Ponatowski's Legions

Looking Back & Looking Ahead

2011-12-26T14:15:00.000-08:00

It’s that time of the year again…a time to look back on the year that was, and a time to look forward to the new year ahead…

Looking back, I have to say that 2011 was a “mixed bag” on the hobby/gaming front. It had several positives like:

Finishing 2nd in the Gathering In The Desert LOTR tournament which earned me an invite to the GW sponsored Throne of Skulls event in Vegas

Getting in a lot more games than the previous year. In 2011 I played a lot of Lord of the Rings and also a significant amount of Flames of War. I also played 15mm ancients using Might of Arms, got my feet wet with Clash of Empires using 28mm ancients, played some 28mm American Civil War, played Warmaster fantasy, 15mm Napoleonics, and a fair number of Command & Colors Ancients and Combat Commander board games.

Playing in my first Flames of War tournament using the 2nd edition rules (and now 3rd edition is on the horizon), and actually finishing 2nd which qualified me for the US Nationals; I will be going to Adepticon in Chicago in April to play in the Late War Nationals.

Contracting out some painting work to help clear up some of my pile o’ lead resulting in me having a large 15mm Mongol army as I posted on this blog and a really nice 10mm Orc army for Warmaster, both painted by Tim K at Saguaro Painting Service (with pics of the Orcs on that blog), as well as a nice 15mm German Panzer Company painted by Robert as documented on his Drunken Samurai Painting blog.

Clearing out some armies and misc. hobby stuff that I know I’d never use again.

On the negative side of the “mixed bag” for 2011 are the following:

As of yet not finishing the 28mm Republican Romans I’m painting up for Mike; the good news is that I’m working on the last of the infantry and have the cavalry all prepped & primed and ready to go.

As of yet not finishing the 17 chariots for the 28mm Mitanni army I’m working on; I had Tim K at Saguaro Painting Service base paint the chariots and horses for me and now I just need to go through and add some extra detail and color, mount the crews and do the basing and they will be done…after years of languishing…

Throne of Skulls LOTR tournament; as I previously posted, I like seeing a lot of the regular LOTR players, but really was disappointed in the scoring, the scenarios, and some of the cheese-ball army compositions that were there.

Not posting as much to this blog as I would like to; I would like to do more battle reports and post more pictures of stuff I have.

Not deciding upon a “Tom Project”. Let me explain this one…at one point in my gaming life I had a couple of projects that were mine…I could bring everything needed for the game from terrain to all of the painted figures needed to play, and I could host multi-player games in doing so. I can still supply both sides and terrain for games like Flames of War or LOTR or 28mm & 15mm ancients, but none of these are unique to the group of guys that I game with most frequently. I spent quite a bit of 2011 looking into various projects such as Eastern Renaissance/TYW, 10mm or 15mm WWI, 10mm or 15mm Russo-Polish War, and 15mm modern “what-if” or ”imagi-nation”. Maybe I’ll finally decide on one of these in 2012.

As for the year ahead, I think it’s going to be a good year. I hope to continue to game on a regular basis like I’ve been with the games I’m going to focus on for the first few months of the year being: Flames of War (with the new edition coming out and having to get some practice in for the Nationals in April), Clash of Empires in 28mm (I want to play more often and get some more of the locals interested if possible), Command & Colors Ancients – Miniature (several of the guys are giving serious consideration to doing 28mm forces to convert the board game to miniature and I’m jumping onto this and will be doing a Greek army for this project), and 28mm American Civil War (once I get the Rebs based up and ready to go I plan on getting in more games of Action Front and give Black Powder consideration too). After spring has come and gone, I’ll see where I’m at and take it from there; I have a lot of armies started that I need to finish as well as armies that I haven’t started that I would like to, and then of course there is always terrain to do…it never ends. As for acquiring new stuff in 2012, I’m sure I’ll pick up figures for at least one more project with the leading candidate right now being 28mm Napoleonics; I purchased the Waterloo set of rules and want to give them a try. Another possible candidate is doing some smaller fantasy games using 15mm minis with a set of rules like HOTT or Basic Impetus - Fantasy or ??? Only time will tell what I end up accomplishing in 2012, but I'm fairly confident it will be at a minimum the same amount as I did in 2011...

American Civil War Game - "Action Front"

2011-11-28T17:47:00.001-08:00

On Sunday I got in an American Civil War game against Joe D who has a really nice collection of 28mm figures for the war. All of the troops in the pictures are his except for the 114th PA which is mine. The figures are from Sash & Saber primarily with some being Old Glory, the buildings are from Old Glory, the roads are from JR, the fences are refinished Pegasus Hobbies fences, and the tree stands and hills were made by a few of the local guys.

We each ran a brigade of 4 regiments with an attached battery. Joe ran the Rebs and I ran the Union. Joe's brigade outnumbered mine, but he had a couple of "Fresh Fish" regiments and his battery was Veteran whereas my units were all Experianced. We used a set of rules being developed by Don E. who has a great ACW blog called "Action Front" http://actionfront.blogspot.com/

We hadn't played in a while so decided to march our troops on to get used to maneuvering again. Once we came to blows things turned to the Union advantage fairly quickly mostly due to Joe's decision to lead with a Fresh Fish regiment and his really poor dice rolling. All in all it was a fun game (helped because I won) and I am certain that Joe will be looking for a rematch soon!

The brigades march on...

The lines form...
Union infantry passes through the battery...

CHARGE!

A bloody repulse!

15mm Old Glory Mongols

2011-11-06T18:37:00.000-08:00

Here are the 15mm Mongols that were painted by Tim K at Saguaro Painting Service (http://saguaropainting.blogspot.com/). Like the Medieval Russians in my previous post, Tim did a good job on these and I simply did touch-ups, some highlighting to my liking, and the basing (boy, am I glad the basing is over with...the trouble is I have a ton more to do!). The Mongols will be the heart of this army and the Russians will just compliment it as an allied contingent from time to time.

Mongol Heavy Cavalry & Generals

Mongol Light Cavalry

Allied Light Cavalry (Cuman figures)

All of these figures are Old Glory 15mm based on Litko bases. The allied Light Cavalry are Cumans and are suitable for a wide variety of armies. There are 24 stands of Mongol Heavy Cavalry, 30 stands of Mongol Light Cavalry, 12 stands of allied Light Cavalry and 3 Mongol General stands.

15mm Old Glory Medieval Russians

2011-11-06T18:23:00.000-08:00

Several months ago I contracted with Tim K of Saguaro Painting Service (http://saguaropainting.blogspot.com/) to paint up a 15mm Mongol army with Russian Allies. Tim did a nice, quick job and the figures look the part of a battle tested force. Well...once I got them back, they just sat there...you see, in case I haven't said this before, I LOATHE basing figures!!!! I did start to work on them slowly and did some touch-ups and highlights, which is much easier than painting the entire figure (that's for sure). I finally got around to finishing up the basing this weekend, so here's the Russian allied contingent that will serve their Mongol overlords well (hopefully!).

Russian Heavy Cavalry Closeup

Russian Heavy Cavalry

Russian Heavy Infantry

Russian Archers

Russian Skirmishing Crossbowmen

All of these 15mm figures are from Old Glory and are mounted on Litko bases for the Might of Arms set of rules. I look forward to their first battle. There are 9 stands of Heavy Cavalry, 1 General, 9 stands of subheavy infantry, 9 stands of subheavy crossbowmen, 12 stands of light/medium bow & 6 stands of skirmishing crossbows.

