Dirty little secrets...

Well, I didn't get nearly enough hobby time over the holiday period due to not actually been sober enough to to focus on anything smaller than my hand! Hobby gifts were slim on the ground this year too (a pack of D6 and a pair of slippers to keep me warm while painting in the garage).

I did manage to get a few mini's painted and due to having a nice eclectic mix primed up ready I was able to pick and choose any and experiment with the painting, ending up with this crew. All ready for a small skirmish or a shooty game of Blasters and Bulkheads.

Just before we get to the new year I thought i'd clear up my work space in the garage, while cleaning away I kept finding more and more mini's just forgotten about or half finished in boxes. Which leads me to one of wargamings little secrets (or not so secret), pretty much no one can keep up with the demand of releases coming out, just trying to get one army painted and based can take years not allowing for all the shiny items that come out in between. I'm guilty of it as much as anyone, having multiple projects on the go and still keeping one eye on ebay/news sites for any good deals.

So, having a good tidy up allowed me to take stock of what I've got and to start planning out the projects for the year, only problem is they don't look that many, I keep convincing myself I can run more! I have included my 28mm projects here too, just to give myself a written reminder of what I proposed:

• Vostroyan Army (28mm): Almost, almost there with this, been working on it for about two years and i'm down to the last ten man squad and two vehicles to finish, then it's basing and I will have completed a 1000 point all metal vostroyan troop force. :)

• Ork Army (28mm): This one has been collecting dust for awhile, still needs a few characters and vehicles painting (the warbikes finally killed it for me in the end, I hated trying to build and paint these so they ended back in the box).

• Battlefleet Gothic/Full Thrust: Still need a couple of ships to complete my BFG chaos fleet and start getting it on the table, some of the Full thrust ships look mighty tasty too....I have also started drafting out a one page ruleset for space combat.

• Wood Elves (28mm): Another one bought on a whim for a game i'm very unlikely to play, about halfway ish through painting these but still a way to go, a nice distraction now and then.

• Mantic - Kings of war/Warpath (28mm): Big fan of Mantic and what they do, I picked up the Kings of War starter last summer and tried to do an intense 3 week speed paint of the whole box (over 100 minis!), it quite literally broke me and it has been sat back on the shelf in shame. Good learning experience though, and with the Warpath starter showing up for as little as £30 now with two full armies and rules I might be tempted again.......

• Adeptus Titanicus: I used to love this and the Titan models, unfortunately sold them all a few years ago. Now on the lookout to try and pick up some new minis and build a titan order.

• Rogue Trader: Another ruleset I really miss, would love to pick up another copy of this and a few RT era mini's for small RPG skirmishes. Along with a possible Iron Hands/Adeptus army.

anyway on to the 15mm:

• USNC army: Picked up a fair few more mini's and vehicles for the USNC, still going to paint them in a sci fi red colour scheme but I want to experiment with some more realistic looks.

• Mech Detachments: I've a few mech minis to paint up and I was inspired by the recent release of the Imperator (which looks great) and the number of complaints about it's cost to see how many different mechs suitable to 15mm I could source for £20, managed to find some interesting specimens which I hope to paint up and blog soon.

• Cultist/Mechanicus: Got a few packs of the cultist mini's from 15mm.co.uk (they look a little off scale to me? wonder if it's the large bases they are on) and they look ripe for converting into a Mechanicus cult troop with robotic arms etc. the cyborg enslavers that came free with this order should go well with these too.

• Characters: A big mass of individual character models to paint here, I loved painting what I got so far so expect these to be high up on the priority list.

• Alien troops: From Mercenaries to Crusties, lots and lots to paint up.

• Redemptionist force: Fair few of these to get stuck in to, having a few problems seeing the details on some of the models but I might just try some painting experiments and see how it goes. Also the 15mm.co.uk site has just updated with new pics for the Laserburn range, looking a lot better.

• Terrain/Terrain/Terrain: bane of my life, must admit I do not like making terrain but I still have all the scatter terrain from before and the main boards to finish. Ho hum.

