Painting Some Recent D&D Miniatures

While the most recent oil painting effort first layer dries for a few days, I have been inspired to go back to painting some Dungeons and Dragons miniatures that I have picked up recently at Games Keep in West Chester, and Showcase Comics in Swarthmore. I have gone to Games Keep a few times in recent months with the express purpose of spending some money to support them, and I went to Showcase Comics yesterday for this first time in over a year for the same purpose. No harm in buying a bunch of stuff that you want but don't really need if it helps the stores that you value and want to still be around when the pandemic ends. Or at least moves into a different phase...

Of the [unspecified] number of packs of pre-primed ready to paint WizKids miniatures I picked up, I decided to start with the 4 shown below: a Cloaker (the manta ray thing), a giant constrictor snake, a Bone Naga, and a Roper (the tentacled stalagmite thing). All are recent releases and are classic D&D monsters, and all would be useful adds to my "painted by me" collection. I know that I have a couple of pre-painted Ropers, and an older pre-painted Cloaker, as well as a host of snakes of all shapes and sizes, but these models are all very nice and will be on the easier end of the painting scale. Not having done any miniature painting in a a bunch of months, I'd like to get back into it with something that can be done effectively and quickly so as to give me the positive feedback to continue with some more.

Dungeons and Dragons minis

The Bone Naga is not that far from done. The Cloaker has some partial base coating only, as does the Giant Constrictor Snake. The Roper has only been glued to his base and had some mold lines scraped and cleaned up. The dragonborn sorcerer is included for scale. These are all big monsters.

As a side note, you can see where I have added Liquitex brand flexible modeling paste to the bases of the snake and the Cloaker to blend the molded figure base into the base itself. It's always good to do this BEFORE painting anything, if you have the patience (and memory) to do so. The Bone Naga is almost done and then the base will still need to be dealt with. I need to fix the Roper base before painting to avoid the same problem I will have with the Bone Naga.

 More to come.

Times Change, and the Society of Ancients

When I started this blog in September of 2009, approximately 944 posts and eleven and a half years ago, I couldn't have imagined how much my life, and my focus, would change. The intent of the blog at the start was to be updates on my hobby of historical miniatures wargaming (toy soldiers for adults). Painting figures. Fighting tabletop battles. Collecting figures. Conventions. Making terrain pieces.

That was more or less true for a while, off and on for the better part of at least half a decade, interspersed with bits of whatever else was going on in my life.

Inevitably, the blog would ride the tides of my current areas of interest for a certain period of time. It's fascinating to take some time and go back through what the majority of the posts have been for blocks of time over the years.

Sometimes, beauty is right outside your front door...

Historical miniatures. Literature. Hiking. Geocaching. Music. Sentimental trips down memory lane. Dungeons and Dragons and fantasy roleplaying games. Writing. Art. YouTube inspired re-visits to every concert I was ever privileged to attend in my (mostly) younger days. Family. My kids. Philosophical nonsense ramblings. Learning to paint and draw (art). Political rants. More family stuff. Dog pictures.

Whose chair is this, anyway?...

This rambling journey was brought sharply into focus when the editor of Slingshot, the publication of the esteemed Society of Ancients, a wargaming society in England, contacted me to ask if some pictures from my blog could be used in their publication. Of course I said "of course". And they used some pictures in their most recent issue, and credited me, which was a great honor. Part of our gentleman's agreement was that they would include a link to my blog on their website. Which got me to thinking. My blog hasn't really been primarily about miniatures gaming in quite some time. Recently, my blog has included political rants that some might find...shall we say, off-putting. So I let the SoA folks know that they could scrap the link to my blog if they wanted, for that reason, which I think they did.

I'm proud of my political views and stand by them. Somewhere down the road I would like to think my kids will reflect on my liberal political and social views and respect me for them. I also recognize that this is a completely different thing than someone wanting to go to a blog and find miniatures wargaming content and get something different entirely. So, to the Society of Ancients and specifically the editor of Slingshot, thank you for using my pictures. It is an honor. You are a gentleman, and I thank you.

As for the rest of my blog...it is what it is. In 2009 it was intended to be an outlet for my miniatures wargaming hobby. The pictures used by Slingshot were mostly from 2014. In the ensuing 11+ years since the blog's inception it has proven to be an outlet for that and so much more.

Someday I may even post more wargaming content.

Adventures of Erindale - Part 1

With lockdown continuing on...maybe forever...the need to get some sort of gaming in has become more and more top of mind for me. So if all else fails, do it yourself. In other words, play a solo game. I've owned Joseph McCullough's Rangers of Shadow Deep (ROSD) since shortly after it was released and have always wanted to give it a go. There's no time like the present.

ROSD is a solo (or cooperative) miniatures games set in a dark fantasy world where the "Shadow Deep" is encroaching on civilization. You (or several of you) play a Ranger and their band of companions, playing through programmed scenarios to defeat the evil rampant in the world. Each scenario defines the game board setup, objectives, random events, clues that can be found that tie in to the multi-scenario adventure paths, treasures available to be found, and gives basic artificial intelligence on how to control the evil creatures you are fighting against. No matter how many players you have, you are all on the same side fighting against the evil.

I would be remiss to note that ROSD is a different-flavored adaptation of the same game engine that runs McCullough's well-received earlier game Frostgrave (published by Osprey), which pits wizard-led war bands against each other in a player-versus-player version of basically the same game, but in a different fantasy setting (and much more oriented toward magic).

Scenario 1 from the rulebook is called The Deserted Village, and pits a brand new Ranger and his companions against swarms of zombies and giant rats while trying to discover clues as to what happened to the villagers. The initial set up is shown below. [I had so much fun fumbling though this first scenario that I forgot to take any more pictures after this one...]

Game Setup - The Deserted Village

A few notes on the scenario (and the setup). The Ranger and his companions start in the center of the 36" square board, surrounded by zombies and rats. There are a few houses spaced around the board, and 6 clue markers (the white beads, some of which are visible in the picture). The good guys need to collect the clues while surviving the attacks of the bad guys and their reinforcements, which come on every turn in the form of random events. I painted the terrain board. The rest are houses and various other pieces from my collection. The figures at this point are almost exclusively D&D figures from the various WizKids lines, although I have a bunch of new Frostgrave figures that I am assembling and painting specifically for ROSD.

I found the rules to be simple but fun, and made for an enjoyable ~2 hours. If I knew the rules better, this probably would have been played in under an hour. The nice thing about the AI for the enemies, and the randomness of the clues and events, is that by some very simple mechanics, it removed the usual issue in solo gaming of how to play the enemy at least somewhat fairly...

As for my mini-campaign, I created a Ranger named Erindale, named for my earliest Dungeons and Dragons character I can remember (an elven ranger from the AD&D days of the late 1970's). Erindale would be supported by his companions Roderick the guardsman, Volko the archer, Irina the tracker, Thomas the recruit and Ethan "Grayblade" the rogue.

In a very quick recap of this scenario, we took some significant damage early, but then had a good run of luck in the mid- and late game, resulting in a smashing success. Nobody dropped to zero Health, and we achieved all of the scenario goals, getting experience points for those, and also killing a bunch of zombies and rats in the process.

The role playing game aspect of ROSD is that your Ranger gains experience (XP) for things that happen in each scenario, allowing you to "level up" after gaining enough XP. This in turn allows you to improve your stats, skills, etc... Your companions can also improve, but at a much slower rate (they get a point of XP if they survived the scenario without dropping to zero Health, and advance at a different rate). A Ranger or companion that drops to zero Health during the game (i.e. out of play) must roll on a chart to see if they are killed, suffer a long-term wound/effect etc...

Since we had such a successful mission, Erindale will advance from level 0 to level 1, gaining some skill points as a result. I can't wait to play the next (and final) scenario in this two part mini-adventure. Which might happen tonight. Or I might work on some terrain, or paint some figures... There are other adventure paths available after this simple 2-scenario one.

Lastly, if you want to see great examples of what ROSD is about, go to YouTube and search for Guerrilla Miniature Games, then look for his Rangers of Shadow Deep playlist and find this scenario as one of the very first videos listed).

A Vindaloo, Chickpeas, Dragons, and Dwarven Halls

It's Covid-19 Day 101 here at home, and it's both (A) a beautiful day, (B) Father's Day, and most importantly by far (C) in the vicinity of Grace's 16th birthday from a blog-posting perspective.

A few weeks ago, I made the Pork Vindaloo recipe from Cover and Bake, by the editors of Cook's Illustrated (I've noted their wide range of books that I own previously - May 7). Today, having a nice leisurely Father's Day ...at home (shockingly)... I needed something to make with some cubed beef stew meat. We all loved the vindaloo recipe, and there's no reason you couldn't swap out the pork and replace it with beef. So that's what's for dinner.

Beef Vindaloo

For a side dish with an Indian recipe, or frankly, any recipe these days, is my modification of a chickpea recipe, which I will post the details of separately for anyone who might be interested in that sort of thing.

Chickpeas with Coconut Milk and Spinach

For Father's Day, I picked out a few miniatures things for myself, and we did curbside pickup from Games Keep in West Chester when we were in the neighborhood to pick up the new Pilot a few days ago. There were 4 large miniatures from the Wizkids unpainted lines, and included a Gargantuan Skeletal Dragon, a Young Red Dragon, a Behir and an Adult Remorhaz. Now I have lots (more) things to paint...

Father's Day minis

From a crafting perspective, I have had the urge to do some EPS foam board crafting, so I have pulled out the Proxon hot wire table and made some more Dungeons and Dragons terrain pieces (modular caverns and passages, as well as some "Dwarven Halls" dungeon tiles). Given that I have all the dungeon tiles I really need (in two color schemes, no less), it made sense to scratch the itch by making a few fancier pieces. A few of these are shown below (work in process), and I'll continue to tweak some of the techniques and colors. Painting red squares onto the piece at upper left in the picture below was way too stark. The very watered down wash on the other pieces looks much better.

Dwarven Halls tiles

Lastly, and most importantly, Grace is now 16. Hard to believe. As with many of her friends who have had birthdays during the quarantine, and mostly Sweet 16s, it totally sucks that she doesn't get a real birthday party surrounded by her friends. We (I) spoil our kids, admittedly. And we would have spoiled her on her Sweet 16th. We do have a few things up our sleeves, and we will make it up to her when things allow. Until then, Happy Birthday, Grace! You bring me joy each and every day.

This and That

...or... A General Update.

