Introducing...Buuuuuuubooooooo

Hey Guys

Bubo here...

I thought being new to writing a blog, and this being my very first post, I’d start by telling you a little about myself, how I got into the hobby and how I gained my nerd stripes. Well here we go!

Since I was a little kid I’ve been into all things sci-fi. I have explored multiple nerdy and geeky things, mainly table top games and graphic novels. But about three or four years ago, a friend introduced me to the worlds of Magic the Gathering and Warhammer!  Since then, it’s become a pretty big part of my life. The majority of my spare time is spent playing Magic with friends or war gaming in my local store. My projects have included a rather nasty Eldar army, Tyranids and my Horus Heresy Night Lords (but as none of these are yet finished, I look forward to keeping you all up to date with my progress). More recently, I’ve begun to explore even further, beyond Games Workshop into Forge World and other miniature companies (in particular I’ve been painting a lot of Super Dungeon Explore minis).

When the guys suggested writing a blog, I thought this would be an awesome way to keep up the momentum on my painting projects, so there. I’ve thrown down the gauntlet. It’s up to you guys to hold me to account for my lack of painted minis. But don’t worry, I won’t just bore you with my painting progress I’ll also be writing reviews on the latest tabletop games I’ve been playing and regaling you with tales from any RPG adventures I embark upon.

Thanks for reading.

Bubo

Our 8th Ed Campaign

Nyx here.

We as a group have decided to go back and play some 8th ed. When this was mentioned, I was pretty darn happy. It's pretty much the only minis game I ever got fully into, and I love the models. I also love painting the models. Then we decided we were going to start small, and build and paint an army over a campaign of games. YES.

So, what army did I drag out of the backlog pile? I have a few kicking about, some skaven, some dark elves, some lizardmen, but regular readers will know I have an absolute obsession with undead armies. I have a fully painted vampire counts army and one on sprues to replace it, now that my painting skills have matured. I also have a tomb kings army on sprue. And they don't make tomb kings anymore, so they're pretty much not for Sigmar. I decided it was time to bust these out.

Now, I have played a lot of 8th ed. My vampire counts list was pretty well tuned. If I wanted to, I could write a pretty nasty list of tomb kings, even if they were the slowest and most underused for a reason. But what would be the point? The group includes 3 completely new to 8th ed members, who would have no fun and learn very little if I rolled over them. So I decided instead my list would have visual impact, even if that meant no game impact.

Visual impact for me means thinking about what I want to paint, and what the army would look like on the table. I have been wanting to paint a sphinx for ages. I love the look of the chariots, and they should be led by the ultimate king on chariot, so in goes Settra, points be damned. Then there's the gleaming Ushabti, and the sinister looking snakes. Yes please. Follow that up with a chaser of shambling skellys, even if the chariots cover the core. Basically, I've not strung together a cohesive tactical list, I've gone through my backlog pile and pulled out the shinies.

So far, I have begun a necrosphinx. I've not been a fan of GW gold paint, so I've picked up Vallejo Game colour glorious gold and polished gold, adding in a sepia wash in between. Then came a happy accident, I picked up a Tamiya black and accidentally got a glossy one, which has made the sphinx body slick black. It works pretty well though. I've also begun the lightning pattern with the face, using stegadon scale green > sotek green > temple guard blue > white scar. I'm still thinking about the colour for shields and things which will tie the army together. A lot of TK armies use red and blue, so I want to avoid this. My gold is pretty yellow, so I'm hoping to get away with purple.

So far, so good. I'm also thinking this might be the army for armies on parade next year, but I don't know if they will be allowed if they're not sold anymore. I did however lay my hands on some Sylvaneth yesterday…

Onto New Frontiers!

Elvirith here, as we mentioned in my little introduction I've never really ventured beyond the range of miniatures available in Games Workshop. When I went to Salute earlier this year my eyes were opened to just how much is actually out there! One of the first things I fell in love with were the gorgeous Tooth and Sword range of Chibi anthropomorphic adventurers by Meridian Miniatures. I bought a few of the characters including the cutest little Pug fighter! I decided that I'd like to practice on a few more Chibi style miniatures and build up to these cute little guys. Nyx suggested that I get involved with a Super Dungeon Explore campaign with her and some of the other members of the Doom Room. This is due to start later this month and each of us has been set the challenge of painting an individual hero to use in the campaign. I chose to paint the Tabbybrook Mage, a little magic user with kitty ears and a tail! What's not to love? 

