Slight return

I am doing stuff honest, I am! Progress here has indeed been slow but there are things happening. Part of my weight loss plan involves more exercise and an unfortunate side-effect of this is that I am not finding enough time to paint. That said I am attempting to do a few hours on a Wednesday night when my legs are still recovering from playing Touch Rugby the night before.

And not one to miss a bandwagon, just get on it rather late - I picked up a copy of Dragon Rampant last month. A work trip allowed me to give it a good read and by crikey it seems rather excellent! Simple rules written very well and with just the right amount of daft humor dotted throughout. It's really got me excited to get a load more fantasy stuff done, and it turns out I have just enough old minis to scrape together 3 warbands.

First out of the blocks are going to be the Dwarves, slightly fitting after the recent news about Wayne England. I'm hoping to base these on a clan from my favourite way to waste time on the toilet at work - Battle for Wesnoth. If you don't know about this it's a rather fun little turn based skirmish game for your phone/laptop/tablet with a HUGE community producing content for it. Worth some time.

These are the first few stuntys off the painting blocks - A Thane from the Battle of Skull Pass box set I believe, and 2 of my old Norse Dwarves that survived the wilderness years.

And around the start of the month I actually finished some of the Malignancy Cultist types for the Stealer 40k Warband. See I told you I had done something!

And we are off.

First finished miniatures of 2016, even though they were started in December (that counts right?). Original 1st edition Space Hulk Stealers painted using the quick method from the Corehammer blog. Came out better than expected and my first time using ink washes. A bit of work required however, and possibly some better spray paint.

Blaaarreeaghhhhhh.

These will form part of the Stealer Coven warband for my 250pt 40k games. The rest of the gang (Magus, 2 Hybrids and some Brood Brothers) are getting pretty clos to done, more on them soon!

The Not Quite a Year in Review Post

Slightly jumping on the bandwagon (late, again) with this post but thought it better to use it to define a few new goals for the next year.

I've been back into the "hobby" for a little over 6/7 months and it's been a wonderous voyage of (re)discovery. LOADS of new models, some amazing rules for anything you can mention and the blogging of others have kept me stoked throughout. There have been a few dips in motivation and the tedium of painting similar models has got to me once or twice, but I'm still amped on getting things done as best I can. (Except maybe those plastic Skaven, those guys sucked).

Gaming wise - there's only been some rather sad solo games of SoBH and 2ed 40k, and while a blast it's not quite the same as facing off against someone. My scenery needs a bit of work but it's a millions miles away from the stuff I made as a teenager, if I even bothered at all back then!

Orks n Arbites on the rad Deep Cut mat (with my iffy scenery).

Anyhows, a few things I want to do in 2016.

• Keep painting 40k stuff. This past year saw me finish small 250pt warbands of Space Marines, Orks and Adeptus Arbites. I've got a Pirate group coming together but next on the list and (currently in progress) is a small Stealer coven using the Macrocosm minis. Ideally I want to expand these to 500pts and then possibly upwards from there. I snaffled some later age Ork figs from t'bay which should give me a good base for a potential 1000pt army. I'd like to end with at least that and an opposing force by the end of the year.
• Get back into Epic. I have a ton of this stuff and really enjoyed playing it so it's probably about time to dig it out and get it properly painted. I've knocked up a few 1500pts army lists to begin with so I'd like to get those done at least and see where I'm going from there. There is a very active scene for this out there too, and a lot of it in Bristol it seems, so who knows maybe I'll get adventurous and check it out.
• Warbands, warbands, warbands. SoBH is still a great game and I want to keep chipping away at various fantasy stuff until I've got a decent collection that I can pull out at any time and run off a game. I may even learn how to paint Skeletons properly this year too.
• Post Apoc stuff. Get started with this, it a loose aim and will probably end up as a project I work on when I'm sick of the others.
• More Goblin Quest! As the boy nears school age I'm hoping to get him a bit more interested in some gaming stuff. Keeping his attention long enough is tricky. I may have a look at simplifying (even more!) the SoBH rules and see how that goes. Either way more gaming with the boy in 2016n would be rad.
• Play against real live people. Unsure how much of this I will do, it may help if I bite the bullet and sign up to the Oldhammer forum to see who is out there, or just get along somewhere and maybe try a few demo games of something. There has been an idea thrown about of meeting up with Mark and getting a few games at the end of Feb so fingers crossed that will happen.
• Check out some new rules. Not really too important but I do like looking about. Frostgrave is getting plenty of attention and it does look fun, Infinity might be interesting but looks like it gets really involved really quickly.
• Get better with the painting. Again one that will come with time. I need to expand my paint collection a lot more and learn what to do with it (especially yellows). More reading and video watching there I feel.
• Lose weight. Personal one this but I turn 40 in 2017 and I'd like to not be rounder than I am tall by then. Diet fun!

