosphere that would bleach the bones.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    After pushing it to the side for several projects, I have a character of the month done....and it's almost May.

For who the bell Trolls

         Oh boy, I need to work on my timing with these blog posts! These models have been finished close to the beginning of March. Once the bases were printed off, the trolls painted up quickly. They were picked up for about $30 for four soft plastic miniatures from Red Alliance, instead of $50-60 Canadian. This company specializes alterative Lord of the Rings models, perfect for MESBG if I am not going into anything official. 

Mordor Trolls - able to protect head with helmets

Cave Troll - Club smash!

School reunion outside Minas Tirith

    You might be asking yourself, hey wait that der troll are on different bases. But more accurately you are literate and talk normal in your noggin. But either way you say it, you are correct, the all powerful GW deemed Cave trolls lesser, providing them with a meager 40mm base for their impressive visage, while the Mordor trolls are on 60mm bases. The armoured trolls seemed to fit better on the bigger base too. Why worry about official bases on unofficial models? I'll tell you when I figure that out.

    They turned out pretty good for how quick they were, the cheap plastic didn't like the washes I used as much as something from better companies so there are some spots I had to repaint. 

    Reading through a new blog called Bedroom Battlefields, I found his list of companies that sell models similar to GW old hammer models. It's great to be able to see a curated list of the top UK wargaming sites as I am not as familiar with the hundreds that are commonplace across the pond. King Games, specifically Dunkeldorf miniatures, was one of the sites linked. I picked up a couple blister packs, Claudia "Schwartz" Hinkel, Agnes "Fleischer", and Esther the Zealot. Though they don't really invoke hand sculpted GW models, I thought they would fit into Rangers of Shadowdeep as survivors or rangers. I also picked up a swarm of rats that I quickly knocked them out to play RoS solo. I have been looking for a Canadian store that carries osprey and fireforge games without them being sold out, so I picked up the very well regarded female wizard box and a peasant rabble, the latter I hope to use some (there are 18 minis in the box!) for a non-combat TTG called applepicking28. One of many non combat games being worked on by the @4ydra community.

Shipped with some nice artwork...

.....and free goodies!

    So this is a first for me, finishing up models as soon as I buy them, what a quaint idea! The reaper bone rats were easy to base and paint. 

Rats swarming Minas Tirith

Get'em boys, he smells of cheese

    I played the first mission of Rangers of Shadowdeep which was split into two scenarios, first one finds the Rangers in a village that has been turned into zombies, and the second is rescuing the remaining villagers from spiders. 

    Playing it solo was fun, I used random painted miniatures, the stego Ranger leading humans and dwarves into battle against evil.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Should have some terrain painted up soon, and May is just around the corner. You know what that means? Monster Mayhem is upon us!

Dark Eldar Archon with Incubi

     Back in the early 2000s I went on a band trip to Edmonton. It was on this trip that we visited the West Edmonton mall, and my first Games Workshop store. My friend picked up the 3rd Editon Warhammer 40k Starter set, for the Space Marines. Working only a paper route at the time, I had considerably less money to spend, only picking up some metal wyches and the codex. Andrew let me use the kabalite warriors included in the starter set, living in Weyburn, it's easier to hook a friend then find ones that already play right? 

    Since then, I sold off all my Dark Eldar, which wasn't much more then the Kabalites Warriors, which Andrew eventually gave me, Wyches, Incubi and an Archon. The lack of vehicles really didn't help grow my gaming prowess. I eventually turned to Chaos Space Marines as my second army.

    I have now started collecting Dark Eldar miniatures of that era. Here is part of that collection that still needs to get painted. The Archon I painted up is from Hasslefree miniatures with a splinter pistol added to her hand, not much of a kitbash, but looks pretty natural. But what's an Archon without their Incubi?

    Couldn't find a second double fist backpack, but I am not really into them anyways. Incubi are usually in groups of five, but I only found four of this sculpt. I'll need to keep looking for the last one.

    I tried to match the paint scheme I used for these Wyches which I planned to use for Kill Team 2018. Loads more to go! I think the next step will be painting up a Raider and filling out the two units.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    I picked up some miniatures from King Games Miniatures which I will show off here. Hopefully, I can show off some more finished projects soon as well!

