Like I said in last post, I'm working on a small Baron's War army to have a game with a mate some time this year. I've been chipping away at my troops, one unit at a time.
So far, I've got my peasant levy spearmen done, they're basically just farmers with whatever long pointy implement they had available.
The peasants, pulled from whichever village pulled the short straw this time round...
Second on the billet are the serjeants on foot. As they're not actually nobility, they're wearing livery in the colours of either of the two flags of Brabant (the flag for the Duchy of Brabant is a yellow/golden lion rampant, clawed and tonged in red on a field of black. The other flag, chequered red and white, is the modern flag of Brabant, but can be traced back to the middle ages, so I feel justified in using its colours.) The still to be painted archers will also have tabards or hoods in these colours, over their regular clothing, as a nice bridge between the peasants and the serjeants.
The serjeants, trained fighters in the permanent employ of Brabantine nobles or cities.
As a nice added bonus, the Brewer's Guild militia I painted back in the day for my Fantasy/Dungeoneering project, the ones with spears and pavises/large shields, also have a red-white heraldry, so they can fit in with this force. The sergeant even has the city arms of a local Brabantine city, matching even more perfectly. They make a nice expansion for this force, as well as a nice bridge between my historical and fantasy medieval project. :)
Left to do are the archers, and my complement of mounted knights. You'll get to see those once I'm done painting them. Once the weather improves come spring, I want to get to work on some medieval village terrain, as that needs me able to work outside in some degree of comfort.
As I had my paints out, I also did a quick paint job on a bunch of sci-fi Hull Crabs, that had been languishing on my painting table for way to long. Just a quick couple of drybrushes, and some partial glazes with red and blue tones of ink/contrast paints. They'll be fun in things like Necromunda, Five Parsecs, Inq28, maybe even the upcoming game Scrapjacks from the creator of Zona Alfa?
As part of the whole "Medieval stuff is cool" phase, I've also finally finished Kingdom Come Deliverance, and have now started on part two. I bet you can guess why painting is going a bit slower... 😁
This week I've also started playing Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries in co-op with a friend, so there is a none-zero chance some battlemechs will be deployed to the painting table soon as well.
I've also been experimenting with printing some Crimson Skies planes in 1/300, but with mixed succes, the planes are very fiddly to print with any degree of consistent success. A shame, as I'd rather like to put Crimson Skies back on my gaming roster.
So, that's what I've been up to in January, as far as hobbying is concerned.
Another year past, and I haven't been posting for the latter half of it. Had lots on my plate, and not much energy or excitement for documenting my meagre hobby efforts.
For those wondering, the Patrol Skiff is finished and is now available on Cults3D
I did manage to do some hobbying in December, mainly focussed on finishing some 3d printed 28mm scale Battletech mechs. I printed and painted a Thunderbolt and a Commando and painted them in a generic mercenary-like scheme, to stand against the League of Rasalhague Warhammer and Locust I painted a while ago. Between Christmas and today, I managed to put the last touches on them:
The Thunderbolt
The Commando
In December a friend and me discovered we were both planning to do some medieval stuff, which turned into us both planning to build a small Baron's War warband. We're setting our warbands in Brabant, using heraldry from that area. I'll be building mine to be 14th century, rather than Baron's Wars "native" 13th century as:
A. It's an era of Brabantine history that I'm already a bit more familiar with.
B. I prefer the look of mid-late 14th century arms and armour
C. Information about 13th century Brabant is extremely thin on the ground...
I've printed my warband using models from Reconquer designs, Epizion and a few Medbury bits. And now that the mechs are off the table, I can get started on the warband. I think I'll start with the peasant levy, to get back into the swing of things.
With the social distancing in effect, I've done some more hobbying that usual in the past weeks...
The start of the medieval farmstead that I built ages ago has finally had it's date with the airbrush and paintbrush, just basing/flocking remains to be done:
I've also been assembling a core force of Space Wolves, which required some greenstuffing:
In the meanwhile, in the background I was printing stuff. Unfortunately I suffered a major clog in the print head.This forced me to fully disassemble and clean the hot end, as well as replace the bowden tubing... After several days (over several weeks) of tweaking, I have it running reliably again.
But the major endeavour of this month has been two buildings for my Cyberpunk terrain project. They still have some small touches to do (matt varnish, windows and the till on the store interior still needs to be painted), but for the moment, they're finished enough. Both have accessible interiors and locations where signage can be magnetically attached.
