A (small) milestone

So I'm a bit sick of painting 28mm stuff, it's just too demanding. Suddenly my FOW armies start to look appealing, as they can be painted to a reasonable standard using just drybrushing and washes.

My PanzerGrenadier (Afrika Korps) army has been promoted to the front of the painting bench, and I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. Given that I'm in a "free and easy" state of mind at the moment, I'm trying a slight variation on my normal process. I figured that, rather than finishing unit by unit, I'd try to get them all to a "bearable" state for gaming. So I'm undercoating them all (which was done), then black washing them all, then giving all the vehicles their main coat (a heavy dry brush), all the infantry their first base colour and so on.

With the exception of a couple of models, I've now black washed all the army, including my brand spanking new Tiger. I couldn't resist, especially when you want to get a 1500 point army painted, tying up 385 points in a single tank is a good idea ;) I use a mix of water, black paint and black ink (1:1:1), which is slathered on reasonably quickly, just making sure it doesn't pool anywhere.

You can see the process in the pictures. The first picture shows the difference between the primer and the wash. The wash helps fill any cracks that the spray doesn't get to, as well as providing some definition to the models. The biggest boon for me about 15mm figures is that I can sit down for 15 minutes and achieve something, which is much harder in 28mm! Why 15 minutes? That's about as much as children will allow at any one time...

Slow progress...

OK, so it seems like nothing's happened, but that's not completely true. No photos this time, but lots of progress on different fronts. My Winterguard are now almost finished, just needing some detailing. I've also nearly finished a display base for a small WM army, using the article on GW's site. It uses rare earth magnets (very strong!) in the bases to stick to the display base, making for simple transport. Also started putting together my IFP, which is a slow and painful process.

On the terrain front, I've done a bunch of plaster casting, now that I have two new Hirst Arts molds, so a) I have more bits for my dungeon, b) I can now build the Traveller's Bridge, which just needs one set of steps and the handrails done, and c) build the gothic church, after borrowing a mold from a friend Craig.

Nothing on the FOW front, but I'm leaning that way again, thinking how I can get either my Desert Rats or Panzer Grenadier forces onto the table top. I'm leaning towards a bit of extravagence that can be summed up with one word and a piece of punctuation... Tiger!

Hills!

I've finally finished something of note. Some hills to grace my table, to add to my woods. They are part of an overall plan to build a set of "generic" terrain - woods, hills, rivers and roads. I'm not wanting to worry about anything more sophisticated (snow, autumn, coastlines etc), that can wait.

I'll eventually add more. Currently there's a big hill, which is actually made of two parts. This lets you use the hill as two separate hills on the edges of the table, or combine them for a centrepiece for the table. Then there's two small hills with one rough side each. These can be used as is, or put, say, on either side of a river or road to provide a small gully. Then there's the other hill, which is fairly typical except for an impassable cliff section.

Rivers, hedges and some buildings are next.

The hills are built as follows:

- cut out a hill shape from polystyrene (should have used the pink stuff, but only had the regular white variety). Just the outline at this stage, no shaping yet.

- cut a rough shape out of MDF for the base (using a jigsaw) that fits the polystyrene. The edge of the base is rounded off with a file. I can't stress how much easier a power tool makes this! I can't remember if I was using 3mm or 6mm MDF, I'll check when I get home.

- glue the polystyrene onto the base, generally needing something heavy to hold it down so that it doesn't lift off or warp.

- shape the polystyrene using a sharp knife. A blunt knife will just make life hard. Be careful not to cut yourself! Any rocky cliffs and crags are cut at this stage by taking a series of "wedge" shapes out of the polystyrene, horizontally and vertically in a fairly rough manner. One option I'm looking into is to use some form of plaster to better model the rock faces.

- use watered down white glue and sand to put a rough texture over the hills. Any extra coarse gravel or stones can be added at this time too for rough areas.

- once dry, apply a dark brown or black base coat. I've just used standard tubes of acrylic paint from the stationary store. Any exposed foam is painted first by hand, and then a spray is used to cover the bulk of the hill.

- dry brush 2-3 layers, starting with a dark brown and working up to a bone colour. Rocky areas receive a bit more attention here, mixing in some greys as well "to taste".

- flock all over, with your main flock colour. I've used Woodland Scenics fine turf.

