Finecast and why it's awesome. And Samurai.

     Yes I actually wrote that. Finecast is awesome. This will make (what the internet tends to portray as at least ) a large group of people angry. It's ok though, listen to my reasons. I'm not talking about whether it's a suitable material for G'dub to use, whether it deforms or bends over time or in heat (I live in South Wales. It's a temperate rainforest at best except for the odd week of summer) or whether the casting quality is unsatisfactorily poor (not something I've personally experienced - everything I've dealt with has been minor cosmetic stuff). I mean as a sculptable resource.

     My AHQ peasant/poacher had been in a box of random scrap for a good 20+ years until half an hour with some finecast sprue furnished him anew with a mighty bow. It was simple and easy.

Poacher and (Chaos) Dwarf with new weapons and a new sense of purpose :)

     Here's an Empire Greatsword champion I picked up for 50p. His Flamberge was not only ridiculous to start with, it was bent all over the place. Quick snip, suitable bit of finecast sprue and half an hour and he was better than new. I know the blade is daft and a little oversized but it's the equivalent of the original and feels right. I may decide to reduce it further but it's unlikely. Nothing in Warhammer should be sensible in my mind. GW started to lose me when they moved away from the humour and tongue in cheek style of the Oldhammer I grew up with. Pictures aren't great as they are smart phone snaps but they are enough to get the idea.

A ridiculously big, almost spatulate blade just screams Warhammer and AHQ to me. Wondering monster of unknown make.

     Next up are a couple of 28mm samurai from Northstar's Ronin range and Perry miniatures. Once again the original blade or weapon was removed, a piece of finecast sprue cut to size roughly using clippers. I then drill a small hole (usually 0.8mm) into the centre of the piece and insert and glue in suitable brass rod. I then use file and a scalpel (in a scraping motion) to shape the piece. It takes a little time but is a therapeutic past time like whittling. I'm not totally sure about Finecast health issues regarding sanding (Forgeworld's is nasty) but always recommend doing it in an open, well ventilated space.

A Perry samurai who suffered in the great stairs incident of 2014. Perry's Katanas are much smaller than Northstar (often rightly so) so I increased it slightly to aid mixing.

A Northstar bandit who originally wielded a Kama (sickle). I removed it and used the handle of a Perry katana with a finecast blade to make him a little more fearsome.

     It's an easy and effective method for replacing damaged blades. With the addition of the the super glue and rod they are more resistant to bending and seem to be stronger overall (haven't broken them yet) than the original and it allows you to add some new weapons into the mix if your feeling creative.

     My 28mm samurai are all Perry or Northstar and I intend to use them just for skirmishes on a couple of small, purpose built boards. I have 25 armed and based chaps from traditional non-armoured (hakama wearing) retainers, various swordsmen, peasants, bandits (various states of dress and armour) and a few more waiting to be fettled. I replaced a few other weapons to add a bit of variety. I also wanted some Yari wielding miniatures so bought my first ever lot of wire spears from Perry miniatures (like an initiation ceremony into 'proper' wargaming). Brilliantly simple to fit and solid things. Good enough to draw blood at least and no bending, then re-bending ad infinitum. A Northstar bandit lost his Teppo (I don't want guns in my Japan) and gained a simply crafted Tetsubo (Big club) made of carved sprue and pro-create putty.

Fearsome and Yari appropriate wire spears and miniatures from Perry.

Out with the high tech Teppo in with the big bit of wood with iron rings. A truly deadly, crushing weapon that would need great coordinated skill (dai-sabake) to use.

A (perry) monk like fellow with a Bo staff. If you think a stick isn't much threat, think again. In trained and practiced hands it's a lethal and infinitely controllable weapon with an astounding reach.

     That's it really, the others are based but just as they come and so not interesting yet. They'll get packed in the move as I want to tackle some other 28mm painting first as a painting refresher, as traditional patterns are often complicated and I suspect will need patience. I'm going to check out the available 28mm appropriate scenery from Sarissa and 4Ground at Salute in April. Thank you for taking the time,

BALM.

And I can reach my computer....