The front door is reversible, with a regular door and a quarantine door. :)
The 3-story building is 3D printed, with some scratch-built additions, the shop is from large scale train terrain. Graffiti and tags are decals (home printed), posters and signs are printed paper, while the magnetized signage is all 3d-printed.
As I was airbrushing a lot anyway, I decided to paint up this little thing as well:
I've also started up a new set of meads. The theme for this batch is "pear".
Centre is a pear melomel, made by adding chopped pears to the mead recipe, the rightmost is a pear-cyser, made by substituting the water in the mead recipe with pear juice. The leftmost is just whatever pear juice, pear bits and honey I had left over from the other two batches. ;)
(They're in buckets because I tend to have a fairly energetic fermentation the first few days, and I like to contain the spillage.)
Work on the farm has stalled a bit, as I need to start doing things in Balsa, and I need to dig out my balsa stash and get used to working with the material again. Also, I've been out of the running with a bad cold/mild flu the past week (I need to be able to talk all day for my work, so not having use of my voice effectively puts me out of commission). I needed a project I could easily pick up and put down to make use of the time I wasn't actively being ill.
Inspired by a Twitch stream of someone painting their Adeptus Titanicus stuff, I decided to use the bursts of time where I could do stuff to continue building my Imperial Knight.
I do want to continue working on the farming village, and working on the Knight gave me an idea: Imperial Knight worlds are usually Feudal worlds... I could, ofcourse, build some "40K-ified" additions to the farm to use it as a Feudal World setting. Put an Ambot in a shack, an agricultural servitor somewhere. A data-shrine in a corner. Just enough to add some Grimdark to a very pastoral medieval setting. I'm still having this idea fermenting in my head, so any pictures will be some time out. For now, I'll just focus on finishing the first farm.
Also, I played a game of "What a Tanker!" the week before that with Gunbird and that was quite a bit of fun. So I'm looking forward to playing more of that in the future.
Also BFG is still on the books somewhere, and I really should be completing the terrain set for that. Build some gas/dust clouds and markers for solar and radiation flares as well as a sunward edge markers and I should have the essentials, giving me more time for extras such as Warp Rifts and fleet support vessels. (Oh, and I really should start working on that certification for work...)
Anyway, here are some pictures of my activities:
The base frame of the Knight, with the carapace on top, but unglued.
And all the additional parts that will be painted separately. As you can see I've magnetized all the weaponry. For heraldry I want to go with a more medieval/Bretonnian style, so the shields will bear individual heraldry instead of just the house crest. I also want to add pennants and streamers to various parts of the model, just make it look more noble and knightly. Here and there I will also hang shields displaying the heraldry of honoured allies that Knight fought alongside. These will include, among others the Space Wolves and Howling Griffons (the chapters I build/collect), the Scythes of the Emperor (as an homage to Shas'El Tael/Sebastian)and the Cardinal Archivists, the homebrew chapter of the Snipe and Wib community.
This will be the crest of my Knightly House (blatantly stolen from the Darkest Dungeon game...):
Still undecided about the name, thinking of going with House Dravion (named after a DnD character I'm currently playing... Yes, I'm a Nerdus Universalis. :D ) Ofcourse I won't be freehanding this across the entire Household-to-be, so I'll be dipping my toe into home-made transfers... Plus I'm seriously considering lighting up the next Knight I build.
This was the final outcome of the game of What a Tanker! My tank rammed Gunbirds, but caused so much damage we deemed it a Monster Truck style run over.
Oh, and I forget to mention last time, that due to a purchasing error, I had only bulls and oxen for my medieval village. So half of the oxen found themselves modified to have udders, giving me a mixed population of bulls, oxen and cows:
The lengths I go to....
See you all next time! (No telling what the project will be then, focus is non-cooperative at the moment...)
This weekend I've been making drystone walls for my 14th century medieval/fantasy village project.
After viewing a few tutorials on Youtube, I decided to go the "gravel and PVA in a mould" route:
A traditional Dwarven breakfast porridge. :D
Put it into a mould with some baking paper:
Leave to thoroughly dry and harden and you have:
Dwarven Granola Bars! :D
I had to do a quick test layout:
Need to fill some gaps on the undersides, but this will work nicely!
Time to get basing!
And a little farm setup with the Perry Miniatures medieval cottage. Just need to stick some pigs in the wattle pen, cows or corn in the stonewalled fields.
I still need to build one or two wooden gates, as these will probably used for sheep/cow meadows. And then I can start painting this batch!
