Lead Painters Leagues - Season 7

Lead Painters League- Season 7 commences shortly over at the Lead Adventure Forum. The LAF ,is for me, personally where the best of the miniature hobby is taking place. Multi-genre, scratch builds, old school miniatures galore, tons of terrain and best of all always lots of great ideas. Very little brand ID pigeon holeing across the board. the Lead Painters League or "LPL" now hits season 7, I only got the gumption to stick my toe in the water last year for the first time, and was pretty happy with the way I made out.

Its a tight 10 week schedule, where you have to submit new entries on the weekly basis, and you submit your first "3" entries when you enter. Prepping for Adepticon events has got me well on my way for my initial entries, but after that I'll be scrambling to stay of ahead of entry dates by a good margin so I am not trying to cram it in that week. A big part of the contest is not just your painted miniatures, but how they are presented. So, yes while it is a painting contest it is open to a public vote so your presentation certainly sways peoples opinions. My best stuff last year that won by wide margins won by either by clear painting caliber or was pushed it though because my entire scene presented itself as a mini-vignette and got the point across better.

That is the route I am going to try to go as much as possible this year as much as can, as a result I am really trying to plan out all my entries in advance, so while yeah I'll probably do three Lord of the Rings entries...(only due the Adepticon overlap) I am going to try to push the envelope dig into the lead pile for the other 7 rounds. My lead pile is pretty huge and its keep growing, So I will certainly try to embrace some of the new games I am interested it, and old stuff I've never got around to painting.  This contest is a great motivation and my fellow compatriots are, nothing but inspiring, looking forward all the cool stuff we are going to see this year. Things get rolling Saturday April 13th, so stay tuned, I'll be updating my weekly entries as they win or lose each week, my only goal is have fun and try to do at least as well as last year. The two big theme rounds are Historical Civil War and Science Fiction this year, and yeah "Rex Eleven" is making a big return round 10.

Scratch Build- "The Eye"

 Just showing off my first ever total scratch build. Other than a few decorative plastic and hirst bits..this is all Pink foam, cereal box, balsa, dowels, bamboo skewers, plastic card, leather stitching and wood glue.

 I call her "The Eye" a Corsair scout ship from the 50 or so ships set out from Umbar to ambush the City of Minas Tirith during the battle of Pelennor Fields in "The Return of the King". Aragorn, and his companions captured this fleet with help of the Dead of Dunharrow and help turn the tied of Battle.

 The ship is my display board for my Thursday night Lord of the Rings events, "March to Mount Doom" which is a single elimination 500 point tournament with a 15 model cap...My army features
Aragorn, (Heir of Isildur profile), The King of the Dead and 12 Men of Dunharrow. I have no idea how its going to perform. The Army of Dead was always a poorly performing force for its cost, I dont think much has changed under the new "Hobbit" Rules.

 The ship was fun to build. I originally had a different plan that didnt feature the full ship just a portion of one side as back drop. however after looking at couple of scratch builds online and watching the scenes from the film, I was inspired at like 2am last sunday morning.  I drew a hasty sketch that night, and in the morning when the wife and kids coincidentally were going to a baby shower, I was free to go to town.  by the time "the Walking Dead" came on Sunday evening she was done minus the back sail which I finished Monday night.

 I approached this just like I would make a plastic or resin model other that I had to design all the parts.. drew all the parts out by hand, per sketch- built my Pink Foam form then resized my parts drawn of the actual material used. and cut out with an xacto or my mini scroll saw. The trickest part was the bow ram...I made about 3 of them before I got it just right...

This is a scout ship meant for boarding I designed it as such.. Bow Ram, Shields, Boarding Spikes, etc, swallow hull, no lower deck...I got some really cool Mithril Corsairs that are going populate her., after Aragorn gets done with her. Other than looking cool on my wall post tournament....I could throw some deck guns on the her and use her in Legend of the High Seas play too..whatever..a third finished ship for my growing Navy, I'll paint her in the coming weeks.

Time and Materials- around 12 hours, costs in materials is under 20.00 USD

Dynamic Duo!

Forget Batman and Robin, these guys are the original dynamic duo after Holmes and Watson!

 Some quick pics of how my team army for the Lord of the Rings team championships at this years Adepticon is shaping up my partner Chris and I are recreating The Warg Attack scenario from "The Two Towers"  My Rohan list features these two as the 2 man wrecking crew..having faced them both before running my Orcs..I know what pain the but they are, with the new Cav rules..The Rohirim got alot better..looking forward to what they can do on the table.

 I had stunning moment of inspiration late Friday night that had me working till the wee hours of the morning this past weekend. I've changed my display Idea for my "March to Mount Doom Army"
and came with great ideal for the display..its awaiting paint..but I should be able to show the whole army off this weekend.

 I've been working on "turning up the heat" if you will on my color palette for this Army, I have long history of using muted cold earth tones at my painting core. My armies tend to come out somewhat dark in person, and I am thankful for the appreciation they get, I know they are easy to walk right by if you dont stop to look . They definitely don't scream " Hey over here, look at me!!" which ends up
at lot times being a cheap sell in the painting competition and tournaments. Warhammer players know what I am talking about.

 Anyway my Rohan is going to pop alot more than some of my past work..not in over the top way I still keep a very tight pallet, I've just gone a little hotter on the colors. (these pics are  little washed out)

More soon , 43 days till Adepticon, I am on schedule having about a dozen models still to do this month leaving the first 2 and half weeks of April to tie up loose ends and get a display together.

Merchant House

 On a more positive note, I love the resin buildings from Tabletop World  A couple guys in Croatia with a passion for awesome miniature scenery in that Bavarian  old world style that's become a common sight in the genre. I don't own any of their building's, while not completely prohibitively expensive, the building in question runs $105 dollars shipped. Things like this are a slippery slope and this one of those things where you buy one, you will surely be buying more so before I got on that roller coaster I signed off on limiting myself to using them as my muse if you will. This merchant house below was my Inspiration for my merchant house pictured here.

 If you reading this your familiar with my Hirst Arts pieces and I have a good amount invest in molds
So outside of pennies in plaster and $20 for a new pack of plastic card for the roof (I used about half)  this piece cost practically nothing but my time and things  already had. 

 This is three section building with totally playable first and second level. the top level comes off and sits flat and the roof comes off..so if want use sans bottom structure as a forest cottage on another table it totally works. As is, Ist now the biggest structure in my little "town" which is made of old Armorcast building, CNC minature kits, GW kits and my own Hirst Arts stuff. This building is actually bigger than my "Inn". I plan building a new Inn, a huge Inn which is going sit on top of the Already constructed Tavern Board as its base...the buildings base is 16 X 18 so its a monster that will take very long time to construct..The upper section of this building uses 1/8 inch MDF and cereal box fitted with pieces from the Hirst Arts "wooden plank" mold. so this was an exercise in miniature carpentry as much as anything. experimenting with buildings like this tells me how long the huge Inn will take and how I want to design it.

 I've planned on doing another half dozen buildings and full castle wall with gate house and turreted buttresses (under slow construction) The town currently fills up a 4X4 table with a 1/4 of it being docks with rooms for two ships. 

 Not quite complete the building has fully constructed interior and with the new "Inn series" of interior pieces from Hirst Arts..will furnish it nicely...I'll show off the inside when its done but that won't be for awhile yet, I've got Adepticon coming up most of this was built in the Christmas - New years window at the beginning of the year..I just finished it up during breaks drying periods while working on my Rohan team army.

While certainly not as beautiful as its inspiration it will do quite nicely and fits my town well....I've got the Castle Walls and more Dungeon pieces under construction...all this stuff has been WIP going on 4 years now..so  dont expect it will ever be "Done" it just keeps growing.  right now its all on a 4X4 and 4X8 table put together, I dont think a pair of 4 X8's is out of the question when its all said and done.   Anyway. That's my Merchant House inspired by Tabletop world.   Built with Hirst Arts Molds 42,70,71,75, 701, 220.  1/8 inch MDF, Cereal Box Cardboard, Plastic card and some knitting plastic sheeting used for the windows..materials cost (other than molds) around $20...time, start to finish around 20 hours.

Alternative LotR figures

When Elrond gives you the facepalm you know things have gone off the rails!

Well the new The Hobbit releases from Games Workshop are to date, pretty hit and miss. The game somehow survived limping along with a diehard fan base long enough to secure the new license for the new Hobbit films and we got some new Army books and a good new rule set in the last 2 years.

The host of new models on the other hand and the starter set have been average to disappointing in my opinion. The killer sculpts of the Perry Brothers are sorely missed in conjunction with the inevitable lack of quality that is going to occur with going all plastic and what will, in the end be responsible for Games Workshop eventual demise if they dont change it, their Finecast line.

I'm not sure what exactly is going on in the GW studio these days and who is even doing the sculpting as I cannot find credits given like they used to be. I am well aware they are limited creatively by the imagery of the films that New Line is providing, but it all just seems kind of half assed...while some of the new sculpts of classic characters are indeed great, much of the stuff is not. The new dwarves are entirely unappealing and "undwarf"  like, No Azog figure, but some other guy we havent seen yet who kind of looks like him, wearing some armor straight out of Dune and then Blog looking like the main zombie from the "Cabin in the woods".Most disappointing are the new Men of Dale that I had such high hopes for, looking like an ostentatious line of Mongols or Huns instead of the tight Nordic looking men they should.

Again this falls back on what the hell happened with Jackson production team. That got everything right for the first three films imagery and vibe wise and everything seems so wrong with "The Hobbit" as far its inclusion of anything new. Everything from the dwarves, the Sci fi- ish look of Erebor to Laketown looking like its doubling as set in the Game of Thrones TV series..(Pentos or whatnot) I dont know what the hell is going on there, bit obviously this is trickling down to the Games Workshop line.

Adding insult to injury , all the best GW new models are done in flipping Finecast, other wise known as Failcast or Finecrap depending on your view point. Horribly overpriced resin thats often deformed, or miscast for 5 times the price of what could be a near flawless metal figure. Granted I am aware that finecast quality has improved but that doesnt change the price, the odds of still getting a bad one and do I really want to pay 20+ dollars for a single figure I have to worry about breaking, cleaning, blowing away indoors because its basically weightless...hell no. No sculpt is worth the grief of the worst idea Games Workshop ever had.

I'm painting a pretty grim picture, I love Lord of the Rings and collect all kinds of models...I have a great collection of Citadel figures from its best days in the mid 1980's. But fear not they're other great sculpts out there from other manufactures and they're metal!  I'd like to mention two I have been eyeing for awhile now. First up is Mithril Miniatures. I have known about these guys for a long long time and they've been around a long long time..I had always assumed they were out of scale with Games Workshops figure but with GW's scale creep leaving them all over the map...compare the plastic men of gondor box to the Rangers box if you want a laugh.  Scale Creep over the years at Mithril as well currently gives us alot of options

One of the many amazing Dioramas Mithril sells, this is collectors stuff and its not cheap, but unlike Games Workshop here it appears you do get what you pay for.

Mithril sculpts and imagery are pre movies so there is alot of fantastic sculpts in a very classic sense and certainly things that would go brilliantly with your GW models if you choose correctly.
Mithril has a huge line going back decades so you need to sort thru it all but I have found great stuff I am picking up I will show you soon. Figures are priced based on rarity or series over there,  classic standard figs are around $6.50 a piece...again much cheaper than a standard hero model at GW in Finecast is $15..Mithril Aniversary series figs are around $27...but for that you get a killer metal figure that, get this.. is delivered factory cleaned and primed...all for slighty more than rolling the dice on the Finecast crap shoot.  Mithril is a collectors line, I'm a collector, but most certainly we will see soon how they translate to gaming.

Men of Dale?? Not a chance  Attilla the Hun's elite guard...Sure!

 Second up is Tom Meier's Thunderbolt Mountain.  Tom is a legend in the miniature sculpting business a was founder at Ral Partha back in the day. I have admired his Athurian line in true 25mm scale for sometime, but just recently I caught wind of his 30mm line of Elves, Men and Goblins and was blown away. The Tolkien motif is strong in these figures . The immediately struck me as timed with the current re popularity of Middle Earth. To me these figures look like jumped right out of book as I envisioned them as a boy.  great prices too...I can by 10 crappy plastic Men of Dale from Games Workshop for $35 or 20 metal killer metal sculpts from Tom Meier for $50..its not even a contest.

Or Men of Dale?? Hell yes....

You want to do a Battle of the Five Armies game you want your Goblins to look like this!

Cool Troll too.

In closing, I'm glad to see some new horizons opening up for potential LotR gaming.  I still want to run my huge Battle of the 5 Armies games at some point...now I can see finding the proper figures to do in the style it should, I will get my Laketown Army, just not from Games Workshop. With Games Workshop shuttling all its Battle Bunkers in the USA 2013 (sans memphis?)  and ties to tournament support will have sighed their last gasp. "GW only" model policy is going to be a thing of the past sooner than later in organized gaming, I for one am glad to see the hobby become "the hobby" without the brand ID being such a requirement.

Antiquity Campaign- Round 5

Hail Caesar! play continued early this month with our ongoing Antiquity Campaign.
5 of 8 Rounds are complete a couple of good games, has my Sparta dominating.

Again the participants are :

Rome (Rome) Yellow
Syracuse- Orange
Sparta- Red
Macedonia - Green
Persians- Achaemenid - Blue
Rome (Byzantium)- Purple

  My Spartans defeated Rome in somewhat close battle, that was somewhat misrepresent in the lopsided score Rome small but difficult units were giving me fits until things broke my way late games. My Victory allowed me secure all border territories ,I had been squabbling with take a  Macedonian territory and finally after 3 rounds remove the remaining Syracuse Troops from Sparta   In the East Byzantium and Syracuse had a close match with Syracuse prevailing.  The Persians ambushed Macedonia with a huge win. Round 6 is this Tuesday.

Kickstarter, The new pre order model

This caught my eye this morning, As my interests are moving away from large format wargaming to Skirmish gaming, this game caught my eye more than other Steampunk type games, due to the Horror/Holmes factor..growing up in the 70's the Hammer Films Productions horror films from the 1950's-1970's had a huge impact on me, This game seems to carry the vibe well, not to mention its inclusion of Sherlock Holmes, HG Wells, and what else I am seeing, this looks a cool game with great potential and these new Requiem figures look better than what I have seen of the previous era.
Question is; I know some of you have played it, What is the game play like? can someone give me a rundown with their experience.?

I been watching Kickstarter closely this last year, with much interest. Its new base as the pre order model for gaming manufactures is pretty interesting, its basically covering companies rear ends on new product lines by asking people to pre pay.  They feel like they are getting deal thru extras / discounts and incentives, Companys are pulling in huge cash..The question is on the delivery.
I have not read any horror stories yet about anyone not coming thru but I have notices delivery times are way off base from whats projected (based on my own KS experiences) I am somewhat waiting for the other shoe to drop where some major scandal erupts- but not yet its seems.

For Westwind this looks like a winner at over 300% of their initial goal in the first day..I must say I am interested here, not sure if I will get in or not of course Zombie Cossacks, would be ultimate sell for me. (Horror Express, 1972, a movie that scarred the pants off me when I was 10-12 or something, if you've never seen it check it out)

More at Westwind's Requiem Kickstarter HERE