28mm American Civil War - Samples

2011-08-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm finally emarking on a project that I've really wanted to get to, 28mm American Civil War. My goal is to be able to do a refight of the Peach Orchard at Gettysburg on the upcoming anniversary. This will take a lot of figures, so with that in mind I painted up some samples to send off to a painting service to get painted. While doing this I realized a couple of things: one being the Union troops, though boring to paint, are very easy to paint due to the limited color pallet, and the other being that artillery crew for both sides are also easy to paint because they don't have a lot of equipment on them. As a result of this, I'm going to send over 200 Confederates and just one unit of Union infantry to get painted, and I'll paint the bulk of the Union and artillery crew myself.

So, here are some pictures of the samples I painted.

All of the models are from Sash and Saber which are very nice castings; very clean, with little if any flash and good detailing.

So with my decision to paint up the bulk of the Union and artillery crew, I've decided to send a fairly large 28mm Byzantine army off to get painted as well. I've recently started playing Clash of Empires and my interest in 28mm ancients has been sparked again.

More updates to follow as I work toward finishing up some projects and starting some new projects.

More 28mm Republican Romans

2011-07-31T12:22:00.000-07:00

Well I finished up 48 28mm Republican Romans for Mike. These figures are from Crusader Miniatures and paint up nicely IMO. These are all sword armed figures; the next 48 will be armed with pila with the exception of the command figures.

I'm going to take a brief break from the Romans and work on some other things for a while. More updates to follow when I get stuff done!

15mm Late War German Panzer Company Finished

2011-07-16T08:22:00.000-07:00

A while back I worked out a deal with Robert from the Drunken Samurai Painting Blog http://dspaintingblog.blogspot.com/ where he would paint up a Late War German Panzer Company for me in exchange for a bunch of dwarfs for Lord of the Rings. He did a great job in painting up the force and documenting it on his blog. I picked up the Germans last week and they look better in person than on the 'net. I look forward to getting them on the table. I did have one little piece of work to do on the army and that was to base up the infantry that he had painted for the Aufklarungs Platoon. Eventhough I hate basing because I find it so tedious at times (probably because I always seem to end up basing entire armies instead of just a few stands), I dove right into this because I wanted the force done. Below is the infantry for the force all finished!

This force consists of 10 PzKw IVh's, 3 Panthers, 2 Tiger I's, a 2 squad Aufklarungs Platoon and 3 SdKfz 10/5 AA halftracks. I will use it primarily for Flames of War but can use it for other rules as well.

I seem to be getting back into the groove when it comes to working on miniatures. I've almost completed 48 more Romans for Mike's army and I'm going to start work on basing some other stuff up and getting some samples painted so I can send some figures off to get painted; so stay tuned, hopefully the next update won't be far off.

"Throne of Skulls" Thoughts

2011-06-20T22:39:00.001-07:00

Well, having attended my first GW "event", I have some observations and thoughts on my experiance.

Things I liked:

Seeing and talking with players I've gotten to know at Gathering in the Desert

Facing tough opponents

The food; good catering

Winning a random door prize of 3 Lord of the Rings "command" boxes

The venue (Vegas!)

Things I didn't like:

The fact that some guys played against each other in 2 out of the first 3 games and got a bonus point for it; there were enough armies (24) in the tournament to allow for no rematches on the first day of the tournament.

Not having good vs. evil for the first round; again, there were almost enough armies from each "side" to allow for that in the first round. Instead it was Gondor vs. Gondor, Isengard vs. Isengard and Moria vs. Moria for some of the first round match-ups.

The format. There were only wins, losses and draws; there were no "minor" or "major" category for either wins or losses. I guess I've been spoiled by the effort that Tim K goes through at GITD and other organizers that I've heard about at other Independant tournaments have taken to give players interesting yet challenging scenarios for LOTR.

The scoring. It seemed kind of mysterious to me...no painting...no sportsmanship (just a single vote for the "favorite game" which was just weird IMO).

The results/awards. Besides taking so long to give out the awards, I think that for being a "core" game, LOTR got shorted. For WHFB and 40k, each distinct army present that has an official codex had a best general award, even if there was only 1 or 2 armies from that faction participating. This didn't happen for LOTR with only a best "good" and a best "evil" general and a best overall given. It just doesn't seem consistent to me; the LOTR players traveled just like players from those other systems and should have been given the same consideration.

Things I'm undecided about:

The terrain. The battle boards were nice as were the ruins, but I didn't like the tree bases or all of the fences...apparently there are abandoned farms throughout Middle Earth with random fences everywhere. Now I understand trying to make the terrain consistent for a tournament setting such as this, but again I guess I'm spoiled by the themed terrain Tim K puts out for GITD and that I know others also put a lot of effort into.

The paint scoring. Two of the three armies that won awards for painting in LOTR were nice, but I felt there were a couple of others that were clearly nicer. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder I guess.

Other thoughts:

If I qualify for next year's TOS, will I go to Memphis? If I had to decide right now, no I wouldn't go. The event wasn't bad, but I expected something more...this just was "eh"...ok. Now, when the time comes and if I had an opportunity to go, I probably would just to catch up with everyone and hope to get in some challenging games, but only time will tell on that.

I'm not sure if I like 700 point games. Until this tournament I've only played at 350, 500 and 600 points. Out of those I honestly like 350 point games the best. I saw some of the games at 700 points end in draws because both players were at max model count and it took so long to deploy, move, shoot and fight that those armies couldn't hope to break an opponent in the alloted time. This point level also gives some players additional leeway to take even odder, more strangely configured (IMO) armies than at lower point levels. LOTR is a skirmish game and I've always felt that the forces on the table should reflect lower level battles from the books and not turn into min-max combinations where players cherry pick certain troop types and ally them with another certain troop type from another army just to win. I mean, why can't people try to win with common troops or troops from just one list? Isn't that more of a measure of how good of a player you are instead of spending hours figuring out great combinations from various lists that will be ultra-competative? Of course, this doesn't apply to all of the armies that were there...there were some very solidly themed armies, but there were several others that left me scratching my head.

Lord of the Rings "Tournament of Skulls" Recap

2011-06-20T21:33:00.000-07:00

When I finished second overall at this years Gathering in the Desert Lord of the Rings Tournament, it earned me a spot in this "Throne of Skulls" tournament that Games Workshop was running for the first time in North America. Luckily for me the TOS was in Las Vegas which is only 4+ hours from Phoenix so of course I was willing to make the trip; combine that with the fact that I was married in Vegas...by Elvis of course...and my wife agreed whole-heartedly with me attending the TOS while she gambled and shopped of course! So last Friday, we picked up Tim K who had also been invited and made the drive up. I took my Isengard Raiders list with Mauhur leading 28 scouts, 6 feral Uruk-hai, 8 warg riders and Saruman tagging along with hopes of finishing in the middle of the pack.

I enjoy LOTR and was looking forward to talking with, and hopefully playing against, a lot of the people that have made the journey to GITD over the years. I was also looking forward to seeing how GW ran an event as I had never been to anything "official". Here's a quick rundown of the tournament which I will follow-up with some general comments at the end:

Registration - Though the line seemed long initially on Friday night, I think registration went smoothly. We got little "goody" bags along with our badges and schedules. I got a tape measure, a bag of LOTR blue Gondor dice and a GW water bottle. Not bad.

Saturday morning - Breakfast was provided at the venue in the Tropicana and was scheduled to be from 7am to 8am, but there was apparently a disconnect as the Tropicana staff thought it was to start at 8am. Eventually the hungry gamers prevailed and opened the serving lines up by themselves. Nice continental breakfast.