So thats that, it'll no doubt mutate over time but it's a good start. I'm thoroughly enjoying delving back into all this stuff and hope to get deeper in the rabbit hole this year!

Happy New year everyone!

Badly Painted Boy(z)

Had a spare afternoon "working from home" so managed to finish a few more of the Doom Legion Space Fascists and also set up a slightly more professional set up to take pictures of some of my better minis. I know I am nowhere near a good painter, as I'm basically learning from scratch due to never putting the effort in when I was younger but these are a couple I'm happy with so far!

Doom Legion Captain, last mini to be finished, as usual a few bits good, a few bits bad!

em4 Rebel/ganger fella. Tried for a punk bleached jeans look, almost worked!

Orc Warboss, loads of fun to paint!

Zombie dude types. MmMbwaains n'ting.

Chaos Sorcerer type. Pointy, skully joy!

Orctobervember

As usual a day(month) late and a dollar(couple of quid) short. My painting speed ranges from stop to slowslowstop so these fellas have taken me almost 2 months to do. To be fair I lacked a bit of motivation during October, and November was my boys birthday (and seemingly every other child in his pre-school class) so painting time is at a premium. I have avowed to dedicate at least 1 night a week to slapping on some pigment so things may hopefully improve in regards to blog updates.

Quite happy with the big fella, he's going to be the BigBoss of my Nobz mob.

The rest of the Nobz, yep - all from the 2ed box set. Quite fun to paint but I'm not a fan of black undercoats now.

Group shot with added Mekboy (who will be used as a Nob with a Flamer).

Again apologies for terrible photos, one day I will sort out a nice shoot with my proper camera in direct sunlight and do a mega-blog-post of all my painted gubbins. Well at least the stuff I'm happy with.


Anyways - this lot are all part of my 2ed skirmish project - a few warbands of roughly 250pts. Along with the Orcs there will be some Marines, an Adeptus Arbites squad (with added Ogryn "Enforcer"), a pirate/gang squad and a small Genestealer cult made up from old plastic Space Hulk Stealers and the excellent Malignancy miniatures from Macrocosm. Oh and maybe a Chaos Cultist squad too as I just scored some of the new GW figures super cheap on t'bay. If I get all that done before 2020 it'll be a miracle.

All that and I've also sketched out a few warbands for Ganesha Game's Flying Lead rules based on the Vegas Apocalypse books I've been sneakily reading via Scribd at work. These will be semi-post apocalyptic/modern survivor types but I'm struggling to find any figures to represent the Rojos - any tips on Vato-esque minis gratefully recieved!

Waaagh n'that

Orctober has started slowly. Got a lot more space greenies to paint but lacking the motivation a bit.

Spiky, axey, bucket-heady

After a skate trip to Hamburg curtailed my painting time I finally got around to these 2, probably part of a chaos warband for SoBH with an aim to be part of a bigger chaos faction for WHFB3. Chaos mage was an eBay purchase and I do like his purpleyness. Gurt big marauder dude is an Avatars of War miniature and I'm not totally happy with his skin - was my first time using the Vallejo skin wash and it seems really dark. Still not too bad overall.

Gladerunners

Warband post number 2, those lovely flouncy Elves. These were finished a week or so ago and I'm quite happy with them too! Well apart from the squiffy eyes on a few of them, another point to add to the list of "things to learn to do properly".




