End of year roundup

So this has been very bad year for a large number of reasons, but sticking to painting my focus is normally based on upcoming games which obviously haven't been happening.  But weirdly without that shifting focus for upcoming games I've somehow managed to complete several projects over the course of the year.

• Blood Bowl (2nd edition) Orc and Human teams both finished.
• 6mm epic Inquisition/imperial guard done.
• 15mm Brigade Polish and Ikwen. (I still need to photograph the finished Ikwen force)
• 28mm Tau Army for Grimdark Future.
• 28mm Dungeon terrain.
• Scale Scifi, finished off my second Full thrust fleet. (I did start a 3rd though, damm ebay)
  

All things considered that's actually pretty good going I think.  This coming year assuming we don't all die in an alien invasion or something I plan on getting the remainder of the terrain for the 15mm board finished.  I think I've got most of it together now, it just needs assembled and painted, other than perhaps some more scatter terrain.

Burrows and Badgers is a thing I would like to get everything finished before the next Kickstarter comes along, we'll see how that goes.

Finish off the 6mm epic marines, I need to buy a few things to finish off the Dark Angels and Blood Angels I've started from the remains of my bits box. I think I can get everything else I need from Vanguard and Alternative Armies and hopefully for under £30.

At some point GZG will finally get the new ESU fighters released, it's only been two years since I was told to wait for them, when that happens I'll see about getting an order together to get the fighters and bulk out the UNSC fleet I bought on Ebay. 

Other stuff lying around, a small host of 28mm fantasy villagers, wizards, halflings, and adventurers from Hasslefree and Midlam that will need to get finished up and get the campaign (Thud and Blunder) written up properly. 

Scifi models as well from Hasslefree, a squad or so of Grymm troopers and some extras for my Rogue Stars squads.

Longer term planning I'm still waiting on Pendrakon releasing the TB-Line Islamic Cavalry to finish off my Warmaster Arabs, and if that happens I'll need to dig through the box of Medievals to expand that army up to match. 

It's a lot done and a lot still to do, but I think I'm finally starting to settle on a set of Game systems that I enjoy playing and would be happy to continue playing.  The only area I'm still a bit up in the air about is Scifi armies, 28mm or 15mm as I'm still not sure about Grimdark Future and I fell out of 40K because although I have decent sized armies they're not compatible/big enough any more also the feel of the game I used to like seems to have disappeared in recent editions from what I've seen, now whether that's just what I've observed through the eyes of the internet which I agree perhaps isn't the best of example I don't know, there's a lot of good talk about the newer editions of 40K, Gruntz is still something that I need to get round to trying out but again it's one of those that seems to have very mixed reviews.

Anyways enough rambling, time to get back to my beer.

Last Miniatures of the year

 So again, not posted for a while, I've been busy tidying up and magnetizing my epic forces. This has involved a whole lot of painting of bases for vehicles as they never had them before. I'll get round to flocking the bases once I've finished tidying up and finishing the remainder of those additional marines and guard.

Space wolves, they've been done for a while so only needed the vehicles based for magnetizing. 

 

Other marine forces, with some extra bits and pieces I can make both of these forces up to 2,000pt Epic forces without too much effort, but this is the box I'm currently working my way through.

 

Chaos forces, mostly Nurgle Death Guard with one detachment of Emperors Children. Again this was a pretty much previously finished force with just the bases to be added. 

Imperial Guard and inquisitorial forces, the first pic is the inquisition force with marines subbed in for Covenant forces, Beastmen for planetary crusade and Bradley miniatures being used for Chimera's and armoured forces.

Other Imperial Guard units, still a bit of work to be done here but at least it's all been sorted out from the various bit boxes they've all been lying in. 

 

There's still some other stuff on the painting table, some Burrows and Badgers and some Hasslefree fantasy models that I've just struggled to get on with, the epic stuff has been much easier to get my head into. 

Priestesses of the Moon

Another one to blame on Midlam and their kickstarters. They keep them small and manageable so although there have been a few I've not jumped in on, I do have an awful lot sitting from them. 