- to blend in a bit more variety, different coloured flock can be added. This was done by spraying on glue through a piece of cardboard with rough shaped holes cut into it. Flock was then sprinkled over, to provide a light covering that lets the base colour show through too. The "clumpier" bits on the last hill were added by applying white glue by hand with a brush, and then sprinkling on a coarser flock. One of the smaller hills also has some static grass added, I'm currently unsure whether I'll do this on the other hills or not.

A little progress

Progress has been a little slow lately, largely due to work and the 10 week old sitting on my knee at the moment. Still, here's a few progress shots anyway.





First off, a Death Chicken from my Cryx box set. It's finished apart from a little base work - some water pools and a bit of static grass. Lots of fun in these little critters, only two more to go...


Next up, a WIP picture of the Death Chicken's big daddy, the Slayer.





I'm also assembling a Berserker too, here's the very early stages. It's a fairly fiddly model, but nothing too hard if you take it slowly, and pin the foot!

More than just Menoth...

Well past time for another update. This weekend I played in a small Warmachine tournament at Southcon, which is run by the OMTS. The Warmachine portion was run more as a demonstration with just four players. It seems that there are a number of people playing Warmachine around town, but it has yet to catch on at the local clubs.

We played 400pts, here's the list I used:

Sorscha (71 pts)
Destroyer Warjack (126 pts)
Winterguard (5 + leader, 58 pts)
Winterguard mortar (25 pts)
Widowmakers (53 pts)
Eiryss (29 pts)
Man-O-War Kovnik (34 pts)

Total 396 pts

It was a fairly successful list, with a 1 win, 1 draw record in the 2 games we played. The second game would have probably been a win if we'd played another turn, or if I'd had the sense not to charge my Kovnik into an angry Warjack with a chain attack ;)

It was nice to play something other than Menoth, and hopefully it'll lead to a wider range of opponents in future.

I'll try to get some more interesting pictures up later today...



By the way, this is what Dunedin sunrises can look like.

Distractions...

Well not much updating lately, but I have a good excuse, namely:



Yep, child number two (Jack) has arrived, full of vim and vigour, and just a little bit of infection, as it turns out. Still, all is well and we're very happy.

On the wargaming front there's a convention in June (SouthCon), that I hope to be attending. It was a toss up between playing Flames of War or Warmachine. Both will require some painting, but I decided to go with Warmachine as I've more experience with it, and the games will only take up some evenings, not whole days.


To date, I've only painted up my Khador battle box, but as the tournament is using 400 point armies, I shouldn't need to do too much painting. Although having said that, I keep coming up with infantry heavy army lists that'll leave me with hordes to paint!

Anyway, here's the painted forces I have now:









Since these pictures were taken I've dulled down the shine a bit with a matt varnish, which has helped a lot.

On a final note, my wife and I are getting an entry level digital SLR camera in the near future (Nikon D70), so expect to see me taking more pictures in the future, possibly including some step-by-step posts. Not that I claim to be a great painter, but sometimes it's good to see how an "average" painter can achieve reasonable results.

Easter update

Well, I managed to make a bit more progress over the weekend. I finished my first Afrika Korps platoon, three shiny new (can't bear to weather them just yet) PzIIIs. Also finished painting (but not basing) my first stands of PanzerGrenadiers. Hopefully I'll get the bases finished today.

A couple of other units, my Diana tank hunters and A/T guns have also had their first dry-brush/wash. I'm happy enough with the technique, as long as the first drybrush covers fairly well, you end up with a result similar to block painting, but far less painful!

I've also been trying to track down some details of a particular colour scheme for my Desert Rats Honey tanks. Years ago, I built one from a Matchbox kitset, in what was termed (I've since discovered) a "Caunter" scheme. More details can be seen here. I may end up using this scheme, even if it wasn't used by may chosen regiment, simply because I like it...

Pics at last

I finally got around to borrowing my mother-in-law's camera again. It's got a decent macro setting for taking close up pics. A new camera and a daylight lamp (for painting and photography) are rapidly climbing up my "want" list.

Anyway, these where taken fairly quickly, without a lot of effort in the set up, but hopefully are clear enough to show off what I've been painting lately.

The start of my Desert Fox FOW army is my first PzIII tank. I haven't really found a method that I like yet, this one is painted with a fairly heavy dry brush, a black ink wash, another heavy dry brush followed by a flesh coloured wash, followed by some more dry brushing and then some detail work. Certainly good enough for the wargame's table at least!



