Clear prop!

Which reminds me, I need to cut some clear prop disks for the project I'm working on...
What project that is? I'll tell you in a bit. First, let's look at what I've been up to the past two months.

I've played a couple of games of Adeptus Titanicus, and so far I really like it.

But painting has stalled a bit on the Titans, especially the Xenos ones. I'm still figuring out the exact colour scheme for the Xenos Titans, and I'm holding off on painting the Ork ones until I've modelled all the weapon variants. Now guess what has stalled completely?  Yup, the 3d modelling part.

But I've still got a couple of Imperial Titans to paint and we're still getting comfortable with the rules, so that's perfectly fine. I have time before we will get out the Xenos Titans.

The Lucius Pattern Warhound titan, with it's weapon options. It still needs it's base done.

The first Biel-Tan Revenant Titan. Now to figure out the colour placements for it's mates.

So, what else have I been up to? Apart from painting those two titans above?

After a small side-step to build and paint a Badab War Kill Team, I've built terrain while the weather was still decent. 

A boarding party of Exorcist Marines

The terrain is an expansion to the Desert/Mad Max/Gaslands terrain I built ages ago. After using it in a game of Titanicus, I found I needed some more tall line of sight blocking formations. They'll also come in handy for the current big project... 

And the current project?  Well, this came along on my recommendations and should explain a lot: SkirmishersGuild  I've always loved Crimson Skies. But it is somewhat crunchy, and had pondered how it would translate to Gaslands rules or how to approach that conversion. And then he showed me, not only that it could be done, but that it can be done in style!

Now I won't be doing anything as grandiose as his project, nor do I want to build everything to one convention scenario. I've got a fair few of 1/200 (the OG Crimson Skies minis nominal scale) 3d printed aircraft, as well as a set of Zeppelins from back in the day. I'll be using these, and am figuring out a way to convert the various planes to Gaslands stats.  

I've made a set of bases that can display the three altitude levels of Skirmisher's Guild's rules mods. This does however mean that I will have two distinct sets of Crimson Skies miniatures. Those that are compatible with the original bases and those compatible with the Crimson Skies Gaslands rules. But I'm okay with that, and if I change my mind in the future, I can always adapt some hex bases to accept the Gaslands-modded planes.

A small squadron of either pirates or militia.

A lead-wing pair of high-end Mercenary Company, flying the latest and greatest from Japan.

A little set-up showing how the highest altitude stand puts your plane just above the rock pillars, where there's plenty room to manoeuvre, but absolutely no cover... 

I'm thinking for the test game to just give everyone a lead-wingman pair of differing planes and see how everyone likes it. But first, I must paint!

See you next time!

Scaling Back

 Don't worry, I'm not selling off my collections...

Between heatwaves and busy weeks causing my long covid symptoms to flare up  again, hobbying had petered out over the course of july. These interruptions had caused my enthusiasm for the Division project to slowly peter out. So my hobbying scaled back quite a bit.

Then I discovered Bloodsong by Death of a Rubricist... Ork and Eldar Titans for Adeptus Titanicus was exactly what I needed to relight the hobby fire! So I scaled my hobby back from 28mm to 8mm... ;p 

I've long been of the opinion that Games Workshop shot themselves in the foot by chaining modern Adeptus Titanicus (and by extension Legions Imperialis) to the Horus Heresy. The joy of (previous iterations of) Epic scale games has always been the spectacle and challenge of diverse and eclectic armies and factions battling it out. Seeing mobs of Ork Battlefortresses charging a lance of Imperial knights as a squadron of Baneblades manoeuvring to get a shot on an Ork Gargant. Or Eldar Titans dancing around a Warlord as it struggles to get a bead on them. A line of doomed Guardsmen facing down a charge by Tyranid Bio-Titans...

On a modelling level, it was just great to see the massive warmachines and other bizarre contraptions of the various factions of the 41st millennium that are just too large for a 40K table.

Just look at this stuff! Look!

But I digress. With inspiration and a goal in hand, I scoured the internet for suitable printable Eldar and Ork warmachines to combine with the ones I already had. Some were a bit harder to find than others, but soon I had enough for a maniple (or their particular equivalent) of both Orks and Eldar, and I set my printers to work. In the meantime, when circumstance allowed, I dug out my old Warlord titan to paint while I complete the weapon loadouts I wanted to 3d model for the Ork Gargants (Using Red Nebular's Collossobots). 

A nice afternoon spent airbrushing the Warlord bits

One of my already painted Reavers supervises the proces and serves as a colour matching aide.

A quick test spray of my intended colour mixes of my Biel-Tan titans.

Meanwhile, printer goes brrrr....

And I'm cheerfully bashing away at Fusion.