After that I want to add a chicken coop, some veggie gardens and a midden pile, and then I think I can call this first farm complete. Maybe some random tools and farm implements as scatter terrain.
So, been a few weeks since last post, and I've been doing some stuff, so it's high time I shared it with you:
I've started on my Super-Battleship for Battlefleet Gothic (the vessel in the background is a Retribution Class Battleship. The largest class of official ship models for the game...)
Once fully built, the Super-Battleship will have a double gun deck. It's a bit smaller than some Super-Battleship conversions/scratch builds out there, but I think this size to be a bit more believable.
I've also been playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and so got inspired to pick at my Medieval/Fantasy Village again. I prepped and primed my villagers and livestock.
Hopefully somewhere in the future I'll be able to get them painted as well... ;) And build the village for them to live in... I think I have all the materials by now, just need to keep up the momentum/enthusiasm and hunker down for a few weekends. Unfortunately, all weekends for the coming month and a half have been booked full...
But the biggest thing I did the past few weekends is a set of planets and moons for BFG. An airbrush makes amazingly quick work of painting entire planets!
As you can see from the various views, they all come with a day and night side, to more easily show the sunward edge of the gaming table.
"Morning"
"Day"
"Evening"
"Night"
My gaming buddies are still focussed on playing a BFG campaign later this year, so these hopefully see use soon. One needs to refurbish a fleet, and the two others want to build/collect their own fleet from scratch, which is a bit of a challenge. Luckily, if they can't get it all together in time, I've got plenty of fleet(s) for them to loan for the time being.
So, that's everything caught up again. I'll likely be hobbbying a bit less the coming weeks, due to, as I said a busy calendar, and I really should start studying for a certification at work. But such is life.
See you next time!
Wow, it's been a month already?
The annual busy period at work has reduced my time and energy available for hobby stuff. That isn't to say I've been totally idle, but that nothing has progressed enough to take new pictures of. The first Necromunda terrain piece is still PIP, although the airbrush stages are past. I need to get the thing on the painting table for some good old-fashioned brushwork.
The Goliath gang is primered and ready for paint. The Escher have seen a tentative start at building them.
I've packed away my airbrush kit, partly because I needed a change of pace, partly because my mate's airbrush finally arrived and he reclaimed the set of airbrush paints I was borrowing from him. I need to build up my own stock of airbrush paints.
Also, I needed to clear the workbench because I wanted/needed to do some woodworking again.
I'm making a set of pushsticks for a friend who got a tablesaw for his birthday last fall, as well a cupholder as a (very) belated birthday gift for another friend. My plan for the coming year is to alternate woodworking and wargaming/modelling a bit more because, honestly, between work and hobbies, I'm getting a bit fed up with just sitting on my ass all the time.
With Necromunda having run out of steam a little bit, and me needing to relax after work, I've picked up playing The Witcher 3 again. I find it quite relaxing to just explore and slay (or be slain by) the odd roaming monster. Which naturally has me thinking about fantasy gaming again. Also I needed a break from all the worn-out tech that has been a main feature of my hobby efforts lately (between Necromunda and Gasland).
So, I've been looking at my tray of primered fantasy figures once more, as a palate cleanser and to get back into a rythm of painting again.
Today, I painted a trio of Wraiths. These Wraiths are converted from GW Empire Flagellants and based on the ones found in, unsurprisingly, the Witcher:
And here's my interpretation:
These were painted by drybrushing them up to a light grey and then a final drybrush of pale sand. Afther that the colours were added by thin washes/glazes of the GW washes. This gives them the pale and washed out look I needed for them. The Wraith on the right features a first careful, and probably too subtle, attempt at OSL from the lamp/timeglass. The metal parts of the swords (and the brass bell) were given a very light drybrush of metal.
" Wraiths are spirits of the unquiet dead. Trapped between
true life and true death, they are filled with torment and a burning
hatred of the living. They can be found roaming catacombs, near their
disturbed or neglected gravesites or sometimes drawn to Places of Power.
As such an adventurer must always be alert when visiting such locales and never neglect a sudden chill running down their spines, often a
first warning sign that Wraiths are nearby...."
