What I painted in April 2017

Half a month ago I decided to return to my little toy soldiers, and little under two weeks ago I actually started painting again.

So to keep track of things, and in a sort of "preparation" for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge I`ve been reading a lot about in past weeks, I`m going to try and do a bit of a painting oversight every last day of the month.

Now, I didn`t do any "night long" sessions so far, just an odd bit of painting left and right so far, resulting in just a few figures done as I`m "getting the hang of it" again.

The first figure I finished was the Stormcast Eternal that came with an Age of Sigmar magazine.  Not that I really intend on playing these guys, they might at best become a small unit within the "Grand Alliance Order" forcem which initially will be focussing around Dark Elves.

The other figures I painted are both from my old Chaos Dwarf force.  With the Legion of Azorgh (without points though, so they won`t be usable at the moment in that sort of battles) warscrolls on the Forge World site, I can at least get the forces up a bit and see what I can recover for a Grand Alliance Chaos force or something, or just good old "oldhammer" as it`s called these days. 

Mind the shinyness on them, this was due to taking the picture under the lighting with the varnish just applied.

Currently I`m doing some work on Doomfire Warlocks, for my planned Daughters of Khaine in Age of Sigmar, but I expect my focus to be swiftly shifting towards historical figures, the first try outs going to be some civilians for FOW and relevant era`s. 

But for this month, the results are 3 infantry in 30mm "heroic" scale, which in the AHPC would yield me 15 points I believe.  I`m not going to set myself high goals when that comes around and I can get a spot, probably around the lower 500 - 750 points mark...

Now to try and get some units finished for the next month :-)

Haul Report 79

Lots of variety in this weeks haul report, as it compromises of both things of the "former" hobby, but also the "new old" one, finished off with some books hehehe.

Now, I`m going to do this chronologically, as it is a lot of stuff from all over the place this time.

Last week

These actually where obtained last week friday, but as I had already closed the tally for episode 78, they carried over to this week.

The first one where some bricks I had ordered through Brick Link from my mate Matthieu.  He runs this lovely little shop, Panobricks, and had some intresting items.  Oh well, I`ll guess they`ll just go on the pile now though...

I also dropped by at the local Games Workshop that firday, and picked up a box of Doomrider Warlocks.  Being one of the "newer" units, I didn`t have them or suitable alternatives for the small 1000 point Daughters of Khaine force I`ll be building.

Wednesday

One of the paints that didn`t survive the 5 year hiatus, was my Coat D`arms Negro Brown.  I went to Verschooten to look for a good alternative in Vallejo's range, and also picked up some lighter browns for painting some leathers, and a blister pack of FIW Civilians, which will be perfect to serve as far forward as the ACW.

Friday

Yesterday was the big one, with one large shopping trip on the menu in order to find some needed hobby supplies to start doing some serious basing and all.  But first, I opened the mailbox and found a small box containing 5 Witch Elves of the "middle era", a small lot I snatched for next to no money on a local facebook group.

Starting my trip, I did pick up some more Lego at the local Kringwinkel, a nice big bag for 5 euro which will go into the trading pile. 

I also found this double book there, containing two classic stories.

At Boekenvoordeel, I picked up these two books for 5 each.

In a local DIY store, some bottles of glue where taken along, in order to start putting together all those plastic figures.

The final stop was a local crafts store, and here I actually found what I was out for, PVA glue to cover the bases.  I`m not going to flock my bases, but using those granules (very small pieces of stone) I`ll be painting and drybrushing them instead, something I was doing near the end of my first `career` in wargames, and which is cleaner in the transport boxes.

But heck, that`s just my idea, and not a law at all ;-)

Marvel Anime: X-Men

A 12 episode adaption of the X-men comics, this anime hailed from 2011 and follows the X-Men to Japan, where mutants are disappearing.

Set shortly after demise of Dark Phoenix / Jean Grey, the X-Men are set out to retrieve Hisako (Armor) who has been abducted by the U-men.

