September Sun

September is a tricky month. The kids go back to school (or if you are reading this in the future and are currently enjoying Covid-22, maybe they don't) but you can't appreciate it because you are still paying for that time off work you had over the summer.

The days are cold in the morning but still bright and warm in the afternoon, and for about half the month you still have some daylight in the evenings to get things done. And then autumn sneaks in, the rain comes back and you are soon huddled around a fire by 6pm, waiting for the wolves to come and eat you.

When it comes to tackling projects in my hobby closest, I normally need to wait for the perfect storm of need, desire, enthusiasm, time, materials and space in order for that project to miraculously transition from "Something I will do one day" to "Holy cow it is done!". But in September, all of those things can be substituted for desperation.

And so here are some trees, designed to match the mat I will use for Fallout and Gamma Wolves. And some billboards, also for Fallout, though now that I have painted them I've decided I will put them on bases so they aren't really complete. Now that It Is Dark Again, they may not be completed until 2022!

The trees are Woodland Scenic armatures stuck to MDF bases covered in sanded polystyrene and Sculptamold. I messed that up by making too much, so while two of the tree bases are relatively smooth, the other two ended up being clumpy and difficult to work with because it was drying by the time I applied it. I will make it in smaller batches next time so hopefully I will avoid the same mistake.

Also shown is the base for one of my Gamma Wolves frames because I wanted to make sure the colours and style of the tree bases matched. The images I used on the billboards are by Charlie Wilcher and I found them at his ArtStation page here. 

Come for the art style, stay for the setting

Thats what happened to me when I picked up a few of the Heavy Gear RPG books back in my univeristy days and I have followed the progress of DP9's baby ever since. When Blitz first came out, I even dabbled in the Heavy Gear minis game but I didn't really give it a fair shake until DP9 launched their first kickstarter. 

I picked up a few of the metal minis and of course, a pledge for the new plastic kits too but since the rules (and more importantly, force lists) were in a state of flux, I didn't want to build anything until I knew how many of my favourite designs I could fit into a standard game.. and how many points a standard game would actually be!

When DP9 finally put out the force compendium for 3rd edition, I drew up three CNCS / WFP lists (50, 100 and 150 TV), one for each of the three game sizes, ordered what I didn't have from Shiny Games, then began building the models I would need. This evening, I finally finished the last of them*

Back row: Koala, Leopard, Para Strike Hunter, Leopard, Scorpion helo. 

Middle row: Hunter Gunner x2, Assault Hunter x2. 

Front row: Wildcat Pathfinder, Bobcat Flackcat x2, Weasel, Badger APC, Field Gun, Infantry squad x2

I have to say that their resin kits (the Bagder APC and Scorpion helicopter) were in the sweet spot of detail vs ease of preparation and I wouldn't mind if some of the gears switched over to that material. 

The plastics were easy to build (though they don't take polycement very well) but had stiff poses, and were noticeably skinnier and taller than their metal equivalents. 

The metals, by contrast, were nice and chunky with much better posing and the superglue worked as well as you would expect.. but everything needed a ton of cleanup; mold lines were for sure an issue but the biggest headache were the seams where one half of the mold had slipped, or otherwise did not line up with the other half. It was particularly bad on the arms and in filing down the half that was too thick, I lost quite a lot of detail. 

Even so, when I decide to get some additional gears, I will get them in metal as long as they are available, despite the price. I will technically need two more stock Hunters (the Assault Hunters will serve as a proxies until then) and I want a pair of Dingos because the weapon loadouts are a lot more interesting than the ones available to the Koalas.

In the meantime I also have a Strider to build although that's just for variety - it is easy enough to switch out the Scorpion since the points cost is similar. No rush for that, though. These need to get painted first... 

* apart from two more Hunters, which I don't have enough of. And my Wildcat Pathfinder is actually a Wildcat Riotmaster but when I decided I wanted a Wildcat with a rifle, I realised there are no medium rifles on ANY of the plastic kits, and no medium rifles in my bits box from the other metals. So I have another Wildcat to build once I've sourced a medium rifle from somewhere..

