Fantasy Gaming (7) - More Mordheim Scatter and First Warband

 We sat down for a marathon paint session the other night and managed to crack out a pretty significant amount of scatter terrain. This was all painted with craft paints for the most part and 3d printed from Hexengarde this time around. 

The walk ways are from printable scenery

 Rubble Piles

Barricades

Lampposts and Walkways. The lamposts are WIP still as I figure out what I wanna do with the lights themselves

Well, Town Notice Board. Also WIP as I decide what to do for the actual notices.

Cargo Piles, Lumber Piles

Sewers and a better shot of the side of the risers. These risers use a openlock clip system and are really sweet and modular.

Here you can see the system in detail

I set up a few shots just to see it all out at the same time.

I also managed to finish my first warband. These are mercenaries. The files are from reptilian overlords i believe and are pretty decent. 

I actually slapchopped the first guy probably over a year ago and never got around to the rest.

Works in Progress (3) - A small workbench update

 I recently, between projects painted the first of a flesh eater courts spearhead. 

 I also managed to finally get the second half of the BLKOUT starter done

 I figured out how to print mechs for arsenal

 I powered through and built some breachers for my Word Bearers

Next on the workbench I have an addition to the Fantasy terrain. I have my first Mordheim Band completed (and depending on posting schedule possible a game in there somewhere)

I also have a brand new warband for Shadow War Armageddon, at least one more Underworlds band and possible some other surprises. 

Here's my current plan for trying to stay focused (place bets now)

I'm only working on three things at a time. If I finish a project, I can start a new one. If I work on a project it goes to the top of the list. If I ever have 3 finished projects between an in progress one and the top of the list, I shelve that project. So far so good. 
 

AHPC XVI (1) - Orks for Various Purposes, Solar Auxilia

Copied below, (as usual for all AHPC Posts) is my entry this week for the AHPC

Happy New Year everyone,

This year marks my return to the challenge after changing careers (leaving the hobby industry) and having a child. I've been really getting back into hobbying this year and thought this would be a great way to keep the momentum going. Without further ado, here are some quick snapshots of some Orks I speedpainted this week. 

 

These are now super old figures that are some of the first models I bought when I first joined the hobby back in 2011. The sculpts are dated and although I love them, they're far from "fantastic sculpts worth spending time painting" if that makes any sense. I spent a day or so chipping away on them off and on. We're planning on playing Space Gits, Modulorka, Gorkamorka and who knows what else so I imagine these are far from the only Orky things I bring to the challenge this go around. 

 

I also took a little time this week to paint up a small batch of 3d printed Solar Auxilia. These have an odd spot in my collection. I painted the leader months ago so were not counting him for points but I wanted to show the "squad" together. 

 

I play a bit of 30k and have a Word Bearers army. I printed some of these from Red Makers around the time of the plastic release with the vague intention of making a Zone Mortalis force. When I ran some numbers and did some math I realized just how many figures I'd need and pivoted to something else. For now, these are going to count as Space Marine Scouts for a game of Shadow War Armageddon because why not. They're a pain to paint and I really have no desire to do a whole army of these any time soon but I think they're kind of neat. 

So all told, 15 28mm figures x 5 points for a total of 75  

Wild West (1) - Rebuilding the Town

 I realize that we may be reaching a point of diminishing returns on the "Matt decides to restart a project" scheme but here we are again. I've had old west stuff for a long time. It's one of those historical adjacent eras I really like, like pirates and gangsters. 

 Years ago I bought into some of the 4ground stuff but didn't ever complete the collection. Between how long they take to build and the costs it just wasn't something I ever completed. I added on a sarissa railroad station but was always missing some iconic old west buildings. 

Recently, after the success of the Fantasy ruins, I decided it might be worth revamping (replacing) my mdf with 3d prints. I already have a few figures painted, probably enough to run a game of some sort. 

