Wyrdstone markers & new stuff...

So I got something done over the past couple weeks, which is quite an accomplishment because my entire painting/gaming room is in disarray! I'm having work done on my basement (the home of the lead pile) so there are piles of stuff everywhere.

I painted some more of the floors of my prepainted gothic ruins... they are great terrain pieces "as-is," but on a tabletop of gray cobblestones the whole table came across as a bit too gray. I painted up some of the floor tiles and liked the look, so knocked out a couple more recently:

I dug through my closet (the auxiliary lead pile) and found these glow-in-the-dark decorative rocks that I bought at a craft store around Halloween some time in the past, and decided to use them to make some new Wyrdstone markers after being inspired by my buddy Bill's. I wanted to use stuff that I had on hand instead of ordering the little green crystals from GreenStuffWorld, because I know when I place an order there I am going to end up spending hundreds of dollars, and I already have spent way too much in the first couple months of this year! More on that later...

So: I dug out some textured wallpaper patterns (I have have many rolls of these that I've accumulated over the years), a 25mm hole punch, some washers, and my glowing rocks to come up with these!

They definitely glow, which seems cool to me even though I rarely play Mordheim in the dark! haha

You would think that maybe since my room is busting at the gills I might stop buying stuff, and that would be a logical assumption, but the lead pile has a will of it's own and it's primary desire is to grow constantly. 

First up, I received a few large packages from orders placed last year - my HATE Kickstarter arrived, and my Black Friday order from Table Top World.

Hate is loaded with cool models for Chaos type warbands! They are definitely some biggies though. 

Not even sure what I'll use them for... I AM sure I'll never actually play this game 😄

But my buddy Wil loves to play various "chaos-y" armies/warbands in any game we play, and the game came with a load of cool markers (some of the coolest wound markers I've ever seen - impaled skulls!) too, so I jumped in. It was going to be a Kickstarter exclusive so I succumbed to the pressure!

I got some of the terrain too; these trees are pretty cool and will fit right in with some of my flocked trees and GW spooky trees. Got to get them painted up before the Sylvania Mordheim campaign this summer!

My TabletopWorld order came too... I have been collecting this stuff for years and have not painted any of it yet! It really is awesomely detailed stuff though... some day I'll get to it...

I love it when this box comes... it's like Christmas a few months late. And digging through all the newspaper to find the models is like an Easter egg hunt. Christmas and Easter all in one!

On top of getting cool terrain, I get to catch up on all the latest news in Croatia:

I really have to paint some of these!!! Hopefully after my basement is done I'll be able to at least lay everything out and see what I've got instead of having it all packed up in boxes. I'm sure I could fill at least a 4x4 table with a fully detailed town of these by now, I've been collecting them for several years. 

On top of receiving some things I ordered a while back, I've also been busy shopping too! Yikes...

I am just a victim of sales this year so far it seems. I try not to spend money... but then Battlefront had a sale where all of their Late War stuff was 25-70% off because they are revamping the line. I've been really interested in getting into WW2 gaming so I would be almost irresponsible to NOT takew advantage of this opportunity, right? There goes a ton of money. 

Now I've got troops for Germans, Brits/Canadians/Poles, and Americans now for multiple campaigns between D-Day and Market Garden in 15mm. I've never been as interested in Early War stuff or other theatres...

But then again, Osprey Publishing also had a big sale! All of their books were anywhere from 10 to 50% off, and I can't dig into a new period without doing the proper research, right? I've actually already been collecting books on Market Garden for years (and have even read a few of them, haha...). But I took this chance to buy a bunch of stuff on Normandy and the battles between June and September. 

This is bad enough, but what REALLY put my wallet over the edge, and makes me fear the day that my wife checks the credit card bill, was Wargames Foundry....

They had an annual sale (which is not unusual), but this year they actually included their paint line in the sale. 

This has not happened in almost 10 years. I have had my eye on their paints for probably 20 years, but being an imported item that is not carried by any US stockists, AND only being sold in sets of 3, made it a tough proposition. 

