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Leadballoony – It's a lead thing

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Leadballoony – It's a lead thing

Tag Archives: Oldhammer

Great news – I’m not dead!

27 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by Alex in Eru-Kin

≈ 34 Comments

Tags

Eru-Kin, Oldhammer, Painting, Rogue Trader

Greetings Terrans – wow, it has been quite a while since I’ve posted… Simple reason for that is that it has been quite a while since I painted anything!! You know how sometimes you plan to take a short break from something, and then before you know it, 4 months have flown by? Yeah… that’s pretty much what happened. It’s a strange feeling – after a couple of weeks of not painting, I just didn’t have the urge to do a damn thing. I had a pile of unfinished minis that got the occasional & unfulfilling 20 minutes of paint here and there, but I wasn’t excited about them and they never seemed like they were getting closer to being finished. Gradually, my hobby gear got tidied away to make way for family life, and this made it even more of a chore to get stuck in & pick up a brush… Meanwhile, the wider hobby world continued to evolve around me, with a seemingly relentless wave of new stuff & breaking news that just became overwhelming… I couldn’t keep up, and couldn’t summon the fucks to even try.

It isn’t that I’ve been idle – far from it! I’ve been hitting the gym, I’ve been getting some longer runs in, and I’ve been putting more time in with the family, (much to their dismay). Hell, I have even been watching TV of an evening! Work has also been progressing nicely, as it slowly emerged from a chaotic time into something approaching ‘normal’. All of these important RL things very easily filled the time that had previously been occupied with toy soldiers, and given my lack of fucks to give about the hobby, it really is no wonder that I fell out of love with it for a while…. And then a strange and wonderful thing happened.

I had a very nice ‘out of the blue’ message from Papafakis asking how I was, and basically checking that I hadn’t died or anything, (thanks for caring bro! 😊). He also has Tytus (gameoftravel) visiting at the moment, and is rocking some fab looking RT games – and man, before I knew it, I started to give a slight fuck about the hobby again – just a little quiver on the fuck’o’meter needle so to speak. Also, it hadn’t even occurred to me that folks might worry about my lack of blog activity, so I figured I had better a) paint something, and b) post something… And so, after a rather long-winded explanation, here we are – an actual, honest-to-goodness painted thing:

So this is one of the fantastic Eru-Kin minis that I picked up in the Diehard KS a few years back – I didn’t manage to finish this guy in time for the army that I took to BOYL in 2018, and he’s been in his undercoat since then, (along with several other minis from the range – oh, the shame!). He wasn’t a joyous painting experience, but for the reasons stated above rather than any issue with the mini itself. It was tricky to match back to my original paint jobs, but I think I managed – here he is with some of his Amphibi-bros:

Funny thing – as well as being horribly rusty with the brush, I also found my sense of scale had gotten worse during my hiatus… I didn’t realise how big this chap was until I put him next to some other minis for this photo! I’m guessing he’s supposed to be a leader of some sort, what with the arm-mounted communicator (or possibly snack dispenser), and his natchy bionic eye… He looks like a leader to me, so that’s how I’ll fit him into my army.

Anyhoo, that’s me for now – I won’t make any promises about posting again in any particular timeframe, but I do promise to make more of an effort to do some painting, to get more hobby done, and to keep you updated. Peace out!

Getting back into the groove

15 Thursday Aug 2019

Posted by Alex in OldHammer

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

Oldhammer, Painting

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? I’m still coming to terms with life after Wolf Time – motivation to paint anything has been pretty poor these last couple of weeks, and this has combined with a general low mood, but my mojo is slowly coming back… I know from experience that the best remedy for any kind of slump is to focus on the positives and just do what I can, so I’ve been getting some decent running in the bank while the weather has been good. I also decided to crank out something quick and easy on the painting front, and have sort of committed to clearing my neglected minis pile, (which for me means ‘undercoated and based’). Fortunately, I had this wee beasty lurking in my heap’o’shame:

He’s a Diehard Miniatures Undead Minotaur – a sod to photograph but a lovely sculpt, and for me, the perfect mini to get back into painting. I’ve followed my usual approach to undead here – mainly ink washes, only using ‘proper’ highlighting for the bone & metal, and then some rust, blood & goo added for good measure… nothing taxing, just a basic zombie jobby! I also finished up this long-neglected chaotic type:

I think he’s from the Pantheon of Chaos range, but I can’t find him on their site so feel free to educate me in the comments if you know better! Regardless of provenance, he’s a superb mini with loads of old school charm. I’ve painted him to go with my version of ‘Konrad Venkel’ from PoC… I vaguely had/have a notion to build a chaotic warband in the service of Malal, so black & white predominates on these guys, and an overtly insectoid look abounds. Clearly this is a slow burning project – I painted Konrad back in August last year, so at this rate, I’ll have a decent warband by the time I retire! For now, the party stands thusly:

 

Aaaand that’s it I’m afraid folks – nothing else doing at the moment! I’m going to be away from my paints for a week, and then I plan to crack on with the rest of my neglected minis – mostly Diehard Eru-kin and a certain Necromundan celebrity. I’m not sure what to expect after that – I have vague plans for a Wood Elf BB team, expanding my DoK for Warcry, some sci-fi civilians and a RoC warband, but not sure what order to approach this in… I’m kinda keen to try Warcry, so maybe DoK might get to the head of the queue? We’ll see.

Anyway, that’s all for now folks – onwards and upwards!

Last minute odds and ends

31 Wednesday Jul 2019

Posted by Alex in BOYL, OldHammer, Wolf Time

≈ 27 Comments

Tags

Oldhammer, Rogue Trader, scenery, Wolf Time

Greetings Terrans – last post before I head off to BOYL, so I thought I’d do a quick wrap-up of the last few bits I managed to rush through this week. Nothing stellar here, just quick and easy stuff:

Barrels, crates & gas canisters – always useful:

 

Shed for game 3 – supposed to be a storage shed, but I thought I’d have some fun with it & make the quintessential ‘I’d give it a minute if I were you’ type of convenience that an Ork might favour:

 

‘Rock Forest’, also for game 3 – these will be on a volcanic game mat, hence the colour:

 

‘Fighting pit’ for the dungeon level of Kulo’s Castle. Obviously, I can’t dig a pit in my game board, so I made a fighting cage instead:

 

Examination table for da Doc’s room (or possibly a torture table for the torture room):

 

Simple ‘gravity lifts’ to connect the levels of Kulo’s Castle:

 

Landing pad – Part of the top level of Kulo’s Castle, but it can only be reached from the air so only the Marine Jet Bikes can actually use it. The stairs are also separate, and can be used for the main stairs in the dungeon level:

 

Benches and tables for the Great Hall:

 

And finally, a rather stained & unsanitary bed for Kulo’s sleeping chamber:

 

Phew! So that’s it folks, the build & paint part of the Wolf Time project is officially done! I didn’t have time to do everything I would’ve liked to do – I would’ve loved to have a load of cupboards, lockers, bookcases, shelves of ‘stuff’ etc. but I just ran out of time. That said, I reckon we’ll be ok with all these items and with the awesome bits that other folks are kindly bringing along.

Next time I post it’ll be on the campaign itself – I’m really looking forward to the games, but it is also strange to think that the whole thing will be over soon… Endings are a funny thing – it’ll be the culmination of almost a year of work and focus, so very rewarding, but also sad to be finished in a way. I’ve learned a hell of a lot over the course of this project – there has been a shitload of organising, researching, painting, sculpting, building and collaborating. There have been many ups and downs, but one constant has been the encouragement & motivation I’ve received from you guys out there in the interwebs and in real life too – even non-gamer friends & family have been cheering me on! I want to formally thank all of those that encouraged and supported me… this is as much down to you guys as it is to me.

Right, that’s enough of the soppy stuff, I’m off to pack the car & get ready to hit the road in the morning. I’m doing all day at Warhammer World tomorrow, and then heading to Newark for the long weekend. Hopefully see some of you around over the weekend!  😊

Power to the people!

16 Tuesday Jul 2019

Posted by Alex in OldHammer, Terrain, Wolf Time

≈ 34 Comments

Tags

Oldhammer, Rogue Trader, scenery, Wolf Time

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? I know it has been quite idle on this here little blog, but I’ve been far from idle behind the scenes! I’ve been working my way through more terrain for the second & third Wolf Time games – mostly items to do with power generation. Let’s go straight into scenario 2.

Scenario 2 is set at a geologically active area of the island – one where sudden and violent winds howl through a network of subterranean tunnels, occasionally breaching the surface with explosive results! I’m paraphrasing, but basically the Orks have rigged up a huge turbine from bits salvaged from their crashed space craft – this single large building caps a permanent blowhole in a rather precarious way, has a single double door and a wooden watchtower accessible from the roof. The generator is in a walled compound, along with two long huts (so reusing the ones from the first scenario), The Orks also have four control valves located around the facility to manage the flow of gasses to the generator. I haven’t built the walls yet, but the rest is done, so let’s take a look!