If you count from March 13 (Day 1 of self-quarantine for us), it's Day 98 of Covid-19.

It's fair to say that everyone is feeling the strain from staying home for so long (and doing the right thing). I am still working at home full time. Amp is still working three days a week at a Covid-only dialysis clinic. Grace has started working some shifts again at the retirement home she worked at over the last year or so. We are all still healthy, despite having gone through a health scare over the last few weeks. I haven't blogged much because I haven't done much or felt like doing much during that. Blah. But hopefully we are past that and things will get back to our new abnormal normal.

We are still doing the fairly hardcore conscientious self-quarantining thing, despite the fact that our criminally incompetent occupant of the White House no longer seems to recognize that Covid-19 is even a thing. Nothing to see here. Move along please...

We do try to order takeout to support some of our favorite local places which are open again, and place curbside pickup orders where needed from some stores, such as art and craft supplies from Michael's, office products from Staples and some nice-to-have-but-not-necessary D&D unpainted miniatures purchases today from Games Keep in West Chester (a store that I love and want to go out of my way to support). Aside from that sort of thing, we don't go out much.

Along those same lines, and in the hopes that we will play Dungeons and Dragons again either online or eventually in person again at some point, I ordered a bunch of painted D&D minis from my go-to online source, Kings of Light. I love these folks. And with several hundred figures purchased from them, they probably love me too.

D&D minis from Kings of Light

In spite of Covid-19, some facets of normal life continue on in their appointed pace. One of these things is that we are nearing the end of the 3 year lease on our 2017 Honda Pilot. Loving the Pilot, and not being particularly interested in shopping for other things under current conditions, we talked with our salesperson at Scott Honda and told him we just wanted to roll over to a new Pilot with a minimum of physical presence required on our part. In other words, we picked the exact model and exterior/interior color and told him to go find one and do all the paperwork. This was safe enough to do since the only difference between a 2017 and 2020 Pilot is a few minor exterior trim changes (front grill, rear lights and rear bumper), and the addition of lane change warnings and some other electronics as standard.

New 2020 Honda Pilot EX-L

Short summary, we got a great deal, only showed up at the dealership for an hour today to check out the new car and sign papers, and drove home in our brand new Pilot. The process took a week and a half from end to end, with most of that being waiting to get the exact vehicle we wanted brought in from another dealer. As always, I like that Amp and the kids get to spend most of their in-car time in a big heavy tank. This is our 5th Honda lease for Amp's car, and we have now had a dark red Pilot, a dark blue Pilot, a white CRV, and a black Pilot. And now this medium/dark blue Pilot. This one isn't as dark as the very first blue Pilot back in 2008/2009, and is brighter and more metallic in the sunlight. I like it.

Anyway, life continues on (fortunately), and I have gotten back to doing some hobby painting and hobby crafting. That should make for another post in the near future.

Until then, stay safe, and don't listen to the brain-dead morons that are trying to tell you that the virus is "dying out". Look at the numbers. Be smarter than that.

Spring 2019 Painting

I've done a good bit of painting over the last few months, especially in the past few weeks since the new range of Citadel Contrast paints came out. I'm always a sucker for something new. The Contrast paint range is basically just a highly pigmented glaze, so in that respect it's nothing new, but the new range release is notable in that they have released about 3 dozen colors at the same time. More on those particular paints later. In the meantime, here's a few of the smaller odds and ends I have painted over the course of the spring.

WizKids unpainted minis has a blister pack of 3 giant spiders. I bought two packs and painted them in about 10 minutes using just the Contrast paint "Blood Angels Red". One of the molds has wrapped victims on the base. These were painted khaki and washed with a brown shade. I have lots of spiders of various manufacturers (you can never have too many) and these 6 red ones add some variety to an existing mix of predominantly blacks, browns and grays.

WizKids Giant Spiders

I also had a blister pack of 2 pack animals. These were painted over the pre-primed white base coat with a variety of Contrast paint colors (browns, tans and greens, with a couple pops of brighter color). These were good examples of what the Contrast paints do - color, shade and highlight all in one go. These are nice little minis, and can be useful on the table (I like everyday scatter/clutter like these), but with the limited amount of painting time I have available, investing a bunch of time in these to paint them nicely in the traditional manner wouldn't have happened very easily. In an absolute minimal amount of time, I have these 2 done. Not great paint jobs by any stretch of the imagination, but certainly serviceable.

WizKids Pack Animals

A Shambling Mound. A classic D&D monster, and one of the nicer WizKids figs. This was painted the traditional way, using a muted palette of greens and browns. I should have put a human figure in some of these pictures for scale... this miniature is ~2.5 inches tall and ~3.5 inches wide at its widest (the outstretched arm). I have another one of these in stock which I will probably paint in a more "fantastical" manner (whatever that means).

WizKids Shambling Mound

The Treant model is another large WizKids fig (being about 5 minutes tall). I don't like the paint job, but it's done, so that's something. This ended up being one of those models that looks good up close or in person, but will probably look very dark and dull on the table. Maybe I'll find another and try it again.

WizKids Treant

You can never go wring with some torture chamber furniture... Or a mirror.

WizKids Torture Chamber stuff

Lastly, I painted 4 Games Workshop Hormagaunt figs in a hive fleet Kraken color scheme. I posted some pictures of my Tyranid Genestealers in the cotton candy explosion color scheme, and after Grace pointed that out I have trouble painting anything else in that scheme. Maybe I'll do some more Genestealers in these classic colors. [These actually have a little more detail work before they are done, but while I was taking pictures...]

