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Leadballoony – It's a lead thing

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Leadballoony – It's a lead thing

Monthly Archives: March 2016

Frostgrave first impressions

30 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by Alex in OldHammer, Side projects

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Conversion, Frostgrave, Oldhammer, Rogue Trader

Hello chaps, quick post from me today… So, I had my first ever game of Frostgrave on Monday night, and what a laugh! I didn’t do much in the way of recording a blow-for-blow account, (too busy figuring out how to play!), but I can tell you that it is good fun. I think both Ross and I were quite conservative throughout – Ross lost 2 chaps while my Warhound bought the farm, and we ended up with a 3-3 draw on the loot front. Our wizards/apprentices never even set eyes on each other, so we were being over-cautious I think :-)   Highlights were Ross ‘Leaping’ a thug up to claim treasure from a very high ledge, only for me to ‘Crumble’ said ledge out from under him, (and then the falling, the screaming and the dying), and Ross’ wizard killing my Warhound with one hefty whack of his staff.

Objectively, it seems rather easy to play for a draw in a standard game, and that was a little disappointing… We realised that we were on for a draw pretty early on, so we pretty much went for damage limitation after that. I think we’ll be going for some scenarios next time to make it more interesting. The game mechanic itself is pretty slick, and the d20 roll can really chuck out some crazy results. Magic, and the use of it is key to the game (duh!), so choose your spells wisely, and don’t be afraid to get stuck in! We only managed one mook-fight, and apparently archers are pretty ineffective…

One big surprise was how much fun we had with all the ‘out-of-game’ stuff, (we decided to start a campaign, so we did all the injury rolls, treasure rolls, etc. right after the game). All in all, despite the ‘pick up and play’ billing, it is quite a rich game with plenty to think about on the strategy side and a fairly simple mechanic that is easy to get you’re your head around and that doesn’t get in the way of play. My warband is already expanding, because I rolled up a ‘magic crossbow’ as one of my treasure items, so (of course) I needed a crossbow dude… with crossbow that looked like it might be +2 better than a regular crossbow… in a techno-barbarian style…  I had a quick rummage in the lead-pile for a mini that fit the feel of the warband last night, and then got busy with the cutting, the gluing and the sculpting:

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Compressed air-powered crossbow with sniper scope? Yeah, that’s got to be +2 better than a regular crossbow, right? Now, to get him painted for the weekend! :-D

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Thug on out!

28 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by Alex in OldHammer, Side projects

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

Conversion, Frostgrave, Oldhammer, Rogue Trader

Happy Monday chaps, I’m happy to report that I have a) completed the thugs & warhound that I needed to finish up my starting Frostgrave/RT warband, and b) I’m due to take them out for spin tonight in my first (rescheduled) game of Frostgrave. Double-yey! So without further ado, here are the thugs & hound:

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I’m pretty happy with this group – the guy on the left had his left arm swapped out after some feedback from Wudugast when I posted up the WIPs – a significant improvement I feel (thanks mate!). Middle guy is a case of making the best of things really! He turned out ok I think, but he’s a real odd-ball sculpt, and I really wish I had done something about his left arm – that’s three ‘pointers’ in ten figures, which is an excessive level of pointy-fingeritis in my opinion… Ho-hum, he’s just a thug so I should be able to swap him out early in any campaign. The guy on the right is another one where I wish I had done something different with the left arm, but other than that I think he’s pretty solid. I’m pretty chuffed with the warhound – he’s also a Marauder piece, but I went with one of the Dark Elf hounds rather than the more bizarre but obvious chaos warhound. I tried to paint an exotic but believable coat on this little fella – I think it worked out? Anyhow, here’s a shot of the whole starting warband:

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As a side note, I also cranked out another building over the weekend – an MDF hab-unit from ‘Charlie Foxtrot Models’. It needs two soft-drink cans to complete the curved side sections, and it’s quite a big item! I added a few bits here and there, most notably rungs up the sides to encourage roof access. Here are a few pics of the warband posing on and around it :-)

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So, that’s all for now folks – I suspect that my next post will be a skirmish report from tonight’s Frostgrave intro!

Dum de dum de dum de dum, Dum de dum de daa daa!

24 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by Alex in OldHammer, Side projects

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

Conversion, Frostgrave, Oldhammer, Rogue Trader

Happy Thursday people, and another cheeky little FrostTrader update for your viewing pleasure! This time it’s the turn of the Archers… see what I did there with the title? No? It’s a British wireless show… oh, never mind.

Anyhow, here are two as-yet-unnamed bowmen:

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I’m quite chuffed with these guys – the compound (?) bows really work for me in terms of blurring the line between the sci-fi and fantasy genres, and the conversions just work well IMO. The bows came from a cheap set of ‘apocalypse survivor’ women from Wargames Factory, and really the entire project kicked off once I had found these parts! I’ve also introduced some green into the warpaint for these guys… not sure if I like it or not, so I may be changing that at some point…

 

I also finished Hawk-Wind, the treasure hunter:

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Again, I’m pleased with the conversion itself – nice techno-bow, plus a scanner/staff thing that looks as if it might be used as a scope of some kind… y’know, for hunting’ treasure ‘n’ stuff? I’m assuming he’s blowing his unfeasibly large horn to a) let the waband know he’s found something shiny, or b) because he’s about to get his head kicked in… Again, I’m trying green for the warpaint, and again, I’m not 100% on it, but he’ll do for now.

And here’s a shot of all the bow’n’arrow types together, and a complete group shot so far.

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Finally, I know I have been banging on about the ‘Mutes’ from the Amtrak Wars being an inspiration, so I thought it might be useful to show yawl what the Jeff-Jeff I’m talking about! Here’s a posse of Mutes from the Amtrak Wars illustrated guide by Fernando Fernandez:

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And ‘the real’ Mr Snow and Cadillac:

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So there we are chaps, hope you are enjoying the project as much as I am! Next time, we’ll be meeting the thugs and a warhound that complete the warband. Peace out.

FrostTrader warband update

21 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by Alex in OldHammer, Side projects

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

Conversion, Frostgrave, Oldhammer

Happy Monday chaps and chapettes, it has been a while but I have some updates for you :-)  I have been busily basecoating and shading my Frostgrave warband since my last post – I was racing to get them somewhat ready for the table-top, but I had nothing complete to share with you as a result. Happily, that process was finished on Friday, and I got a couple of minis properly finished over the weekend.

First up is my Shaman apprentice – Cadillac (again, the name is ‘borrowed’ from the Amtrak Wars series):

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I have to say, Caddy is one of my favourite conversions – the composition is very pleasing, and I’m really chuffed with how he turned out. I used the same colours for his warpaint as I did for his teacher Mr Snow.

Secondly we have my Barbarian – Steel-Eye:

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I’m less pleased with this guy if I’m honest – the pose isn’t quite ‘there’ in my opinion, but he’ll do the job. I introduced some blue into Steel-Eye’s warpaint… in fact, I am thinking of using the colour to identify the different classes… As the preeminent warrior, this guy got some fairly extensive warpaint, but the thugs will probably be lower key. Plenty of blood spatter going on here as well – I reckon that huge chainsword would make quite a mess… ;-)

Oh, and here’s a group shot to date:

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…and that’s as much as I have managed to do so far – comments and feedback are always welcome and gratefully received :-)  The rest of the warband just need highlights and detail, so I should be getting through them at a fairly rapid pace from here on in… I’ll keep you posted!

Frostgrave Shaman and some RT buildings

07 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by Alex in OldHammer, Side projects

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

Conversion, Frostgrave, Rogue Trader, scenery

Morning chaps, it has been a while! My apologies for that, life has been busy of late and my ‘toy soldier’ time has been limited. I have been plugging away in the background though, and managed to do all the boring stuff like Greenstuffing & undercoating my Frostgrave warband. I also managed to get my head shaman painted up – something of a test piece for the whole warband, but more on that later!

Firstly, I wanted to share a little bit of scenery that I cranked out over the weekend with the help of my youngest son. I got involved with a recent Kickstarter called ‘Maelstrom’s Edge’ – it’s a self-contained game with some sweet minis, and some brilliant scenery bits that come on a sprue… The idea is that these bits can get snipped off & glued to any old box or tub, adding enough detail to make a decent building. Anyway, faced with a fairly dull Saturday afternoon, me & the little’un went at it with a couple of olive pots that I had been hoarding, and a couple of these sprues. My boy picked out all the bits that he wanted to use, then, with a bit of help, he snipped them out and filed the edges smooth while I cut out some thick card for the doorways. We then got busy with the super glue – junior telling his old man exactly where things ought to be stuck. The buildings got a spray undercoat before texturing & more paint was added. I was amazed at how ‘into it’ my little man was – he’s only six, but he pretty much designed these himself, and he got involved with the painting too… turns out he wields a mean drybrush! Anyhow, we had good fun, he made his daddy proud with his perseverance, and he’s really chuffed with the results. We had a chat about what else we could do with different shapes and sizes of tub, so hopefully we’ll be doing more in the near future! Here they are for your viewing pleasure, complete with an Imperial patrol for scale:

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Pretty good eh? It’s well worth picking up a sprue of Maelstrom’s Edge scenic pieces if you get a chance. The six year old is optional, but comes highly recommended :-)

 

Now, on to the Frosgrave warband, based on the old Marauder Chaos Thugs. Last time, I mentioned that I got a really strong Native American vibe from the minis, and that they put me in mind of the ‘Mutes’ (Mutants) from the Amtrak Wars series by Patrick Tilley. Well, I went and got myself reacquainted with the series, (long out of print, but tracked down via a second hand book website), and I’m thoroughly enjoying the read. It’s a cracking post-apocalyptic adventure, packed full of adventure, mystery and magic – maybe it is nostalgia, but I’m loving it. It comes with an accompanying art book too! Objectively, it’s a bit hammy in places, and it’s a bit clichéd when it comes to racial stereotyping, (the post-apocalyptic Shogunate that gets introduced in book 3 is particularly cheesy), but it is a product of its time and none the worse for it. Anyhow, I digress. Suffice to say that the plain-dwelling Mutes are a major inspiration for this project.

In the book, the Mutes are broadly sketched out as primitive but noble Native American analogues, with shamanistic ‘Summoners’ that can really ‘do magic’, (nicely offsetting them against the technologically advanced Amtrak Federation, incidentally). One of the main characters is an old but powerful Summoner called Mr. Snow. He’s a wonderful character, and the head of my warband has become my attempt to translate him to the table-top via the 40k/Frostgrave universes. My version of Mr. Snow looks a bit younger than the ‘real’ character, but that’s fine by me – the pose is spot on, while the leg calliper does suggest a degree of age and/or infirmity. I’m actually really happy with the bits of tech that are on show, like the calliper and the staff.

Having become an homage to Mr. Snow, I knew that I wanted to paint this guy in a way that resonated with the novels. Most Mutes are described as having some physical disfigurements, such as patches of bark-like texture on their flesh, bony lumps on their bodies and faces, and swirling patterns of colour on their skin. I thought that the various skin patterning described in the books might not come off very well at 28mm scale, but I still wanted to get that idea across, so after some thought and experimentation, I ended up with a ruddy skintone & quite heavy shading – almost like banding on the skin. He looked quite good at this point, but he still wasn’t quite ‘right’ so I started to play with the idea of warpaint and did some more research on Native Americans before lightly dabbing on spots of colour on the face and arms, building up a pattern that I liked. The rest of the mini got painted with a fairly neutral palette, suggesting animal hides and natural materials, and I went for a bit of freehand Native American art on the belly plate. After a while, I ended up something I was happy with:

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So, there we are – Mr. Snow, head Shaman and test piece for my Frostgrave warband… I hope you like him folks – he’s a real hodge-podge of influences and ideas, but I hope I’ve managed to make a coherent character that works in either a sci-fi or a fantasy setting… it’s a tricky balancing act! Now, to get stuck into the rest of the warband :-)

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