Not-cromorphs

I have wanted some necromorph models for ages and I think that started when I got my copy of Sedition Wars. I guess I was hoping that some day, a company would get the license to make an official Dead Space game and then I wouldn't have to make something myself.

However, with Quarrantine 37 due for release in a couple of weeks, I realised I was going to need some space zombies.. and while I already have a bunch of the Mantic plague zombies and the Virus-inspired Strain from Sedition Wars, I figured now was as good a time as any to cross another project off the list.

Made from a mixture of Deadzone plague zombies, Kings of War zombies and Kings of War Nightstalker Reapers, these are neither well converted nor well painted.. but in a first for me, when I sat back and looked at them, I decided "Eh, they'll do". I guess it was because I didn't plan to do anything else with the kits so it didn't feel like I was wasting or devaluing them by cutting them up and covering them with paint. 

Also included is a KoW objective marker and a Xenomoth from Zombicide Invader (boy I wish you could buy those separately). 

Now I just need to make a Bloater or two and I should have everything I need for Quarantine 37. Well, perhaps I need I new Engineer-themed crew as well.. 

Star of Alladore

Arriving just in time to make July a double blog post month, my printed copy of Star of Alladore just showed up! 

An official fanzine for Rangers of Shadow Deep, this represents the second time my work has been in print, and the fourth time I have contributed to a print product (I also helped out with Heroes of the Solar System and the Imperial book for Warzone Resurrection in a proof reading / balancing capacity and I actually wrote stuff that made it in to Warzone Resurrection 2nd edition. And then there was Kirkwood, which never saw an official release..)

Thanks for involving me in this project, Joe! 

Horses! and.. more terrain.

On the back of painting five (!!) whole miniatures last month, I managed to finish two more that have been sitting on my painting desk since January.. two horses for use in Frostgrave. Can I use two at once? Nope. But you can upgrade your horse and I wanted a model for the basic horse, as well as a model to represent the horse after a few upgrades.

And of course, who will ride this horse but a captain. Might as well put all my gold coins in one basket..

..and then since 7 models is more than I painted in the last two years, I figured it was time to get back to more terrain. First up, some 3D printed craters off ebay (because those GW moonscape craters still go for more money than I'm prepared to pay..)

They will be for one of my many planned Warzone tables, but also here is a clearer picture of them. In.. the sky? 

..and finally, my TTCombat Iron Labyrinth Ultima set. I love making MDF terrain but oh boy was this a chore to get through! Half of the set has been primed brown (and then I ran out of brown spray paint) and then sprayed green from above and I'm testing out weathering techniques on a few of the pieces to see what looks the best for the least amount of effort. 

Thank goodness for paint pens! 

Roh-butts

While I have not enjoyed painting miniatures over the last five years (coinciding with my declining ability to do the same), the recent Stargrave launch created the usual skirmish game dilemma for me; maybe this will be the game where I can get a basic roster of minis done before the first expansion drops and I fall too far behind. 

Of course, it has failed to happen dozens of times before and there was no reason to think Stargrave would really be the exception. Except.. well, this game has robots. And when a simple black primer and a heavy drybrush of GW Leadbelcher gets you 80% of the way there, I figured that even I could push a few 3D printed minis (from Anvil) over the finish line.

So here we have two Sentrabots (black primer, GW Leadbelcher drybrush, GW Agrax wash, deliberately thin coat of Vallejo Insignia White and P3 Khador Red Highlight).. 

..plus two "Gunner" droids for my actual crew, R1C0 and M0X1. Primer, drybrush, P3 Coal Black / GW Mephiston Red, GW Nuln oil wash and a single highlight. Really pushing the boat out! 

..and finally a Warbot. It gets up to three shots. This gun has three barrels. That works for me. I also went a bit crazy with this one and came dangerously close to proper painting. And then I had to have a cup of tea and a lie down.

