Salute 2021: Frothers Unite UK

At Salute 2019, Frothers Unite UK unveiled their "Project Fear" Brexit inspired game, and won an award for the most innovative game. This year, at Salute 2021, they not only brought "Escape from Brexit", but also their new game, "Fake News - Escape to Mexico".

They liked the stickers I was giving out to people, and decided to add one to the game.

The Tea Party seemed to be represented by daftly dressed people riding an elephant.

There were some Klan available to be shot, guilt free.

Trump was accompanied by a bunch of little orange munchkin Trumps. Pure nightmare fuel.

Also joining the game I can see Travis from Taxi, the Statue of Liberty and the God Emperor of Mankind.

The kids are alright, though.

Meanwhile, on the Brexit table, the Queen has had enough.

Femi made an appearance.

As well as a couple of political figures we haven't heard from in a little while...

The villains were what you'd expect.

Another villain...

The Brexit unicorn from last year appears to now be a shambling undead horror.

We don't seem to have made many trade deals, have we?

The Brexit golem made a return.

And the fish people continued to campaign for awful policies.

Another anti-fascist sticker snuck its way onto a Dover lorry...

Work in Progress Wednesdays - Left at the Bottom of the Garden

 

Today's work in progress is the Left at the Bottom of the Garden set by Statuesque Miniatures. I picked these up from the Kickstarter some time ago, and decided to get them ready for paint.

I've gone for just a flat grey undercoat on these rather than the zenithal you might be used to seeing, because these large, flat surfaces will not do well with contrast paints, and will need a bit more of a traditional approach.

The penguin is giving me the fear, because I'm going to need to do a tolerable white on a quite flat, unforgiving space to get him to work. The crows are some of my favourite models. I could just see them being a hag's creepy puppet bird spies, or some weird fae creatures.

I'm not sure what to do with the cat, but the two dolls have a lot of personality to me. They could work as weird creepy doll servants, or possibly real children under some nasty curse that the players have to try and break. Plenty of high fantasy folk horror vibes you could play with.

The singing cloth mice feel like they need their own weird little rules and could be a nice encounter when you've strayed to near the fae wilds, or maybe are trying to find the home of the mysterious magic toy maker. I may also use them as some of the strange animals you find in Forbidden Psalm, which is a very different feel indeed.

Dealing with hobby hoarding

We all know the stereotype of the hobbyist who buys more stuff than they have time to use. It's not just wargamers. I've heard knitters refer to "SABLE" (Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy). I am pretty sure the reason why is simply the effort to benefit comparison.

Buying a thing takes very little effort, and then having the thing gives you some nice happy brain chemicals. Assembling and painting a thing, or playing with a game, takes more effort to get those same nice happy brain chemicals. Sure, you might get more satisfaction and positivity from a finished model, or a good game. But you have to spend more time to get to that point, where a very small effort can get you a little hit right now.

This is hard to do something about. Just knowing you're doing it doesn't solve the issue. I've seen some gamers try and solve it by setting a time period where they'll buy nothing, or selling off all their still in box kits. I think that's going too far for most hobbyists.

So, lets try something more restrained. Lets start by saying I'll try and paint two models for every model I buy. That means that my pile of unpainted miniatures will get smaller as I go. Rather than buy something then try and paint a bunch, I'll count at the end of each month and calculate my "model allowance" for the following month.

This won't count for things I'm buying to be commission painted, but I'll only be buying those things just before I send them off to a commission painter anyway.

There's one other key thing I need to do though - storage space. I live in quite a small flat and its already quite cluttered. Anything I buy needs to have a storage solution before it arrives.

So, lets apply this in practice. Last month, I finished painting two models. So, I can buy one model. I'm not going to jump immediately into buying something, because if something new and limited comes out near the end of the month, I'm pretty doomed.

But I want to buy Dungeon Bowl. Dungeon Bowl has 26 team members and 12 bits of scatter terrain. That means painting 76 models in December to let me buy it in January. Given I only just passed the 50 mark for the whole year, this is A Challenge. And to dissuade myself from cheating by painting a huge pile of crates, I'm going to try and stick to at least 52 actual models and 24 pieces of scatter terrain.

For the models, I'm going to learn from previous attempts at painting blitzes and focus my time on stuff I've already got assembled and undercoated. It's going to be hard enough to paint models as is without trying to assemble them in the same month as well.

For the scatter terrain, I don't have much already undercoated, but I'll paint what I've got and undercoat up a pile of Mantic Terrain Crate scatter I've had prepped and assembled for months since I got it in a sale . . .

I guess I'd better get painting!

Salute 2021: Iron Gate Scenery

 

I'm going to be posting the photos I took at Salute on a (hopefully) weekly basis so you can see a bunch of the cool stuff that was there. There was a lot, so it might take a little while!

A lot of the new companies this year were taking advantage of the advances in 3D printing over the past couple of years. There really was an explosion of them! First up is Iron Gate Scenery, whose stand caught my eye with a really wide range of useful set dressing and scatter terrain pieces.

They are also producing miniatures for RPGs and Wargaming, but the scenery seems to be where they've started out and have the biggest range. It's all nicely affordable stuff with a solid tabletop level of detail to them. Definitely well worth a browse through their webstore, or their stall if you see them at a show!