Phew! that felt pretty epic working through it all, but all going well I should be able to knock each one off the list in good time......

Rules Rules Rules

Busy,Busy, busy this month with work and the run up to Chrimbo but i've still managed to get some hobby time here and there.

First up the hobby board, oh dear what a bloody mess! I ran out of sand and then the tile adhesive was a complete disaster (made the whole board very sticky to touch) so I've picked up a new sand mix and a spray bottle for diluted PVA, fingers crossed for this one...

I have managed to finish off the Fubar Mech rules and posted them up here on the Forge of War:

http://www.forgeofwar.uk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=119

I now have a full appreciation of just how hard it is to get a set of rules written, I started off months ago sketching out ideas on a notepad then wrote and re wrote the one page rules numerous times, even now a few inconsistencies are showing but it has been an interesting project to work on and I already have plans/ideas to expand it in the future.

On to the 15mm rules, when I first get into anything I find myself getting really sucked in, I have to know everything from every angle so I ended up reading a fair few rules and here's my take on them:

Fubar: Great one page set of rules that works really well with 15mm, very adaptable and was the catalyst for my take on 15mm Mech combat rules above.

Forge of War: From the same team as Fubar, must admit this set has not really grown on me, some of the mechanics feel a little hard going (constant addition/subtraction) but is is still a work in progress so i'll keep my eye on it.

USE ME: Cheap set of rules (£3.50) from 15mm.co.uk, easy going and quick to read but what got me was how much was packed in, off board bombardments, swarm AI, solitaire rules, points calculator etc. It is simple but if you just want to grab some minis and get playing it does the job, highly recommended.

Chain Reaction 3.0: I read everywhere about people playing 5150: Star Army and this is the free set of base rules it is based on. I certainly needed to read this through a few times as the mechanics are VERY different to the typical wargame but they do make sense and are pretty refreshing. Looks like it would suit solo play well although I can't imagine using these rules to play large army battles etc.

Tomorrows War: Apparently setting a new standard in 15mm rules, this hardback and well designed book can be picked up from Amazon for just under £15 now so I grabbed a copy. I think I went in expecting something completely different as this feels a little too dry for me, the emphasis on hardware advancement levels and troop training left me a bit numb to the game, so I've put this on the backburner to pick up at a later date when hopefully it will inspire me a bit more (perhaps when the Alien book appears next year?). On another note the background design on each page felt a little too full on for me, I had a bit of trouble reading the text going through.

Blaster and Bulkheads: Another fairly cheap rulebook based on powers using the "Force", this just looks fun, with leads powerful characters and groups of henchmen. Already building up some models to game with this, what also struck me was what was missing i.e morale rules, this did not detract form the rules in the slightest and I want to game with these because of it. On the document design front, if a version with a smaller font could be made it would be great. I print out my docs in A5 format and even that small the font appeared large, a few less pages would make the rules nice and compact.

Anyway, I've been working on the mass pile of figs at my side so should hopefully have some pics next time!

Painting up the Reavau

Phew! Work and the run up to Christmas have really taken a bite out of my hobby time! BUT i've managed to paint up two squads of the Micropanzer Reavau, first up is the standard infantry unit:

and secondly i have literally just finished painting the kommando unit:

quite liked how these came out, I was tempted to paint their hand weapons as power swords etc but I like the concept of the high tech mixed with the primitive.

To paint these up I used:

Basecoat: Black.

Skin:

1: Snakebite leather.

2: Ogryn flesh wash.

3: 2x highlight coats of Snakebite leather mixed with increasing amounts of Dwarf Flesh.

Armour:

1. Dark flesh.

2: Ogryn Flesh Wash.

3: 2 x highlight coats of Dark flesh mixed with increasing amounts of Red Gore.

Guns:

1: Goblin Green.

2: Thraka green Wash.

3. Highlight of Goblin Green and white, highlight of white.

Hand Weapons:

1: Graveyard earth.

2: Bleached bone.

3: Devlan Mud wash.

4. Bleached Bone/White highlight.

For the Base:

1: Graveyard Earth.

2: Desert Yellow.

3: Bleached Bone.

I still have the Beasts to paint up but the two squads here and the USNC squads below should give me a good starting point to get playing.

With luck I should be able to get a few posts out this week concerning the other items i've been working on! :)

Catch up on the week and new arrivals!

Been away for a few days this week but when I got back there was a small package waiting for me from Micropanzer! This is the first time I have ordered mini's from the US and was a little worried about the delivery to the uk but they all arrived in just under two weeks and what beauties :) I ordered a pack of the Riavaui units/packmaster and hounds/commando unit, the sculpts and details on these are great and only needed a little cleanup.

I've managed to paint one up as a test scheme, looks like the Micropanzer store is shut for a while till after Christmas but i'll definitely be ordering some more.

Ground Zero Games have their Christmas offer up on the site here, order over £30 ex vat and they'll supply a goody bag of extra items and a voucher for next year. I've ordered a nice mixture of kit to get gaming with, especially looking forward to the Alien Mercenaries as from the pics i've seen they look like great sculpts.

Received an email from 15mm.co.uk this week as well to say they are going to post their Christmas offers on December 1st next week, looking forward to picking up some kit from them as I really want to see what the older Laserburn mini's look like close up.

Terrain wise i've picked up some 2x2 MDF boards from B&Q today along with some cheap poster paint and some spray on tile adhesive. I was going to use the adhesive spray to seal on the sand after glueing it with PVA to the board, hopefully get on to this tonight.

Managed to get some work done this week on a Fubar rules set for Mecha, I had been playing with a mechanic of rolling two different colored dice to get the hit location and damage roll on a Mech but it looks really messy on paper with so any tables, so i've reverted it to a 2d6 table for simplicity. Still playing around with the extra commands the pilots can use during a turn but I should have a workable draft by the end of next week if I can get on it.

Anyway, head down this week getting the Riavaui finished and getting some terrain ready to play on, next up: Rules!

Building a world

Got my head down and grabbed a few old cd's, all the odd bits and bobs from my workspace and started building some scatter terrain. Bits of pipework here and storage containers there and it's all ready for a base spray and painting.

From looking at it all though the scale seems off, looks like it would be better suited to 6mm gaming, I seem to have forgotten the vertical. There's little terrain here that will block any major line of sight, will get this sorted with the next batch!

New Horizons

...And so it begins. A few months back I kind of stumbled upon/ran into a whole new world of wargaming, i'd been an avid 28mm gamer for a long time being brought up on Rogue Trader and just expanded from there. Painting and collecting, chasing the elusive dream of a complete force.

I was happy, but in recent years the increase in costs/frustration at rules just left me feeling boxed in.

Then along came 15mm, I really cant express how awesome this discovery has been for me! the figures, the rules, the community, so...here I am trying to blog about my journey. Which leads me to....a whole new world of exploration of painting/collecting/photography/modelling.

I started off by picking up a few mini's from Ground Zero Games and just got cracking, here are the results:

and so to the first of my probs, playing around my camera I was having a few issues trying to get the light right and getting the camera to focus on the whole scene. I started off by painting up some USNC light Infantry, the models were great to paint and I really liked how they came out:

To back these guys up I grabbed some of the Spider Drones, when painting these up realized I had skipped over some cleanup and I tried a different paint scheme to contrast with the above troops:

I finally managed to get some better lighting sorted for the Spider Drones but must admit the close in shots show up so many painting defects! I still love the idea of multi legged combat walkers so to provide some heavy support to this group I added Gun Crab Walker, loved this model and the vision of it stepping over terrain firing of support shots:

Anyway, here was my first step into 15mm and I loved doing it all, the above took me just a week to build up and paint with an average of an hour a night so really a great plus for me! Only now I need to get some opposition painted up, some terrain sorted and get stuck into a few rule sets! :)