It’s Time to eat the Elephant

So, finally some pictures!

The original Home Raider kickstarter box came with two factions – Lilliputians and Gremlins. I didn’t buy any of the other factions, so there are 15 models in total t paint up.  Unfortunately when I opened the box I discovered there were two casualities with broken feet. So a little bit of pinning later I have the full set.

So my first models are the Gremlin Mechanics.

So, all the initial painting done.  Next step is to add the next couple of steps on the uniform, and to start to pick out the details on the models.

A bit of a slow start, but so far at least, I’m happy to have actually started!

Happy Gaming!

Home Raiders is a skirmish style game by Vesper-On Games (actually I’m not sure if it’s still available).  I thought the entire context of the game was excellent and I was attracted to the idea of 1:1 figures (i.e. they are the actual size of the participants), coming from a parallel dimension into our space and the war-game table is whatever your table/ room looks like NOW, with all the usual household detritus forming the terrain/obstacles and objectives.

A game in which these “life sized” models can actually move that half eaten box of biscuits just appealed to me.  But obviously not appealing enough to actually paint the models!

But that’s now changed. This will be my first few mouthfuls of my elephant.

Each of the models are unique, so no duplicates, and there are 6 New Lilliputians (think Gulliver’s Travels); 9 Gremlins in the basic set, and a special (Kickstarter) model of a Pirate elephant – which seemed quite appropriate for my first outing!

I will paint the models as close to the artwork on the cards (to save me having to think too much!) and hopefully will complete them in the next few days /week.

I’m not the world’s greatest artist, but will try to remember to take lots of pictures and detail which paints I use.  These will primarily be either Vallejo or GW as these are the ones I have more of.

When I decided to actually do something about my backlog of figures, it occurred to me that I had no good idea about how many figures I actually had.  I’ve been wargaming on and off for 50+ years. Usually solo play, but with the occasional partner to play against.  More recently my son (he was a late addition to the family – now 14) has expressed some interest in wargaming, and has conclusively beaten me in the few games we have played!

So this seemed to be a golden opportunity to motivate myself late in the Autumn of my life, to do something other than reminisce about past campaigns and start something new.

So what’s the score on the door?  (I won’t present an Excel chart here, so no one need get too “upset”!), but will probably start some tind of running total once I actually start to do something.

I am a terrible figure butterfly and if I really like the look of something, I’ve tended to jump in an (over) buy everything at once.  Less so these days as my spare cash is somewhat limited.  But the build up over the last 20 years in particular has included numerous Kickstarter games, whole armies for games such as Mantic or Bolt Action, and other armies for interesting rule sets.  I of necessity collect two (or more) armies for a game as I don’t have a local or regular opponent.

So the grand total across all scales (28/30; 10; 6mm) is 6,247, give of take as I’m sure I lost count at various times.   For those of you more interested in the specifics, the breakdown follows:

28/30mm figures – Foot/Horse/Artillery

ECW 495

WotR 145

Mantic (KoW various races) 535

Bolt Action 188

Border Reivers 54

Pirates (Cutlass) 29

Deadzone 140

Infinity 23

10mm figures F/H/A

Medieval – various 248

Samurai 630

7YW 410

6mm

Napoleonics 1950

Boxed Games – various scales

Joan of Arc 414

Core Space 56

Dreadball 72

Solomon Kane 43

Mythic Battles Pantheon 105

U-Boot 16

Home Raiders 15

Mars Attack 74

Dungeon Saga 64

Test of Honor 34

Darkest Dungeon 138

Terminator 33

Conan 120

Plus some odds and ends like a few Dr Who figures etc.  Just random figures.

So the strategy (whatever that means!) will probably look at something that could be completed fairly quickly and with minimal painting skill.  I hope I’ll improve over time as I get back into painting more frequently and save the best till last!

Wish me luck, and Happy Gaming