Pictures of all this to follow but here's a sample.
Showing posts with label Fantasy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fantasy. Show all posts
Monday, September 8, 2014
All quiet because there is too much going on.
Between work and life, it has been an extremely busy Summer. I have started collecting 1/72 WWII for Chain of Command, created a gaming mat for 1889 and begun printing dungeon tiles on warprinter. I also won a PDF of Adventures in the East Mark an Old School Rules fantasy RPG and I even managed to type up a review - for someone else's blog of course. Head over to Tenkar's Tavern and check it out.
Pictures of all this to follow but here's a sample.
Pictures of all this to follow but here's a sample.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Tourna - Miniatures rules you can play with your kids
Getting new blood into the hobby has been a topic of discussion in he war gaming hobby for a long time now. On his blog, Bill Sempf posted Tourna a simple set of rules he uses to play with his son.
Tourna lets you use any figures to hand from that old Warhammer army to Lego minifigs to plastic dinos. A game is balanced by allotting each player the same number of dice with more dice making for a larger game. The players then assign these dice to figures with generals getting two and regular figures 1. The rules easily allow for machines and monsters - just assign the figure more dice from your army pool.
Players can move a unit or battle (melee or shoot) in each turn. Movement is in inches or whatever units are appropriate to the playing area. As expected from its Warhammer inspired roots, Tourna takes a bucket of dice approach. Roll to hit, roll for damage with each damage point taking a die off the target figure. Melee takes place between units in base contact and shooters can hit anything in line of sight but at reduced hit and damage factors. Simple to understand tweaks allow for mounted units vehicles or other type of units. For example, mounted units move further than foot and can charge (move into contact and melee) an enemy unit in range. Victory goes to the last person standing.
Tourna looks to be a fast and easy way to introduce miniatures gaming to the youngest players.
Tourna lets you use any figures to hand from that old Warhammer army to Lego minifigs to plastic dinos. A game is balanced by allotting each player the same number of dice with more dice making for a larger game. The players then assign these dice to figures with generals getting two and regular figures 1. The rules easily allow for machines and monsters - just assign the figure more dice from your army pool.
Players can move a unit or battle (melee or shoot) in each turn. Movement is in inches or whatever units are appropriate to the playing area. As expected from its Warhammer inspired roots, Tourna takes a bucket of dice approach. Roll to hit, roll for damage with each damage point taking a die off the target figure. Melee takes place between units in base contact and shooters can hit anything in line of sight but at reduced hit and damage factors. Simple to understand tweaks allow for mounted units vehicles or other type of units. For example, mounted units move further than foot and can charge (move into contact and melee) an enemy unit in range. Victory goes to the last person standing.
Tourna looks to be a fast and easy way to introduce miniatures gaming to the youngest players.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
RAFM announces an Indiegogo campaign for new Space 1889 miniatures!
In addition to the existing 25mm line, at the base level of there will be ten (yes 10!) new character figures including three air ship sailors, three Canal Martian civilians and four assorted heroes and ruffians.
But it gets better! The stretch goals at increasing levels are the Martian Steppe Tiger, the Knoe Shoshu, the Skrill and finally the Ruumet Brehr! Think about that for a minute - a Ruumet Brehr on the table in 25/28mm.... puny elephants beware!
But we are still not done yet. At the $56 plus level, you will get a 40% discount on any on line miniatures purchase for a full year. "But I am not a Space 1889 or VSF player" you say? RAFM has many lines including American Civil War, French Indian wars, Riel Rebellion, Colonial British, WWII, Vietnam, Ancients, USX Modern Day Heroes and of course the massive line of fantasy figures.
Check out the full details here.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
CanGames Day 3 Part One the other games
Again there were a great number of participation games running on Sunday. I did a quick tour of the tables before I got stuck into my games. First up is a trio of Warhammer Fantasy shots. This game has a soft spot in my heart because I played a fair bit of second edition. I have yet to get sucked into the current cult.There was a tournament on bringing out a number of interesting armies.
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| Warhammer Fantasy |
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| Warhammer fantasy |
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| Warhammer Fantasy |
I was also able to grab a shot of the Phaser Lock game. Many nice looking ship models but none of my favourite, the classic Trek destroyer.
