Happy International Table Top Day!

I first heard about this from Wargame News and Terrain.

Drivethru RPG is having a free bundle give away here. (link also from Wargame News and Terrain)

I downloaded it, plus bought some more rule books and the 3D card dungeon that Ricardo of Fantalonia mentioned here.

I also received a large box from a member of the Old School Wargaming Yahoo Group, so thanks to Robert I now have a bunch of cool stuff to sort through. I'll try to get some pictures up in the intervening days and perhaps you all can help me identify some of it. A real mix of scales and periods.

I also intend to do some gaming, by hook or by crook today. I just have a lot to do with a kids party, registering for fall football and the realization that the yard is way too dirty for an Easter Egg hunt. Off to the salt mines.

Happy gaming.

Another Meme?

We all are trying to improve our blogs and extend our reach into the blogosphere and every now and then we share tips with each other to increase traffic. Obviously getting listed on blog networks and cross posting to message boards is the best way, aside from actually writing interesting content.

Another way is to start or join in on a meme.

So for my meme I'm presenting the concept of the "Ray Rousell approved Blog Whore". You all know Ray and Fran, two very successful bloggers, and may have heard either they or Anne use the term blog whore.

While I may not rise to the full level of whore, perhaps more like blog slut, I have tried to emulate what I think are some of the successful things they do that I can accomplish.

For your perusal are some mock up test banners that Ray could award for this prestigious title:

Frankenhooker

Ray Pimpin'

Ray Villa

I had hoped to embed the poll here, but the way dynamic views handles things is different than what I expected and the code doesn't look like what I expected.

So you'll have to vote in the poll over in the pull out bar to the right. I've left it open until Friday April 5th 11:00PM. But it's anybodies guess what timezone my blog is in. It should be US Mountain but my day rolls over at about 4pm in the stats.

On an aside note, Frankenhooker is one of the films that I worked on when I worked in the film industry in New York. From 1988 - 1992 yours truly slaved away on many a film. I only received credits for three. Here is my IMDB page.

I worked on several Scorsese and Spike Lee films but they didn't hand out any credits to the peons in the machine room.

I hope to have some painting progress and reports coming soon.

Just blog pimpin'

Hi all I've been on a short vacation and didn't have too much time for blogging, but I did manage to keep up with reading what's going on.

If you've somehow missed it head on over to:

The blog with no name

28mm Victorian Warfare

Anne's Attic

To get in on some good prize draws.

Also the term blog whore is getting bandied about and it's sparked another idea. Something to do with photo manipulation and hats.

Good luck in the prize draws, but not too much as I'm entered as well.

Brush obsession

As I've begun to actually paint more I've become obsessed with the idea that my brushes just somehow aren't right. When I was just willy nilly buying stuff I bought a couple of packs of cheap brushes and ended op really only using the 0 which is starting to curl at the tip.

The 0, sixth from the left has become my go to brush.

Now as you can see that is a lot of brushed that I am not using. I probably should be using the ones to the right in the picture above, but the length of the bristles is something I don't really like. Also as you can see they look like gold nylon and and some kind of rodent hair.

I then remembered that Big Lee had written a review of the Winsor Newton 7 series here and thought I'd give those a go. Of course I have been unable to find them at the craft stores and hobby shops. So I bought these instead.

I have been using the Loew-Cornell, which is an improvement, but the tip is going flat and square on me. It is made from Gold Taklon and cost me $4.99 at Jo Anne. The two Royal & Langnickel (sounds like a good name for an Imagi-nation general) cost me $4.59 & $3.99 respectively at Hobby Lobby. I have no idea what the fibers are, perhaps Nutria.

Above are my brushes from the 90's. Mostly thrashed. I think the one on the extreme right was my go to brush, especially for picking out eyes and belt buckles.

In my searches I found a couple of good links for info about brushes. For most of you there is no need to look, but for people like me doing a reboot here they are.

Reaper: The Craft
D&D Lead: Paintbrushes
Storm the Castle: Paintbrushes for Miniatures
Awesome Paint Job: Brushes

So, do you have a favorite brush? What size, brand, bristle material is it? Do you have a bunch of brushes for different things. I use cheap nylon brushes with plastic handles from the model section at Hobby Lobby to prime with the glue mix. I also finally invested in some brush cleaner/conditioner.

In the next day or so I should have an actual finished figure to show you all. Only 1.75 years into blogging (god has it been that long?).

Also I'm sad to say that I have lost a follower. I can't figure out who, but I'm sorry you left whoever you are. Well have a good one my friends, off to watch my wife exercise while I am still on doctors orders to sit on my duff.

Fixing blotchy flesh color

So on the heels of my success at fixing my blotchy yellow color, I thought I'd take a stab at fixing the blotchy flesh color. I figured I'd go with the most egregious example, a Zvezda Viking Berserker.

Just not looking too good. So in comes the yellow ochre.

Still a little blotchy, but better. I also did touch up the spots I obviously missed on his elbow etc. I didn't see it until I looked at the picture. Then the flesh.

Much better. This is the pot of citadel paint I bought last year $3.75 for 12ml. I believe the price I saw for 59ml of Delta Ceramcoat at Jo Anne's was $1.29 so...

I also bodged together a spear front end using Paul's method here. This is actually my second attempt at this method. I still need to refine my technique, but I'm happy with it.

I'm still finding chipped paint here and there from the Christmas transport debacle, but that's the last of the weapons that needed fixing.

I'm now fighting the urge to prime everything in yellow ochre, sort of a why don't they make the plane out of the black box syndrome I think.

And I got off my ass and found many sites that have the lyrics to Bean Phaidin (Wife of Paidin). The best is this youtube link with a live performance. The lyrics are underneath the like button. A little hard to read because the gaelic and english run together. Oh well.

Happy St Patrick's Day 2013

Well in keeping with tradition here is a some what obscure song from an Irish folk group:

Perhaps my gaelic speaking friends can enlighten me as to what the lyrics are, I've never thought to learn.

And now some silly pictures.

I raise my pint to my fellow gamers and bloggers, Slainte.

I've been fairly productive for me and will have some more progress on fixing blotchy paint and repairing the figures I broke in transit over the Christmas holidays.

Fixing splotchy color blocking

When I was posting about being Inspired by Tamsin I had mentioned in passing that I was disappointed by the blotchiness of my yellow color blocking over the black primer.

Tamsin and Anne came to the rescue with some suggestions and since I don't have any glaze I thought I'd start with Tamsin's suggestion:

A tip for the yellow over black (or pretty much any) primer - use an undercoat of a light brown or yellow ochre on those areas before applying the yellow.

 So here is a comparison picture:

Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Khaki Tan as undercoats after yellow reapplied.

 So we see that just applying the same yellow on top still turned out blotchy. With a coat of Yellow Ochre and then Yellow the color looks much more even. With the Khaki Tan undercoat it looks okay but still a tad blotchy.

20 year old GW and Americana paints

So what is your opinion? At this point I'm liking the Yellow Ochre the best, but I could see using the Khaki Tan to try and give a subtle variation to the yellow. I intend to do a burnt umber wash over everything so we'll see.

I'm also thinking that this will be the solution to my blotchy flesh tone issue as well. It is quite possible that black primer is just not for me. I was always a white primer guy in the old days.

Thanks for stopping by and reading the ramblings of a guy who is trying to bring himself back into the hobby.

Welcome to Kaptain Kobold of the Stronghold Rebuilt, lots of game design, scratch building and plenty of battle reports. Much more there than Hordes of the Things, but it would be worth it just for that.

Welcome to Norman Dean of Junkyard Planet. If you like 1/72nd scale and great figure painting then look no further. Not much else to say except I wish I had been following him sooner.

And back in my post Succumbed to X-Wing I welcomed Chris Kemp but didn't recognize his avatar and there was no link to his blog on friend connect. Chris's blog is Not Quite Mechanized where he has rules, orbats and battle reports for his rules. Check it out.

And finally, I got listed on TGN. Woohoo! For some reason I had been having trouble getting listed. It could be as simple as not selecting the right pull down in the contact form. But I'm here now so look out!

Superhero SFX tokens

Just a quick post of some superhero sound effects I whipped up earlier today. After reading about Kaptain Kobold's adventures with some Batman rules here.

These could be used to mark disruption. There isn't really any design work to them. I found them as svg files on openclipart.org. Just the word put on a 1" square.

Any comments on improving them are welcome. It's all just for fun.

Pure silliness

Okay, so what with the new Pope being named Francis and all, I couldn't resist.

Te Absolvo!

I will say that I never noticed that the Pope had such a bewildering array of hats.

Now to continue this is a bit of a non sequitur but is at least partially related to wargaming. If you follow Ross Mac over at Battle Game of the Month then you may have read about his adventures in plumbing. This next item, in addition to a colorful vocabulary, should be an essential part of every plumbers kit.

I suspect it works on Wargamers crack as well.

Perhaps this will be on the back of next years Posties rejects shirts?

And finally, I'm already worn out from all the "active" blogging I've been doing.

Boobs!

This thing with google reader will certainly make it more difficult.

I know there is a special place in hell for me. I'll save you a seat.

One year ago today.

Another idea passed on from Phil at The Wargaming Site.

Go back one year ago today and post a link to a post you wrote then.

Hmm I didn't post on the 13th but on the 12th we have Nicholas has Chosen which I think was my first prize giveaway.

And then the 14th Interesting Painting Site which was where I found out about making my own washes. I still need to try that out.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

From: http://media.brain-terminal.com/promo/videos/poster/memory-lane.jpg

PS- I have no idea what this image is all about. I just found the juxtaposition funny.

Inspired by Tamsin

While she may not want to lay claim to this, Tamsin has really inspired me to get off my duff and paint. I had been aware of the the Analogue Hobbies painting challenge, but only just started following it as well.

She has been working on a truly massive amount of figures for pike blocks and it just sort of hit me. It wasn't a " well if she can do it, I can" moment but more of a "if she is doing this why aren't I trying to get things done?"

I meant to post these last night, but was feeling sleep deprived all day and just didn't have the energy.

Here are some pictures: (in an apparently completely random order, but I'm lazy)

Last Saxon for Tereken

 I was trying to show the pain in the ass I was having over coverage for priming this IMEX Saxon. The inside of the shield and the armpits were really not taking the paint. I had washed him, maybe not well enough.

Cluttered enough for Fran?

 Just and overview of the desk, I'm trying out doing the Saxon riders separately from their horses. As you can see to the right the orcs are already mounted.

Kind of crappy picture.

 The 15mm bugbears show up well. I think I was trying to show the white spots I missed on the wolf's base while getting a group shot. I should learn to zoom in on the view screen more to check the shot.

The forces of goodishness.

 Just showing the flesh and metal bits. The urge to paint "Gandalf" various shades of gray needs to be resisted. I'm thinking more brown and beige. Maybe I just need to search wizard for inspiration.

Overview of the green skins.

 Got all the flesh and silver metal bits blocked in. I like how they are shaping up.

Miniart Germanic warrior.

I had forgotten to blockout the flesh on his face. You can also see that the yellow looks decidedly green over the black base coat. I also may need to do a second coat of the flesh on many of these. With the black undercoat the colors are a blotchier than I would like. I'm not sure if blocking in white first would have helped or if  a wash will cure it. Decisions, decisions.

Well thanks to Tamsin and hope yet another WIP post wan't too boring.

PS- Looks like I'll have to go back and label this as my labels aren't showing up right now.

Scenarios and Solo for X-Wing

So we are in the midst of playing our second game of X-Wing here at the corner and here is where it stands after starting last night and resuming a few rounds before school this morning. (We are fortunate to have my wife be understanding enough to let us leave it set up.)

Darth Vader (my son) in the Tie Advanced and Dark Curse (my daughter) in the Tie Fighter are dueling  with me as Gold Squadron Pilot in the Y-Wing. I decided we would try the quick start rules again but they wanted to use the new ships, and honestly who doesn't want to be Darth Vader?

With a better grasp of how damage is dealt out, I have taken 5 hits while Darth Vader and Dark Curse have each taken two. For most of the game I have managed to do a slow spiral in the center, keeping one or both of them in my sites. This was after initially being thrashed in the first pass. The firepower and maneuverability of the Y-Wing is not my favorite, but it can take a lot of punishment.

But the main thrust of this post is not about our game but the resources I found online for X-Wing. Like many I was shocked to see only three scenarios in the  rule book. So I did a search for some. The mother load was at Board Game Geek.

Two pdf's and a cross post:

Flytrap, Dagobah's Death Star Trench Run, Refinery Raid

Then 3:10 to Yavin which you can download from the files section as a PDF here plus a bonus mission here, but you have to be logged on to BGG to access them.

There are also some Bulk freighter pieces here.

As well as a scenario from the WWPD forum that came from the Outpost Zero blog Star Wars tag.

I'm also excited to try this solo scenario from Deep Dark Dungeons.

Also check this out for a sweet render of a 3D “Blockade runner” space ship.

I am seriously considering buying or making a star field mat to play on. I like the idea of making one with my kids.

Welcome to Anne from Anne's Attic. Funny, talented painter and friend of Ray and Fran. Go check her out. It took me way too long to become a follower of hers.

Succumbed to X-Wing

Well after reading about Tamsin and Nick buying themselves some new expansions for X-Wing I broke down and bought it over the weekend.

Source: http://bitsofboardgames.blogspot.com/

As usual I stalled the kids until I could read the 4 page quick play rules and we played last night after finishing homework. I played the Rebel Academy pilot in the X-Wing while my son played the Academy Pilot in one TIE Fighter and my daughter the Obsidian Squadron Pilot in the other.

It was a little tricky for my 7 year old son to grasp the concept of getting into position to fire but my daughter really worried me as she managed to keep me in her sights an uncomfortably long time. Add to that my total crap rolls and I missed many opportunities to score damage.

We had a little trouble maneuvering around the 2' x 2' playing area and had to fudge some moves to keep the kids in the game. Aside from shooting both my kids down, the highlight for me was when I shot down my son and he still seemed genuinely enthusiastic about the game. In the past any loss has been met with tears and tantrums, no matter how much I try to convince him that I almost never won any games as a kid. lets hope this is a big milestone.

Anyway I think we're on for a rematch tonight, maybe even using the two add-ons I bought yesterday, the Y-Wing and TIE Advanced.

Also, speaking of gaming with kids, Bob over at MC Monkey Dew's posted a little set of rules he made with his then 4 (now 10) year old son. I'm going to try them out with my kids sometime soon.

Welcome to new follower Chris Kemp. If you have a blog please let me know, I didn't see one in your Friend Connect profile.

And watch this space for more X-Wing action. Darth Tater will crush the rebellion!