     Many weeks of back breaking toil, dozens of injured or perhaps worse, simply missing dwarven labourers and engineers and I have a path. It's narrow and precarious but it will suffice. I've done some random things but mainly my focus has been elsewhere due to the mundane nature of life. Until I can produce something worthwhile anyones time to look at, here are some old, thought lost photo's from my previous phone and the early part of my return to the hobby:

     Painted for my friend overnight (note the professional thumb nail palette - something I often forget to remove) this was the first large piece of fine cast I got my hands on. Unfortunately I didn't get to assemble it though, so I don't know whether the disquieting angle and pose is due to the sculpt or assemblers (there was more than one - never a good sign). My first reaction to finecast wasn't the flexibility, or the errors in casting (not that I've seen anything major) it was how light such a big model had become. In my hayday of bedroom gaming with my school friends such a big model would have been a lethal, incredibly heavy, pointy object. I nearly threw it at the ceiling as I automatically over compensated. I added quite a lot of slate (at my friends chagrin - as he'd wanted to show people how light it was) and Old-Schooled it up. 

     It was a pleasure to paint and he was pleased with the result. Then it all turned ugly....... For the next couple of weeks as I built games tables at the store I was exposed to something of a personal problem. The poor thing got abused. It didn't belong to them so as far as the gamers and punters in the shop were concerned they didn't need to pay much attention to how you handled it and as you probably know Finecast doesn't get a lot of love. I know I'm obsessive but it was a real eye opener  (luckily they weren't ultimately my models - mine are all safe somewhere behind me, I think). The tables looked awesome by the way: the kids destroyed them too.

The first piece of Finecast to be sent to the store. It was missing a head. I painted up the second and was given this one as a fee. I made him quite a bulky rogue trader style pro-create head and gave him some 40k weapons. Just can't find a colour scheme I like for him.

Fimir I knocked up overnight (again) for my friend on the release of the storm of magic book. The lower  arms and hands, and the legs are plastic orcs, the rest is pro-create putty.

WIP Terrorgheist. Best looking, hardest to put together kit I've done. I wanted to paint it before attaching to the base and so had a terrible time getting the exact placement if the rocks it stands on. It is however a beautiful kit and was the first herald of some of the frankly amazing (even if not to my taste) large plastic kits to come. Shame I'm not really interested in them in a gaming sense.

Battlefront (FOW) OH-6 I've converted into a MD500 (ish) chopper for near future gaming.  I was being all scratch buildy but then discovered those Tau bits in a random plastic spoil heap and couldn't see a better way. Needs some Hurlbat rotors. I have more 15mm helicopters than modern or near future AFV's.

Nice random one to finish. Check out this van parked up near a bit of woodland I was thinning. Looks like bricks doesn't it. Zoom in. Yep that's bread. Welcome to South Wales.

     That's about it. I've got some more pics and ideas and can now at least get to the computer. Thank you for taking the time,

BALM.

For the love of plastic.

So due to inexorable and boring life stuff our gaming weekend got cancelled and has had to be postponed for a couple of weeks. As I had tidied away my BA 15mm painting station (looks like a mini motorpool now) I decided to have a poke at a different scale and material. First of all whilst shoring and propping my lead mountain after a mammoth eBay purge (only part 1 and still doesn't seem to have reduced much) I found my ogres.

My four ogres for WHFB Realms of Chaos; One lord or character and three general hench ogres. I want them to be usable as much as possible from empire mercenaries to chaos.

I knocked these up last year in order to play in the Realms of Chaos game at The Foundry in Nottingham. The force I'd generated had a chaos dwarf, an ogre chaos lord/champion, 3 more ogres (his retinue) some wolves and a chaos warrior. Unfortunately shortly after starting on the ogres I realised I wouldn't be able to attend due to conflicting dates for work. So back they went, until now.

The only model to get anywhere near finished. My ogre lord, there's still some bits to do but not much.

It's a toss up between a ogre sized crossbow and the tied up human from the stone horn kit, to fit across his back, may investigate a magnetic solution.

You can just see the brass wrings I made and added to the converted sword. As there traditional use in martial arts they are distracting to the opponent and will blunt or damage weaker weapons.

The Hench ogres need some more armour and straps to finish them.

Plates from the stone horn kit give them a TMNT feel.

They're made up of spares and excess bits from a commission and anything else I could scrounge together. None of them are quite done but I managed to get the feel I wanted after an evening of cutting and gluing. The next evening I did the sculpting on the ogre lord. And that was their 15 minutes of fame.

I don't know what I'll use them for but I'm sure I'll think of something.