This lot are from the Priestesses of the Moon set, I think this is all of them, and I've still got Wizards, Wizard apprentices and Townsfolk to go with some cloaked halflings just funded. I'm very tempted to go back and pick up the brigands as well, mostly on a just because! They're simple miniatures but it's such a good collection, if only I had more that I could play with them. Thud and Blunder!

Terrain

So it's been a while since the last post, there has been a lot of painting done since then, but it's all plastic snap together terrain from Archon Studios kickstarters that I backed. 

First up is the Dungeons and Lasers, fantasy set.

With all the walls up first, it's all just clips underneath for the floor sections and the walls have pegs to get everything placed in.

One with the walls down for a better shot of the detail and below the rest of it. This will be used probably on table as part of the Thud and Blunder RPG campaign games.

 

The other set I got was the Temple of Kazumi tabletop terrain.

The sections can be magnetized or pegged together, these ones I did with the magnets.

The holes on top allow for it to be stacked and there are sprues of additional bits that can be added on.

This is a fraction of what I've got from this one, but it's just soo much more detail required for painting all of the different colours so it's going to take an absolute age to get through it all so I'm not sure when that'll happen as I really want to get on with painting miniatures for a while.

Burrows and Badgers

 Another lot of wonderful miniatures from the last Kickstarter.

Another 2-3 batches about this size should finish off what I currently have, they are rather addictive to be fair, the models are seriously good.

Brigade's Polish Platoon

 So rather than getting birthday money and heading to Claymore as has been the norm for a while now, it was spend it on online orders instead, and this little group arrived and finally got finished a month and a bit later.

 

Brigades 15mm Polish infantry Platoon and an Indonesian APC as well as a small hover truck.

They'll be used for Ambush Alley/Tomorrows War engagements up against the Ikwen insurgents.

Next up will be some more Burrows and Badgers miniatures as I work through the remainder of the last Kickstarter. (Another 2-3 batches to go I think) But the painting table has the last of the cultists from Midlam on it, (casualties, Throne and beasties) as well as a chunk of Aztec styled scenery.

Court of the Mummy Lord

Another of the Midlam Kickstarters, these Egyptians of the Royal court will be used in In Her Majesties Name and the like.

I've got quite the collection now of civilian type characters alongside the witches and townsfolk (later still to be painted) That can still be used as adventurers as well. I really need to get that campaign written up for Thud and Blunder.

Epic Inquisition

In an effort to try and find a use for some of my other epic miniatures I decided to expand my 6mm Sci-fi force to make it up into an Inquisition force.

A lot of them are proxy obviously, so the marines on the right are Sisters of Battle, the Beastmen are redemptionist crusade, the Imperial Guard are actually Imperial Guard but with some Bradley Miniatures (through Alternative Armies) APC's instead of Chimera's and some really old Copeland Models in as Valkyries and Exorcists etc. There's also finally a use for my old Capitol Imperialis. 

There are two lists in the version of Epic we use, Developmental and Experimental. I'm not using any of the outlandish stuff, most of it's the basic options that exist elsewhere in approved lists so should be fine on the table.

Scooby Gang

From Hasslefree Miniatures, the post apocalypse Scooby Gang. I got these at the same time as the Bloodbowl player and handful of others.

I will eventually use them for the likes of Rogue Stars or some kind of cultist bashing (I've got enough of them).

Pulp Cultists

So Midlam miniatures are responsible for a lot of my Kickstarter purchases, eventually for Thud and Blunder and In Her Majesties Name. The Cult of the Kracken Lord miniatures are great for some Cthulhu style evil goodness.

This is actually about a third of the set, the next batch are on the table with StoatBarts at the moment and as you can see are painted in the same colouring as all of the other cultists.

'Fast' Eddie Stoatbart

 So while I've still got a bunch of posts scheduled to pop up with the other stuff I done during my time away from the blog, The first batch of models off the table since.

'Fast' Eddie Stoatbart and his hauliers. More Burrows and Badgers miniatures, the stoats come in 'mounted' and 'dismounted' versions, alongside the stoat with a blunderbuss, weasel rogue for some of that sneakier action and a certain Independent Trader for handling goods at either end of the journey.

