Review: Bad Squiddo Scenic Bases

 

I recently picked up some new Scenic Bases from Bad Squiddo Scenics, and thought it might be helpful to share my thoughts on them. They're available as either a set of three or you can buy the Skull Den, The Well or The Dock individually.

The casting quality is absolutely excellent - it's crisp and looks like it will take paint really well. They seem to be intended to be used as display bases for painted miniatures, but I'm planning on using them on top of a gaming base for larger models for D&D.

I personally prefer the Skull Den and Dock on that basis - they should be much easier to blend onto a gaming base. I'm also not a fan of the raised rough edge of the base on the Well. You can definitely see the hand sculpting, although that will have a charm and appeal of its own to those who like such things.

Here you can see the bases alongside a couple of miniatures. Aenur, on the right, is an older Games Workshop elf miniature from Mordheim, and should give a good idea of how models from that era would fit. The orc monk by Titan Wargames is representing the more modern, slightly larger sculpts you'll often see today. I think both will fit just fine without any obvious scale issues.

That covers the fancy 'display' base approach. I'm intending to use them for gaming. There's enough detail here that I'd be worried about fitting a large monster such as a griffin or manticore on - the two would just get in the way of each other. I'm thinking of looking for the right kind of Ogre or Troll for these - a model who's bulky and large in D&D terms, but not necessarily taking up all of the base they're standing on.

Looking at larger gaming bases you might want to put these on - at the bottom is a 40mm Games Workshop base, which is a little smaller than the scenic bases. I've placed the Dock base onto an Infinity 55mm base - and that's a little too big. There's clearly more than 5mm around the edges, leading me to think that these will fit very nicely onto 50mm round bases (which, inconveniently, I don't have any of right now).

To be clear, you don't need to add a gaming base to any of these - they're very sturdy single cast resin that will work as a base on their own just fine. I'm just wanting a plastic base underneath for a mix of aesthetic and gaming concerns.

I'm definitely a big fan of these bases. I'm not going to be using them entirely "as intended" but they'll work well for my gaming purposes as well as a decorative base for a human sized 28mm display piece. They won't break the bank and will really add to a model you want to give a little more emphasis to.

A handful of D&D figures

 

To get back into painting post LARP season, I decided to knock out some quick tabletop paint jobs on some of my fantasy figures for D&D and skirmish games, some of which may have been hanging around for quite a while...

First up we have this Liche from Heresy Miniatures. He's a nice simple sculpt, with a couple of alternative heads to let you make a warlock or an apprentice mage. For the main robe, I used the new "Stormfiend" Contrast paint. Without watering it down, it turned out to be quite blotchy, so I used a couple of GW Air paints to add some highlights. I found that they didn't blend well, leaving tide marks as I tried to feather the paint into a blend. I eventually got a paint job I was happy with, but it took a bit more faffing than I'd have liked.

Next up was Enrieth, Harefolk Rogue, a Reaper Bones USA model. I'd based her with Zandri Dust, then gave her an Agrax Earthshade wash followed by a white drybrush. I then "coloured her in" with contrast paints. This worked very well and I had very few problems at all. She was an absolute joy to paint without too much detail to have to pick out.

Finally I painted the human cleric from Oathsworn Miniatures "Heroines in Sensible Shoes" line. The hair has come out a little glossy, but I think that will be fine once she gets some varnish on. This was another contrast paint job, with a little bit of highlighting on the face. I've not quite got the hang of non white skin tones just yet, but I'll definitely be keeping on practicing.

The contrast orange wasn't quite light enough for the torch, so I drybrushed it with Kindleflame then used yellow contrast, which turned out really nicely. I also added a few dings and scratches to the shield with a metallic paint, though I think I needed a brush with a better point to make it work.

I reckon with another half hour you could really step her up to a really nice paint job, but I'm happy enough with what I've got here to leave it as is.

This was a good weekend's work, and I'm cheerful about my progress. I've got a few more models painted and ready to use. If I can keep this pace up over the winter, I'll have a whole bunch of models finished.

Planning the last quarter

As it's three months since my "half year check point" in July, I thought it would be useful to pause and take stock. There's still a bit too much untidy around the place. I've done some tidying, but there's still a bunch to be done.

The Combined Army I got back in July from assembly are still not undercoated and prepped, for paint. I'm focussing on my White Company for the first part of ITS 14, but I'd like to get them ready for paint before I put them away.

You can also spot the three Nox and a Cadmus that are still not done. I'm taking a break from them before picking them back up to finish.

Some have even only had basing paste added. They've become a bit of a mental block, so I've got a new plan of getting four or five a weekend along another step in the process until they're all done.

Thinking forward with Infinity, I'm quite happy with the idea of playing my White Company for a good while, and as they're commission painted, there's no real painting obligation for my gaming now. That feels like a little bit of a weight off, so I'm going to spend a bit of time focussing on my other projects. I've dropped them all into an "on hold" column in my Kanban board for now so they don't stress me out.

