Ogre Redux!

So I love painting ogres - so sue me. I really do enjoy them, especially the great Reaper Bones sculpts that you can get for cheap. That and the fact that when they fall they will not break, chip, or even possibly break your toe the way metal ones might. 

This fig was an exercise in using GW's Contrast Paints. I used it everywhere except for the skulls and the horn. I also used some acrylics for highlights on the skin areas, as well (I couldn't help it - it needed to be highlighted in a way that I couldn't get the Contrast paint to do). I've been using the contrast paints since they came out, and currently use them for different applications, depending upon the model I'm painting and the effect that I'm looking for. I've found that the browns, for me, have the most use (well, those and Black Templar), and there are others that I like, but do not use as often. And that red tongue our friend below is sporting is all Contrast paint, as well!

Skip

Stormcast Eternals for Warcry!

Warcry is a game that I've always wanted to try, but never have. I've had the rules for a little over a year now, and they seem fairly easy to grasp. So, I've been slowly working on a Warcry warband (or "gang" as I call them) of Stormcast Eternals. I like the models and chose them for that reason alone (always build gangs by the Rule of Cool, is my motto). I struggled with a color scheme for awhile, then finally decided on what you see here. I definitely did not want the gold look, and I think that the black works well - along with being easy to paint (can you say: Contrast paint Black Templar?). All in all, I think that they turned out pretty good, and I currently have four more about 3/4 of the way painted. I'll get that warband up and running soon!

Skip

Sci-Fi Troll

Here we've got a Sci-Fi troll from Reaper Miniatures. It's a metal fig, but I slightly modified the position of the arm holding the gun. It was originally straight out, and I wanted a less action oriented pose, so I placed it downward, pinned it, and had to put a little bit of green stuff around the shoulder. Sculpting was limited, but easy. 

This fig will be used in an upcoming game of TFA when I get together with Scott in May. This guy's going to be a bruiser!

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Ogre's Delight

Here we have a Northstar Ogre, made for their Rangers of the Shadowdeep line. I can't say enough good things about Northstar's miniatures. This particular mini is made out of resin, and full of character, as you can see. The entire RotS line is great. Most are metal figs, of which I've already painted a few. I highly recommend them - extremely versatile, and can be used for any 28mm-scale fantasy game. 

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Chirrut Imwe

I recently completed painting a miniature of Chirrut Imwe, from everyone's favorite non-original trilogy Star Wars movie, Rogue One. I got the fig off of a vender on Etsy (can't remember which one at the moment), and the detail was very good. It scales pretty well with the Star Wars Legion mini's, but it is just a tad smaller than they are (which is good, in my opinion). It is close enough in size to my 28mm sci-fi figs that I can use them together without looking out of place. 

The only faulty part was the top of his staff, which was very thin and broke off during painting. So, I simply borrowed part of a staff from I believe an Adeptus Mechanicus sprue (a Rustwalker, I think, but I'm not 100% sure). Regardless, after pinning and gluing the new staff piece, it holds up well.

The fig was easy to paint - paint went on very smooth, and the sculpt is fairly forgiving for highlights and such. It will be great for any kind of sci-fi skirmish. Hope you like it!

Skip

Sidewalk Base Demo

 Here's a quick demo of how I paint up a base to look like a sidewalk (or "footpath" for any British or Australians out there):

1. Paint the base black (picture not shown - pretty self-explanatory).  I use a smooth mdf base (this wouldn't work with a slotted plastic base, or any base that doesn't have a smooth surface).

2. Dry-brush the base lightly with a medium gray, using a lighter gray in some areas.

3. Next I stippled some black paint on a few areas to give it more variety. 

4. I then painted a few black lines to establish the bricks, or pieces of sidewalk. You can do as many or as few as you want, but it's best to paint them a little off-center. Then I used a light gray paint to highlight the edges of the bricks/pieces, as well as a few "cracks".  

And that is it! It's really simple and easy to do. If you make a mistake and paint a crooked line, simply use a heavy drybrush over the area, then a lighter one to blend it back into the rest of the base. Once you add the lines of demarcation and a few highights, the whole thing comes together. 

Here's one that I did for a Plastic Man 'clix, at the same time as the demonstration. Simple and effective.

Skip

Nobody asked me, but...

 It's time for another installment of my favorite irregular column where I touch on different gaming topics. Here we go! 

