Ending a hiatus (Wait. I have a blog?!)

I doubt too many people check this space any more, but it's as good a spot as any for what I'm doing. After a few years of letting my painting supplies gather dust, I finally cleaned things up and started trying to paint again. You would have thought lockdown during The-Year-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named would have been the perfect time for painting and scenery projects, but the lack in in-person gaming sort of stole my motivation. Anyway, that's my excuse and I am sticking to it!

So what is this new project? Well, in a word, it's Mordheim.

I have been fascinated by this game since I got back into WFRP (2nd edition). I've never been a big wargamer, but the skirmish levels, the campaign mode, and the setting flavor is just awesome. Not to mention the inspirational scenery and terrain builds online. Games Workshop stopped supporting the game about 7 years ago or so, but the fan base is still very much alive. You can even get a free copy of the rules over on broheim.net, including supplemental materials like alternate warbands.

I won't go into a review of the game, There are far more knowledgeable folks than myself online who have done that. But the Old World has a special place in my heart, so this seemed a great way to jump back into painting and terrain. 

The project I plan to record here is sort of silly. You see, the various warbands can sometimes -if they've been successful enough in making money- hire models to bolster their ranks. Some of these are just normal troops, but some are special "characters," including mages for hire called Warlocks.

Now, it just so happens that I have had a an old sprue of Citadel miniatures from the mid 90s called simply "Wizards." (FT-03) It contains eight plastic figures designed as Old World spell casters.

I found a page online that identifies the individual figures as: 

Back Row:

Shaman

Chaos Sorcerer 

Fire Wizard 

High Priest 

Front Row:

Astronomer 

Alchemist 

Druid 

Sorceress 

Now to use Warhammer terminology, the "Shaman" would be an Amber Wizard, the "Astronomer" a Blue, an "alchemist" would be a Gold Wizard, a "Fire" mage is known as a Bright Wizard, and the "Druid" a Jade Wizard. The Sorceress' skull motif could make an argument for an Amethyst (Death) wizard or a Necromancer. The "High Priest" looks vaguely Egyptian/Tomb Kings-ish, but perhaps there is another cult that fits the bill. EDIT: Consulting with the nerdosphere, I think an argument can be made that he is a Light Wizard ("White College") which uses the wind Hysh. They are known to use a snake motif sometimes ("The Serpent of Light"). So that's good enough for me!

And the chaos sorcerer looks like just that. 

I had already painted the Blue, Chaos, and Jade figures years ago (and it shows). I even made a short series of videos showing me painting the "Druid." but the other five lay there, still on the sprues, untouched for all this time. So for fun, I am cleaning them up and getting them ready to paint as potential warlocks for hire. The old GW sculpts are crude by today's standards, but like the Heroquest orcs, they have a charm to them I really enjoy. 

So far, the five have had their mold lines cleaned up and put on bases. I've also added a little gravel to the bases for texture. Then, since we had an unseasonably warm day, I sprayed the with gray primer. Here's where they stand now:

Gold Wizard

Amber Wizard

Light Wizard

Bright Wizard

Sorceress

The next steps will be applying paint to brush. I want to do them in old-school color schemes, but still make them fit Mordheim's aesthetic and hopefully with better technique than I had twenty years ago. I'm a bit out of practice, and my eyes aren't as sharp as they were, but I'll do what I can. 

Table WIP pics, part the first

The sun finally came out, and my wife & I had a chance o do a bit of work on the table.

The frame is to hold the TV screen. The particle board will be the bottom layer of the table itself. I wanted the screen slightly offset from center to give the "DM's end" a little more room. We then traced where to cut an opening for the frame.

Once the hole was cut, we put he frame inside. It was a pretty tight fit, but that's good! The, because particle board doesn't have a lot of structural strength, we glued and screwed two 2x4's on either side. these will also be part of the frame that holds the top layer up and divides up the 'cubbies' that the players can use for books, etc. 

At this point in the afternoon, we need to let the wood glue dry and there was food to cook and children to ferry to activities. The next steps should go fairly quickly, as we'll just be cutting and attaching lengths of 2x4's to complete the framing. After that, we'll work on the top of the horizontal surface. I also need to cut out the corners of the particle board to make room for the table legs.

Rain, rain, go away

I haven't forgotten about posting WIP pics. Progress on the table has stalled because it will simply NOT. STOP. RAINING.

eBay funding a new project.

Long time, no post!

I haven't painted a lot recently. Frankly, part of it is my eyesight. I have had a harder time seeing the details up close. So a trip to the eye doctor is scheduled for later this week and I will likely get new spectacles.

There is a project that I wish to do as well. In fact, it's one of the reasons I am eBaying a bunch of Bones minis.

A while back, I posted about an LED screen tabletop frame I built for minis and maps. I have wanted to upgrade this to a new gaming table with the screen flush and embedded in the surface. You can see an example of this kind of table in this video. I probably won't make this exact configuration, but it's the same idea.

My hope is to make enough scratch to buy the materials and maybe even upgrade a few power tools I could use for the project. The auctions end over Easter weekend, so even if I make enough cash for everything I probably will not actually get to buy stuff and/or work on the table until at least the following weekend.

Not a mini, but more tabletop fun

I put this bad boy together this weekend in a frenzy of project madness. It's a 32" LED HDTV set horizontally in a wooden frame (basically 2x4s) and covered with plexiglass. There is a Chromebox PC with wifi hooked to the back with a wireless keyboard and mouse. The system can then log into Roll20 and display the player's view of the dungeon map, etc. The GM runs the session maps from a laptop. Physical minis/tokens can then be placed on the plexiglass and moved about without scratching the screen.