Game 1 - The first scenario was "Clash of Piquets" and I drew Mike B. who had made the journey from Floriday for TOS. Mike ran a combined Isengard Raider & Goblin list; he had Ugluk, 17 feral Uruk-hai, some scouts and a bunch of goblins including prowlers and maxed out at 75 models. This was a bad match up for me because from experiance I have to be able to concentrate my force and pick my spot; being outnumbered by 31 models pretty much killed me in this scenario and I was doomed from the start. Mike wins.

Lunch - Well, lunch started on time. It was basically build your own sandwich and the food was again good.

Game 2 - The second scenario was "Storm the Camp" and I drew Josh L and his Galadrim elf list. I figured I'd have a chance in this scenario if I could close with Josh before I was shot up by his S3 bowfire. Unfortunately for me, Josh's dice were "hot" and he killed 6 Uruks in his first turn of direct fire (after killing some in volley fire before that)...and when I finally closed with his line preventing him from firing at me it seemed every time I rolled a 6 in melee he would match it and win due to FV5. Another loss (see a trend developing?)

Game 3 - Well the last game of the day was "Domination" and because of my excellent performance in the first two games I played the "Ringer" army in the third game. The "ringer" was being run by Price who had made the trip from Memphis with the other GW staff. It was Easterlings with Khamul on a fellbeast along with some Khandish mercenary cavalry. This was a game where fate was against me. I left my archers securing one objective, sent a small force after the 6 archers Price moved toward the objective on my left and sent my wargs off to the right against the Khandish mercs and Khamul while Mauhur and Saruman drove up the center of the table toward the far objective. It was close initially, but my 7" move for the scouts came in handy in this game and I got the Easterling army to break when I had secured 2 objectives; now I just needed the game to continue a couple of turns and watch as some of the Easterlings failed their Stand Fast rolls so I could get one more objective; unfortunately the scenario has a variable end and Price rolled a "2" at the end of the turn he broke and the game ended in a draw...I needed one more turn for the win...oh, well...

Dinner - My wife was done with her day at the spa, shopping and gambling so she joined me for dinner at the venue. It was very good and we both really liked it. There was plenty of food and I don't think anyone went hungry.

Day 2, Game 4 - Well I was doing really poorly and hoped to get at least one win on the second day. I knew that it would be a challenge when I saw I was facing Gary L in the "Seize the Prize" scenario. I had faced Gary a couple of years ago at GITD and he is a tough, friendly, player that doesn't make mistakes and plays to win. Gary ran a "White Company" list with the upgraded Faramir, Eowyn and Beregond leading a bunch of Osgiliath veterans and rangers. The modified scenario required the artifact be exited off of the opponents edge to win. With my speed and Gary only having one mounted model (Faramir) I hoped that I could work some magic. It really turned into a meat grinder for both of us and the re-roll from Faramir won Gary quite a few combats. The key turning point, for me at least, was actually fairly early in the game. I had a clear line of sight to Faramir with Saruman and I tried to Sorcerous Blast him to get him off of his horse; he ended up using all of his will and might to resist. After that Gary thought about moving him, but left him in place which gave me an opportunity. Gary appeared to be lining Faramir up for a charge and had left a gap in his line through which Faramir could move; well on the next turn I caste Compel using 2 dice knowing that he couldn't resist and I was positioned to be able to surround Faramir and hopefully do some damage to him. No such luck as I rolled snake eyes and Faramir thumbed his nose at Saruman. I did manage to dig up the artifact and hand it off to Saruman and tried to break through on the far left only to die to a man. Good, challenging game that I could have won...

The last game of the tournament left me matched up with Eric Roof's Dwarf army. Eric runs Conquest Miniatures and produces wonderful figures. The scenario was standard "Meeting Engagement". We traded casualties for the first part of the game, but I think I peeled off too much of my strength to my left in an effort to surround 4-6 dwarfs Eric had moved there to shield his ballista. I had an opportunity for glory when I managed to get Sorcerous blast off at the start of my move that took down his King's Champion, the 2 accompanying banners and Dain! I immediately swamped all of those figures hoping to get some wounds in on them and keep them on the ground...sadly, my dice failed me because eventhough I won all 4 combats, I didn't do a single wound...and that's with rolling double dice with multiple attacks from ferals and Mauhur on each figure!!!! Ugh...sadly for me...after that the dwarfs stood up and just went to work. Eric broke me and though I had him close to break I reached 25% pretty quickly after I was broken. Good game against a good opponent.

After the last game ended at 330pm they did a quick Q&A session without many answers and though the schedule said awards were supposed to be given out at 430pm we were told to be back at 515pm for the awards. I didn't like the delay because we were leaving right after the awards to drive home. Well 515pm came and went and they finally started on the awards just before 6pm, and though they went through them quickly I don't think it made up for the huge delay.

Next post will be on some general thoughts about the TOS...

Another LOTR Isengard Additon

2011-05-28T18:16:00.000-07:00

Well, I've finished off another figure for my LOTR Isengard Uruk-hai scouts, Mauhur. He's a character from White Dwarf that benefits from a 7" base move which can be used in rough terrain, and for 1 point each other scouts in an army be upgraded to "marauders" with the same movement bonus. I've only used him on one game and found the extra movement beneficial.

Up next on the painting bench are 48 more 28mm Republican Romans for Mike, some 28mm American Civil War for myself, basing some already painted 15mm figures, and some Warmaster Dwarfs for Al.

28mm Roman Triarii

2011-05-11T20:30:00.000-07:00

Well, it goes without saying, but I've been in a definite painting funk for the past few months and I think I'm finally snapping out of it. This week I finished off a couple of units of 28mm Republican Roman Triarii by Crusader Miniatures. These are part of a paint-for-trade deal that I'm working on completing for my friend Mike. I previously completed the Velites for the army and will begin working on the Hastati, Princeps and Cavalry eventually (first I'm going to do some 15mm WWII for Mike). I really liked painting these figures once I got into the flow. The sculpts are nice and they are pretty straight-forward without intricate detail.

Next up, besides the 15mm WWII for Mike, is completing my LOTR army for the "Throne of Skulls" tournament in Vegas in June. I actually finished second overall at this year's Gathering in the Desert. I've only got one new figure to paint and some touch-ups on my Uruk-hai Raider/Scout force to do and I'll be done. After that is done, then I'm not sure what else will be next...but it's good to finally be thinking about painting again.

Lord of the Rings: Isengard Additions

2011-02-12T13:56:00.000-08:00

Well, the Gathering in the Desert Independant Lord of the Rings tournament is next weekend and I finished a few figures to go along with the army I'll be running. At one point in time I was delusional and thought I could run a completely new/different army each time this annual tournament came around, but reality set in and I simply don't have the time for that; plus, I really like the two armies I have completed, Rohan and Isengard scouts. This year I decided to stick with the Isengard Uruk-hai scouts, but with a twist. I was inspired by the "A Dark Day in Rohan" scenario in White Dwarf 362 to run Saruman with a bunch of scouts in the mission to meet Dunland chieftan Thrydan Wolfsbane. So here's Saruman who will be the leader of my force in the tournament. I've previously posted pics about the Uruk-hai in the army, so you can check back to see pictures of them.

Saruman will start the game mounted and I have the foot figure ready for when/if his horse becomes an arrow-catcher.

