It's Been Awhile...

Haven't posted much, because I haven't had time to paint anything of note.  The Imperial Guard continually creeps towards 2,000 points.  It's actually getting close now, just 14 models to go, there will be pics of the recently completed Commissar Yarrick model soon.  The DBA Egyptian army is primed, and my scenery projects are more or less stagnant.  I've been too busy with real life lately.

A Town Called Mordheim

Here we go again!

About around 2010/2011, I received as gifts the Citadel Miniatures kits Chapel of Sigmar and Dreadstone Blight.  They are, respectively, a sort of Renaissance German looking church, and the shattered ruins of a tower.  They are pretty neat kits.  My painted copies can be seen in the inset picture, you can order them from www.games-workshop.com if you are so inclined.  As far as dollar value goes, both of these kits are great.  There are tons of parts which can be used in other projects or to customize your buildings.  They looked so much like the old artwork for the game and got me thinking about Mordheim again and to start making some scenery for it.  Mordheim is supposed to be the ruins of a late medieval city that got hit by a comet or something, so the chapel and especially the ruined tower were a natural fit, but to cover a tabletop I need lots more ruined buildings.
  Lucky for me, I ran across a bunch of large scraps of 1/4 inch black foamcore someone was throwing out at work.  If you aren't familiar with foamcore, its like a sheet of styrofoam with a layer of paper glued to each side.  Artists use it for lots of things, but I mostly use it for making model buildings.  I traced out three walls of a small multi-story house on it, glued it to a base of particle board and used balsa sticks from A.C. Moore's to make floors and create a half-timber look to the thing.  A roof was built up from strips of cereal box, clipped to make them resemble shingles.  Window panes and door frames came from more balsa, or in some cases, from spare plastic model bits.  Loads of sand was glued to the base and I painted it in dark colors.  Then, when I wasn't paying close enough attention to what I was doing, I made and painted two more of them.  I also made a few piles of rubble and timbers for skirmishers to duck behind.  Visually, the ruined houses needed something to fill in around them and the rubble piles worked nicely.  Four themed objective counters were glued to 20mm square bases and painted up, and that about does it.  I have two more houses in the pipeline now, and when those are done, I think the city will be done expanding.  They are a neat side project to revisit between other things.       
    

Egyptians!

Hi,
  The International Plastic Modeler's Association convention was interesting.  I got to go as part of a family vacation, and it was worth stopping by.  More information about the IPMA can be found at their website, ipmsusa.org  In their vendors room, I was able to snag a small army of ancient Greeks for $8.00, more on those later.

  I have made only limited progress in painting lately.  Soon, I'm probably going to paint an historical army.  My friend PL wants to play the widespread historical wargame, De Bellis Antiquitatis.  I've been wanting to paint up an ancient Egyptian army since I was six years old, when I saw the (now highly collectible) Atlantic brand Egyptians at a flea market.  My mother (correctly) thought that 1/72nd scale historicals were beyond the ability of a 6 year old so I did not acquire any Egyptians that day.  I never forgot it however, and in recent years I found out that those very same plastics are being reproduced by Nexus.  I'm the first to admit that the quality of these is not altogether up to modern standards.  I am painting them out of nostalgia, however, and using the De Bellis rules as an excuse.  With one of these boxes of infantry, and a box of chariots (not pictured) you can make a list legal army with plenty of leftovers, for about $25.00 if you pay full retail.  Not bad.  The figures are weird, with bits of costume and equipment that defy nailing them down to one particular time period.  However, they do have a nifty overall appearance.  At any rate, they could be the least historically accurate things to ever grace a wargame: I've been questing after them for 20 odd years, so they look good to me!  Besides, I went to Egypt this year and want to do a related project while it's still at the surface of my mind. 

  All of this is academic.  I must be firm and not start any new projects until my Imperial Guard for Warhammer 40,000 is painted to 2k points. 

       

  

Going away...

Hello,
I will not be posting for awhile, I am heading to the International Plastic Modelers Convention in Florida.  Hoping to get some good stuff at the vendor room.  Wish me luck.  When I return, I will continue my current projects but also dip a toe into the pond of historical wargaming.  Looking at painting up an Egyptian Army for DBA, or De Bellis Antiquitatis.  More on that later. 
-JMK

Works in Progress

  My Imperial Guard army for Warhammer 40,000 is trundling along.  Currently I'm working on a few things.  Hopefully by posting them here, it'll motivate me to keep at them and get them done quickly.  Commissar Yarrick is being added, he was an impulse purchase at a hobby shop back in 1998 or so.  He is finally getting to the painting block.  Good for him.  Also in progress are a regular commissar that someone over at bartertown.com gave me for free, and a sentinel walker, sort of a light vehicle for Warhammer 40k.  The sentinel is being painted in winter camo colors.  Now that I have had some thoroughly fun experiences with yellow, I'm moving on to the second hardest paint, which is white.  I was skeptical of Games Workshop's decision to (yet again)  redo their line of paints, but the new ones really are a joy to work with.  Getting bright tones has never been easier.  Painting the red bits on the commissars has got me excited to do a big red project in the future.  Once these things are all done, I'll do 1-2 units of winter camo stuff to sort of round out that segment of my army, add another hero or something, and then the Imperial Guard will be at 2,000 points, which seems like a good place to stop and take a break and move on to another army for awhile.