However, they discover there is more behind the mutant organ harvesters, as mutants pop up showing a "second mutation".  The team (Beast, Storm, Cyclops, Wolverine and Armor) sets out to investigate this further, and join with Emma Frost, who was a captive as well of the U-men.

They discover it's a plot by Masterming, who has abducted the omega level mutant son of professor X, Takeo, a result of a romance with a japanese scientist and whose existence wasn`t known by even Charles.

The anime is gorgeously drawn, and it has a nice intriguing storyline.  I like the way how the characters are portrayed, with all their flaws and weaknesses, and is a recommended watch if you are into the X-men!

Coming Home...

Lest it be known that on the 28th of april of the day of our Lord, the King of the Six-sided dice has returned out of his voluntary exile and reclaimed his throne amongst the people of rolling dices...

Okay, now I just *wanted* to say that, it sounded nice and dramatic to start this little post with hehehe...

But in all seriousness, yesterday I rejoined the ranks of TSA, reactivating membership card number 7.  Okay, not that I was one of the founding fathers, I just was present when they did the digitalising about a decade ago (yes, I already was a member for 15+ years before).

First thing I noticed is that the works on the outside have been finished, looks lovely.  I didn`t find the door though at first, the entrance having moved in recent times from the right to the left side lol.

I went there mostly to observe, catch up with old friends, and see for myself mostly what was hot and what was not these days, in order to be able to "tune" my painting schedule.  It was a hearty welcome, as I still knew most people after all that time, and they still had nightmares about me muahahaha.

In order to do talkies, I declined joining in on a game of Zombicide.

Some observations I made was that Games Workshop was nigh on abscent, though of course this might just have been the case this particular evening.  I know from my old friends they still play the games though.  Frostgrave is the fantasy running campaign at the moment, but after watching the game, I think it`s nothing for me.  It has the same `issues` like Mordheim to my taste, in that the difference between a high XP gang and a far lower one aren`t offset by the end game bonusses for the weaker band.  If half of them is between 6 planks, that extra XP isn`t going to be of much use...

I also noticed a lot of larger, multiple players games are more the trend this evening, like this great looking Conquistadores versus Aztecs game...

... or this large Napoleonic battle.

And some other random pictures I took of a few games:

Yes, this is to definite mercy shot to my Lego intrests...

Now, in conclusion, I am moving my Dark Ages models to the front of the painting queue.  With 26 figures I can already start with SAGA, and the plans are forming for a new Dark Ages campaign (apparently using rules from Two Fat Lardies, so I`ll pick those up soon) and that will be something I`ll hop along from the beginning.

Same goes for other 28mm scale historicals (yeah, I`m becoming an old geezer), and the fantasy models will probably be pushed back a bit on the painting line, as it doesn`t seem I`ll be taking them out very soon. 

Just had to take care of some administration, and we are off again in the lovely world of wargaming...

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans season 2

The second season of the raw and hard Gundam tale involving child soldiers, which caused quite a stir in it's first season, is back for the conclusion of the story.

After Tekkadan affirmed itself at the end of season 1, we now follow Orga and Mikazuki as they try to find their place in the world.

Now a daughter company of Naze's Teiwas, they live a decent life with honest jobs, until a seemingly small scale conflict gets Abrau involved, and sucks the earth bound department of Tekkadan in.  When later on the Turbines are attacked and almost wiped out, it is revealed that at the bottom of it all is an internal power struggle within Gjallarhorn.
McGillis Fareed, who has thrown his lot in with Tekkadan, wants to bring Gjallarhorn back on the old, united course, and is opposed by a faction led by Rustal Elion.
This leads to a large scale battle between the two factions, and some unexpected reappearances of characters.  But the series ends really unexpected for a Gundam franchise!

A really great series, that might not be on the level of 00 or Wing, whom are seen as the top series in the long running franchise, this was yet another hard string of episodes and a big change from the more light hearted series we had in past years (AGE, Tri-Fighters)...

