Talomir Tales - Spring 1001 - Tereken vs Altengard

Hi All,

Just posted a comic over at Talomir Tales here.

You can read the rest of it at the link above.

Go take a look.

The Fall of Tropilium over at Talomir Tales

Hi All,

The latest Battle report is up on Talomir Tales here.

I've got a ton of news to share with you all, but I'll parse it out over the next few days.

Thanks for looking.

The Talomir Tales Saga continues.

Hi All,

Finally did my battle and report for Talomir Tales. You can read mine here and Ed's there.

I used the latest update of Comic Life 3 and the Zombies template. I did have one crash, but didn't lose too much work. I can't stress enough, save early and often when using this program.

One of the things I need to do is finish off many of my 1/72 (20mm) figures. Too many are unpainted or half done. I also am still finding it difficult to get the photos I want. Right now it's a case of too much knowledge leading to frustration. I should be able to get well lit, sharp photos but I don't set myself up for success.

I'd also like to welcome Arjen. He appears to have a youtube channel which I'll let you discover in his friend connect profile. Arjen will be coming to the US soon and is on the opponent finder now. Hopefully he can find some people to get in games with locally and also come to the next Oldhammer USA event.

That's all for now. I've got to go to the gym and get back in time so we can do Mother's Day stuff. Call and/or kiss your mother.

New comic report over at Talomir Tales.

Hi All,

  Just a quick plug for the comic book battle report I did over on Talomir Tales the other day. Read it here.

Comic Life 3 had another update. They have some new templates, so I'll be trying them out. I also adjusted the exposure of all the shots in program. I'm not sure if that was doable before, it saved my rushed and crappy photos.

I have a busy weekend with track, going to be in the 80's here. I'll try to dig out my painting table so that I can paint and show you what I'm working on for Paint Table Saturday 126 tomorrow.

Cheers.

"Battle of the Hill" report over at Talomir Tales

I finally finished the report on my Rally Round the King battle for the Talomir Tales Campaign. You can read about it here.

I used one of the muslin backdrops I bought for doing portraits and I think it worked pretty well. I think what I really may need is more space to game. The loft area, where I do all my hobby stuff, is a little cramped with a 6 x 4 foot table.

We had fun at the Phoenix Invitational track meet yesterday. The only issue was we got there way too early. We only had one event, the 800m, but we didn't want to miss it like we did on our first meet. So we got there at 7:30am and waited until 1:30pm for the boy to run his race. This event has 1000's of competitors from several states. No results yet, the boy came in 6th in his heat.

In Oldhammer news, I got a pass to go to Oldhammer Weekend USA. \m/ So now I just have to figure out all the logistics.

"Old"Hammer and Talomir

Hi All,

I've let the hectic, reactive nature of my life get the best of me of late. So I'll try to do better with updates.

Here is the Oldhammer stuff I referred to.

I picked up this 2006 edition book at Half Price books. I just wanted to get my imagination flowing from the fluff bits. I know that some feel the later development of Old World fluff was too confining, but there are some aspects of t that I like. I never follow things exactly anyway, so it gives me something to riff off of.

What may be hard to see is the bag of plastic Skaven heads, graciously donated by JamieM from the challenge. He sent them to me after seeing my plastic goblins painted up.

I'm all set up to play out the next Talomir Tales battle, I just took a slight detour to assemble the stuff I needed for the Potion Pilferers scenario for Knight's Quest.

Since I hurt my leg yesterday I should have more time for games. Can't seem to run injury free theses days.

Finished Wind Maiden and Dettol

Hi All,

Well since the response to my last post was so underwhelming, I'll bore you with another. Here's that figure from the Caeser fantasy adventurer set that I've used for a sorceress and a wind maiden of late in my games of Rally Round the King (RRtK).

She definitely doesn't merit the uber closeup photography, but she is done. Overall my layering is too rough and the gold belt in particular kind of globbed on a little. Techniques that work well on 28mm are hit and miss on 1/72. I still need to figure out how to improve my female skin.

Anyhow, no progress on the hobby for me today as we went to our first track meet. It was 90F today (so 32C ? or 305K). It felt damn hot. Unfortunately we missed our time for the 800m and then sat around in the sun for 2.5 hours until the 400m. I was proud of the boy. He came in 4th in his heat and, unlike some, did not throw up after his race. Since the race was way down south of us in Chandler, we took the opportunity to stop by a dim sum restaurant and asian market we had not been to in ages.