First, the big generator building:

This big beasty was basically assembled from a takeaway food bowl, a section of cardboard tube, an old pc fan, thick card and coffee stirrers. Additional detail was added from the ever-useful ‘Maelstrom’s Edge’ terrain sprue, plus a few odds and ends from the bits pile. Once primed, I textured the main building with Typhus Corrosion before spraying again with a pale green, and then washed, drybrushed and weathered the hell out of it. You’ve probably noticed that the turbine fan appears to be moving in the pics – that’s because it is! I figured out the wiring & plumbed in a 9v battery to spin that bad-boy :-)

 

And here are the control valves for the same scenario (pictured with a commanders hut for scenario 3 – slightly confusing know, but ignore the hut for now):

Nothing special to report here – all are from Crooked Dice, and painted in the same way as the long huts I presented in my last post. Right, on to the next scenario!

 

Scenario 3 is set in a lava field set in the midst of a stone forest. The Ork compound has two tall, cylindrical heat exchanger towers, each with a tall wooden watchtower with an emplaced Heavy Bolter in each one. The compound also has two long huts (again, reusing the ones from the first & second scenario), as well as a smaller hut for the commander and a tool shed. I haven’t finished the shed yet, but the rest is done – as before, let’s start with the generators:

These were fairly simple to build – the main buildings are just cardboard tubes with a bit of Maelstrom’s Edge bling, and watch towers built from more coffee stirrers. The heavy Bolters are on magnets, so can be placed on any of the pintles set around the outside of the watchtowers, (including the big building from scenario two if I choose). I also set some magnets inside the tubes, with the idea of connecting the two buildings with some cabling. The cable junction boxes are small crates with the handles shaved off, magnets set inside, and wires glues into small holes.

And here is the commander’s hut for the same scenario – with the roof off this time:

Nothing special to report here either – the hut is also from Crooked Dice, and painted in the same way as the long huts I presented in my last post!

 

So that’s it for Orky generators, but there is one other generator mentioned in the game – a phase field generator, that may be available to the Marines to use in the last scenario. I couldn’t find a picture of a phase field generator anywhere, but the Rogue Trader rulebook describes it as a large, heavy bit of kit that temporarily phases a small patch of matter into the warp, allowing models to create a doorway through any solid object. Of course, the field isn’t 100% stable, and can collapse with spectacularly terminal results for anyone caught inside the field when it pops! I bashed together a fairly industrial-looking bit of kit from bits & pieces to do the job, and gave it a very quick paintjob in Space Wolf colours:

I quite like the end result, despite it being a low effort affair – it actually ended up looking quite steampunk! Here’s a final shot of some Marines trying to phase their way into an Ork building:

 

So that’s it for now – I have just 15 more days to finish the project! There are other odd jobs that I may or may not get time to do – walls etc. but none are vital to the scenarios, so I’m counting these as stretch goals… However, the final critical bit of the project is a biggy… Kulo’s Castle… Wish me luck!

Wolf Time – Game 1 ready to roll

04 Thursday Jul 2019

Posted by Alex in OldHammer, Terrain, Wolf Time

≈ 39 Comments

Tags

Oldhammer, Rogue Trader, scenery, Wolf Time

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? It has been a busy time at balloony HQ! With a ton of terrain to work through, I have focussed on scenario 1 for the time being – Ork huts, rubbish piles and a great big fuck-off temple (BFT for short).

First let’s take a look at the huts:

 

I reckoned that the map called for something about 12” by 4”, so I needed something in kit form that could be tailored to fit. After some research, I decided to use a kit from Crooked Dice – they have a good generic scrappy look to them, and the kit design gave me plenty of options in terms of size. They were a bit of a faff to assemble, but were worth the effort I think. The tops are removable so it is easy to use the indoor space during a game, so I built them with the idea of being able to use them as a fire base (with numerous openings and such). I also did a load of bin bags & grubby mattresses to use as ‘indoor scatter’:

I went in with a heavily stained & rusted look & added some little humour points – Badyear & Dung-lob tyres, suspicious stains, graffiti, etc. Probably the best thing about these huts (and the crap inside them) is that they turn up in the first three scenarios, so they have great reusability in the campaign.

 

Next, we have the rubbish piles:

Again, these are from Crooked Dice, and were treated in a similar way to the huts but painted to look even more grungy. Not too much else to say here – these are just generic scatter/light cover, and are likely to turn up in multiple scenarios too.

