2023 Hobby Log

Another year has come around and it’s time for some goals. I’ve some bigger than normal life stuff this year so hobby goals are going to be a little easy going for 2023.

1. After last year’s pathetic two games played, play more games is the first goal. I have two local clubs (each of which has one to two sessions a week) and a small group of gaming friends, there’s really no excuse to not get something to the table.
2. Paint complete armies/forces to get them on the table, not just for the fun of painting them. I realised last year that only one project was a complete force for a game. I have several half armies, lettuce try and finish some. I also have a few smaller warbands for games that could fairly easily get painted up and played with.
3. Finish painting the terrain that is hiding in the cupboard. I get bored really easily when it comes to painting terrain but it really does make a difference when it comes to Goal #1

That’s it. Just three things. Seems perfectly reasonable.

We’ll see in 12 months time!

So far January has been about painting dwarves but to start my week long holiday, I wanted to crack into something a little different. Part of getting to play more games this year is about having complete armies for games others around me are playing but I also want to get starting forces up for games I want to introduce people to. Team Yankee is one of those games.

I picked up the current two player starter box because, despite having no interest in having a US force, it is a great value box for getting into the game. The Soviet force will get used once I expand anyway and neither force is huge out of the box.

The Americans have three Abrams, two Bradleys and two M60 Pattons.

The Soviets have four T-80s, three T-64s and two BMP-3s.

So 16 models in total.

Rather than build everything all at once and overwhelming myself, I decided to just build and paint one unit at a time. So Friday evening came around, I stuck on a new show in the background and away we go…

I’m not fussy when it comes to camo for these little tankies but Wargamer Pete has a really simple tutorial that I followed the rough jist of but using the colours that I happen to have.

The colours I used were:

Prime black

Scale 75 American Olive

50/50 mix of American Olive and Vallejo Khaki

Army Painter Fur Brown

Vallejo London Grey with some black paint mixed in

Seraphim Sepia and Nuln Oil

Weathering was thinned down Stirland Battlemire and very light drybrush of Army Painter Desert Yellow

The Wee Man was painted up with Kislev Flesh and Velljo Russian Uniform (WW2)

First unit done. Now I really should get back to those brock riders for Kings of War…

• Unpainted 2878
• Painted 39
• Bought 16
• % painted 1.3%

• Paint up an Underworlds warband for a one day event on the 11th.
• Finish dwarf units for Kings of War Ambush
• Base colours down on one unit of AOS trolls
• Build Necromunda team for a campaign in March
• Get started on Moonstone and Rumbleslam models
• Sell some miniatures so the cupboard is a little less terrifying to open

I’m still pretty ill so, though I am signed off work, painting time has been losing out to video games most of the past week. I’ve also had to admit to myself that I’m not going to be well enough by Saturday to be heading out to a one day Underworlds tournament. I finished up the warband I was going to take so at least they are ready for the next event in March.

Next up, I decided to try and get some terrain done. I don’t enjoy making terrain and as a result, no matter how grand my plans might be, tables just don’t get finished.

I’m going to try a slightly different tact for a bit and just do buildings once in a while and hopefully little and often will get more done. To begin, inspired by all the chat on The Weekender about Dead Mans Hand, I thought I’d go back to a table I started 18 months ago.

Originally I wanted to try and make the table from scratch but realised that just wasn’t going to happen and it I want to play this game, I need to be the one to do the terrain. I looked at the TT Combat White Box of Western terrain but I’d like to try and stick with plastic for this one so it is easier to throw in a box for storage. In the end I went with some buildings from Renedra from their American line.

The broken record returns; still ill, still off work, still not up to much hobby time. I have been working on a 20 model unit that I’ll post about when it is finished. The one is about the American Church from the last post.

The plastic Renedra kit was easy enough to put together and I wanted the paint job to be quick and cheerful.

Primed with a mid-brown

Vallejo Pale Sand sponged over to give them weathered painted wood look for the walls.