That's where I found a, relatively, local supply of dettol.

It's right across the aisle from the PG tips tea. So now I know where to go when I run out of my giant tin of Ahmad Earl Grey.

I'll have to check in on the stuff I've had soaking in Simple Green since last December and see if the paint is coming off.

Cheers.

New Talomir Tales Battle report, Isle of Blood

Just to let you know, I've posted another battle report over at Talomir tales here.

Fladnag and his magic really made the difference.

Caught with my paints down.

Well I procrastinated again and had to play out another battle with unfinished figures. It was over quick as the forces were definitely in favor of Treyine. You can read about it here.

In addition to droppingthe ball with the Talomir project, I have lagged with a Tale of Several Gamers and the Vth Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. I did figure out what I might paint to reach my goal of 1,000 pts. I still have a lot of work to do, bat putting it to paper makes it seem more achievable.

 Welcome to Brigadier General of Brigadier General Wargame. An interesting looking set of rules. I'm currently travelling for the holidays, but I hope to catch up with the blogs soon. Happy Thanksgiving!

This Week in Talomir- Brethren vs Treyine Update

Hi All,

Busy weekend, what with watching TMNT and doing some long overdue tidying of the house.

I did manage to clean and glue on washers a bunch of the figures I will need to fight my battle for Talomir Tales.

A mixture of figures.  Starting from the left. Miniart German Knights, the green are Airfix Robin Hood. Strelets Military Order Warriors, 3 Strelets Medieval Crossbow. all the way in the back 2 Slingers from Zvezda Medieval Peasant Army, another Strelets Military order  Warrior and Three Feudal Levy #2. The Six pink figures are Zvezda 100 Years War English.

I took all these on the auto portrait setting. The all look underexposed to me.

These two I have already painted as Treyine Infantry, so I was thinking about a weapon hand swap. You can see I accidentally cut the axe head off, thinking it was a bizarre piece of flash. I'm trying to think how I can remove and/or transfer the sword hilt from the back of the one to the other. I do have some insta mold, but I've never tried it.

Some Red Box Town and Country Levy plus two more Airfix Robin Hood to round out the Archers. Two Templars and one Crusader from the Italeri boxes. Three Strelets Military Order Sergeants.

I also have some Teutonic and Livonian knights, but I ended up wanting to go simple for the brethren in this battle. No crazy helmet horns.

I realize that I've fallen woefully behind on the 10 x 10 challenge, I'll try to get to that soon and I have a few more things to put together for the final (?) installment in the photography posts.

On the Workbench - I never learn

Still no photography post, but I have some rushed snapshots of the forces I'm trying to assemble for the next battle for Talomir Tales.

I drew the Invasion of Treyine by the renegade Brethren Mercenaries who are trying to re-establish a holy state in the North of Talomir. If you go back and read the beginning of the campaign the Bretheren were originally played as a faction that was defeated by Treyine.

You may recall I finished the majority of the Treyine force during the Anologue Hobbies painting challenge here and here. For this battle I am short four units (12 figures) of Archers, three units of Infantry (12 figures), 1 unit of Knights (3 figures) and the Wind Maiden and her three ships.

Ass you can see from the picture I need to paint up 3 MiniArt German Knight for the Knights, finish the Dark Dream Studio Landsknects for the Arquebusiers, and paint up the twelve remaining Strelets Military order Warriors to finish of the Infantry units. I could use the Airfix Robin Hood set to finish out the Archers, but I ordered some more figures that I think will be better. I also have a ton of Egyptian Archers should I be forced to proxy.

The Brethren have fewer figures, but I'm further behind.

I'm missing the Brother Knights and the Sergeants. I have a bunch of Crusader/ Templars on order and found a source for the Strelets Sergeants. I'll use the Zvezda 100 Years war English Halberds (in pink) for the heavy spear. I had thought to use the same Strelets Military order warriors as Treyine but decided against it. The Crossbows are Strelets as well, I have three based and primed. The Peasants are from the Zvezda Medieval Peasants and, at first, I cut out the slingers to use for the peasant archers. I then remembered good old Airfix Robin Hood so I cut out those two green figures next to the slingers to use instead. The Eskelin Knights are common mercenaries in Talomir, so I had three started already. You can see them on the left. Again, in a pinch, I have some units I can proxy if the shipments take to long, or my painting for that matter.

I have some 1:1 scale modelling to do. A little dry wall patching. Shouldn't take too long. You can't work in a Martial Arts school and not learn how to patch dry wall.

New Talomir Tales post and Welcome.

Got in another Talomir Tales battle here.

It went pretty quick, you'll see why.

Also a quick welcome to Geordie an Exiled Fog of Geordie's Big Battles I found his blog through some links to painting up WW2 Russians. Nice stuff.

And I found out why my flight was probably canceled. Here's a picture of one of the last flights getting out of Phoenix on Thursday night.

There's no Boob like Haboob.

Have a good one.

New Battle Report and Welcome!

Hi All, finally got the game played and report written for Talomir tales here.

I also whipped up a little banner for Talomir Tales using some techniques that I had forgotten how to do precisely. But I got it sorted.

Welcome to new followers:

David Billinghurst, who you may remember from his blog I Liebstered; The Inward-curving Isentropic Endoscope of Dr Cornelius or his other blog Waystar High Port which I am not yet familiar with.

Doc Grognard, who has no less than five blogs. The Book of Going Forth with Dice, Martin's Hundred, Hereiswhere, Making Friends with Big Data, Crawdads and Dragons. When I get a chance I will take a look and follow one or more.

Cluck Amok, whose blog Cluck Amok I also Liebstered.

The birthday swag is rolling in, so I will share that with you as well as my up coming Junetacular Bloggiversary giveaway!

The forces of Northern Tropilium

So I'm trying to get these two Armies ready for the next Talomir campaign battle. You can read about the first two battles of the Autumn of 995, Lettum Pass and Face of the Demon. I, of course, am still scrambling to have remotely playable forces. I never learn.

The forces of Northern Tropilium are supposed to represent Later Western Rome, so I will reuse many of the figures that I used to fight the other battle with Tropilium proper. You can see them here in Final Countdown?

The Army list is:

Pressure from my son

School is about to wind down here, a day and a half more to go, and my son has been on me about painting some of those Mantic figures. You may recall that Edwin King of Thoughts of a Depressive Diplomatist graciously sent him some skeletons and Orcs from the Dwarf Kings Hold line. I of course then went and scrounged up some more Orcs, Dwarves, Elves and Skeletons from some sets I found on ebay. Then I got busy, lost my mojo, etc.

Now that he doesn't really have homework and football is over, he has been asking to paint again. Thus I have been shamed by an eight year old into getting off my duff and have cleaned up all the stuff he cut off the sprue plus my 1/72 that I rushed to table for the Talomir campaign. (Which reminds me that I have another nascent project to come up with something of an award for the members of the campaign.)

Here are some pictures of the figures that mock me.

The Mantic Stuff

I think these haven't moved since I last showed them to you.

Romans and Egyptians to be used for N. Tropilium and Stygustan.

More Zvezda Roman Auxiliaries to make up units for N. Tropilium.

Sigh! Curt's entry figures in the middle of the painting desk, or as I like to call it, the altar of Chaos.

Those pesky Mongols awaiting a bath.

In the interim they have all now been washed. I will glue them up and get to basing. I'm going to let my son have carte blanche with these mantic figures and just help him with his technique. My main worry is whether I should try to fill and smooth the gaps with putty or green stuff. I think compulsion may win in the end.

I hopw to be able to show you some progress shortly.

1st Tertile progress and battle report

Since everyone does quarterly reports I thought I would be different and do the first third of the year. (That and I was too lazy to write something up at the end of March.) You can find the definition for tertile here.

So what happened hobby wise in January - April 2014?

I've played 10 games so far, an average of 2.5 per month. I need to step it up if I'm going to come anywhere near last years totals.

I painted 49 1/72 foot, 4 28mm foot, 1 1/72 vehicle and 2 fleet scale spaceships. All during the challenge and nothing for the last month or so. I can't rest on that, I need to push myself to get back to a habit of painting daily. But I'm way ahead of my 9 figures for 2013.

Blog wise, I've written 30 posts and received 16,276 page views, and not all of them searching for tits. (Although I get a disturbing amount of traffic where that is the keyword.)

I finally finished the Talomir Tales battle report I've been working on and you can read all about it here.

I feel that I some how failed to hit the mark with this one,  perhaps it effectively conveys how long the battle took. I'm still trying to emulate who I think is the master, check out Flashcove's latest here and see what you think.

And welcome to MiniMike of MiniStories. Another very talented painter who just had some really nice battle mats made. Again this is one of those blogs that you can't figure out why you haven't been following it all along.

Well have a good one, and may your 2nd tertile be an improvement upon the 1st.

Welcome and unboxing

Hi All,

It's been busy here with school winding down and activities picking up. I've had a mild reprieve here since we have a night game for my son's flag football team tonight. I hope you all had a Happy Easter, ours was quite pleasant.

First order of business, since I tend to wander in these posts, is to welcome new follower Paul Waechter. I don't see a blog for you Paul. If you have one, or more, please let me know so I can link it here and follow you back. Welcome aboard.*** Paul is another blogger from Down Underer (Sorry, I love Flight of the Conchords) you can find some great painted stuff for Saga and Flames of War at his blog Dog of War.***

Now on to the unboxing. First up are the Undead figures I ordered from Taiwan with excellent service from Always Model. I think I actually ordered through his ebay store.

(I'm getting back int the practice of using the page break to display more posts on the page. Nothing unsafe to follow.)

Of Machinas and modems

My indiegogo shipment of the Machinas rules plus two card decks arrived in the mail today. We need to jump this to the head of the queue and get some games in. Perhaps I need to make up some more cars to race against the last of the V-8 interceptors.

I've been having trouble with my internet service dropping out and having to restart the modem and router a lot, especially over the last two days. I had a Motorola SB4200, turns out it is 11 years old and ran DOCSIS 1.1. Now I don't know DOCSIS from wotzitz but apparently were up to 3.0 now. I am now the proud owner of a Motorola SB6141 and, after a little bit of back and forth on the phone, seem to be surfing fairly fast as advertised.

Faster and smaller, the 11 year old one on the right.

I've got a lot in the works coming up. I'm fighting the Mangu (read Mongol) invasion of Stygustan (read Ancient Egypt) in the Talomir Tales campaign but had to order some Mongol figures.  It also appears I need to make up some river sections. I have a few days before the figures get here so I'll try a couple of things. I also bought a garden sprayer to try and paint the battle carpet a la something I saw Dux Homunculorum do. And of course to finish all those figures I started on the challenge but never finished.

While I was typing this the postal lady rang to deliver some undead figures I had ordered on ebay from Taiwan.

Four boxes of figures in one box.

I like how he collapsed the boxes to consolidate for shipping.

These got here in a week, they were promised in 11-21 days. He charges $5 per item shipping, but refunded some of the cost when combining the four boxes together. I'm still waiting on figures I ordered at the same time from the East coast of the US.

This week in Talomir #8

Over at Talomir Tales we have the battle fought by Stygustan and Treyine on St. Lindorf's day. Any resemblance between St. Lindorf and St. Patrick is purely coincidental. You can read about it here.

Leaving for London tomorrow. I'm mostly packed and just have a few things left to sort out. I'm not sure if I'll have time to schedule some posts, or post on the fly. But I'll try.

I did the comic with Comic Life 3. In the past I have used GIMP. I think it was quicker and easier overall, but I still have a lot to learn and I think that some of the choices I made may not have been the best. Please let me know if you have any constructive criticism. One of the things I'm still trying to learn is when to take a picture that tells the story I want to tell.

Cheers.

Look at me, another entry for the challenge.

I'm increasing my output, finally, but it's too little too late to reach my goal. Any how here's what I wrote to Curt.

I present to you Lord De La Warre of Treyine and his men. To create some interest in my red and white theme I broke it up into solid red, half red and white and quartered red and white. I figured that this would represent each of the knights and their retinues. As with the previous entry these are a mixture of Zvezda English Infantry of the 100 Years War, Miniart German Knights, Airfix Robin Hood and Strelets Military Order Warriors. They are all 1/72 (20mm) scale plastics.

All the same painting techniques, but this time only Vallejo matte varnish at the end. I feel like it dulled the metal a tad too much and it almost looks like NMM. Still flailing around, but why change how I work now. I'm just glad to get another batch done. It only took me the whole competition to do it.

There is nothing particularly special about the two footmen, I just hid them on the work bench and found them after I'd photographed the main group.

You can see the entry and a few more pictures on Curt's blog here.

I've painted myself into a corner, in as much as I have a lot of figures left to do for the final themed round plus my entry figure. Better get started.