Woah, we're halfway there

 

Most of this weekend was spent selling excess wargaming tat rather than painting, so I don't have anything finished. Here's a sneak peak at my painting tray!

While it's bad for blog pictures, I do recommend focussing on what you have the energy and enthusiasm for at the time. It is a hobby, after all. Definitely trying to remember the New Year's resolution about not doing the hobby bits that stress me out...

Work in Progress Wednesday: Wizkid's D&D and Pathfinder Miniatures

 

After painting the Gnome Bard, I decided to pick up a few more miniatures from the Wizkids range.

This is the blister of Kobold specialists - one with a dragonscale shield, one with wings and a spell effect, and a Kobold Inventor. I discovered this moderately comedic D&D Monster class, armed with an assortment of rubbish but annoying weapons, such as a scorpion tied to a stick, bag of wasps, and so on. How could I not?

I learned about this from a very short cameo character on Critical Role, best summarised by this short animation for those who don't know of the story of "Spurt the Kobold".

I also picked up a few human guards, although the spears and halberds do suffer from the weakness of this sort of soft plastic. Some are rather bendy, but it's not exactly a display piece so I'm not too worried.

They're all pretty reasonably priced, so I'm not unhappy with the quality. I'm not a fan of the bases they come with, though, so glued them to some spare Infinity bases I had lying around and added some basing texture.

Some of the higher level threats also get characters, like this devil and cultist. I mostly got this for the devil figure, although it doesn't look like any of the specific devils in the current edition of D&D, I feel like they're quite varied so that's not a huge issue.

I'm super excited by the background of the Znir Pact Gnolls in the Eberron setting, so I had to grab a couple of them as well. I cut off, pinned and re-glued the spear of the left hand one in an effort to make it slightly straighter, but was lazy and didn't make guide markings and ended up gluing it back on off kilter. My sloppy green stuff fix to that didn't work either and I decided to just call it a day before I made it even worse.

Shasvastii Caliban

Finishing up what should have gotten done in October, I've finished the Caliban with Boarding Shotgun from the Operation Wildfire box. I've been really enjoying using the Forward Observer Caliban in Tabletop Simulator, so I'm glad I've got a model that I can use for him when we get back to in person gaming.

The original plan was to get a lot of Malifaux painting this last weekend, but that got abandoned in favour of sorting out a lot of boxes of things. This is, ultimately, Fine, as things that needed to get done got done. Traitor brain is being very irrational about it not being the intended thing, and thus obviously wrong. Traitor brain needs to go boil its head.

What the reorganisation has helped with has been to make things much clearer and better organised, drawing the line between outstanding projects, which I've been pretty slow to progress, and the smaller easy paint jobs that I've actually been powering through at quite a rate of late. The idea being that this will help me plan the future to a much better extent.

Learning Infinity N4 - Shasvastii Starting Point

So, I've been using Tabletop Simulator to play some games of Infinity, and am starting to get to the point where I'm happy with some of the lists I'm now writing. I thought I'd take a moment to talk about this list and how it comes about.

Infinity can change drastically depending on the mission you're playing, but most missions fall into one of three categories: Push Buttons, Control Territory and Kill The Other Side. This mission is intended to focus on the first two types of missions.

The list has a strong ARO presence - the Q-Drone gets four shots in my opponent's turn, and the Noctifer can start in Hidden Deployment (I get to write down where it's deployed rather than place the model on the table), meaning it can get a shot when my opponent is at a serious disadvantage as I get to choose when it shows itself.

The Shrouded Minelayer and Seed Soldier get to deploy in the middle of the field and are placed to slow the enemy attack or possibly counter attack if left alive. The two Shrouded Hackers, meanwhile, have the job of pushing buttons and doing specialist things, although they can also do a mischief to my opponent's advance with their hacking.

If I'm going first, the Speculo is making an attack run to disrupt my opponent, if I'm going second she's placed in the most awkward spot possible to try and make my opponent spend their first turn killing her, not playing the mission.

The Caliban is a dangerous short ranged attack piece who can swing into button pushing if needed. The Flash Pulse from being a Forward Observer means he has a longer ranged ARO if I need something with a bit more reach than a shotgun.

The Taigha are cheap moving expendable shmucks to be used as problem solving wherever needed. Everything else is there to provide orders for people doing the work.

I like a few things about this list so far. It has a strong ARO presence that means I can cause my opponent to spend quite a few orders dealing with threats. The strong midfield camouflage also helps hold up advances and gives me options.

On the other hand, I think it needs another offensive gun. It probably doesn't need a Shrouded Killer Hacker as well as a Hacker, and the Speculo Minelayer broadly seems to be overkill. So my next step will probably be downgrading those units to try and find the points for some sort of heavier attack piece to add a bit more offensive punch.