Primer, drybrush, P3 Greatcoat Grey, nuln oil.. and then I thought I'd try out one of those Army Painter makeup style drybrushes and I was mightily impressed with the results on the big armour plates. 50% Greatcoat Grey and AP Fog Grey, then pure Fog Grey, then 50% Fog Grey and Vallejo Insignia White. The chest area got an extra helping of the off-white drybrush to prepare it for the yellow, which was just GW Iyanden Yellow contrast straight over the pale blue.

The rust effect was me painting on pure Vallejo Mahogany, panicking and dabbing on some random black and dark brown to tone down the red! 

.. and speaking of terrain

Another project finished. Some tiles for Walking Dead, Zona Alfa and Fallout. These TTCombat harbour tiles are 1x1 so six will be enough to create a harbour section on a 3x3 water mat. But in most cases I will probably only use two or three of these on an asphalt / rubble mat. The smaller, angled sections and the stairs are from TTComat's Carnevale line. There is a piece of 0.5mm plasticard on top of each tile section to hide the original texture that was there.

Mind you, you can make a good 'base' for a 2x2 table with these. This is slightly too big for Walking Dead but eh, bigger deployment zones. 

.. and a fountain. Sadly I only had Vallejo water effects on hand, so I expect to be disappointed by the water results in 2 to 3 days..

Terrain Snob

I've had some Infinity card buildings sitting in my office cupboard for the longest time. Since.. the USAriadna pack came out, which was in the heady pre-pandemic days that seem like a distant memory. I got a second set with the Ariadna vs Aleph box, though it languished alongside the first.

It's not that I hate pre-coloured scenery in general or cardboard terrain in particular (I have plenty of Battlesystems stuff and what you get in those Infinity boxes is an excellent way of getting started) but.. the lack of geometric detail, the concerns about stability, the concerns about durability.. not to mention the fact that I have dozens of 'normal' MDF and hard plastic terrain kits (some even painted) meant that I always had a "better" option. I was a terrain snob!

Until tonight.

I've been meaning to have a go at the Dead or Alive supplement for Stargrave since it came out; I have more than enough minis assembled and this evening I had the opportunity to play it.. but ferrying boxes of fragile terrain to and from storage just to try it out seemed like a chore. Besides, I didn't have enough pieces finished in a consistent style to fill a 3x3 board and I knew it would bug me if I mixed and matched the styles (plus that would mean even more boxes).

(A store photo for one of the Precinct Sigma kits from MAS. Looks perfect for Judge Dredd, Realities Edge / Hardwired.. or Infinity, of course) 

Even so, I might not have considered the cardboard Infinity stuff if it hadn't been for the recent videos I watched showing off pre-coloured MDF terrain from Micro Art Studios (I particularly like the graffiti-strewn Precinct Sigma stuff) as well as the previews from Multiverse with their upcoming pre-coloured MDF products. It had warmed up to the idea of simpler, more robust buildings and there was no denying that the finish was far more detailed that I would ever achieve in paint.

(Preview from the Multiverse FB page. I'm getting a Fallout vibe from this!) 

So I opened up both packs, filled a 3x3 with rectangular buildings and shipping containers.. and since the art style fitted the mat, it all looked really good and played well enough. I'm certainly considering the hard card terrain sets from CB now and I might even pick up a few of the pre-printed MDF kits to see how I feel about phasing out my TTCombat sci-fi terrain..

(A humble card building from the Aplekton scenery pack. Humble, but useful. And 100% more painted than the robot)

More Star Citizen

 AKA another 1.5 hours of failure.

Spawned at the space station above Hurston. All three of us were in different places but agreed to meet up at Hurston L4. Spawned the Freelancer Max (Lights? Still no. Opening doors? Sometimes) and flew down to Hurston to pick up another player. 10km from the city, the client crashed.

Rejoined the game (no prompt to rejoin instance). Back at the space station. Stuck in animation glitch and can't finish getting out of the bed. After a few minutes of trying to get out of it, exited game.

Server full for the next 5 minutes but managed to rejoin.

Back at the space station. Freelancer is 'destroyed'. Spawn my Avenger (good job I have more than one ship..) and fly to Hurston L4. Meet friend with Mole. Leave Avenger and EVA across. Physics grid throws me into the elevator as I get near it and I take a sucking chest wound. Try to get onto the elevator or get inside, stuck on ship geometry. Glitch in and out of the ship hull for a minute, then die from blood loss.