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| Phaser Lock |
Next Section
Monday, April 25, 2011
Just Maybe - Martians in the Snow at the CNSE
The current election in Canada is due to take place on Monday May 2 - right after the Canadian National Steampunk Exhibition. Since I work for Elections Canada, this was going to prevent me from running my Martians in the Snow game. However, my unit's work load is slowing down and I have managed to parlay some of my over time into three days at the CNSE. This week will be filled with doing all the prep work I didn't do because the game wasn't on. Ugern from Junior General has created an impressive series of War of the Worlds paper troops that I will be using for the game.
The game is afoot and pictures will follow after the event (the Countessa is taking the camera with her...).
The game is afoot and pictures will follow after the event (the Countessa is taking the camera with her...).
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Hordes of fun
This Sunday past, I was able to get out to the local club for a Hordes of the Things Tourney. I have been a bit reluctant before because the majority of the games played are either with rules or in periods I am not really interested in. But I ponied up my membership fee and got stuck in.
Well let me back track a bit. Friday I realized that I didn't have a stronghold to put on the table. With a DVD coaster, a re-purposed paper clip holder and some Das clay, I made up a burial mound that I hoped would suitably impress my opponents. After the clay dried I added a base coat of brown then acrylic medium and flock. Sunday morning I awoke early to do the final dry brush and found that I had used gloss acrylic medium. What was meant to be an imposing barrow was in fact a sparkly fairy hill. The only matte varnish to hand was an ancient pot of Tamiya flat base - which has a tendency to go white when applied with a brush - but I was feeling lucky so on it went. Half an hour later I had a barrow that while no longer sparkly was now suitable for deployment on the Siberian steppes in winter. Several fast washes and some dry brushing later, I managed to get something not entirely laughable for the table.
So to the tourney. Today was to be a relaxation day and that means a Kilt day! I topped my camo kilt with a Hobgoblin t-Shirt and Marc was decked out in his Hung like a Norse T and jeans. The club (Ottawa Miniature Gamers) recently moved its game space to a local Freemason's Hall. The building is quite beautiful and well maintained. To keep up with the costs, the Masons rent rooms to many different groups. This being our first time there, we went through the front door and right into a Charismatic Christian Church service. I don't know what they made of us but we were definitely in the wrong place.
We went around the back where ruffians such as we are more likely to be welcome and found the proper place. We were given a hearty welcome by both club members and a couple of Masons there to observe a Poland 39 game. There may have been a raised eyebrow or two at the kilt but s*d 'em - the Celts are here!
There were 5 of us playing:
Lunch was called after the second game. Not knowing the protocol, I had packed a lunch (bacon sarnies and a thermos of tea) but others bulked ordered pizza at $7 a head - a pretty good deal I need to remember in future.
Lunch eaten, it was back to the fray. Next game was against Mike's Elves. We had more or less stopped rolling for terrain placement. The board we were on had a river on one side and as defender, Mike had set up his Elven spear on the other side of the river from his stronghold. I took advantage of this split and massed everything on one side with Ferdiad my hero general on the far flank. The centre locked pretty tight with the Elven spear slowly moving up toward the ford so they could get into the fray. Ferdiad ran out on the flank until he was menaced by some Elves in a small wood. I left him there while we contested the centre - me grinding down the Elves while Mike hurried his spear up. I got a 6 for pips and moved Ferdiad towards the Elven stronghold then another 6 getting him into contact. My first attack on the stronghold failed with a stick result. Mike rolled very poor pips and couldn't intervene. The second attack went through ending the game.
My third and final game was against John's Undead Horde army. He had chosen an alternate list wherein all
his troops except for the necromancer general were at -1 to Magicians - Cathbad the druid in my case. We got stuck in pretty quickly and my double depth warband ground away at bone while Cathbad sniped away at undead knights. John's list allowed him to bring back any undead lost in combat on a six, but he failed to retrieve a single casualty in the whole game. I moved a hero general into overlap which combined with the warband's impetuous follow up was enough to punch through the undead lines. John tried repeatedly to ensorcel my hero but again the dice were against him. In the end I killed 12 AP for the win.