Tim K, who is running the tournament has some sort of "emissary" scenario where a regular foot model that isn't part of your main army needs to exit the board and I wanted to get one of the Uruk-hai scouts carrying Merry or Pippin from the Amon-hen box, but the only place I've seen them is up on Ebay and I keep losing out on the auctions. Faced with not having those figures, I had 2 options: 1) paint up and use Grima as the emissary, or 2) use some other unique figure. I decided against Grima because I didn't want to possibly confuse my opponent, so I went with "A Mighty Orc Warrior" pictured below!

So, I'll be bringing a knife to a gunfight again...the army is predominantly D4 & D5 which isn't good when I'll be facing Defence 6 armies for the most part with the same or higher Fight value. The strength of the Uruk scouts will help, but being outnumbered won't help. Isengard and Rohan are the two Lord of the Rings armies that have suffered the most from stat creep in the game and that likely isn't going to change any time soon. I like the armies and I'll keep playing them because of that and if I win a few games it will make it all the more sweeter! And after running Isengard for 2 years in a row, I will likely switch back to Rohan next year...

Flames of War Afrika Korps Completed!

2011-01-17T09:54:00.000-08:00

Well, as I've mentioned on more than one occaision I've had a cloud hanging over me in the form of an unfinished DAK army for Flames of War; I have finally removed the cloud! I just got done dulcoting the trucks for the army that have taken so long for me to complete. They are a mixture of Old Glory and Battlefront; I have to say I like the Battlefront single piece resin trucks better than the Old Glory from the standpoint of not having to assemble them! While I was at it I put a wash on the tanks and guns for the army...as you can see in my post from October 2009, the tanks were a bit light for my liking once I got them on the table, so I put a brown ink wash on them and they look much better. So that's one thing done from this year's list!

Hello 2011!

2010-12-31T09:59:00.000-08:00

Wow...2 posts in 2 days...a good way to end the year I guess! So...having taken a bit of time to look back on my gaming efforts in 2010 I now turn to looking forward into what I'd like to accomplish in 2011. I had 10 items on my list for 2010 and I did ok, so I think I'll shoot for 10 more things in 2011. Here they go in the order I'd like to get them done:

1-Finish the freaking DAK for FOW! Ugh...this has been hanging out there for me and I just have a little ways to go, so I'm going to focus on it and get it out of the way so it's no longer haunting me!

2-Paint the rest of the 28mm Republican Roman Army for Mike. I have the velites done and the triarri preped and primed, so I'm looking forward to getting this done.

3-Assemble, paint and game with the Dystopian Wars Prussians I got. The models are very nice and the rules look good...just need to get ready to play!

4-Paint some 10mm Warmaster Dwarfs as part of a trade. This will be the first 10mm stuff I've painted in a number of years since I did a bunch of WWII (before moving to 28mm then 15mm); I'm looking forward to it because the figures are nice and should paint up quickly.

5-Base up the 15mm Mongol army for Might of Arms that Tim K from Saguaro Painting Service (see links section) painted for me.

6-I have 3 projects currently being completed by other people as parts of various trades. I'm in no rush to get them back because as you can tell I have a ton of other things to do, but when I do get them back I aim to do any completion work (namely basing) right when I get them back and not put them on the shelf in an incomplete state. Having stuff in an incomplete state is driving me crazy because I have too much of it already!

7-Begin working on the 15mm Polish FOW army I have. This army is for the Polish 10th Mechanized Brigade and is all True North figures that I purchased from Old Glory.

8-Finish painting and base up the 15mm Marian Roman army I have for Might of Arms.

9-Work on getting some of the 28mm American Civil War figures and units I have done. I'd like to build the forces for the Peach Orchard at Gettysburg eventually. I have Barksdale's Brigade and Graham's Brigade organized, now I have to get them cleaned/prepped and decide whether I'm going to try to speed paint them myself or send them off to Sri Lanka to get painted.

10-Something else that I'm undecided about. One of my big problems is that I like a plethora of time periods, game scales, etc. and I don't know how many times I've invested in a game only to have my attention switch focus and end up selling/trading stuff I've never used. I doubt this will ever change for me when it comes to gaming interests, so I figure that this year there will be a project that pops up that I will focus on and begin work on...whether it ever sees the table...who knows! That said, several gaming possibilities keep entering my thoughts including: 28mm English Civil War, 28mm American Revolution, 15mm Fantasy, 10mm Eastern Renaissance/Thirty Years War, 15mm Modern African wars in an alternate setting, expanding my Daemonhunters for 40k when the new codex comes out, and who knows what else!

So, that's what I'm looking at for the upcoming year. It goes without saying that I want to be able to play games too! That's one good thing I managed to do in 2010 with games of 15mm and 28mm ancients, 15mm WWII, Lord of the Rings, 15mm Viet Nam, 28mm ACW, Legends of the Old West, and others being played. Considering that 4 items from my list entail finishing things that are already started, and 2 other items are doing things for other people, I think I can get through a lot of the list and have a productive 2011. Oh, yea...I'd like to try to record more on this blog too...just takes time!

Later,

Tom O

See Ya' 2010

2010-12-30T05:35:00.001-08:00

Well, I only managed 13 posts this year (14 if you count this one)...better than 2009 but not where I want to be. I've had some real life stuff taking up time and just haven't had that "hobby" drive I need to focus and do things consistently like paint and blog! That said, here's what I've done off of my "wish list" for 2010:

1-Finish Uruk-Hai scout army for LOTR: Done, but I will eventually be adding stuff to the army.

2-Do terrain for Gathering in the Desert 2010: Done. I've toyed with the idea of getting rid of the Osgiliath terrain because I no longer have armies for any game that fit that basing, but I still have it.

3-15mm Napolenics: Done...kind of...I ended up selling/trading what I had acquired off. The guys I game with have more than enough 15mm Nappy's and anything I was going to contribute would be duplication.

4-Finish Trucks for my DAK FOW Army: Work in progress...I'm a lot closer than I was last year...just some detailing and basing to do. I would have been done, but I did some additions to my 8th Army force and also additions to a Late War Soviet force that I acquired instead.

5-Chariots for Mitanni WAB Army: These have been passed off to Tim K to finish up as the final part of a trade that we entered into years ago.

6-40k Stormtroopers: Done...mostly...just have some detail and basing to do. This went to the back burner pending the new DH codex coming out.

7-WHFB Army: I have a Tomb King army that I had previously owned and I think I may get rid of it. I won't play WHFB competitively so I may just stick with my Dwarf Wars stuff when I get around to playing this game.

8-New 40k Army: Didn't happen...

9-Base up 15mm Marian Army: Didn't happen...but I did have Tim K paint up a 15mm Mongol army that I have to base up as well...so something did get done on the 15mm ancients front.

10-Start new game: I purchased stuff for Dystopian Wars...and I'm also thinking of Warmaster...

Well...it was an "ok" year...at least I got to play a lot more games than I thought I would. Now I'll mull over what I want to accomplish in 2011 and post that up when I get if figured out!

28mm Roman Velites

2010-09-04T10:14:00.001-07:00

Well I've been busy and not as dedicated to my painting efforts as I should be...that said, I have managed to get something done recently. Here are a couple of photos of some 28mm Roman Velites that I'm painting up for Mike as part of a trade. They are from Crusader Miniatures and were great figures to work with. They were easy and enjoyable to paint. Next up for Mike's Roman Army for WAB are the Triarii which I'll post pictures of when I've finished them. Eventhough I'm not painting as much as I'd like, I've been getting in about a game a week and having fun, so there's that!

