It Begins: Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge

Jeez, one day in and I'm already falling behind in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. I've got a table of primed minis ready to go, just need to finish up the Christmas prep and I can get crackin' on them. I foolishly signed myself up to knock out 1000 points of figures. But having miscalculated, I believe that's more figures than I have on hand! Here's hoping I can finally reduce this lead pile to Nil and start refilling it with new purchases.

Whoa! We made a game convention!

I've been joining Joe and the crew for monthly meetups of the Second Saturday Scrum Club. They're a good group of gamers and rotate through a variety of wargames and one off RPG scenarios, but if not for our dedicated host and de facto leader Joe that's about the extent of what I'd be able to say about them. Good group of guys, fun monthly game sessions. Fairly typical. But "typical", Joe is not.

He only entered the hobby a few years ago, but in the last 12 months he's run several convention games, launched a successful miniatures Kickstarter and now lead us into our next venture, a home grown local gaming convention. The speed with which he's knocked each of these gamer bucket list items off his list makes my head spin. Joe got the ball rolling, but our entire crew will be hosting ScrumCon February 16th, 2019 in College Park, MD. Most of the scrummers are veteran convention game masters and will be running a variety of RPG sessions and tabletop miniatures games. We've also gathered a number of excellent GMs to host games as well. All of them are seasoned GMs who have run dozens of awesome games at the HGMS and RPG shows, including Zeb Cook writer of the D&D Expert set and 2nd Edition of Dungeons and Dragons.

Joe and I will likely not be running games, instead handling admin duties (but we've both got some backup games planned in case we have any last minute no-shows). I can't guarantee this will be a flawless convention, but we do have enthusiasm on our side. If you're in the area grab an attendee badge (while they're still available), play some games and I'll sell you a hot dog. It should be fun!

Gaslands!

I've gotten a bit tired of our Monday night Star Wars Legion battles, and when my gaming buddy Chris mentioned he had picked up Gaslands I suggested we give it a try. I wasn't really interested in picking up a new system and scale, but since the rules were cheap and the "minis" were a buck, I figured it would be a nice diversion.

So I picked up the rules, grabbed some Hot Wheels and superglue, and got to work. All of my thoughts, shiny and chrome, after the jump.

Above the Fray Miniatures Kickstarter

Here's a day of high adventure for ya: today fellow Scrum Clubber and monthly game host Joe has launched his first miniatures Kickstarter! He's a big fan of classic pulp fantasy and had a series of miniatures commissioned dripping with old school charm. I've seen some sneak peeks of the initial test casts and painted samples at our monthly game nights, but today he's launched the campaign to get the final production molds created and miniatures cranked out.

I've been consistently surprised at how much Joe has accomplished in the short time he's been in the hobby. He's run multiple convention games, acquired a vast array of figures and terrain, spun up our local Scrum club and has plans to launch a variety of other projects. I can only imagine he'll deliver this Kickstarter with the same enthusiasm and determination. Check out the Icons of Pulp Fantasy Kickstarter running now, with final figures expected to be delivered in February.

 

Sci-Fi Flotsam: Walter Warbot and Servant Prime

I painted up a few more sci-fi figs to take part in the generic space opera games I've been working on.

Walter the Warbot is a mini from the first Diehard Miniatures Kickstarter. He's still available as part of the second campaign, ending today.

The second is a limited edition resin figure from Joe K Minis. It depicts "Servant Prime", a nefarious character from a comic book and novel I've never heard of. Still, super creepy. He reminded me of the alien weirdos mentioned in the Lankhmar books.

Sci-fi Soldiers with Custom 3D Printed Heads

Pew Pew!

Sure, you may be tempted by that new Star Wars Legion game, or your eye may wander to the freshly released Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team, but friends, custom sci-fi figures are where it's at!

It's so simple! Follow my easy step by step instructions, and you too could have a unique set of space soldiers from a sci-fi property of your own design:

1. Fall in love with a set of multi-part plastic figures, like Dreamforge's Eisenkern space Nazis.
2. Wait for them to go out of production for a few years, and then pay through the nose to pick up a single box of figures.
3. Get disgusted with the preponderance of REAL LIFE NAZIS who seem to be crawling out from under their rocks and decide you need to de-Nazi-fy your spacemen by replacing their Stahlhelm inspired helmets with alternate sculpts.
4. Learn Zbrush and sculpt a digital head for your sci-fi troopers.
5. 3D print them, assemble everything and then paint them up!

'troopers on industrial grating bases for guarding bases and breaching bulkheads of captured blockade runners.

'troopers in field gear. They get extra shoulder pauldrons for better protection against hooded little scavenger goblins.

Once you are done you may realize your sci-fi troopers need somebody to fight, so go through the whole process again, but this time cobble together some sci-fi palace guards from Mantic bodies, Fireforge crusader cloaks and some more Zbrush sculpted heads.

These heads were proof of concept. I'll need to enlarge and accentuate their features a bit for the next print, but I was surprised out how much detail the 3D prints picked up from the digital model.

It's a snap! And in only 6 to 12 months you too could have a few dozen figures ready for tabletop wargaming! 

You may also want to pick up some figures from a Kickstarter like Colony 87 to round out your force with leaders or VIPs to guard.

The Colony 87 and Astropolis Kickstarter figures are so much better than my humble efforts. Tons of character, and a joy to paint!

Sarcasm aside, I'm pretty happy with the way everything turned out. I considered 3D printing the heads and then casting them in resin, but the cost of printing them was much lower than trying cast everything up myself. I'm thinking of jumping back into Zbrush to add some bodies to the heads I sculpted and then possibly getting the complete figures cast in metal.

I've been messing around with my own set of wargaming rules and wanted some figures that would be a clear break from existing properties, but still hint at well known tropes to make it easier for my game buddies to get into the game. 

I've got a ways to go with testing and writing the rules, but it will be nice to be able to playtest with figures that are better representations of what I'm going for than the Space Orks, British Desert Commandos and Wooden Cubes that have been filling in up till now.

Historicon 2018

We're back from Historicon 2018 with a photo dump and impressions of the convention. Check it out after the jump!