At the end of the day, despite only playing three games and losing one of those, I won on points for casualties caused. They may not be flashy but those warband really grind away at the enemy. However, I didn't get to face Brian's undead with fliers - that would have been a very different fight.
Having some time left, Marc and I hung around to watch some of the Poland game - very tempting and the Lardie's rules have some very interesting mechanics.
A good day.
Well let me back track a bit. Friday I realized that I didn't have a stronghold to put on the table. With a DVD coaster, a re-purposed paper clip holder and some Das clay, I made up a burial mound that I hoped would suitably impress my opponents. After the clay dried I added a base coat of brown then acrylic medium and flock. Sunday morning I awoke early to do the final dry brush and found that I had used gloss acrylic medium. What was meant to be an imposing barrow was in fact a sparkly fairy hill. The only matte varnish to hand was an ancient pot of Tamiya flat base - which has a tendency to go white when applied with a brush - but I was feeling lucky so on it went. Half an hour later I had a barrow that while no longer sparkly was now suitable for deployment on the Siberian steppes in winter. Several fast washes and some dry brushing later, I managed to get something not entirely laughable for the table.
So to the tourney. Today was to be a relaxation day and that means a Kilt day! I topped my camo kilt with a Hobgoblin t-Shirt and Marc was decked out in his Hung like a Norse T and jeans. The club (Ottawa Miniature Gamers) recently moved its game space to a local Freemason's Hall. The building is quite beautiful and well maintained. To keep up with the costs, the Masons rent rooms to many different groups. This being our first time there, we went through the front door and right into a Charismatic Christian Church service. I don't know what they made of us but we were definitely in the wrong place.
We went around the back where ruffians such as we are more likely to be welcome and found the proper place. We were given a hearty welcome by both club members and a couple of Masons there to observe a Poland 39 game. There may have been a raised eyebrow or two at the kilt but s*d 'em - the Celts are here!
There were 5 of us playing:
- Mike - High Elves
- Brian - Undead
- John - Undead Hordes
- Marc - Gallic Behemoths
- Me - Ulster Cycle Irish
Lunch was called after the second game. Not knowing the protocol, I had packed a lunch (bacon sarnies and a thermos of tea) but others bulked ordered pizza at $7 a head - a pretty good deal I need to remember in future.
Lunch eaten, it was back to the fray. Next game was against Mike's Elves. We had more or less stopped rolling for terrain placement. The board we were on had a river on one side and as defender, Mike had set up his Elven spear on the other side of the river from his stronghold. I took advantage of this split and massed everything on one side with Ferdiad my hero general on the far flank. The centre locked pretty tight with the Elven spear slowly moving up toward the ford so they could get into the fray. Ferdiad ran out on the flank until he was menaced by some Elves in a small wood. I left him there while we contested the centre - me grinding down the Elves while Mike hurried his spear up. I got a 6 for pips and moved Ferdiad towards the Elven stronghold then another 6 getting him into contact. My first attack on the stronghold failed with a stick result. Mike rolled very poor pips and couldn't intervene. The second attack went through ending the game.
My third and final game was against John's Undead Horde army. He had chosen an alternate list wherein all
his troops except for the necromancer general were at -1 to Magicians - Cathbad the druid in my case. We got stuck in pretty quickly and my double depth warband ground away at bone while Cathbad sniped away at undead knights. John's list allowed him to bring back any undead lost in combat on a six, but he failed to retrieve a single casualty in the whole game. I moved a hero general into overlap which combined with the warband's impetuous follow up was enough to punch through the undead lines. John tried repeatedly to ensorcel my hero but again the dice were against him. In the end I killed 12 AP for the win.
At the end of the day, despite only playing three games and losing one of those, I won on points for casualties caused. They may not be flashy but those warband really grind away at the enemy. However, I didn't get to face Brian's undead with fliers - that would have been a very different fight.
Having some time left, Marc and I hung around to watch some of the Poland game - very tempting and the Lardie's rules have some very interesting mechanics.
A good day.