Also, I've painted a few more Desert Rats since the last time I uploaded any images. Here's my first platoon and company HQ.





Here's some close ups. I haven't tidied up all the bases yet, I'm still deciding which colour to use on the base edges. I'm currently leaning towards the lighter shade, to tone down the "orangeness" of the bases.









In the last image, you can see the two types of basing material that I've been using. The squads on the left are using GW sand, while the ones on the right, and the command squads are made using sand from the local beach (it covers our house fairly regularly). The latter is my preferred option, it's much finer, and hence more in scale than the GW sand.

Finally, for a bit of a change, here's some in progress shots of my Khadorian Mekaniaks for WarMachine. These guys need to be tough, as they repair war jacks on the battlefield, beating off attackers if necessary!





I'll try to get some more painting shots up soon, but of course need to do the painting first!

Shared honours

Well, I managed to get a couple of games in over the weekend. Sam (my regular opponent) and I setup some Warmachine games, one 350 pts and one 500pts. My Khador took on the might of Menoth. Sam was fielding Feora for the first time, so I had a lot of quick learning to do.

On my side, I hade my trusty Sorscha and Destroyer, aided by Widowmakers, Winterguard and Eiryss. The first game went down to the wire, attrition played a big part, until Feora charged Sorscha. Even though my Destroyer (and one Winterguard!) had a free strike at her, it still left her with three health points, at which stage she used all her stored up focus to fry poor Sorscha.

The second game went a bit differently, as 500 pts of Menoth can be pretty intimidating. I found myself outflanked, with large numbers of jacks and infantry on all sides (or that's how it felt). I played a fairly defensive game, waiting (hoping?) for Sam to leave me an opening. I got lucky, when I pushed Sorscha forward, I was able to use her feat on all of the enemy's models, which was most unusual. This gave me a chance to manouver into place and then take out Feora with one strike. Sam still had some infantry left, but wasn't looking forward to fighting it out so we called it quits then.

Definitely learned a few lessons though.

• Always keep your warcaster safe, only bring them out if you're going in for the kill, and then be sure that it'll happen.
  
• Snipers (including Eiryss) can be used to distract or hinder your opponent. Even if they get wiped out, they tend to suck up your opponents resources, often leaving him open for a killing blow from an unexpected direction.
• Perhaps the best use of snipers is taking out infantry, especially the ones who get armour bonuses for shield walls, or because of casualties or whatever. They've still only got one wound, and at up to 14 inches, a sniper that hits is a sniper that kills. Units can be halved in size, or even wiped out due to morale checks in a single round's shooting.
  
• Be aggressive with your jacks! Khadorian jacks can take so much punishment, it's not funny. Charging them forwards, they'll normally take a round or two's punishment on the way in, but then they'll clean up anything they're in contact with.

In other news, I also managed to finish the assembly, and undercoating of my entire 1500 pt Afrika Korps force for Flames of War. It's based to the point that I can start playing games, so I'll have to see if I can jack up something at the local club or games store.

Gotta get some game time...

I've decided to change my basic method for painting infantry. Not the actual painting techniques, but how and when I go about basing them. See, the problem is that I want to get my army on the table as soon as I can, but I also don't want to be painting figures on crowded bases, where I can't get the brush at them.

So here's the hybrid approach that I'm trying with my Afrika Korps.

1. Prep a units woorth of figures.
2. Mount the NCO's and MGs on their bases.
3. Mount the remaining riflemen on popsicle sticks.
4. Spray 'em all primer grey.
5. Black ink to bring out the detail, and fill in bits the spray misses.
6. Paint the based figures first.
7. Paint the riflemen.
8. Put riflemen on the base and then do the base work - flock, paint and vegetation.

The nice thing about this method is that I can start playig games after step 2. Especially if I get my entire army to step 2. Then I can fill in units if they perform well, or according to whim. We'll see how we get on.

PC games ate my painting time!

The title says it all really. Not much painting progress lately as I've reinstalled Panzer General II, one of my all time favourites, on my home computer. It's a great game that has the right level of complexity and accessability for me. I also picked up Knight of the Old Republic yesterday, so there goes my spare time...

I will try to make some progress with my DAK force soon though. At least a few coats on my PzIIIs...

Toys!!!

