Year End Dungeon Delving

I'll save my usual excuse making for my lack of updates and get right to it. While I have not played any actual games in a good 6 weeks, I have been working on couple a long term projects, and long term projects need results to show off.  So here is my only consistent "living project". My Skirmish Dungeon. I completed the original version in June of 2010. As you can see its come along way.     

A time consuming beast, between this and its Sci Fi cousin I could spend all my free hobby alone on these projects and never run out of things to do. Unfortunately I dont really get to play many games on either of them as most of the games I play with my regular group dont revolve around the settings. one of my goals for next year is to change, while I'm still like to say I am playing some historicals I have not worked on anything but Bolt Action stuff in a good six months. I've been working on my own rulesets for games on both boards, that offer a good mix of things I like from various games and lots of my own ideas..as you imagine these things are a slow grind.                                                  

   
    The current size of the piece in now 3 feet by 2 feet, the last 3 foot by 1 foot section is all water cavern and its "in progress", I started the casting for it last week but ran out of plaster once thats remedy I'll get back to it. I doubt it will see this 3 by 3 box it lives in filled out before late spring however, I need to get on painting  my Germans for the Bolt Action team tourney at Adepticon and that starts next week. In the meantime I am messing around with painting various figures for this and
experimenting with liquid resin. for water effects. I like the final results but I really dont like working with it.

The green devils head is nostalgic homage to classic dungeon delving.

 
   I always get asked for construction details on projects like this so here goes. Base material is hydrostone plaster, I use the cheaper stuff not Merlins Magic because I think Merlins shrinks too much in the mold versus this stuff so I get more consistent casts. Since I dont bang my stuff around I'm not worried about the extra durability of MM. Molds of course are all by Hirst Arts..this particular project uses Fieldstone molds 70,71,75,260 and 701 for the Dungeon section and you can get away without 701 which is just a time saver for extra pieces. The water cavern section is mainly 281 and 282..and I use molds 81 and 82 for all the filler rock stalagmite type pieces.  sections are based on 1/8" mdf, which I do not recommend because mdf warps, the biggest challenge with this project is the shitty basing material I choose..over all the weight on the bigger pieces keeps that in check but the floor only section have been challenging. I recommend 1/4" foam core for Hirst basing (which is what used on the Sci Fi build) I'll probably use that on the last water cavern section as the slight height difference should be negligible as I dont need to line up things like walls and doors.
Painting is pretty straight forward...priming black and using craft acrylics from American and Folklore (of which I like Folklore better when you can find it) textures are Woodland Scenics Pigments, Raw Umber for my dirty effect and Green Undercoat for the mold effect. Liquid resin
is two part mix from Envirotex. Other than that is all sweat and planning.

You actually see in these photos despite my griping about them, I have used a bunch of  Reaper Bones stuff here..like this fountain which paints up very nice.

I dont really play any RPG's , and havent since I was a kid, If I did (and I'm not planing on it) I would certainly be part of the OSR movement and hence the theme and style of this leans towards that type of gaming,. I am interested good old rock paper scissor type skirmish games so hopefully I can either come up with some rules I like or find some. While I like Songs of Blades and Heroes..its not focused like say something like Mordheim or Legends of the High Seas. Two set of rules have drifted on to my radar of late (courtesy of the LAF) Trapdoor  for Fantasy type Skirmish and Rogue Planet for Sci Fi type gaming. Have tried either yet but what I read and the style both are present in are promising I'll of course report back when and If I try them out...please do the same.

I have probably a 1000+ fantasy figures (not counting Warhammer armies) of various vintages going back to the late 1970's most them are not painted. Most of the current stuff I do paint is either Otherworld or Reaper, there a couple miniatures from a cool company called Fantization Miniatures that released some cool fantasy stuff a few years back.

A this is year end post, I'll end with a brief recap. 2014 was slow year for my gaming wise, not a whole lot of gaming was had or hobbying for said gaming as illustrated as this is my lowest post count for the year since I started the blog in 2007 . I surely played Bolt Action the most followed by SAGA, Empire of the Dead and Lord of the Rings, but not more than a few games of last two all year. I'm sure I played Hail Ceasar at some point early in the year but its been so long since I played that, I cant recall.  In 2015 I'm looking forward to two Bolt Action events at Adepticon but dont think I'll get to much else. I would like play more SAGA in 2015 with both Vikings and using my Lord of the Rings collection with fan created Battleboards.  Other than that, I'll be messing around with this stuff hopefully figuring out how to get a game happening with it.

Reaper Bones.."Oxidation Beast"

Otherworld figs mainly here, the Lich is Reaper

Otherworld, Reaper and the guy holding is helmet is a rare Crusader Figure

The Reaper Bones Flesh Golem, skulking around with My Otherworld Evil Wizard.. This bones fig lacked a bit a detail but painted up well.

I recall from my childhood days of RPG gaming how much I hated these things, when Otherworld put one out years  I had to pick one up.