GW Hormagaunts

I've also made some progress on some larger efforts. More on that soon.

Painting Table January 2019

It's been a while since I've done one of these, or for that matter a post of any sort. This thought struck me while I was looking at the giant mess pile that is my painting table in the basement. Most of what is on the table is stuff that is more or less recently-ish in process. So without further ado...

The whole mess

At far right, we have a tray of Warhammer 40k figures used for games of Kill Team with Ryan and Josh. Genestealers in front are basically done. The Eldar guardians in the middle are maybe 50% done. The Space Marines tactical squad and scouts in the back are perhaps 80-90% done. There are some other bits less done on other parts of the table.

Warhammer 40k for Kill Team

Middle-ish we have a bunch of blister packs of unpainted D&D miniatures. Some character figures, some monsters, and some torture chamber scenery. Plus a very large remorhaz figure in the box in the back. There's an earth elemental and an arcane altar on the little paper plate. And the box for a fantasy ruins terrain kit.

Unpainted D&D minis

On the left side of the table, which is the more active side since it is where the lights and the paints are, we have a variety of things. There is a mostly done Shambling Mound figure for D&D, and a group of Umber Hulks. There are some black primed tyranid warriors and smaller critters for Kill Team. I see a torture rack. A few treasure chests. An iron maiden (the torture device, not the band). A couple of character figures that have been started. And the first test piece of the Azyrite ruins set whose box we saw in the prior picture. Oh, and an owlbear with a little paint on it.

The more active bits

On the gaming table, we have odds and ends of a waterside terrain board I am making. And the main bits of a Tamiya 1/35 scale Panther ausf "A" model that I am building. More on that in a separate post. I think I built this exact kit in the early 1980's (it is copyright 1975), and again in ~2000. I felt like building a tank model kit, and I love the Panther. A pretty tank if there is such a thing. And this particular kit is crazy cheap on eBay, relatively speaking.

Waterside scenery and a 1/35 Panther "A"

So that's some of the multitude of hobby bits that have gotten some attention recently. If I ever actually finish anything, I will post pictures...

Jungle Ruins

I never got around to posting a finished look at the ruins terrain I wrote about making back in June. I also mentioned more recently working on some scatter terrain for jungle or other densely foliated areas. I have taken a picture of both laid out together.

Our Heroes Explore Long-Forgotten Ruins

I have a few more ruin pieces in process that I will finish at some point. I also have a lot more fake floral bits to increase the number of pieces of foliage scatter. The foliage scatter is a more pressing need...

SAS - Organizing and Cataloging

One of my stated short-attention-span goals before the end of the year was to review the cataloging and organization/storage of my now-pretty-big D&D miniatures collection. This turned out to be more work than I had thought it would be, but I finished this effort earlier tonight.

In short...wow, I've collected a lot of D&D miniatures over the last 4+ years. And it turns out that I hadn't been doing as good a job keeping track of them as I thought I had been doing. I keep a spreadsheet. Or it turns out I was keeping most of a spreadsheet.

D&D Miniatures Collection

Anyway, that's all fixed for now. Every miniature cataloged, accounted for, organized and filed away in storage boxes. Compartmented storage boxes are a wonderful thing, as is a good spreadsheet. If you're into that sort of thing. Which I most definitely am (as those who know me will attest!).

As of now, the collection totals 1,071 figures. Yikes. Not a typo... That is an average of roughly 22 figures a month for 4 years. My one main splurging vice really. Fortunately, a good number of these figures come from "bottom feeding" on eBay, buying stuff at its cheapest, and in batches. Not everything though, to be sure. In addition to a couple of eBay stores as my primary purchase avenue,  also do buy a few blind boxes at the Games Keep store in West Chester for ranges I know I like and have little of yet, but I don't do much of this. I like to buy what I want, not what chance provides me. That being said, I have gotten some treasures (relatively speaking) in the few blind boxes I have bought, and they are fun to open.

Perhaps sometime soon I will post some of the rarer or favorite figures I have collected.

PAX Unplugged 2018

PAX (Penny Arcade) runs a series of gaming conventions (East, West and South), and has for years. They are big shows. Last year (2017) was the first year for PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia, a gaming convention geared exclusively to tabletop and roleplaying games, not computer games. I've had an interest in going, but hadn't followed through.

Fast forward to mid-week last week, when I texted Ryan and Josh and said "PAX Unplugged is this weekend...bummer we didn't plan something". Turns out Ryan was available (Josh was not), so I bought two tickets for Saturday.

I elected to drive down to give me flexibility for coming and going as I pleased. Ryan chose to take the train down and meet me. Which we did.

The show was at the Philadelphia Convention Center in Center City Philadelphia, and was pretty huge. Estimates from 2017 had attendance numbers at 45,000 turnstiles, or likely 15-20,000 distinct people (accounting for multi-day attendees). Tickets purchased days before the event would be waiting at the Will Call window. The show opened at 10:00am. So I got there around 9:15. Found the right place to go in this huge place, and had our two passes by about 9:45. Ryan met me soon after, and we waited in the huge lines to get in when the doors opened.

