Salute 2024 - The Loot

 (and proof of life)

I am fully aware that I haven't posted anything on my blog for almost a year now. The main reason for that is that I have been suffering from a complete painting block since I finished those fatties last May. As a result, there hasn't been anything for me to post. I have played a few games at the club, but on each occasion I forgot to take my camera so there were no photos of those to post.

Anyhow, yesterday I went to Salute, partly out of habit and partly in the hope that it might give me the kick-start I so clearly need. I had a good time and it was great to see it so busy. The only downside was that after-show drinks with others from CLWC at the Fox was cut short because they were closing early for a private function.

I only had a short shopping list - some paints, some books and a small (for me) bunch of figures. I was only able to find one of the books on my list (not a problem - it's a good excuse for a trip into central London to get the rest) but did find all the paints and figures on my list (the figures were easy - they were all from Essex Miniatures). 

After the bloggers' meetup, I did a bit more shopping - last year I had bought 2 packs of plastic gunfighters from Great Escape Games (still unassembled and unpainted) and thought it might be a good project to get me back into painting. However, I don't have any suitable terrain so that was what I was looking for.

Anyway, here is my haul of loot:

Everything

Salute freebies

The one book from my list that I could find

Wild West terrain

Buildings

A wagon, obviously

Scatter

A bunch of paints

Seven Years War Russians

Now you may be wondering about the final items. Don't I have enough Seven Years War Russians? Haven't I done all the regiments which took part? The answers to those questions are "Yes and No" (I have enough for most people, but I'm a megalomaniac from time to time) and "No". These are for the Observation Corps. Of course, on getting home and checking them, I realised a small mistake I'd made - I was one pack short. It's also been pointed out to me that I should really do two units for each regiment as those of the Observation Corps were around double the size of the regular line regiments. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to place an order with Essex for the rest.

I'll be doing a post with the pics I took of all the games. One irritation I had was that I somehow managed to completely miss the "pirate living history" display. I think I've worked out where it was and it would explain the long queue I saw on one side of the Warlords' information stand in the centre of the hall.

Wednesday Workbench 31 May 2023 (aka 27 Days Later)

 Oh dear. It seems that I dropped away from posting for much longer than I should have done. Sorry about that.

I haven't picked up a paint brush since finishing that pair of Fatties, as I've been doing a lot of test printing for Kathy Millatt's kickstarter campaign. I've also been doing a lot of design work for the Peach Trees terrain. I think I've now got the atrium walkways as good as I can get them now - I just need to adjust the positioning of the OpenLock clip holes and make some minor changes to the corner pillars. I've also test-printed enough sections to do three levels of one side:

I noticed that without the apartments behind them, the walkways sagged a bit so I quickly designed some support columns to hold them for these photos. As it is 1m (40 inches, actually) wide I found that the only space where I could actually take the photos was on my kitchen floor, so the lighting isn't as good as it could be.

A lot of research (and trial and error) has gone into these - finding images online, realising that there aren't as many showing what I need as I'd like and then capturing screen-shots from the film to get more images.

For the atrium corner sections, I think I might make sense to do them as 8" x 8" tiles (8" x 9" for the ones where the parapet sticks out beyond the pillar).

The next stage of this project will be to design the apartments, shops and other bits that are needed. The first stage of that will be to create the repeated elements like wall lights, entry-phones and such.

Finished: Fatties At War

 And that's another two figures for Block Wars painted. OK, so that's 5 out of 17 from the first wave, which means I'm a long way behind schedule. At least now that I'm out of my rut, the rest should follow on quickly.

Fats Hambo

Every fat camp has a Fats Hambo, to one degree or another. 

A militant campaigner for fat rights, they are true believers in the Grud-given gift of as much food for every fattie as they can stomach.

 

Using (and bending) the laws for arming Citi-Def units, they have managed to get their hands on powerful weaponry and just enough training to be dangerous when enraged.

Fattie Battering Ram

When a block war comes, Fatties can really pull their not inconsiderable weight.

Improvised armour will be strapped to their considerable bulk and then they will be pushed at fuill speed towards the enemy to be used as a living battering ram.

Wednesday Workbench 03 May

 

I seem to be coming out of my painting rut! I managed to get the highlighting and metal details done on the two models I first started painting (checks back - errmmm, crap - errmm - surely not that long?) four weeks ago. 

Tomorrow I'll give them a light gloss coat, black-lining wash and then varnish and base them.

It's just as well that I'm coming out of that painting rut as this arrived yesterday:

What's that? You don't seriously think I'm planning to paint a cardboard box, do you? I mean, I know I've done some daft painting projects, but that would just be too silly. No, no, no - it's the contents of the box which will be joining the painting queue.

Lots of goodies!

Everything apart from the freebie sample sprue

That's a hefty chunk of resin to clean up and paint.

Yes, my "Block wars" wave 2 pre-order has been delivered. With the CitiDef packs, I'm going to have to try to remember the paint scheme I did for the original packs.

Kickstarter: Modular Landing Pads

 The Kickstarter campaign that I have been doing test-prints for launched a few hours ago:

There's a link in the picture above or just click here: linky-link 

Some of you may know Kathy Millatt from her YouTube channel or from her time as a judge on The Great Model Railway Challenge. She's also a SciFi geek and has recently started playing tabletop games (Star Wars Legion).

She's been working on the designs for these modular landing platforms over the past few months and, boy, are there a lot of options in the package.

