Monday, June 29, 2015

Goblin Wizard and Fanatic done, Gobbos started

So finished these two today.


I thought about doing some flame detail around the wizards hood, but decided it would be too busy. His jacket is actually purple but looks almost black in this shot. I tried something different with his face pustules and hit them with some reaper rosy flesh, then burnt umber wash to tone it down. The fanatic was very straight forward. The grunge wash came through again and really brought out the detail. Just a little highlighting with the base color, bang, done.

While I waited for varnish, white glue to dry I worked on basing some of the gobbos.


You can see the other fanatic in the background. He's got a jesters hat, so I want to do a more complex pattern on him. I'm breaking this unit into groups of 5 to make it easier on myself. I need to prep about 13 shields for these guys.

Thanks for looking.

Saturday, June 27, 2015

To the Strongest, Dragon Rampant - News you can use

Hi All,

Just wanted to share a few things that came across my "desk" that you may find useful.

Simon sent out another To the Strongest newsletter. There are some new free army lists available here, as well as more aids for playing TtS. What also interested me was a listing of battle reports. I'm going to paste it here for my reference and for others who may be interested.

Sightings of To the Strongest! on the Web

A good many games of TtS! have been played since the last newsletter- here are some links that I have found (apologies in advance if I have missed your game!).
If you are organising a game, please take photos and post on your blog of choice, or mail to me and I'll post them on the BigRedBatCave, so that we can spread the word...

(Simon let me know if you don't approve of this)

I need to get off my duff and play these rules.

I also wanted to let you know that Dragon Rampant is finally available for pre-order on Amazon in the US. If you didn't know, this is the adaptation of Lion Rampant to a fantasy setting.

And lastly, I posted over on A Tale of Several Gamers about the Arrer Boyz, go check the blog out and give the people there some mojo for working on their stuff.

And I still need to dig out my hobby space for stuff for the giveaway.

Thursday, June 25, 2015

4th Bloggiversary for Sean's Wargames Corner

Just thought I'd take time to note that I started this blog four years ago today, and what a ride it's been.

I'd like to thank you all for taking the time to read and comment on my ramblings and help a grouchy old hobbyist feel like he has mates all over the world. It's not that I don't have "real" friends, I just have put my hobby self in storage along with my games and figures. I'm sure most of you who drifted away from the hobby know what I am try, very poorly, to say.

I think this last year has seen me paint the most figures ever and return to feeling a little more comfortable with my painting "style". I hope to be pushing my technique more and am already doing some planning for what I want to do in next years Analogue Hobbies painting challenge.

The blog now has 184 followers and more views than miles on my truck, finally. 179,853 as I write this, and not all bots.

Looking into Google Analytics, things look a little bleaker. In the past year I've had 8,648 sessions, from 5,992 users and 11,772 page views. People spend an average of 56 seconds on my blog and the bounce rate is 81.45%, meaning that percent view one page and leave. About 31.3% of viewers are returning. These stats reduce the warm fuzzies somewhat, but I think there are ways to dissuade bots from crawling or whatever the term is for those websites that spoof links to your blog. I've done some research on blacklists and I my try to implement one.

I will be doing a giveaway, I just need to dig out my hobby space and determine what I have to give you. So watch this space.

I'll finish with some pictures of the units I finished today.


I really finished these red and black boyz a couple of weeks ago, but I got the shields on them today.


Yellow and black boyz finished today. I don't like how these pictures came out, so I'm going to spend more time on the lighting.


Just showing the shields. 1, 2 and 4 are the ones molded out of sculpey. for the sculpted shield I wracked my brain for how to use the stitches on the surface. I took it to mean that the shield had been repaired and thus the markings were partial. I was worried that I couldn't pull off the black sun motif, but I think it worked. I may start paining shields on paper to practice.

Thanks for stopping by.

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

More Oldhammer progress

I really am making progress, I've just already fallen off the charting my progress wagon. I think I may need to print it out and pencil things in. Apparently updating the spread sheet as I work on things is not happening.


I hope all you fathers out there had a great Father's Day. Mine was pretty good. Although I did a fair amount of yard clean up to get ready for the house painters, I got to workout at the gym and finish the day with a burger and beer at BJ's. They even gave me a free pint glass. No comment on how many I already own.


The family also bought me X-Com from Fantasy Flight games. I picked it in the hopes that it would be a better family game. My daughter doesn't seem to want to play and my wife had trouble handling the role of Commander and Central Officer in this game. The use of the app to randomize the alien attack is interesting and the timed phases and limited resources do add tension, not great when we're trying to learn though. My son and I played the tutorial and lost after five rounds. We started this game and got one round in before my wife wanted to stop. I've had the ap running with the sound off ever since, as there doesn't seem to be a way to save where you are in the game. We are relying heavily on the pause feature for the timed stuff. What I'm hoping is that, with a cooperative game, my son will focus less on winning and losing and more on enjoyment of playing.

Now for the progress shots.