Two down, half a dozen more to go to get the full loadout options.

While the Collossobots are deeply retro-Ork styled, I want my guns to hit a sort of halfway point between the classic retro Ork style and the more modern Max Max-ian style. 

I'm also feeling the desire to add to my Legio Astraman force, and incorporating some more retro styled bits as well.

A Reaver shoulder pad I modelled based on the older metal Reaver shoulder.

Anyhow, when weather and health allows, I'll be chugging away happily on this little big project!

See you next time!

Sowing Division

 Between a few busy weeks and the associated accumulated exhaustion, the motivation for Space Hulk dried up again a bit. So instead of forcing it, I put it aside again.

At the same time, a friend was talking about the Division (more specifically The Division 2) again, and the Kickstarter for the TTRPG started around the same time. So I got into that again...  

And being the weirdo I am, I process basically any IP through the medium of wargaming and miniatures...

Add to that my long-dormant project of building a set of city terrain that, by swapping out signage and scatter and the occasional building, can function for modern day (zombies, etc.), cyberpunk and post-apocalyptic (the Division, zombies, Hellgate London, Fallout). And you can guess where this is going.

Way back when I just started this blog, I had started on some sidewalk tiles with magnet paint to hold things like streetlights and traffic signs in place. It was a simple case of spraying the sidewalks a mottled grey, then masking and spraying the building plots a mottled brown-grey. And finally, painting in the seams on the sidewalk paving. (The roads will be shown by placing these on a dark grey/black cloth/gaming mat.)

While I was working on this, the 3d printer was running to add buildings to my (tiny) collection:

I also found stls of "not" Division Agents, so those got printed and now I'm slowly working through them and looking for minis that are suitable as their Opfor. Painting is low at the moment, due to initially the current level of exhaustion, and now the (likely extended) heat wave we are experiencing.

Painting these models did drive home for me how much lack of practice, coupled with the effects of Long Covid on my eyes and fine motor skills.

I've also been printing some scatter terrain and loot/objective markers and looking at rules to play with (Current favorite is Zona Alfa, with some modifications and maybe the Kontraband solo/co-op add-on). Now to just find a way to comfortably paint and airbrush in the current heat, so I can finish the minis and buildings!

See you next time!

An ancient carcass, drifting without rhyme or reason...

 But, enough about me, let's talk about the hobby! 😄

March has been a Battletech month, with me painting a mercenary group, including their dropship, and some buildings: 

I also printed an extra set of tokens as we turned out to run out rather fast of those during a 4-way test game, and painted some support vehicles.

After that, the hobby muse drew my attention towards Space Hulk. (Hence, the title of this post.)

Digging out my stash, I found I still had three corridor sections built, but unpainted. So these were up first.

Which put the total amount of finished pieces to this:

While I was painting these, I was printing and gathering more parts and building another set of 3 corridor sections. Looking at my finished pieces, and the hordes of amazing Necromunda terrain out there, I wanted to play with weathering and textures more. What I have made so far looks old, but well-maintained. Future sections will look more dilapidated and abandoned. 

I'm currently painting those three sections. I've started with a basic mottled metal on these, followed by varnish and chipping medium. After that I airbrushed the core colours of the walls and floors and finally I chipped these with lukewarm water and a stiff brush. You can see these steps below.

Next steps will be painting the various details, before going at it with oils and washes.

The textures are still quite minimal and subtle on these, but for future parts, I know I can go harder on the textured and crackle paints, and general detritus.

Once these three are painted, I only have 3 more corridor sections to go before finishing all the corridor sections for the first mission. After that, I really should start on the rooms. As these are often the focal points of the various maps, and often objectives of different missions, I'll need to put some more care and thought into those... Either way, I'm thoroughly enjoying myself working again on this long suffering project again. (I started working on my Space Hulk terrain set in  2007!!!)

Anyway, see you next time!

Let's get medieval!

 Hello again!

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.

Where did the year go?

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. 

See you again next time!

A quick update

 Hi folks,

Still working on the Arbites Patrol Skiff, I've made a successful test print of the main body. Some minor tweaks, but luckily all just cosmetic, to get bits looking a bit better. Still working on the turret itself and the turret and sponson weapons. Not the most exciting parts, so I'm stalling out a bit on those. 

I also got the Space Wolf helmet finished, bar the eyelenses.

And I grabbed some WIP 3d Space Hulk corridor sections from my long-suffering Space Hulk Project. This one was one of my first attempts to combine 3d printing (which wasn't a thing back when I started this project, it's that old!) with more traditional model building techniques. This one leans more heavily on 3d printing. 

Maybe I'll even finish the tiles needed for the first mission before the end of the decade...

Anyhow, I hope the summer is treating you well,

See you next time!