This is a creature for skirmish games made the other night, from a gaunt and a gargoyle and another set of tyranid claws (want to say genestealer rending claws). I've got enough parts to make 10 of these little beasties and they remind me of the Rogue Trader Tyranid picture (but with added wings).

Last but not least my wife bought something of her choice (from a range of stuff I fancied but never felt justified enough myself to impulse buy) for my 40K Squat force: some Ogryns. I do have some originals and I was reticent about the look of the new ones. I have never sworn so much at 3 plastic models.

I incorrectly attached the wrong left arm to the first ogryn and it has welded itself together perfectly by the time I noticed. Every other arm was a hassle from hear onwards. I didn't make the box standard ones either as I'm not a fan of the look. Whether this had anything to do with the calamitous build I don't really know. The instructions are plentiful I just strayed inadvertently and the verbal abuse began.

Luckily I like what I came out with: two troopers and a bonehead/Nork Deddog stand in. Just need another couple (nearly £30!) and I'll have a nice characterful unit to shield my stunties.

Thank you for taking the time,

BALM

Advanced Heroquest and old lead.

Nice and short: some Island of Blood box set Skaven for AHQ and some old citadel lead adventurers and heroes to face them.

My WIP Warpfire Thrower.

I don't have an original Warpfire thrower and the IoB one is really ugly and flat. It looks like Hasbro had already taken over. But with some Skaven cunning, bits of an awful rat ogre and some procreate I set about making it mine. Needs a little work but I looking forward to OSL'ing it if I can.

My skaven Warlord. Hopefully his armour colour and fur will make him recognisable in a horde.

Some of the Skaven, including a severely directionally challenged champion.

Aenur Sword of Twilight (Mordheim not vampires) The Moon Duke and a Thug (My Witch-finder's man of persuasive means)

A dwarf scout, a human scout and a templar all early Citadel.

Possibly my favourite dwarf model. Not too GW and nicely Tolkien. This chap is what I think of when I think "fantasy". And he's packing lots of weaponry.

Human Scout and Chaos Dwarf both repaired.

Both of these models have been in my collection for years (childhood) but have always been broken and clogged with some old, manky paint. Biostrip sorted them right out and with the addition of a bow for the ranger/scout and a mace head for the dwarf they were reborn. The mace is from a spare Rackham Confrontation Goblin Ashigaru and fits in perfectly. The bow is made out of finecast sprue and was FOE's excellent idea. A lot of people don't like Finecast but I discovered that it's really useful, and can be carved easily, and I will be keeping it for any future projects.

A small selection of my adventurers.

  

A range of suitable heroes I dug out from a couple of roses tins. There is more somewhere........ seem to have a dwarf fetish.

 So more 15mm to do (scenery and figures), Rats to base and then some 28mm to paint, My warlord marines need their final gear check and a couple of bits of procreate'ing I'd missed and they'll be ready to paint. Much to do but I'm actually feeling like I'm getting somewhere.

Thank you for taking the time,

BALM.

Progress.... of sorts

So you probably notice that this doesn't start with any lovely pictures of painted Fallschirmjager. It's rained, I've been unproductive and so on and so on. As I type this however it is glorious outside and about 30% of my chaps are sitting in the sun drying after their first light coat of PSC's Field Grau spray paint. Hopefully after this weekend I should be able to start blocking them in and get going.

Whilst I haven't achieved what I'd intended there was  some hobby progress this week. I put together two Zvesda Opel Blitz trucks and an Sdkfz 222. I'd initially been very wary of Zvesda's kits as they were cheap and looked low on detail. Having finally bit the bullet and, managing to get the kits at a more than reasonable £2.75 each, can say I'm impressed. There is a good range of parts and the whole thing goes together well and without glue. There are some parts that feel fragile whilst you're building them: the wheels on the opel blitz being particularly unnerving as they push on (the axel is relatively thin and the fit is tight) but when together you've got a robust and charming little kit for an excellent price.

The two blitz' are going to be fiddled with; I want to add tarps or make the bench seats in the back rather than rely on the moulded tarpaulin cover. There's nothing particularly wrong with the one supplied, it's maybe a little boxy, I just want to see what I can do.

My SdKfz 222 with tarp and jerrycan rack. Simple but adds character nicely to make it a unique little vehicle.