Monday, August 30, 2010
A good weekend
Friday started with a game of classic Talisman. Back in the day, I bought all the expansions but one and while we have one of the new versions, we much prefer to play the old one. Sadly, youngest got to the crown of command and flipped the random ending card to reveal the Demon Lord. Youngest had the Holy Cross so defeated him on the spot. As I suspected, poking around on the internet later revealed several interpretations that the holy cross cannot defeat the Demon Lord. It was late so I gave youngest the win anyway.
Saturday saw Marc come over with our friend Drew who has expressed an interest in DBMM. We played a game of 100 with my Britons facing Marc's Gauls. I set up first, with warband centre fronted by Ps. Chariots on the left wing and light horse on the right. Marc lined up his cav with the chariots, his warband (O backed by S) in the centre and his Ps(S) on his left opposing my Lh. As described in the list, I pushed the slingers out to disrupt the Gallic line. while holding my main line in reserve. The Lh and Chariots went out on the flanks to harass his rear. The Lh got into a shoving match with Gallic Ps(S) and the chariots with the cavalry. I lost one of each to Marc's usual dice rolling skills but the flanks settled down into a shoving match.In the centre, the slingers did an ok job of disrupting the Gallic line. I got a little impatient and threw a couple of blocks of warband into gaps on either flank. This was to be my undoing. In time, I lost those blocks too and was forced to commit my main line. That, and poor rolling, lead to some more losses and I became disheartened. With a disconnected general and a pip roll of 1, my main troops went impetuous. Not a huge problem as the Gauls went impetuous too when Marc fumbled a pip roll (for once - this guy is magic with dice). What killed me was the -1 combat penalty. A good game to Marc.
Lessons learned: don't get impatient let the skirmishers do their job.
Next up was HotT since Marc and I wanted to test our armies before the tournament in November. We ran two games back to back. Drew appeared to have enjoyed watching the DBMM game so I gave him my HottT Army to command less Cathbad the Mg who I kept control of. Youngest was pried off the computer and brought out to play 1/2 of Marc's Gallic army. The Ulstermen setup in a central block with the heroes on the wings. The Gauls were divided between the Wb run by youngest and the Archers run by Marc. In both games, this separation of commands proved to be the Gauls undoing. The heroes were able to move quickly across the board and engage the Wb block pretty much unsupported by the Bw. Cathbad did nothing but run around scowling, the pip costs to move him up quickly proving too expensive. Drew handled the defeat in detail masterfully winning both game for our side - need to be careful playing him in the future.
A good couple of games but the Mgs did not get into play. The speed of the Heroes was a major factor in both battles. The lack of fliers and other interesting troop types means more testing will be needed.
Saturday saw Marc come over with our friend Drew who has expressed an interest in DBMM. We played a game of 100 with my Britons facing Marc's Gauls. I set up first, with warband centre fronted by Ps. Chariots on the left wing and light horse on the right. Marc lined up his cav with the chariots, his warband (O backed by S) in the centre and his Ps(S) on his left opposing my Lh. As described in the list, I pushed the slingers out to disrupt the Gallic line. while holding my main line in reserve. The Lh and Chariots went out on the flanks to harass his rear. The Lh got into a shoving match with Gallic Ps(S) and the chariots with the cavalry. I lost one of each to Marc's usual dice rolling skills but the flanks settled down into a shoving match.In the centre, the slingers did an ok job of disrupting the Gallic line. I got a little impatient and threw a couple of blocks of warband into gaps on either flank. This was to be my undoing. In time, I lost those blocks too and was forced to commit my main line. That, and poor rolling, lead to some more losses and I became disheartened. With a disconnected general and a pip roll of 1, my main troops went impetuous. Not a huge problem as the Gauls went impetuous too when Marc fumbled a pip roll (for once - this guy is magic with dice). What killed me was the -1 combat penalty. A good game to Marc.
Lessons learned: don't get impatient let the skirmishers do their job.
