Working Through a Bottleneck

Over a couple of years, a lot of minis in need of various repairs (mostly rebasing, but also broken weapons and such) got stranded on my prepping station.

The many second-hand purchases I've made lately had me wondering how on Earth I should find the necessary space to handle he not-table-ready minis in order to get them ready for my Warlords of the 41st Millennium project.

Solution: Instead of pushing an ever-growing hill of unfinished busines in front of me, dig in, and get the work done!

The picture below is may pain(t) station - all the minis with white bases came directly from the prepping station, and a couple others had minor repairs done.

Imagine the clutter on the prepping station (below), when all those minis were there, too.

I expect to have the workspace (the green cutting mat) cleared over the next week or two - depending on, how often the weather permits working in the garden - I still have trees to cut up, and branches to cut down, before we can get full sun in the veggie garden.

Renedra Small Tents

Today's post is a bit bland, but I quickpainted these over several sessions, and they are now ready to be used in whatever context they might be needed.

I would like to get more Renedra stuff, but I need to find an EU vendor who carries it, as there is too much hassle in ordering from outside the Inner Market.

I am struggling with a Mines of Moria plastic Aragorn at the moment - very tiny compared to other 28mm stuff, so I make very slow progress, but I hope to finish him tomorrow.

Gaming Mats Completed!

As per the intentions mentioned in my previous post, I have been making DIY gaming mats galore.

The above mat is 4'x2' (instead of 40"x20"), and thus a wee too large for The Walking Dead, but as I want all my mats to adhere to the 'normal' convention of using whole feet for table measurements I had to add those few inches to the standard All Out War board sizes.

Here is the concrete/tarmac/rubble/whatever 4x2 mat.

And the 2x2 version - various kinds of daylight, and inconsistent use of tungsten lamps messed a bit with the colour - it is more or less the same as the above mat.

Finally, I have made two earth mats for covering a full 6x4 table. They look almost square, which is because the short edges (meant to form the 6' edges of the board) are actually a bit more than 3' - I simply decided to use the whole width of the material.

Another Terrain Mat

I am making some additional mats for playing The Walking Dead: All Out War, and other purposes, probably also Frodo's Quest. The first two are going to be this 2'x2', and a 2'x4' earth/dirt mat, and then I am going to make both a 2'x2', and a 2'x4' concrete/tarmac/ash waste mat, so that can stage scenarios in both rural and urban settings.

I am aware that The Walking Dead specifies 20"x20", and 20"x40" playing areas, but I want the mats to fit in with 'feet standardized' mats/tables.

When those are done, I am going to purchase a new roll of that 'painters' felt' so that I can make some 4'x3' mats without old splashes of paint; I want to be able to keep just one set of blank boards near the living room to put on the dining table to accommodate a variety of mats. I can then keep my chipboard boards in the attic with no need for carrying them back and forth, which facilitates switching to the living room when the attic gets too cold for gaming.

3D Printed: Stone Buildings

I finally got the Ulvheim stone buildings cleaned up and ready for painting. I have printed second storeys and roofs for both the 100% building and the 110% building, and I also printed trapdoors and ladders. This version is the 100% building.

Here you see the ruined second storey. I really like how it is designed so that the stairs still leads to the remains of the upper level.

This is the 110% version.

And here it is with another ruined upper level. The stairs still work!

I expect Ulolkish to take them home with him tomorrow and then soonish give a shout whether he considers the 110% print fitting, or if I should print an even bigger version before going completely to town printing ruins.

Operation Cleansweep - the Next Level!

My prepping station has been cluttering up again, lately, and I think my 3D printing is now offering me a solution: I found files for printing parts to turn empty filament spools into a drawer storage organizing box, and it struck me that without the drawers, it becomes a stacked series of turning shelves instead.

So when I had two identical empty spools, I printed the base, one spacer and two center pieces, as well as one cover for the top (I Think I shall source some other files for drawers when I want to make an actual storage box).

After assembling it, I started organizing some of the clutter, and I already have much more workspace on the prepping station - and when I add a third spool, I think that I can actually get the cutting mat and the newspaper off the surface and get it cleaned properly, for once!

I may ad magnetic sheeting to the shelves to keep washer-based minis firmly in place, but for now, I am more than happy to just get the prepping station tidied up (as it has not been for about half a decade)!

And then They were Two....

I speed-pained this very old Jes Goodwin bear (a Wood Elf Beastmaster companion) today, as Ulolkish may need a couple of Quadruped Creatures to go with his Dwarves in SAGA Age of Magic tomorrow.

Next time I get something from North Star Military Figures, I shall include their rearing bear in the order, to bring the sleuth up to three members (and probably enough for Sellswords & Spellslingers).