The 222 however seemed a little bare so after a very brief bit of googling (mainly at 'proper' modeller's conversions) I decided to add a few simple touches to make it a bit more unique. I used some jerrycans and a rolled tarp from the PSC 251D pack my opponent bought me for my b'day. the simple addition of some procreate straps and detailing to the end of the tarp (the moulded end is very plain, almost conical and certainly too neat for something that has been stowed in the field).

I also had a rather unfortunate accident moving my kampfgruppe around the house that saw my FoW Stug, Tiger and 250/9 come off quite badly. Needless to say they did not fare well and may be used as destroyed vehicles or objectives and replaced with plastic ones instead. The 250/9 is still serviceable, having just bent the gun, and I will rescue it as it's one of my favourite vehicles. It's infuriating but entirely my fault and at least I'll now have some objectives (optimism).

One of my original dungeoneering dwarves with classic cardboard floor tiles. May not even re-paint him as he's an ok example of my early work. Sadly many of his compatriots were lost in a series of disasterous house moving incidents.

Whilst vainly trying to tidy part of my hobby kingdom I came across the dwarf above, a mass of untouched fantasy lead and some other models that started me off on another tangent. A friend I did some painting for, had paid me in unused models and these included the skaven clan rats from the Island of Blood Warhammer Fantasy boxed game. Whilst I don't (currently) play WFB in 28mm I do love 28mm fantasy models and have a good and relatively varied collection, from my youth and more recent eBay'ing, stockpiled in my lead mountain. These are all intended for Advanced Heroquest.

This awesome box cover spoke to the 8-9 year me. And it said get a sword and be awesome...

If you've never heard of it Advanced Heroquest was the follow-on (in the loosest sense of the word) to the collaboration between GW and MB that bought us Heroquest in 1989. Heroquest was the first mainstream gaming product you would see outside of White Dwarf or other specialist publications. It was the first, and only, game I ever played with my whole family and I wholly enjoyed every chance I got to strap on a sword and go adventuring. In a very square dungeon. Perhaps rates were high, or it was a starter dungeon for monsters wanting to get onto the property ladder.

Sadly I found it wasn't really enough and I wanted more. Then I saw Advanced Heroquest and an obsession was born. Strangely I never owned AHQ as a youngster but regularly played with a friends copy and loved the increased freedom of the dungeon tiles and possibilities for adventure that it provided.

Images like this are scattered through the rule book and really helped visualize the dungeons and their denizens.

Obviously the first thing I did as a fully grown and serious hobbyist (encountering eBay for the first time a while ago) was to buy myself a copy in the attempt to recapture my youth. I say one copy but in reality it is two boxes with one game and three sets of dungeon tiles and the expansion Terror in the Dark (In the same way that to my wife I have only one mighty fortress; they originally came in five boxes as standard didn't they?)

Terror in The Dark added some new rules and some excellent irregular  cavern board pieces, sadly it can fetch a ridiculous price on ebay.

Having re-read the rules and found an excellent 2.0 version by a fan online I was still endeared to the good old fashion dungeon crawl. And moreover I think I can get my 7 year old niece to play it with me, and she's awesome.

The plastic skaven are perfect for this. They've got more character than the one piece, two dimensional ones provided originally (they may become skaven slaves) and should work very well. For nearly any other use I'd find them frustrating as there would be little I could do to convert them and would prefer the old WFB multipart chaps, but for AHQ they're perfect. So in my spare time (whilst it rains or my artistic temperament/insubordinate body stop me painting tiny WW2 germans) I'm sticking card flagstones roughly to slottabases and scraping mould lines off of lots of angry little rats. The paint jobs will be simple and I hope it'll help ease me back into my painting groove; as the marder was hard going at times as I slowly readjusted after a lengthy period of not touching a brush.

So hopefully soon I'll have more actual progress to show you and less wittering. Thank you if you managed to get through that.

BALM

Too many ideas...

Ok, so the first few posts of any blog aren't often the best. Over the next week I hope to get some pictures up of one of my first projects and get some helpful comments and feedback from the blogosphere and its occupants. Until then this blog feels aimless; so in an attempt to put something vaguely useful I've decided to post some links, with a few words of comment, about favourite sites I visit or loiter at. (Interspersed will be any more pics of past stuff I've found).

My WHFB 3rd ed. homemade giant: using a catachans face and arms, skaven legs, miscellaneous bits and a good lump of green stuff and procreate.

Concept minis for my WHFB Half Scale project. I just picked a range of different models, based and painted them to get an idea of how they'd look. I was happy.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd ed.

First up is Realm of Chaos 80's blog. This is an excellent blog following, in general one persons re-immersion into the true spirit of warhammer: Orlygg. Orlygg's approach and reminiscences about the Oldhammer gaming experience (using older rules editions of WHFB, mainly 3rd, to play the game as it was initially envisioned) are insightful and he deftly provides some interesting articles about the early GW artists and sculptors, background and thoughts behind what I loved so much as a child and ultimately became a goliath of the gaming world. It's a characterful read and will put you into contact with one of the key people in the UK oldhammer scene.

Elven Champion on steed. Needs a final detail.

Shield emblem and horses bum.

If you're interested in Oldhammer then check out the Realm of Zhu another key blog which includes the Oldhammer contract: a document detailing the spirit and intention of oldhammer gaming. A brilliant resource for all things oldhammer is the Oldhammer Forum. Through this you can get in touch with the movers and shakers of the oldhammer revival scene (and some truly excellent artists).

My finished giant with dragon skull, horse barding and small hogtied pig on rear. All started because I had some spare putty and bits in front of me. One evening later... seems very shiny but has since been dullcoated.

I'm not likely to play alot of Warhammer Fantasy Battle in 28mm. Even with 3rd being comprised of smaller forces with a more maneuverable, skirmish feel. I do a variety of fantasy stuff - mainly lovely old school dwarves but these will probably be based for Advanced Heroquest. The bulk of my 3rd WHFB battles will be played in half scale using 10mm individually based warmaster miniatures and a few lovely additions by Copplestone Castings.

Orc Boar Boy - Individually based and sadly now OOP GW Warmaster model. 

The oldhammer chaps organise a tournament day (it's not a tournament though as the games don't really play that way) at the headquarters of the excellent Foundry Miniatures in Nottingham. Whilst I was unable to attend the first event, I have every intention of cobbling together something interesting and trying to get up for the next on the 9th and 10th of August this year.

Really nice Copplestone wizard in familiar garb.

Warhammer 40k

Whilst my comments above will lead you to some excellent old school Rogue Trader painting and gaming not everyone is stuck in a time vortex like me. I have tried 5th edition and found it ok, I was put off by the amount I'd have to spend, some of the gamey players/features and to be honest the daunting amount of work to get my squats to a useable state. I've got 6th and simply wait to see how GW present the new Imperial Guard (sorry Astra Militarium accordingly) codex. If I can make a playable force that has charm and character then it may be the boost needed to motivate me back into 40k gaming.

Some (very few) of my expansive heavily converted squat 40k force.

Until then I regularly stare at Bell of Lost Souls (not the forum, just the articles/comments). Be warned this site feels very commercial, and is primarily patrolled by some zealous american tourney players (they're not all like that just be aware) and can be very WAAC (Win at all cost) and off-putting. This doesn't mean it doesn't have some useful articles; just that they need to be sifted and sieved mentally to remove the sometimes exacerbating bias of some the writers. If nothing else I always check it out on a friday for the invaluable Outside the Box articles by Table Top Fix covering a great range of recent releases for a variety of systems.

Storm Raven gunship converted for the vertically impaired.

Other things

Just to finish off a quick run down of some other worthwhile sites:

The Miniatures Page is a great resource of news and forums covering all niches of gaming and is well worth a look.

Board Game Geek is an excellent site covering games of all types but predominantly board based action. I've used this to research whether games are worth getting, get reasonable valuations as guides for eBay purchases and buy things. Full of lots of helpful and informed gamers.

Warlord Games forums are a brilliant resource for all their games but my particular interest is in Bolt Action. I'll be playing in 15mm and expect my first proper posts to concern this. 

Battlefront miniatures is the Flames of War publishers website and even if you ignore the option to purchase here, as cheaper vendors are available, the site holds a wealth of knowledge about each miniature and gives newcomers a good insight into WW2.

Peter Pigs miniatures is the UK 15mm miniature company I'm predominantly using for my Bolt Action forces and Martin's site is well worth a visit. 

It should be noted that I'm not affiliated with any of these sites and all opinions are simply my own, and thus dubious. Thanks for reading and hopefully I'll put up a post with some progress in a couple of days.

Thanks

BALM