Putting all the undercoated Infinity models that were out away has left me with just one tray of "ready to paint" models. There's another tray of part assembled metal models I'm going to need to look at at some point, but that's also in a little box of not thinking about it for now.

In my rolling "twelve months of projects" tracker, the Corvus Belli painting competition is more than twelve months ago, and as I've not managed to hit that pace of painting, the 'forecast' of what I'm likely to get done in twelve months has dropped down again.

The current "ready to paint" project column are two Horus Heresy characters, a Battletech Griffin, the Defiance crates and corpses, my Malifaux crew and three 54mm figures - and that's already more than I "should" get finished before the end of September next year.

Lined up to get "ready to paint" by September next year are the Dungeons and Lasers figures, the rest of the Defiance scenery pieces, the Battletech Armored Combat box, a Siocast Sargosh for Infinity, the Fenris Games Rubble City and my Halfling Blood Bowl Team project.

I'm hoping to get more done than that, but I need to accept that history currently tells me that's a realistic goal.

So, I've cleared my hobby tray to help clear my mind, and settled down to get some painting done. Sometimes it's best just to put all the half finished stuff aside and pick up something new that you're going to get done and finished in one go.

Rather than finish off the ever-stalled Nox Troopers, I decided to start off by painting some of the little things from the paint queue. Here's a work in progress shot of this Heresy Miniatures Liche. You can pick one up yourself if you want, and the original model comes with some alternative heads to make him a warlock or apprentice mage depending on your preference.

He should be finished in time for next week's blog. And some time soon, I'll get back to those last handful of Shasvastii...

A little group of D&D miniatures

 

As part of my ongoing quest to keep my backlog under control, I sent a handful of D&D miniatures off to Brushchewer Inc to get them some tabletop quality jobs. These were literally models I found while going through a box deciding what to keep or sell, and in this case, I was keen to have the models but wasn't 100% set on painting them myself, so I got a professional in...

First up are a Hobgoblin Iron Shadow and a Hobgoblin Devastator from the Wizkids line. I thought they would be useful as either models for PCs, or for baddies. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with the Wizkids D&D line - the poses are awesome and there's huge variety, but the quality is really variable.

Next up are an Arcanaloth and an Ultraloth. Again, these are Wizkids models, and very much taking advantage of the license and the variety of the line. I really love the idea of the Yugoloth - neutral evil fiendish mercenaries who will work for anyone - and think they're under-used.

I think it's one of the flaws of how D&D books have been written of late. They have this wonderful concept of "mercenary fiends", then precisely none of their settings have any examples of them being actively used. There's minimal links between the really rather good ideas in the monster books and the setting and adventure books. It feels like wasted potential.

Finally, I have some Reaper Bones Hordelings that I picked up at Salute from a bargain bin who have been sitting around forever. They don't represent a particular D&D monster but as small gribbly creatures will do fine as magical imps, vat grown monsters, and so forth.

All in all, a nice eclectic selection of villains and monsters to round out my D&D suitable collection who can now be filed away in KR cases until they're needed in a game.

HONK!

 

I lost track of what I hadn't blogged yet in the run up to Empire, and it turns out I hadn't shown off these two. They're made by Northumbrian Tin Soldier, and when I saw them I felt I had to pick them up. They're sold under the wonderful names of "Sergeant Honks and Norbert Billington".

I have no doubt that they are going to cause problems on purpose.

White Company - Sort of but not quite the last bits to start playing

 

I got another batch of White Company back from That Mr Shy. When I ordered these, the intention was that they'd be the last bits I needed to start playing. However, unexpectedly, the EIC announced a tournament for the end of October, and included Unmasking, which requires three civilian models when I only have two - I've sent a small painting batch away to make up that gap.

First up in this batch are the Dronbots. Remotes are such a key utility piece in any force, I felt it was best to get one of each of the four profiles ready to play to give me much more flexibility in my list building. I may want a second of some of the options, so I need to have a bit of a think about which ones to double up on first, but this is good for now.

I also made sure the batch included the last two "named characters". Not proxying a named character is much clearer for opponents, and both have good uses. Valerya is a good but fragile Hacker, but by joining a link with a Tinbot, she ends up being much more survivable. Meanwhile, Tao Wu is a fringe "sometimes" model that I don't think I'll use often, which is a shame as the model and paint job are absolutely stunning.

On the heavier side, there were two Heavy Infantry I felt are key to White Company that I was missing. First up is the Haidao Hacker. Given one of the significant risks to Heavy Infantry are Hackers, having a model who specialises in taking out Hackers in a Heavy Infantry fireteam seems like a good call. Meanwhile, the ORC Feuerbach is an amazing gun platform and I want to try both that and the HMG to see which I prefer.

A second Varangian Guard won't be something I take every time, but it will be common enough that she was worth picking up. Taking a WarCor to make up points and be the fifteenth order is super common, so that was a no-brainer.

