Reaper Bones 4, and some new painted Reaper figures

If your reading this I am sure you are aware of the Reapers current 4th "Bones" Kickstarter which is winding down as it approaches the 2 million mark, consider 2015's  Bones 3, is still shipping just over 2 years from it's Kickstarter close, I'm still in "what are people thinking" camp. As I've mentioned earlier I was a Bones 1 supporter and thou I was happy with the value, I wasnt thrilled with the majority of the quality of miniatures, I dont think I've really used or painted more than a couple dozen of the years since then and the rest are in a box.

I probably own more Reaper figures than any other line since I liquidated most of Games Workshop inventory over the last few years. I've been collecting Reaper going on close to 20 years..
But because I just wasnt as excited about Bones as the general public I had chosen not to buy into either Bones 2 or 3, picking up just a few random figures over years.
Bones 4 seems to be whole different story, I've definitely noticed the quality of plastic in the miniature improving, especially in the larger models where Bones has really found its niche. While the Core set this time around is certainly on the same value as the other, its the Expansions and Add On's that were attractive to me, beside the Core there are now 4 separate $50 expansions plus the add on figures. Personally its was Dreadmere expansion that sold it for me, there is enough weird stuff in there that works for my gaming plus some of it was already on my  metal "buy" list. with a few add on I am interested in, I'm pledged at $100 already, with no Core Set that's my limit unless something late blows me away enough to not knock something else out.

The crazy thing about Bones, and its still head shaking to me that folks who "are all in ",  I follow the Reaper Facebook group and have some posts from folks with obscene numbers of figures from the 1st three Bones, let alone this one which is well over 500 figures at this point if your are "all in" , I though my paint que was deep?, anyway there is still some stuff I'll want to cherry pick from these sets 3 or so years from now when they hit the shelves. That's the other crazy thing the lead times...but we are talking millions of dollars and hundreds of the new molds here.

Anyway Bones 4 is raging in big way, good for them

Below I posted some recent pictures I took of the Reaper figures that recently left the paint bench for the Blackbarrow table or shelf . Just some stuff I got done this summer, not all of it, put just Reaper I hadn't already posted in previous entries.

My personal favorite sculptors going for Reaper are Julie Guthrie and Bob Ridolfi.
I find most of what I am attracted to is theirs and I know they are both well represented in Bones 4,

The Pathfinder Red Dragon I painted is for sale  I'll add the ebay link as soon as I get it listed, its was really a test color scheme for the massive Forge World Red Dragon I have had sitting on the shelf since 2009 ,
I'm actually finding the inspiration to take it on again, since its "almost" got built as "not Smaug" in the dying days of the GW "LotR/Hobbit strategy game.

Still working on writing up the Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes we played earlier this month, cobbling it together off phone audio and notes isnt fun, I should have done it sooner. but I'll get it done if not just as an excuse to post more photos.

Bat Demon 03747

Reaper Bones Red Dragon 89001  eBay Auction

Burrowing Horror 02919

Town Guard 03165

Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes- Temple Run

If you've been following along or just dropping in the last year or so, I've been playing a variety of Fantasy and Sci Fi skirmish, when not plodding along on my Blackbarrow table. I have mainly been using the Otherworld Skirmish system but it's a bit cumbersome when you are trying to put together stats for all the factions and solo creature running around. I playing these games solo or with my daughters currently with a limited attention span, so after hearing good things, I thought we set up a test game with Ganesha Games , Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes.

I not a stranger to Song of Blades and Heroes, we (the old club) dabbled with a bit back in probably 2010, but the group had so many other games competing for attention in the Warband (or Army) vs Warband mode that we never got more than few games in, I found the original game quick and brutal and felt it was missing some more narrative elements and defined magic system, apparently I was not alone because sometime ago this advanced version answered the request.