Work in Progress Wednesdays: Oldhammer, Heresy Miniatures and an Out of Production Mini

 

I've been finishing up the prep on an assortment of models I sent off a while back, and it's a bit of an eclectic mix. First up is Aenur, the Sword of Twilight. He was an Elf Ranger for Mordheim who came free with White Dwarf many years ago. He's a lovely sculpt, and I need to look at what he could be in Age of Sigmar before I decide on his paint scheme.

This dwarf berserker was originally made by a small company I found online called The Miniatures Apprentice. I think they're now out of business, sadly. They mostly did sci fi things, but this dwarf was their (only?) fantasy offering. He's a bit chunky, but I love him.

I've had this liche from Heresy Miniatures sitting around for a while. I've had a few miniatures by Heresy assembled over the years but rarely finished them. It doesn't help that a bunch of the older ones I had done on square bases, and I now much, much prefer rounds. I'll probably sell off the square based models and buy a new one from Heresy in those cases. In the meantime, I want to get paint on this creepy boy!

Shasvastii Gwailo

 

This Gwailo has been sitting part done on my desk since before the Corvus Belli painting challenge in June. That painting challenge required you to start from unpainted models and as he was half done, I needed to pause.

I've got a few hundred points of Shasvastii painted now, which makes me really pleased. They're technically a playable force, if not massively optimised. The next few models I'll paint for them will likely be the cheaper "filler" units who provide orders and support to the main attack pieces, and the fast moving warbands who create the skirmish screen that helps them work optimally.

Work in Progress Wednesdays - Oathsworn Miniatures Heroines in Sensible Shoes

 

Ages back, I got a bunch of models from Oathsworn Miniatures through their Kickstarter. The concept was to do a bunch of old school style female adventurers, and they really knocked it out of the park.

On the left is a Halfling Rogue. On the right is a pregnant lady who was a freebie with the Kickstarter.

Here's a human magic user and a gnome ranger. The models are relatively "low fantasy" - I can just see them scrabbling to fight kobolds and goblins, with death a real possibility.

The human bard on the left here is a good example of the low fantasy. She's not got super flashy clothes - she's got practical armour and slightly nicer clothes. Her lute is stowed, her sword is out and she's holding up her torch to see in the dungeon.

She's joined by a human cleric with solid scale armour and a holy symbol visible. She's not very visibly different to a fighter, but you can make out some visual cues to the equipment concepts of early D&D.

The dwarf fighter looks like she will absolutely mess you up with her warhammer, held two handed - with practical, simple clothes and chain, not ornate warhammer style plate. The elf ranger peers into the dark, scimitar out, but has a short bow ready in case of an emergency . . .

Dragonborn are a much more modern concept, and I'm not sold on the giant bone. She's intended to be a sorcerer, the bone being her sorcerous focus rather than a weapon. Her ragged clothes indicate that maybe her magical talents haven't rewarded her.

Meanwhile, the Half Orc barbarian is wrapped up against the cold and will absolutely mess you up. She doesn't fall into the trap of a barbarian showing all their skin like a lot of classic fantasy illustration.

Finally, with have the rogue and the fighter - both holding up lanterns, with the rogue having lighter armour and a shorter sword, while the fighter carries a shield and wears chainmail.

I'm super keen to get a bunch of these painted. They really make me excited to try something in the old school RP style at some point.

Finally, here's an nest with some eggs that was another Kickstarter add on. I love these smaller Kickstarters where you don't get a ton of models extra, but a couple of little bits as a thank you.

It was advertised as a dragon nest, but I'm not sure if the eggs are a bit too small for a dragon, maybe? Either way, it will get painted up for use as an objective or something to investigate in a dungeon.

Infinity Livestream

I spent some of my Saturday playing a game of Infinity Code One on That Mr Shy's YouTube channel. If that's your sort of thing, feel free to check it out.

Work in Progress Wednesday: A few random models

 

These are the last assortment of models from this batch of metal assembly, and are things I couldn't really fit into any other category. Also, I'd finished assembling a couple of plastic models myself, so included those, too!

First up are these adorable geese by Northumbrian Tin Soldier. They produce a pretty eclectic range of quirky miniatures, and I'm a big fan. These Watch-Geese were something I just had to get and paint, I don't have a particular plan for them.

Next up are a couple of Leonx riders from the defunct Runewars game. I picked them up from the Bad Squiddo discount bin. They'll see a use in D&D or similar as big cat mounted elves is a nice unusual look that I don't think many people have done.

The plastic quality is closer to board game pieces than wargaming models, but they're fine. Particularly for D&D, and being heavily discounted, they should be a fun couple of miniatures.

The box they came in had four riders in two different poses. I've assembled two and am going to sell off the other two as I'm not a fan of duplicate poses. They were cheap enough that I don't really mind what I get for their compatriots...

Returning to metal, I'd picked up this Gnoll Chieftan from North Star Miniatures along with some other bits and bobs. I've grown to really like gnolls, both from an aesthetic stand point, and their D&D lore. In most settings, they're horrible fiend worshipping cannibals, which makes them excellent villains.

Meanwhile, in Eberron, a faction of Gnolls called the Znir Pact decided they'd had enough of the violence that being fiend worshippers brought them and swore a pact to accept no more masters, be they fiend or mortal. They work out their fiendish urges through mercenary work, and Keith Baker's Exploring Eberron has a suggestion for them as a PC species. I am really keen on playing one if I can find the right game...