The yellow and black boyz are nearing completion. Just belts and buckles to touch up and then some washes. I like how the raw sienna worked to shade the yellow.


I'm going to use the shields molded from sculpey. I whittled and fled down the thickness of the one on the left. The first two are from the Instamold, the one on the right is from the sculpey mold.


As a brain relaxer I've been noodling around with the fanatics and wizard. The wizard looks like he fell in a paint sample bin right now.  I need to make some decisions about him. Just belts and pouches on the fanatics.


The standard bearers all put back together and green stuffed. I need to work on their banners, be prepared for another stream of conciousness post on that topic. The one on the right has some chipped paint and some paper from the old banner that I couldn't get off. I'll figure out how to cover that up.


I also went out and bought some of this product after researching my press mold stuff. I already have the alumilite casting kit, but have held off as it seems to messy for me to handle at the moment.

Cheers for now. Watch out for my up coming bloggiversary and underwhelming giveaway coming up this week.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

More Shield Press molds

While I am still working on the units for Oldhammer USA weekend, I've taken a slight detour trying to figure out how to reproduce the old plastic shields.

So here's what happened.


I showed you the molds I had made last time. Here they are stuffed with green stuff. I used a roller to squash the balls of green stuff into the molds. It stuck pretty horribly to the roller, I used water to try and stop that. Next time I might use vaseline. It was particularly difficulty to get the green stuff to stay in the instamold.

Monday, June 15, 2015

Press molding shields

I finished the other five figures of the red & black arrer unit, but I still haven't done the shields. One thing that is holding me back is that I wanted to see if I could make press molds of them.


An assortment of the old plastic shields. In the middle is the Super Sculpey mold,  flanked by the same shields done in Instamold. I wanted to try both as I wasn't sure if prying the shields out of the sculpey had deformed the shapes. I'm going to try and do some green stuffing today, so I should have the results soon. I think I may have over baked the sculpey, hence the dark brown color. The original is pink.


The hazards of working with 25 year old plastic. This one shattered when I tried to clip it off the sprue. I may try to use it as a scenery item.


Just a WIP of the standard bearer. the extension is sprue. I've since glued the spearhead on top, after clipping the pin wire to size. I find it easier to make a long wire straight and then clip in place when the glue had dried. I'm going to need to green stuff the gaps and get to work on the banners.

I'd also like to welcome The Responsible One to the blog. His blog, The Responsible One's Wargaming Blog has some nice oldhammer stuff and some new that is evocative of the era.

Friday, June 12, 2015

First Arrer Boyz Unit 90% done

I've waffled between showing you too many WIP pics and waiting until I was finished, so I give you neither!


The above are just awaiting some varnish, a touch up on the base edge with black and some flock etc. I thought they came out pretty well.


These are the ones that I "finished" yesterday. The reason they are not 100% done is that I haven't even started the shields for the one on the extreme right or the one in the extreme left in the top photo.

I just took a quick snap shot and tried to give you an angle that showed the faces best. They are a continuation on the red and black theme that I used on the Stickas, or rather a precursor, as the colors were blocked out 25 years ago. I think I did a pretty good job of layering my new skin colors on top of what I can only guess is Goblin Green. I don't remember what the mid green from GW was called.

I'd also like to welcome two new followers:

Shawn, who has two blogs that don't appear to have content right now.

Ariel el Vikingo Dark, who appears to have a lot of social media sites that are related to pop culture.

If you have a blog that is even tenuously related to wargaming, let me know and I'll post a link.

So almost one unit done this week, that schedule seems to be paying off. Busy with Junior Olympics State Finals this weekend, so we shall see if I can get anything more done.

Monday, June 8, 2015

Struggles, but some progress

Keepin' it real here on the blog.

I have gotten a few things done over the last few days, but nowhere near what I'd like. It's Monday night as write this and I might get some more done on a few figures.

Here's what we have thus far:


The Red and Black Boyz have had the ground work dry brushed and the last few bits that were left white have been painted. I started focusing on all the little stray paint areas and obsessing over the change in green color that I now use.


Black and Yellow Boyz have had the ground work base coated Earth Brown. I think there were a couple of missed scabbards and straps here that were covered up as well.


The Standard Bearer and Orc Shamen had their ground work painted and the shamen got an ink wash over their white areas to try to give them some definition. I found a picture of wolf cloak here and Oddgit here (hopefully you won't need to scroll down).


The Fanatics and Goblin Shaman had their ground work done and an ink wash to the white. Of course I became paralyzed by the possibilities of how to color them. I'll figure it out.

So I've made two charts to try and figure out my schedule.

Unit Figures Status
General 1 done
Army Std B 1
Biguns 10 done
Trolls 2 done
black orcs 10 done
boyz 20 1 left
boyz 20 5 left
arrer boyz 10
arrer boyz 10
gobbos 20
gobbos 20
stickas 20 done
stickas 20
gob wulfboyz 10
gob wulfboyz 10
Orc Shaman 1
Orc Shaman 1
Gob Shaman 1
Fanatics 2

So we can see we have about 14 unfinished entries for the army so far, as it stands I think my list is still a tad shy of my 2000 point target. I may be able to massage some more points into it.

The calendar is sobering.

Wk Mon Tues Wed Thur Fri Sat Sun Unit
1 06/01/15 06/02/15 06/03/15 06/04/15 06/05/15 06/06/15 06/07/15








nothing finished
2 06/08/15 06/09/15 06/10/15 06/11/15 06/12/15 06/13/15 06/14/15









3 06/15/15 06/16/15 06/17/15 06/18/15 06/19/15 06/20/15 06/21/15









4 06/22/15 06/23/15 06/24/15 06/25/15 06/26/15 06/27/15 06/28/15









5 06/29/15 06/30/15 07/01/15 07/02/15 07/03/15 07/04/15 07/05/15









6 07/06/15 07/07/15 07/08/15 07/09/15 07/10/15 07/11/15 07/12/15









7 07/13/15 07/14/15 07/15/15 07/16/15 07/17/15 07/18/15 07/19/15









8 07/20/15 07/21/15 07/22/15 07/23/15 07/24/15 07/25/15 07/26/15









9 07/27/15 07/28/15 07/29/15 07/30/15 07/31/15 08/01/15 08/02/15









10 08/03/15 08/04/15 08/05/15 08/06/15 08/07/15 08/08/15 08/09/15









So nine and half weeks to get these guys ready, although the first week is gone and nothing finished. There is also the week and a half when I'll be travelling so I may have to take my painting kit.

Well, at least I know what I'm in for now.

Wish me luck.

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Painting vow progress

So Stevo and I have expressed what we each want to paint in the near term to help spur each other on.

Another thing that is helping me focus is having read Jonathan Jones's article on his Talavera 1809 campaign in Wargame Bloggers Quarterly, Vol 1, No 4.

In the article he talks about how he tackles large armies for his campaign scenarios and his blog discusses planning and motivation, two things I lack.

The main question I had was, how the hell do I follow his system for fantasy and my own campaign world? I think I've found a solution.

First and foremost I need to get my force for Oldhammer USA weekend together. I've found the unit cards I made for my original force and I do have several additional units based up, in varying states of being started. The big problem is I'm not sure what the hell I was on about for this army at the time.

I'm trying to use Army Builder to flesh out a 2000pt legal Warhammer Armies 3rd ed force. It's causing me fits slightly, as it won't let me build forces to fit the numbers of figures I have and I'm struggling to remember how leaders, heroes and champions work. The problems of not having actually played in 25+ years.

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Orcs & Chaos Terminator (progress report)

The weekend was pretty busy. The boy ran three events but only PRed in the 800m. I think the heat may have been a factor. Although he never ran in the hottest part of the day the highs were 101 and 108 respectively and he may not have been hydrated adequately. He said his throat hurt during the 1500m and that was about 7:30AM on the Saturday.

I also had a chance to go to the driving range and hit a few golf balls for the first time in probably 13 years. What surprised me was that I actually hit a few shots that resembled real life golf shots. We may do that again.

Anyway on to the meat of the post: Old and New Hammer! The pictures aren't the greatest, but I just wanted to get them out there.


First unit of Arrer Boyz, red and black. All blocked in around 1990. The ground work was started in dribs and drabs last week.


Finished the ground work yesterday and finished painting it, along with a couple of trees, after track practice.


Second unit of Arrer Boyz, yellow and black. 1990 lives again.


Two Orc Shamen, the one on the left may or may not be named Oddgit Stinkeye. I haven't fully decided.


The boy's handywork. He stuck it together with blue tack to get an idea of how it goes together. Now we just need to clean it up a bit and glue it together.

He's bored right now and wants to play a game so more progress later.

Thanks for looking.

Monday, June 1, 2015

New GW toys

As a treat for keeping up his grades for the school year I took my son to our local GW store. He wanted a box of Chaos Terminators, which he has started building. Well cutting off the sprue really.


These are 100% his so I am only here in a support role. He has decided to paint them red. As you can see we're a ways away from that. The blue tack is supposed to be for him to fit them together. As you can see he wanted the tentacle mutation option.

While we were there I bought myself a new Orc Warboss.


I wanted it for the Army standard bearer figure. I think that the guy on the boar could be a general, although I do prefer the older metal boars. I also ordered Lokhir Fellheart, as Luke at the shop told me they don't carry metal figures. But no shipping if I order it through him, so I'm game. Honestly I just like the figure. He has a Kraken helmet for pete's sake.

I think that some of the new figures are pretty cool and thus far I haven't found enough reasonably priced lead out there. Granted I haven't fully explored the Oldhammer Trading company. I do know there are some nice guys selling some things for reasonable amounts there. I've just been spending money hand over fist lately and for some reason feel pangs of guilt alone at the keyboard. It makes no sense, it's just how it is.

Anyway, I'm about to go on a new purchase moratorium until I get the pile reduced somewhat. I'll pretend I'm firm on that.