Back at the space station. Suck up the expedite fee to get my Freelancer back. Fly to Hurston L4 again. Everybody lands this time and we manage to get into the Mole. I am notified that my ship has been impounded because the station decided not to despawn it for some reason after I landed. We fly to a nearby rock! All three mining turrets are manned! Two of us get our first taste of mining (owner of Mole has done it before). The rock blows up. A piece hits us. Ship sent into a 500rpm spin and everyone blacks out. I am somehow flung out of the ship into space, quite dead.

Back at the space station, now with a crime stat for... some reason. Other two players are still alive on the spinning Mole. One and a half hours have elapsed. I log off.

Oh, Star Citizen!

No Entry!

Painting progress continues slowly but surely as I make my way through a pile of stuff that is heaped up on my painting desk. I managed two sets of Jersey barriers from Micro Art Studios plus all the barriers from my Walking Dead boxed set (and some of the bits I have from Mars Attacks), plus the GW Mines of Moria columns (some of which will be used for Frostgrave / Elder Scrolls, but most of which have been kept plain) AND I finished off the other four doors from Dungeon Saga. 

All in, that adds up to 40+ pieces of scatter terrain in about a month which is basically 

unheard of for me! 

One of the weird things about having my TWD scatter finished is that I can now setup a fully painted table! Not with painted miniatures of course because that would be crazy.

Fun you, Star Citizen

Star Citizen is a game I own (in as much as you can call it a game right now) but spend very little time playing. Partly this is because I don't get much time for computer games these days and partly because it continues to be a hot mess. Here is an approximate transcript from my most recent attempt at playing:

1) Log in. Find myself in my Freelancer bed. Freelancer is still parked on the surface of Hurston where I left it. Moderately surprised.

2) Sit in pilots seat. Freelancer immediately falls through the planets surface and blows up. Not surprised at all.

3) Respawn in the space station above Hurston. Decline the opportunity to pay 6k to expedite the insurance claim on my Freelancer so I start the regular claim. Timer is ~25 minutes after the recent changes. Decide to wait for two friends to fly their Argo Mole up from Lorville.

4) Friends eventually find their way to the hangar and get into the ship. Ship rolls over during take off and becomes unresponsive to throttle whilst hovering upside down. Hangar doors close. Time is spent trying to roll it over again. Or get it to land. Or get it to take off.

5)  Pilot can't interact with anything anymore and logs out. Mole de-spawns and other player falls to the hangar floor.

6) 25 minutes has already passed. Decide to do some ground mining instead. Spawn Freelancer and fly down to Lorville. Pilot logs back in and friends are directed to meet me outside Gate 1. 

7) Get close to Lorville and it is dark (it is always bloody dark at Lorville..) The landing lights on the Freelancer Max do not work and the exterior of Lorville is badly lit. Manage a good, even landing in the dark, 900m from Gate 1.

8) Go out the back ramp of the Freelancer. Thanks to feeble flashlight everything is still dark. Step off the ramp and fall to the ground. I have exactly parked the Freelancer on the roof of a building with the ramp hanging over the edge. There is no way up onto the roof of the building to get into my Freelancer. One friend logs off.

9) Other friend drives Greycat Roc over from Gate 1 to see the bad parking. Like most wheeled vehicles anywhere near Lorville, it rolls over on its side after a few hundred meters and refuses to be righted. This friend logs off.

10) I run back to Gate 1. Spawn a Dragonfly and drive it back to my Freelancer. Use the Dragonfly's natural bounciness to get up onto the roof. 

11) Once stationary, I get off the Dragonfly and it freaks out, spinning around and running me over in the process. I loose 50% of my health and begin bleeding out. 

12) Manage to get into the Freelancer Max via the side door but the interior airlock door doesn't want to work.

13) Airlock door opens after about a minute. I bleed out and die the moment I set foot in the ship.

Time wasted: 1.5 hours. Almost all of my play sessions start and end this way. Thanks CIG.