Having sold enough toys on the Internet (due to some unexpectedly high demand), I had enough dosh to buy my Afrika Korps boxed army. So it was quickly grabbed from the local store, taken back to work and ripped open! Having not bought a complete army in one hit before, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. However it does appeal to me in that I can look at what's in front of me and know that all I have to do is assemble and paint what I see...

Not much to show yet, although I've assembled the Panzer III platoon and the A/T Diana's, and cleaned up most of a Panzer Grenadier platoon. I'm planning to build complete units as I go, rather than production lining all transports, then all tanks, then all guns then all infantry. This is to keep me sane and also ensure that I don't put the wrong combinations of figures on bases.

More soon.

More contrast!

One of the things that's been bugging me while painting my Desert Rats infantry has been the lack of contrast - the flesh, uniforms, webbing and helmets all use very similar colours - not to mention the bases! Now I know that's the purpose of modern unifroms, to blend in, but it doesn't translate well to the wargames table.

This morning I realised what one of the troubles was. I was using the same coloured wash (flesh) for the uniforms, skin and helmets. So I tried a unit with an alternate scheme - flesh wash for the face, and a chestnut/brown (GW) mixed wash for the uniforms and helmets. So far it looks far better. The figures seem to "pop" more, which means they'll look more detailed on the wargames table. I'll put up some pictures once I've finished the units to demonstrate the contrast.

Something finished!

I've got the first figures off the production line. I'd finished a couple of teams for my motor platoon previously, but now I can add to that a couple of lorries and a jeep. The platoon's command teams are also finished, just the basing to go.

Anyway, here's a couple of pictures to show where I'm at. One effect I'm quite happy with is the faked reflections on the windows of the lorries. It uses a technique from the Flames of War site. The last part - the thin, translucent white lines - is the hardest, the rest was surprisingly quick and easy.



This is the infantry stands with some transport. The camera I'm using (Canon Ixus V) is a great camera, but unfortunately doesn't handle close ups very well. I'll try to get some better pics soon.



This shot shows off the window effect I mentioned. It's basically a modified NMM (Non-metallic metal) effect, which is something I hadn't thought I'd ever try! Still, as the windows are flat, the effect is fairly simple. I started with the sky, using three colours and mixing two "in-between" colours, the sky is just a series of parallel lines. Don't be to fussy here, a bit of variety is fine. The ground is similar, but only uses two colours. Then a thin black ink wash to smooth it all out, and make the effect a bit more subtle. Finally, the thinned down white lines help finish the effect.

10-4 littl' buddy

Managed to get the first of my trucks (oops, lorries) underway last night. They're definitely easier to paint than infantry. So I'm well on the way to finishing my first unit for my Desert Rats army - a motor platoon, one of two or three that I'll eventually have in my army. I'm planning to use the ideas from Lumpy's guide to painting windscreens - maybe I'm masochistic, bit I think the results will help make the trucks stand out a bit.

Hopefully I'll get some picks up soon. My digital camera is not very handy for the up close stuff, so I need to borrow one.

Current projects

To get started, here's a brief run down on what I'm doing at the moment:

• A Khador army for Warmachine. Currently small, only 500pts or so, but will expand to revolve around the combination of massively powerful 'jacks and stubborn infantry.
• A very small Cryxian army for Warmachine. Warmachine is wonderful in that you can play an entertaining game with as few as 3 figures. Having a small second army allows me to introduce non-wargamer friends to the hobby.
  
• A Desert Rats army for FOW. 15mm figures are just so much easier to paint than their 28mm counterparts.
  
• Selling off old stuff on trademe, New Zealand's version of eBay. While I don't need the money to finance my addiction, it seemed like a chance to clear out the garage. I've set myself the target of selling enough to allow me to by the FOW Afrika Korps boxed set to complement the Desert Rats.

Once I've figured out posting images and such, I'll try to get up some details of my Desert Rats army. It's in the formative stages at the moment. I'm still figuring out what painting techniques to use and exactly what combination of units to field. One article of note is by Robert Avery, and describes how to go about building an army with out getting discouraged or distracted. Definitely the thing for me.

Small steps...

Hi all (anyone?),

As a first post, I'll keep this short. This blog is my little corner of the Internet where I can share some of my experiences, both collecting armies of miniature figures, and also playing wargames with them.

I can't promise anything outstanding here, but we'll see. I've been wargaming for about 30 years in one form or another. My current addictions - no, I won't deny it - include Flames of War, Warmachine and Warhammer 40K.

More soon (probably)...