Milestones

I was working on a new report for my most recent OWS game, and doing some blog maintenance when I realized I had overlooked posting about a couple of milestones. One. The blog turned 10 years old on March 31st, unreal..It didnt seem like 10 years., then I think oh my daughter turns 10 this fall so there you go. Two..this is my 500th post!...so despite my feeling how I have slacked off so much on the blog I am averaging 50 posts a year which isnt so bad.

I figured I take the time here to talk about what I am working on and doing Hobbywise these days since I haven't done anything like that in a good while.

Bolt Action. Despite my griping about Adepticon, Bolt Action has been the only game I have played with other Adults in years so that keeps its in the forefront, the next big tournament for me is Operation Sting in the fall. Although tournaments for me have lost their luster.  I'm still optimistic and working on my  armies, I'm looking for Sd Kfz 234/3 for my  Waffen SS recon force. I thought Warlord used to have one but  now I only see the 233 (the early model) which makes me think maybe they are putting out a new one? while I am on the hunt for that, I have a whole bunch of new british I want to get to...two big squads of Gorgon  regular British infantry , plus some HQ, and Cromwell and Sherman tanks to do, that would put my Brits on par with my Germans now as far as points on the table.

Frostgrave and Otherworld Skirmish.  I've working on Fantasy models alot lately, I have several posts coming  with new figures and while I have not played Frostgrave in awhile as its more a competitive type game, I've been have alot of fun doing narrative type fantasy games using  Otherworlds Skirmish rules., My kids and I  have great time playing these games out and its always Adventurers vs Monsters in some capacity instead of  warbands facing off  ala Frostgrave, and the kids like that better -still I'd like to get some more Frostgrave in.

Fantasy Terrain. -I also have a pretty hefty Fantasy table going right now, that I am totally decking out and want to photograph, I was inspired by that epic zillion dollar Fantasy table that was making the rounds  on You Tube and a bunch of forums several months ago. The one where the guy has like 30K worth of Dwarven Forge Stuff and is paying the worlds top painters to do all his models. Despite my natural disdain for "buying your way to the top" there is no denying it is a truly impressive layout and I wanted to something similar on a smaller scale and of course, I'll have done everything myself. I have few smaller Hirst pieces in the works and am finishing my castle, that really only needs one wall section and the 8' tower and its complete, photos this summer I am betting. It wont compare to its inspiration, but it will be 1/100th of the price and be pretty cool.

Deadzone.  I picked up some Deadzone Rebels a few years back and built and painted them as I had a Sci Fi itch and I really like the vibe and look of Mantic Sci Fi stuff, I'd like to play some games on the Space Station I built using some ruleset, what I am not sure as DZ isnt really conducive to terrain other what the game is designed for. either way, I went in on latest KS from Mantic for DZ in March of 2015 and its just shipping now..I've got models for 4 different factions and a bunch of the plastic terrain so If I can find some other humans I maybe playing this a bit, I demo'd  the new rules at Adepticon and liked what I saw.

SAGA- While I still have my vikings, I about sold off or gave aways all my other historical Dark Age and Ancient models. I dropped out of trying to play Hail Caesar!, I like the game but the armies are too time and size consuming. SAGA is more a better fit for me, and while If. I got the chance I'd gladly play standard SAGA, its more likely I'll play the home brew "Fantastic SAGA" or the Lord of the Rings SAGA, I have all the materials it just hasnt happened until Aaron expressed interest in "FSAGA", as an excuse to use his insane Warrior of Chaos army or some Dark Elves he's been working on, I do have an Undead Army ready to go.

base10studios- my other "new" blog where I talk about all the miniatures and models and terrain I am selling, so far I have sold quite a bit, my Warhammer Empire army is all but gone as of this week, I am pretty thrilled with I ended up getting for it after the time I put into it. I have also moved a bunch of other items including some older custom terrain pieces, books etc, if you are interested you can read about that there.

Lord of the Rings. I haven't played any lord of the Rings in years now, the GW game is all but dead and while I still like the system, and there is talk of GW bringing it back, I am pretty much done I think, because I dont see myself buying anything from Games Workshop again. I have a pretty huge collection some of it is already going for sale, and unless I start using it everything but the things I want to display are heading to auction.

Pirates.  Still mostly packed up from the move a year ago now. my pirates havent seen any action in years, select few of the models make their way as cast extra's into my fantasy games and this Firelock Games Kickstarter has alot of interest. No I didn't buy in, but may pick up the rules if I get a chance to try it  out, I certainly have plenty of models.

That's the rundown on about everything I currently own, or least that get any type of traction around here with that I leave you with a teaser for my next battle report,  10 years on the blog, crazy.

Family Hobby time, A Woodland Indians Diorama

Here's something new , and something I hope to post more of here. My 9 year old daughter was assigned a project in her 3rd grade Social Studies class on the Native American tribes of this area. I'm not sure who was more excited when she came home with this one, Her because she knew she would be able to come up with something cool because of my hobby, Or myself because I got to help my daughter do something like this. I told her right off the bat," I will tell you/ show what to do and I will handle the sharp cutting but you need to do this all yourself. "

She's been painting miniatures with me on and off for a good three years now, so she can and has good enough control to neatly paint 3 colors and throw a wash on..and that's all that's done here, we did some practice washes on some other figures to practice putting the right amount where, but that was it, I'm surprised how good they actually came out

The Canoe is just some cereal box cut out with the ends glued with some greenstuff on the sides, we then set it right in liquid resin and painted the bottom brown.

We had to dig thru the lead pile to find suitable figures, we had talked about getting some of Warlord's very cool plastic Woodland Indians how she was assigned this project on Thursday and it was due the following Wednesday not alot of time for ordering stuff, We ended up using all miniatures from Black Cat Bases from my Pirate box,, the Indians I think are supposed to be Pacific Islanders but painted up they'll pass,. The Explorers, are Pirate models the Donkey an old Citadel model.


The biggest hurdle were the scenic element since that was all new to her.  We are using pre existing trees from the terrain box, but everything  else had to be done from scratch. after finding a box, and carving out the pink foam we went thru gluing, sand , then painting (She learned how to use a airbrush for basecoating here as well. )  and flocking. For the background mural, I original had her draw up a background she liked but she had problems getting the scale and perspective right and it was taking way too much time and becoming frustrating for her, instead of  nixing it , I gave in and  I drew out the background mural with a heavy pencil for her and she did the color by numbers bit there.

The wigwam is half a lemon storage container covered with  rough layers of super sculpty with some bamboo sticks stuck on for supports its then painted 3 shades of brown to represent the animal skins.  We rolled  green stuff into tiny ears of corn and put in the Hirst Arts pot to go with the basket of fruit and grain sack piece that just again 3 colors and washed. The tools are various bits from the weapon box on some plastic mesh that supposed to be a net.

The biggest issue we had was pouring a 2 part epoxy resin as we spent time airbrushing  the river section to pour some clear resin for water..I didnt want her getting any where near that stuff so I did myself after she went to bed and somewhere along the way dear old dad screwed up, I either used too much hardener or the pour was just too deep for one pass...even thou I mixed it very thoroughly and it looked amazing when poured I could tell some was wrong right away as it was hardening too quickly and became so cloudly I couldnt stir the air bubbles out. in the morning it was rock hard and anything but clear, so we had to just paint it blue and go with it.

Overall despite my screw up with the water effects, this was a fun (thou long) father /daughter project and a great learning project for her, Her teacher was very impressed and easily hit all the milestones to receive full credit . She's already excited for the next one, not sure what its going to be, but maybe I'll have reason to pick up those Egyptian Hirst Molds Ive been telling myself  I dont need for years.