Blackbarrow Castle

Just recently I finished the main construction and painting of my Hirst Arts Castle, which I call Blackbarrow Castle. It was long time in the making- the taller, thinner tower ( I call the lighthouse) and the Gate House were built and completed in 2014 for Adepticon that Spring and used on my Legends of the High Seas table for that event. The large tower was complete last fall and the remaining wall sections where finished in the last few months. There is still quite a bit of work to do before I call it "finished" and it sits at the head of Fantasy table overlooking the Village of Blackbarrow.  I still have interior details galore and its inhabitants to paint. as well as redoing the entire base.

The base itself and road to gate will be totally redone with proper foliage as well.

I just ordered some carving plaster and other goodies from Woodland Scenics to get the base looking like a real rock formation as opposed to some carved foam board., currently the floor in the tower are temporary until I can finish them properly and You can see the one, wooden interior building, (a soldiers barracks) will probably have a stable across from it.and perhaps a gallows in the courtyard.

Not really sure how much time and or plaster I used on this as I mentioned it was a long road, I know which molds I used thou the entire projects used molds..70,71,72,75,78,701,260,261,224,225 and 58, the last 3 just being the wooden courtyard building, the bulk casting being the tower molds, the wall slab and basic block molds for the Gatehouse.  I hope to get the base finished up and and remaining details complete in the next month, as I like the whole table done for this summer.  I will leave things here with the rest of the photos, there is a gallery on the left, but its currently the same photos you see here.

Frostgrave Cultist and Barbarian Sprues

Just a quick shout out to these fine plastic kits being put out by North Star Military Figures for Ospreys games , Frostgrave.  I know I have previously mentioned my dislike for plastic kits, as I like to say I have gotten too old to be fiddling  around with putting hordes of plastic models together. However I am very impressed by all these kits.  For me they fit a variety of roles not just Frostgrave.

At 20 Figures a box, Hard plastic Renedra sprues (aka. High Quality), coming out to about $1.50ish a figure . I have 3 of the 4 kits they make with today purchases.  (the Gnolls outstanding) looking forward to putting these to good use.

I had a tough time finding proper up close photos of these sprues, perhaps my google fu is weak but anyway for my own reference here they are.

I"m really like these Barbarians, The can easily be Viking Raiders with some bit swapping to some more historical shields. With large army games on the serious decline and skirmish games becoming the main stay, I expect these kits will stay in  demand for some time.

                                          again, good close ups of the sprues, front and back.

Next up....Blackbarrow Castle...its almost finished.

Adepticon 2017 -Drive by

Well we made the annual trip to Adepticon today, about a 90 minute drive from the new digs. I had not planned on going this year, and I was not a badge holder simply a spectator. My kids convinced me to go at the last minute so we made the trip for about 3 hours on-site some shopping, the kids with the take and paint and some catching up with some old friends, then we headed out for some Chicago Pizza before the trip home.

After last year, where I managed to irritate all sorts of people I like very much with my negative criticisms about the event and tournament I played in. I told myself I was taking a year off, after all I had been going to this since 2007, and in the end,  I was glad I decided to make it -even in todays limited capacity so I could keep the streak alive at 11 years running.

I had three 10 year old girls with me, and after after a half hour of wandering around looking at stuff decided to hit Reaper Miniatures, Take and Paint. My older daughter whose painting with me semi regularly now impressed me with blending her own paint with white and doing some one layer highlighting all on her own, with no direction from me (as I off talking to people) while my youngest and their friend did great jobs for minimal experience the had. After painting they all picked up a handful of Bones figures from the shop.

Future Crystal Brush painters at work.

Vendor Hall was pretty great but with the limited time we had I didnt get to do much but it was a great vendor list and I was keeping the budget tight this year. I did pick up a couple boxes at the Osprey Booth ( more on that later) but had bite my lip and walk away from Trenchworx WW2 Vehicles (mainly their 251 half tracks because I wasnt sure how they scaled with my Warlord ones and they looked small. Anyone?) Super impressed by their vehicles thou, great to see them close up.

I was also very impressed with the Firelock Games booth , if you dont know they put out a pretty impressive Pirate Game with Figures , Ships and all last year with a successful Kickstarter.
everything looked great, AND they had box of miscast resin hulls from there ships they were selling off at around half price of the full kit  I was extremely tempted here, as I didnt see anything I couldnt easily fix..but were still just expensive enough that I balked , a little cheaper I probably would bought one, if not two....who knows why as I havent played any Pirates in years...but I still all my Pirates and Terrain and these could be very nice ships, miscast or not.

Blood and Plunder in action.

The Osprey Booth was another stop off for me, considering Both Frostgrave and Rogue Stars are only two games I have played in the last year. I did pick up both the plastic Cultists and Barbarians
these 20 man plastic kits have all kind of uses for me, not just Frostgrave bands but generic troops for any fantasy gaming, plus I really like these kits and they nail the scale where these work with alot of other manufactures I collect. I'm going to do a follow up post on both boxes, as I'd been hesitant to buy these before due to lack of decent pics of the sprues, once I eyeballed them personally I was sold.
Oprey had some nice freebies for customers too, a class act all the way...so I expect to play a Frostgrave game or two coming up.

The Frostgrave table for tonights 10 man game, this I would have liked to play in!

I did catch up with some old friends and Adepticon regulars, but since I was only in the Exhibitor Hall and onsite for about 3 hours. I missed of ton of people I would have like to see.   I was super happy to see Warlord Games and Adepticon corrected about every grievance I had with the Bolt Action Nationals tournament last year, from 8 foot tables, to the excellent lighting in the hall, to I was told all Red vs Blue match ups.  I still have NOT gotten a game of Bolt Action 2nd Ed in yet...I hope to soon,  Overall its Adepticon is big business in the Chicago area, In fact one friend commented to me today, That it is now a totally adequate alternative to Gen Con, I'd add mandatory if you are a miniatures centric hobbyist. I havent even scratched the surface on all the board gaming I saw going on this year  Next year, I am sure I'll be back and playing something, what will have to remain to be seen.