After a bit of researching I settled in on the range from digital taxidermy. The kits cost around 40 bucks after conversion. I started by printing a saloon as well as a few of the "houses". After doing a little bit of googling, I've settled on wanting to print about 10-13 buildings in total to make a nice little town. The buildings run a hair on the small side but do fit nicely on the build plate. The saloon came as 6 parts and needed tree supports to print. I'm not 100 percent sure how much effort im going to put in to painting interiors but they do have interior details sculpted in. 

There's a pretty big range of stuff including scatter and such which is nice. The eventual plan is something like a Legends of the Old West campaign, though I have several rulesets to try including Dead Mans Hand, Rules with no Name, Shoot n Skedaddle, and What a Cowboy.

Fantasy Gaming (5) - Frostgrave, Warhammer Quest and Other Diversions

 A few of the guys have been musing over doing a short, 3-game Frostgrave second edition campaign day and as a result I've dug out all my old original Nickstarter stuff and slapped together two warbands. This is the first of them. I'm going to go with a Sigilist this time around. The Wizard and Apprentice are metal, the remaining figures from Frostgrave Soldiers 1. I went with close to box art for the wizards paint and themed it around that. So the wizard has a body guard themed in dark green with a matching rune and the apprentice has her own with a light green and matching rune. Its simple but as someone who doesn't name models for example I thought it was a nice narrative touch.

I've also been thinking about Dungeons lately, something we'll come back to. I did a tiny bit of digging and discovered that there are just a ton of resources available to print your own copy of Warhammer Quest '95. Now I've never played it and have no idea if its worth the hassle but I've been wanting to learn some of the equipment at work so figured this was a good opportunity to self teach

I mentioned dungeon crawls. I've been in the early stages of writing my own dungeon crawl ruleset. I'm not ready to share much in the way of details yet but after we got a bit of playtesting in the other day I am ready to share that it exists

I didn't manage to get many photos as we were pretty engrossed in the rules discussion. I'll admit I spent quite a while writing rules with place holder numbers that did not work at all on the first encounter. A quick on the fly adjustment though and everything started working perfectly. There will be more down the road but for now all you get is this quick little teaser. 

Dark Ages (1) - Start of SAGA Vikings

 So this was originally going to be the first of many posts about Pillage but we'll circle back to that. 

Below is a photo of the first unit of my new SAGA Viking army. 1 point of Hearthguard. 

And now a brief story. I picked up a copy of Pillage as well as the Anglo Saxon and Viking starter bags. In parallel to this I purchased SAGA 2, Age of Chivalry, Age of Magic, and Book of Battles. I was able to finally find a copy of Age of Vikings, so I figured in for a penny. I figured I could build the pillage sets and then expand into SAGA. On the same visit to my LGS I picked up a bag of the new(ish) Victrix Pagan Rus as well. Now here's where it all gets tricky.

I was originally going to try my hand at LBMS Dry Transfers but as of the time of writing this, the "tariff situation" has made it impossible to source them. Victrix is currently not taking US Orders and from my research no one in the US has enough stock to do a whole bag. 

As I started to build the Vikings I thumbed through the Pillage book and unless I'm mistaken I think I have quite a few figures. The book recommends 100 point learning games, 500 regular, 1000 mega. A chieftain (required) is 50 points with a shield and armor. I think you see my point. This makes the sets an amazing purchase if you're going to just play Pillage. 

It also really solidified my choice to just build a SAGA army and have access to stuff to play Pillage. Rather than build and paint a handful of guys at a time, I figured I'd just paint the 30-40 ish for a SAGA force and then cherry pick to play Pillage. If I can source a unit of Beserkers and combine the Archers in each set to make one unit of 12, I can make the following list:

Warlord
Beserkers
Hearthguard
Warriors
Levy

Which leaves me with enough to either make another Hearthguard or Warrior Unit if were not too fussed about the chain mail being sprinkled in the warrior units. 