Vallejo Dark brown and Mournfang Brown for the doors, window shutters and the cross.

Contrast Wyldwood on the roof shingles and a dry brush of Vallejo Color Model US Field Drab.

Vallejo Air US Field Drab (weirdly a totally different colour compared to the Model Color) for other bits of wood to just differentiate them (window frames etc).

Total painting time was about an hour not accounting for drying time. Every time I thought about adding in little details, I had to remind myself that it is just a terrain piece and done is the point. It’s a little small once you put it up against the miniatures (one is a Great Escape Games plastic gunslinger and one of their metals) but once there is a whole table, I won’t care. Other people might. The wrong kind of people who have no place in my gaming life.

Another piece of terrain done watching the XLBS yesterday. It is sort of a test piece for a near future project.

The building is the Routledge Barn from Warbases.

• Once built, I sprayed it with a coat of varnish to seal the MDF before priming with Colour Forge Black
• Sponged on a mix of Vallejo London Grey, Army Painter Greatcoat Grey, GW Elysian Green, and Vallejo US Field Drab for the walls
• Sponged the inside of the barn section with Vallejo Charred Brown, GW Mournfang Brown and then stippled some brown texture paste
• Door and gates painted with Vallejo Charred Brown and GW Mournfang Brown
• P3 Coal Black and a 50/50 mix of it and Vallejo Prussian Blue were sponged onto the roof
• Watered down texture paste and some GW Elysian Green were put on the roof and walls to age it up a bit (I think a little too much however here we are)
• Some fine turf flock and some clump foliage for moss
• I didn’t do anything with the inside of the room behind the door; I’m too lazy

Part of being off this month, I have been reading a fair bit. One of the things I decided to get to was rereading Discworld in publication order. I usually dip in and out of the series as the mood takes me but I’ve been meaning to go start to finish for a while now.

Seems like a good time to finally get round to painting the Discworld miniatures that I have had sitting in the cupboard for a while… and to have an excuse to pick up the others as I read through.

First up, The Colour of Magic. Sadly not one of my favourite books. I’m just not a massive Rincewind fan and I’d never recommend it as a starting point for anyone starting on Discworld for the first time. It was fun to go back to where it all began though and putting paint on the luggage was very pleasant distraction.

Up next The Light Fantastic and model Rincewind himself

Time for last month’s goals and achievements.

Sold: 99

Painted: 39

Bought: 16

Total Unpainted: 2700

• Paint up an Underworlds warband for a one day event on the 11th.
• Finish dwarf units for Kings of War Ambush
• Base colours down on one unit of AOS trolls
• Build Necromunda team for a campaign in March (halfway finished)
• Get started on Moonstone and Rumbleslam models
• Sell some miniatures so the cupboard is a little less terrifying to open

Also added in the first of my space dwarves and two buildings!

• Decide on Spring Clean Challenge project (it is narrowed down to two at the moment)
• Paint up a unit of AOS trolls; I’ve had to pull out of the league due to ill health but getting some paint down should encourage me to keep going with them so when I am able to get games in, the army will be ready
• Necromunda campaign seems to be off the table for now i.e. no one in the Discord has mentioned it since early January but I have partially built a team so aiming to at least finish building and getting primer on them.
• Possibly refresh some Malifaux miniatures as there is talk of games at the club in the next few months

One of this year’s resolutions was to get more games in and so far this has been a failure. For good reasons but still a failure, at least in terms of miniatures games. This project has been focused on what has been getting painted, the fact that games all got cancelled because I’ve been ill.

Cultists, I’m sorry but I’ve been keeping a secret from you all. Not only that but I’ve broken a promise I made to myself several years ago. I feel like I’m living a lie and it is time to come clean.

I have a new love.

I swore I wouldn’t do another FFG card game after Netrunner. I adored that game, played hundreds of runs of it. Possibly thousands. I thought about it all the time; at work I would spend time building decks in my head, I’d read the sub-reddit and chat to people endlessly about the nuances of the game. However, the Living Card Game model, so often touted as being “better” than the TTG model, was still pretty awful if money wasn’t something you had a lot of (and I didn’t! Still don’t). FFG’s usual bullshit about buying two core boxes, having to buy every pack as it came out because availability of stock was rough and the vast majority of cards you never touched. And power creep? Eee gads! Then it died. I was free!

Yeah, now I’m not.

Now, give FFG their due, the model for their card games now is markedly different and they are going to a lot of effort to make them much more new player friendly. Right now they are revamping the whole Arkham Horror line so you’ll be able to easily get any of the campaigns, whenever you are ready for them. I knew that, as much as the idea of Arkham Horror fascinates me, there’s no way I’d play it because FFG aren’t the only one’s who’ve changed in the last few years.

Last year I picked up the Project Nisei System Gateway after a friend took an interest in going back to my old Netrunner love. The is the way that fans are keeping the game “alive” and it is a really impressive job. I sat with it all, the terms flooding back. Then I realised I’ve no interest in building decks any more. I just can’t find the enjoyment in sitting for hours, finding synergies, working out cost curves and tying themes to a competitive deck.

I picked up the core box for Marvel Champions the way I often pick things up; thoughtlessly, without any real idea of why I suddenly think I have time and space for another new game. What I did know about it was that it plays well solo, and has pre-constructed decks for those who don’t want to deck-build.

Most of the reviews you see out there for it, compare it to Arkham Horror and comment on the lack of a proper campaign structure. For sure, if you are looking for the MCU in card game format, this is not where you are going to find it. I’m not looking for another legacy or grand campaign game though. I have RPGs for that.

Stories in Marvel Champions are more like reading a trade for a comic. The way I play it, I sit down and pick which hero I want to play as. Grab their deck. Who is the villain? Pick their cards out the box, grab the five or six universal cards that go into the villain deck and pick out the side plot (called modules in the game). Shuffle up and play.

The core box has five heroes, three villains, several modules (plus cards to make increase the difficulty level); after upwards of twenty games in the last month, I’ve still not tried all the combinations. That’s without deck-building. Clearly being a sensible person, I’m going to stick with the core box for a good while…

Okay, maybe I’ve not changed that much.

I love my friends, I do. They are good people.

I would like, just once however, to go to the pub to meet them and not end up with a new game in our minds to pick up.

A good pal has had a rough couple of years and has been away from the hobby as a result. He’s still been buying things, of course – let it never be said that Wargamers aren’t eager slaves to capitalism. One of our biggest shared loves is Star Wars and over the course of a few pints the decision to play some Shatterpoint was made. He already owns the core box and one of our clubs locally has a great wee skirmish night held in a nice pub so it was easy to agree to.

Then more pints were had.

On payday weekend.

We know what happened, right?

[Drunk Me is a lot more forgiving of outrageous prices]

After the fun of the Nightstalkers project, I figure the best thing to do with this one is just get it done quickly. Build it, paint it, play it.

I can only make it to the skirmish night every second week because of work so I knew I wasn’t going to get everything done before we first sit down. I could get it all built though and then painted for the second session.

The building process was actually lovely.  The models are very straight forward to put together even without any instructions in the box. I got the pdf for the terrain but all in all  everything was done in two evenings. There are very few mould lines and, though B1s remain a pain in the arse even in a larger scale with my fat fingers, I’ve no real complaints.

Except the lightsabers.

They can go do one. There’s no way I’m not snapping them by the end of the first trip out of the flat. I thought I’d be really clever and replace them with brass rod but sadly I have neither rod nor drill bit thin enough for how tiny the hilts are. I tried. Anakin had a brass rod then he went back to his plastic one. I predict by the time we get to the first game, he’ll have nothing left.

Everyone got magnets on their bases before I glued the models on for once. Then I realised the box I was going to put them in isn’t tall enough so they are flat in a foam case after all.

Getting things done quickly means going with what you’ve got so when I had a free afternoon to paint terrain, the colour choice was limited. It doesn’t feel overly Star Wars but it is painted.

Buildings:
• Humbrol Dark Brown and over top with Humbrol Olive Green. The two tone effect here wasn’t as strong as normally I’d try for but it’ll do. We’re mostly going to be playing in a pub backroom, no one will notice.
• Drybrush with lighter green
• Drybrush metal segments with the remains of my Army Painter Gunmetal. Wash of Nuln Oil and then a small drybrush back up with gunmetal
• Paint over buttons and screens with white paint and then just some Blood Angels Red and Stormfiend for the buttons. The screens are Hexwraith Flame but I might come back to them later, I’m not a fan
• White over the lights as well and then a mix of Gryphcharger Orange and Gloomspite Yellow air to make cartoony lights
• Painted a couple of cables with Black Legion – this was mostly just because the sides they were on needed something to break them up a bit
• Sponge weathering with a dark brown
Platforms:
• Prime with the remains of my Colour Forge Black – excellent primer if you can get it
• Big makeup brush to drybrush everything with Gunmetal making sure not to go to heavily so I don’t have to bother with a wash
I didn’t get round to the other bits like the crates and console things just because I’m running dangerously low on primer. I’m also out of varnish but it’ll do for Monday night’s game.

I have been working on a couple of bigger projects recently but I don’t want to say much about them right now. I did make a little time for painting today and wanted something that could be done in a single sitting.

The Tiffany Aching series within Discworld is amongst my favourites and one of the bigger projects I’m working on is tied into it. This was a lovely wee thing to work on.

Two weeks from now is the Claymore wargaming show. I didn’t think I was going to get to go this week but thanks to someone else needing a shift swap, I’m now free that weekend.

I don’t have a lot of money to spend on hobby these days (or indeed last year) and I know that most of the projects I’m working on for the rest of the year aren’t going to benefit from anything at the show. There are a couple of wee things I’m looking for but mainly it’ll be about the games and tables on display.

Last year I only really bought one “big” purchase which was the 6mm Confederate army pack from Baccus. I really like them and started working on them as soon as I got back.

Obviously being me, I didn’t finish any of them. They got packed into a box where they have been since. So over the next two weeks, I’d like to get through as much of the remainder as I can. Going to the 2023 show knowing that the 2022 purchases aren’t languishing in the pile of shame would be nice.

Coming back to a project after a year away when your memory is as crap as mine is always an interesting time. I remember what I intended this army to be the stepping stone for but those plans are so far in the distance that it is almost not worth thinking about them.

They were for Altar of Freedom, I know that much. I don’t remember that decision but they have a very useful section on their theatre books which breaks down how many bases you need to for each army for each battle in the supplement. I have a note of what I needed for the first two legs of the original plan. That was good of me.

Even better, I wrote down what paints I used and the basic order for what I had already painted. Well done Past Gorram.

Before I get into the next batch though, I need the painting sticks back so this lot needed based. Thankfully Past Gorram also put a pack of bases in the size she’d intended to use in the project box (60mmx30mm).  After a bit of playing around, I worked out what strips were going on each stand; two rows with some skirmishers in front. Each stand has a flag in the centre of the front row but this could easily be chopped off if I don’t end up needing them in the future.

Next up I was going to mix some filler with paint because basing at this scale can be messy but I hate obvious signs the models are on strips. After sitting thinking about what I needed to do for a full 30 minutes without actually getting off my arse to do it, I noticed that I have three tubs of Stirland Battlemire perched on a shelf much closer to me so, que sera, sera. Each stand now has Stirland Battlemire instead. Not a strong economic decision but an energy one for now.

Left to dry overnight, there wasn’t as much shrinkage as I was expecting and a quick layer of some Fine Turf and they are done. Probably should have left some bare patches of ground but I was half sleep. Five down.

