7TV: Feeling Crabby

The weekend resulted in a burst of painting activity on some more outstanding Crooked Dice figures (how did I end up with so many?!) I managed to get a set of alien envoy figures fully completed, think crab men for what they look like

There are a pair of envoys, large bulky armoured crab warrior types. They come with seperate weapons, if you want to use them, but I thought I would do these 'au naturel' as they will probably get more use that way

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In the same set as the two envoys there were a pair of conch-kin. These little crustations act a bit like the face huggers in Alien but grab on to the victims back and control them. They are on 15mm bases so are fairly diminutive!

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7TV: Diana Dare

Just a quick update, with one more Crooked Dice figure completed. This is Diana Dare, one of the sisters to Katrina who I painted a few weeks ago

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Hopefully more painting will be finished over the weekend

Hostess

Well, I have been busy in the background working on things but not having anything ready to post up until now

Very shortly I should be receiving my Dreadball game from Mantic Games that I backed on their Kickstarter pledge. Wanting something to paint and get in the sports frame of mind I turned to some Bloodbowl figures that have been hanging around for a while

I picked up this Impact figure for use as sideline support, nothing like some inspiration to spur your team on!

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So, planning my painting out for over the Christmas & New Year break I've decided to aim to get the Terran Firestorm Invasion 10mm starter force done. I've spent the last week washing, cleaning, gluing, attaching magnets and finally undercoating them all to get to this stage. That's twenty six 3mm magnets fitted to all of the tank and artillery turrets. And, yes, I did end up with one or two glued to my fingers ..

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Dr Zoidberg

I managed to finish a new figure last night, one of the latest robot townies figures from Armorcast. These are obviously (not) based on Futurama and any resemblance is purely coincidental...

To add to the robots that I posted in an earlier post, here is an alien doctor figure who is obviously Dr Zoidberg. I've attached him to a resin base that came with the Fantascape hockey girl I posted last week

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I now see that Armorcast have now released an evil Santa robot armed with a machine gun. Will the lead mountain never be cleared?!

Jolly Hockey Sticks Comparison

Here you go guys, comparison picture of the two figures from yesterday

As you can see the Fantascape figure is big at about 32mm whereas Mysty, the Crooked Dice girl, is about 28mm in size. I'll use the blond as the school hockey captain to allow for her being taller

Apologies for the flash reflection on the ruler, I must find a white plastic one to use....

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7TV: Jolly Hockey Sticks

A week since the last post? The reason was a nasty stomach bug that hit me for several days, I was even off work with it :(

Anyway, picking the latest random selection of figures to be painted, I went for a pair of similarly themed figures from different manufacturers. The theme being schoolgirl hockey players (don't ask..)

First up, and the figure that prompted both of these to be done, is Mysty from Crooked Dice. She appears in their latest ZombieTV supplement, For Ghouls & Colleges

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At the same time as this figure was released I found the following zombie survivor available from Fantascape. She is a big girl, and the hockey stick is more ice rather than field, but I think she fits in nicely. The zombie head is a nice touch!

 

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Hopefully I've seen the back of the bug and can get some serious painting in now...

 

 

7TV: Blake

One more new Crooked Dice figure completed last night. This is the first of their pair of miniatures based on the heroes from Blake's 7, a TV series from the 1970's here in the UK

For anyone who hasn't seen the show, it's worth checking out. Yes it looks a bit shaky after all these years (who wouldn't?) but the story lines are well put together. There is actually talk of a new re-imagining of the show but I haven't heard anything for a while

So, here is titular hero himself, Roj Blake

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I have one more character to paint, Olag Gan, then I'm waiting for Crooked Dice to release the rest

Previously, I painted the following Blake's 7 related figures. These are not Servalan and Travis, two lead baddies plus a group of Federation guards from CP Models. Crooked Dice produce their own guards as well now, I shall have to add a few of them to the mix...

 

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7TV: A Couple More

I seem to have slowed up painting the last week or two. I can't really put my finger on the reason though. Maybe it's the darker evenings and just wanting to sit down when I get in from work?

Still, I forced myself to start painting again over the weekend. As I didn't go to Warfare this year (a decision made as I have plenty to paint en-hand as it is) I grabbed a few new Crooked Dice 7TV figures that I had arrive recently

First up is one of the not-Angel pilots, Katrina Dare. Painted in the scheme that is reminiscent of the show she is taken from. I must get the other two figures they do and add to the set sometime...

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The other figure I painted is one of their arch villains, Dr Ulysses Argo, complete with his electro gauntlets

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I must try and keep up the painting now I have started again  :/

The Big Bang Theory

Recently I discovered the brilliant comedy series, The Big Bang Theory. For some reason, the show had slipped under my radar, and I never started watching it until season 4. Having now caught up with most of the repeats, I'm eagerly awaiting the start of the new season, on E4 this Thursday, here in the UK

It contains so many references to shows & cultures that I enjoy, computer gaming, Star Wars, Star Trek, boardgames amongst others. Wrap all of this up with some excellent comedy writing and it ticks all my boxes!

So, you may ask, where is this heading on a wargames blog? Simple, Attica Games have released a set of five figures called the 'graduates' that bear a striking similarity to the cast. I had to have them & paint them....

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Now, they just need to add two more female figures for Amy & Bernadette

Bushido: The Nian

Just sneaking in at the end of October, I managed to finish off one more of the Japanese fantasy figures for Bushido

I picked this figure up at Colours, back in early September, and had him based and undercoated on the painting table for several weeks. I just couldn't seem to work out what to paint him so I resorted to mixing various colours together on a palette until I found something that looked about right. I think it ended up being a mix of Vallejo sombre grey and tan but don't quote me on it....

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The Nian is a demonic Oni dog like creature for the Savage Wave faction and he is based on a 40mm resin base I had spare

Next month, continuation of the far East fantasy that I seem to be doing at the moment 

Tales of the Dragon Kings: Part 6

Turning back to the Chinese mythology figures, I completed one more last night. This figure is listed as a Chinese necromancer. Black Hat also do several packs of zombies that I must get hold of soon

As usual, I scanned around the 'net for any pictures that I could use for reference whilst painting. Not having any luck whatsoever, I had to resort to following the painted example on the Black Hat store..

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I've no idea what the staff item is supposed to be, anyone have any suggestions?

7TV: Moonbase Alpha

Yes, I know that I said there would be more Chinese figures for the next post but it's some more 7TV cult TV ones this time

I was given a set of surplus Crooked Dice astronauts, by Steve at the Wells club, a week or two ago. I've already painted a set of these (see below) based on the Dr Who stories Silence In The Library and the follow up Forest Of The Dead. Not wanting to duplicate figures I already have done, I scanned around for something to do with them

Now, cunningly enough, Crooked Dice do a set of scientist figures (again I previously painted them) and those heads when attached to the astronaut bodies bear a striking resemblance to the three lead characters in the 1970's TV show Space: 1999. So that is what they ended up becoming

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Painted using one of the old Citadel Foundation colours for the orange for their suits plus Vallejo paints for the rest. I did change from my usual base colour to grey as it seemed to suit

Here's the three figures I previously painted, with the original heads, done up as the Albion Rocket Corporation

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Another great thing about the Crooked Dice range is the selection of heads they produce allowing you to create all sorts of wonderful figures like the one I did below :)

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Tales of the Dragon Kings: Part 5

I finished painting another pair of the Chinese mythology figures over the weekend. Still working my way through the collection that have been waiting for paint for several years, plenty more to come

For this pair, I chose a hero armed with a chui hammer, from the Chinese Heroes III pack and a warrior princess with a flute from that pack. The chui hammer was either a large iron or bronze ball mounted on a single or double handed handle, I did this one as iron

Next up, more of the same!

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Tales of the Dragon Kings: Part 4

Another couple more figures painted from the Black Hat Chinese mythology range. These two are the remaining pair from the vampire hunters pack

They are taking me a bit longer than normal, as each figure is so unique I can only really work on one at a time. Still, I'm slowly plodding my way on

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Tales of the Dragon Kings: Part 3

Another update with a couple of new figures from the Chinese Mythology range from Black Hat Miniatures. The first one is another figure from the vampire hunters set I started in the last post, but this time it's the vampire himself

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As with all of these figures, I'm not really sure what colours to paint them so my schemes are based off the ones on the Black Hat site

Next to be done is a temple guardian statue, of course he will come to life..

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It might not be evident in this photo exactly how big he is, so here's a comparison with the 28mm vampire from above. He's big, I had to base him on a 50mm washer!

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Tales of the Dragon Kings: Part 2

A bit of a delayed update for me, I haven't managed to paint much this last week. For some reason it seemed as most of the spare time I had was taken up with online gaming playing either Dead Island, Dawn of War or World of Warcraft. I don't usually computer game that much so I can't really complain about a week now and again

Non computer gaming wise, I played a couple of missions in Zombicide at Wells last week and a team game of Magic the Gathering last night. The Zombicide games were OK, I would say the missions didn't feel as though they had been tested much though. Although, the other ones I've played previously have been much more challenging, so an easier game was welcome. My Kickstarter copy of the game arrived last week, I'm not going to start the painting yet, if I do then nothing else will get done...

Whilst I'm mentioning it, I'm also going in for the Mantic sci-fi sports game, Dreadball. It has the look of an old Amiga game I used to play called Speedball so I just couldn't resist :)

On the painting front I have managed to paint a couple more of the Chinese mythology figures. These are the monk Triptaka from the Journey to the West/Monkey pack plus a vampire hunter from another pack. More to definitely follow soon!

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Tales of the Dragon Kings: Part 1

Two or three years ago I bought heavily into the Tales of the Dragon Kings range of 28mm Chinese mythology figures that Black Hat Miniatures released. I planned on assembling enough figures and scenery to run a series of games based in the vein of Monkey, The Water Margin and such films. Unfortunately, as many of my projects seem to happen, I never really got off the ground with it

Forward a couple of years to Colours and one of the few things I treated myself to was a new pack from this range. The panda adventurers contains two giant pandas and two red pandas (I mistakenly thought they were foxes until I checked)

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I used the same colour schemes as the ones on the Black Hat website, no idea what else to use so it seemed to make sense to borrow the 'official' ideas

Now this has made me consider whether I should dig out more of them & apply some paint. I'll ponder the decision and see what happens. Of course then I need to think about a rules set to use, maybe Song of Blades & Heroes from Ganesha Games? 

These were the only other figures I actually painted when I bought them originally, a pair of ghosts plus Monkey on his flying cloud

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Gun Turrets

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I bought these turrets from Scotia Grendel a while ago but for some reason they sat gathering dust. Over the weekend I grabbed them and decided to paint them up at last. They were originally designed for use with he Kryomek game but will be useful in anything from modern 7TV games onwards seeing as they are armed with machine guns

The gun turrets themselves are loose and tend to fall off rather easily so I used some 3mm magnets to make them more stable and to allow them to turn and be removed if required

They were mainly painted with several of the old Games Workshop Foundation paint colours. I really liked those paints, I must buy one of the new 'base' ones and see how it compares. It's funny, I usually use Vallejo paints but for block painting those Foundation paints were really good

Next on the table, not sure, getting easily distracted at the moment :/

Colours 2012 & Firestorm Invasion

On Sunday I made my way along the M4 to Newbury racecourse where the annual Colours wargame show was held. This year I was also going to help support some of the Wells club members who work at Spartan Games and were there demonstrating their new 10mm sci-fi game, Firestorm Invasion: Planetfall

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I managed to get my first game of the new system around lunchtime (it was that popular I couldn't get at the table) The basic learning game pitted the Terran Alliance against the Dindrenzi Federation forces (a splinter human faction)

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The system works with alternating squadrons activating by the order you set the cards in a force stack. The firing uses three different coloured dice to represent weapon types/ranges etc. A 6 on a black d6 = 1 hit, a 6 on a blue d6 = 2 hits, a six on red d6 = 2 hits and a reroll exploding dice. This actually makes for an interesting game as you can improve your dice type in various ways but that might leave your own force open to retaliation. Add in to this, a hand of cards that you can use to do things like call an airstrike, immediately move a second squadron and advance d6 additional inches then it brings in lots of additional tactics and fun

Anyway, enough rambling, here are some more photos from the game 

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The plan is to produce the same vehicles in 15mm scale and then 28mm for the two follow on systems that link to Firestorm Invasion: Planetfall. The 15mm game will include infantry whereas the 28mm game will be more squad based

I also grabbed a few snaps of some of the forthcoming Dystopian Legions 28mm figures if anyone is interested. That robot looks sweet!

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At this point I went on a walk around the show but completely forgot to take my camera with me so didn't take any other pictures. It wasn't until I was driving home that I realised this

Anyway, swag for the day was minimal (a deliberate plan) I picked up some resin mesa hills from Critical Mass Games, a new oni dog for Bushido and, on a whim, a pack of kung-fu pandas from Black Hat Miniatures

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Clowning About

Digging through the pile of figures that still need painting, I came across a set of armed clowns I got from Black Cat Bases a while ago. These will be destined for use in 7TV games, one of the sample scenarios in the Summer Special supplement is based in a carnival with clowns involved

These clowns aren't your usual family friendly ones but seem more reminiscent of Pennywise the clown from the Stephen King story/film It. Picking the first one from the set that I liked the look of, I went for the first colour scheme that came to mind. Suitably scary I think...

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Whilst I was waiting for him to dry, I quickly painted up these power units from Fenris Games. They are designed for use with the Incursion weird WW2 boardgame but will be useful in tabletop miniature games as well

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Finally, if anyone is going to Colours at Newbury Racecourse this weekend, I'll be there on the Sunday. I'm helping out on the Spartan Games demo table, just look for the confused looking person :)

A Week In Paint

Despite no new posts for the last week, I have been busy with the brush & paints. Even though I have had the week off work I didn't really get to do any real painting until late on Tuesday

My real aim this week was to paint the remaining Bushido figures I have left. This was somewhat successful, with the six Bakemono goblins from the starter set plus one additional character Bakemono completed

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I have another group of three of these to paint, those are the ones that can be summoned in a game to increase the horde size. These really are lovely figures, full of character in their evil looking faces. The miniatures are a bit fiddly to put together, with separate arms, heads and add-on bits. Nothing some good adhesive can't deal with though

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This Bakemono is the only character one I have at the moment, Tra-Peng the hunter. You can just make out a man-trap that he has slung over his shoulder

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I have quite a bit of Games Workshop Lord of the Rings range, both painted & unpainted. Even though I haven't played a game in a few years I got the urge to paint some of them. These Gondor Fountain Guard are lovely figures and I wanted some when they were first released. On reading they are being replaced with Finecast  I decided to pick up these metal ones cheap off of eBay. I'll have to watch the films again now though!

Finally, I wanted to clear some scenery bits that needed doing. The Ainsty checkpoint was in need of painting as I glued it together previously. The wooden shed was something I added to the Warbases order a while back and went together quickly and some card tiles on the roof finished it off nicely. Finally, the shop I got from PMC on eBay. It comes prepainted with a cream brick colour that I gave a quick red drybrush to make it match my other UK buildings. The windows and sign were also painted to lift it ready for use

Sasha Charity Figure

Back at the end of 2011, the Frothers Unite miniature forum started a charity drive by getting a figure sculpted and for sale. This year's figure was a fantasy swords woman called Sasha and is based upon a drawing that was made of a character in a series of Dungeons & Dragons games that were broadcast on the internet. As one of the charities was cancer research I was happy to donate, as I lost my father early last year to it

The figure was sculpted by Kev White of Hasslefree Miniatures and then a limited number of metal casts made and then a further limited number cast in a new plastic compound called Trollcast by Troll Forged Miniatures. The one I had was one of the later, I was too late to get one of the metal ones

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The Trollcast plastic is excellent, there was no pitting or holes and the details are very, very crisp. Also, I simply clipped the tab from her feet and superglued her to a Fenris resin base. It stuck really well!

Here is the original drawing the figure was based on if anyone is interested. Well done to all those involved

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7TV: More Painted Characters

As my break from the Dystopian Wars painting, I stepped up to my favourite figure scale of 28mm. I had a few new figures from Crooked Dice recently that needed to be done so I took the opportunity over the weekend to get them painted

Here are the Man From 2000, Hugo Soloman and a Daughter of Shiva

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I've basically followed the Crooked Dice paint schemes for the first couple, they are based on existing characters so it made sense. The Daughter of Shiva I've given a more subdued colour scheme though as it should make her fit into other things that I have planned

I finished the bases of these last night after returning from a monthly Sunday boardgame session at Wells. Invasion From Outer Space resulted in a win for the invaders on the last game turn whereas I somehow managed to win the Killer Bunnies card game despite my first three bunnies dying out as soon as they were brought out 

Next up, maybe one or two more 28mm's before dropping back to Dystopian Wars scale