And finally, I had a limited edition HVT model I wanted to use for White Company so included it, bringing me up to two for now. The most I might need is five (for Rescue) so I will need to get a few more, but the priority at the moment is getting the third for Unmasking at EIC.

I'm pretty pleased with how the force is coming along - the next stage is already with Mr Shy to get painted up ahead of EIC, while I get some practice games on, whether in person or on Tabletop Simulator.

New toys to cheer myself up

 

Unfortunately, after Empire LRP, I came down with the 'rona. I'm now testing negative again, but it sucked. I got very little done for a couple of weeks, and it'll take me a while to get caught up on housework and other things that need doing around the house.

Still, as part of that getting caught up was putting away all the parcels that came while I wasn't well or recovering, I've taken some photos to share what has shown up recently. First, we have these two Warhammer Plus subscription models, which have come much faster this year.

I noticed the UK stores were getting Urbanmechs in, which were previously a Kickstarter exclusive. I grabbed a couple, one for my Lyran Guards, and one for my general militia force.

A small Kickstarter of Fantasy Adventurers by Black Scorpion also arrived. I've not taken photos of all the models that came, picking just the single piece ones. The halfling knight on a dodo is particularly delightful, but I also really like the understated elegance of the elf.

The Frozen Wilds Monster Fight Club Kickstarter also arrived. While the Kickstarter was mostly focused on scenery, I decided to pick up some of the add-ons that included an assortment of arctic wildlife, including a dire penguin. They default to coming pre-painted, but I wanted them unpainted, hence the unflattering white material they come in.

There's a good assortment of bears, wolves, penguins and seals that should be nice simple paint jobs.

There were also a wizard and "barbarian" type, both well outfitted for the cold weather. The sculpt and casting quality is really nice, although there are some really obvious mould lines. Hopefully they'll come off easily.

I'm not sure when I'll have the energy to get back to painting - I need to prioritise my Actual Job and making the flat not a disaster zone. Hopefully it won't be too long!

Red Star Blues Infinity Tournament

 

Last weekend was Red Star Blues, an Infinity Tournament held at Hackney Area Tabletop Enthusiasts (or HATE). It was a small event with ten players, though it's intended the next one will be bigger now the first has been a success.

I decided to bring Vanilla Combined to push some models around and shoot some things. I haven't played Vanilla at all before, so I wasn't confident with how I was going to do, but was happy to just roll some dice and have fun.

First up was Supplies, against TomxJ who was running US Ariadna. I took deployment and and was facing off against a strong Grunt link team with two Snipers and a Minuteman Missile Launcher in ARO.

Under the smoke from the Devil Dog, a Foxtrot opened the Supply box and handed the box off to the Devil Dog who ran away with the box. In the centre, again under smoke, they grabbed another box and ran away.

My attacks on the US reaction pieces took ages to take them down, and even at the end of the game, all the reaction pieces weren't down and I still couldn't move around enough.

My Malignos Hacker ran out and grabbed a box, but wasn't able to stay up to hold the box. I managed to get a Classified, meaning I lost 6-1.

Game 2 was Frontline, and I was up against Chappers playing Invincible Army. I was expecting it to be a very bloody game given two very punchy armies.

My Shrouded Killer Hacker held up the Hulang for a while, but couldn't take him down...

While the Libertos snuck past Krit Kokram and shot him in the back to take him down. He was then able to score the Extreme Prejudice Classified.

The Invincible Army were having trouble taking out the Avatar, but I was running out of other models. I needed to push up to the furthest board area to score points, which meant the Avatar was over-extended. A Zhencha was able to get behind it and crit with a Panzerfaust, taking him out, leaving me with a 9-2 loss.

My last game was against zenithed, who was also running Combined Army. He was bringing a Charontid, while I brought the Avatar again. It was a simple game of Firefight to finish the day off.

I managed to get my Killer Hacker up to his Charontid to score a Classified . . . 

A Caliban Spitfire (we couldn't find the model so used a Speculo) tried to take out the Avatar in close combat, but was unlucky with their dice, and got taken out.

In the end, zenithed couldn't hold the Avatar off, and I was able to score a comfortable 10-2 win for my last game, leaving me 9th out of 10 players. It was a great day, I had a ton of fun, and I'll absolutely be going to the next Infinity tournament H.A.T.E. puts on.

A busy week

 

It's been a busy week hobby wise. I got a bunch more Infinity models that I had assembled based and undercoated. I still need to check I didn't miss any spots and get the zenithal done.

I also went down to Bethnal Green for the first Hackney Area Tabletop Enthusiasts Infinity tournament. It was just a small one to work things out, but was good fun. I'll hopefully post a write up later.

I've finished a couple of Northumbrian Tin Soldier minis, which I haven't had time to take fancy photos of them just yet. I'll get them up soon.

It's preparation time for Empire at the moment, I may be quite for a little. But the hobby wagon is careening along at a reasonable rate now, so there's plenty to come.