The trick with Infinity is to not change everything at once. I've got a strong basis for a list here that isn't quite perfect yet. Rather than changing everything, swapping out two or three models but keeping the core of the list "as is" gives me a much better comparison for what suits my playstyle.

Work in Progress Wednesday: Oathsworn Dwarfs

A good friend of mine gifted me a few out of production dwarfs by Oathsworn Miniatures. He kindly undercoated them to avoid my household's issues with nickel allergies.

I've added the bases and texture to all the models ready for painting.

I don't have a particular plan for these figures beyond painting them for the fun of it. I may use them for RPGs or maybe skirmish games, though.

The look of these models is quite "Warhammer Fantasy" rather than more generic fantasy or Dungeons & Dragons.

This fellow in particular is really rather 'Slayer' like, as Games Workshop really has locked down the "unarmoured, bare chested dwarfs with mohawks" look. I'm not sure if I'll paint him as a Troll Slayer or something more generic.

November: Plans and Progress

With a long weekend off work, I've been finishing up some half done things I had lying around. First up are these two civilian types by Bad Squiddo Games. (You can find them as "Beer Maiden and Scholar" in their Amazons range.

They come across to me as quite generic fantasy medieval, which I believe is intentional so there's plenty you can use them for. They also remind me of an awful lot of "generic LARP costumes" I've seen over the years.

Thing is - they're absolutely great for that. If they were super period specific or fantasy setting specific, they'd be of much less use. As generic fantasy civilians of a bookish or tavern persuasion, they're excellent.

 

Next up on the docket is getting my Viktorias crew painted. You can see the nearly finished Caliban off to one side who didn't quite make the photo shoot section for this blog. I've since started getting base coat colours down on one of the Viktorias, and goodness, they are fiddly models, and it's weird putting down grown up base coats and not Contrast paint again!

Work in Progress Wednesday - Black Crab Miniatures Kickstarter Signposts

These two weird signposts are from the Black Crab Miniatures second Kickstarter. I don't know if there's anywhere you can buy them, though.

End of October Progress Check

In terms of previous months, its been a pretty productive month all told. I've got four models painted and plenty queued up to paint next.

Thing is, the plan was to finish up the Shasvastii from Wildfire. Oops! That said, the Caliban is super nearly done, leaving only the Gwailo to finish up.

So it seems I'm mostly procrastinating doing what I should be in favour of displacement activities. Still, painted models I can use for something being done is a useful thing.

Now, how can I find something else to procrastinate so I can actually paint what I want to?

Future Fridays: Warhammer Combat Patrol from Bits and Bobs

With the loss of e-books to "buy a physical book and get a code for the app", I picked up the new Codex: Space Marines given I have . . . rather a lot of Marine models and a pile of planned Marine projects - Imperial Fists guarding Terra, Deathwatch and Rainbow Warriors.

I have my big projects for the rest of this year planned out (finishing up the Wildfire Shasvastii, a Malifaux crew and a starter Skaven force) but I thought I'd have a dig about and think about what I could do with some Marines, maybe in January.

In the latest edition of 40K, there's a new 'suggested game size' of 25 Power Level or 500 points a size, called Combat Patrol. I don't much fancy massive painting projects for 40K at the moment, but I still like the look of the edition. Small games seem to be the way forward.

I work out a vague list with what I've got lying around.

I've got some Necron stuff from Indomitus I wanted to convert into something weird and creepy. The big tall tripod thing is a good basis for a Dreadnought. The floaty Necron character will become an Inquisitor. And the two stabby guard Necron constructs will be Company Veterans.

I include the Skulls pack as I know that will be the start of the conversions. I'll need some Marine weapons so they're clear on the table what they are, but a lot of the Necron looking lenses and so on are going to get skulled up.

A good friend heard I was doing a few different Marine projects and while we were swapping sprues, dropped off a bunch of Intercessors. I pulled four Intercessors out to use as the basis of the Troops choice, but I was then short a sergeant model.

I got Kor'sarro Khan in the "Supply Drop" deal. I have more Space Marine character models than I know what to do with, so super fancy sergeant he is!

My friend also included this Horus Heresy character sprue. I'm going to use the Terminator Captain here. I haven't decided if I'll also use the Chaplain for an alternative build for the Combat Patrol, or if I'll make him into a Rainbow Warrior or something...

The Intercessors are going to get some knightly heads. I think these are from the Demigryph Knight kit, but I'm not sure.

This bit from the old Empire General kit is also the sort of thing I'll be wanting to use for the look and feel. I want a weird, isolated planet feel, with lots of grime and weirdness. Probably metal and cream for a colour scheme?

Anyhow, this isn't for a while yet, but I've put these parts aside so they're all ready to go.