The next batch is the remains of the the base infantry. Everyone gets a soapy, warm bath and a rub down. If you want a project to go well you have to really pamper the minis a little.

Strips are then put onto tongue depressors with some blue tac. You could spray them at this point but I find I have more success getting into all the wee crannies without getting too thick a coat by using a brush on primer.I like the grey for smaller scales mainly because I can actually see details. Speaking of which…

All ready to go and then I remembered that since I last painted at this scale, my magnifying light stand broke so we’re off until tomorrow and some of those sexy magnifying glasses with the light on them arrive.

Funny thing about the way my brain works, when my soul goes into squalor goblin mode, my brain just blanks out on things. Might be conversations, birthdays, or plans. This interlude is brought to you by one of those blanks.

The Space Ducks is a community army project that will be put into a raffle. The draw is in October but the raffle opens in September. All the proceeds are being split between two mental health charities. You can find out more about them on their Instagram page.

I offered to get involved and was asked to paint up a drop pod. I bought the kit, put it under the desk to work on “soon” and then forgot all about it. My cats were playing under the desk the other day and lost their tin foil ball – fetching it like a responsible cat servant, I came across the drop pod.

I’ve not done a drop pod before so building it was an interesting evening. Recently I’ve been trying to focus on done not perfect but as this is for a prize army, I want to put more effort in. Two sub-assemblies to make for easy painting.

The chapter symbol for the Space Ducks is a slice of bread so a bit of green stuff over the included chapter badges and we’re good to get priming. I have a lot of black and white primer but the temptation is to just buy a yellow one. Normally I’d stray away from buying a paint for such a minor project but it is a large model so brush painting will be a pain in the hold but I also have another army in mind coming up that the yellow would be good for. There is a show on here next weekend so I’ll have a look there rather than buying online and having to pay the shipping premium.

Not much exciting in terms of hobby the last few days other than working on stages of other projects. In the realm of hobby though, it was Claymore this weekend in Edinburgh. Up until two weeks ago it didn’t look like I was going to get to go but someone at work needed a shift swapped so my price was my Saturday on.

Claymore is run by one of the local wargaming clubs and is mostly historical themed though there are usually a table or two of other stuff in the mix.  It is a great show though I’m really not a crowds person. Didn’t take a huge number of photos but there were some cracking looking tables. There were a couple of mediocre ones too but fair play to them for putting on a game.

I spent several months’ worth of hobby budget for a project I’ll be updating soon. I also managed to grab the yellow primer I wanted for the charity drop pod. Sat last night and progressed it a little watching a stream. The Pro Acryl Titanium white is a lovely paint to work with. White is still an arse to get good coverage over the yellow but the paint is thin enough out the bottle that building up layers it nice and smooth.

I started a little project, well I guess it is quite big. It will involve painting to miniatures but it is for work. Can you tell what it is yet?

The Work project is a stupid idea. I don’t have the time but once I make a stupid decision I want to follow through on it. I just need to keep reminding myself “it is only for a display at work, it’ll be taken down in a fortnight”

So it’s a treasure hoard. Who could it belong to? And who is that sneaking round the side?

Yep, it’s Hobbit Day and as a library staffer it was the perfect excuse to go over the top. I 3d printed the dragon but had to carve some bits off as the original model came with a saddle. No one could saddle Smaug.

In time I’m sure I’ll dive into tweaking the stl before printing to fix this kind of thing but I’ve only been printing for ten days. The resin being translucent meant I couldn’t really see what I was doing for gap filling so I primed the model in black. This is when I realised I hadn’t got the saddle point as low as I thought I had. Oh well, I have 15 hours to get it ready (and to sleep). Wish me luck

So I have some photos of trying to do the sculpting over where the saddle was on the original model and two of the painting process… I lost the attention span for doing more photos.