It was clear that this mini was unlike anything I had painted before. Unlike most Games Workshop Miniatures that have stark recesses and textured surfaces that allow you to get great results with very simplistic techniques. Such as, the use of washes, dry brushing and a little layering. This mini has lots of sweeping curves and flat surfaces. My usual painting style just wasn't going to cut it. I decided that I would teach myself to blend. I started by looking at a few Painting Buddha videos on how to blend flesh and glaze blending in general (the links are available at the bottom of this post). First step was to make myself a wet palette. I used an old GW tufts tub a couple of dish cloths to line the bottom and a Daler Rowney Stay-Wet palette set. I lined the tub with cloths and filled it with water before pouring out the excess. Cut the reservoir paper to size and laid this over the cloths and did the same with the membrane paper. If I were to do it again I would swap the cloths for a thin sponge to retain more water but it worked well enough. 

I started by priming Tabbybrook in GW Chaos Black primer and then dusted her with GW Skull White at an angle to help me keep track of where the light source would be shown on the model.

I then did my best to follow the Painting Buddha tutorial on how to blend skin. I used GW Kislev Flesh as a base with a little Abbadon Black in the shadowed areas which I then glazed back up to Kislev Flesh. On the very high points of the face I used a mix of Kislev and Elfic Flesh from Vallejo's Game Color range. This was then glazed back in with darker mixes of the two so that the contrast was not too stark. I used the same technique on the orb in Tabby's staff using a mix of Caledor Sky, Lothern Blue and White Scar. I then picked out two squares of light in the GW edge paint - Blue Horror. The hair and any remaining fur (her ears and tail) were base coated in Emperor's Children and blended with the Fulgrim Pink edge paint and White Scar.

Once I'd gotten this far, I was confident enough to lay down the rest of the base coats. The cloak was base coated in Kantor Blue and her dress was base coated in Lothern Blue.

After I  had base coated the cloak in Kantor Blue I mixed it with a little black and painted thin layers into the deep folds of the cloak. I also mixed Kantor Blue with Teclis Blue to create a vibrant blue which was painted onto the very top edges of cloak. I added Kantor Blue to the bright mix and blended it down into the lower edges of the cloak. I also added more Kantor to the darker mix and brought the dark recesses up to meet the main panels of the dress. This was all done with very, very thin layers to make the transitions as seamless as possible.

After base coating the dress in Lothern Blue I followed a very similar process to what I had done on the cloak. I created a mix of Lothern and Teclis blue for the dark folds of the dress and a bright mix of Lothern and white for the very top edges of the dress. I then added more and more Lothern Blue to the mix used in the recesses to blend them into the main body of the dress. I also added more Lothern Blue to the mix used on the very top edges to blend them into the main body of the dress. Once I had finished the dress I then painted white squares of light on the orb of the staff to resemble pixelated 8-bit light.

After I had finished blending the blues on the dress and cloak I blacked out the trim and picked out the little cat eye designs in Moot Green layered over Wapstone Glow. I base coated the staff in Dryad Bark and layered the high points in Gorthor Brown before blending between the two with a mix of Dryad Bark and Gorthor Brown. The eyes were re-based in black then I painted the majority of the eyes in Caliban green leaving a little black showing towards the top. I then made a mix of caliban green and warpstone glow which I used to cover the majority of the caliban. I added a little more warpstone and covered almost all of the coat of the previous layer. I continued this process until the eyes faded from mid green to black and then began to add Moot Green to Warpstone Glow until the eyes faded from bright green toward the bottom through to black.

The last step was to finish off the detailing on the elixir bottles strapped to her belt, her little golden bells and to draw in the cat eyes with a pigment pen. I also blended the eyes a little more with some Flash Gitz Yellow mixed with Moot Green. I painted a white stone base using Celestra Grey, Agrax Earthshade in the recesses and layered it up with Ulthuan Grey before edge highlighting the panels using White Scar and a final glaze of white scar to blend the highlight.

Overall I'm pretty happy with my first attempt at blending. There's definitely room for improvement but luckily I have the entire Dungeon Explore base set to keep practicing on. Once I've done a few more, who knows, I may even attempt a bust!

Links:

Here is the link to the meridian Tooth and Sword minis.

http://www.meridianminiatures.com/

This is the Painting Buddha tutorial that I used to teach myself how to blend skin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP3HCiHos_Q

This Painting Buddha tutorial covers glaze blending in general. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2G9CEdURNQ

A Journey Into the Old World

 As our lives get increasingly busier it's hard to make any time to work on our hobbies, but Myself and Longbeard set ourselves one evening a week to sit around the dining room table and crack on with what ever project we have while we watch a DVD box-set. During our last hobby night I was helping Longbeard build some Warhammer Empire kits for a 8th ed game that he was planning with Nyx and Elvirith. Being pretty happy to build any kit put in front of me I was contently clipping and gluing when Longbeard ask a question "So what army are you going to do for the 8th ed games then??" 