Stegosaurus Barbarian

     Okay, so I am participating yet again in the_goodground 's hobby challenge called Paint an Adventuring Party. This time I was hoping to get my entries in on time and all 12 of them finished! Well, I am off to a good start seeing as this will be my January entry being posted on February 1st!

No matter! Here is my Stegosaurus Barbarian, from the Reaper Bones Kickstarter 5 Fantasy Dinosaur series. I figured I would continue the trend of painting up a dinosaur miniature in January. I glued one of the arms earlier making it a bit difficult to pain up, but I think he turned out good, I am not the best yellow painter out there.

If I had a hammer....

I'd hammer all over this land

    Here is Pelgwis Ambletrek from last January, you think the Barbarian suspects that he is really a gnome in a very finely crafted mechanical armour? 

    Probably not, Stegos didn't have much of a brain, and neither do barbarians, besides there is more hammering to be done!

Next on the Hobby Desk!

    I had a great idea for my birthday, we are renting out a room at the library (due to cat allergies and naps) and was going to just play random board games. What I might actually do is paint up a few more cars and terrain for Gaslands. Plan is to run a scenario with a war rig or monster truck, something bigger, trying to escape the board. While the other players are trying to prevent it. I'll need a few more terrain pieces as well as a war rig and a single car. For some options, I might paint up 4 extra cars. Time to get to work, the event is less then two weeks away!

Adventuring Party 2022 Wrap Up

     I finished off two more miniatures for the paint an adventuring party challenge that is ran by the_goodground on Instagram they were basically finished last year besides varnishing. That counts! right?

    On the left is Azura, Halfblood metal from Hasslefree miniatures and a metal Reaper Bones Townsfolk IV on the right. The townsfolk was picked up at Dragon's Den in Saskatoon when they had half off their metal reaper miniatures to make way for the Wizkids miniatures. When I base coated the townsfolk, I thought the colours clashed with each other. Now that he is finished, it doesn't look that bad; a backstory was forming in my head that he was blind so he didn't notice what he wore or that he was poor and just wore whatever he found. In the end, he is just a hip old thief. The other townsfolks in that set had been painted up for Rangers of Shadowdeep before the baby arrived.

    With that I have completed my adventuring party, it wasn't done within each month or even enough for the full 12 months but it was a fun challenge to be a part of. Here is what I got finished, they all decided to have a party on the gate to Helm's Deep there was cake.

    Nine out of twelve ain't that bad, hoping this year to complete the full twelve and one a month. I did enjoy thinking of backstories, but then got busy/lazy and a painted miniature wouldn't get posted till the next month to give me more time to write their story. 

    The challenge is also to paint up several different classes and races, which I was more focused on in the beginning of the year, but then starting picking miniatures I liked the look of instead. As far as model distributors go, I feel I am very fond of Reaper Miniatures, usually their metal minis, as they are usually big and chunky for good detail. Wizkids are quick to paint up, I bought a lot so I better get used to them!

Next on the Hobby Desk

Looking forward to 2023, what should I play? What adventuring party will I paint? The Fellowship? Seven months for seven members, the year of the hobbit! 

    

Droning on...

 Before Christmas I finished off three Plague Drones that have been sitting on my half finished heap of abandonment. When I first started them, I wanted to magnetize their fragile legs and rider for more easy transportation to games. At some point I broke my hand drill bit and ran out of magnets, so they languished in the miniature prison called The Heap.

 No longer, these prisoners of their owner's apathic ways have come to an end!

Despite my fussing about with magnets I decided to only magnetize the limbs on two of the drones. The one with the dynamic pose, is clearly the one I just glued. Really like the pose, but boy is it going to be tough to transport. 

Shelf of Plagues

Here is a shot of all the Nurgle Daemons I have, oh and some plague skaven behind the big fella. 

I have a few more nurgle units to paint up:

• 5? Or 10 putrid blightkings (some might turn into kitbash fodder, could see 15 work for a slaves to darkness mortal)
• lord of plague
• Gutrot Spume
• Bloab Rotspawner (might need to actually magnetize this model to make any three of the brothers) 
• 3 nurgles
• of course three MORE plague drone of nurgle

I believe that's all... at least for AOS nurgle. I do have more skaven but they are clan rats. An idea dawned on me that the clan rats could worship one of the four gods, instead of the horned rat. Could give features of their chosen god if the Island of Blood models lend themselves to kitbashing.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Couple more models left to show off from 2022, then onto hobby resolutions!

