Half Way to Bretonnia...

I'm half way through painting my Bretonnian Blood Bowl team, and while that's not a huge landmark by the standards of many painters, given the slow progress I've been making it feels like one to me.

So here's a post to celebrate! Behold, (half) my Bretonnian team! *Apologies for the quality of the photos, I'm not very good at taking these yet...

Knight Thrower

Squire Line(wo)man

Grail Knight Blitzer

Squire Lineman

Knight Catcher

Knight Thrower

All (half) of the team so far...

Various gubbins...

Well, that's the team so far. I'm pretty happy with how they are coming together. After much heartache over the colour scheme, I'm pleased with the choice I made. Half down, and half to go... At my current pace the next update featuring the full roster is likely to drop in another two months.

Blood Bowl Tokens

I was looking forward to Season 3 of Blood Bowl for some time. To be clear, this was one Games Workshop game I had never played back in the day (the late 90s for those curious), but I have been enjoying Mordheim and Necromunda lately, and seeing Blood Bowl was getting a new starter set caught my attention. Here was a chance to get in on the ground floor, as it were, and pick up two teams in the process. Given the luxurious large hardcover rule book, the tokens, templates, and minis, the cheat sheets, and the board, the whole set was actually pretty good value for money I think - not something I thought I'd ever say of GW, but here we are.

Of the two teams in the starter set, the Bretonnians were the ones who caught my eye. I've been dallying over the colour scheme I wanted to use for some time: green and yellow, red and green, red and blue... I couldn't quite decide. In order to delay the choice, I decided to start work on the tokens. These tokens are used to signify various in game effects, and come about a million to a sprue. They are thick, solid, and good quality casts. I had originally considered painting them on the sprues and cutting them out, but every token had 5 or 6 connection points to the sprue frame, and beveled edges, and I felt after cutting them off and filing them down, I'd essentially be repainting them anyway, so I clipped them off, and painted them that way.

Cutting them off the sprues and cleaning them up actually took a bit of time. Each token had 5-6 connection points, and with the angled edge of the token, the cuts always left flashing which had to be cut and filed back.

The Stunned and Prone tokens, if you follow the colour guide in the rules book, are the only ones which have one colour one side, and another colour the other side.

No prizes for guessing where I was holding them...

The most annoying to paint, but not that difficult really. I started with the yellow, then the red, then cleaned up.

I decided to use Tamiya Panel Liner to fill the letters and symbols. I wish I hadn't. The size of the recesses for the letters and symbols really isn't suited to panel liner in my view - it took an enormous amount, and was messy to use. I should have varnished them before using the panel liner, so I could use a rubbing alcohol to clean them up, but again, I didn't. In the end I wish I had simply used a dark wash. Cest la vie. 

With the 'messier than I wanted' results, I decided to fork out on some new dry brushes I had been eying off. These are really nice, but... they are so soft, and with the large round heads it's sometimes tough to feel when they are actually connecting with the model. This meant some of the early ones were a much heavier dry brush than I intended, and I had to take a step back in the process.

This is the tokens roughly finished. I always wanted them a little dirty, but not quite this much. Still, on the whole they look ok, and are certainly serviceable. I fixed a few up after taking this shot, and the photo itself is in poor light, but they are done!

Crap, I still hadn't decided on the colour scheme for the Bretonnians... 

What would I do differently if I had my time again? 

I could have gone through the same process, using a dark wash instead of panel liner. I think the dry-brush afterwards would have felt more naturally layered, and it would have been a lot quicker.

I've also seen good results on TikTok and YouTube with people spraying them black, and then using paint markers or Sharpies to lay the colour on top. From what I've seen this works quite well. I'd want to experiment with something first, but I could see this working if you wanted a more vibrant set of tokens.

Next, the balls and team token things! Which means I have to make a decision...

