6MMRPC: Qualified Failure

Oh dear, where did 10 weeks go? To be honest, packing up your life, and moving to a new home throws a spanner in any ability to paint, let alone to be consistently productive. The change in jobs didn't help much either.

I'm still fairly mired down with household 'hobby' - painting rooms, repairing tools, 'converting' light fixtures, using pink insulation (for it's true purpose for a change), and so forth.  I think I've managed to sit down and paint 3 times in the last 7 weeks I've been moved. The short term doesn't look a whole lot more promising either.







Goals achieved
-In regards to what my 6MMRPC goals were: utter failure -2. My trays of shame lie untouched except for Bones novacorp and my saracens  which were a delightful completion. Alas now that I've moved, my old gaming group is now playing SAGA Crescent and Cross. Cruel irony.

-Inspecting my productivity, I see that I did finish a few projects. Saracens, A battery of Warlord Russian Artillery, All my ainsty 28mm bits, Novacorp bones figs, and the vietnam Fortifications. It'd be a stretch to give the 2 Napoleonic generals a 'project' rating. I'm tantalizingly close to finishing another project in all it's glory, but I'll save that for a big reveal in a few weeks (or months....sigh).

It's a shame the Caffeineforge blog went quiet as well, as that was a big incentive for me to try and keep up with Bones painting. I presume he'll get back on the air eventually, and I'll probably not have finished the last set of figs queued up!

-Weekly postings: 16/26....not half bad. Cough. Almost half bad though.

-Zombtomber: no postings at all. Boo.




Input/Output
Given 2 jokers to start with, and 5 I earned, let's see how in debt I managed to go:

1- King's Minis chaos dwarves. I totally lucked out and managed to get a set before Delaney's life imploded. I seriously wondered if I was going to get them for a while as the shipping date lengthened and her posts got more ominous.

2- Front Rank Russian minis - a whack of lead that is part of the almost completed project. Unfortunately I botched a code in my email, and ended up with some infantry instead of the horse riders I wanted (I got the correct horses though. Doh).

3- TMP Front rank French figs - a clearout with a great price, this sets me up for working on the opfor for my Russians.

4 - TMP Demonworld - again, a great deal cropped up on 15mm fantasy figs. Demonworld have great looking minis, though they are hampered a bit by limited poses in the ranges.

5 - FOW Vietnam - cracked under the tanksgiving sale and bought some more figs. I really (REALLY) need to get a start on some of this stuff

6 - Armourcast Mutant plants & soda can toppers. I think I've been eyeing this stuff for literally 5 or more years. A 20% sale made up my mind

7 - Impulse buy at Heresy minis. A great sale (detecting a theme yet?) had me grab the lovely ghoul family, and some sci fi civvies. Unlike (arguably) the other purchases, this one doesn't really fit into a project. Ooops.

Summary:
Certainly less successful than my first go at the 6MMRPC. When I actually looked at what I had done and bought, I was pleasantly surprised....a lot better than I thought I'd have.

Community wise, it really seemed to quiet and nose dive just before I had to functionally drop out. It'd be interesting to see what others thoughts were. There some noise about starting up again quickly. I think it's some new blood, and some die hards. I'd argue for a couple month break, but it's rather challenging to control these things, frankly.

6MMRPC Week 15: Ainsty Wharves and Jetties....shipping out

The horros of packing up the house and dealing with old employer/new employer HR continues to suck at my time and energy. I haven't gone dark quite yet though. Here is another appropos submission, considering my move will require a ferry ride.

One again we have some more Ainsty resin terrain. All my Ainsty stuff came in two large purchases that occurred in successive Decembers. I remember this because 'it was a gift to me'.....how we trick ourselves. It's great to see the lot finally done up. I still have other Ainsty stuff, but they will be their own projects.

After finishing the browns, I wanted to do more, and add some colour. Scum/Kelp/mold/rot/etc was the obvious choice, but I was quite sure how to swing it. Thankfully I remembered the great work done by Barry at League of Augsberg on his pirate ship (here), who shared his recipe when prompted.

Voila:

Definitely the look I desired.

6MMRPC Week 13: Ainsty baggage....packing up

A fairly meagre offering this week. I finished off my resin furniture from Ainsty and a load of shipping loads.