What army do I do?

As some one who doesn't really play and prefers the brush over the dice the answer should have be 'none' but it wasn't, I've not done Fantasy since 4/5th edition I had  Dwarf and Bretonnian Armies the latter was mainly the starter box stuff that was single pose but it was an army none the less, and they are long gone.  So the question remained what army do I do? Now I thought this is a chance to start an army from scratch a fresh start...... 

So here are the options open to me. 

Wood Elves, Dwarfs, Lizardmen, High Elves, Dark Elves, Wood Elves, Daemons of Chaos, Warriors of Chaos, The Empire, Vampire Counts, Ogre kingdoms, Tomb Kings, Orcs and Goblins ,Beastmen, Skaven, Bretonnian. To thin out the options for myself I can remove Bretonnians and Dwarves as I've done them before and Longbeard has a bit of an obsessions with the little blokes with hairy faces.

Now also to not step on any toes in the rest of the group Empire, Lizardmen, Undead, Elves and Daemons of Chaos are to be taken off the list. This gives me 4 armies to choose from.  Warriors of Chaos, Skaven, Ogre Kingdom and Orcs and Gobblins (at this point I will mention at I have an ongoing 40k Ork army so Greenskins are out.)

The final decision comes down in no small part to personal preference, I did a Skaven blood bowl team back in the day and hated them since just never jelled with me, great in the lore not a fan on the table and Ogres feel like the easy option as 24 models and you've hit 1000 points, so I going to stick my lot with the Warriors of Chaos, focusing on ranks of chaos Warriors, juggernauts, Cavalry and some big nasty bits to add flavour. I will do progress reports as and when i complete a unit.

Posted by Sero

The Battle to Stay Ahead

Like me you've probably got a backlog list of projects as long as your arm if not longer, but how do you combat the pile of miniature goodness that you refuse to acknowledge the cost of. Do you cut your spending until you've finished everything or to you ration out your project one by one hoping not to get swamped by the tidal wave of plastic and white metal.

For this article I asked the members of the Doom Room how they tackle their backlogs and after the horrified looks on their faces faded, I got some answers.

Sero - I aim to keep painting as often as I can, hitting a new project as quickly as I finish the last one. My Hobby spending has fallen in recent months so I'm able to pick up the pace on completing minis. Changing the project type helps keep it fresh, when I finish a marine squad I tend to look for something different whether that's a fantasy Nurgle lord or currently a character for  Dungeon Explorer. What I came away with from Salute this year is that the range of miniatures is growing at such a rate with the Halo, Doctor Who, Labyrinth and Dark Souls miniature games on the way I'm destined to always have a few kits ready to go next to my workbench.

LongBeard - When asked about his Backlog pile Longbeard said it is for when he old and has nothing else to do, when asked aren't you already old and have nothing else to do? He ran off into his man cave and played music very loudly and started searching for his Mordhelm Kislev bear handler, I assume, as some form of coping mechanism.

 

Nyx -I don't think I'll ever get though my backlog pile. I know exactly what I want to do and how I want to do it, but I always get to the build and prime stage and the enormity of the task puts me off. My entire Necron army, entire Nid army and a ton of Flesh Tearers are sitting at the primed stage. I think my mistake is I get build happy, build all the models and then get hacked off with it. Good intentions to batch paint disappear in the realisation you have to do 120 of them. When I do my 'not painting like a newbie' any more Vampire Counts, I'm building one small thing at a time and not going forward until it's painted. Batch painting works but it kills hobby joy.

Elvirith - I recently moved house and found that my backlog pile filled half a transit van. Pretty daunting really. I've decided to try and curb my spending (realistically it won't happen but we can all dream) and just chip away at it a mini/squad at a time. Like Nyx I find when I build and prime a whole project I just quit and move onto the next shiny toy. So I think the key is to pace myself and leave my bank card in an unknown location.

Bubo - I find it hard to get the motivation to start a project but once I start I can usually batch paint without too much trouble. Luckily the Summer is all mine and I intend to work as much as possible in the free time I have coming up.

  

Mörkö - Mörkö's first answer was that he plans to live forever, thus giving him ample time to work through it. But he has come to the inevitable conclusion that there always will be a Backlog pile. It also depends on what you want from the end result with models such has horde armies like Tyranids you can batch paint quickly and easily, making the backlog less daunting.