The Hordes assemble pre-opening

The place was even bigger than I had imagined, with an absolutely massive open gaming and dealer area on the second floor, and another huge tournament gaming space on the lower level. A variety of conference rooms and theater rooms for panel discussions were scattered in other places.

Philadelphia Convention Center

The dealer area was impressive. Every imaginable kind of board game and role playing game was represented. My purchases for the day were modest. A few oversized d20 dice on a whim (2 large and 1 huge)...you can never have too many dice, especially odd ones! Gale Force 9 monster card sets for challenge ratings 1-5 and 6-16 (these are new releases). A half dozen blister packs of unpainted D&D miniatures from WizKids (including 3 of the hard to find and expensive-on-eBay Beholders). And a second copy of Dungeon World from the Burning Wheel booth, but more on that later.

Ryan checks out a weird sic-fi Wild West thing

There were a few things that struck me about the dealer area, the main one being the number of dealers that were selling extremely high end stuff. There were several dealers selling dice made of fancy woods, metal and semi-precious gemstones. Now...I love dice...and own many more than any one person would ever need. But I draw the line, at this point anyway, at buying a set of 6 or 7 polyhedral dice for $25. Or $50. Or $100. Or more. Of which there were many options to do so. There was also a dealer (Wyrmwood?) selling all sorts of beautifully crafted wooden items such as dice trays, dice boxes, etc. Nice stuff for sure. And the people selling $5,000+ custom gaming tables. Beautiful stuff. All of which were getting a lot of traffic, and from what I could tell, a lot of sales.

I have become a fan of several people who are Twitch streamers, primarily via their posting VODs on YouTube, which I can watch/listen to in the background when doing other things around the house. These folks are mainly D&D streamers and/or game designers. My favorite among these is Adam Koebel, the co-author of Dungeon World, and the Dungeon/Game Master for a number of streaming game series on Twitch/YouTube. I find Adam to be an excellent Game Master and a very insightful voice on game design and game mastering via his series Office Hours. Anyway...Adam was one of three panelists doing an hour on Heavy Metal and Fantasy Role Playing games. Luke Crane, another well-known game designer (The Burning Wheel, Mouseguard, etc) was also one of the panelists. The panel was entertaining and funny. And seeing Adam in person was kinda cool.

Heavy Metal and RPGs panel (Adam Koebel)

Another set of Dungeons and Dragons celebrities that I got to see and say "hi" to were the player cast of Dice, Camera, Action, a streaming show on the official D&D channel.

The "Waffle Crew" from Dice Camera Action

Rounding out the day was a bit of fanboy fun. Adam Koebel was at the Burning Wheel company booth (distributors of his game) for a part of the afternoon, and I stopped by to get my copy of the book signed. I knew he was scheduled to be there and had brought the book from home. We chatted for a few minutes, and thankfully, he seemed to be a really nice guy. The risk of meeting a celebrity that you like (which he is within the RPG niche) is that they will turn out to be a jerk. Not that you can tell much within a minute or two or three, but a disappointing bad impression only takes a moment. As I said, thankfully that wasn't the case and he seemed really nice. I must admit that it felt a bit weird to have a fanboy moment with someone 20 years my junior, but whatever... I told him that my 14 year old daughter Grace recognizes him on the computer as "the cool pink-haired D&D guy". He laughed and signed another book for her. Nice.

Adam Koebel and my signed Dungeon World!!

Soon after, I headed home. It was a good show. Huge and crowded, but manageable because of the amount of space. As big as it was, I ran into two different people that I knew; something I would not have expected.

One last comment would be regarding the organization of the show. Professional and first class all the way. The volunteers helping to run the convention wore purple t-shirts labelled "Enforcer". They were everywhere, knowledgeable and polite. Very well done. Assuming it's back in Philly next year, I'll be back.

SAS - Tan Dungeon Tiles

Well, I've made a little progress on my "short attention span" project list, including completing what I would call a starter set of the tan dungeon tiles. These were made with a color scheme of brown/tan/cream to contrast to the much larger tile set I have already made in shades of gray.

The tiles are carved with a 1 inch grid and some minimal detailing. The picture below shows a few different pieces in various stages of color layering. The bottom couple of small 5 foot wide hall sections have been base coated in CraftSmart "dark taupe". The middle three pieces have a moderate sponging of Folk Art "camel". The top piece has had its final light sponging of Folk Art "vintage white". The edges have been painted black. Any similar colors would work for this three part process as long as you used a chocolate brown, a rich warm tan and a creamy white.

Stages and Colors

The setup below shows all the pieces I made in this first batch thrown together in a basic dungeon layout. There are ~12 chambers of various sizes, and a decent sized assortment of 5 foot (1 inch) and 10 foot (2 inch) passages.

Tan Dungeon Tiles Starter Set

With the aid of the Proxxon thermocut hot wire table, this went faster than similar projects done previously with nothing but a few knives. My best guess would be that this took about an hour to cut all the pieces. Then maybe another hour or hour and a half to scribe and distress the pieces. Then another hour or so (in 15 minute batches) to paint them. All told, this is probably 4 hours of work. When done a half hour here and a half hour there as time allows, and while a Flyers game is on in the background, this was an extremely easy, and quick, project.

Total materials cost is maybe $4-5 of XPS foam (less than half of a $12 4x8 foot sheet of 3/4 inch foam), and a couple of bucks worth of craft paint. If you bought one 4x8 sheet of XPS and three craft bottles of paint, this would cost less than $20, and you'd have a good bit of the paint and more than half of the foam left over.

I'm working on a few stair pieces, but that's all I have planned for this set at the moment. But you never know...

Short Attention Span (SAS) Plans

I am fabulous at imagining and starting new projects. If I have a super power, that's probably it: imagination. Unfortunately I do not have a limitless amount of time to sink into my various and sundry hobby pursuits. I also have the attention span of a flea.

This isn't the best combination.

What it typically results in is what I have going on in the basement at the moment. A 6 by 8 foot gaming table cluttered with odds and ends of projects in various stages of completion. A large painting desk with a similar pile of this and that. Most horizontal spaces in the unfinished part of the basement with something placed or piled on them. And for all the activity over the past few months, very little actually completed to show for all my scattered effort.

Since the spring, or say the last 6-8 months, it is probably fair to say that the projects I have actually started and completed would be:

• The "ruins" set described in a June 2018 post. I started and completed a decent sized set of this. Subsequently, I started some more pieces, and of course they aren't done. But the first batch is.
• 8 Tyranid genestealers for use in Kill Team games.
• Assembly and basic painting of all purchased Kill Team terrain pieces. Enough to have them looking nice and able to use in a game with no shame.
• The handful of D&D miniatures posted recently.
• And, well, that's probably it...

The list of started but not completed projects is just a tad longer. In no particular order of importance, and with notes on what my shorter term goal would be:

• Kill Team space marines. 10 tactical squad and 5 scouts assembled and partly/mostly painted.
• Kill Team Eldar. 10 guardians and a weapon platform assembled and partly painted.
• Kill Team Tyranids. 1 Warrior, 4 hormagaunts and 4 termagants assembled and primed.
• Kill Team terrain. All assembled and in some state of painting. Lots of detail work left to be done to call them finished.
• Jungle terrain. Shoeboxes of fake floral bits to be made into little stands of jungle terrain. I've made about 20 of these, but have the stuff to make maybe a hundred more. These are little cardboard oval bases generally around 2-3 inches in size with a variety of plant material hot-glued onto them. I would settle for ~30 more to make a total of 50. The rest of the raw materials can go into stock.
• Many units of various historical minis in various stages of completion, dating back years. This only includes the ones I've started. Not the untouched lead pile... I would like to complete a unit or two or three just to say that I painted some historicals.
• Games Workshop lizard men. I bought a bunch of Saurians to use as D&D lizard men because the figures are cool. They are still cool, but only half done. Finish 12-15 figures as a start.
• Inventory my homemade dungeon tiles, caverns, tunnels, etc. I have posted lots of pictures with these various bits over the past few years. I need to admit that I am happy with some, not so much so with others, and settle on what I want to keep and what needs to go live on a farm. Perhaps an eBay farm where someone throws money at me.
• Related to the above, I have started a better modular D&D tunnel set for which I would like to complete the first batch. The Proxxon hot wire table makes this sort of thing easier than I could have imagined when I was doing my first versions of these with an old knife. The flexibility the Proxxon gives in terms of possible shapes is wonderful.
• "Tan dungeon" tiles. To be made for a particular expected use in our campaign, which will hopefully be starting up again soon. I just want a small batch of passages and rooms in a lighter brown/tan/cream paint scheme in contrast to my usual dark gray/medium gray/light gray color scheme.
• As an administrative task...finish inventorying, organizing and filing away all of the various D&D and Pathfinder minis I have bought over the past 3 years. There are too many little shipping boxes and bags with odds and ends of figures that never made it beyond "well at least they made it to the basement".

So the plan for the last 6 or 7 weeks of the year, which will include a good bit of holiday time off, is to knock off some of the partly done projects listed above. I wouldn't say sticking to this list and not starting something new is an absolute must...but let's call it an aspirational goal.

Most likely to get done would probably be the dungeon tiles and modular tunnels, which I am most interested in at the moment. Completing a unit of historical minis (medieval Ottomans or eastern Europeans, or maybe 15mm WW2) is a good candidate. As are the Space Marines. Josh and Ryan have been traveling, but we should probably be looking to get an evening of Kill Team together again soon. So maybe some additional painting work on sci-fi terrain.

I'm cautiously hopeful. Wish me luck.

Miniatures Painting Again

This weekend is the HMGS Fall In! convention in Lancaster (PA), and I probably won't make it out there this year, even for a brief fly-by. Even if I no longer feel the need to block out the 2-3 days to attend the whole convention, play in a few games, and perhaps even run a game or two, I still always enjoy stopping in to these conventions for part of a day to wander the event rooms and get energized to go home and do some painting of my own.

That won't happen this time around but I am happy to say that the painting bug has already bitten recently, and I have been properly re-energized as far as painting goes. I have noted in recent posts that I have been painting some sci-fi stuff along with Ryan and Josh (for Kill Team), but the painting binge has extended beyond that.

There is a very nice ongoing line of releases for WizKids unpainted D&D miniatures (and Pathfinder minis). The figures are very nice for the most part, and pre-primed, so all you need to do is break something out of the package and dive in. Below are a few of the things I have been working on over the past few months. I won't discuss backlog of unpainted purchases...

Recent batch of painting - high view

The newly painted lot includes (in rough order of completion) a griffon, 4 gargoyles, 2 rust monsters, a pair of umber hulks (there are 2 more finished in addition to these 2), an earth elemental and a troll.

Recent batch of painting - lower view

These minis are the made from the same softer plastic that the pre-painted WizKids stuff is. I have purchased loads of those over the past 3-4 years. The paint jobs range from pretty good to pretty "meh", but they are ready to go on the table the moment that the magical eBay fairy delivers them to my house from my main supplier in New Mexico (kingsoflight eBay store - great folks...).

I paint better than the mass produced stuff coming over from China, but I also don't have to crank out "x" number of figures per hour. The main difference in my painted stuff versus the pre-painted is that I tend to go for brighter cleaner colors (or maybe I should say lighter cleaner colors). Some of the pre-painted stuff is pretty dark, and can blend into a table pretty well in a not-perfectly lit basement gaming area.

Next up on the painting table is up in the air at the moment. I have sci-fi stuff to finish for whenever we get together for another round of Kill Team. I have a bunch of WizKids character figures to paint that will be a fun challenge, but which I don't really need for anything as far as actual gaming goes. There are a bunch of elementals, mimics and other D&D monsters to get to at some point. And I can always dive back into my prepped-and-primed backlog of historical minis, especially Ottomans and later medieval Hungarians and other eastern Europeans.

Time will tell....

Kill Team - Space Marines

We've had enough fun with our first couple of Kill Team games that painting some other forces seems to be in order (as well as expanding the Tyranid force, but that's a different story...).

I have bought a box of Space Marines, and have worked through what I want the paint scheme to look like.

Space Marine Sample

The rest of the box is assembled and primed, with some more painting to follow soon. I hope.

It's fun to be painting again. (Bifocals rule!). Next on the paining table for Kill Team will be to expand the Tyranid force with a few small bugs (termagants and hormagaunts), as well as a larger bug or two (tyranid warriors).

A box of Eldar Guardians has also been assembled and primed.... (yes, I know, they don't call them Eldar anymore...).

Kill Team - First Playings

Ryan has finished painting a nice big batch of ~20 Imperial Guard (which are called something else now by GW and the rest of the world but not me) and I have finished my 8 Genestealers, so it was time to push some figures around, shoot some ray guns, and kill humans with weird alien bugs.

Over the past few weeks, Ryan and Josh and I have gotten together two or three times to work our way through these rules. We've started with the basic rules, did OK the first time out, and gotten more fluent with the rules the next couple of sessions. The rules are very typical GW: roll to hit, roll to wound, roll a saving throw. Every army has their own chrome galore.

Genestealers stalking Imperial Guard

We admittedly aren't great at using our forces yet, but the bugs have beaten the humans every time out so far, no matter who is playing what. Once the bugs get into contact with the puny humans, they don't stand a chance. Ryan's dice rolling doesn't help.

Tyranids and Imperial Guard

As much as I bash GW (maybe not here but certainly in real life), their figures are very nice. Vastly overpriced, but nice. And the terrain is very nice as well (and equally overpriced). That said, I've bought a bunch of different pieces as can be seen in these photos in various stages of painting, and have created a couple of foam boards to put the terrain on.

It's been fun. I'm working on some space marines and Eldar now, or whatever they call them these days...

Kill Team - Genestealers

Ryan, Josh and I have gotten together a number of times over the summer and into the Fall to do something gaming related while our D&D campaign is on a fairly lengthy hiatus.

One of the things we have talked about doing is to paint up some science fiction miniatures and have a go at Games Workshop's Kill Team, a game of skirmish combat in their Warhammer 40K universe. With some limited prior exposure to WH40K, I have no interest whatsoever in diving into that army-level game, but I will admit to liking the quality of the miniatures and having an interest in painting a few of them. Tyranids, or Starship Trooper style "space bugs" struck a chord with me.

So Ryan has been filling out an Imperial Guard force, and I have been painting up Genestealers for a Tyranid force.

Tyranid Genestealers

We have played a few games. The painting has been fun. The games have been fun. Additional troops have been purchased and are in various stages of completion. Terrain pieces have been bought and are in various stages of progress as well (as can be seen in the picture above).

My only regret... Grace took one look at my finished genestealers and said: "cool. cotton candy explosion."

Sigh.

Standing Stones

In a D&D game, there are a few types of must-have terrain to keep in your back pocket for use as your players and their characters bumble and stumble around the world (if you are into that sort of thing...). Standing stones, obelisks, and forgotten monument stones rank high on that list.

When the mood strikes me to make something in the way of fantasy terrain, and I can't figure out something specific to do, it is an easy choice to carve up a few standing stones, monuments or forgotten altars (blood-stained perhaps...).

Standing stone and forgotten altar miscellany

These take virtually no time at all, and consist of a little bit of knife-carved foam coated with a darker gray undercoat and a light gray sponging overtop. Throw in a little dark green or light green weathering for a change of pace. Easy Peasy.

Sewer Tiles

What's a good Dungeons and Dragons town or city without sewers underneath, inhabited by all sorts of evil and ill-intentioned creatures? With that in mind, I have spent a little time recently finishing a modular set of sewer tiles for our games.