Next up was HotT since Marc and I wanted to test our armies before the tournament in November. We ran two games back to back. Drew appeared to have enjoyed watching the DBMM game so I gave him my HottT Army to command less Cathbad the Mg who I kept control of. Youngest was pried off the computer and brought out to play 1/2 of Marc's Gallic army. The Ulstermen setup in a central block with the heroes on the wings. The Gauls were divided between the Wb run by youngest and the Archers run by Marc. In both games, this separation of commands proved to be the Gauls undoing. The heroes were able to move quickly across the board and engage the Wb block pretty much unsupported by the Bw. Cathbad did nothing but run around scowling, the pip costs to move him up quickly proving too expensive. Drew handled the defeat in detail masterfully winning both game for our side - need to be careful playing him in the future.
A good couple of games but the Mgs did not get into play. The speed of the Heroes was a major factor in both battles. The lack of fliers and other interesting troop types means more testing will be needed.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
HotT Great news and a new list
With Hordes of the Things almost impossible to find and the last new copies long since sold out, the three authors have posted a PDF of the rules and allowed a single download for personal use. What a great way to support the players. Kudos to Richard Bodley Scott, Sue Laflin Barker and Phil Barker.
HotT 2.0 Rules
Page 23 combat results table
In light of this, I have signed up for a mythology based HotT campaign at the local club. Having only 15mm Celts at the moment, I went for an army based on the Ulster Cycle:
Other options could include switching Cathbad to a cleric, changing Cathbad for the hero Conall Cernach - Cú Chulainn's avenger or swapping some of the warband for spear. The planned deployment is a block of warband flanked by the two heroes with Cathbad behind in support. Depending on the opponent the warband will go double depth and the heroes may both be on one flank. The main tactic will be to use the heroes to win on the wings then roll up the enemy lines with overlaps and flanks attacks. Bad going will feature in terrain selection.
I will post a battle report after the tournament.
HotT 2.0 Rules
Page 23 combat results table
In light of this, I have signed up for a mythology based HotT campaign at the local club. Having only 15mm Celts at the moment, I went for an army based on the Ulster Cycle:
| Troop Type | Cost Per Element in AP | Number of Elements | Total AP Cost of Elements | Total Army AP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C-in-C Chariot Hero Cú Chulainn | 4 | 1 | 4 | 4 |
| Foot Hero Ferdiad | 4 | 1 | 4 | 8 |
| Magician Cathbad the Druid | 4 | 1 | 4 | 12 |
| Warband Men of Ulster | 2 | 6 | 12 | 24 |
Other options could include switching Cathbad to a cleric, changing Cathbad for the hero Conall Cernach - Cú Chulainn's avenger or swapping some of the warband for spear. The planned deployment is a block of warband flanked by the two heroes with Cathbad behind in support. Depending on the opponent the warband will go double depth and the heroes may both be on one flank. The main tactic will be to use the heroes to win on the wings then roll up the enemy lines with overlaps and flanks attacks. Bad going will feature in terrain selection.
I will post a battle report after the tournament.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
A Good Painting Day
Some time to paint yesterday along with most of today allowed me to make a lot of progress on getting the new dwarves painted and based up for Polemos Mythic Army.
The Army:
I really like the sense of mass the larger bases allow. For the next batch, I will get a little more creative.
The Infantry:
A closer view. The figures on the painted base are from the first army pack I bought. The others are the new guys. I took a more relaxed approached and skipped the belts and boots. You really can't notice the difference. What is noticeable is the shield bosses on the new guys. A simple feature with a lot of impact. I will be repeating in on future figures.
Finally the Heavies:
Classic Baccus pusher carts backed up by high-tech steam driven fliers. I am really happy with the flier conversions. Fairly simple and very effective.
The Army:
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| Dwarven Army |
The Infantry:
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| Dwarven Infantry |
Finally the Heavies:
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| Dwarven Combined Arms team. |
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Dwarves - A New Stope
As noted in a previous post, almost all of my based up dwarves have been removed for re-basing to Polemos Mythic Armies standard. I have also placed and received an order with Baccus for additional troops including Napoleonic Russian Cannon. All of this is in aid of my Steam Dwarves project. Since I am digging deep into weirdness and re-interpreting both dwarves and Baccus' minis, I'm calling the project A New Stope. In progress photos will be up in my next post on this topic.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Re-basing again - Dwarves
After looking over some of the spell and army lists, I have become involved with Polemos Mythic Armies (PMA). Based around the Baccus 6mm line of ancient and fantasy figures, it offers a more detailed magic system than HotT and an epic feel to the game. Given that my dwarves are of Baccus provenance, I have decided to re-base them for PMA.