I'm not entirely pleased with all the material on the shelves, especially as the markings are noticeable inconsistent between 'similar' boxes. Presumably it will be better a couple feet away. Otherwise everything looks just fine enough.

The topic is fairly apropos, as I am moving at the end of the month. I'll be re-locating (via a ferry!) to Nanaimo, BC (located on Vancouver Island/West coast of Canada). Already much of my hobby material has disappeared into boxes, and the hassle of organizing a move and changing jobs is taking a big bite out of time and energy. I suspect I'll drop silent for a number of weeks, but not quite yet.
...

6MMRPC Week 12: Warlord Russian Napoleonic Artillery Battery

I finally finished a project that had been on pause for numerous weeks. Here we have 3 guns (batteries in Dougs General du Corp rules) of Russian Guns. Only the smallest gun, on the left, is actually Warlord, the other 2 guns I bought from Front Rank as I had other plans for the small 6lbs (4? lbs) guns. It's probably noticeable, as I forgot which greens I used, and the smallest gun is positively fluorescent compared to it's larger brethren.

6MMRPC: Week 11 Vietnam Firebase Fortifications

Having earlier completed my trial artillery fire pit (here) I finished painting up the rest of the hydrocal terrain I cast up using Thomas' molds. The hydrocal (tougher plaster essentially) was allowed to dry fully for about a week, and then painted with future floor polish to aid with robustness/anti chipping. I think this will also help avoid the hydocal/plaster from drinking up paint.






The scale is about 20mm (1/72). I will happily use if for 15mm figs, and I suspect it wouldn't look too far out for 28mm as well (although maybe the artillery pits would fit a heavy weapon rather than a true towed weapon).




 More pics after the jump....

Playtesting Vietnam - HOT LZ!

Once again I met up with Thomas (Peabody Here!) to have a game on his exquisite Vietnam setup. He has been working on a reinforced platoon size rule set. Apparently there is a bit of a dearth of 'modern' (i.e. more recent and streamlined ones that recognize people don't have tons of time) rule sets for Vietnam.....particularly at this scale. I'm sure this is a controversial statement for some, but I'll leave it at that.

I've been encouraging Thomas to develop this set and wander further from the original inspirations in order to achieve fun, fast, and smooth game experiences. One of the complaints previously was the resolution of artillery....totally clunky with too many die rolls. This also bled into helicopter (aerial artillery) attacks as well. To be honest, you almost didn't want to use the stuff b/c then you'd have to resolve it (I joke....sorta). It was particularly grating as the basic move, fire, suppression, morale, order rules were pretty tight and played well.

In our last brainstorming session over copious amounts of tea, we made some heavy revisions for the artillery, spotter helicopters and aerial artillery, and 'Hot Lz' VC card/ability. The artillery rules included prep fire.....so we decided to make a 'HOT LZ!' mission to try and test our revisions most efficiently. The FFW plots some prep fire, the VC sets up his blinds, artillery is fired, and the FFW arrive in their choppers. GAME ON!

AAR after the jump....

6MMRPC Week 10: Ainsty Furniture

My painting efforts continue to be stymied with weddings and birthdays cropping up in the late summer. I did, however, manage to finish off some bits I've been picking away at for a couple of weeks.

Up this week are tables, kegs, chairs, and part of a store set from Ainsty. Ainsty has some very cool ranges, all in resin, and are located in the UK. Naturally this means fairly steep shipping for those of us in North America (to be honest, it's getting crushing from everywhere to anywhere it seems). 

6MMRPC Week 9: Bones Horace 'Action' Jackson

A predictable summer lull, and on-call requirements of work have hit my productivity this week. Single figure complete, another Reaper Bones. Horace 'Action' Jackson.

I'm reasonably happy with this fig, it's a bad picture of the eyes, it looks better in real life. This is first for negro skin tones, and I thought they turned out well (check out those abs!). Yellow is pretty challenging for me as well (not sure if it's hard in general, or the paints I use), but this turned out passable.

The base is a bit weak, and his afro isn't amazing. Hard to know what to do with black hair and not a lot of texture. There is a very light amount of highlighting, but too much grey will (and does) make it look odd. Suggestions for this type of challenge gratefully accepted.

