End of April Hobby Progress

April has been the month where things started taking shape for hobby. It's been kind of helped by the lockdown and various other commitments being cancelled, but that's not just it. At the start of the month, I'd been painting single figures at a time, like these Shasvastii.

Which is fine. It gets them done, and it's for a skirmish game where I don't need a lot of models. But I do have a lot of models that I own, and I hadn't really found the method for upping the pace.

Getting the Wargames Atlantic Halflings done has pointed the way on how I should be getting larger projects done. I was able to get the assembly and core colours done as a batch of five, but then needed to focus down onto finishing single models for the details.

Completing the scatter terrain for the club confirmed that larger batches are a bad idea as they got half completed and then killed my momentum dead. Still, they're done and have helped contribute to moving from having 7 completed models this year to 33. We're heading in the right direction!

While I was stalled on the scatter terrain, I ended up getting to the point where I realised I was building up a huge pile of assembled but unpainted minis. To make sure I was only assembling stuff that was likely to get painted relatively soon, I dug out my Bandua pre-painted terrain that needed assembly. I found it remarkably restful, so I'm likely to continue doing similar in the future!

With 33 models painted, I now have 222 purchased models between my supporting small companies / not Salute run, the Wyrd Miniatures Easter Sale and a Kickstarter turning up. Oops. I've put the brakes on the purchases now while I work on getting this backlog cleared out.

Right now I'm finishing up painting my second Skaven, the old metal Queek Headtaker model from the Made to Order a while ago. I'm painting the assortment of Bad Squiddo models I showed off as assembled a couple of weeks ago to break that up.

Assembly wise, the Battle Systems terrain I picked up is getting done pretty quickly, and I'm finishing up the last Malifaux Prospector who's been procrastinated over to an epic extent.

I am definitely going to start assembling the plastic Skaven I have this coming month. Painting wise, I really want to finish up the Shasvastii from Wildfire. I may hold the Gwailo back from the blog and paint it for the Mayacast painting challenge.

Meanwhile, on the gaming front, I've managed to try out Code One using Tabletop Simulator, and I've signed up to a club Infinity League using TTS, and my first game is coming up. All in all, I'm feeling pretty positive about my hobby, despite The Situation.

Complete: Bandua Wargames Industry of Murder Containers

In between getting some painting done this weekend, I settled down to assemble these "Industry of Murder" containers from Bandua Wargames. They are MDF kits with designs printed on them, and while they recommend gluing, fit together so neatly that I didn't need to use any.

I used a little dark brown contrast paint to shade down the points where the MDF had connected to the sheet they were printed on, and they look great. I originally bought these at CanCon last year, and they were overdue, so I'm particularly pleased to get them done.

I'm not quite finished on my painting from the weekend, sadly. The old metal Queek Headtaker turns out to be a super fiddly model with lots of detail and is taking longer than expected. In between painting him I'm painting the Amazon Princesses from Bad Squiddo Games. They're much easier to paint but I'm experimenting a bit with contrast and taking a bit of extra time with them.

Salute Saturdays: Assorted Displays and Games

There was so much going on at Salute that I'm going to be putting various photos I took at the event up on Saturdays to not cause a massive picture overload.

This was the awesome Steampunk airship-thingy flying over this board.

This was an awesome WW II board.

With an awesome plane flying over it.

Dark Sphere wanted to let everyone know that they've moved and now have much more space for gaming nights, so ran a game where a bunch of Orks had eaten the wrong type of mushroom and were now being attacked by giant Easter bunnies. They were disappointed to learn that "biggest stash of sugar" wasn't actually a category for boards this year, as they would have run away with that prize.

There was a Freebooters Fate demo game on this awesome pirate board.

Lots of little chaps from Ancient and Modern.

I'm not sure why I was taking photos of 15mm historicals, when I don't play historical or 15mm.

You'll remember this shot of Bandua's gorgeous train display board for Infinity from an earlier post.

I also absolutely love this stacking system for storage containers, letting you make lots of interesting cover shapes on a skirmish battlefield.

An absolutely massive WWII board. The scale is just breathtaking.

While here, a huge Battle for Pelennor Fields display was amazing due to the scale of the models.

I believe this was being played through the day, but you can see it was a massive labour of love.

Salute 2014: Scenery Companies

I know, I know. I have a scenery problem. So, whose stuff did I see this Salute around?

First up are some new pieces by Antenocitis Workshop, which aren't for sale just yet. This one is interesting, because Antenocitis Workshop are currently dropping some of their "Governance of Technology" range. They seem to be moving towards designing things for other people, like Mantic and Infinity. They are going for the laser cut MDF, but adding to that with resin accessories to add extra detailing. That's a really smart move, because the risk of the MDF is that it can be obviously large, flat areas, and the greebles add to the look.

This is a piece that was on Oshiro Model Terrain's stall. This is actually a mix of scratch built and Games Workshop pieces. I loved the overly tall and thin look to it. Most of Oshiro's non commission stuff is either Japanese or Victorian right now, so would be a good choice for Malifaux stuff.

This was a board from 4Ground, who do pre-painted, easy assemble MDF stuff. Previously, I wasn't too interested in their WWII stuff, but they're starting to stray into areas that I find interesting. The magic words "pre-painted" also help!

I only got a quick shot of these at the time, because my darling wife threatened me quite a lot when she saw me getting distracted by MDF terrain. That then meant I needed to do a teensy bit of detective work, looking at whose stalls were between the photos on either side of this one! So, it turns out that the stall belonged to Minibits, who are actually a retailer. The MDF is by a company called Wargame Model Mods. I have seen these before (I suspect Tabletop Fix of being responsible for that). The stuff is a bit hit and miss - some I really love, other bits I couldn't care less for. But that's all down to taste, I suppose.

This board was intended as a display board for Bandua's Infinity terrain. You may remember I've already picked up a few of their shipping containers, and I may be back later depending on how the assembly of them goes.

The sign is not a mistake. Wargames Tournaments were selling all that scenery for £50. That is a lot of terrain for your money. So much, in fact, that Sim bought it. Yup. She of the "dragging me away from laser cut terrain only twenty minutes earlier" bought it on the spot when I was holding back on getting it because I was wanting to see what other stalls had before I committed.

I foresee some skirmish games in our future - quite possibly Necromunda...

Sarissa Precision were showing off some railway arches that they are going to be releasing soon. I remain a massive fan of Sarissa, but I still have such a backlog of their stuff, I didn't pick up any more this year!

More Sarissa buildings...

So, who did I abjectly fail to get photos of on the scenery front? Fenris Games do miniatures as well, but it's their scenery that interests me. Their "Arkham Avenue" range is just amazing, and I really want a Griffin House at some point. I also have all the time in the world for Tablescape, whose pre-painted stuff is the saviour of most of my current model pictures.