Full Circle - and Necromunda

It's been a hot minute since I posted to this site. In actual fact, it's been a hot seven years. In the intervening time I've changed careers, run eight successful Kickstarters, had nearly half a million words published by various game companies around the world, and self-published 7 RPG zines (see more on the Caradoc Games link at the top of the page).

The last few months though I've taken a hiatus from game design, and have been getting out the paints and brushes, dusting off miniature games I haven't played in some time, and generally doing other hobby things. It's been nice to come back to that side of the gaming hobby, and more and more I've felt like blogging about it. So here we are, full circle.

What got me back into miniatures gaming? A bit of uncertainty around what I was going to do next with Caradoc Games, and a desire to take some time. A good friend of mine had finished running a Necromunda campaign, and was talking about running another campaign later in the year. He asked if I wanted to join in; the bastard knew exactly what he was doing.

After some umming and ahhing, I finally gave in and thought to myself, 'yes, just a gang for Necromunda, that will be a nice distraction from my studies this year'. Six months later and I have a painted Necromunda gang, a fleet for Oak and Iron, a Gallic DBA army, and I have Bloodbowl sitting on a table nearby... I should have known this was how it would go.

Looking at the gangs that our local group had, and which miniatures I liked the look of, I ended up getting an Ash Wastes Nomad gang (cue the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia theme tune, and an episode titled: The Gang Does the Ash Wastes).

I don't think I've bought anything from Games Workshop since the late 90s. The model sprues were good quality, and the figures went together easily. I rather like these models, but boy are there a lot of layers, with bits of cloth and cowl hanging over parts of the figures here and there, chains, and cannisters and all manner of other details, which look wonderful once painted, but are sometimes tricky to get a brush to. If I had my time again, I'd almost elect to paint them on the sprues, but then again, just typing that gives me the shudders, so maybe not.

I was really happy with how these figures came out, the models are well posed and detailed, and I am pleased with the final product. According to my extensive research and exacting sources, most of dyes available in the Ashen Wastes are various shades of brown, so that's what I went with... 

My gang for Necromunda - The Ash Waste Nomads

The campaign started a couple of weeks ago, but I'll save posting about it for another day. So far it's been a lot of fun, and unusually for me, I'm actually playing with painted miniatures!

On Minis Games...

For the last year and a half a good friend of mine (Quinton) and myself have been talking about and planning a podcast all about miniature games and gaming. In the middle of last year we took the plunge, teaming up with the fantastic folk over at Inverse Genius, and added another podcast to their excellent stable: On Minis Games.

Then things got busy. Various problems and complications arose in Quinton's and my lives that prevented us from getting the microphone out again, not least of which was a series of ongoing problems getting our RSS feed to work. Thankfully, the mean man of podcasting stepped in, and it's all sorted now (for those interested, our feed can be found here).

On Minis Games strives to be an off-the-cuff discussion about the miniature game hobby. Quinton and myself will cover what we've been playing in Hobby Update episodes, we'll delve into game reviews, we'll talk about upcoming games that catch our eye, and hopefully speak to some interesting people at different points along the way.

If you have an interest in miniature games, check us out and see what you think. If you have any questions or comments, we'd really appreciate it, as criticism will only help us get better and stronger, feel free to comment here on my blog, over on the On Minis Games episodes page, on twitter (@caradocp), or email us at onminisgamespodcast@gmail.com

Our latest episode has just gone live, and includes a discussion on the games we've been playing lately, which means some Mordheim, Heavy Gear Blitz, Faustus Furius, Battlelore, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shadows of the Past, Necromunda, and other things besides!

Hobby Goals...

In 2016, when I wrote up my goals for the year, they were predominantly focused on games and gaming. Since I have already written up my goals in terms of my writing, I am rounding them out with my goals for the hobby...