28mm American Civil War - 114th Pennsylvania

2010-07-17T14:47:00.001-07:00

Here is the first completed unit for my 28mm American Civil War Union force. It's the 114th Pennsylvania Volunteers. The figures are a mix of 1st generation Old Glory and Sash & Saber. I purchased some of the figures (Old Glory) off of Bartertown a few years ago and sent the Sash & Saber off to Sri Lanka for painting (I hate trying to match paint jobs). I finally got around to basing the figures up and finishing them off...the flags are from GMB and they look very nice.

114th PA Color Guard

114th PA

I have plenty of other 28mm ACW to paint up. I'm going to try to work on the rest of the 1st Brigade/1st Division/III Corps from Gettysburg to start with, and then I'll likely move on to Barksdale's Mississippi Brigade. This is a long term project and I'm in no rush. I'll use the figures for either Johnny Reb III or for a set of rules that my friend Don is working on.

Warhammer 40k Stormtrooper Conversions

2010-04-26T12:38:00.000-07:00

OK, so as anyone can tell you (especially Robert from the Drunken Samurai Paiting Blog and Tim from Cursed Treasures) I am not much of a modeler, nor have I done a lot of conversions. I have a rather large Warhammer 40k Daemonhunter Army that I've been wanting to add some Stormtroopers too for quite some time, but I don't like the standard GW ones. I saw some various posts up on the 'net somewhere that inspired me to do the following conversions. I used plastic Cadians to which I added WHFB Knights of the White Wolf capes along with heads from the West Wind Secrets of the 3rd Reich range; the heads are French Adrian helmets with gasmasks and they look ok on the models. I also converted a couple of flamers into meltaguns as you can see below. I'm hoping these guys look better once they are painted...now I just have to decide on a paint scheme!

Fences Finished

2010-04-26T12:32:00.000-07:00

The Old Glory 28mm Russian Farmsteads I painted up for Gathering in the Desert came with some fences that I didn't finish in time. These are rather tall fences and will be of use for various era's. I'm thinking of coming up with a "firing step" to add along the inner side of the fence so 28mm figures can see over the top to shoot. As you can see by the test paint of the Warhammer Fantasy Tomb King archer below, the fences are a bit tall. And yes, Tomb Kings are my next major project.

More 2010 Gathering in the Desert pictures

2010-04-26T12:30:00.000-07:00

Here are a few other pictures from this years Gathering In The Desert. There were some really nicely painted armies there.

GITD Pictures

2010-04-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

Well, it's actually been a couple of months since the 2010 Gathering in the Desert for Lord of the Rings SBG and I'm finally getting around to posting a couple of photos I took. I took some notes, but can't find them so instead I'll just make a couple of observations that have stuck with me:

Tim and his wife Shannon did a great job in putting the event on. They were organized and everything went off without a hitch.
The players were top-notch; at least all of my opponents were. There were no "push-overs", that's for sure.
The tables looked great...thanks to everyone who contributed to the tables.
Armies and army composition are tough. Defense 6 and a tough character or two rule the day in the game now it appears. My forces for the past 2 years (Rohan and Uruk Raiders) have suffered greatly IMO at the hands of the dreaded "creap" as subsequent armies or armies with actual supplements have gotten better. Nothing like having a lower Defense, lower or the same Fight, Lower or the same Strength than your opponent AND being outnumbered!
Also, I know composition is tough, but some allied contingents always make me scratch my head...and I'll leave it at that.
Playing to the scenario is discouraging when your opponent would rather just focus on breaking your army and then can mop up and get extra points.
I'm not sure which army or if I'll play next year. I have always used a different/new army at GITD and I have unpainted Easterlings, Dwarves and Orcs that I could get ready for next year, but I need to take a step back and see if I want to play.

Well enough of that...here are some pictures.

GITD 2010 - Rohan Settlement Debut

2010-02-16T21:15:00.001-08:00

OK, so here is a possible lay out for my "Rohan" settlement for the GITD. It would look better on a mottled green and brown table, but all I had was green to chose from. The road, rivers and bridge are from JR Miniatures. The buildings are Old Glory. The Fences are from Pegasus (but have been repainted). I've had the hills for years; they were made by a local gamer (thanks Neil). And I did the tree pieces. They are Xmas tree armatures I got from Michaels...I brushed the snow off with an old toothbrush, sprayed them with Krylon camo brown, mounted them on some pieces of wood (also got from Michaels), stuccoed the bases and put some rocks down and then used Woodland Scenics foliage that comes in a small sheet that you unfold and cut and stretch. I think they look OK from a distance...less so from close up, but not bad. I didn't have time to replace or modify the roofs for the buildings in a true "Rohan" style....sorry...maybe next year.

GITD 2010 - The Return of Osgiliath!

2010-02-16T21:10:00.001-08:00

Well, I had set a date of February 1st to be done with my army and terrain projects for this year GITD...it turns out I needed a few extra weeks, but I got it done! Here are some pics of a possible layout for "the dreaded Osgiliath" table this year. I eliminated one of the larger buildings from last year and replaced it with the "weathertop" Hirst Arts kit I won last year. I also eliminated a few of the smaller building pieces and added more rubble. It still will be a challenging table for all hopefully. One note...the large 3 storybuilding doesn't have the floor pieces in it for these pictures...it will for the tournament though. See you all there!

GITD 2010 Terrain Progress Report 2: Rohan

2010-02-01T12:50:00.001-08:00

Well, here are some pieces that will likely be on the Rohan table I'm doing for GITD 2010. The great thing about these pieces is they can work for a wide variety of settings...I'm sure some will end up on the table when doing 28mm ACW as well as 28mm WWII Eastern Front! So, here's what I have so far:

Fences by Pegasus Hobbies, but I repainted them to fit in with the rest of the terrain. The bridge is from JR Miniatures. The sheds (there are actually 2) are from Old Glory and they have lift off roofs. The watering troughs are also Old Glory. I'm not sure where the well is from; it is resin and I've had it for a long time and I finally had a reason to paint it up.

Here are 2 Old Glory houses. These come from their Russian building range. As you can see the roofs lift off. The doors are metal and the buildings are resin. I tried to get the doors so they could open, but they it was impossible for me to do so...the combination of the size & weight of the door, the place to drill for rare earth magnets or pins, and the relatively thin resin at the bottom of the door defeated my feable modeling skills. So the doors are glued in...deal with it!

Here's a closer picture of one of the houses.

And a closer picture of the second house.

And here's a barn from Old Glory. It is similar to the house, but with a staw roof. I have 2 of these as well because they came in a set along with the shed and some large log walls that I will be painting up after the tournament. This is a little shiney because I had just gotten done putting a coat of spray polyeurothane on it. It will be dulcoted once it dries for a nice flat look.

The last pieces of terrain I have to finish off for the Rohan table are some woods...I'll put some pictures up once I finish them off.

GITD 2010 Terrain Progress Report 1: Osgiliath

2010-02-01T12:45:00.000-08:00

Well I've actually been doing pretty good with the terrain I've been working on for GITD 2010. Here's the Hirst Arts piece that I won last year for the Osgiliath table I did. Thanks again to Tim K. for putting it together for me. I did some light rubble on it. It will make a good addition to the Osgiliath table for this years tournament! Once I finish off the pieces for the Rohan settlement I'm doing for this year, I'm going to figure out how I'm going to rearrange the Osgiliath table.