  I don't really get into tactics too much with my miniature gaming, but in recent games against my old wargaming buddy LAD, I noticed I had almost as many men lose their nerve and flee as get wounded.  So, I'm going to try combining squads into bigger units (don't be scared, there's safety in numbers boys!) and painting a few extra commissars and other heroes to lead them on better.  Also, I need some kind of fast moving reserves to counter units that can do annoying things like parachute in behind my lines, hence the sentinel.  Its probably not ideal for the purpose, but I've always liked the model, so I'm adding one to my army.  Other than strict legal requirements of my army list, I always pick all my units based on what I feel like painting, rarely on tactics.  I figure this does two things.  It simulates the fact that no army in history ever has precisely the stuff the commander would wish for, and it keeps me from accumulating stuff that I neither want nor need.  No one NEEDS any of this stuff, so if I don't want a particular model in and of itself, I'm not going to paint it just to gain an advantage in a pretend game that takes place on a well decorated kitchen table. 

Civil War stuff...

So, I do (American) Civil War re-enacting.  Its sort of down on my list of hobbies, doesn't take a top priority in terms of new projects and so on, so it won't make many appearances on this blag.  However, this week I finally got around to adding 5th corps markings to my uniform, ie a red Maltese cross  which my wife sewed to the top of my hat.  Also, I have begun practicing the bugle.  My plan is to practice until I can "figure out" some of the 19th century bugle commands by ear.  So far, all I've figured out is, my cats hate bugle calls.

The Cult in Yellow

     So in the last post, I showed off my yellow uniformed Imperial Guard.  These were actually part of a big push I've been making to get myself more comfortable painting things in yellow.  As those who are well versed in the dork arts will know, yellow is a very annoying paint.  It rarely turns out how you want it to, and it often requires lots more time and effort than other colors.  The other yellow project I have completed was initiated before the guardsmen.  It is a Mordheim warband, a Cult of the Possessed to be specific.  These (and the yellow Imperial Guard) were painted before the recent revamping of Citadel Color.  Nowadays, with the neat new paints they released, yellow is a bit easier to get to look right.  Anyways, this warband was loosely based off of a series of short stories called The King in Yellow, published in 1895.  The warband wears yellow robes, and I went out of my way to include a lot more warriors with shields than I am inclined towards for tactical purposes so that they would have a place to display The Yellow Sign.  I made them out of very old metal figures: this warband contains actual lead.  They painted with a white undercoat, then a layer of dark tan to establish the color of the robes.  A dark shading wash was added, then lots of drybrushing, starting with a mix of mostly dark tan with a dab of yellow, then 50/50 tan and yellow, then mostly yellow, then all yellow, then a final highlight of yellow mixed with white.  It was rather time consuming but I'm pleased with how they turned out. 

   The warband roster, such as it is, consists of 4 heroes and 4 henchmen groups.  They are made of old 1980's chaos wizards, 1990's undead and beastmen, a 1980's paladin and a modified flagellant from c. 2001. 

  My cult is led by a magister with no weapons.  The other heroes consist of a hideous mutant with sword and shield, a mutant with cloven hooves and a great weapon, and a possessed cultist with no mutations.  Next thing to do is paint up spare heroes to replace casualties in campaigns.  For henchmen groups there are 2 cult brethren with sword and shields, a cult brethren with a bow, a darksoul with a greatweapon, and 3 beastmen with swords and shields.  I'd like to expand this so that each group has 3 members.  More will be posted on these when I get up the gumption to paint more of them.            

Warhammer 40k, Imperial Guard

Welcome, my nerdlings...

 Lately, I have been working on the geekiest project of them all!  A new army for Warhammer 40,000 which is painted up in homage to my old high school marching band.  Awesome, right?  So, our colors were brown and gold, we were shuttled to and from the games in classic black and yellow school buses, and we were led by our fearless leader, a band director who we called "Commissar" because she wore a black trenchcoat.  I was painting them in quite a rush.  My old 40k buddy from back in the day was coming up for a visit, and I wanted to use them in some small games last week.  I succeeded in getting a platoon of them ready, along with two black and yellow tanks, and a female commissar to lead them.  She was originally a Games Day promo figure from the very late 90's or early 2000's I believe.  The marching band itself is made from Mordian Iron Guard guys which I had lying around, plus some extras from Bartertown. The lascannon is painted up like a bass drum.  Now that these guys are done, my Imperial Guard army is up to about 1500 points, since I still have a platoon of old pewter Catachans and old tanks.  I figure I'll get this army painted up to 2,000 and take a break from them for awhile.  Not much left to paint to get there.  I've got some old heroes and vehicles rattling around in my storage boxes which should just about do it.  

Hello,
I'm the gaming cargo cult leader, and this is my blag full of hobby projects.  I'd say, of all the associated hobbies which are popular in the US, I'm into those which most lend themselves to visual arts: tabletop miniatures games and historical reenacting.  Alas, I have no interest in anything mainstream and half-ways normal, so you won't see much reference to any of it here.  This very important website will be used to document my various projects pertaining to said hobbies.  There will be a gradual uploading of old projects, then when the internet monument to my previous activities is complete, current projects will be added.  Read on, if you dare!