Ooo Shiny!

 So I bought a lot of miniatures, like what am I doing!? I mean I know miniatures are cool and playing new tabletop systems is a fun experience but I should at least PLAY the games I buy. But no, I picked up all sorts of random unrelated miniatures. 

I am always looking on the buy and sell Facebook page for Saskatoon and Regina. Which now I have stopped looking or at least tapping the proverbial brakes instead of just jumping on everything. 

One of the individuals on there was selling a load of dark elves. I justified this purchase as it would a good fit for all sorts of skirmish games or specially Warcry. But I didn't think it was this much for how much they were asking!

I was expecting 10 archers and 20 spearmen, looking back on the message they were saying he had a least that many plus extra! And of course, no deal is complete without me getting a few lizardmen. 

This dark elves isn't going to be the HEAD of a major corporation anytime soon!

Looks like I have:

24 dark elf spearmen 

11 dark elf darkshards 

12 glade guard? 

4 high Elf shadow warriors?

5 dark elf executioners

High Elf mage 

Eldar Bonesinger

    I have been following Leadballoony's blog. he has been doing a 'Realm of Warcry' campaign, in which the warband is randomly generated from the tables found in Realm of Chaos: Lost and the Damned. Since reading about this, I have been rolling up chaos champions with the people I support at work as fun little activity to do while it's cold outside. 

    One I rolled up was a Dark Elf that rolled immense as a trait, which brought me to the idea of this Dark Elf corrupted by nurgle, wishing to be a more of a girthy presence. I'll have to go through my bits and see if I can start making this champion a reality.

    With the new starter set of the Middle-earth Strategy battle game coming out, I got a bit of FOMO and picked up the older Battle for Pelennor Fields box set. I know the rules might be a bit outdated, but I found the models in this box a much better deal then the new one. (I also wasn't into the dynamic posing of the heroes). As for the models, the forces of good have 45 and the forces of evil have 38 (two being the witch king on fellbeast and a troll). The new Battle of Osgiliath has 27 and 26 respectively between the two side. Once I get the fellowship painted up, I think I will try to track down the Quest for the Ring mission book, which takes you through the key moments in the hobbit's journey to Mt Doom.

    I might've gotten a targetted ad for Barbaric Splendor, which had 50% off their model range and claimed to be going out of business. Which doesn't seem to be the case anymore, I will assume that I single handedly saved the business with my purchase. I picked up 7 as follows:

• Desdire
  
• 2 x Jeyra
• Llama Queen
• Kaegan
• Katja
• Thorn

Jeyra and Thorn could be tribe leaders for PrimeEvo, I liked the sculpt of Jeyra which is why I bought two. I am sure I can figure out a kitbash to make them a bit different from each other. The Llama Queen I bought because I have a saber tooth tiger from Hassle Free miniatures that she could be a rider on.

    On the buy and sell facebook page, I found someone selling off two forces of Bushido. The Yutei Clan and the Temple of Riso. Should be a good start to learning the game.

Bushido Lot from Facebook

Temple of Ro-kan

    Temple of Rokan, is located on the Rokan mountain. Masters and monks hone their skills at summoning powerful spirits and harness the fury of natural elements to fight back against the darkness.

Cult of Yurei

    Cult of Yurei are worshippers of the dark god Yurei, giving his followers the power to control life and death. Though they might think they aren't bound by fate, to his will, every puppet has a master.

    The blister packs contain two Cult of Yurei: Yugio & Rokuro; as well as one Rokan: Master Akari. From the small amount of reading and videos I watched, a standard game of Bushido is 100 pts. The Cult box as 99 and the Rokan box has 70, giving me options with the additional blister packs. Master Akari boosts the Rokan to 90. 

    The seller was saying he didn't have time to start another profile, which a second baby on the way. Hopefully I can find time to paint these two factions up and get some tutorial games in. Looks like he bought two factions that thematically would appose each other.

    Alright, I think that's it? I do have some Kingdom Death pin up miniatures coming in from Aliexpress, but those won't be here till like February. Boy do I need to slow down on my purchasing and get some games and painting in!

Next on the Hobby Desk

Some miniatures that I painted to round out 2022!