Terrain for the 2010 Gathering in the Desert

2010-01-17T11:30:00.000-08:00

Last year I supplied a rubbled "Osgiliath" table for the Gathering in the Desert Lord of the Rings tournament. I received an award for the table which consisted of a nice kit from Hirst Arts. After much procrastination I finally broke down and had Tim K assemble the piece. I just got it back last week and added some rubble to it and just got done priming it. It will be part of a slightly modified "Osgiliath" table at this years GITD next month...many of the same pieces as last year will be there, but it will be reconfigured somewhat.

When I won that Hirst Arts piece, I got thinking about another table I could do at the same time I got thinking about what army I'd like to field. Since I all ready had a Rohan force and had some figures to start an Uruk-hai scout army, I figured I'd do a Rohan settlement. The settlement will have consist of pieces mainly from Old Glory, JR Miniatures, and Pegasus Hobbies along with some scratch built pieces. I spent this morning priming everything using Krylon Ultra-flat black and Ultra-flat brown (for the tree armatures). Now I just have a month to finish it! The good news is that I like painting terrain and can bust through it pretty quickly once I get it primed and ready to go. The hardest part will be the trees which I'll seperate into smaller groups, glue to bases (which will need additional detailing) and flock with leaves.

Here are some pics of what I have to tackle:

Wish me luck!

Cross One Off The List!

2010-01-17T11:20:00.000-08:00

Well, I can cross one of my "to do" items for 2010 off of the list...I finished up my Uruk-hai Scout Army up for Lord of the Rings. It also has some Dunland Allies with it. I was actually done a few weeks ago, but was under the weather and finally got around to takeing some quick pictures. So, here they are:

Sharku, some Orcs (for dismounted Warg riders), and some scouts

Some Feral Uruks, more Warg riders and scouts

Scouts and Warriors of Dunland
Lurtz, Ugluk, Vrasku, and Dunland Command

The Army

Now, there is over 600 points here and I have a few different list options that I've come up with. I have tested one list and I have a game scheduled tomorrow with Tim K and I'll try another one then. I still have some time to figure out how to configure the army, so that's good. I do feel that, like last year when I ran my all mounted Rohan force, I'm bringing a knife to a gun fight.

A New Year - 2010 resolutions?

2010-01-01T10:56:00.000-08:00

Well, the New Year and New Decade is here and though I haven't been updating this blog much I have actually been doing some gaming related activities. I had a target date of December 31st to finish off my Uruk-Hai scout army for LOTR, but I'm going to be a little behind on that...maybe this weekend...the reason I'm mostly behind is that I decided to do up another box of Warg Riders that I won at the Gathering In the Desert Primer event. So here's my "plan" (subject to change at any time, of course!) for 2010:

1-Finish the Uruk scouts for LOTR: I plan on taking pics and posting them next weekend.

2-Do a bunch of buildings from Old Glory and JR Miniatures, along with some accessories from Pegasus and a piece from Hirst Arts; I want to get this done by the end of January or so because I'll need this stuff for a couple of tables I'm supplying for the Gathering in the Desert.

3-Touch up and rebase a bunch of 15mm Napoleonics I got in a trade. I traded off a 25mm Early Imperial Roman army for these troops since some of the local guys have started playing Napoleon's Battles and Shako II. I'll likely trade/sell off the Russians I got so I can expand the French and Poles I have.

4-Finish up the 15mm DAK trucks for my FOW army.

5-Finally finish up the chariots for my 25mm Mitanni army for WAB.

6-Get some figures suitable for 40k Stormtroopers to add to my Daemonhunter Army.

7-Start on a Warhammer Fantasy Army: I have a large number of Dwarf Wars figures that I can proxy as either an Orc army or an Empire army based on how they are armed, but lately I've been thinking of starting either a Skaven or a Dark Elf army instead.

8-Start on another 40k army: I have my Grey Knights and I think I will start off by adding IGuard and Space Marine allies with possibly expanding these to full blown armies in the future. I'm also interested in Eldar and Dark Eldar though too...

9-Finish off and base up a 15mm Marian Roman army that was painted by Philgreg painters in Sri Lanka. This is for Might of Arms...a good game which I hope to play more of this year.

10-Commit to one "new" game...I'm thinking this will be Uncharted Seas, but we'll see.

That's all for now...hopefully I'll have the time (once my son's basketball season is over with at least) to update the blog more frequently.

Happy New Year!
Tom

More DAK and "What's Next?"

2009-10-08T08:20:00.000-07:00

OK, so here are some more (poor) pictures of my 15mm DAK Flames of War army. It's playable; I just have to finish up the detailing on all of the softskin transports. Infantry are Battlefront, Tanks are Old Glory and the guns are from both manufacturers.

So, now that I'm pretty much done with that, "what's next?" Well, I'm working on another Lord of the Rings army that I'll be using in the February Gathering in the Desert (pictures of that when I get further in the project). I also want to do some terrain for the event; I like having deadlines in some cases because it motivates me. I've also started collecting up models for a 40k Space Marine Army I want to do.

Until next time...hopefully it won't be 7 months!

Busy, but not dead...

2009-10-08T08:03:00.000-07:00

So it's been forever since I posted to this blog...I've just been busy with "real life" for the most part. Work has been "interesting" since April when I got a "temporary" promotion due to a manager leaving; after doing the job for 3 months I had to interview for it and luckily I got it...promotions from people leaving are the only way people working for the State of Arizona are going to get raises in the forseeable future. I also had a busy summer due to my oldest son playing on a club basketball team, including a trip to Vegas.

In addition to "real life" time commitments, I've strayed into another hobby and started collecting sports cards again. Right now I'm working on some sets and also collecting players from the teams I follow (Red Sox, Falcons, Suns and Syracuse). That "hobby" certainly has changed since I was a kid and there was only Topps to deal with, that's for sure!

As for gaming, I had the wind knocked out of my sails in the spring when it was announced that Warhammer Historicals editor Rob Broom was made "redundant" WHW would become part of Forgeworld. At the time WAB 2.0 was looking good and was on trackI thought; since then...well, nothing. From what I understand from talking to various authors and testers that were working on various WHW projects non-communication from the new powers that be is the new "norm". I don't know when, or if, 2.0 will see the light of day, and even if it does if there will be any follow-on supplements released. I am helping a friend on some ACW rules that are supposed to be done by WHW, but that's the extent of my involvement. The saddest part of this is that after years of no real releases and all of this crap going on, WAB, a game that I really enjoy and a game I've supported with endless hours of testing, emailing, proof-reading, and defacto editing is pretty much dead locally and even if 2.0 come out I'm not sure it will ever get back to where it was. I'm even looking at other rule sets now so I can use my 25mm armies and have some opponents.

Well, enough about the negative...time to focus on the positive...I have managed to finish up most of my 15mm Afrika Korps army for Flames of War (tanks are from Old Glory and infantry from Battlefront):

DONE!!!!!!!

2009-02-16T17:41:00.000-08:00

Well, I can FINALLY say it...MY ROHAN ARMY IS DONE!!!! (actually shouted it...sorry!). I've been working on this army for a while now with the aim of getting the entire army done in time for the Gathering in the Desert Lord of the Rings tournament which is this upcoming weekend. I took some time on this army with some extra highlighting that I normally don't do when I'm painting "assembly line" style. I also didn't just do the figures that I needed for the tournament...I did every single Rohan model I had, including extras that I won't be using this weekend, so that's good. Oh, and I did up a small display board which blends in with the figure bases and I can use to carry the army from table to table with. Each of the mounted models in the entire force has a dismounted figure...some of the shields are not the same, but the entire force comes out to be: Theoden, Gamling, Eomer, Eowyn, Captain, Standard, 6 royal guard, 10 bow armed riders, and 20 throwing spear armed riders (again, all of these have dismounts...oh, and I have a dismounted Merry too).