Table Top Games Played

Last year I had the goal of playing 100 unique games, and managed it with some 15 or so to spare. This year I am going to simply replicate that goal. Having a voice in the back of my mind telling me to try and mix up what hits the game table was enjoyable last year, and made me break out some games I hadn't played in a while, rather than going back to some old staples. This helped me rediscover what it was I enjoyed about those games, and reminded me of some of those classics on my shelves that had been collecting dust for some time. Repeating what I did last year, I will also be recording the different games I manage to get to the table via a geeklist on Boardgamegeek, in fact, you can find the geeklist here, if you're interested...

Role Playing

Writing for both Infinity and Star Trek leads me to the obvious conclusion that I need to play more of both! I am hoping that this year that I manage to get a regular RPG group running. Whether we play Infinity, Star Trek, Symbaroum, Wyrm, MERP, Star Wars, FATE or any one of the dozen other games I have sitting there calling for attention - I don't care! Just something!

Painting

I have a host of unpainted models calling for attention, as well as a significant amount of scenery waiting to be built. My goal here is to build all the scenery I have still in wrapping, and to paint on a regular basis. I am hoping to complete my Heavy Gear army, get paint on some Infinity models, finish my Australian navy for Dystopian Wars, and much more. I think the key here is painting/building regularly more so than aiming to get specific models done. I do tend to push this aside when things get busy, but now I have a dedicated painting area... perhaps I will manage more...

On Miniatures Games

On Minis Games has been a project that a friend of mine (Quinton Sung) and I have been planning for a long time. With the last half of 2016 being as chaotic as it was, we managed to record only two episodes (which are currently available to listen to at the Inverse Genius On Minis Games page.

The aim for this year is to really get On Minis Games into gear, we've had feed issues (and if you have trouble subscribing, let me know at onminisgames@gmail.com), scheduling issues, and lots going on in our personal lives. Without the various excuses and put bluntly, we haven't done as much as we had hoped by now. We hope to remedy this in 2017! My goal is to publish at least one episode a month, and hopefully two... we shall see how we go!

If there is a particular focus, topic or concept you would like to see in a miniatures game podcast, please let us know! We are eager to more episodes recorded and available for download!

Game Design

I am lucky enough at the moment to have had the opportunity to work on a range of games: Dystopian Legions, Dystopian Wars, Fleet Battles, Halo: Fleet Battles, as well as write for Firestorm Planetfall, Firestorm Armada, Infinity the RPG, Star Trek Adventures, and to work as an editor on Firestorm: Taskforce and Achtung! Cthulhu the miniatures game. I'd really like to push this a little further this year, not only by continuing to write for the various games I have an opportunity to write for, but also to design and develop some games of my own. I have a variety of RPG and board game designs in various stages of completion in boxes, folders and on my hard drive. I'd like to aim to work on at least 4 different designs of my own over the course of this year... we shall see!




Well, that about rounds off my hobby goals for this year. Doubtless I have forgotten some things, but this is enough to begin with!

The Scions of Erasmus - Painted!

Getting paint on models is usually something of a small miracle here at the Castle, and playing with a fully painted force, virtually unheard of. However, I have been pushing myself to get my Warband for Mordheim painted, and lo, this passed weekend it has been achieved!

My Averlander warband, The Scions of Erasmus, consists of a Captain, a Sergeant, two Bergjaegers, a Young Blood, four Moutainguard, two Marksmen, and three Halflings. They are quite an archery focused warband, and I have found them a lot of fun to play.

I have managed to play about half a dozen or so games now, and the campaign is in full swing with multiple games played every club night. There are about 7 or 8 warbands involved in the campaign, and it has been an absolute blast.

In any case, on with the painted figures! First off are the latest and final addition, my Henchmen group of Halflings.

Otto

Will

Hob

The Scions of Erasmus...

Young Blood, Captain, Sergeant

Mountainguard

Bergjaegers

Marksmen

Halflings

In all I am extremely happy with how they turned out. I was nervous about painting the yellow and the black, but overall I'm thrilled with the results. The miniatures I used (Perry Miniatures plastics), were great to work with and a joy to paint. Makes me want to grab some more, but I'll need to go looking for a game to play them in!