The games that never make it..

Here's a sad story, sat on my shelf is this fleet:

A few years ago a friend and I decided to build some fleets and play Battlefleet Gothic so we picked up a few models to get ready and printed out all the rulebooks, made up our templates etc and set to work painting up our fleets....at least I did, my friend fell behind and could never find time to put his fleet fully together let alone paint it so we kept putting off playing. It's also worth mentioning that when we get together for games he prefers to only play when all the models on the table are painted, no bad thing per say as when we do get games in they looks great all finished and ready to go. But it does mean that this fleet may never see the table :(

It just got me thinking that with a small mountain of unpainted minis, whats the point? Would I prefer to never play these games or just fill the table and go for it? So i'll apologize in advance, you might see some naked models on here once in a while but i'm going to get my game on!

Down in the Sump

Every now and then a part of me keeps going back to my teens when we used to play a skirmish game on our dining room table fighting across buildings and spending the evenings reading through the background of this dirty world. The game was Necromunda and I absolutely loved it, unfortunately a number of years ago I was trapped for cash and had to sell my mint boxed set along with all the models I had collected along the way!
Cut to now and after my recent run in's with army painting I wanted to try something on a much smaller scale and so looked to the Necromunda rulebook and fell in love with the game again. It wasn't the gameplay itself per se which was fairly straight forward GW fare with a few extra's thrown in but it was the campaign rules and the fact you could guide a fledgling gang from a lowly start all the way through to being top of Spire with the latest weapons and grizzled veterans. There was a lot of John Blanche's art as well throughout the books that really helped to give the impression of a corrupt underhive feeding upon one another.

So I picked up a couple of Gangs (Cawdor and Delaque) that I had always wanted years ago and a copy of the original ruleset (prefer a hard rulebook to a PDF) along with a few buildings and got to work.

Along the way I came across the fantastic blog: The Tears of Isstvan, which has sadly now appeared to of ended but it's a great source of inspiration, although focused on Inquisitor it still fits in perfectly with the Necromunda universe and the idea of every model/character having a full back story and identity before taking to the board. A lot of the work involved in creating the models they used involved kit bashes from a large number of sources so this inspired me to pick through the bits box and make up..:

The Scavenger, a veteran of the sump and a quiet genius with robotics and cybernetics, his violent past is reflected in his arms being replaced and the addition of some wicked appendages. He always travels across the waste with his two scuttling robotic gun droids that help flush out anyone that takes on the Scavenger while he rummages through the sump looking for a useful find. They were made up using parts from Mantic, GW, Khurasan and GZG, he still needs more working filling in the gaps etc but I can't wait to get him painted up and brought to the table!

Couple of 15mm bits

Things have been really quiet here on the 15mm front, i've not really been able to get stuck in to any rulesets or get any games in so the models have been sat waiting to be painted but I did manage to finish off a couple of units.

First up is a group of GZG USNC Hardsuit troops, I honestly don't remember ever ordering these! but thought i'd have a go at painting brown and yellow together, they came out ok but i'm not sure how well they will fit in with the other USNC troops.

Next is a great Resin/Metal mixed kit from Khurasan miniatures the Corporate Marine L-HAC (Legged Heavy Assault Cyborg), this unit towers above all the over 15mm miniatures and Mechs I have and even works really well as a 28mm Mech unit. I always thought the model was familiar and it does appear to have more than a passing resemblance to Robo Cain from Robocop 2...

The unit stands really well on it's own so I left it off a base, I just need to get some buildings/city to scale it up against! :) Here's a comparison pic of the L-HAc against a few other minis to show it's size off:

Zvezda 1/100 WW2 Tanks and Armoured car

I had seen the name Zvezda knocking around the model world on the Internet for some and they appear to go hand in hand with cheap plastic kits, I was put off a bit by just how low cost they were originally and so stayed away. It was only recently when I started looking in to getting some 15mm WW2 bits that I came across some pics of the Zvezda models painted up and they looked half decent, so I found a great supplier on eBay and ordered up three kits, a German Panzer III, German Armoured car and a Soviet T34, trying to order the most widely used vehicles used by both sides during the war and these seemed to fit the bill. All three kits came to only £8.66 including delivery and I was really impressed when they arrived the day after ordering them!

My first reaction when opening the box was that they were packaged in some pretty small boxes but then I kept forgetting they were 15mm so were going to be small anyway, it's weird but I've never really put together a 15mm model "kit". All three vehicles came on sprues with some assembly instructions, flags and a stat card, I gather this was to support some game that Zvezda have released.

15mm Forged in Battle figure for scale

The two tanks went together a breeze, they were low on parts and were capable of being snap fit, the Armoured car on the other hand came in a fair few very small pieces on the sprue that needed to be carefully removed and put together, it's one thing to buy a single piece metal or resin 15mm model and another to try and build one from its smallest components! Needless to say I made a pigs ear of it, there were gaps in the build and several bits needed re glueing back together before assembly....fat handed tw@t!

But even after this they were all really easy to paint up ready for the tabletop, they had just the right amount of detailing to pick out but were still really quick to finish, I think I spent 45 minutes on each one starting with a black base coat, sloppy coat of brown, dry brushed the main base coat, couple more dry brushes getting lighter then picked out the details and worked in the shading using brown and black washes, finally dry rushing some mud to the bottom of them.

Overall I'm really impressed with these kits and i will be ordering more soon, at such a low cost I can pick up a few different kits here and there and just enjoy putting them together without ok much stress...and they should fit in well with a new gaming project I've been working on....... :)

Warpath

I must admit I do have a bit of a soft spot for Mantic Games, I enjoy playing Kings of War and recently backed the DeadZone kickstarter so it followed that I was going to check out their Sci fi range Warpath.
I remember signing up to Beasts of War membership almost two years ago now to gain access to the alpha rules release and getting excited about a possible true competitor to 40k, over the years its been interesting to see the rules develop and while they've not yet reached the same level of simplicity/strategy of KOW I still keep my eyes open for any updates etc.

The bigger problem with Warpath has to do with the range of models available, the initial box sets were based on the KOW sprues and did the job (apart from that awful dwarf firing a weapon model) and over the years the ranges have been expanded but there are still large gaps in the army lists that need proxies. The DreadZone kickstarter although being based upon its own game looks like it is going to fill a few of these gaps with its own range of models, and in some places looks to hint and expand upon the army lists. Also rumored for next year is another Mantic kickstarter to fill out the Warpath range and add vehicles/finalized rulebook etc, exciting times ahead.

The Forgefathers were the first faction that drew me to Warpath, like most people it was exciting to see the return of "squats", I picked up the Fate of the Forgestar boxed set and added a few extras to build up a small force. The Huscarl in particular is a great metal miniature with nice detailing and the Iron Ancestor adds to the nice chunky feel of the army:

Moving on to the Marauders, I have a ton of plastic sprues shelved away, I think close to 60 or more models but as I already have a 40K Ork army and having learnt my lesson with trying to paint armies these have yet to be put together. The Marauder army is one that really needs to be filled out by Mantic as at the moment it just feels like a huge group of foot sloggers with the odd vehicle thrown in. Along with the boxed sets I picked up the Marauder Ripper Warlord metal model, this really is a great sculpt and was fun to paint, it really shows that when Mantic produce individual metal models they come out really well.

Lastly is this oddity from Mantic, Mortis the Zombie Apocalypse hero. This metal miniature is basically just a head swap of the Verr-myn Night Spawn and i'm not sure where is really fits in to the Warpath universe/range, there are no rules for it and Mantic have hinted that it does not fit in with the new Plague army lists, maybe its going to fit in with the Warpath kickstarter next year or maybe its just meant to be a proxy for a certain 40K Chaos Lord (it was released shortly after the Chaos codex). Either way its an okish model and came with a box of other kit from ebay so didn't really cost anything:

Mantic Kings of War armies

I've finally completed a project!!!! ish...

A couple of years ago I picked up the kings of war 2 player starter set and vowed to build and paint all the miniatures in the box in two weeks, the project was almost the end of my enjoyment of the wargaming hobby and I learnt a big lesson, never put too much pressure on yourself to complete a project.
It took a few days to put everything together and I managed to paint a group or two but I wasn't happy with the results, rushing myself to get them finished I got sloppy and ended up putting everything back in the box and shelving it for a while.

Fast forward to this year, earlier in the year I decided to stop buying any more wargaming rulebooks, the huge number on the market and my shelf felt like they were watering down my concentration and enjoyment of the hobby, but then I saw the kings of war hardback book going cheap.....and what a breath of fresh air it was!! The rules are light and easy to read yet you can see the strategy within and the full set of army lists at the back give a huge choice of forces to get gaming with, I was surprised to find within the elves list a number of units to match a wood elves army, I might finally manage to bring them to the table (picked up warhammer 8th and the wood elf army book but just got frustrated with the disparity and complexity between the books so it never made it to the table).

Not quite as big as the undead horde but with a few elven allies...

I pulled the box off the shelf and got a game in and really enjoyed it so it spurred me on to finish the miniatures, I grabbed a can of army painter bone spray, picked a four colour scheme and an army painter wash and got to work. I took it a lot easier this time and aimed for a table ready finish and just picked them up here and there, along the way I bought a Dwarf king and some more undead units and finally finished the lot. The only part missing at this point are the bases, everything is currently based on cardboard but it gets the job done. It's a good feeling, finishing these off for gaming and I like the idea of being able to casually pick up a new unit, paint it up and get it on the table, would I do it again? not sure on that one, it takes a determined mindset to get stuck into army painting and at the moment its been nice to step back and paint a few individual models.

Champions, wraiths, zombies, ghouls, skeletons...the gangs all here!

I can really recommend Kings of War and the fantasy miniatures they produce, Mantic themselves have been under fire regarding the quality of what they produce and to be honest some of the sculpts in the range are stinkers but with the internet i'm pretty sure everyone is able to find photos of the models and decide what they want regarding detail and price, all of of the models in the photos above and the hardback rulebook all together cost me less than £50 so i'm more than happy with what I got and the fun it brings to the table.

In which I have a go..

Ever since I picked up my first 15mm miniatures and checked through the sculptors blogs i've wondered "could I do that?", so I had a go.
On a budget I grabbed the following kit, a strip of green stuff, some florists wire, a set of sculpting tools, a cork and a box to hold it all.

All of the kit above cost me less than a tenner so no harm done. Next up I needed somewhere to start with sculpting, I used the guide here on the Hour of Wolves blog to create an armature and was surprised at just how easy it was! Next up was the hard part, sitting down and getting to make something. Originally I was going to create some designs and work from them but I was itching to get going and so just got stuck in! and ended up with what looks like a mutant wanting to ballroom dance:

To be honest, the pics are blown up here and it does look a lot better in person, hopefully I will get it painted up soon and it will look a little better.

Overall this took me a few hours on and off to get finished and it gave me a real appreciation for the miniature sculptors out there. Looking at sculpts now it's so impressive how the straight lines of armour and how the minute facial details are created. One things for sure it has certainly driven me on to practise more and to see what else I can create!