So now that the units been built and painted, the question of shields comes roaring back into focus. I wasn't thrilled about the idea of freehanding the shields and was debating trying to make my own decals when, while perusing Koyote's beautiful Pagan Rus, here on Lead Adventure, he mentioned some 3d printable shields from Rodge (who runs the SAGA Thorsday Podcast). I printed about 25 to start. These have very slight relief and basically allow for a more paint by numbers approach. They mostly all curled while drying but seem to have dried and cured flat. 

First, masking taped on to an old filament roll and the backs are given a spray of Vallejo Leather Brown Primer

Flipped and given a light grey primer

And finally painted in place

I picked color palettes based off the shield transfers. They certainly get the job done. I'm just about done with the warlord and his banner bearer, I'm about half way thru the warriors already. I also 3d printed some saga dice to use but will go back and get the official ones if we end up getting in to it. 

I've got some real grand ambitions for terrain for this one but wanted to at least start the project log before I bog down it. 

Fantasy Gaming (4) - A City Fit for a King

 I've been threatening to play Mordheim for years now. One of the big barriers to entry however, for anyone familiar with the game/genre is the high amount of terrain needed. I've been printing scenery for it off and on for the last couple years and last weekend decided it was time to break it all out and get it painted for an upcoming mini Frostgrave campaign.

These were all painted with a friend on Saturday and I spent a few hours Sunday and Monday finishing them up. They could stand for a bit of a clean up especially on the wood color but en masse I don't think its really that noticeable. Quality, Quantity, Etc... 

The buildings are currently a mix of two manufacturers. The overwhelming majority are from the Shadowfey ruins set from Printable Scenery. The small corner ruins, small 2 floor corner ruins and the single building in the center with the iron bars on top are all from the Hexengarde range from Tiered World. 

There's still a few details to finish, but it's all very minor stuff. I think I'm going to do the clock face in brass instead of silver but I was rushing to finish before a work trip. I think there's one tiny roof section for one of the larger buildings I need to print. In short though this is all but done and ready to play. I was hoping to take some more set up table glamour shots but that will have to wait until I get a game out. 

For now most of the project fits neatly in this tub. I have a second tub for the wizards tower as well as eventual scatter, bridges, and other bits. 

I think we spent all told around 10 hours painting, but its all done and for that I'm quite happy. 

Fantasy Gaming (2) - First Test Building Done

 As mentioned in the original Fantasy Gaming post, there is a pretty long list of rulesets on my radar. One of the sort of "to-do" list items of my gaming and painting career as of late is to finally try Mordheim for example. I don't imagine it will be a ruleset I become obsessive over but as it does require quite a bit of terrain I figured it would make for a good project. 

I have about half a table worth of terrain printed so far. The buildings are a mix of Printable Scenery's Shadowfey Ruins and the Hexengarde range. This first building was one of the "scatter ruins" pieces from Hexengarde.

There are about 3 of us who are going to end up painting the whole board eventually so I kept the paint jobs incredibly basic. Subscribing to my usual "quality, quantity etc" line of thinking I figure that even though I could take this piece quite a bit further, it makes more sense to make it quick and easily replicatable, even for non hobbyists.

I primed in black, drybrushed gray over the stones, wet brushed on the burnt umber and unbleached titanium colors. painted on the metal bits and called it a day. 

I was a little hesitant to post this because I have no idea how soon were getting together to paint the rest of the stuff and it may be a while but because this building only took 33 minutes to paint and I could use a little more respite from the Dwarf project I wanted to crack this out and see how it looked. 

On the dwarf front. I have just half a unit of warriors and the copter left to paint from the original batch. However disaster struck yesterday. Like a moron I had been keeping the box of dwarves on the same bench as the printer. I guess it finally shook them loose and after picking up the pieces I was left with this

I have since reglued almost all of it back together. The bolt thrower is damaged and I havent tried to repair it yet. The king lost his arm and has been mended. Almost everything else was just regluing to bases thankfully. I had just stuck the figures directly into the wet vallejo putty which as you can see was not a strong enough bond at all.

Anyway, we're nearing the end of this first milestone with them and I'm looking forward to showing the "completed" force pretty soon.