Paintlog + A Couple Games

My actual painting progress has been slow as I've been doing a lot of filing and cleaning of the minis and there's been some problems with the priming (The paint was coming on all fuzzy and gritty) so I had to strip and reprime a few guys.

It's been a little frustrating but I have gotten a few things done and I was able to play my first very very very basic game of 3rd edition fantasy battle!

I'll start off with the painting.

Here's an old chaos dwarf I had who was sitting on my painting table already primed from years and years ago and I felt inspired to paint him, so at around 2 in the morning I started to work and here's what I ended up with.

 I think he's pretty nice. Definitely can be improved on but perfectly suitable for tabletop use. I rather like how the red/blue color scheme turned out. I've always wanted to do do a chaos warband in that kind of scheme. Maybe this is a good start?

 This next guy is part of my Chaos Dwarf Blood Bowl team for the upcoming league (starts in a week!) A work in progress. I just finished base coating tonight.

He is of course, a 1st edition goblin. I'm rather short on blood bowl hobgoblins so this is Hobb the Gob. He'll be pretending to be a hobgoblin for the duration of the league. (Also two 1st edition orcs have snuck onto the team in disguise.)

I was kind of using him as a test model for the rest of the team as well since I didn't know how the black and blue scheme would turn out. I think it's rather nice. Not sure I'm a fan of the gold gauntlet he's wearing but maybe a good armor wash over top will make it a bit more suitable. If nothing else I guess I can just say he has a golden arm. (As in he's really good at throwing/catching?)

Now for my first Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd edition game. It was very simple, very basic and very small. My friend came over and brought a unit of 10 skaven to do battle with a unit of 10 dwarfs. Several turns were spent crossing the table to eachother and then the fight started.

My dwarfs attempted to charge the skaven upon seeing them come through the woods but their light armour and shields slowed them down a little too much. They barely failed the charge.

The skaven were clanrats and my dwarfs were warriors with spears. The clan rats had a magical banner which gave +2 to combat resolutions instead of +1. The rats then charged my unformed unit of dwarfs and didn't have much trouble forcing them to rout.

After routing and rallying several times and losing half of the unit mostly to free hacks (and losing the standard as well.) my dwarfs were pushed back until they were at the edge of the table.

There was not much that could be done against the oncoming skaven so they were forced to retreat the battlefield in shameful defeat. (but at least they looked nice doing it!) They'll be back though and in greater numbers!

Overall it was pretty fun. My friend had never even looked at the 3rd edition rules before I'm pretty sure so I had to look a lot of things up and try to remember rules I'd read 2 weeks before and there were some things we were unsure of (like are free hacks only on units in base contact or is it for all of the front line of the pursuing unit?) I feel like the magical banner really pushed things in the skaven's favor, but my failed charge also made things start off pretty badly.

Just from this one small one on one fight I kind of like the combat better than the current fantasy edition. There seems to be a lot more to it. The maneuvering system is really confusing but it apparently is the most complex of all the editions in that regard. I hope I can start to understand things better so our next game can be bigger and more interesting.

I also set up a makeshift sort of 40k/space hulk/space marine assault type thing on another table in my room using a bunch of my old video game collection.

I bought a couple of these starter box things about a year ago for 5$ each. They come with 5 space marines, 8 genestealers, some paints, a brush, a little red die and very simple rules to play with and some mission scenarios for you to try.

Image taken from SantaCruzWarhammer

The scenarios and simple rules inspired me to set up this table and try to make an interesting game from it.

There's two sides, a Space Marine (or in this case Squat) team and a group of 8 genestealers spread out around the table in groups of twos. Each model is moved individually, so no keeping unit coherency or shooting at a single target with all the guys or anything like that. You can split guys up, keep them together, shoot at different things, whatever. It also uses the very simple combat rules on the back of the box's manual.

The squat's objective is to get a valuable relic from the armory which is north of the loading bay (the place with the land raider). The armory door, however, is locked, so they must first get to the security console to open it. (the room directly on the other side of the wall where they start.)

From the security console they can control a turret in the loading bay (the unpainted metal ork) which can fire two bolter shots per turn at a target. Inside the land raider is an energy shield which gives the squats a +1 armor save.

The genestealer's objective is simply to kill all the squats.

There is also a mad ork roaming the halls who is controlled by each player during their turn. Though it might've been better to make him a bit more unpredictable.

In the end I think things need to be rearranged a bit and perhaps it was too hard for the squats. In these halls of death all five squats were killed, and so was the ork, and there were 3 genestealers left alive. I'd like to tweak things a bit as even though the squats didn't get very far, it was a lot of fun.

