Great news – I’m not dead!

27 Wednesday Nov 2019

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!

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! 😊

Kulo’s Castle…

24 Wednesday Jul 2019

Posted by Alex in Mag Bellum, Terrain, Wolf Time

≈ 37 Comments

Tags

Rogue Trader, scenery, Wolf Time

Greetings Terrans, and welcome. This is it folks, the big one, Kulo’s Castle in 3D… I have been looking forward to completing this part of the project, but let’s start at the beginning, shall we? From the Marine briefing in the Book of the Astronomican:

“The stronghold is built around the ruins of a crashed Ork spacecraft, and is heavily garrisoned. There is a main entrance to the south and a separate vehicle entrance to the north. There is an additional domed area covering an aerial launch pad, through which it may be possible to bring airborne troops, although it will probably be necessary to destroy it first.”

And from the Ork briefing:

“The stronghold is built on two levels: a top ‘spaceship’ level, and a bottom ‘dungeon’ level. Kulo never leaves the bottom level except in a dire emergency.”

The original scenario used a whole bunch of GW floor tiles that were available back in the day, arranged as per the maps included in the book. I had many kind offers of PDF access to these floor tiles, but I really wanted to do something a bit special for BOYL, and so wanted to recreate the maps in 3D… no small task! But I broadly had the concept that the first level should be industrial, while the second level could be less so. I figured that the dungeon level would probably share a lot of the look of the first floor, as the Orks would no doubt salvage parts of their ship to make walls and such.

I had many different thoughts and ideas on how to achieve this, but eventually settled on using the Mag Bellum system from Heresy of Us… I spoke with Mark about it back in April, and we worked out how to recreate an approximation of the map using magnetic floor tiles and plug-in wall sections. I commissioned the project, and we went to prototyping. After a few alterations, Mark had a system figured out, and then did an incredible job in casting a total of 12.25 square feet of floor tiles & 3D printing a staggering 399” of walls and 60 edging strips! The final kit list is as follows:

20 x 3”x3” smooth floor tiles
12 x 6”x6” smooth floor tiles
39 x 3”x3” industrial floor tiles
22 x 6”x6” industrial floor tiles
16 x 3” edging strips
44 x 6” edging strips
57 x 6” walls (including 6 with big doors and 15 with small doors)
19 x 3” walls (including 4 with small doors)

Mark very kindly hand delivered all 229 individual parts at the beginning of July, and even more kindly stuck around for ten hours to help sand & clean all the bits, and then we had to glue all the magnets into the floor tiles and edging strips… 864 magnets in all!

I have spent the last three weeks spraying, shading, drybrushing and weathering it all – I think it is fair to say that this was a hell of a job, but it was finally finished on Monday night. I used the same recipe that I used on the generator buildings – remember that they were built from salvaged spaceship parts, so it made sense to keep a common palette. Once all the bits were finally painted, I put it all together and worked out a few snags – this is an advanced prototype after all! After some fettling and adjustments, I ended up with this for the top ‘spaceship’ level:

And then reconfigured it all with different floor tiles to create this for the ‘dungeon’ level, (with cork rocks to build the tunnel walls):

And here are some staged ‘action’ pics for your pleasure:

I also picked up a nice little template for Navigator Fogg’s vortex bomb – I was going to make my own, but it was cheap, and time is against me:

So what do you guys think? I know it isn’t perfect, and there are a few design changes to discuss with Mark, but it’s pretty damn impressive, no? Of course, it is looking a bit sparse so I need to get some scatter terrain in there! I really really need some help with this so please, if you are going to BOYL and you have any crates, barrels, book shelves, generic Orky furniture, etc. then can you pack them & let me have a lend please? I’m going to spend the remaining time doing what I can, and I’ve had some kind offers from a few people already, (James, Curtis, you sexy legends!), but the more the merrier…

Right, back to it – seven more days until I pack & head to BOYL!! Let’s see what extras I can crank out between now and then 😉

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Tag Archives: Rogue Trader

Great news – I’m not dead!

Last minute odds and ends

Kulo’s Castle…