6MMRPC Week 8: Saracen pt 3: Cavalry

The final installment of my completed Saracen warband. These are legio heroica 15mm figures.





The flags and shields are (most shields) transfers from little big men studios.

Bases are from Proxie models, with some sand/rock and static grass. There is a metal washer on the bottom to make them stick to my magnetic trays, and give them just a bit of loft to pick up easier.

Spears are some steel spears that I negotiated away from Cameron (Cameron's minis) who used them for his Hospitallers. They are much less bendy (i.e not at all), but are wicked sharp and likely to end up embedded in my hand at some point.

6MMRPC: Week 7.5: Saracen pt 2: Spearmen

Another swarm of Legio Heroica 15mm Saracens swarm my blog. As noted before, these are part of a warband for Saga Crescent and Cross, to vie in the sands of the near east against the despoiling crusader barbarians of the west.


These fellows to the left are all armoured with chainmail, which suggests they are either more wealthy and/or more accomplished warriors. They will probably be hearthguard (or not levies anyway).
 


It's probably important to note that most of the shields were "little big men' transfers. Unfortunately, my shield mix used up all the available round ones, and only a few could be trimmed. I was forced to do some painted ones as well, which I'm sure jump out. 









The bevelled plastic bases I quite like, so I'm always happy to pimp the company "proxie models". Reasonably prices and quick service.  I add a metal washer to the bottom (same size as a penny) so they are able to stick to my magnetic storage trays.



The big bonus to these bases IMO is that it's much easier to grab and pick up, reducing the wear on your figs. Also, the spears have weak attachment points, so break fairly easily.

6MMRPC Week 7.5: Saracen pt 1: Archers

First pictures of a wave of 15mm muslim/saracens from Legio Heroica.


I bought a lot of these guys back in December in order to play the middle east SAGA (Crescent and Cross). While Cameron finished his hospitallers in FEBRUARY, I'm just finishing mine now. Shameful slow on my part.

Part of the delay is the multi-hued and patterned clothing....totally adds to painting time. The past week and a half I've been in basing hell, attempting to base up a ton of loose 15mm figs. Most haven't yet gotten the painted rock treatment, and are just sitting on the bevelled raised bases.

Playtesting Vietnam 2nd game: Cordon & Search redux

This weekend I had the fortune of once again playing a Vietnam game on Thomas' (peabody) lovely gaming setup. He continues to work on his Vietnam game. I met a new gamer, John, who took the free world forces, while I took on the VC. It was interesting watching John grapple with the exact same issues I had when I played, there is a steep planning curve for the FFW to decide how to break up their units, how to approach the village to Cordon it, where to land, and how radio checks work for the integral air transport and the divisional assets.

Strangely (or perhaps not) we chose very similar attack plans, with a squad and the company hq walking on, and two helicopter lifts available. John walked his M60 on as well. The pace of play was much slower (I suspect I'm a fast-ish player) as the US has much more assets to work with in this particular scenario.

It was certainly noticeable that this is in alpha. While the movement, actions, shooting, pinning and killing works quite well, the helicopter artillery felt like the flow hit a brick wall. We had some talk at the end of it all. Similarly, the spotting rolls to reveal VC blinds is interesting, but unlimited spotting for everything in sight was a bit too much (especially when the scout copter showed up and initiated about 8 or 10 rolls). It was suggested to bump it down to 1 per unit, or 2 for the scout copter (per turn).

We only finished about 3 turns in our allotted time, so there wasn't much in the way of morale chit pulls. Therefore not much chance for booby traps, airplane strikes, and other items to come up. Due to the scout chopper removing so many blinds early, the VC were really stuck out, with little flexibility on the board. They crashed into the FFW and hugged them, but they were getting greased pretty quickly. It would seem that dividing them up to cells (rather than the full squad and double cell strength I tended to) would have been move valuable.

My dice luck was almost completely in the negative, so I was thinking it'd probably be a good time to pull out the troops and give up the objective.

 More pictures after the break.

Week 7 6MMRPC: Vietnam Artillery Position

1/72 artillery piece

This week has be 'basing hell'. Fairly boring work that doesn't keep my attention, so I wander away from it a lot. I'm holding off on posting pics of some other minis until they are totally done. In the meantime, I've recently finished off a firing position.

