A Good Start to the Year

I've had a pretty decent start to the year. No games (yet) but I did clear off my 3x3 table (for the first time in almost a year) and brought in the new sci-fi themed table top in from the garage.

I've spent a respectable amount of time painting & modeling. I'm trying to make sure to get my fair share of personal time, for stress and mental health reasons. 2021 sucked. I've already completed my entry for the Old World Army Challenge, but I will wait to share that until it's up on the OWAC site. 

I did some prep. work on some other figures, and painted the alien on the left. It reminded me of Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, so that was the inspiration for painting. The figure on the right was painted 25+ years ago but never based... until now. The former can be a unique character, the latter a random beast of some sort.

I got a compressor for Christmas, to go with the airbrush I got for our wedding anniversary. I just need a spray booth (and a place to set it up!) and I'm ready to experiment with some new techniques. I've never used an airbrush before, but excited about trying it out.

I'm hoping to play some games soon. I'd really like to give 5 Parsecs a try. I normally don't like using unpainted figures, but I think I may prime & base some of the remaining factions so I can use them unpainted if needed, and keep painting as I go. With that in mind, the last thing holding me back is terrain. I've been collecting various scraps & bits from the hardware store, including the floor drain below. I think I'll turn it into a raised landing platform - I got some screen for the top and will build either a ramp or a lift for getting down to grade. I'm seriously considering the possibility of buying some pre-made terrain in order to get some games in sooner. I've got one very "specialized" set I've been looking at for a long time. But not sure where to go beyond that.

Undeadish Glamour Shot (testing new lighting)

Today I rearranged a bit in the corner of the basement where I paint and photograph. I moved a really bright suspended LED fixture that I recently installed across the room and swapped it with the one near my photo table. Also put it in a slightly better position. This one is brighter and a warmer color.

I had recently draped a sheet of greenish "teddy bear fur” that I won a few years ago over the storage boxes on the ledge behind the table. But as the weather is getting colder, I'm concerned that we will get mice moving into the basement (as has happened the past few years) and I was worried that I was creating a nice nesting spot for them. So the fur backdrop is now suspended from a bit of PVC pipe that is in turn suspended from a water pipe. On my to do list is making some larger trees for the background (and possible future gaming).

I unpacked the Undeadish (or at least most of what's painted so far) for some test photos to see how the lighting would work.

New Board and the Witch Hunter

It's been a good holiday weekend. Weather didn't completely cooperate, but for the most part things went well. I got some work done around the house, barbecued some chicken, and enjoyed some down time with my family.

I also got a bit of personal/hobby time in. First off, I painted the Witch Hunter, and started putting a bit of paint on his next few followers.

I hung a new light to brighten the little corner of the cellar that I paint in. It's almost too much light! When I turn my old task light on at the desk, it doesn't make much of a difference, and in fact casts a bit of a shadow. Things may get rearranged. This also may happen because...

I also made a new 3x3 game board. Hopefully I will get to use it for some small skirmish gaming, like Rangers of Shadow Deep. But I also wanted someplace better to take photos of figures. It took a few days (mostly waiting for glue/paint to dry) but the actual work that went into it was brief and easy. The new board matches the larger table/boards I've currently got in storage.

I threw together a makeshift backdrop and tested out a few angles for photos to see if the lighting will work.

Gaming Table Checkup

As summer winds down, I found myself in the garage and thought try to peek up in the rafters, for my annual checkup of what's left of my gaming table.

Yup. Still there.

I miss it. And my lonely old attic. And time to spend there.

Pic of when the tabletops were first finished.

Context shot from when I was using the table for photographing some figures & (then new) terrain.

Halberdier WIP and the Table in the Rafters

Made a little progress in the halberdiers the past two nights. The minis -- FWIW -- are a mix of Grenadier & Front Rank, with one (I believe) old Citadel Fighter in the mix.