The personal fantasy/dungeoneering setting I'm placing my fantasy skirmishes and dungeoneering projects in is a mix of various factors that interest me. It's a witches' brew of "traditional" fantasy and folklore, mixed with a good dollop of historical 14th century for the villages/towns and general architecture, and a healthy helping of Cthulhu Mythos for the deep dark places in forests and dungeons, far from the light of civilisation... Nothing set in stone, or even written down, for now it's just a ghost of a dream in my head. But the last few iterations a lot of the Witcher universe and Slavic folkore in general has been spicing the mix.* The more I look into it, the more it intrigues me. It's all just unfamiliar and dark enough to be interesting (to myself
and players) as well as form a nice bridge or gradient between the
civilised parts of my setting and the truly dark Cthuluesque parts. As a result I'll be adding a few of the monsters and creatures from these settings into my collection, in addition to the Western European folkore and mythology "classics". I just need to find good models to represent them or convert them from. I'm even considering painting all the signage and such in Glagolotic instead of Roman/western letters.
*: In fact the Pavesiers/City Guard I painted more than a year ago take their heraldry from Rivia, a small kingdom in the Witcher world....
Today, my first package of the Westfalia Miniatures Halfmen Kickstarter arrived, and they are glorious:
Tomorrow a second package should follow, containing the last few miniatures, and then I should have everything in my hands.
I had a quick look at them, and once again Westfalia Miniatures really impresses. (They already went well above and beyond coordinating with me to make sure my miniatures wouldn't arrive when I was away from home.)
Their choice in resin is excellent, it's light and takes detail very well, transferring every detail of the absolutely marvellous sculpts, while being ever so slightly flexible, which is great boon to actual wargaming use for this miniatures.
The casting is virtually flawless, with barely any mouldlines and little excess resin to deal with. (The only flaw I could find after checking every single miniature, was a slight misalignment of the mould on the visor of one my Goat Knights. Nothing a stroke with a file and maybe a dot of putty won't fix. Which for working with resin, and the sheer amount of miniatures I got, is so minor an issue it doesn't even properly count.) There are the usual slight bent spears and such that are part and parcel of resin minis, but even those are few and far between. And knowing Westfalia, all their shipments are to this standard of quality. They're just gobsmackingly amazingly good and very, very dedicated.
The sculpting is just exquisite and very, very clean. These will be an absolute joy to paint up.
I'd better start clearing my hobby table... :)
Hopefully they'll make their way to the Westfalia Miniatures online store, as I can certainly see myself expanding the collection.
So, what are my plans for these? Well, they'll get fed into the greater Dungeoneering/Chivalry/Fantasy monster project. I think they'll get divvied up into groups of a single Knight and his/her retinue, similarly to what I did with my Bretonnians. And mayble I'll cherrypick a few of them to accompany a Halfling Wizard to raid the kitchens and pantries of Frostgrave for frozen treats...
Scruffy townsfolk behind bright colourful shields... Medieval working class warriors, of sorts.
Here's their banner:
The symbol on the blue streamer that forms the top of the flag is a crossed mash paddle and ladle, signifying that this unit of militia consists of members of the Brewers Guild. (Each guild in a medieval city, which my fantasy setting is heavily influenced by, was obliged to be able to arm their membership and so provide units of militia for the city's defence and policing and to fulfill military obligations to feudal lords that controlled the city. The units would be equipped according to the wealth and status of the guild in question.) The Brewers Guild, not being exceptionally wealthy or poor, but being a large guild (as beer was the main drink of the era), provides the pavisiers in my setting. As you can see the more well-off members have better gear and more important duties within the guild militia.
And here's the pavise of the bannerman:
The captain/guildmaster will get a similar shield, but with a canton (inset) bearing a golden tree on a black field.
About that heraldry: The shield designs aren't just chosen at random or for prettyness. There are some references in there I'd like to share.
The heraldry on the majority of pavises and the banner is the heraldry of Rivia, a sovereignty in the setting of the Witcher, from Andrzej Sapkowski's books and CD Project Red's Witcher game trilogy. My littly geeky tribute to books and games that I love.
Just this week I discovered, by accident, that this is also the heraldry of a historical Dutch family called Zael or Zael Utteneng. Who apparently held lands or office along a part of disputed territories between two Duchies in the Holy Roman Empire, one of which now forms my home province Brabant. Funny that. I just love it when such coincidences pop up!
The rest are nods to regional history:
The red three-towered castle on a white field is the medieval version of the arms of the Quarter of Oisterwijck, the 14th century administrative/feudal domain my home city was part of back then.
The gold tree on a black field, that I will paint as a canton on the militia captain his shield, was the medieval version of the arms of the Mairie of 'S-Hertogenbosch, the larger feudal (sub)domain within the Duchy of Brabant that the Quarter of Oisterwijck fell under.
Not the proper/historical way this heraldry would be used, but hey, I'm playing a fantasy game here... ;)