I finally had a reason to break out my Jungle Terrain which I am glad I haven't got around to sell yet. because after it not seeing the light of day in years,  its still looking good and it will come in handy if I try the upcoming Frostgrave Supplement, Ghost Archipelago.  for this make I thru together 2 300 point warbands,  very quickly...we call the game Temple Run, after one of my Daughters favorite Ios games., The object of the Adventures was to grab the Artifact at the top of the Pyramid, thus destroying the Undead Menace here, while The Defenders, just want to "kill them all" and add them to their numbers.

I'll continue with the game write up this week while we are out of town and post it the following week for now, I'll leave it with some pictures and a few notes.,  I definitely think for the rules ASoBaH has some benefits over Otherworld for a large campaign . Particularly as there is no campaign system for Otherworld, the magic systems is more fleshed out, there are few pro and cons to each, Ill mention in the game write up.

 All Miniature by Otherworlds Minatures, Terrain and Painting by base10studios (me)

Blackbarrow Update, The Details.

Another month , time for another update on my Blackbarrow project. I was pretty busy this month being someone who now lives in the "gig economy" when the jobs come they come hot and heavy, leaving little time for things like hobbying, fortunately I still a few things done, especially with a few days off before the holiday weekend.   A massive project like this lives by its details, First up we have Trees! , no too exciting eh? I agree. however this table when finished will boast close to 50 trees!, and that is quite a bit, and most are being redone from the their boring long gone days as LoS blocking drab and unfinished pieces for weekly war-gaming., All these trees are getting properly based and landscaped., I put alot of time into landscaping the last month, Woodland Scenics, Scenics Express, etc...

Reaper figure here, the Woman and Kids are Bones, the Farmer is a metal model.

There are still numerous sections of the village to complete, still figuring out what building are staying and which are going if anymore, I definitely have the Hirst Arts itch this year so something else is getting built this summer I am just not sure what.  of course this board is loaded with tons of figures, personalities, etc...at this point the farm section is done, I have a hog and goat being painted, the Farmer just made the table tonight.

Travelling merchant,  this is Otherworld minatures, Mule Handler, while the Cart , I "think:" is from Gripping Beast, but the carts items are all Hirst pieces.

Figures are Reaper Metals..

Of course we have hordes of monsters too, and not just in the dungeon the town is loaded with things that go bump in the night , I dont think the cow is making out too well here.

This isolated cabin in the woods will have some nefarious goings on eventually Witches, or Cultists summons things from beyond, or perhaps a simple woodcutter, who is also a werewolf.

Moving over to the  Tavern at the Wayside Inn, the Tavern is now fully populated with locals, I still need to do the kitchen area up a bit more, but we are well filled now with about a dozen figures through out, here we have figures, by Lead Adventure, Black Cat, Reaper and Jonny Lauck post Mega Miniatures figures. the two barbarians chowing a table full of food is a personal favorite.

The towns graveyard is getting some  revamping, here is in its current state, I will spruce it a bit moving ahead, The gravedigger is the Reaper Bones figure.

I cleaned house on my GW figures in the last couple years, while I still have some vintage unpainted metals to sell, this plastic Necromancer is definitely one of the few who is sticking around he and his Otherworld companion here are bound to start all kinds of trouble hanging out in the Graveyard.

New in town? Meet the Town Guard, totally corrupt and looking for payoff, The town Castellan might be friendly enough but clueless that his underlings undermine him at everyturn!  Here we have a group of Adverntures by Otherworld and a Reaper town guardsman (metal).

That's my brief update, hoping to get a bunch done this month we will see!, Happy 4th of July Weekend to my fellow USA folks..

Blackbarrow Farm

Farm with Inn on the right and Castle in the backdrop/.