• North Star Military Figures has the pre-release up for their Stargrave Crew II hard plastic, multi-part miniature set. They look awesome! Check them out here.
• Wargames Atlantic is also coming out with a great set of female sci-fi fighters--Cannon Fodder II! Check out Wargames Atlantic here. 
• Techno-Fantasy Adventure, my next game release, is going well! We should be ready to start layout soon. We await a few more pieces of art, and the rules themselves are firming up nicely. Play-tests have been a blast. You can play sci-fi with this, or fantasy, or a mix of both. It is also adaptable to other genres like Wild West, historical skirmish, etc. 
• I am enjoying experimenting with Army Painter Speed Paints. Like GW's Contrast Paint, they let you get figures on the table quickly, and provide a nice, "natural" highlighting effect over a lighter primer / base coat. 
• If you like classic comic books, pick up Jim Rugg's Hulk: Grand Design #1. It's a brilliant himage to the first 300 issues of Incredible Hulk. 
• I have now transitioned most of my recent print titles from Lulu to Drivethru RPG. Check them out here.
• The Amazing Skip is back in the fold and will be posting here from time to time. Thanks for sharing your great paint work, Skip! 
• I will be working on some and sharing more sci-fi terrain soon!

That's all for this installment! Look for more miniature and hobby pics and posts soon! 

--Scott

Skip here, once again. Scott has been gracious enough to ask me if I wanted to continue with my long-overdue posts, and I accepted. So, intermittently I will be posting my musings on painting miniatures. I think that I'll start off with a super - a slightly modified Power Man, in his original (and best, IMO) costume. I took a Heroclix figure (but can't remember which one) and shaved his hair off with an exacto blade. I then re-primed him, and painted him as you see here. The base is just an mdf one which I painted to look like a worn sidewalk. 

Some of those 'clix are really well-sculpted, and totally worth getting! 

 

Skip

Something Rotten

 Reaper Bones are the gift that keeps on giving to fantasy and sci-fi gamers alike. 

A few weeks ago I picked up a Bones giant maggot to use as an adversary in some future game. I can see having this beast as a surprise hazard in a game of TFA, as it is depicted bursting from the ground, it's deadly maw gaping to consume its likely prey. 

Here Speed Paints again served me well! Check it out! 

Thanks for visiting! 

--Scott

Hive Nobles

 I found myself wanting unarmed, elegantly dressed human nobles for my Techno-Fantasy Skirmish, Inquisitor 28mm games. 

I checked Etsy and found that Griffon Miniatures had some figures that were ideal for my needs. 

While these figures are not truly sci-fi, the nature of the "techno-fantasy" background suggests a baroque styling that harkens back to "Old Terra" and the over-dressed, thin-blooded nobility that once ruled it. 

Now for the pics! 

I painted these Guilders primarily using Army Painter Speed Paints. They work very well, but have a few quirks. They have a long cure time, so don't try to seal them right away. Also, don't try to use any medium when painting with them. Medium seems to disrupt their smoothness and flow. 

Very happy with the results on these three! 

Thanks for looking! 

Scott

Another Play-Test In The Books!

 Another play-test in the books for TFA! 

This time I took a 5-model warband against two Chaos Space Marines, both built-out as major characters.

While their initial bolter shots were deadly, I was able to close with them and enjoyed some truly lucky dice rolls. 

I played a raid scenario, defeated my foes, and absconded with the main objective. 

New crew for this play-test, though a few of them were from past bands.

Malachi Oathbreaker guarding the objective. 

A nice shot of my home-made jungle terrain!

Insane courage!!!

The classic double-team! Best way to take on a major character. 

Zarthos, Malachi's partner charges in, but he is headed off by my leader, Victus.

Malachi goes down!

    

Zarthos goes down!

This game inspired me to create another ability for Inhuman called Terrifying. It makes characters less likely to hit the Double Bonus against them. 

Thanks for visiting! 

TFA: Project Process Update

 I have been discussing the latest play-tests of my current project, Techno-Fantasy Adventure (TFA). Today I want to show off a preliminary sketch of the cover from the talented Jay Piscopo. 

Jay imbues his work with an amazing sense of dynamism, and each piece tells a story. I can't wait to see this in finished and in color. Jay is doing a number of other pieces for the interior as well, so this little book is going to look amazing! 

Thanks for visiting! 

--Scott

Haarlock's Legacy Continues

 Stu and I played part one of Damned Cities, the second volume of the Haarlock's Legacy series for Dark Heresy. I found this one a little harder to adapt to the Techno-Fantasy Adventure (TFA) skirmish RPG rules I am working on, but once I made a few key decisions, it worked out well. 

We completed two games in around 2.5 hours, and that included eating a frozen pizza along the way! 