Full Thrust Merchants and Civilians

Finally from Full Thrust my civilians and some Fireflies to be used in the board game, but have been handily based correctly for Full Thrust.

Full Thrust ESU

Having finally gotten the fighters I realised that I hadn't ever gotten round to getting a picture of this lot together before.

My ESU fleet, all from the original range of sculpts, I'd bought mine while still at school, then picked up more from Kev when he was getting rid of his, got them repainted then some point last year or so, I got a custom order of the old sculpt Capitol ships from GZG. The Fighters where the last thing I needed to finish this force off, although I got the Scanfed Heavy and Standard fighters.

If the new ESU fighters ever make it out, I may well buy them and a Scanfed fleet to finish things off, hence why I've done the fighters in blue instead of the red.

Tau

So finally the reason why everything ended up delayed, I always wanted some Tau models, they're great Sci-Fi models and can be fairly generic in comparison to most of the GW stable of miniatures. I picked up some from eBay in bits and bobs and the results are below.

It's taken ages to get them all painted up in a similar fashion and I did loads of other things alongside them, they've been on the table a few times as well playing Grim Dark Future (from One Page Rules).

Comparison GW vs Kallistra

 

GW Left, Kallistra Right

GW Left, Kallistra Right

 

 

10mm Battle of Five Armies on the Left, normal GW on the right

 

 

GW non textured bases.

GW Left, Kallistra Right

 

GW Left, Kallistra Right

 

GW on right of each set

 

 

GW on right of each set

GW on right of each set

Pulp Adventures

I've picked up a fair few pulp style figures over the last few years, some are old Foundry figures from bits boxes, some are from Ironclad and one from a Kickstarter.

From a Kickstarter, I can't honestly remember which now, but branded as Cthulhu investigators they were reasonably priced and looked good and have painted up well.

Some of the old Foundry stuff is in here, no idea if all of them or not, all of them were picked up from bring and buy or rummage boxes. Some more for Victorian In Her Majesties Name than others.

Lastly, I can't remember if I showed the Mina Harker (centre) figure before, I got her ages ago with Holmes and Watson from IronClad. The other two I have no idea what's so ever, but I use them as the leadership group of my Cultists for In Her Majesties Name.

Burrows and Badgers

The first models from the Kickstarter I picked up in York finally painted, these were a bit more recent and the Adder had been done from a previous Kickstarter,  But these are my crew for the Warren Percy affair. (subject to change with the whims of these things)

Well at least they will be once we get back to normal gaming at club.  I've currently got StoatBarts hauliers on the painting table just now, alongside the amazing Ferret Rogue and the mighty fine upstanding independent Magpie trader.

Full Thrust S'vasku

We've been playing Full Thrust for years, and continue playing it. We've tweaked the rules from stuff we've found online and made a really good playsheet to use at club that covers everything from the four books and the online changes to the turn sequence and fighter rules. I'd finally picked up some flight bases from Templar Wargames at the York show, otherwise they'd probably still be languishing in a box.

When Jon at GZG did his not quite a lockdown sale on Full thrust stuff I ordered up a bunch of fighters for my ESU and a couple of Ships and Fighters to round off my Tyranid Hive Fleet. In Game they get called S'vasku, but we just use them with the advanced Grave drive and normal systems. But it was the kick that was needed to actually get this lot painted, mostly done by painting them Sand Yellow and Electric Blue, then washing them in shades of green, blue and purple to highlight that alien-ess.

Bloodbowl Humans

So it's been a little over a year since I last posted, stuff has still been happening it just didn't make it onto here.  To catch up I eventually got round to taking pictures of everything and I'm going to start getting posts scheduled each week to cover everything what's been happening.

So seeing as the last entry was Blood Bowl, let's start with that.

Some Humans for Bloodbowl, I had a missing one so I picked up Jo from Hasslefree to make up the numbers.

A bit slimmer than the GW plastics but that's to be expected really, never the less, she fits in nicely.