3D Printed: Stone Townhouse

 Another design by Terrain4Print is the Ulvheim series A building and ruins on Thingiverse.

My first print of the intact version (with remixed upper storey and roof by Talismancer ) was at 100%, but I think it is a tiny bit too small for 'heroic' 28mm minis.

Thus, I am now printing another one at 110%, and you can see the first result at the bottom of this post (I am almost out of that Slate Grey PLA, and it is out of stock at my filament pusher's webstore, so I am taking a break from these buildings).

As can be seen below, both storeys have a nice level of interior details, and I plan to print some furniture to add to the gaming experience of having this kind of housing populating a town/city table.

Ulolkish and I have agreed to do 3D printed city/town/ruins scenery as a joint project; I print and clean up the pieces, and he paints at least half of them, and we can then have a large set of the stuff to use between us (we live only 11 kilometers apart, so it is a matter of less than ½ hour to fetch a big box by car).

I recently had some trouble with my CR10S, and as a consequence I have been printing with a bit too little retaction, causing some stringing. While this can be easily removed, I am going to play around with the settings to see if I can avoid it completely - like I am now again returning to use a skirt for bed adhesion instead of a brim, as the latter means more cleaning up to do before the pieces can be painted.

I have not yet printed the trap door for the roof, but I guess I may be doing that later today in some dark brown filament I have running on the printer at the moment.

Here are all the pieces of the first building.

To the right and below you can see the ground floor printed at 110%.

I think it fits the GW Skelly better, as it looks like he could actually pass under the door arch without banging his skull against it.

I shall, of course, still use the first one, but I am certain that I shall print further buildings at the slightly larger size!

Over the next couple of days, I am going to print a larger version of the 'Fantasy Viking' Rohan house, and also some palisades for protecting those Rohan settlements from Wild Men and Uruk-Hai raiders! And, of course, as mentined, a roof trapdoor for the Ulvheim building.

Some 3-Man Sabots

The relatively new 'Mortal Gods' game is using some special 3-man bases, and of course, somebody has made 3D-printable versions. Mortal Gods use minis based on 25 mm bases, and as I base most of my minis on 20 mm washers, I had to re-scale the file to 80% to make it work.

As you can see below, the re-scaled sabot base fits like a glove for my 20 mm based minis.

I am probably going to get Mortal Gods, or the fantasy version 'Mythic' at some point, but I am printing the bases for One Page Rules Age of Fantasy Skirmish, where most bread-and-butter troop types come in groups/units of three, so these are actually perfect for that game, too.

I am going to print some round 'light troop' 3-man bases, too, but right now I focus on the triangular 'formed up' bases, as I need six or seven of those for my first test games of OPRAoFS, the first hopefully occurring Monday afternoon. Well, 'need' is probably an exaggeration, as the minis in a group just have to stay within a certain distance, and moving three minis at a time is not that big a deal, but printing some bases fitting for the game is just too big a temptation, as it instantly means some extra geek points! 😆

Preparing Some Ruins

I have managed to get two ('two' seems to be the theme of this post) gaming appointments for after the weekend (Monday GoB. 40 points, at 10 a.m. with Ulolkish, possibly followed by a quick tussle using the above and additional buildings, and Tuesday GoB, 36 points, at 6:30 p.m. with Kevin, where I shall try using my Army of Darkness just a tiny bit more effectively that the last time, and possibly also introduce him to AoF), so earlier today I was rummaging around in the garage attic to alter the table for GoB, and set up a secondary table for Age of Fantasy, as we are to be away most of both Saturday and Sunday for two seperate confirmation celebrations.

I have had these two two-part Ziterdes ruins (Emperor's Palace and Administratum Wangun) in my possession for quite a few years, but in preparing a 4x4 table for One Page Rules Age of Fantasy Skirmish, I found that it was about time I got the upper floors secured with some strong glue.

Should Auld Acquaintance...

I just unearthed these two ancient critters - probably perfect for some of the games I play...

Just the other day, I also found this alternative Treeman, and I think that I now have to track down a third one, so that I may use them together in SAGA Age of Magic.

Well, that will have to wait a bit - this upcoming weekend we are attending no less than TWO confirmation celebrations, so we shall be away both Saturday and Sunday, and the little time left is probably required for mending the garden in one way or another.

I love that generic fantasy rules are all the rage these days - I have been doing 'generic' for quite a lot of years, but now it seems to become a mainstream thing to use one's minis for rules not made by the minis' manufacturers. Took the gaming scene long enough...

My Newest Tool

This photo was taken with the wrong light settings - but as it is not meant to show off my meagre painting skills, it is of no dire consequences.

I recently bought the Citadel Assembly Handle, as I am to embark on a fairly extensive project, rebasing plastic Riders of Rohan with their idiotic singular-point-of-contact horses, and I expect to have to apply support to the horses while the glue sets. If this turns out to work nicely for that purpose, I may actually purchase a some more of the handles, so that I can have more than one horse glued in a setting.

The above Skeleton snapped off the plastic base while I was cutting away some of it (the base), and as Poly Cement does not dry very quickly, I felt it was time to get some use out of the handle - and it seems to do the job very nicely!

As you can see, I have not put the clamps to use, as that paticular mini is mostly painted, and I do not want to damage the paint, if it can be avoided, but the arms provide sufficient support to hold a man-sized 28mm mini in place.

I wonder how well the strength of the arms will hold up to metal and/or resin horses, but that time that worry.

A Growing Contingent of Archers

I now have enough rebased Skeleton Archers to form two points of bow-armed warriors for SAGA Age of Magic. As I am soon also going to try out One Page Rules Age of Fantasy, I can have five 3-man groups out of these (and as I have two more, not in the pic, actually six groups in all), should I need that many.

The next couple of days, I have to finish a job application and prepare the appendices (I may get it completed tomorrow), and until it is done, I shall not have much hobby time, but I have another four models to rebase so that I can field two full units for God of Battles (and also 3 points for SAGA, to also be organized into two units of 12, including the Leader and Standard Bearer models).

It is quite nice to do units without having a set deadline for their use - does not feel as stressful that way 😁

Skeleton Archer Unit WIP

I managed to squeeze a bit of hobby time in today, so got the two broken models repaired, and rebased another four, bringing the archers up to 12 models - just enough for a God of Battles unit, and 1½ point of warriors for SAGA Age of Magic, for example.

I intend to get another 12 archers rebased, and then 12 warriors, before I start painting them (but I may start putting filler on some of the bases, soon, as I want to be able get some three-archer groups ready for OPR Age of Fantasy Skirmish rather soonish, which I intend to use as an introduction to fantasy wargaming for Emil.

Skeleton Archers WIP

The only work I have done on these until now is the rebasing. Part of a large Khemri job lot I purchased a couple of years back, they have been sitting idly in my Necropolis (large cardboard crate with unused Undead plastic), but with SAGA Age of Magic now almost ready to be played, and with My God of Battles Lords of Undeath in need of some ranged support, and the fantasy version of Mortal Gods 'Mythic' probably coming out later this year, now it is time to do something about it.

In addition to the above mentioned games, I have recently downloaded One Page Rules' Age of Fantasy Skirmish, and I  also have a hunch that I may have to get Warlords of Erehwon. 😏

One of the skellies lost an arm in the process, I shall have to poly cement it back on tomorrow, and I also got a wee tad overzealous with the Dremel, and cut of 1/4 of a bow on the last of these first eight archers; I think I shall just cut off the hand, and glue the hand form a spare archer arm on instead.

The observant reader will have noticed something new behind the Skeletons - it is also a work in progress, and I should have something to show tomorrow!

3D-Printed: Camp & Baggage WIP

My CR10S S3 has been busy making some Camp & Baggage the last week.

The large Black Pavilion of course is the field habitation of my Necromancer,.
It can be found HERE

The Oseberg tents can be used for various purposes.

The file is to be had HERE

The first two printed have been sprayed with Army Painter Skeleton Bone and had the A-frames basecoated - I intend to do a little more work on them before each game they are to appear on the table.

The crates and the barrel are both from a Delving Decor Dwarven set - found on Thingiverse just like the tents.

I have not had time to sit down to clean up and assemble the Renedra Saxon tents - I shall reveal the reason in my next post.

Please, Bear in Mind...

I did quite a quick and dirty paintjob on this, as my hobby time is very limited at the moment.

Originally part of the Honourable Lead Boiler Suit Company's North Amarican Wildlife range, this is probably meant to depict a Grizzy, but I opted to try painting it as a European bear.

I am not sure if it turned out a bit too dark, but it will have to do as is for now, as I hope to be able to squeeze in another game of Sellswords & Spellslingers with Emil before Christmas, and I need a bear to be able to turn up as a Complication in the scenario I have in mind (In Search of Rare Herbs).

More pics of the teddy below.

Bear with Me!

I need an angry bear for the Sellswords & Spellsligers scenario 'In Search of Rare Herbs', so i dug out these two.

The running specimen was originally made by the Honourable Lead Boiler Suit Company, but is now produced and sold by North Star Military Figures, and the other one is from an old Jes Goodwin Wood Elf Beastmaster blister (hence the torc around its neck) from Citadel.

Basically, I shall have to experiment a bit with the colours, as I am not certain how to achieve the predominant colour of the European bear. I hope to mostly paint the first one coming Monday, so we shall see how it turns out...