In this session, we arrived on Sinophia Magna. While nobody bothered to meet us at the space port, we hitched a ride into the city on a merchant's canal barge. We were promptly ambushed by a group of Undertow gangers led by a two-gun bravo named Devo. Yes, I know. Crash and whip. 

Anyway, we fought them off and sent them running, while taking no losses. 

In the second scenario, we followed a lead to the rundown Section XIII of the city. There we tried to interview (and ultimately rescue) a dreg named Sokken. But someone else had bad things in mind for the mysterious wretch. This party sent Warp-crafted zombies called Risen after him, and us, since we were in their path. 

They proved too much for us, and we were forced to flee! We had to leave Sokken to a terrible fate. But we got to know our enemy a little better. 

Here are some pics! 

We learned a lot rules-wise. Number one lesson, the rules are pretty good! I know that might sound weird coming from the writer himself, but they really are fun and highly adaptable. So that's good. We also fine tuned the retreat rules and they work very well now. 

We tested the Gunfighter trait and that worked Ok, but we did take Devo out pretty quickly. 

Ultimately, I am very happy and confident that we'll be starting layout soon! 

Thanks for looking! 

--Scott

Chaos Space Marines

 I know at some point in my Inquisitor skirmish-RPG journey we'll need to face the forces of Chaos. Chaos Space Marines, to be precise! I acquired two Blackstone Fortress Chaos Space Marines to paint up for just such an occasion! 

Here they are! Brought to you by the wonder of Army Painter Speed paints! 

Later this week, more to come on the Haarlock's Legacy campaign. 

Thanks for looking!

--Scott 

Dark Heresy RPG to Skirmish Notes

 Somebody asked about my method for adapting the Dark Heresy adventures to the tabletop skirmish format. It's mix of "stand-up" role-playing and writing some tables to create some random elements for each encounter. 

I took a couple of pictures of my notebook pages to show my work on this. A picture is literally worth several hundred words in this case! 

This page shows my notes from the end of Carnival of Blood. Since we got our butts kicked at the end and had to run away, I had to come up with a workaround to get us to the final chapter, the 13th Hour. 

In the 13th Hour, I wanted us to do some role-play prior to the action, so I made up this table and Stu and I each talked to three of the characters. Based on some rules in TFA, we used our stats to interact with them and gain info. If we succeeded, we earned bonuses to our attacks on the Widower. 

I hope this provides some insight into my somewhat seat-of-my-pants process of adapting this amazing material to the tabletop. I should also add that Alan Bligh's work on these adventures is amazing. It is so sad that he passed too soon. But his work lives on. 

Thanks! 

--Scott

Concluding Tattered Fates Part 2

 After taking out Gang Boss Papa Grist, we earned our invitation to the Revel at Gabriel Chase. 

After arriving and  gathering some helpful clues with some social interaction rolls (and rules, see below!),  we faced the twin horrors of the Widower and the Beloved, a vile Chaos sorcerer. 

It was really a three way battle, as the Beloved wanted to be the one to take out the Widower so he could collect his essence and enslave him. The Widower just wanted to slay any living being it came across! Stu and I were hoping more hapless party-goers would wander into the Widower's path, but after he slew the first one, the others just seemed to randomly avoid him! 

It was left to us to face him. We had gathered enough info to learn that opening the fabled  Steel Clock and securing its Keystone would allow us to truly destroy the Widower for good. So we tasked Hanse Grebs and Septimus Dexter with making the Intellect checks to accomplish this extended task. Unfortunately, after just one attempt, Hanse Grebs was charged and slain by the Widower. 

Meanwhile, Stu's Vostroyan IG conscripts were harrying the Widower with withering fire form their long-las sniper. My servitor, Ergo-VI also added to the fire on the vile sorcerer. Eventually we took him out! Big relief there. 

Then we fought a desperate delaying melee against the Widower, and Dexter successfully opened the clock and destroyed the Keystone! The decadent city of Xicarph, and the whole world of Qaddis, were saved! 

Lady Melua and a Vostroyan battle the Widower; Hanse has already fallen!

Dexter works feverishly to open the Steel Clock. I was pretty happy with my quickly knocked together Steel Clock terrain piece!

Behind the clock, Ergo-VI and the Vostroyan Sergeant have finished off the Beloved and are moving around to engage the Widower just as Dexter destroys the Keystone! 

In all, my theory about adapting the Dark Heresy modules to my Techno-Fantasy Adventure* rules worked splendidly!

More to come! 

--Scott

* I have changed the title from Techno-Fantasy Skirmish to Techno-Fantasy Adventure because I have added enough RPG elements for folks to run the game as a simple RPG. So now it's keyword skirmish, co-op, PvP, and RPG!