Some finished Knights appear!

 Last night I put the final, finishing touches on those three knights, and here they are:

After the all-over-Agrax Earthshade wash, I highlighted the steel parts with Runefang Steel - a light drybrush. I then used one of the bone colours for a general, all over the figure highlight. For me, table top distance is the more important factor - not award winning painting. I am really pleased with these guys.

Below I just used that same bone colour to highlight everything. I am a bit done with these guys. I haven't played X-Com in a while, so my interest in these figures has waned. I also have no aliens for them to fight, nor do I have terrain for them to fight in.

Here are all of my steel-armoured figures. I absolutely love them, although the one time they have seen combat, they lost. My favourite is still probably the one on the far right, ot the guy in the middle. 

Knights of Non-Lockdown

 Hi, all. It has been over a month. In that time I have written part of a Soviet army list for Battlegroup, planned numerous times to paint or play something, and have played a few little card games with my wife and children. I missed the boardgame night, and the first few weeks of term are generally incredibly busy. I just haven't wanted to do anything. We had no TV for a while as my one-year-old broke the sound cable when he knocked the sound bar onto the floor, and that was bliss. I read my library book - still unfinished. Anyway, while on Zoom last night I forced myself to get my gear out and made progress on these three figures. 

The two on the left and middle are Perry Miniatures Wars of the Roses men-at-arms. The figure on the right is a Reaper Bones miniature. I painted his shield purple, and used purple hints on the other two to make some kind of faction if needed. Last night I also put the steel and some blue on another couple of guys.

All that remains for these is some steel dry brushing, then some highlights on that black cloak especially.

Paizo Goblins - definitely NOT Kobolds.

 It turns out a Kobold is a skinny lizardy humanoid. I had it in my head, maybe thanks to these miniatures, that they are little comical mini-goblins. These miniatures are the official Paizo (Pathfinder RPG) goblins. I thought they were just random Reaper Bones miniatures. 

These guys have been sitting around for a while. My issue is, I am used to painting 6mm figures, where you need the following: skin, max 2 colours of clothes (one if it is body armour), 1 colour for belts if you feel like it, a weapon, maybe hair. With 28mm I find you need so many different things that I get painting paralysis. 

Take this guy for example: steel for weapons and some bits of armour, orange skin, bone for teeth and skull, wood, leather, tongue,  a couple for clothes. It is just so many colours, and in such small amounts that I can't be bothered half the time.

This one is my favourite. I love the expression, the covered eye. In weapons terms - the point is better than the edge. I like the poked out tongue. The only thing I haven't done is eyes.

I went for green skin for the archer. No real reason other than that I was sick of painting green skinned things - orcs and some goblins. 

Unsure about this guy. I felt like his head was a skull, but his fingers looked finger-like enough. Leather gauntlets...problem solved. Armour was this annoying bronze colour that didn't paint properly and ended up being sticky. I can still tell it is a bit off. I am tempted to go back to him and rust up his armour a little bit. The liklihood though, is that he will stay in my carry case for ages now, until I play a game of Song of Blades and Heroes. Or one day fulfil my dream of being in an RPG group.

Three orcs and a nun walk into a bar...

 I finished these Reaper Bones orcs last night, along with a gun-totin' nun and a weird knight.

I primed these a long time ago, in order to paint them with my children. They didn't get touched though. Thus over this last month I just went for it. I am mostly happy with them, although I think I should add eyes in red, and use a rustier colour to help highlight the metal. But as they stand, I can put them on the table. There is also an archer but his base isn't finished, so I left him out.

My 5-year-old painted the nun, or at least gave her her first coat of black. I finished her off. The knight is a problem. I painted his cape/cloak a long time ago. Then I stalled, not knowing what I actually wanted to do with him. He has skulls on him, and his shield looks almost like it could be made of wood, in fact, I painted the back of it brown ages ago. I wanted to use bright colours, inspired by the Witch Doctor on Diablo III. I looked on Pintrest for ideas and eventually decided to do actual skull colours, and just contrasting red and blue. I like it now. A bit gaudy though.

Adventurers from Reaper Bones

 This evening I finished off some figures. I am pleased with them. They are from my big box of Reaper Bones miniatures that I picked up in the 2012 and 2013 Kickstarters. I have barely even made a dent in them to be honest.