Making the scales to cover the two sections was an interesting little hour. I didn’t have the time for super detailed work and had to remind myself throughout that this was not a model for me or my long term collection. It is for a library display. I used Milliput rolled out into a thin sheet and then a couple of sculpting tools to make individual scales. I didn’t have time to let it fully cure before priming and painting so just had to be careful when running the drybrush over it.

The painting for this one was pretty straight forward. Ultimately this model will live in the library for a week, maybe more, but it will get wrecked. That’s the reality of little hands running wild about the library. Plenty of drybrushing and a little bit of detailing and it was done in around three hours – the base colours took 90 minutes alone!

1. primed black
2. wing membrane base colour was Vallejo Red Black, several thin layers as the coverage is poor
3. body base colour was GW Khorne Red
4. first layer of drybrushing was Mephiston Red
5. second layer was Evil Sun Scarlet
6. final and very light touch of Wild Rider Red
7. at this point I decided I wanted to warm it up a little so went over with a thinned down layer of Vallejo Red Orange on the very tips of the scales.
8. horns, claws and the spikes at the elbows got three different colours put on them because it was getting late and my brain wasn’t focusing. Eventually I went with Black Legion with some highlights in Skavenblight Dinge
9. the wings stayed mostly the base colour but I did do some tiny lines to mimic healed tears or scratches in the membrane by mixing a little white into the Red Black

Here we are with the final display. Copies of the original Tolkien art and plenty of books by and about the man himself. Our printer conked out before I could finish printing out signage and I don’t have time to handwrite stuff but it’ll do.

It is mainly a display for adults to borrow from but the kids love touching it. They keep running their fingers over the pile of gold (glitter is already getting everywhere.. my colleagues are going to love me for this one). Every one of them also tries to take the models off the board (they are pinned but I don’t think they are kid-proof).

This was a typical me project – spontaneously imagined, time was not my friend and largely unnecessary. I could have spent the time working on something for one of the many, many other bloody projects that I want to finish this year. However, it has been a really fun distraction – I regret nothing… well, almost nothing.

There is a part of me that knows how to be a good painter. She just gets ignored for inexplicable reasons. Case in point, yesterday I had to do a big chunk of work on the Drop Pod for the Space Ducks project. The deadline is this week as the take launch event is this time next week at Warhammer World.

It’s a vehicle and it’s yellow. Clearly when doing a wash the best option was to panel line it. I even had that conversation with myself earlier in the day. As I sat down last night to watch some old XLBS episodes though, I forgot. I just the Agrax all over that thing, didn’t even thin it.

What a plonker.

I didn’t take photos because I was so angry at myself. Instead I got up this morning and took advantage of not starting work until lunch. I masked off the bits that were fine and re-primed the whole thing with the Colour Forge sunset yellow.

A couple of hours later, and some quick Sponge weathering, and it’s done. Well, it’s done enough.

Can’t say I’m overly happy with it but it looks roughly like it’s meant to and the Space Ducks will be able to put it into service.

I’ll be buying a ticket or two for the raffle so who knows, it might come back to me in the future! I’ll post the link when the raffle goes live, it’s raising money for a good cause and one that is particularly close to my heart after the past week.

I’ve been off social media for most of the past month so I’ve been pretty bad at advertising the raffle for Space Ducks. It is an excellent cause, raising money for Campaign against Living Miserably and UK survivors of bereavement by suicide.

The prizes are:

1st prize 4000pts+ Space Marines on the theme of rubber ducks

2nd place prize Leviathan Space Marine half painted by Patrick of the Painting Phase

3rd place 4 fire teams painted by 15 hobbyists

4th place art pieces and commission by @grim_dork_comic

The raffle ends in 48 hours and has already raised enough for 62 Calm Calls and a peer support group at UKsobs funded for a year. If you can contribute, tickets are only £3 each and can be found here:

https://raffall.com/345636/enter-raffle-to-win-space-ducks-warhammer-40k-hosted-by-space-ducks-charity-army-project