Category Archives: Side projects

Happy Commencement of New Arbitrary Terran Orbital Cycle

04 Monday Jan 2021

Posted by in Dragon Rampant, Side projects

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Greeting Terrans, and if you are reading this, congratulations on getting to 2021 with your sanity intact. What a year eh? I’m a firm believer that pushing one’s comfort zone is good for your growth & wellbeing, but last year really did stress that outlook to a whole new level. It seems that every single assumed ‘truth’ that I understood about myself and my life in 2019 was deeply flawed… Things I thought were unconditional had conditions. Stuff I believed could never happen happened. Things that I took for granted were taken away, or were very nearly lost. The shock of these events was disorientating and deeply unpleasant, but I’ve certainly learned a lot & grown along the way. Here is a summary of my key takeaways:

  • People (and by extension, societies) are not always rational – get over it
  • A life is precious to those it affects, otherwise it is an abstract – get over it
  • Even the most secure workplace can be forced to make cuts – get over it
  • Fair-weather friends are just that – get over it
  • Some people can’t disagree without being disagreeable – get over it
  • I am not the Covid police – get over it
  • Never miss an opportunity to show someone you love that you love them
  • I wouldn’t want to swap my issues for anyone else’s issues
  • Get rid of shit that doesn’t enhance your life (and don’t replace it with other shit)
  • Don’t make your happiness & self-worth contingent on anyone or anything
  • Staying fit is hard… Being unfit is also hard… chose your hard!
  • Take a moment to be grateful for what you have every single day

I have cleared up my life & ditched a whole bunch of crap I didn’t need, both literal and metaphorical. I have refocused my energies into areas that deserve my attention and efforts, and I have pulled back from those areas that don’t. I feel a little older & maybe a bit more cynical, but I’m a hell of a lot wiser in terms of understanding those things that are most important to me. I honestly think that one day I’ll look back on 2020 as a defining year that led to some positive personal outcomes despite the trials and tribulations along the way.

Anyway, I know you came here to see painted minis rather than listen to my bollocks, (ok, not literally – that would be weird), so let’s get to it. During my mass-clear-out I found a whole load of minis that came with two kickstarters from Monolith Games, (Mythic Battles: Pantheon and Conan) and Rising Sun from CMON. I went through a phase of backing shit like this, but with no idea how I was going to paint all the stuff, learn the game, play, etc…  Pretty wasteful really, and definitely not in keeping with my drive to clear out crap.

I decided that the games per se didn’t do it for me & so I got rid of all the associated guff, but I thought that the minis were ideal for having some Father/Son time with my youngest during Christmas lockdown – if he fancied it. We had a chat, and he was pretty positive about it, so he helped me to sort the minis by type & selected those he most wanted to paint. A short time later & we had cranked out Ares, a trio of Argonauts, five Hoplites and Leonidas – I helped by painting in parallel with him to speed the process up, but not by doing it all for him. Here’s what we ended up with:

Nice!!

As we were painting, we naturally got to talking about having a game with them, so I got out my copy of Dragon Rampant & worked out a list for his Ancient Greeks, and another using my Greek-themed Dark Elves. DR is a cracking little rule set, very easy to pick up & understand, and is totally agnostic when it comes to minis… Perfect for a simple throw-down with a youngling! We played a couple of games over the weekend, winning one each for a very satisfactory outcome:

So, in a roundabout way, 2020 has led me up to this. Having a good clear-out unearthed these minis, and lockdown gave me ample opportunity to spend quality time with my youngest. This surplus of time meant that the slow art of painting and gaming managed to get a look-in against the many & various forms of electronic entertainment – no mean feat these days!

Most of all, 2020 taught me to be grateful for that quality time with him, and I am looking forward to more of the same – he’s already plotting what units he needs to add to make his first army even more formidable 😊

Anyway, that’s all for now. Keep buggering on ya buggers & I’ll catch you next time.

Populating Spero Secundus part 2

16 Thursday Jul 2020

Posted by in Side projects

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Greetings Terrans, and sorry it has taken such a long time to get this done – life got very busy recently, and I had a bit of painter’s block as well, but we’re all on track this week, so welcome to the second post where I share my efforts to populate my made-up Imperial world Spero Secundus! This time, we are venturing deep into the sump of Hive Terminus… Now, a bit of background for you – Terminus is an interesting place in my made-up Imperial world… Originally, it was one of three hive cities on Spero Secundus’ single continent, it was nuked by Hive Sevelli a century or more ago, marking the close of a nasty civil war. Terminus was reduced to a 100 mile wide pile of irradiated rubble surrounded by miles of radioactive desert where the sand had been fused into glass. However, beneath the surface of the rubble, several domes remained intact, and they became the desperate battleground of the survivors of the nuclear storm… Basically, it’s a super-fun sandbox for me as a GM, and my party had a blast hunting Sump-Spiders and fighting off hordes of cannibal rad-mutants… it is these rad-mutants that are the subject of this post.