Make sure to pick up on these two seasons, it`s worth it if your a Gundam lover!

LEGO easter egg MOC

Well, this was supposed to be joining the easter layout at Brick Mania Wetteren two weeks ago, but well, things took a different turn.

Never the less, this has, as such, become the final Tolkien build I will be doing...

The egg was build with instructions that where send to all participants of BM-W, and I covered mine in a Tolkien-y style, finding use of that (not so) One Ring for it.  A Tolkien tile at the top rounded it all off.

But I did it with a little twist, using a hinge brick and some tiles to make it actually "click" open and reveal that cute little Smeagol inside.

Hope you like it!

Starting projects... that happens if you change hobbies

After the first post earlier today of this two part opinion piece, in which I talked of the cancellation of my LEGO builds, it`s time to look to the future and make plans.

My advisor proved very helpful in this...

And that future is to repair, repaint and refield my wargame armies, with the occassional expansion left or right.

The past few days I have spend rummaging through various boxes and inventorising what armies are "more or less" salvagable, as well as 5 year or longer old projects that never will come to pass, and as such will be going straight to the lovely thing called the "bits box" (ancient 28mm Chinese chariots, I don`t even remember where I got those, let alone for what).

Now, I don`t want to put pressure on myself, and the main goal is to have my full Union corps "back on it`s feet" by the end of the 2018, as that are a LOT of figures that need to be (re)painted.  I consider them as such my main project and the true incentive to get back to the old hobby. 

But they aren`t going to be the only things I`ll be patching up.  On a historical note, there are three smaller projects from a bygone age that I will be doing.  Things I *might* get around to playing with, but that I will definitly aim to paint with pleasure.

The first of these is my small Baccus 6mm AWI british.  I always loved those little strips of figures and they just look cool when painted, while taking on a minimum of shelfspace.

The second "little scale" is a New Model Army small force in scale 10mm.  It`s a conflict I always liked and as with the 6mm all the models I gathered years ago are still unpainted in zip lock bags.

Both these forces will be in my selection for / if I can join the Analogue Hobbies painting challenge, something I have been reading about during my holiday in France and looks like a great, if intense, motivation to get some things done.

Another historical project that I`ll be doing is patching up some of my 28mm Dark Age Irish, some hauling back of being in my possession for almost 15 years, from my early days of joining TSA.

On another level, I have been salvaging through the remnants of my Fantasy armies, as I told about earlier this week.  After catching up on all the fluff of the End Times, the rules and backdrop of the new Age of Sigmar, looking through possible forces and what I "have" and with if needed the points values from the General`s Handbook, I settled on making a small themed 1000 points force. 
This will be one of the Druchii forces, or Dark Elves of old.  More specific, I`m going for a small Daughters of Khaine list.  The leather clad chicks are cool of course, there is the whole Cult of Lust thing in their (retconned) background, and I would need a total of only 46 models patched up and painted.
I aim to be able to field that force around july this year.

On another note, there are of course these guys...

Legion of Azorgh has been warscrolled, though no points are given, but I don`t care.  I always have been a Hashut follower, I sport his symbol as a tattoo after all.  In the "good old days" I could field about 10k of the guys, and I will be repairing and repainting each and every one of them, wether they are Games Workshop, Forge World or other models I obtained over those years, until the true might of Hashut stands proud again!
I don`t have a deadline for this, as it is more a labour of fanlove then one of need to get to the table asap...

Small things will include the odd skirmish game.  I have taken up the "challenge" by my Nemesis, and backed the Kickstarter for Tombstone, a Wild West skirmish game by Black Scorpion.  The faction I`ll choose?  Why, the 7th Army of course...

And there we have it, the plans are laid down, the figures are slowly being repaired, and I will be doing an "around the last day of the month" post of any painting progress... which in the first two three months won`t be THAT spectacular at all.  Stripping, glueing, undercoating... you know the drill ;-)

Fire up the brushes!