A little update + stripping some metal minis

I've been reading a lot of other people's blogs the past few weeks, most notably Orlygg's . Such a great source of old-school information, pictures and tutorials. Check it out if you like old warhammer stuff, and any of the links in my sidebar. Loads of great stuff. ->>>>>>>

When I'm not reading blogs, scouring ebay or killing myself slowly at the gym, I've been working to get my Blood Bowl teams ready for league time. Unfortunately things are going much slower than I'd like, but they are going! I just hope the last few players I need for the team arrive in time to at least get a basecoat done.

They're all over the place!

I managed to get some more work done on the human team, though they're not one of the ones that'll be used in the league so they've been put on an indefinite hold for now. At least they're painted to a playable level! Just gotta get them based. I'll probably follow Orlygg's basing tutorial here when I get to it.

 The following pictures are... a mess. Whoever previously owned the great throng of dwarfs I came into possession of not only had quite a bit of money to spend on these figures, but also on glue! Over half of the figures that I found in their original condition were COVERED in glue. The ones in this picture aren't even as bad as some. I've found ones that are head to toe on one side of their body in a thick hard sickly yellow resin. All of the vehicles and siege weapons had to come apart and many dwarfs had to be ripped from their bases (All managed it safely except for one imperial dwarf who's tab broke off.) I should've taken some pictures back then. Some of them were indeed horrifying to behold. Here are some of the remnants who's bases were too difficult to remove at the time. There's still a few more with globs of glue on their faces and arms, but these were ones I'd set aside to be stripped a while ago. I figured I'd get those done and clean my Blood Bowl team players while I was at it.

The guy with the broken base had so much glue between his legs I couldn't even get him out of the base without potentially damaging him.

Check out that guy's arm. He's like some sort of mutation.

The whole group ready to be stripped.

USE WITH CAUTION

All right, so this stuff... is pretty nasty. It's strong as hell, and probably overkill for any simple stripping job, but it's the only thing I've tried that can remove 20+ year old hard-as-rock glue. I can't say I recommend it to anyone unless you have this problem as this stuff is highly toxic, (read the label), must be used in a very well ventilated area and burns like crazy if it gets on your hand for more than 15 seconds. You also shouldn't pour it down the drain as it can damage the piping. So yea, lovely stuff. Anyway, it does the job very well and works like nothing else I've tried for stripping metal minis of pretty much everything that isn't metal. Just NEVER use it on plastic. They will melt and turn into a gooey liquid.

So here was the first group to be put in. I eventually added in the rest and covered them with Jasco and let it sit overnight. In the morning all the nasty glue was off and the black base had melted into a puddle, but the dwarf who was trapped within was now free. I took the minis out, shook them off a bit in the bowl to get most of the goop off, put them in a glass pyrex bowl and let them sit under a stream of warm water for a bit, turned the fan on and left the room and closed the door while that was going on. (The small amounts of jasco in the water made some pretty strong fumes and I didn't want to be around them.)

After 15 minutes or so I took each one out, scrubbed them with an old tooth brush on a towel and any bits of old paint still on them came off pretty easily. There were no more traces of glue and the minis were quite shiny and looked almost new. The first time I tried this I was worried a little about loss of detail, but in all the times I've done it, the models haven't been harmed in any way. They've always come out looking shiny, new, and ready for priming.

I took them out later on once they were dry and sprayed them in a box in the yard. I should've taken some pictures of how they looked when they came out, but I didn't. perhaps next time I'll remember to do so.

One last thing, I've been trying to think of a way to get started on painting my old dwarf army. I've been reading around on "how to start oldhammer" and one idea that seemed to make sense was from Orlygg's blog again. Starting out with 12 or so guys and building around them. My friend Joe, who has a blog on my blog roll under the name Jabberw0cky, has been collecting skaven models since he was little but has painted very few of them. He seemed pretty interested in trying 3rd edition fantasy battle so we're going to start by making a unit of 10-20 guys and start off with a small one on one skirmish using the basic rules from the WFB3 book pretty soon.

I chose 13 of my favorite dwarf models (because every band of dwarf adventurers must have 13.) from my drawer of dwarfs, dwarf drawer, if you will, and here they are:

The leader in the center with his hood and pipe, the map reader to his side, the dwarf holding up a lantern to guide the way, a grappling hook to get the group over ledges and walls, the thuggish brute with a club to beat down any troublesome rats, the brave one with a hammer high ready to strike, several who are simply ready to fight, and one to pass blame onto the nearest friend (see picture below, rank 2, file 2,) , the tall look-out man (who might just be insecure), the engineer who always bring tea and the ever-popular cook.

 Most of them are 1985 adventurers (many of which you can find in the Citadel 1989 Autumn catalogue ). Two of them, however, the dwarf on stilts and the map reader, are recasts by GW that I believe are still sold today. These are some of my favorite old sculpts with so much personality.

A great bunch of dwarfs I think, and they should be fun to paint!

I'm looking forward to painting these guys and I think I chose a group that shouldn't be boring to do. They're not a band of soldiers fighting a meaningless battle for some general or a block of cannon-fodder to be thrown against a horde of skinks for a few turns or a bunch of identical clones standing regimented and painted identically to fulfill a single purpose, but a group of mismatched individuals all with some sort of common goal I haven't thought up yet. There's gotta be a story behind such a party, though, and that's what I like about oldhammer, all the imagination and wonder.

What do you think when you see a group together like this? Can you imagine all the bickering and fighting that goes on between them? The nights around the campire with the cook making a meal for everyone and the leader sitting on a log smoking his pipe, planning the next day's journey, the dwarf with the lantern leading the party through a dark damp forest, keeping an eye out for goblins or spiders, while the one with the map nervously tries to navigate in the dim light. These models just beg for a story to be written about them and I think they're the ideal place for me to start painting my dwarf army.

A little brown box from the UK

So I went out to the mailbox this morning, eagerly awaiting a package of old Blood Bowl stuff I'd ordered from a UK site annnnnnd, there it was! Just sitting right there.

 So I opened it up annnnd....

Oh the excitement!

1 2nd edition Minotaur                                          
2 Chaos Dwarf Players 2nd ed                                 

1 3rd edition Hobgoblin                                            

2 Orc players 1st ed (used as hobgobs 5 and 6)        

5 Skaven Linerats 2nd ed                                          

2 Skaven Catchers 2nd ed                                        

1 Skaven Blitzer 2nd ed                                            

1 Skaven Kicker 1st ed                                            

1 Rasta Tailspike                                                      

     

Here's some up close pictures.

This minotaur as a special taste for rat flesh. Nom.

The more difficult part of the team to assemble. I have another group of three chaos dwarf players coming from the UK for my team. Hopefully they'll get here in time for the league. I do really love the old players though. They're so much cooler than the big hats.

I'll be using these 1st edition orcs as Hobgoblins #5 and 6. The reason for this being they didn't make any 2nd edition Blood Bowl Hobgobs and 3rd edition only had 4 unique sculpts. 

Also, I'm having a difficult time finding the rest of the hobgoblins at a reasonable price, so I might have to fill in #4 with a regular old 1st edition goblin and name him Hobb or something. Hobb the Gob. That'll work.

Oh those damned dirty rats! The meat of a Skaven team, the linerats.

Oven mitt catchers! They just love to bake things. Maybe they're hoping for lessons from a Halfling master chef?

That blitzer looks like he would eat a Halfling master chef.

And these came seperately, but these are the bull centaurs I'll be using for the team. Yeah they're all big hatty and 3rd edition chaos dwarfy but they're the only Bull Centaurs released for Blood Bowl and they're not so horrid that they make me want to go out and find one of the older fantasy Boar Centaurs and cut them apart. (They're kind of expensive!)

One more Blood Bowl mini for my Skaven team, a very special addition to the team who came all the way from Puerto Rico:

He's such a badass.

One last thing that came in the mail today:

I now have the power of the giant carnivorous sand clam. If you don't know what I mean by that....

A pretty good day for things Oldhammer! I'm very excited to get my Blood Bowl teams finished and painted so I can smash some face with them at the league and to try out some Space Orc VS Space Dwarf Rogue Trader games! (I already have some sand clams picked out.)

Make a Wish (An amusing sculpt by Bob Olley)

I found this at a yard sale about a year or so ago. I thought it was pretty neat and it was cheap so I bought it, but I didn't realize until later it was actually a Bob Olley sculpt! I rather like his work on the Squats and although his Ironclaw dwarfs are quite... different, I like them in their own way. Figured I'd share this amusing creation of his. I never knew he did work for Ral Partha.

Some old minis. 40k and fantasy.

I just wanted to show off some of my old stuff.

First my 3rd edition 40k Tyranid army

 rawr!

 These guys are scrambling to be painted.

 A neat organ gun I got off ebay a while ago. Definitely an interesting paint scheme.

 One of my three goblobbers. It's a work in progress.

 I wish I could take the credit for these guys, but they must have been painted by the previous owner of my dwarf haul. I think they're really good and look very much in their time period. They were probably painted in the 80's as most of the collection looked unused in years.

 There's a ding on the standard-bearer's nose and they're a little dusty. Some dings here and there, but I think they've held up pretty well overall.

 I like the colors used a lot. Very vibrant. The horn guy's shirt really appeals to me.

Next I was just throwing all my 80's fantasy chaos stuff into a group to see what sort of warband I could fit together. I suppose this is enough to work but it needs some more chaos dwarfs and beastmen!

 This guy on the horse and the juggernaut guy were both painted by the guy I bought them from in Las Vegas. I think they're not too bad.

The chaos ogre on the right's paintjob is very dinged up. Just about every edge and corner the paint is worn off and his eyes are an odd red that doesn't stand out very well. I'd like to repaint him but I'd rather not strip playable paintjobs when I still have so much work to do.

Hope you enjoyed looking!