I've collected many other paint sets over the intervening years, after starting out with craft paints, and then moving on to GW and Vallejo. I painted with craft paints all through high school and college and then bought my first "real" hobby paints when I got my first job. 

Vallejo was great, but instead of being the final paint set on my shelf, it only began my obsession with collecting hobby paints!

I don't think any sane person could argue that I actually need the amount of paint that I have purchased... I have full sets of:

Vallejo Model Color

Vallejo Game Color

Vallejo Model Air

Vallejo Game Air

Vallejo Panzer Aces

Vallejo High Density

Privateer Press P3

Adikolor

Reaper Master Series

Reaper HD paints

Reaper Bones paints

Scale 75 Scalecolor

Scale 75 Fantasy Color

Scale 75 Warfront

Along with a large assortment of random GW paints, craft paints, and other brands.

It is a bit gluttonous actually. I can never use all this paint in three lifetimes. I can't even keep it all out on my desk, there is not enough room for it, so most of it stays packed up in cases under the desk or in a closet most of the time. I have one "go to" paint set that I keep out at any given time; for the past few years it's been Reaper Master Series with a collection of washes by GW and Army Painter. 

But the Wargames Foundry "Paint System" has been my "white whale." I have always assumed it would be the holy grail of painting, and would satisfy all of my needs, and be the last paint set I would ever need!

So I held off on buying it... until now. It was 25% off in February so I took the leap. I ordered the entire line. What a debacle. 

First, I had to contact the EPA to talk about the purchase because they would not import the package unless I signed some type of sworn affidavit that they did not violate the terms of the Toxic Substance Control Act. After signing my TSCA Affidavit, I was back on track...

I watched the FedEx tracking daily, and the day it arrived I could hardly contain myself. I emptied off my entire paint desk and made room for the new guests of honor...

(I'm not sure what the "Sea Elf Bargain" was, but I guess they thought I was some type of sea elf based on my address? Does no one on this side of the Atlantic ever buy these paints?).

What a disappointment so far. I have not even painted a full model with these yet, but what I can tell is this -

1. The labels are not glued on very well, and the bottles are only labeled from the top. So as I've tested each bottle, I've had to re-glue the label on top. 

2. The coverage over a black primer does not seem to be anything to write home about ( this was, far and away, the NUMBER ONE thing I was hoping for from this set - coverage). 

3. The bottles came packed nicely, but that did not prevent one of them from leaking all over the place

I am trying to hold off on a final judgement of these until I actually paint a few full models with them, but so far, I can say it's been a huge disappointment and waste of money. Buying these was not cheap, and I could have gotten a LOT of models, terrain, or other paint with that money! Not that there's really any other paint I need... I think I own every line I can think of at this point! 

Although I did hear that they just expanded the line of Vallejo Model Air colors... and Reaper came out with a couple of limited box sets of 6 colors each in their range as well (Dungeon Dwellers and Monster Colors)... hmmm.....

Ironically, one of my favorite sets of paint is actually a line of CRAFT paint!!! There was a brand called Palmer Prism years ago, and they were one of the first sets of paint that I ever bought. This was around 30 years ago, and some of the bottles that I have from back then are still good. Coverage was great. The color range was not obscene, but adequate. And I loved them!

I convinced myself that I needed "real" hobby paints though, and have bought a ton of paints since then. But a year or two ago I heard they they were no longer making Palmer Prism paints! 

I could not let this line of paints go into extinction without buying a fresh set - so I hunted down an art supply store in California who still had at least one of each color and ordered the full line. 

Here are a some Palmer paints, old and "new" bottles:

Don't get too excited about buying them though... they're extinct ;)

I think my other favorite paints were the GW Foundation Paints... why do I have a love for things that no longer exist!!?? Oh well, at least I stocked up on the Palmers before they went the way of the dodo. I hear people speak longingly of the old Polly-S line of acrylics too, but I guess I'll never know about those...