Cancelling projects... that happens if you change hobbies

In the first of a few posts I`ll be doing today, I`m talking about the "end of the line" of my LEGO hobby, though I won`t go in the specifics of what exactly triggered it.

That wouldn`t be very gentlemanly after all, and no need to start a Flame War over it.

While the relevant people know the reasons, let`s just say that I got so disgusted by the things that happened, that I`m actually drawing a line under all of it.  I will keep my Tolkien sets and moc`s that I build for the Middle Earth thing I wanted to do, but that is about all of it, together with some selected sets on display (the Pearl, R2... those kinds of things).

But I won`t be building anything apart from the material I need for demo'ing at a wargame show later this year, in the form of terrain and "forces" needed for that, and a single MOC I`m still working on and will guard, the American Civil War build of Fredericksburg.

I`m tearing down all the other mocs and builds I have done, and have been working on, lately, and as such they have moved to "cancelled" status on the side bar of this little corner of the internet.  I`ll also be liquidating large parts of my bricks in order to start funding any possible future wargame projects, though for now I still have plenty of figures to work with.

That, and sorting, listing, and whatever about 200 kilo`s of LEGO elements isn`t a quick job, and then I still have to go through tubs of minifigures and moving boxes full of sealed sets...

Over the coming weeks, I`ll be working away the back log of LEGO related articles I still had in the pipeline, with a trainload of build reports (I had material to halfway 2019), as well as a huge amount of Inspirational articles (about the same amount).  I`ll also be uploading a few MOC`s that have been finished in the past weeks, like my easter egg for the not attended Brick Mania Wetteren, and a big Harry Potter build I just needed to make pictures off.

But for the rest, the line has been drawn as I lost the love for the plastic brick.

Haul Report 78

Another sunday, so time to look back at whatever we obtained for the hobby this week...

... but with the change back to the old hobby, it`s a "bare essentials" one this week.

While I`ll dedicate a future post to exactly what has caused me to turn away and drive me back in the arms of the Miniature Gaming Mistress, that did mean I needed to stock up on some all day required materials like superglue.

You can`t assemble figures without a good dot of glue, so making use of a local store's promotion, I quickly snatched up the necessary tubes to do the first repair and assembly works.

And that is basically it for this week...

The Expanse season 2

If you love science fiction, this series based on the novels of James SA Corey are the best out there recently.

Numbering 13 episodes, the series has already been renewed for a third, coming early 2018 normally.

The second season focusses on the mysterious proto molecule, of which we learned more in the final episodes of s1, and how it has taken over the complete colony where Miller finally found Julie Mao. 
The team, with the aid of Fred Johnson, try to destroy the Eros colony, but it has developped seemingly intelligent life and steers clear of the torpedo strike and a huge ship send to crash into it, but Earth is saved by the sacrifice of Miller and it crashes on Venus instead.

On Ganymede in the meantime, a plot is discovered that the protomolecules are being used to make the "ultimate weapon" which leads to tensions and almost a war between Mars and Earth.  As Project Caliban is slowly revealed, the crew of the Rocinante set out to Ganymede to find the daughter of a scientist and destroy the protomolecule...

I love this series for the "hard" sci-fi it uses, no flashy spaceship dodging and weaving, bullet driven cannons intead of beam weapons, and the three faction politics.  When an unknown factor is brought in with the protomolecule, the balance shifts all over the place as lines are redrawn, and the crew of Rocinante being caught right in the middle.

Lovely series!

Build Report: 241502 Flamy the Fox

A small build report today, as we tackle one of the foil packs that came with the Elves magazine.

Flamy the Fox is a small 12 part set featured around the little fox pet from the range.

The build begins on 2 plates of 2x3 in Tan.

A slope and some magenta elements are then added.

A bottle and some details are then added to the little nest for the little fox.

All that is then left to do is add Flamy and his brush to the build and we are all done.

It is a nice little foil pack, as the Elves pets, which are fantasy style models of the Friends range, are pretty nice and cute.