Quick and Easy Grid Markers for "To the Strongest"

I picked up Big Red Bat's "To the Strongest" the other day, a new set of ancient and medieval wargame rules that use a grid to regulate movement and distance. I didn't want to mar my game mat with grid lines or ugly stickers, so I whipped up some "table scatter" style rock piles to mark the corner of each grid point. They were pretty easy to put together:

Step 1) Drops of white/PVA glue on wax paper

Step 2) Model railroad ballast. When the white glue dried I added a few drops of Woodland Scenics Scenic Glue to each pile as well.

Step 3) I added some additional white glue and grass flock for about half of the stone piles. And done!

I set up the table for a trial of "To the Strongest" and was pleased to see the stone piles clearly marked the game grid, but combined with other table scatter and terrain did not call too much attention to themselves.

Warlord Games Romans vs. Wargames Factory Romans

I polished off another 48 figures for my late Republic era Romans, this time using the plastic sculpts from Warlord Games. I started my entry into ancients wargaming with Wargames Factory's release years ago, and now Warlord's latest will be joining them on my table. To see how the two manufacturer's output match up join me after the break.

New Year's Dungeon Bash

After this summer's dungeon crawl I was eager to make some tweaks to the rules and run it again. The holidays seemed like an awesome time to get some friends together so we grabbed some beers and dice on New Year's Eve and ran a wintery dungeon crawl. All the details after the jump.

2014 Year End Round Up

If it's not lead, it doesn't count as adding to "Lead Mountain", right? Right?

It's a new year, so time to review my hobby accomplishments this year and plan for next year.

Painting:

This year I completed:

• 28mm Foot: 67
• 28mm Cavalry: 20
• Elder Gods: 1
• Small Buildings: 4
• Dwarven Forge Dungeons: 7 sets and countless bits of dungeon scatter
• 15mm Vehicles: 8

That doesn't seem like a ton compared to previous years, but those dungeons took up lots of time to complete, I painted and repainted the 15mm vehicles a few times as I learned how to use my new airbrush and weather tanks, and I have dozens of painted figures that just need to be based before I count them as complete.

I've tried not to add to my lead pile (although the Christmas presents pictured above that arrived this year aren't helping, but that's not my fault!) and worked to steadily chip away at it as I can.

Conventions

I attended four conventions this year, including Barrage, my first small local con. With my work and family vacation schedule tying me up during the HGMS cons, I'm looking to branch out again to some smaller local cons to get in my quality gaming.

Playing

Unfortunately I've come to realize that my usual gaming group isn't going to be able to get together for sessions as regularly as I'd like. Distance, work and family obligations certainly put a crimp in our free time, so I'm trying to locate some wargamers a little closer to home.

On an encouraging note, my son is really picking up steam as a game opponent. I don't post most of the games we play, but we're usually rolling dice with a board game, RPG or card game most weekends. It's nice having an opponent in house :)

This year I managed a few games of Hail Caesar, we finally got into SAGA (which is a blast), and I ran two of my home-brewed Dungeon Bash games. Not bad, but I'd certainly like to be playing more in 2015.

Goals

I'm going to remain conservative this year, and concentrate on projects and periods I've already started. I still have a massive amount of Reaper Bones to work through, quite a bit of Roman and Celtic lead to paint up, an expansion of my SAGA/Hail Caesar 1st through 3rd Crusades figures, and a handful of Martians to tackle. That's plenty to keep me busy for the year.

The real trick is going to be finding folks to play with. Oh to live in England where you can't throw a stone without hitting a beardy fellow wargamer (or so I hear). So how'd you do? Did you complete your 2014 hobby projects, or is the 2015 Backlog just that much longer now? 

All the Single Ladies

Christmas saw the arrival of several boxes of figures to replenish Lead Mountain, which means I need to get cranking on some existing miniatures to make room.

This week I finished up few female fantasy figures from the Reaper Bones kickstarter. I've painted quite a few so far, enough to notice that Reaper Bones are great for hordes of monsters or large creatures that would be too expensive to produce in metal. For man sized characters, the quality is a bit hit or miss. The rogue and witch from this group (for example) had pretty soft facial features that were quite a chore to deal with, while the barbarian had lots of character in her face. I can't tell if this is an issue with specific moulds, but these defects aren't nearly as noticeable in crocodile faced lizardmen, or similar monstrous creatures.

Female Rogue

Pathfinder Barbarian

Pathfinder Witch

Female Gnome Wizard

Dwarven Fighter

Fantasy figures always have such weird shield designs. Would prefer a smooth face to detail myself.

I'm still happy with my Reaper Bones, but I think in the future I'll likely pick up metal figures for heroes.

Tabletop World Windmill

I just finished painting up a windmill by the Croatian vendor Tabletop World. What a great little kit! I love Tabletop World's work... details are deep and exaggerated, making painting fun and the final result full of character without getting too cartoony.

Assembly was simple (the arms of the windmill are separate pieces that must be glued into the roof assembly, but that's it) and there was virtually no mold lines or bubbles to deal with.

A coat of black spray primer, lots of shades gray, brown, blue and tan for the stone, and various washes, pigments and drybrushing to pull out details and weather it and it was done.

Tabletop World is running a Christmas special currently, and while shipping does take a while their stuff seems worth the wait.

The Force Awakens: X-Wing Miniatures Battle

My son and I were psyched to see the new Star Wars trailer for Episode VII, and after seeing the Millennium Falcon perform some aerial maneuvers in battle over Tatooine, we had to break out our X-Wing Miniatures and recreate the battle.

Check out the clash after the jump.