Sneak Peak of my GITD Tournament Army:

Another view of my GITD Tournament army:

Yet another view of my GITD Tournament army:

The entire Rohan Army:

It feels good to "finish" something...as with all projects, I'm only done with them until the urge hits me to add more to them!

Late Roman Infantry

2009-02-04T05:50:00.000-08:00

OK, so here are the Late Roman infantry for my WAB army. I haven't had good success with the army as it's hard to be successful with it without using the Warlord list from the Fall of the West book; a straight up Late Roman army as I use it just doesn't pack too much of a punch. That said, that makes the victories that much sweeter!

Late Roman Infantry - Mixed Pedes and Archers

Another Mixed unit of Pedes and Archers

Armored Infantry Unit

Another Armored Infantry Unit

General and Army Standard Bearer

Well, that's it for now...take it easy...

Excuses, babbling, and Late Romans...

2009-02-04T05:26:00.000-08:00

Well, if I want to average one topic posting a week for 2009 I better get to it. I've been busy painting and had a slight distraction with the Superbowl (and all of the cooking for the mandatory party of course...pulled pork, brats and wings!) and eventhough I'm a Falcons fan I was rooting for the hometown team...it was a great game! To top it off I'm also getting into a good painting groove working on finishing up my Rohan for the Gathering in the Desert which gives me 17 days to finish the army up!

That said, I haven't had a chance to take any good pictures of stuff, so here's an army that I've had done for a number of years, my Late Romans for WAB.

Roman Cavalry and Infantry Command Figures: Gripping Beast
Hun Cavalry and Infantry Archer Figures: Old Glory
Roman Spearmen: Wargames Foundry
Shield/Standard Decals: Dark Age Design
Painting: Tom O.
Basing: John G.

I put this army together after getting a good deal on some Foundry Late Roman Spearmen. Though not the best supplement for WAB IMO, I used the Fall of the West army list to create this army. The mixture of figures from Foundry, Gripping Beast and Old Glory fit together nicely, even within units. And kudos to Darren at Gripping Beast in the UK who allowed me to mix and match packs in the Late Roman Cavalry package to get the mixture I wanted…great company to do business with and I highly recommend them.
I also have to give high praise to Dark Age Design for their shield decals. They look great...too bad they are no longer available... And lastly, thanks to John G. for doing the basing...I hate to base figures as I find it tedious so I bribed John to do it for me as he does a great job.
The army consists of: 10 skirmishing infantry, 2 units of 24 infantry (18 spear, 6 bow), 2 units of 16 infantry (I usually upgrade these to light armor, drilled, and heavy throwing spears as the Veterans are too expensive IMO), 2 units of 12 archers, 10 Hunnic light cavalry, 10 Roman horse archers, 10 Roman light cavalry, 10 Roman heavy cavalry, 12 Roman Cataphracts, a General, and an Army Standard Bearer.

Late Roman Heavy Cavalry

Late Roman Cataphracts

Hun Light Cavalry

Roman Light Cavalry screening the Heavies

Roman Horse Archers screening the Cataphracts

Next post will be the Infantry...

Lord of the Rings Rohan

2009-01-13T11:02:00.001-08:00

Well, I have just over a month to go before the Gathering in the Desert Lord of the Rings tournament. The only other LOTR tournaments I played in I used my Minas Tirith and had a blast; for this event, not only did I volunteer to do a terrain table of Osgiliath ruins, I decided I'd like to use it as motivation to finishing off one of the armies I had. I chose Rohan. As you can see from this first picture, I stll have a ways to go! I'm not just painting up the army I'll use in the tournament, but I'm painting the entire force. So there are more figures here than I'll be using in the event, but I won't have to worry about adding figures later to the army...though that may change when/if a Rohan book ever comes out. The "In Progress" figures include 10 archers, 10 hand weapon, 10 spear, dismounted Merry and both mounted and dismounted figures for: Theoden, Eomer, Eowyn, Gamling, Captain, Standard, and 6 Royal Guard.

The good news is that I'm done with the regular Riders of Rohan! I have 10 mounted archers and 20 mounted with throwing spears complete! I also have the horses done for the other mounted figures (except Gamling, Theoden and Eowyn). I oiled the horses and think they came out quite nice.

I did do some converting as I didn't have 20 throwing spear armed figures. I made spears out of brass wire and used them to replace hand weapons in some case, or to place behind shields on other figures to indicate they do indeed have throwing spears. I also did some other minor conversions like switching this figures sword for a hand axe.

Though this last picture didn't come out too well, I hope you can see that after the figure was done I went back and highlighted some of the cape, shield and metal. This added some nice contrast and it looks better in person than in these rushed pictures (I didn't take the time to set up my photobox today)...well, back to painting!

Pegasus Hobbies Terrain

2009-01-05T07:57:00.001-08:00

OK, here's the last pictures of the Osgiliath terrain that I'm doing for the Gathering in the Desert Lord of the Rings tournament. This first piece is by Pegasus hobbies and came all ready finished. I mounted it on the display board, rubbled it, repainted the small roof sections, and gave it another dry brush to help it blend in with the rest of the pieces I'm doing for this project. Each of the corners in this building come with 2 removeable floors which are not in place for these pictures.

Now this Pegasus hobbies piece was is a plastic kit that had to be assembled and painted; this is the only plastic kit I'll be using...everything else is resin. I didn't want another building ruin with the center collapsed like the one above, so instead I decided to set this one up with 2 adjacent corners still standing and make it a longer piece.

Crusader29 Terrain

2009-01-05T07:50:00.001-08:00

Here are some pieces I put together using resin Crusader29 terrain. This stuff started out as completed wall sections provided by Tim K (thanks Tim); Tim said he never thought he'd get around to using this stuff so he donated it to the Osgiliath project. I had to break apart the full wall sections and damage them some to get the look that I wanted. I also took modeling putty and filled in the inner facing of the walls; the outer facing has great detail, but the inner facing was recessed in the center and the edges were raised...this was due to how the molds were set up by the company. Using the modeling paste allowed me to give a stucco looking finish to the inner walls. Overall I am happy with how they turned out. Here are a couple of pictures of one of the ruins...there are more, but I only took pictures of this piece.

Armorcast Ruins

2009-01-05T07:40:00.001-08:00

Well, I've gotten some flak recently about not doing anything for myself except purging stuff from my collection...so to prove my nay-sayers wrong, here's some terrain I've been working on in support of the Gathering in the Desert Lord of the Rings tournament which will be held in February. I'm going to provide the terrain for a 4x4 ruined city representing the beaten and battered city of Osgiliath. I'm using terrain pieces from Armorcast, Pegasus, and Crusader29. I would like to thank Tim K for cutting the bases the building ruins are on. So, here are some of the pieces:

Armorcast ruines and ruined walls

Armorcast ruined cathedral
Another view of the cathedral

Armorcast ruined building

Another set of Armorcast ruins

2009 "To Do" List

2009-01-02T08:12:00.001-08:00

OK...I know...I know...it's been several months since I posted last...been busy, but that's no real excuse. One of the big issues for me is that I want to take decent pictures, but I have no conveniant place to do so...that's one of the things I'll work on this year. Here are some others:

1-Finish my Lord of the Rings Rohan army in time for the Gathering in the Desert tournament in late February. I have 30 riders complete...now I just need to do the characters and dismounts.

