Added another touch to my Alien Invader faction, this time some reptilians and a thing that should not be. All three are part of the Reaper “Sliggs and Squarg” blister. With a brainy Martian, greys, and now reptilians, (and human collaborators) this faction has all the elements of a 90s ufo conspiracy.
One of the things I appreciate about games like Dracula’s America is the inclusion of North American creatures (or cryptids as some may consider them). I have a single posse for that game, but I don’t have a table or group for it, so haven’t gone all in on the creatures. With my Roswell Post Apocalyptic setting, I do have players and terrain. So, looking over a list of Southwestern cryptids and what’s suitable for 1/72, I landed on Skinwalkers, a Thunderbird, and a Pale Rider.
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It’s been a minute since I painted some models, but I only had four left in my Burrows & Badgers band, so was an easy lift. In my last B&B post, I presented the Necromancer and ghasts. The last four are the “not dead yet”, or living, members – A Great Brown Rat and three Black Rats.
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A third post in under a week! Both of the blog’s readers are eating well! 😉 Seriously though, last week I took a few days off work to spend time with the kids on Spring Break and I was also able to get quite a bit of painting done. Don’t expect this many posts as the new regular. ha.
Anyway, here we have a Reduced Model Unit Lesser Warbeast, a Reaper Dire Boar. They had this fella down at the local game shop and I thought he’d be a good, cheap addition to the warband. I think he cost about $5. An ornery Dire Boar seemed like the sort of ill-tempered creature to fit in an orc warband. I’ll probably give it the Hatred Fantastical Rule. If I remember correctly, there was a dire boar of sorts causing mayhem in Arthurian legend? He just needs a terror-inducing name like that ram in LotR, Grond. I think I’m gonna go with Morthog unless something else comes up. I’m open to better suggestions if you’ve got ’em.
This was three quick-to-paint units putting me at about 12 points. Half the warband already! But where are the orcs in this orc warband?!
Been awhile. Life has been a bit wild lately, and I’d be lying if I said the geopolitical landscape hasn’t effected me. Anyway, whether I’m fiddlin’ while Rome burns or I’m an echo-chamber victim and things aren’t so bad, I’ve decide to finally push forward on a project that’s been on the burner for years… Dragon Rampant proper.
As a big fan of the Northstar Oathmark line, the original idea was to just use one box of plastic warriors (30), a blister or two of metal characters and the occasional cheap Reaper creature to supplement. It’s a pretty low cost option for a DR warband. The decision always came down to either Orcs or Dwarves and it looks like Orcs won out. Northstar recently added some fantastic wolves to their catalaog, so I expanded the original idea here and ordered a set for goblin wolf riders.
In order to get any sort of momentum on this, I’ve decided to go with my fastest paint technique which is basically just grey prime, then paint inside-out, no mistake touch-ups, and wash the skin one color and everything else Agrax Earthshade. I was never a great painter, but I would try to clean up errors and wash and highlight with appropriate shades. But now… to get though 30+ models… I’m just doing everything in Agrax and applying a little more in spots where I painted outside the lines. I don’t know how often the mood to paint will strike in these dark, modern times, but when it does I want to get through the models ASAP.
Originally, I was looking to do an old-school blue-grey shade of orc. It was suggested to me to use Vallejo Luftwaffe, but I found that to be too dark. I ended up going with that on the unit leader model above. I’ll probably use it for all the unit leader and character type models. Sorta like the black orcs of Warhammer lore being the stronger and wiser. I had a pot of Fernesian Grey that I thought looked good, but it turned out a bit more blue than I thought. Maybe because I used Citadel Nightshade? Either way, they have a Rogue Trooper-like appearance, which to be honest, is a bit of a happy accident. I’ve always wanted to do a blue Rogue Trooper like warband, but never really had a game to do that with. I guess these Dragon Rampant orcs are gonna be that.
Anyway, thoughts on these shades of blue?
One of the big three blocks of units I need for Silver Bayonet are bandits. According to the worst-case scenario I need a total of 13 of these scallywags to handle any of the scenarios in the core rule book. With the addition of Silver Bayonet: Canada and Egypt, I decided to go outside of the box and select some banditos that would work in multiple theaters of conflicts. Continue reading
Turning 50 this year, I decided to run a little event with some of my gamer buddies from over the years. In a nod to the Oldhammer movement and the “Bring Out Your Lead!” event, I went with a Dark Future inspired logo and similar call-back to oldschool lead models…. Better Off Lead!!!
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Continuing my ongoing project for The Silver Bayonet, I have again turned to AD 1666 to fill in some of the missing creatures I need for the game. Keeping the single player scenarios in mind, it is essential that I get zombies, wolves, and vampires knocked out. The numbers of zombies and wolves is pretty high, so instead of starting with a large group I decided to knock out the smaller group of vampires first. Continue reading
I’ve been sitting on a lot of terrain. In the past I never did much in building or painting terrain, usually relying on others to put up the scenery. Being a naturally slow painter and being burdened with long hours at work, taking the time to paint terrain seemed a luxury. Recently though I have started buying terrain pieces. Mostly components to fit in with Dark Age to Napoleonic eras. Most of these buildings are stone so I wanted to find a system that could easily paint up stone while making it look realistic. Following my usual modus operandi, I scoured the internet to find someone who had the solution.
I contemplated not posting some of my recent work because the end results are a bit disappointing. Maybe I attempted something outside my skillset, but probably it was just more outside my patience. Let’s take a look at what happened…maybe it’ll help someone else with what _not_ to do if they want to try something similar.
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Wyrd Stones and Tackle Zones 