Reaper Fire Mage

The second member of my adventuring party stands complete! He's a really cool, non-Gandalf Reaper fire mage named Cadarius.








And here's a comp shot with the halfling thief:





In spite of all of his power and magical lore, he still cannot defeat the foe that is male-pattern baldness!

Alas! Still, this pair marks a nice start on the party. Now I need to head to the FLGS for a Fighter and a Cleric.

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

Reaper Halfling Thief

The latest crop of halflings Reaper has been doing looks really great, and when my buddy Jeff King picked this one up a few weeks ago, I had to get one for myself!

I sort of previewed him in the last post about Litko bases--he was black-primed and ready for painting. Well, now he's painted. Funny how that works with a figure you're excited about!







I did not do a scale comparison shot on this guy yet because I've decided to build an adventuring party around this guy using mainly other Reaper minis, and basing them all in the same fashion. I know, I'm a goob, but hey, whatever keeps you painting!

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

A New Base of Operations

I don't do a lot of how-to or "process" features on this blog. Number one, I find them tedious to put together, and two, I think they're a bit boring. However, I've made a fairly significant decision to move away from using metal washers for basing, so I thought I'd share a bit about this.

First, in the past I've based a lot of minis on metal fender and standard washers. They're cheap and they work well with magnet-based storage methods. But I don't really use magnetic storage, and I am tired of the painted rims of these bases chipping both in play and in storage.

Now I could use GW-style slotted bases, but I've just decided I would use wood. I really liked Gale Force 9's MDF offerings, but their pre-cut and custom cut bases are longer available. This could change, but I'd like to make this transition now, so I went with Litko. I like supporting smaller manufacturers like these guys, so I gave them a try.

I ordered 1 pack of 50 25mm (3mm thickness) plywood bases and 1 pack of 25 25mm (1.5mm thickness) plywood bases. I got my order in 2 days! Great service! here they are:





I really like the sturdiness of the 3mm thickness cut, so I think I will be ordering more of these.

Here's a another shot:



And here's a comparison of the relative thickness of the 25mm bases in 3mm and 1.5mm:



Here's my next project, a Reaper halfling thief, primed, based on a Litko 25mm, and textured with a bit of Liquitex resin sand:



He's white-glued to a piece of sturdy card for ease of handling while painting.

Here's a Reaper pirate with a harpoon, also on one of the Litko 25mm (3mm thickness) rounds:



I'm pretty excited to make this switch and so the non-slotted base figures on you'll be seeing on this blog in the future will mostly be based on Litko's plywood 25mm. They work out to $.18 a base, and that is a little more expensive than washers, but the tradeoffs more than make up the difference for me.

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

A Dandy Bravo

Not quite the Scarlet Pimpernel, but I did have a desire to do something a bit more flamboyant than the last mini I showed, so I painted this Blue Moon mini up on Sunday afternoon.








And here's a comp shot with a Reaper mini:



As you can see he's a bit shrimpy compared to the Reaper figure, but for RPG action, this sort of thing is not as big of a deal.

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

A Knife Wielding Bravo

Blue Moon Manufacturing and Old Glory have both supplied a lot of minis for my various fantasy campaigns.

Blue Moon's line of Swashbucklers, Rogues, and Desperadoes makes perfect fodder for Freeport and its mix of black powder and fantasy trappings.

Today's mini eschews noisy firearms, however, and instead places his trust in some good old fashioned knife work.







This fellow already had the misfortune of clashing blades with a very angry halfling (one of my party-members!).

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

Ugly Men With Sticks

In reading the wonderful Freeport sourcebook from Green Ronin, I realized that the various city watchmen amount to little more than men with lousy dispositions and big sticks. No halberds, no pikes, no fancy armor. Not these guys at all. Just ugly men with sticks.

Now where might I find a group of miniatures fitting that description?

Enter Old Glory's Revolting Peasant Mob packs again!









These minis certainly won't win any prizes for sculpting excellence, but they get the job done, and they're a breeze to paint. And my players love beating the crap out of them!

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

Reaper Half-Orc Pirate

As I make my way through some pirate-type minis, I had to paint up this guy I found at Phantom over the weekend. Typical Ben Siens figure--he's totally built (and very well sculpted).







The muscle structure and overall composition on this figure is so good it almost painted itself.

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

Another GW Snakeman

Finished another in time for last night's game, but I never got around to needing them! The role-play suff was so good we burned a lot of time on what I initially thought might be a few inconsequential details, but they became the focus of the story!











And here is a comp shot with a Foundry swashbuckler:



I am very pleased with the adjustments I have made to Green Ronin's AGE system--the same rules that power the Dragon Age RPG. So far I have implemented some one-shot, one-kill mook/minion rules to let the PC's mow through nameless thugs or monsters. I've also tweaked the health and damage system so that characters recover their health after each encounter.

Both worked pretty well, but I may tweak them further as we go along. One thing players seemed to want is a hero point mechanic, so I think I will be installing that next.

I'll keep folks posted on our progress.

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

Classic GW Snakeman

I've had a handful of these classic Games Workshop Snakemen in my collection for years, a gift from my friend Lou some time ago.

I decided to paint them up as they'll make ideal threats for Freeport! Here's the first one:







And a comp shot with a Reaper mini:



Now to stat them up and get the other four done!

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

A Second Foundry Swashbuckler

I found this figure last night; he was languishing in my unpainted minis bin, probably been there for at least five years. Anyway, he'll fit for my game this Saturday, so I took an hour or so last night and got some paint on him.









And here's a comp shot with one of my recent favorite Reaper figures:



This figure is not as good as the one I featured yesterday--his facial details were not as crisp, but he's still a fine figure and well worth the time to add to my collection of painted historical/fantasy models.

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

Freeport via Dragon Age

This Saturday I plan to run Green Ronin's Freeport fantasy pirate fantasy setting using a modified version of Green Ronin's Dragon Age RPG mechanics. There's a certain symmetry there.

Anyway, I am getting together some figures for it to use as NPC's, and I thought I might show off a Foundry Swashbuckler I painted a while back, as I intend to use him.







Everything about this guy oozes character. A superb mini, and I really feel like I got the most out of the time I put into the paint job.

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

Great Source of Cheap Bases

I was wandering through Staples yesterday and I came across a package of 101 toy U.S. coins for $1.00! The first thing I thought was: cheap bases!

After pressing the package into my wife's hand and telling her my intentions, she smiled ruefully and bought them for me. Thanks, JoAnn! Anyway, here they are:







I'll do a follow-up post where I use these for some basing sometime soon, but I had to share this ASAP so folks could grab them while they're there.

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

Skaven Stormvermin Unit Finished!

At least for now. It counts as 28 strong, but I built the movement base to accommodate 35 rats.

Here are some shots!







I'll fill that empty back rank up with giant rats until I can get 7 more Stormvermin from somewhere.

Below you can see a better shot of the unit standard:





And below you can see a closer shot of the second Rat Ogre filler model:



I really like the look the Rat Ogres bring to the unit.

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott