August terrain

I bought and scratchbuilt a bunch of terrain items this month.

First, I finished working on a 3x3 game mat that I started months ago. I noticed that one side of this anti-slip pad had a "cobblestoney" texture to it, which first gave me the idea.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002935IV2/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

So I painted one side in gray tones to use for Mordheim city battles or non-snowy Frostgrave games.



It's not great but it at least looks "somewhat" like cobblestones, and hopefully will look much better with a bunch of city terrain on it. Here's a closer view with a model on it.



I originally planned on doing the other side (which is smoother) as a snowy mat for Frostgrave, but since my Mordheim campaign is coming up and I might had as many as 4 games going on at once at my house, I did it with a traditional flocked finish to use it for Lustria games.



Two mats in one! I wish the high-end neoprene mats from companies like Frontline and Deep Cut Studios came with designs printed on both sides!



I love those mats but this was a much cheaper option, and useful to have as an extra.

I also worked on some adobe style buildings for the campaign. I was going to work on more temple buildings, but after reading the old Lizardmen army books it dawned on me that my Temple City was missing a Skink Ghetto! I had worked on temple buildings last year but never did any houses. So here they are:



The roofs are removable:















Lastly, made a couple of small stepped pyramids with only two levels. They were quick and easy.




I also bought a bunch of stuff this month. I ordered some more game mats, and tried out a different company this time: Deep Cut Studios. They have a series of mats that are supposed to link up to create a long coastal scene, so we'll see how they look.

Also went crazy with Aquarium terrain!

I was always envious of the trees I'd seen on other blogs such as this one, by fellow blogger Gordon Richards:

http://ihavewroughtmysimpleplan.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/a-white-mens-expedition-for-congo.html

Check out the trees... pretty cool!

So I set about trying to hunt some down. One of the things I've found out about aquarium terrain is that it's pretty region-specific; in other words, some designs are only available and in Europe and you will NOT find them in the US, and vice versa! Even if you were willing to find them at a European retailer and pay for international shipping, it seems like shipping restrictions keep them from being sold to the USA.

I learned this the hard way when trying to buy some cool ruins for Frostgrave earlier this year, but I had a workaround - a work trip took me to England so I bought a bunch of stuff on Amazon.co.uk and had it shipped to my hotel! Victory!

But unfortunately I have no European trips planned any time soon, so could not get the trees pictured. I found some cool substitutes though.

Here are a few of the designs I snagged from Petsmart, Amazon, and eBay:











The smallest of the bunch:




















And the biggest!





I bought a few of some of them, so there are enough total to fill a 3x3 board:



What I love about these is that they are sturdy enough that you can put models on top of them, if they "climb" the trees!



I already have a ton of jungle terrain that I built for the last Lustria campaign, from plastic hobby store plants like this:



I've actually got enough to cover an 8x4 table! The only problem with it is that there is no height element to the board layout since models can't climb on them.

I think it will be pretty cool with the new trees I added this year, to see the one level of the map at ground level, and another level at the canopy above!

August Painting

August was all about prepping for the Mordheim campaign... for the first time in months, I managed to get my "10 models a month" goal done this month.

All 10 models were troops for my new Norse warband. They are by Wargames Foundry, and I've been sitting on them for many years... yay for digging something up out of the Lead Pile and getting it painted!

First, the Jarl:





These two shirtless fellas are my Berserkers:

My son has taken to calling the one on the right "Buffed Up Bill," so that will surely be his name in the campaign!

The Wolfen:





The Bondsmen:





And for the henchmen, the Hunters:





And a couple of Marauders:





The whole crew so far:




I've still got a few Marauders to paint, and technically I should paint some Wolves too for the warband I want to run. I may end up cheating and just using some of my Vampire Counts Dire Wolves as stand-ins though, since they're already painted and based for Mordheim/Warhammer.

I need to save time so I can get everything done! Still haven't even started the Carnival of Chaos warband that I told my buddy I'd paint for him...

I had high hopes of painting up a Norse Longship before November but I can already tell it ain't gonna happen.

Campaign Season!

Well August is almost done and I'm just putting some finishing touches on the Norse models I worked on this month. Lately all I can think about is the upcoming Mordheim Campaign in November!

I've been hosting an annual Mordheim Campaign for many years now and it's always a lot of fun. I inevitably end up buying a bunch of stuff for it, even though my Lead Pile is more than sufficient without adding to it!

This year I bought a Sisters of Sigmar warband of alternative models by Reaper Miniatures, because my son wanted to play them. But then after talking to all the players, we decided to do a campaign set in the Lustria setting again, which we've done a few times. With that being said he's going to try Dark Elves instead!

I'm trying to paint up two new warbands for this year's campaign by November: Norse for myself and Carnival of Chaos (using alternative miniatures) for one of my buddies.

I'm also going to try something new this year and post the rules etc. on the blog here so I don't have to overload everyone's e-mail inbox!

Went on a shopping trip the other day for some "campaign supplies." Here is the trophy for this year's winner:



This is the campaign map we'll be using. We've tried a map-based campaign before and it didn't work out too well, but I've got high hopes for this year.



I have a large poster sized version of the map that came with an issue of White Dwarf years ago, so I got it laminated and bought a big magnetic white board to lay it on. I have some magnets to use as markers as we move our warbands around the map. Good to go! Just have to print some labels for the game pieces.

July painting & terrain

July is over and I finally finished painting a few models that I started in May!

May and June are still a complete loss: my total output was "zero" so I'm down 20 for the year from those months.

I got back on the wagon this month with some quickie paint jobs.

I have had these skeletons for a long time... they are screaming skull catapults, which were not even legal in the last few editions of Warhammer. However, they are useful now as Balefire Catapults in Kings of War!





My local gaming group has been big into KoW lately but I have not tried it yet. I wanted to use it as an excuse to paint something up, so I dug thee out of the lead pile. Now I can use my skeleton regiments from my Vampire Counts army, along with this guys, as a small Undead or Empire of Dust army.

I also finished a couple of monsters for Frostgrave... a Reaper Bones model and an old school metal one.





That's 8 models done this month, so my deficit continues to grow... but at least I got something done!

Also started working on terrain.

I am planning a Mordheim campaign weekend for the fall and have some friends coming in from far and wide to participate, so we need to have good terrain to fight over!

I have a bunch of jungle terrain and temples for a Lustria setting, completed for our last campaign. Now I wanted to add some residential buildings for the Skinks to live in. These will be adobe style buildings for the Skink Barrios!



I had originally planned to work on a unit of ECW Pikemen for my small group of Covenanters this month, but we got to talking about the upcoming Mordheim campaign and now it's all I can think about!

August will be spent working on these guys, my Norse warband (Wargames Foundry Vikings):





When I'm done with them, I've got a Nurgle warband to paint up for one of my buddies.

Still here!

So the last update to this blog was almost 2 months ago... yikes!

In May I had a bit of painter's block but that hasn't been the problem at all lately  - there's just been no time to do any painting, let alone blogging about it!

Had a hectic work month in June and other problems so far in July so my "10 models a month" goal has gone completely by the wayside. Oh well. If I am motivated in the second half of the year maybe I can make up for June and July, but looks unlikely.

Anyway - I did get some terrain done before things went all pear shaped. A Church by Ziterdes and some crypts to go along with it.





This worked out great since I actually had a friend in town a couple of weeks ago. Unplanned visit, but we managed to get in a few games of Frostgrave while he was here. Pics below. We used some of my new terrain, and also the new mats that I got from UrbanMatz. They are nice!






































The latest thing I'm working on is some new terrain for Mordheim. Hoping to get in another Mordheim campaign this year with my buddies so I always use that as an excuse to paint up new warbands and terrain!

The pieces below are from Escenorama. They are nice but they are supposed to be modular - the only problem is that if you want them to be truly versatile (instead of just having multiple options of how to glue them together) you really need to magnetize them, otherwise they will just topple over in the middle if a game :(