This is a figure that I let my five year old have a go at painting. He was largely green, and his base looked like the sky with clouds on it. In fact, I feel like you can still see some flecks of blue on the base. I painted over his greenishness with various khakis, leather colours and browns. I attempted point of light highlights on his arm, but don't think it really worked out.

I took inspiration from Diablo III for this monk. My first character on that game, well the first one I finished the game with was a kick-ass monk. I mean, this guy looks nothing like him, but I like to think they maybe know each other. The one thing I have forgotten to do is to highlight the blade with a blue. I wanted it to have a mystical air to it, like Sting from Lord of the Rings.

I am incredibly happy with my hireling. He has been getting splashes of paint added now and then for a while now, but a couple of nights ago I just went for it and filled in all of the gaps. I have, however forgotten to paint the flames in his lantern. 

While painting these, I also put flesh colour on a few other figures, and painted green flesh onto four large orcs. I intend to get those finished and play Song of Blades and Heroes again, although I can't find any of my terrain for it.

More Soviets and a warrior tortoise.

 I managed to finish painting my second squad of WW2 Soviets, along with a few vehicles. All I need now it one more squad, a command stand, and perhaps another Maxim crew and a mortar and I will feel they are ready to face off against some Germans. Weirdly my main takeaway from this is that I need to sort out my photographing. I need to create a new photo booth or something. 

I now have four trucks. The large gun will likely be spending more time as an objective I guess. It will probably be too massive for a Battlegroup table.

Not Soviet, but still important. This has been languishing for a while. I finally managed to get it finished. I think the crew might have been US gun crew, but oh well. This will also likely spend more time as an objective than actually being used. 

An SU-76. It doesn't seem to be the best or most useful SPG, but I love the look of this vehicle. 

A squad of infantry, a sniper team and an anti tank rifle team. It is a bit hard to distinguish them, but I like them.

Three people for Five Parsecs. They can be military, militia, government security, local starport workers.

Battle Tortoise. My kids painted this and then I repainted it. Will be useful for some Song of Blades and Heroes, or some  DnD or something.

Wolf, APCs and the art of finally finishing something.

 On this, the second day of the year, I can celebrate finally finishing a couple of miniatures. They have been sat in various containers in varying states of finish for what feels like forever. 

Two SAC APCs from Brigade Models. These are based on a 2p coin each. I just did a generic green paint job. They will likely appear in multiple future games.

This is, I think a UK Jackal? It is the six wheel variant. It had been largely finished for likely a couple of years. Another thing that can move from my bench into an actual box of completed miniatures.

I painted this up a while back. I wanted to make it more of a diorama to be honest. Quite a bit of bushy undergrowth on the base. I am really pleased with this pup. It is a Reaper Bones miniature, that I have had sitting around since 2013.

More Reaper Bones Miniatures (3rd lot in 2020)

I finished up another round of Reaper Miniatures last night. I will likely end up shoving them in a box and using them only for the occasional Song of Blades romp. Maybe I will display them?

I do wonder if I should have given him a grey beard. Oh well.

Halflings/Hobbits. I am still not entirely happy with my cloaks. I will need to work on this skill.

The Brothers.

Ready to be slaughtered by some low level RPG party.

Reaper Bone Miniatures: Painting Practice

Last night I finished a couple of miniatures. These are probably the most intricate, experimental painting I have ever undertaken. When it comes to wargames miniatures I am pretty much: do the least I can possibly do to get nice looking figures on the table. However, with the large Reaper Bones figures I feel like I want to try and be a "miniature painter". I subscribe to /r/minipainting and get super jealous of some of those paint jobs

I wanted to go for a rusty armour with this guy. The only silver/metallic silvery paint I have is Runefang Steel. The entire miniature is washed with Agrax Earthshade, because I wanted the shadows to be dirtier than Nuln Oil. I then highlighted the metallic parts with an orangey and brown mix. I am actually really happy with this figure. Chuffed to bits.

Source of Light painting. I have never done it before. I have wanted to give it a go for a year or so now, but have not had even an idea about it. When painting this elf, I finally found potential. I am happier with the light on her hand and arm, than I am with the light on her hair. Otherwise, I really like this miniature, even though it makes me feel like a complete neck-beard for painting scantily clad women. I want to have some of these on display in my classroom at some point I think.

Song of Blades and Heroes - first game ever

So I have owned these rules for ages and never played them. Maybe I should have gotten some 6mm fantasy miniatures and I could have been playing this loads, although I would probably have bought Dungeon Scum for this...and might as yet buy it. All of these miniatures are from the very first Reaper Bones kickstarter that I backed in 2012 and received in 2013. Seven years in the making this game then...

Anyway: the two opposing forces.

Our adventurers. Out to investigate an old ruin on the outskirts. Rumours of strange goings on brought these three together.

The strange goings on. Someone, or something has been reanimating ancient warriors.

 The ruin in the middle. Our adventurers are advancing.

So each time you activate you can choose to roll against your figure's quality to make up to three actions. Here Barb the Barbarian passed two so can make two actions. Beware! If you fail two of those rolls then initiative passes to the enemy. Behold my measuring stick that is three medium lengths long.

Darren the Dwarf fails all three. He needed 3+. Initiative passes over to the skeletons and my archer and Darren both get to do nothing.

Simon Skeleton advances up twice, even though he could have taken three actions. Oops.

 All the skeletons manage to advance up.

With all the skeletons activated, initiative passes over to the adventurers and all manage to advance. They all roll for three actions and pass either all three or at least two.

Skeleton archers take up flanking positions. Sam advances up to engage Barb. Simon fails to do anything.

Barb and Sam start swinging at each other. Sam rolls 2, adds his combat score of 2 getting 4. Barb rolls 3 and adds combat score of 3 (6). He wins the combat. His total does not double Sam, so Sam is not dead. BUT because the number on the D6 is odd, Sam is forced back a base length.

Barb uses an activation to close the gap and then attacks again. More than doubling Sam's score. Sam is dead. Again? Or was he really alive again? Either way, Sam is gone.

Sally looses a few arrows at Barb but misses wildly. Sam's "range" is Medium and Barb is 3x Medium away so Sally is shooting at -4. 

Same goes for Sarah. She at least manages to hit with a draw, but it does nothing, so may as well be a miss. Maybe it is?

Simon engages Darren in melee, but used all actions to get there. Darren tries to activate and fails utterly. Initiative back to the skeletons.

Simon swings at Darren. Darren gets the better of the exchange, knocking Simon down (even number on D6).

 Sarah manages to convince Barb to recoil back with some pretty close arrows.

Sally looses some arrows at Darren, but does nothing.

Andrea Archer gets herself into an utterly disappointing, pointless archery duel with Sarah. They both waste pretty much the rest of the battle fighting each other. Ranged attacks get -2 against skeletons, as they have the Undead ability. Why did she even bother coming?

Darren and Simon have at it. 

Simon gets beaten back and decides to withdraw a little to force Darren to advance through Sally's hail of arrows.

Sarah getting the better of the boring archery exchange right now.

Barb runs over to Simon and Sally in order to end things.

Darren runs over also and attempts to attack Sally. However, she manages to knock him down with her longbow. 

Sally has a blade...hidden in her... pocket? She manages to slip it between the folds of Darren's armour, wounding him badly. He is out of the fight.

I mean, I made up the wounded part, just in case these characters have legs and I want to do anything else with them. Sally doubled Darren's score so he is out of game. She got a +2 against him as well because he is a fallen enemy and she is in melee combat not ranged.

 Barb full on beserks Simon and Sally, re-killing them both. He rolled three successful actions. Kill, move, kill. It was beautiful.

Between the previous photo and this one there have been about six rounds of failed activations because I kept rolling three each. However Barb and Andrea advance on Sarah and send her back to the grave. 

It was looking dicey when Darren went down, and when it seemed like Andrea was dead weight with that -2 against her enemies. However, in melee her combat score is equal to her archery score so she is fine in melee. Although that seems odd to me. I might need to house rule it.

Fun game though. It was quick. Annoying about archery vs skeletons. But fun. I can see myself playing this more. My 5 year old showed interest in playing with my miniatures so I might teach her it, or something simpler.