I've spent the last two weeks (almost) test-printing the SciFi Ring from the Galactic Set:

The ring has two levels which can be used separately (the upper ring needs basing sections for that though), or together for a taller structure. There are 14* different lower sections and 12* different upper pieces. And that's just for one of the four landing pads in the Galactic Set and before any Stretch Goals are added.

In the photos above you can see what I have printed so far - 14 lower sections and 4 upper sections. You need 12 per level to make a basic ring - I'm printing extras to show off all the options, but that means making a sort of figure-of-eight shape.

There are three pledge levels:

Core Modular Set (allowing you to build landing pads in a range of sizes and shapes) - £32

Galactic Set (SciFi Ring, Desert Ring and a Sky City one either full or flat) - £32

All-In (both sets) - £50 (or £45 if you get in early)

Considering how much you get in each set, I'd say that it is incredibly good value. Of course, once you have the files you will need to print them...

* actually slightly more - for the lower ring there are two different tops for the towers and a variant of the buttress piece which requires supports for printing; for the upper ring there are two different tower tops.

Salute 2023 - The Loot

Yesterday saw me make my pilgrimage to the ExCel Centre in London for Salute 50. Unlike most years, I wasn't traveling from home, as I'd been down at my sister's in Sussex for a couple of nights. I had planned to catch the 0836 train and got there in plenty of time to buy my ticket, but that train was cancelled so I had to get the 0906. Oh well, at least I had time to buy a coffee at the station before boarding.

I eventually got to the venue just before 11am and aftr a few minutes negotiating my way through the crowd of runners pre0registerign for the London Marathon, I made it to the show entry hall just after 11am. There wasn't a queue by then, so I was able to walk straight in (after showing my ticket and getting the goodies-bag).

Another difference to previous years was that I didn't take my camera, so I wasn't taking photos of all the games which allowed me to just visit the ones that interested me (I'd marked up a copy of the show map from the list on the website). I did make a couple of small purchases whilst doing that, but most of my shopping came later on.

I didn't spend as much as normal, or as anticipated, as several items I had on my list weren't available at the show (note to self - pre-orders make good sense!)

At lunchtime I attended the "Bloggers, Vloggers and Podcasters" meet-up which was a good chance to chat with people I hadn't seen for ages and to meet a few people I've only ever chatted with online before. Disgracefully, Ray wasn't there - I'm told he was "under the thumb". *lol*

After that I spent about an hour doing the rest of my shopping before heading to The Fox for drinks with other CLWC members. Four pints of Guinness later, it was time to head home - I think I got in about 9pm - unpack my bags and take some photos of the loot. Apologies for any blurriness - I was slightly inebriated when I took them!

All The Loot:

TT Combat:

I bought this set thinking it would be using the same patterns as the walkways I painted last year. On opening it up for a look, I found that not to be the case.

Blotz:

SHQ:

A vehicle tray for 4l/9l Really Useful Boxes.

Oshiro Model Terrain:

Clear acrylic skirmish movement trays that will be handy for Judge Dredd mobs.

Pendraken/Minibits:

Of the five VMC paints, three were on my list as definitely needing to buy and the other two I know I'm gettign close to finishing; they didn't have the two others that I am almost out of though. I also bought a handful of the Express Color paints to try out. 

Great Escape Games & Too Fat Lardies:

OK, I succumbed to the temptation of a new ruleset...

"OK, great loot, but why haven't we seen you post anything for the last two weeks?"

Basically, I haven't really had anything to show. I did start painting the next set of Block Wars figures (all base coats done) then got busy with a couple of other things. The first of those is doing a load of test-prints for a Kickstarter someone is going to be launching this week (printing things, providing feedback, printing revised things, providing new feedback, rinse, repeat...). The secodn is that I got a bug in my brain about designing some 3D-printable terrain for Block Wars based on Peach Trees from the 2012 Dredd film - so far I've modeled the atrium walkway parapets (I think I've got them close to spot-on) and the next step will be to add the walkways to go behind them. Once those are done I can work on some modular apartments, shops, etc to complete the upper floor sets. Eventually, I will be modeling the ground floor entrance and mall, plus the Med Centre.

Finished: Riot Control Judges (and a couple of Lawmasters)

 

And that's the first three figures from Wave 1 of the Block Wars expansion done and dusted. As mentioned on Wednesday, I took the opportunity to also paint two Lawmaster bikes which had been sitting primed in the drawer for over a year.

Riot Control Judges

The Riot Control Division is made up of Judges who don't make the grade for Street Division, but have the necessary qualities and aptitude for dealing with the frequent riots and block wars that occur in Mega City One.

The one without a riot shield is armed with a riot foam dispenser - the foam hardens rapidly, trapping anybody caught in it allowing them to be cut free, arrested and sent to the Iso Cubes when the riot has been dealt with. The other two are in assault mode; one with a disrupter gun (which temporarily* disrupts the target's nervous system), the other with the ubiquitous Daystick.

I will admit to being a little confused as to why Warlord didn't sculpt them with Lawgiver pistols, which they should all have as back-up weapons.

*usually...

Lawmasters

Somewhat over a year ago I painted up the Cadet Judge and SJS Judge Gerhart models, including riding pose for the latter (I'd lost one of the arms for the riding pose Cadet, so it's still un-primed) but not the Lawmaster bikes from their packs. They had been primed, just not painted for some reason.

Cadet's Lawmaster

SJS Judge Gerhart's Lawmaster

I'm not happy with the headlights and tail lights on the Lawmasters - I might go back and repaint those at some point.