Again another mix of old and new figures - a couple of old Wardancers, 2 Chaz Elliot Champions and some new Chaz Elliot in the form of the Mage and Archer. Have to say there are parts of the Archer that were quite lumpy and bad - the hand holding the bow and the face in particular.

Ylithrian's Gladerunners


Ylithrian on the left getting pointy and Hylinril on the right doing the shouty.


The Backup Boys, Gildorn the incredible disco Elf on the left

Gydrial the Elf Wizard, really happy with this paintjob, but yet another pointy chap, does remind me of an old drawing by my mate Whip though - Zzzzap!

And for sake of completeness here is the SoBH warband list. Again I took a slight liberty on the personality points but I wanted a Hero and a Mage so nyerrrr.


Ylithrian's Gladerunners 
Points: Personality: 158 (52%) Warrior: 146 (48%)
 
Ylithrian - Wood Elf Lieutenant - Personality 
Points 95 Quality 2+ Combat 4
Special Rules Forester, Hero
 
Gydrial - Elf Wizard - Personality 
Points 63 Quality 2+ Combat 2
Special Rules Magic-User
 
Silydr - Wood Elf Archer 
Points 56 Quality 3+ Combat 3
Special Rules Forester, Shooter: Long, Unerring Aim
 
Gildorn - Young Wood Elf Warrior 
Points 26 Quality 3+ Combat 2
Special Rules Forester
 
Taran - Young Wood Elf Warrior 
Points 26 Quality 3+ Combat 2
Special Rules Forester
 
Hylinril - Elf Warrior 
Points 38 Quality 2+ Combat 3
Special Rules None

Dems kneebiterz

Well it appears I've knocked off one of the targets I've set already and completed some warbands ready for SoBH. Not a massive amount of miniatures to paint but I realised that doing 5 at once is quite a struggle, but lesson learned for that one.

Onto the figures and the warbands - first up is Garg Urkls Goblin Kneebiterz. A collection of some of my old Citadel miniatures, a new Goblin archer from Ral Partha (by Kev Adams of course!), a Reaper Bones Troll and the 2 "character" figures are from Black Tree Design. Also apologies for the pictures, taken on my phone camera and forced into the blog via photo bucket hence crappiness.

Garg Urkles Kneebiterz in "attack" formation "Clobba em ladz".

Urkl Wolfhak astride his mighty wolf Chuckles, ably backed up by the ever grumpy Shaman Harsk Dedhan

Smalt Furbak and Snurk the gobbo stickas backed up by Humk Lumpnbak the (semi) tame Troll

Der Kneebiter Boyz - Firgl, Kirgl, Shuk & Glunk

So there you have it, pretty much the first miniatures I've painted in 20yrs! Still a lot to learn, expecially basing and highlighting, although I don't feel these pics capture some of the shading I attempted and make them look a little flat. However I am pretty stoked on getting (most) of the paint in the right places, trying out a few new techniques and actually completing a small project.

These fellas will be used in my first few games of Songs of Blades and Heros to get a feel for gaming again. I've put together a little warband list for those of you interested in that sort of thing - there were a few liberties taken with the personalities but I wanted to shoehorn a Shaman and a larger miniature somehow!

Garg Urkl Kneebiterz

Urkl Wulfhak - Goblin Commander - Personality
Points 59 Quality 4+ Combat 3
Special Rules Fearless, Leader, Mounted

Hasrk Dedhan - Goblin Shaman - Personality
Points 50 Quality 4+ Combat 3
Special Rules Magic-User, Stealth

Smalft Furbak - Goblin Elite Archer
Points 26 Quality 4+ Combat 2
Special Rules Shooter: Medium, Unerring Aim

Snurk - Goblin Archer
Points 23 Quality 4+ Combat 2
Special Rules Good Shot, Shooter: Short

Firgl - Goblin Warrior
Points 20 Quality 4+ Combat 2
Special Rules Gregarious

Kirgl - Goblin Warrior
Points 20 Quality 4+ Combat 2
Special Rules Gregarious

Shuk - Goblin Warrior
Points 20 Quality 4+ Combat 2
Special Rules Gregarious

Glunk - Goblin Warrior
Points 20 Quality 4+ Combat 2
Special Rules Gregarious

Humk Lumpnbak - Hill Troll - Personality
Points 62 Quality 4+ Combat 4
Special Rules Big, Fearless, Tough

Blame.