Monday, April 26, 2010
DBMP - De Bellis Magistrorum Phantasium
Marc and I have decided to put HotT and DBMM into the blender and see what comes out. We have played a little of each and like the fantasy trappings of HotT but like the extra detail DBMM allows in terms of movement and complexity as well as the removal of geometric kill problems.
I think really Marc just wants Goblins(S) to put on the board. We'll keep you posted here.
Update:
It looks like HotT and DBA will have new editions later this year. So DBMP goes on the back burner for now. It's more fun to play than reinvent the wheel.
I think really Marc just wants Goblins(S) to put on the board. We'll keep you posted here.
Update:
It looks like HotT and DBA will have new editions later this year. So DBMP goes on the back burner for now. It's more fun to play than reinvent the wheel.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Future plans
Marc and I had a great game of Hordes of the Things the other day. My freshly painted dwarves managed to squash his flat goblins though we made a couple of mistakes with the rules.
We like the HotT rules but I at least find it a bit of a bother keeping HotT, DBA and DBMM in their respective rules boxes. This threw us off in our game because the HotT 1 rules don't appear to specifically disallow multiple moves per unit per turn so we had Goblins and Dwarves flying across the board using the equivalent of DBMM march moves.
While looking for something a little more complex than HotT, I came across Luke Ueda-Sarson's Middle-Earth Army Lists for DBM. He has done some great work on these lists and they should be adaptable for DBMM. Marc and I would like a little more magic without getting to the Warhammer level. - Stay Tuned
While poking around for more HotT information, I came across Alan Saunders wargaming page. A great resource for a number of games and periods, it features a set of quick play gladiatorial combat rules: Munera Sine Missione. So gladiators go into the pile of games to play (Nothing to do with Spartacus Blood and Sand featuring Lucy Lawless aka Xena in the all together).
While looking for something a little more complex than HotT, I came across Luke Ueda-Sarson's Middle-Earth Army Lists for DBM. He has done some great work on these lists and they should be adaptable for DBMM. Marc and I would like a little more magic without getting to the Warhammer level. - Stay Tuned
While poking around for more HotT information, I came across Alan Saunders wargaming page. A great resource for a number of games and periods, it features a set of quick play gladiatorial combat rules: Munera Sine Missione. So gladiators go into the pile of games to play (Nothing to do with Spartacus Blood and Sand featuring Lucy Lawless aka Xena in the all together).
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
A Cunning Plan - 6mm Baccus Dwarves
A week before the Easter break, I received my battle pack of dwarves from Baccus6mm. Based on our usually busy schedule, I calculated I had enough time to get them painted for a HOTT game I had planned for Easter Monday unbeknownst to my opponent, Marc.
The minis themselves were crisply molded with very little flash but some strips had large sprues on the bases. These were easily taken care of with a coarse file. The alloy itself is what I would call "medium". Much harder than the old lead minis, a bit harder than my Essex 15's but not as hard as the alloy used by Corvus Belli. This gives the dwarves a good weight for their size and makes them very robust. The only area of concern was the command strip standard poles which are very thin and will probably need to be replaced with a plastic bristle or dress makers pin in the future. The only assembly required was for the war carts which went together with some 5 minute epoxy. Cyanoacrylate / super glue would have worked as well if not better but I would have wanted to use a gap filling variety.
Painting was straight forward but more time consuming than I expected. I mounted all the strips onto painting sticks using generic Blu-Tack. I find this is much easier for repositioning and removing the figures than white glue or hot glue and is reusable even if painted. While some of the bigger 15's can be a bit heavy for this method, the tiny 6mm strips weren't going anywhere.