Per my last post I was having issues whether to call that new building of mine a Farm or a Hunting Lodge for rich nobles or something. After landscaping its seem to work as a Farm and thats what the table needed, abet a nice rather large raftered farmhouse. Some of the trouble spots seemed to not bother me as much on this whole section of table was redone, the scale seemed to slide into place by sinking the building 1/4 " recessing the floors...the walls, garden , fields seem to soften the look quite a bit.                                                                                                                                                       

The Western road into town, 

The Cow and Cow Pen are new additions as well, the landscaping, and road are redone and painted, flowers and new flock added, Trees based and finished I'm using Woodland Scenics products for all my landscaping needs .    I'll sign off now with some photo captions, the table is really coming together, Some more landscaping on some of the more beat up sections (a ton of games have been played on this table which I finished about 3 years ago  ) there are some smaller older Armorcast buildings I need to figure out what to do with and a Church to redo, pretty close to moving onto finishing the Dungeon which will be some work....I plan on having it all done by the end of the year! I guess, we will see.                                                                                                                

View from the top of the Castle Gatehouse.

Side of Inn, overlooking Farm . you can see where the new landscaping meets the old,, that old section of road is next for touchup.                                                                                                                                                                                            

Rear and Field

This cow pen was fun afternoon build, Cow is by Reaper I have large hog and a goat as well. the straw is from some old scenery kit I have had forever its origin unknown.                                                                                                                       

Here is a good look at the garden and stonewalls, all pieces are from Hirst molds, Figure is Reaper, Wagon by Johnny Lauck.

Hirst Arts- Timber Frame Building

Its been awhile, Its seems more of struggle of to keep the blog updated these days than I remember even thou, I've painted close to a dozen figures , finished the castle and built this since the last update.
this from the "project files" on the Hirst Arts website, a Timber or "Half Timber" building depending on what molds you used, for this I used mainly molds #224 and #225, with #260 for the floors, a few 1/4 planks from the original wood panel mold #220 and the Chimney and Fireplace from the old small brick mold. 250

 I found numerous issues with this plan from the start. Since I used these molds for my upper story of my Inn, I felt like this building was too large and I was right, 3" for 1 story walls is just too high unless you are adding a second floor, I compounded the issue by placing the walls on top of the floor (and I go back and forth on this , something I inset the floor other times not, here and inset would have been better) so in the end I to my eye the building is out of scale for my 28-32mm purposes, I mean it works its just too large and too fancy to be the simple farmstead I envisioned for my fictional town of Blackbarrow .

 As result I decided to either sink the building into the table or build up the surrounding landscaping I am going to do to cover where the floor shows, this will help the scale issue I have slightly, and you can see I left bottom of the chimney off, so I can make it the building is rest properly on what height variation I end up going with..

Roof is plastic card #91533 from plasticstruct, that isnt cheap and I should spend the $29 on the Hirst slate single roof mold, however a bought a whole bunch of it years ago and still have enough for one  building this size of two smaller ones..might as well use it up. and I will adding some edging to that lip

 One I decided that it was no longer a simple farmstead, I envisioned it a grand hunting lodge, for towns leaders, I found this medieval picture of a hunting scene online, scaled it up in photoshop and printed it out on sticker paper, putting on a painted piece of balsa as a huge painting for largest section of empty wall..

 Speaking of walls, the original spec shows a layer of cast sections on both sides off a piece of cereal box, which I though was total overkill, so the interior black walls are just painted and stippled cereal box with mold #225 pieces glued over it directly.

 Pictures here show a good indication of size with both Reaper and Otherworld figures show in the photos, I am not going to add my furniture here just a table and some chairs, the upside being plenty of room to "play thru" this piece in any sort of skirmish game.

 As you can see with this rough set up here things are slowly coming together, I originally planned to replace all my old armorcast resin buildings, MS AUS mdf , and GW buildings with original hirst pieces as scalewise many of them are too small, but I just dont think I have the room on the table, I was thinking about the Mill and Blacksmith shoppe but we will see.

With the Inn and Castle in the background you can see how insetting the building in ground and          building up some surrounding landscaping with help put this building in proper perspective so thats     the next step, building the landscaping and cleaning the some of shoddy areas of table that need a refresher after year of play.

This overall took longer than I thought, since I had everything cast I was thinking I could build this is an afternoon and a couple evenings but with drying times assembly painting, the roof and other details I think is a solid 12 hours project.  next up,  already finished figures and more finished blackbarrow and hopefully some Frostgrave and sooner than another 6 weeks!