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

Hello from Nyx!

Hello Everyone, Nyx here. As nice as our introductory blurb is, I thought I’d set out my stall good and proper. I think it's important to give you a bit of background. As a hobbyist, I’m firmly in the painting camp most of the time. I loved playing Warhammer 8th edition, but I’m not much of a gamer and tend to buy new games for the models. I’m as vulnerable to big ideas and new shinies as the next addict, and that has led to the usual long list of unfinished projects and big backlog pile. I hate, and I mean HATE, building models. If I can palm this stage off on someone else, I will, especially resin. (The main victim here being Bubo) I can build perfectly well, but I simply don’t enjoy this stage. Ask me to kitbash something, and I will lose my head. But give me a built model and a brush and I'm happy!

My hobby journey began when my housemate gave up painting his Tau stealth suits, and handed one to me in the vague hope that I wouldn't make them look like a toddler had taken a giant paintbrush and daubed them with so much white paint they resembled the Michelin man. They didn't, but they didn't look great either. He was, however, convinced I was some sort of Painting God and gave me the full set to finish. I was hooked.

So began a hobby journey over the last three years that so far has mainly stayed within the lines laid down by Games Workshop and Forgeworld, but I’ve begun to branch out now. My first army was a Chaos Space Marine Nurgle army, chosen because Bubo and I bought Dark Vengeance. He saw the Chaos models and declared ‘NOPE’...Not that he ever ended up painting the Dark Angels, and I’m still a little bitter over that one. I learned to play 40K with this army. I also learned I hated playing 40K. It didn't stop me painting the models though.

My second army was a Vampire Counts army for Warhammer Fantasy 8th Edition. It was with this army that I found my stride and really learnt to paint. Don't get me wrong, when I get this army out of its cases I cringe horribly. There's ‘interesting’ colour choices, thick paint, globby dry brushing, shaky edge highlighting and all the glorious beginner mistakes a newbie makes when they're learning to hold a brush. Not to mention absolutely none of the units rank up. But I LOVE this army. I loved this game system. I’m pretty sad now that Sigmar rules the day, but hey, it didn't half need a shake up I suppose.

Then, like most GW devotees, I discovered Forgeworld. I don't think I own a single piece of Forgeworld that's been fully painted as yet. When it comes to Forgeworld, I tend to suffer the Fear, mainly of building them. Hobby goals! I was lured in by Angry Ron and his Red Butchers, and I’m now in the process of building a World Eaters army. You’ll be seeing lots of posts about this, no doubt. Other current projects include Super Dungeon Explore and the challenge of painting a single hero before the next game we play, and a Tau army that's progressing nicely.

Abandoned projects (read: ‘I got bored and distracted by new shinies’) include Necrons, Flesh Tearers, Tomb Kings, Orcs and Goblins, Tyranids, and finishing off the original Vampire Counts army with Nagash and his Mortarchs. I will return to these someday. Future projects include a series of three models by Michael Kontraros from Indiegogo, the Mummy Queen, Werewolf Queen and Vampire Queen, and two Darkstar mini busts inspired by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I've also bought an entire new Vampire Counts army to do it properly this time. In writing this, I've now realised I'm a little undead obsessed. Maybe it was all those Anne Rice novels growing up...

See you soon!

Welcome to the Doom Room

Hello, 

We are a group of gamers, painters, role-players, modellers and all round Hobbyists, and The DOOM ROOM is a place for us to share projects, guides and thoughts.

We have a wide range of gaming interests, from board games to computer games, from World War I to Warhammer 40,000. We are hobbyists with different levels of experience in the hobby world - some only a few years into their journey and others are the grizzled, scar-ridden sort you see sitting in the corner of a tavern telling tales of old.

Over time, we'll be posting updates to this blog about things we've bought and/or painted, fun stuff we've found on the internet, stuff that we've built, battles and RPG adventures that we've played, books that we've read and anything else we want to share.

Who we are -

Sero - The resident web-monkey, guy with the best camera and the knowledge of how to wield it. The one with the technical know-whats and the patience to deal with the rest of us. A hobbyist for the last 22 years collecting and painting miniatures that really tickle his fancy. He also heckles from the sidelines when we have our wargaming days. Severely lacks brew making skills.

LongBeard - LongBeard has been hobbying for about as long as hobby has been around, and is a font of knowledge on any model fantasy-related. He won't be posting directly on Doom Room but he'll be making regular appearances, like a benevolent hobby Godfather.

Nyx - cut her hobby teeth with Games Workshop and Forgeworld, and is now exploring outside of these. More of a painter than a gamer, her idea of hell is trying to write a decent army list. Give her a brush and a brew any day. Licks her brushes and isn't sorry.

Elvirith - Secretly a super competitive gamer, and a decent painter to boot. Has lived exclusively in the GW universe until a recent visit to Salute blew her tiny mind and a box of chibi minis sent her into rabid cuteness overdrive. Paints at the pace of a snail, games like an evil overlord.

Bubo - is the youngest hobbyist in our group and is only really just beginning to gain his nerdy stripes. Loves building literally anything and tears into new games with glee, but mention painting and he'll find he's suddenly busy elsewhere. Semi-professional brew maker.

PaintItBlue - our resident part-time hobbyist and nerd with training wheels. Prefers to build and paint rather than game but will try anything once. Taking his first baby steps into the hobby and is learning the basics. Average to good brew-making skills.

Mörkö - possesses the most magnificent beard of us all, which he sometimes uses to paint with. It also doubles as storage and transport for his minis. Probably the longest serving hobbyist of us all, definitely the most twisted.

GUEST  - These posts are by guest writers who wish to remain Anonymous for personal and professional reasons.

Thanks for stopping by.