Although the Jackrabbit Trading company is known for its leader and the large number of halflings in its employ, the Small Country was home to human farmsteads and villages long before the hobbits settled in the area. The two have mutually thrived in the region together. The JTC is no exception, and does not discriminate in its recruiting. Almost half of their payroll are human.


I spent far more time this weekend working around the house & yard. While I had a stepladder in the garage, I decided to check in on my gaming tables. I haven't looked at them since I stuck them in the rafters when we moved two years ago.

They appear to be in good condition, thankfully. I'd still like to use them someday, and I had some concern that the some sort of vermin may have gotten to them. Since we've moved here, it's been a bit of a battle against various insects, rodents, birds, and other critters -- plus struggles with moisture, mold & mildew - especially in the cellar where my painting table is currently located.

I'm still hopeful for some sort of Garagehammer eventually. That was, admittedly, part of the reason for working on cleaning the garage today. I have also started looking at prefab sheds...

Edit:

I think I deleted the later update accidentally. Plus I've made more progress. So.... even more painted halberdiers!

Bushes

11 new bushes. Steel wool, brown spray primer, PVA glue and some small clump foliage (most likely Woodland Scenics.) PVA is still wet in the pic. Still need more, but it's progress.  I also still have some air filter I can cut up -- might do some of that next. I've still been wanting to pick up some lichen, as was previously suggested, but still haven't been able to get to the store. (Maybe I should just order from Amazon?)

Terrain and Return to Painting

I'm climbing out of the funk of the last few weeks. A lot of things contributed to me not really painting miniatures much. But now we're all getting over our various recent illnesses in the household, my back is (mostly) feeling better, new glasses arrived, and I got a couple nights of good sleep.

In the mean time, I've been wrapping up "wave two" of my terrain binge. Here's a pic of most of what I've done lately.

4" river sections, 2" river sections, bogs, shrubs, and muddy dirt road. Kind of oldschool & cartoony looking, but that's the way we roll in the lonely attic.

But the real big deal is... I sat at the desk and actually applied paint to a couple of half-finished figures that I had wanted to wrap up a couple weeks ago. (The Ultraforge giant and a vampire I need to send off in the mail.)  I also applied quite a bit of GW Nuln Oil wash to my desk. About half of a new bottle, when I accidentally tipped it over. I'm looking forward to finishing both ASAP. Both figures, that is. Not the desk.

Road.... er, Bog Warrior?

I've left the simple cork roads sitting on the table for a bit now, and I think I'm getting used to them. I think I will just leave them as they are for now, make a few more, and keep going with other things. I can always add more detail to them later.

So, in terms of moving on to other things, the road looked like it needed more bogs around it. At some point I hope to work out a way to tie all of the little bogs together a bit.

I continue to procrastinate in regard to those Black Knights. I've made a rule for myself that I will not paint any more figures until they are done. That is why I now have a few road sections and more bogs (not painting figures!), and a few more miniatures prepped (not painted!) Joining the Life & Death Elementals is the Plague Elemental. It's the weak link in the otherwise outstanding Citadel Elemental series, in my opinion, but I'll see if I can do a better job painting it this time around. I just finished stripping the really old paint off of him. I finally managed to strip all the old paint off the Ral Partha Jabberwock as well.

Road Warrior - Pt. 3

I quickly painted up a few more (the remainder of the first tile) road sections to see how it would look in place. I figure I can make changes later. These photos are larger than normal, so click-click if you want to see them full sized. The pics are just phone pics with my limited lighting set up, so detail is not exactly the best. In fact, I have included a last minute photo from the vantage point of my computer table, to show what I'm working with. A little peek behind the scenes.

I'm still thinking it will look better if I add some banked earth, building up along the side of the roads. This is OK for something really quick to throw down on the table, though.