Thomas (Peabody) scratch built an area of fortifications and then (most cleverly!) made molds in poly-urethane. When I went over to cast some rock formations (from woodland scenic molds), we made up a bunch of fortification bits. The painted examples should be landing in the next month or so. He does have intentions of selling some sets, so if you are interested I could pass on his contact info.








 The join between peices looks super rough, but in the next ones I'm working on I've rubbed sand into the milliput filler, so it looks much smoother.

This is what it looks like when you start assembly.

Week 6 MMRPC: Bones Oxidation Beast, Kord, and treasure chest

The classic D&D rust monster...but in non-patented form. This was a fun bug that defied finishing for awhile. I wasn't quite sure how to avoid making him super muddy. Not sure that I succeeded, but the milliput base, and some cut up plastic weapons loaded with rust effects help break up the beasts colour, and give a bit of explanation.









A less good second picture. Obviously not his most photogenic side.











Also finished this week (and again a struggle to complete) was Kord. A barbarian. Ummmm. His axe continually creeps to an annoying bed. I forgot to paint the cord wrapping his scabbard a real colour (instead of overpaint mixed with heavy inking). Otherwise he turned out well enough. Can't say the sculpt really calls to me.






Sometimes you have to ask, what do we fight for? Treasure should be the obvious answer. For those looking deeper, the answer would be a intriguing shaped oil lamp that may grant your deepest desires (like all your minis painted).

6MMRPC Week 5.5: Bones NovaCorp Quick paint

Well.....It wasn't actually done quickly. I've been plunking away at these guys for a few weeks now. I really can't seem to focus work on anything for very long, so I often have endless half finished projects on the go. These guys were in the roster for the Caffeineforge weekly paint up (on hiatus at the moment).

 A trial model, the sergeant, was done a few weeks ago, so it was pretty easy to replicate, and bang out, the remaining guys. I botched the bright green a few times until I rediscovered what I'd used. And, typically for bones, the faces of the helmetless mooks are pretty poor castings. These guys were finished much quicker than normal for me (actual elapsed working time), so I'm pretty happy with their passable tabletop standard. Also that's 9 more Bones done, which is a nice bump to my low numbers this year so far.

6MMRPC Week 5: Warlord Napoleonic Russian General

A day behind on my week review. I managed to finish off this fine fellow, to add to my slowly growing Russian force for Doug's convention rule set General du Corp (Dots of Paint).

The generalissimo comes in a set which includes another (foot) officer, and a musician, both of whom were also finished this week. They will remain under wraps until based up appropriately, which means painting more figs, so it may be a while. 

 The model was a 3 part casting if I recall correctly. There were 2 or 3 options on the arm (handing off a document being one of them). My biggest (sole?) complaint is the weird horse pose. Look at it. WEIRD. It's like it's scared of it's own image in a mirror and backing away. *Not* a natural horse pose, and I know very little about horses.

I grapple with the decision of whether to highlight the greens of my Russians lighter (their green was very very dark). I'm also slightly critical of my horse highlights, lack of markings (socks, spots on head), and the golden shoulder boards maybe should be more gold in the recess?

Fairly pleased overall though.

6MMRPC Week 4.5: Bones Elladan & Mocking Beast

Elladan was a bit ho-hum this week, so I decided to lead with the mocking beast, and obvious copy (but copyright dodge) of a mimic from D&D. Adventurers! Always consider why there are eaten piles of corpses/bones around that pristine treasure chest!

This one was sorta fun. I got to use some of the expanded range of pink/purples I've been collecting lately. The gold in the mouth is possibly TOO gold, and the edging/metal banding doesn't pop much, but I very much like the overall effect. I tried to create a slit eye, which I think comes across most in the right photo. I also ended up sculpting a base, which is just passable. You can spot where the slathered on grey didn't quite cover the miliput, but from range it's hard to see.


Back to Elladan. Ho Hum. Generic elf ranger. Whoo. I did end up giving him pupils of the same colour as his pommels which was a fun effect. Too bad about the over paint in orange obvious in the middle shot.

I'm not super happy with his skin tones. Also, I wasn't too sure what to do with his various kit. I wanted rustic, forest, but that largely comes out as boring in this particular production. Oh well. On to the next!











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