There are a few reasons behind the little metal men mania that has now engulfed me and one of the bigger ones is Mark "Frocker" Hewitt who I've mentioned previously.

 

I've known Mark through the world of grown men riding skateboards for years. Some may say this is another attempt to reclaim youth, in a sense yes but mainly no - we've never stopped, it's just something that pretty much everyone I know do (badly in my case).

Mr Frocku boardsliding many moons ago in Bristol

 Skateboarding has made me lucky enough to go on a few trips and hang out with Mark and his love of Warhammer and little men painting finally came out (probably during a chat whilst drunk on German beer) on one of these.

 

And he's good at it, really, really good. Don't believe me - check his blog out here or the interview on the Corehammer blog here.

 

This chat led to Mark becoming the recipient of a big box of miniatures I dug out from the depths of my garage. The old "I've got a few things stashed away from when I used to do that" conversation. The level of stoke he had when he opened it really spurred me on to get back into the hobby. Mark's pretty amped on everything anyways (even if he is one of those gothic types) but even this seemed a new level of excitement.

 

So thanks Frock you lovely man you, for re-igniting my nerd cells and I sincerely hope we can get together and have a proper geek out soon.

Little bit here...

With the restarting up of my little person obsession it was pretty obvious there would be a lot of painting involved. My history with the brush is not a glamorous one, I'm definitely from the school of "slap it on, slap some more on, slap some silver on the weapon/pointy bits and go play" school of things. In fact the models I have left that are painted are pretty shocking, even the ones I thought were pretty good.

So it was with some trepidation that I bit the bullet, invested in a Vallejo paints starter set and some brushes. Then it was just a case of what to start on. A good rummage through the pile for something simple and fun turned up this chap.

Simple enough to paint yeah? Bit of green, bit of brown, bit of green to cover up the bit of brown that's gone on the bit of green I painted before.

In fact I seem to have developed a good bit of patience this time around, and actually found the whole process enjoyable rather than a chore or something to be rushed through. I've got an awful lot to learn but I'm pretty stoked on how ol' Snurk the archer turned out.

Now what is next....

Where are we going?

A very good question. Why am I getting back into this now and where do I want it to take me?

Firstly I'm hoping that gaming and painting are something my son will grow to love. Rhys has been diagnosed with Hypermobilty/EDS type 3 which while not life threatening it certainly means he won't be the sportiest of children. He is however blessed with a marvellous imagination and finds the general concept of Elves hilarious ("Pointy ears and bows and arrows dad? Hahahah you are funny").

This all means that hopefully one day we will both be sitting around rolling dice and moving small men about for fun. Or painting things proper colours (To be honest the purple and yellow wolf kinda looked cool).

Personally I've got to an age where I don't care what other peoples perception of me is. I skateboard, surf, play touch rugby and drink too much beer. Painting and gaming may be seen as a small mid-life crisis, reclaiming a part of my youth perhaps - and if it is then so be it - like I said I don't care.

In my youth I was your typical GW fanboy, I spent an entire family holiday in Bournemouth posted up in the GW store there playing many games of Blood Bowl and it didn't seem abnormal. Why my parents entrusted my daycare to a group of wierd men in a shop though I'll never understand, different times indeed.

Now I'm more interested in smaller, easier to understand rules - I've stumbled across Songs of Blades and Heroes from Ganesha Games and my initial goal is to create a few warbands and play a few solo games using these rules.

All this refreshed interest was provoked by my friend Mark, an excellent painter of minis and part-time Goth dancer. Check out his blog here for some incredible goodness. I stumbled across an old box of lead and saw a few pieces in there that he might be interested in, these were packaged up and sent off and I've just recieved a few back which I will blog about later.

Next post tho I'm afraid you'll have to be subjected to my first few forays back into painting. Sorry.