Priming was done with grey generic automotive primer. I didn't hit every nook and cranny but then I have only recently started using a primer coat at all. My painting technique is best described as dab and flow. More or less following the painting guide on the Baccus site, I started with an overall coat of Tamiya aluminum. No particular reason for Tamiya other than it hadn't dried up in the 20 years since I last painted any minis. This was followed by dabbing on GW elf flesh on all the faces and hands.
Once the main colours had dried it was onto the beards and hair. With silver armour and helmets, this is one of the few places to easily add colour. The hair and beard pass was followed by another for weapon shafts, weapons and shields. Now this sounds straight forward but in fact each new pass revealed some bit I had missed in the previous pass. So working on the hair revealed any number of helmets in primer grey requiring touch up and colouring in the shields exposed where beard colour was smeared over armour - and more touch ups. The paints used were a mixture of acrylic craft paint (cheap) Tamiya (on hand), GW (my wife's) and one bottle of Vallejo which was beautiful to work with.
One of the saving graces was the presence of a number of artillery models, the war carts and single hero figures. Just when frustration set in with the mass painting, I could take a break and do a single model 15mm style.
One of the final things to do was to go over the boots, touching each with one of several browns or black. Then onto basing. Since we were to be playing HOTT, I based them up 15mm deep as Blades. Over this went a wash of wrought iron as I will be "flocking" with coal and stone. Remember all those boots I painted? - all gone under the wash and given the narrow space between the two ranks, much of the detail on the back of the front rank and front of the back rank is now lost in shadow.
Final thoughts, The Baccus dwarves are very nice figures and look great en masse. My painting technique needs to be further simplified to avoid wasting time on things that won't be seen.
The minis themselves were crisply molded with very little flash but some strips had large sprues on the bases. These were easily taken care of with a coarse file. The alloy itself is what I would call "medium". Much harder than the old lead minis, a bit harder than my Essex 15's but not as hard as the alloy used by Corvus Belli. This gives the dwarves a good weight for their size and makes them very robust. The only area of concern was the command strip standard poles which are very thin and will probably need to be replaced with a plastic bristle or dress makers pin in the future. The only assembly required was for the war carts which went together with some 5 minute epoxy. Cyanoacrylate / super glue would have worked as well if not better but I would have wanted to use a gap filling variety.
Painting was straight forward but more time consuming than I expected. I mounted all the strips onto painting sticks using generic Blu-Tack. I find this is much easier for repositioning and removing the figures than white glue or hot glue and is reusable even if painted. While some of the bigger 15's can be a bit heavy for this method, the tiny 6mm strips weren't going anywhere.
Priming was done with grey generic automotive primer. I didn't hit every nook and cranny but then I have only recently started using a primer coat at all. My painting technique is best described as dab and flow. More or less following the painting guide on the Baccus site, I started with an overall coat of Tamiya aluminum. No particular reason for Tamiya other than it hadn't dried up in the 20 years since I last painted any minis. This was followed by dabbing on GW elf flesh on all the faces and hands.
Once the main colours had dried it was onto the beards and hair. With silver armour and helmets, this is one of the few places to easily add colour. The hair and beard pass was followed by another for weapon shafts, weapons and shields. Now this sounds straight forward but in fact each new pass revealed some bit I had missed in the previous pass. So working on the hair revealed any number of helmets in primer grey requiring touch up and colouring in the shields exposed where beard colour was smeared over armour - and more touch ups. The paints used were a mixture of acrylic craft paint (cheap) Tamiya (on hand), GW (my wife's) and one bottle of Vallejo which was beautiful to work with.
One of the saving graces was the presence of a number of artillery models, the war carts and single hero figures. Just when frustration set in with the mass painting, I could take a break and do a single model 15mm style.
One of the final things to do was to go over the boots, touching each with one of several browns or black. Then onto basing. Since we were to be playing HOTT, I based them up 15mm deep as Blades. Over this went a wash of wrought iron as I will be "flocking" with coal and stone. Remember all those boots I painted? - all gone under the wash and given the narrow space between the two ranks, much of the detail on the back of the front rank and front of the back rank is now lost in shadow.
Final thoughts, The Baccus dwarves are very nice figures and look great en masse. My painting technique needs to be further simplified to avoid wasting time on things that won't be seen.
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