Game Club

I'm thinking about starting a gaming club. I'm chewing on some names like Lonely Attic Wargaming, or Lonely Attic Wargaming Group. The former has the advantage of a great acronym ("I am the LAW!") but the latter has an amusing irony, since I will most likely be the only member.

I may even "rebrand" this blog with the name. After all these years, it still doesn't have a proper name. I'd like to redesign the layout & graphics anyway. Maybe even come up with a logo...

Reconsidering the Project

As I’ve been painting Undeadish and building a table, I’ve been thinking about a lot of the other aspects of my current project, and that has been evolving a lot.


I had started writing up a list of pros & cons for an alternative road to take with the “good guys” and had planned on posting that publicly. But the act of writing it out convinced me to just go ahead with the alternative.


The “good guys” or the “definitely living according to common definitions of life” are going to take on a slightly different character. Initially, I was simply going to use my WFB Marienburgers, and cling to a lot of the background. Previously I decided to transpose most of the general concepts of the city to my own setting. My thoughts on this have continued to evolve, and I have decided that although Marienburg and the existing army will most likely be a part of the narrative, I am going to start with some new ideas, background, and figures from the ground up.


I think it boils down to a few main reasons. One is that I am really getting into the world building and fictional history creation. (Maybe I will try my hand at writing some actual fiction?) The other is that I would like to construct, paint and base a new army from scratch. I think I can also benefit from narrowing the focus of the setting, background, armies, and map(s).


So I have decided to start my campaign in the rural hinterland, and will be using slightly earlier period figures. As much as I enjoy the landsknecht period & style, I’m also (more?) fond of the late 15th century. I also happen to have some unpainted Perry and Front Rank miniatures to form the basis of the army, left over from my abandoned historical Burgundian army. The new focus will also be far more human-centric.

Behind the scenes I have been writing down some outlines & information regarding the setting, and have plotted out some initial battle scenarios. I will be doing these in “chapters,” and don’t want to get too far ahead of actual games, as I’d like the results of the games to determine the narrative and nature of subsequent battles (and further development of the armies.)


I will share some of these details once they are fleshed out some more. At some point, my long term goal is (ideally) to put together an oldschool “campaign pack” with writing, maps, battles. If I can manage -- and this may be a bit of daydreaming -- I wouldn’t mind creating some illustrations and sculpting a few miniatures to go with the campaign.


For now, I have more undeadish to paint, and now some revised planning to do for their opponents’ figures as well. Since I hate to update without a photo of something, here's what my desk currently looks like.

King of Old and a Swarm

I counted up my Mantic skeletons and discovered I will be one base short of having a nice round number of units. So I painted up an old Citadel figure to use with them, as a leader type figure, along with one of the "emerging" skeletons from the Mantic sprues.

I also dug out an old (already painted) set of swarms to accompany the undead.

Mantic Skeletons - First Set

Painted up my first group of Mantic skeletons. They are a mix of the regular ones and the Revenants, which I thought look too similar to the regular skeletons to warrant use as some other troop type.

They are OK models for the price. I'm not a huge fan of Mantic's figures in general. But I was more optimistic with the undead after seeing photos online. Once I got them in person, and now after I painted them I am less impressed. Some of the detail is very shallow and just doesn't show up with the paint. Some of the poses are a bit awkward (a few of them reminded me of the Warlord Celts,) including the way some of them were holding their weapons. I'm not really a fan of the "expressive" (cartoon-y?) skulls, either. They're not horrible figures. And they might look better in mass numbers. I'm just not a huge fan so far.

They're also a lot smaller than I expected. They look OK next to the ancient Germans I'm using as "undeadish" and should scale up OK with Perry WotR figures that will end up on the opposite side of the battlefield. But they really look miniscule next to GW and other fantasy figures. This wasn't entirely unexpected, but the difference is more noticeable than I had thought it would be. (At least on the painting/photo table -- I'll have to see how they look on the gaming table.)

Should Know Better

I've been doing this for a very long time. I should know better. But it's a very humid day, and here on my desk is my first batch of Mantic skeletons & revenants... covered with "fuzzy" primer.

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.

Undeadish Cavalry

It may seem like I'm on a painting rush, but these have been mostly done for quite a while. I just finally wrapped them up the last two nights. First group of Undeadish cavalry.

Skeletal Elite

Finished the first small unit of skeletal elite. Only two fit on a base, which is fine. As long as they appear to have the same "mass" as the other formed units, I'm OK with that. I ended up going back and "dusting" the bottom of the robes, and giving the the edges of the armor & weapons a bit more detail. I like the way they turned out, and think they will look good with the army. I may do another set like this at some point in the future. But I've still got plenty of other stuff I'd like to get done first.

I have been re-thinking the "good guys." I already have some metal (Front Rank, Grenadier, Perry) and plastic (Perry) late 15th century medieval figures that I am considering using as my starting force of militia/levy/men-at-arms instead of my old WFB army. I like this idea for a few different reasons. The landsknecht style figures can still be introduced later on as mercenaries, and I can continue to paint them as my mood dictates.


For now, I should probably finish up the Undeadish and skeletal cavalry that are still sitting on my painting table first, though.

"Eye Could Use a Little Hand With This"

The hand & eye were part of a 3d printed designer toy I customized for the release show at Rotofugi Gallery in Chicago next week. He's a little bigger scale.  ;) Just finished him up & put him in the mail.