In the future of tabletop terrain, I've got some more little (and one larger) bog/fen/marsh bits underway. I have three more cork tiles. At least one will be straight sections like this, so I can place the road laterally along the table. Then a few angled sections, one or two crumbling/ruined sections of road, at some point I would like to make a bridge... that, of course, means I need to work on a river.... It seems I will have a table "ready" and maybe even play some games sometime around 2023. By that point I suppose we will all be living on Yuggoth Pluto in robotic bodies anyway (if Skynet hasn't wiped us all out by that point,) so this all seems futile at times.

Still procrastinating on those damned Black Knights. It's like a slow motion race between the Knights, Yuggoth, and Skynet.

Nighmare Legion, Townsfolk, Table Set-Up

My sleep has been screwed up this week, so I was up late the past few nights. Figured it would be a good time to wrap up enough of the Nightmare Legion to field a basic unit . Still two more 40mm bases to paint, which will have the four command figures and more troops.

Also, just because I wanted to see how my forces were shaping up, I set up a table. I think this helped boost my spirit a bit regarding gaming. I'm still not sure how/what/when I will do in terms of actual gaming. But at least I can feel like I'm doing something that looks pretty decent on a table.

I'm waiting on the owner of the previously posted elf griffin to stop by to pick it up, so I left it threatening a flank in the meantime.

Another project I've been working on for months, this one is part of a trade deal for some old figures. One or two little details I'm still going to add, but just about done.

One last shot... a couple of townies of my own. Old Citadel miniatures.

Mail Day & Setting the Scene

Mail day! Thank you Ral Partha Europe!

I can't seem to take a clear photo with my phone for days now, so it's a bit blury, but the Meier dragon and two skeletal ogres arrived. I'm dying to start on these right away, but have some other things to work on first. I am also thinking about taking a shot at sculpting the ogres a couple of friends before I paint them. Not saying that I will be successful... but I think I'd like to take a shot at it.

The ogres are a little bigger than the old Golgfags I'm using with the Undeadish, but I'm OK with that. Scale is all over the place in this project, and it still looks OK. The dragon is the perfect size for me. In fact, it's close to the same size as The Caller's mount that I previously painted up. I will post some better pics with other figures for scale at some point.

Also of note, the dragon is in four parts, and they key into each other really well. They need t a bit of filing to get them to fit, but once that's done I shouldn't need to pin the pieces. Very well sculpted. But I suppose that's to be expected. Tom Meier has always been one of the best.

(I just put the dragon together, and it took a bit more work (and will require some filler) than I had anticipated to get the pieces to fit.)


I also stumbled upon one last, and very small, dragon from my old collection. Old enough that I had painted it with enamels! It's a Grenadier figure, and I think it was called a young forest dragon or something along those lines. Smaller than the Meier dragons. I'll get a pic sometime soon.

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I finally put some varnish on the table, and to celebrate, I set some terrain and many of the recent figures out on the table. The Undeadish are on the march, coming down from the foothills. A small cottage is in their path...

Basic Table Done

I ended up going a little oldschool with the paint scheme. I've been digging some of the Oldhammer aesthetics I've been seeing around various fora & blogs lately. I did run out of green paint before I had planned on finishing, though.

One of the collateral benefits of terrain projects is that I get to grind some green paint into cheap brushes, which gives me a new batch of tall grasses to use for bases and other terrain pieces.

New Table WIP

I've decided to start working on a gaming table in the attic. After (far too much) consideration, I decided to go for a quick & easy solution first, with the option to switch to one of my more complex ideas later. This has several benefits: I will get a decent gaming surface in play pretty quickly, and everything can be "upgraded" in phases. So before I started overthinking, I picked up the minimal basics while I was running some errands today: one more set of cube shelves and two flush hollow core interior doors. Next step will be to texture and paint them. I've already got the glue & sand from a previous project.

Here's a couple of pics of them in place. Please excuse the mess. I'm still in the process of cleaning, unpacking, setting up & organizing the attic. My painting/sculpting table off in the opposite corner, on the left side of the second photo.

Game Table (Again)

I'm still thinking about a game table, as I've previously mentioned.