Conclusion

What I've learned from the other members of the group is that there'll always be a new shiny miniature and exciting project on the horizon and because of this there's always going to be a backlog. But that's OK! Collecting is also a massive part of hobbying. There's always going to be times where you have to bite the bullet and work through the slog of bulk miniature painting but balanced on that is the joy of HQ and Character painting and that Glorious feeling of finishing a project or fielding a full painted army.

1,000 point 8th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Army in one sitting.

We had a meeting on a  rainy Saturday afternoon  Myself and Sgt Longbeard set ourself a challenge of constructing a 1,000 point Warhammer 8th Edition Fantasy Army in one sitting.

Now before we begin a little more information on  Longbeard, he has been Role-playing and War gaming since 1985 when he first sat down and played  'Keep to the Borderlands' in the 1st edition Redbox D&D his favourite fantasy is 3rd Ed.   Longbeard is somewhat of a dedicated collector and boasts a collection that only truly be described as 'Impressive'.

Now the Army itself, after some conversation it came down to two options - either an Empire army or a High Elf army, We set ourselves a few guidelines; firstly it will be completely out of the box with no after market parts or conversions and Secondly it would have to be 8th Ed tournament legal.

On  a flip of a coin we decided to go with the High Elves. First thing we did was grab the army book, a pen and some paper and started spit balling.  First list we worked was a simple war band that included 30 archers, 30 Seaguard Spearmen, a Noble and Level 2 Mage totalling 960 point (we planned on filling the rest of the points out with some war gear) We presented our list to friend for a once over and they diagnosed our list as terminally stupid and so after a bit of treatment we had our final list.

• High Elf Army
• Heroes
• Noble with Reaver bow (attached to the archer unit)                                        95pts
• Level 2 Mage with Caine's Ring of Fury                                                         135pts
• Core
• 15 Seaguard Spearmen    (with Musician, Standard and Hawkeye)                 165pts
• 15 Seaguard Spearmen    (with Musician, Standard and Hawkeye)                 165pts
• 15 Archers                       (with Musician, Standard and Hawkeye)                 180pts
• Rare
• 2 Bolt Throwers                                                                                                140pts
• Lothern Skycutter                                                                                              120pts

                                                                                                                             Total 1,000 pts

So after a few hours of messing around showing each other the new tabletop stuff we've found online  we had our built High Elf army. We will be putting them to the test against Longbeards trusty Dwarves.

But little did we know but while Longbeard and I were dealing with the high Elves our friend was quietly sitting in the corner with their nose in the army book and as we were finishing the last models with a grin they presented an alternative 1,000 point army and here it is...


Heroes

• Handmaiden of the Everqueen with Reaver bow                                            120pts
• Level 2 Mage with Caines Ring of Fury                                                         135pts

Core

• 15 Archers (with Musician, Standard, Hawkeye and Light Armour)               195pts
• 15 Spearmen (with Sentinal, Musician and Standard Bearer)                          165pts
• 5 Ellyrian Reavers (with Bows, Musician and Standard Bearer)                     125pts

Rare

• 10 Sisters of Avalon (with a High Sister)                                                         150pts
• 2 Great Eagles                                                                                                   100pts

               
                                                                                                                         Total   1,000pts

So there you have it given the right motivation and a little planning you can get yourself a great starting point for an much larger 8th Edition army.


posted by Sero

 

From Pen & Pad to the Table Top

Dark Heresy Character Miniature

It's not just on the table top we do battle we also indulge in the adventures only available in role-playing games. I've been role-players as long as we've been tabletop gamers and boast a large and varied list of adventures from a Star Trek role-play that is on its 155th mission, to fighting the Empire as rogue Jedi and pirates in Star Wars, had diplomatic problems with Centauri on Babylon 5, we've fended off contemporary foes lost behind enemy lines in Twilight 2000, hunted Owlbears in the borderlands of D&D and gone toe to toe with Hastur and the brothers of the Yellow Sign in Call of Cthulhu. Recently we've started to play Fantasy flights/Games Workshop roleplay Dark Heresy.

As with most role-plays a visual representative of your character is a nice and useful thing to have luckily for me Longbeard had just the thing for my character. He presented me with the two metal Cadian Snipers out of his bits box.

Picture courtesy of Games Workshop

Great I thought, the job is half done, nice little rocky resin base on the one who is standing up and i'm done................... But what about the other miniature? ....It'll be a shame to waste him,

so after some time I had a thought - "How about a nice little Diorama?"

 First thing I needed to do was get a setting for the piece. My character isn't a full blown sniper, more of a sharp shooter or designated marksman so I wouldn't need to place the figure in a snipers nest or buried in the under-growth, but maybe behind a piece of available cover as if keeping eye out covering the movements of the rest of the group.

Secondly acquiring the right parts to make the diorama, I pulled a large base from my bits box - I believe it was from an old AT-43 Wraith Golgoth and started to layer some cork sheeting. Now the cover itself, i'm a fan of the forgeworld barriers but i wasn't really willing to drop that cash on a single diorama so I found an awesome resin barrier from a company called Wytchfire  and after some aquila symbols were added on the front and back it looked like it was cast in a Imperial forge.

With the aid of some plasticard, some GW barbed wire and a ton of PVA i had myself a starting point.

Next was texture; I had recently watched Saving Private Ryan and I had noticed during the scene where Private Caparzo (Vin Diesel) is hit by a German sniper there is a great wealth of information for ruins, roads, paving and mud in a warzone environment (massive credit to the set builders for that). With a few screen grabs and a spare pot of GW texture paint in a colour I don't really use I went to town.

 

Time to add some colours! First thing I did was to give it a undercoat with Vallajo black primer. After I had an even coat I drybrushed the barrier with Mechanicus Standard Grey and highlighted it with Dawnstone. Finally I washed  it with Nuln Oil to give the cracks extra definition. For the mud I gave it a generous coat of Scorched Brown followed  by a wash with Nuln Oil. When that was dry i gave the mud a drybrush of Calthan Brown and to top it of a wash of Agrax Earthshade.

The barbed wire was hit with a coat of Leadbelcher,  followed by a coat of Vallajo Rust wash to give it the look of wire that has sat for months in mud and damp conditions. I'm extremely happy with this wash and I'm going to use it on some of the vehicle kits i'm currently working on.

 I had first painted the paving stones with a blue grey paint - which is a vintage GW round pot from the Rogue Trader days - but this was far too light and I had to start over and black it out. Second attempt at the paving had me working with a 1:1 mix of Vallejo black and Dark grey and this worked well but it wasn't completely right, so after a few washes I had the shade I was happy with.

Now if you are familiar with roleplaying your character either starts off with some kit or gathers it on their adventures so i need some items to represent my characters history as a Voidborn (Person born in space on an imperial ship with no homeworld), so a large kit bag, a roll mat and some extra bits would do. I pulled an Imperial Guard Vehicle accessories sprue and noticed that had these kit bags that consist of two backpacks, a carbine lasgun, some grenades and a mug hanging off it. Not have anything else to spare I took a razor saw to the bag cutting it either side of the lasgun and green stuffing the two ends together. Happy with the result i added a roll mat to the bottom and shaved off the mug and mounted the Las Carbine to the side.

Once the backpack was set in place with small amounts of greenstuff  I painted the backpack with Vallejo Yellow Olive, the grenades got a Khorne Red and Caledor sky finish. I highlighted the areas with the same colours with just a bit of Vallejo white in just to bring the colour up a shade or two. The Rifle and the binoculars were finished with a Vallejo US Olive Drab and highlighted once again with some Vallejo White mixed in. With this base was done - Now for the main figure!

I won't go through all the painting steps I did with the figure as everyone has their own way of painting flesh and clothing. I will however show you the steps i took to produce the final camo pattern on the cloak. 

I started by looking through a few camouflage reference books and looking at a few sites like Kamoflage for inspiration. What I ended up with was three options; German Splinter camo, the US Pacific campaign camo and the Frog and Leaf pattern from the Aliens movie

Us Pacific Camo, Colonial Marine Camo, German Splinter Camo

After some consideration i went with a scheme that was close to the US Pacific Camo pattern.

STAGE 1

First was to cover the area in a light tone for this i used Vallejo Elfic Flesh

STAGE 2

Secondly some random dots of Vallejo Beasty Brown

STAGE 3

Now dots of Vallejo Camouflage Green

STAGE 4

The Final Dots of Camo Colour are a Vallejo Sick Green.

STAGE 5

Finally time to Dirty it up, to do this I simply coated the area with an Agrax Earthshade wash.

STAGE 6

Once this was all dry i greenstuffed the mini into position as I didn't want any vapours from Superglue affecting the paint in any way.

FINAL RESULT

Here are the finished minis. I'm generally happy with the results of this little project and I'm pleased to have taken it on. I hope the process has made sense. I wish I was able to convert the figures a little but due to the casts this wasn't easily possible.

 

The only issue now is we are playing Deathwatch - another Fantasy Flight RPG as well - so I'm now tasked doing  a mini for every member of the party!

posted by Sero