'Twas The Night Before AHPC9

As I write this, there are just 8 hours until the Challenge kicks off. I won't be getting up silly early to make my start at kick-off time, but do have a couple of items out to paint tomorrow for some quick points right at the start.

I did get most of the Soviet reinforcements primed today. I'm holding off on the guns until I've got bases to glue them onto (I discovered that I didn't have enough of the sizes I need, so placed an order with Warbases).

To clear my paint desk before the Challenge, I had one last job to do. Some of you will remember that last year I had purchased some Hotwheels models of Star Destroyers and oil-washed them to show up the panel lines. And so they had sat until today, when I finally got round to giving them a good dry-brush with white. With that done, I thought it might be a good idea to pick out some of the domes with colour and to use a different colour for each ship. When all the paint was dry I airbrushed a few light coats of satin varnish on them:

Reviewing the Kra'Vak figures I had primed, I realised that I would need to order another pack each of command and special weapons. So I placed an order yesterday afternoon for those and a few more vehicles. Now, I know from past experience and reputation that Mr Tuffley has illicit access to experimental wormhole technology for deliveries, but I was still somewhat shocked when the order arrived just after midday today.

As it's the December deal period, he had included some freebies:

That's two more two-seater grav bikes and a pair of support weapon teams for the Kra'Vak, along with some 15mm SF containers.

I also received notification that my Ona Bugeisha kickstarter minis from Bad Squiddo Games have been posted today.

Sunday Workbench 10 September

Now, about those AARs I keep saying I'll write up...well, you see I keep getting caught up doing other more pressing things like reading new books, the odd bit of figure painting, surfing the web for more stuff to order, you know the drill. I *will* get them done this week - promise!

So, what's on the workbench? Well, I've finished painting and varnishing the Russian dragoons, pinged them off the sticks and glued them onto their bases:

At some point this week I'll add the basing gunk to these and the grenadiers, then drybrush when it's cured and add some static grass.

During the week I also got the Star Destroyers cleaned off with white spirit, followed by a soak and scrub in warm soapy water to clean that off. Quick rinse and dry then I did a black oil wash, left it for a few hours then wiped off the excess from the surfaces with a white spirit soaked rag.

They do look much better but I think they could do with a white or very light grey drybrush. I'll do that at some point this week, then add some identifying marks in different colours before doing a spray coat with satin varnish. I'll also be doing the TIE fighters and interceptors this week, or making a start on them.

A few more purchases have arrived:

Short bamboo stalks and books from Amazon

Most of my order of Ming Chinese and the extra Koreans to do Pikemen bases.

A big bag of herbs for ground scatter - I might have overdone it a bit!

A couple of cheap statues for jungle terrain (28mm figure for scale)

I also received a bag of 250 ball bearings to add to my paint droppers as agitators and some 50ml and 100ml dropper bottles for big paint/wash mixes (no pics of those).

I've got a few more orders still to come in - some longer bamboo stalks (from Amazon), some cheapo Chinese-made trees (various, from Ebay) and odds and sods like tongue depressors.

Anyhoos, back to work tomorrow after my week off...

15mm SYW Russian Casualty Markers

I said I'd finish them today and so I did. As I expect them to get slightly rough treatment, I gave them a coat of Klear/ink to shade and protect them, then an extra coat of Klear (no ink) for additional protection. Once that had dried I airbrushed on a coat of matt varnish then flocked the bases.

And...piccies!

You will have observed that I didn't bother to paint the white cuffs. Well, as they're only casualty markers I didn't feel any great need to do so.


Once those were all done and photographed, I decided to do a quick test. A few weeks ago while I was browsing in the pound shop I spotted something rather cool on the HotWheels racks - some Star Wars bits. Among the fighters (which look to be X-Wing scale...) and some 15mm-ish scale speeders there were a bunch of First Order Star Destroyers. Hmmm, £1 for a Full Thrust scale Star Destroyer? I grabbed all five they had out on display.

However, the paint job looked rather plain so I though about how to bring out all the relief detail. I'd been meaning for a while to try out oil washes and this provided the perfect excuse. So, I bought a tube of water-mixable Paynes Grey oil paint.

Today i finally got around to doing the trial. I got a bit of paint from the tube onto my brush and then mixed in some water until I was happy with the consistency. I then slathered it over one of the ships, left it for a short while and then started wiping off the excess from the surfaces with a damp paper towel.

Here are the results:

Top side

Underside

I'll probably do another wipe-over, but it has definitely brought out the details quite nicely. I'm not sure whether to do a white dry-brush once the oil wash has dried.

Yes, five Star Destroyers

Paint bottle for scale - the ships is just over 10cm long

Now, does anybody know where I can get a load of suitably scaled TIE fighters from?

Early Xmas Pressies For Me; Quick Update

A couple of posts back I told you that I'd ordered myself some early Xmas pressies. They've arrived, so let's look at the shininess!


From GZG:

15mm NAC Power Armour troopers

Some freebies - a J Peasmold waste recycling ship and some NSL ships: Q-Ship tender, 2 Emden class light cruisers, 2 Rottweil class missile destroyers. Not a bad haul at £23.10 of freebies from an order just over £100. Plus a 20% discount voucher I can use in the new year. But curses, curses, curses - the two Emdens mean I'll need to order 2 more Kiel class light cruisers so that I have 4 of each. That Mr Tuffley certainly knows how to extract money from your bank account!

6 packs of Adler II class light fighters

A Lady Christina class salvage/repair vessel and a NAC Battleaxe class heavy cruiser

NSL Odenwald class fleet tender and Walchensee class fleet tanker

Helgoland class heavy cruiser, 2 Rommel class attack cruisers, 3 Nibelung class corvettes, Kiel class light cruiser, 2 Danzig class escort cruisers

Graf Spee class battleship, Maria Theresa class battle dreadnought, Wien class light carrier

Neu Salzburg class heavy carrier, Prinzessin class escort carrier, Hapsburg Class heavy battleship

Gulp! That more than doubles the size of my NSL fleet and probably makes it much larger than my Japanese fleet. Even more prepwork for me to do....


Baccus 6mm:

Some extras for my ACW project:

Casualties and 3 inch ordnance

Casualties and 3 inch ordnance

Union and Confederate commanders

Union and Confederate dismounted cavalry (2 packs of each)

Wagons, civvies, tents, gabions and stacks of cannon balls

Apart from the casualties, I won't be prepping these up for a while as I think my current load of prepped figures for the Challenge are more than enough to be going on with. If it looks as though I may have time to get these done as well, then they will get prepped and painted during the Challenge.


As well as these, I've also received my orders for magnetised bases from Tiny Tin Troops (for the ACW project) and pick-and-pluck foam trays for my fleets from Figures in Comfort.


Quick Update

I haven't done any painting since Sunday, but did get a bit more prep done on the Swiss halberdiers on Monday.

On Monday evening I was at the club playing X-Wing with Simon. We got three games in - one at 50 points, one at 75 points and one at 100 points. I won the first two games but lost the last. I forgot my camera (well, to be accurate I didn't have room for it in my bag anyway) but Simon did take some pics and hopefully he'll post them on his blog at some point. Great fun was had by both of us.

Yesterday I was freezing my tits, err, toes off on the picket lines at work (yes, I am a trade union activist and proud of it) and at a rally outside the employers' association offices from 7.30am to 1pm. I decided to skip the main rally (and the march down to it) as I was desperate for the loo (I knew that third coffee was a mistake!) and head home, via the local Royal Mail sorting office to pick up the packages I'd missed on Saturday. After unpacking the parcels I crashed out for 3 hours on the sofa and when I woke up in the evening I didn't feel like painting or doing any prep.

Today has been weird. I had what I call an "episode". Over the last 13 years I've suffered these. What happens is that I go into a very deep sleep and nothing will wake me up - alarms, phone ringing even people buzzing my doorbell. I eventually do wake up in the early evening, feeling drained and somewhat confused. I did get tested by the neurologists several years ago, but as they occur so randomly and infrequently they couldn't make a specific diagnosis. Their best guess is that it is a form of sleep epilepsy. So, I haven't been at work today either.

Sunday Update

OK, it's been a couple of days since I last posted, so it's definitely time for an update.


Thursday's X-Wing Games

I did take my camera, but ended up not taking any pics. Sorry about that. I was too busy playing or checking rules.

Anyway, 3 of us were playing - me, Simon and Seb - and plenty of others from the club popped over to our table for a look. Simon and I started off with the quick-start game to get the hang of the basics, then repeated it using the full rules. At that point Seb arrived and I gave him a game, then he played Simon but they got more ships onto the table. The final game saw me with 4 TIE fighters (2 x Academy Pilot; 2 x Obsidian Squadron Pilot) taking on the Falcon piloted by Chewie. We were running out of time, but after several turns I had 2 TIEs 1 hit away from death (the other 2 undamaged) and the Falcon was getting very close to being put out of action.

We all agreed it is a fun game and will make a good break from our usual FoG:AM and FoG:R games.


Project Pirate Pandemonium

The Pirates

Having looked again at the Blue Moon and rebel Minis pirates I'd already received, I worked out how many more I needed to make up the army and have ordered them.

The Ship

As it was the weekend, I decided it was time to start work on the ship. I filled the worst of the bubbles and gaps with plastic putty. After that it was cutting out the gun ports on the open deck, drilling holes into the other gun ports for the gun muzzles that came with it; measured  and cut the metal ladders; then glued all the metal parts in place. And then I kicked myself. I shouldn't have glued them in place until after I'd washed the resin ship to remove mould release agents. Oh well, I just had to be careful with how I did the washing.

This morning I spray-primed it with matt white paint, then left it to dry for a while.

Just to give a sense of the size of this ship - 35 cm (14 inches) long!

Donogh's Hasslefree minis in the background. I will get back to painting them this week.

A lovely mermaid as the figurehead

Weirdly enough, these bubbles are mostly invisible since I've painted the  basecoats

This evening I've been doing the base coats. For some reason, the Galleria raw umber paint didn't seem to want to go properly on over the white, so it looks a bit messy in places. For the decks I mixed in some yellow and white Crafters' Choice paint, which seemed to give slightly better coverage, but it was still messy. I guess the white spray paint doesn't have much "tooth" so was too smooth. I finished off that session by doing black for the stern panel, the bowsprit &keel, the grating over the ship's hold and the gunports and muzzles.

Since taking these photos I've done a little bit more. The gun port frames have been painted blue; the figurehead, stern-piece and windows have been given sky grey basecoats; and panels have been painted either blue or red. I've also gone over the hull with Vallejo burnt umber. I've also had to reinforce the ship's wheel as the metal was too weak and kept bending.

Now that I've got the bulk of the ship done, I'll just do little bits here and there over the next week or two. I still have to sort out the masts and sails - I need to get some doweling and some material.

A Bit More Pimping

James Brewerton of Exiles Wargames Painter is celebrating the 3rd birthday of his blog with a fantastic giveaway. So, if you want some freebies you'd better head over and start following if you aren't already. All you've got to do is comment on the post and there are bonus points for pimpage and poetry (he's asked for wargaming related limericks, but I submitted a haiku instead).

I may or may not post later this evening - I've arranged with a couple of people at the club to play our first games of X-Wing, so it should be fun. If only it was 26 days earlier so we could quip "May the fourth be with you!". I guess we'll just have to settle for such benedictions as "Stay on target", "I find your lack of faith disturbing" and "Let the Wookie win!".

I've remembered my camera, so there should be pics.

Edit To Add: Don't forget Mike Whitaker's giveaways over at Trouble At T'Mill

And another Edit To Add: I've just realised this was my 400th post!!

Salute 2013 - the Swag

Post 2 of 4 about Salute. And this is the one with my swag.

I did go along with a shopping list and was able to get evewrything apart from some Oriental scenery from Kerr & King. When prepping for the show, they cast up what they thought people were likely to be after and the Oriental buildings and fortifications weren't on that list. However, I was the 5th or 6th customer asking for them. They did have display pieces for the fortifications which looked pretty damned good, so I will be placing an order over the interweb.

So, piccy time!

First up, some foam trays from Figures In Comfort (for my Saga warbands and X-Wing); a pack of the new Gripping Beast Dark Age Warriors; a FoG:R army list book (this is the one with "Buccaneers" - I quite fancy doing a pirate army some time); an X-Wing Tie Fighter expansion (I still can't find an X-Wing expansion for love nor money); a W&N Series 7 #1 brush; a Norman "Dux" figure from Conquest Games; Salute dice from the goodies bag

Some Renedra plastics - wattle fencing and Saxon tents; some stuff from 4Ground - an Anglo-Danish hovel and 3 peasant ox carts; some resin wagon loads; and It's That Man Again - the Dux has snuch into this photo as well!

Some colourful flowery tufts.

Some 15mm grav vehicles from Critical Mass Games - 3 heavy tanks and 3 APCs

That evil man John "Mr GZG" Tuffley parted me from my cash again! This bunch is the Crusties start pack plus a pack of Crusties civilians.

6mm ACW from Baccus - 2 Union infantry booster packs; 2 packs of cavalry (1 x kepi, 1 x hats) and a pack of Parrott rifled artillery. My plan is to do up a good sized force to try out the Polemos rules later this year. I might need to add some more artillery and cavalry later on and get some more flags.

And that's it! I managed to stick within my budget. There were temptations to spend more, but I'd run out of space in my backpack and I didn't think that any more weight was sensible.


"Ahhh, but where's your sprue of the Salute 2013 Jason mini?" you ask. Well, Andres over at Einar Olafson Painting had an impromptu draw on his blog last night. Three lucky folks who commented before 11pm would get their mini assembled and painted by him. As it turned out, I was one of only 3 people who commented so I was a winner!

Andres was painting minis at the Warlord Games stall all day, so I popped over and gave him my sprue. We had a chat and he showed me what he was currently working on - some casualty figures (ECW Scots? Well, definitely Scots, and I presume ECW). They looked fab.

I've been ever so naughty....

Guilty Kitty looks guilty

....and bought X-Wing! After work I popped into Orcs Nest and purr-chased the following:

2 core sets; 1 each of the A-Wing, Y-Wing, TIE Advanced and TIE Interceptor expansion packs. Oh, and a YT-1300 expansion pack for good measure.

"A YT-1300? What on Earth is that?" I hear (some of) you say. It's actually a well known vessel in the Star Wars universe. One example is currently owned by a former officer of the Imperial Navy accompanied by the prisoner he rescued from execution (which rescue led to him being a former officer of the Imperial Navy). what? You still haven't got it? OK, another clue - a 10-century bird of prey. Got it now? Good.

Yes, I forked out £25 for the Millenium Falcon expansion pack.

Unfortunately they didn't have the X-Wing and basic TIE fighter expansion packs, so I'll need to pick one each of those up at some point. And maybe a Slave 1 expansion pack too, just to complete the set.

Once the Challenge is over, I will try to get a couple of games in at the club.


Swiss Pikemen Prep

I'm almost there on prepping the pikemen - just 30 more hands to drill. I should have all the prep done tomorrow evening and might have managed to prime them before I go to bed. Then it will be time to crack on with the painting. I must be crazy attempting this - painting 256 15mm pikemen in just under 20 days. Can it be done? Who knows? One thing I do know is that I'll be wanting to take a well-deserved break from painting after that!