Here's the situation: We live in a split up & down house. We're the "down" but share the basement with our upstairs neighbors. They have the attic, and I don't know if they are using that or not, but they really haven't made much use of the basement other than the laundry.

I have used gaming boards placed on the dining room table before. But that's not 100% ideal for a number of reasons -- though it's not completely bad, either. It just involves cleaning off the dining room table, making the boards small enough to carry up & down stairs, and then the actual carrying of all the boards, terrain, figures, etc. from the basement. So its a bit of a hassle. But simply making some new portable boards to fit in the dining room is still one option.

The other is to make use of an empty corner of the basement, which has a clear space of about 12' x 13'. The end of the 13' is open and adjacent to the laundry area. So my basement limits are that I could put a table as long as 12', and probably as wide as 6' (leaving 3' on either side for the players.) One short end would be against a wall, the other would be next to the laundry.

So looking at my options I can:

1. 4x8 portable tabletop for the dining room.
2. 4x8 table in basement, plywood with folding table legs.
3. (2x) 4x6 tables in the basement, plywood with folding table legs.. I can use them together for as large as a 4x12 table or a 6x8 table.
4. 4x8 all wood table in the basement.
5. Larger (6x8? 5x10? 6x12?) all wood table in the basement.

#1 is the easiest and cheapest to build, but involves an effort that usually prevents games from going on here in the first place. Also, using the dining room table with boards on top is somewhat unstable. But at least we get to play in a more civilized part of the house.

#2 & #3 are fairly easy and inexpensive to put together, and will still remain portable. If I really wanted to, I may be able to temporarily bring those tables up to the living & dining rooms of the house if I wanted to.

#4 & #5 will involve more building and more expense, but the tables will be nicer, can incorporate storage, and although slightly portable, they are more sturdy. If/when we eventually move into a single home, I plan on trying to secure a permanent gaming space and this is the sort of table I would want for that. I have a couple of ideas on the exact design, but two are my own and a third would be to use the Drunken Dwarves "Ultimate Gaming Table" design (adjusted slightly.)

Ideal Game Table Size

Lets say you were thinking of building a gaming table, and the room in which it would be set was pretty large. Let's also say that said gaming table would be used mostly for 28mm gaming, but also some smaller scales on occasion. Let's also say it would be used for a variety of games, and by different people, playing anything from ancient mass battles to 20th century urban warfare.

What reasonable size would you aim for?

All of my tables have been 4'x8' but given the chance, I'd like to try something a bit larger in the future. I think 6'x12' would probably be the extreme limit. Maybe 5'x10'?

Time for a New Game Table

Summer is winding down, as Cleveland's weather has reminded us the past few days. September will still be fairly busy, but I'd like to start up my long-talked-about Game Night at my place.

For miniatures games, I've been using an old set of 2x4 terrain boards on top of our dining room table. I previously posted a photo of a 3000 point WFB game in progress, during the "Crisis in Marienburg" campaign that was played in my dining room.

It's worked OK, though I'm always nervous about tipping the table. The dining room is nice and roomy. The terrain boards are not too heavy, and are stored in the basement.

But I am considering two things. First, the terrain boards need replaced. Either with four new 2x4 boards, or a 2x4 and a pair of 3x4 boards. The swampy boards in the photo were done with some particular skirmish games in mind. I'd like something plain. I'm debating about whether or not to glue a layer of sand, and then paint and flock to match my usual basing (and the swamp boards, and my terrain, etc.) or whether to just paint the flat to match.

I'd like to do the sand, but that's quite a bit of extra effort and I fear the possibility of warping. I would be using 3/4" plywood, but I believe that's the size of the last boards and they warped. But it would definitely look better.

The second thing I'm considering scheming is how to get a permanent game room/space somewhere in the house. I've got a couple of options, but all have their negatives. Ideally I'd sort out both at the same time, as a permanent space (or even semi-permanent) would involve me making different decisions about what to do for the table. But I may just have to be satisfied with the dining room temporary accommodations for now. Perhaps more thoughts on that in the future...