When mulling over what to use as rad-mutants, my thoughts inevitably went to the Nurgle range (pox-walkers and so on), but I really didn’t want to go buy any new models… besides, the pox-walkers are pretty well defined as what they are, and I didn’t think them generic enough. I also thought about the old Zombie kit, but that kit really is a bit of a stinker (pun intended) and is long overdue an overhaul… Then I remembered that I had an old ‘Escape from Goblin Town’ set from The Hobbit range. I figured that the malformed little shits in that box would be perfect for generic rad-mutants, and looking through the box confirmed my suspicions. The sculpts are a little weird – they are all single pose one piece affairs, with odd bits of poor definition here and there… I suspect this is a by-product of the production approach that GW used for this rabble… they are ridiculously inexpensive, and you really do get an awful lot for your money… even now, 36 of these fellas can be bought for a mere £30!!

I also had the Goblin King’s Captain and Lieutenant to paint and add to the mob, plus I decided to paint the King himself, though more as a painting exercise than with any gaming application in mind. All in all, this gave me 39 models to paint, so not a trivial task. I did toy with the idea of 40k-ifying them, but decided against in in the end… I kinda like that they are generic enough as they are, and wouldn’t want to root them too firmly in any particular genre or system. I also briefly considered converting out the duplicates, but I didn’t bother in the end… I didn’t think the juice would be worth the squeeze, and I just couldn’t be arsed! (I did use some technical paints to add some texture here and there, but hardly what I would call a conversion). Anyway, here they are in all their glory:

 

They all got the same basic treatment with the paint brush – a white zenithal spray over black undercoat followed by either a purple or crimson wash all over. The flesh was highlighted up with Rakarth Flesh and then a white glaze, while the wood & leather was picked out in Snakebite Leather contrast paint. Boils and pustules got a yellow wash, and the metal work & bone was picked out in my usual way. Finally, I picked out the eyes & teeth, and added some blue or green wash here & there (like a spot of blue shade under the eyes for example), and used a dab more crimson wash for particularly sore bits… The Goblin King had much more attention paid to him, and was really a very nice exercise in blending nasty looking flesh tones:

 

Here are a few different genre shots to show how versatile they are:

 

Anyhow, that’s all for now – I’ll be continuing with the drive to populate Spero Secundus next time with a visit to Hive Verento!

 

 

 

Populating Spero Secundus part 1

22 Monday Jun 2020

Posted by in OldHammer, Side projects

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Greetings Terrans, I hope you are all safe and well during this age of strife. Sorry about the delay getting this post out – it has been a rough couple of weeks, and I actually thought I posted this a fortnight ago! Still, better late than never, and as I promised on my last post, I have been working on more mooks to populate my made-up Imperial Hive World – Spero Secundus. I have had vague plans to do this for a number of years, but since running an online RPG set there, I have been far more motivated to actually get it done. As such, these are all old projects that have been resurrected in this lockdown world we find ourselves in.

First up, the full group of survivors from the shattered rad-wastes of Hive Terminus (including the six test pieces from a few weeks back):

Again, these are de-badged Tallarns with a bit of Greenstuff added to give most them full face coverings & goggles or visors. The only one that is really noteworthy is the chap with the turban – a Tallarn who gave his head to a project a few years ago, and got one back from one of Wargames Foundry ‘Time Warped Wizards’. A few bits and bobs were used to give him a psyker vibe – he makes for a good shamanistic leader or tribal elder I think.

Next up, the Malocchio household guard (again, including previous test models and the nobles of House Malocchio from 2015!!):

Not much to say about these guys – same paint job as before, and no conversions to talk about, but man, I really do like these guys 😊

 

And a final little set up showing a wee skirmish (because who can resist setting up little vignettes like this when you have your toy soldiers handy):

 

And that’s about it folks! Not a hugely exciting post I suppose, but rattling through these minis at speed has an enjoyment factor of its own… All in all, I don’t think I spent more than 20 hours on this lot, so to have 2 decent skirmish level forces finished to a reasonable standard in such a short time is a nice achievement. Next time, we’ll be delving deep into the irradiated & mutant-filled sump of Hive Terminus…   Stay safe out there!