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!

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!

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!