The tiles are carved out of 1/2 inch extruded polystyrene insulation foam board (same as most of my D&D terrain). Each piece has a 1/2 inch base layer topped by another 1/2 inch "walkway" layer. The channels are either 5 foot (one square) or 10 foot (2 square) wide, with 5 or 10 foot wide walkways alongside. Where there is no walkway it assumes "solid rock" negative space.

Step 1, after foam assembly and a black base coat, is a sponging of Folk Art brand "medium gray".

Step 1 - medium gray sponging

Step 2 is a sponging of Folk Art "dove gray", a light gray applied more sparingly than the "medium gray". You want to highlight but not totally hide the darker gray, although I admittedly still go fairly heavy-handed on this step. Lighter colors "pop" better on the table during gameplay, and what might look more realistic up close from an artistic point of view often looks dark and dreary during games...

Step 2 - light gray sponging

Step 3 is a little bit of spot dry brushing of Folk Art "buckskin brown" (this is a nice rich medium brown color no longer stocked by the local Michaels stores - sad face...). This just aims to give a bit of a muddy feel, and to break up the potential monotony of gray.

Step 3 - a brown dry brush in spots

Step 4 is to retouch any "water" areas and edges with black, as you will unavoidably sponge some gray onto these areas.

Step 5 is to apply a brush-textured coat of gloss Mod Podge to the water areas to give them texture before painting. This is important, as you will be relying on the raised texture of this first Mod Podge coat to give something for steps 6 and 7 to catch on. The dry brushing in the next two steps will not be as effective if there is not some texture for them to pick up and accent.

Step 6 is to lightly dry brush some "buckskin brown" onto the water areas. This needs to be done streakily (is that even a word?) and sparingly - you are looking for hints of a sludgy nasty greenish-brown water, not an outright brown water.

Step 7 is to drag a heavy dry brush coat of Folk Art "citrus green", or a similarly putrid green, over the Mod Podge texture from step 5 (this is why step 5 is so important).

Step 8 is to re-coat the water areas with another coat (or two) of brush-textured gloss Mod Podge. You can see the way I did the brush-texturing of the Mod Podge (in step 5) by how the "citrus green" dry brush caught on that texture. The important thing in steps 6 and 7 is that I was looking for some hints of brown overlaid with a good bit of putrid yellowy-green, but didn't want the end result to totally overlay the black undercoat. I was hoping for a yucky greenish-brown over a still-dark base. I think this gives that effect. It might not be everyone's idea of a D&D under-the-town sewer, but it did achieve the exact result I was looking for...

Steps 4-8: brown water, putrid green, and gloss Mod Podge

By the end of this mini project I've added enough new pieces to the ones I had made several months ago to fill a medium sized Sterilite storage container with a good variety of 5 and 10 foot sewers with 5 and 10 foot walkways, including enough junction pieces to give me good flexibility to create all sorts of layouts. [In other words, probably much more than I will ever need...]

As with the badlands terrain pieces documented a few days ago, I'm not sure how much use I will have of these pieces, but they were fun to make, and the entire project probably took less than $20 in materials and 3-4 hours of time. And most importantly, it was fun...

Rivenrock Wastes Completed

Shown below are the intermediate steps and final product of the project to complete "badlands" hill terrain for either historical miniatures or Dungeons and Dragons games. [Another very recent post showed the beginnings]

After a dark brown latex house paint base coat (Behr "Swiss Brown"), each piece gets a stipple and dry brush of Craftsmart "Orange Spice". This rusty reddish brown color is intended to show only as subtle hints in crevasses, and isn't done very heavily.

Brown base, rusty red and finished piece

Next, each piece gets a healthy sponge coat of Folk Art "Camel", my go-to light tan color for terrain. A little dry brushing gets to the spots the sponge can't easily reach. I don't want an overwhelming amount of the dark brown base showing through.

Base coated, rusty red and "camel" sponge

Finally, a lighter sponge coat of a very light creamy tan (Folk Art's "Taffy") is used to highlight the edges and brighten the flat surfaces. The pieces looked a little dingy before this step but popped nicely after.

"Camel" sponge (left) without final highlight (at right)

The final project, shown below, consists of a large two-piece hill which can be used together or separate, a bunch of larger pieces, and a good assortment of smaller pieces in both 2" foam and 3/4" foam. The 2" pieces (which are most of them) give good height and mass, and the smaller pieces allow for climbing access for figures, or just smaller scatter.

Final pieces with "Taffy" light highlight

This project filled a very large plastic storage box. I'm not sure how often I will have a use for them, but the materials were cheap and the whole project only took a few hours scattered over the course of a week or so. Very easy, and now I have options other than gray rock...

The Rivenrock Wastes

In the world of Myara, north of the area that our characters have been operating in, is a wilderness region called the Rivenrock Wastes. I envision this as an arid land of wind and rain carved sandstone formations not unlike the more rugged parts of the American southwest.

I don't have any terrain pieces suitable for this. But I can make some...

Once again using the Proxxon, I am able to cut pieces of 2 inch thick extruded polystyrene insulation board quickly and easily. A little knife work cleans up the basic shapes. More little bits will be made and glued (as in the back of the picture) to make two-level pieces. Finished pieces could in turn be stacked to make taller formations.

The Rivenrock Wastes - in process

Easy. Maybe the players will choose to go to a place where these can be used. Maybe not. Hard to say.

And it doesn't really matter. The project (thus far) was fun.