 

Finally, we have the BFT…

When I first decided to take this project on, (11 months ago!!), I knew that I would need something MAHOOSIVE for this. The map shows the temple platform as being around 24” by 18”, so I took a punt and sent a letter to GW, asking them to release a suitable kit… they were very obliging with their new Domain of Sigmar Shattered Temple – great job guys, and just in time too!!

Ok, so I made that last bit up, but I was genuinely delighted with the release – it really is the perfect solution. I made the temple in three parts – the biggest central bit and two smaller wings. I chopped the steps off the long edges of two kits, and glued them together to make the big central section. I drilled out one of the round vault bits to make a hole for the grav lift – spookily, the vaults are exactly 3” in diameter, just as specified in the campaign. I glued in a suitable pot to complete the lift, and arranged the pillar supports to level off the sides where the centre section would connect to the wings. The wings themselves were far more straight forward, and are just the basic temple with the pillar supports all down one edge to connect to the centre, (I really like that the kit allows you to do that). Finally, I glued the pillars that came with the temple into sets of four to make six chunkier pillars, and these just sit on the temple platform as required. I decided to deviate from the game brief slightly and not bother with a roof for the temple… I figured that it would be pretty redundant gamewise, and that it would just be in the way. After that, it was just a case of treating the stonework to some texture, and setting to it with spray can, washes and drybrush. Here are all the component parts:

And here’s a mock-up of the first game of the campaign:

And as a reminder, here’s the map:

I reckon that’s pretty damn good, don’t you?  Here are some fun shots (please excuse the crappy lighting & awkward floor-based photography):

 

Phew! That’s it for this post, and with less than 4 weeks to go now, I’d better get cracking with the rest of the terrain! Catch you next time… :-)

Happy Birthday Lead Balloony!

25 Tuesday Jun 2019

Posted by Alex in OldHammer, Terrain, Wolf Time

≈ 40 Comments

Tags

Oldhammer, Rogue Trader, scenery, Wolf Time

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? I wasn’t planning to post today – I’m busy working through terrain and wanted to get a bit more done for a more involved post, but I had a reminder that Lead Balloony is 5 years old in my feed today, so I thought it an auspicious day for a cheeky little update 😊

So, if you’re anything like me, you’ll know that the best way to celebrate any birthday is with a bit of casual sacrilege and some light-hearted iconoclasm. Happily, the Wolf Time campaign provides the perfect opportunity to indulge with the iconic statue in the first game. From the book:

“Years ago, before the Orks arrived and made everybody’s lives miserable, (and short), Temple Mountain was a place of peace and solitude. Every year the islanders made sacrifices to the gods with which they imaginatively peopled their island. Twice a year they celebrated the passing seasons with a great procession to the temple which their ancestors had built thousands of years previously. The guardians of the temple were wise oracles who would offer advice to the ordinary folk. Once in a while, a young child would be offered to the guardians and, if accepted, would be reared in the temple to become a guardian himself in time.

Then the Orks arrived and killed everyone. They desecrated the large statue which the humans had carved in the likeness of one of their gods, and turned it into a grinning Ork.”

And:

“The statue in front of the temple is also made of solid rock, and can provide had cover for up to two models”

We also have some artwork to go on:

 

And most famously, the cover of The Book of the Astronomican by Tony Roberts:

 

So the rules say ‘provides cover for up to 2 models’, which is tiny, but the art shows a vast statue that would be impractical to build and game with. I think the game map is actually the best guide for scale, which suggests something about 6” wide:

 

While the artwork is not very helpful for scale, it is fairly consistent on the appearance of the statue, and it strongly suggests using a buddha as the start point. I also like the addition of the sword in the cover art, so  after quick trip to a local hippy shop with an idea of scale & armed with the cover as a reference, I ended up with this:

 

This has probably royally fucked my visa to Thailand, but I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s pretty much instantly recognisable. The head & sword were sculpted over a wire frame and a coffee stirrer respectively, and I textured up the base before spraying the whole piece black, and then again with grey. I then painted the statue with typhus corrosion – I find that this gives otherwise smooth surfaces a nice texture, and I use this method a lot for stonework. After that, I just drybrushed the whole piece, added different washes to the old & new stonework to show a difference, and adding spots of lichen to the older material. I finished up with a final light drybrush and some foliage & tufts to bed the piece into the ground and because FUCKING OLD-SCHOOL, and I ended up with this:

 

And here’s another shot with a spare Ork & Space Marine Bastard for scale:

 

So that’s it folks – I have a lot more campaign terrain in various stages of completion, but it’s good to get the most iconic piece of terrain done & set the tone for the rest of the project. I just hope that this doesn’t have any cosmic ramifications! :-/

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