2-Post an average of one post per week on this long-neglected blog, so 52 posts for 2009 is my goal.

3-Finish the 17 chariots for my 28mm Mitanni army for WAB; this will complete the army.

4-Finish my 15mm WWII Afrika Korps. Fernando painted the infantry, but I have to do touch-ups and base them. I also have to assemble and paint all of the tanks, trucks, and guns.

5-Finish either the Babylonian or Andalusian armies I have for WAB. In this case Philgreg painters painted all of the infantry and cav riders, but I have touch ups to do and also have to paint several dozen horses for each (and a few chariots for the Babylonians) and do all of the basing (which is a tedious chore for me).

6-Finish up Mike's 28mm Flanders army for WAB.

7-Undecided. I will either do a 15mm army for Might of Arms or some 28mm ACW or who knows...maybe just a combination of things and start some new projects as the items I have listed previously make up the majority of the started projects that I haven't finished yet.

If I do anything "new" it's likely to be 15mm Napoleonics as I've been kicking that idea around for a while...though there are some other areas/periods I'm interested in as well.

Well, that's it for my 2009 "resolutions" for gaming I guess...of course, this list is subject to change based on my ever changing interests!

More Painting Stuff

2008-05-04T14:13:00.001-07:00

I figured that since I was doing some posting on painting, I'd fill you in on a few other things. One is Future Floor Finish. It's a clear acrylic that you can use to wash a figure with; much like "the Dip" in the previous posting. I mix mine 50-50 with water and add inks to use for shading figures; I haven't mastered it yet and I've ended up with either too much or too little ink in the mix from time to time. I like it because it does clean up with water and doesn't smell like "the Dip", but I haven't mastered it yet and it's still a work in progress for me as far as painting goes.

As for how I paint. With very few exceptions (like vehicles or 10mm stuff or terrain or figures on GW style bases) I mount my 15mm & 25/28mm figures on nails for painting. I have a few small boards that my friend Neil drilled out for me years ago and I just stick the nails in the holes. I even do this for horses. I like it because I don't have to touch the figure when painting and I have great control over the figure when painting; I tried the popsicle stick thing, but doing that just seems to cramp my hand after a while. The only negative is having to glue the figures to the nails and pop them off of the nails afterwards...doesn't take too much time, but it's a pain.

"The Dip"

2008-05-04T13:57:00.000-07:00

I've been using "the Dip" for several years now...oh, I can still "paint" and do so occasionally to prove to myself (and others) that I still can. "The Dip" is a manner of washing or staining a figure using Minwax Polyshades stain. I use Satin Tudor. Gloss does not stain as well and figures generally are still very shiney using the gloss...even after a coat of dulcote. The Tudor gives a good black shading to the figures, and the "poly" in "Polyshades" is for "polyeurothane" which protects your figures nicely...I can't recall ever having a scratch on a figure that has been "dipped". I do the washing out in my garage because between the dip and the "odorless" mineral spirits the fumes can be a bit much. I use a brush that I wet with mineral spirits to brush on "the Dip"...when I first started I would just dunk the figures in and let it run off of them and use a cloth to soak up the excess. I now brush it on and use the mineral spirits to help it flow when needed and also to lighten up areas that get too dark...you can go back over the figure for a few minutes after brushing on "the Dip"; don't wait too long though, especially out here in AZ as it can set up pretty quickly.
Here are some figures "pre-dip". They are 28mm and were primed white.

Here are the same figures "post-Dip"; hopefully you can see the difference with the shading that takes place. The figures are still wet so that's why they are as shiney as they are. They will still have a satin finish with some shine to it when completely dry, but then they get hit with Testor's Dulcote and the shine is gone.

More WAB Mitanni

2008-05-04T13:53:00.000-07:00

Here are the rest of the infantry for my 28mm WAB Mitanni Army that were painted by Fernando Enterprises. The javelinmen are Newline Designs, the Sea Peoples are from Old Glory, and the Phoenicians are from Foundry.

Javelinmen

Phoenicians
Sea Peoples

WAB Mitanni Infantry

2008-05-04T13:43:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of the start of my 28mm WAB Mitanni Army. The infantry are mostly from Foundry with some Newline Designs mixed in. I've had these guys for quite some time, but only recently based them up. I sent them to Fernando Enterprises in Sri Lanka to get painted and I think they did a good job. All of the infantry are done, but I have 17! chariots I have to paint up myself. I'll get cracking on those soon hopefully. The army will be mostly Mitanni with a Hittite allied contingent.

Archer Unit 1

Archer Unit 2

Archer Close-up

Hittite Spearmen
Mitanni Spearmen

I took these pictures in the portable photobox my wife got me for Xmas. I like it for taking pictures in...I seem to have less issues with focus than I did in the past; now my main issue is the lighting which I'm still working on as you can tell by the pictures. Maybe I'll get it, maybe I won't, but either way I don't think the pictures are awful.

New Gripping Beast

2008-04-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

I've got some Gripping Beast figures in some of my armies like my Late Roman Cavalry, some of my Vikings, and an unpainted Andalusian army. The Vikings and Late Romans are some of their older product and are "ok"...not great, but acceptable. The Andalusians are a bit better. Anyway, after gawking at their Carthaginians both online and at Historicon last time I went and looking at their Teutonics online and their Thematic Byzantines online and in Beyond the Golden Gate I couldn't resist anymore. I bought full Carthaginian, Byzantine, and Teutonic armies from them and I couldn't be happier. I of course won't use their spears as they bend too easily, but the sculpts are wonderful. The Teutonics are great...and I got some of their "late crusader" range to mix in and they look great too. Once I get these taken care of (years?) I'd definitely consider getting more of their new sculpted ranges like the Later Crusaders, Seljuk Turks, and Medieval Russians...

You can see pictures of the Gripping Beast figures at: http://www.grippingbeast.com/

And you can purchase them in the US through: http://oldglory15s.com/

Last of the Danes

2008-04-26T09:29:00.000-07:00

I wanted to show more of my Ulfhednar; the picture isn't the best, but it shows more of the variety in the unit. The Danes are as "done" as I'll ever be with an army...I've got more than enough troops to play a "standard" 2000 point game. If I ever start playing larger games I'll have to add more troops. I know that some in WAB think the Ulfhednar are "cheesy", but I don't use Beserkers in the army as I consider them the Beserkers. They are actually pretty easy to beat...there's nothing like getting an expensive unit shot up by 40 points of skirmishers!

Even More Danes

2008-04-26T09:24:00.000-07:00

Since it appears that I can only upload 5 pictures per post, I'll have one more post after this to put up to finish showing off my Danish WAB army.

Two Units of Hird:

More Hird:
The Fallen:
"Tiny" and friends:
Ulfhednar:

More Danes

2008-04-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

Here are more pictures of my Danes for WAB. The figures are a mix of Foundry and Gripping Beast...

More archers:

Another Bondi unit:

The General's Unit:
The Gestir:
A Hirdman Unit:

First Post and Danish WAB Army Pictures

2008-04-12T19:33:00.000-07:00

This is my first post to the blog and I think I'll be starting off by posting images of stuff I all ready have, starting with my 28mm Danish Army for Warhammer Ancient Battles. This army has been done for quite a few years and uses Foundry, Gripping Beast, and a few Black Tree figures in it. They all mix together well and I like the look of the army.

One of the archer unit leaders:

A unit of archers:

A nicely done Hirdman with a daneaxe:

A unit of Bondi spearmen:

The General and Army Standard: