Painting Countdown IV

More progress on the painting front.  I finished my six Knights of Minas Tirith.

That puts the count at:

Captain
Warrior with Banner
Warrior with Horn

6 x Knights of Minas Tirith

6 x Horses for the Knights

8 x Rangers of Gondor with spear

10 x Rangers of Gondor

17 x Warriors of Minas Tirith with Shield
12 x Warriors of Minas Tirith with Shield and Spear

I am very pleased with my progress so far.  I still have to buy another box of WoMT.  They are on order.

Flames Of War

My local store has just gotten in Flames of War.  This is a 15mm WWII game.  It is not, strictly speaking, super historically accurate.  It is the first historical game to earn widespread acceptance.  I do not accept DBA and DBM in that category.

I have been planning to paint up a U.S. rifle company from the 90th Infantry Division, for a couple of years.  My Grandad, who died three years ago served in that Division.  I was going to do this weather or not I ever played a game.

A couple of the other guys at the store, and I, have been talking about the game for awhile.  The other two have even ordered their armies.  The manager finally decided that it would be worth a shot to see how well it sells and ordered in $1000 bucks worth of new toys.

The order came in today, but is not out on the shelves yet, as Tim has to decide where he is going to put it.  I rummaged through the box, behind the counter, and found the rifle company and the starter set.  $50 for the rifles and $40 for the starter.  It will have to wait a bit. 

I am not super fond of the 15mm.  As Angus Konstams says, 28mm is the only true wargaming scale.  Having said that, I appreciate the ability to get a big force on the table and to build a large army for not a whole lot of money.

I am looking forward to exploring this game once I am through with my army for the GitD.

Painting Countdown III

Another night of good progress.  I completed all six horses and one more Ranger.  I am done with both of those now.  I have also finalized my list.

Captain of Minas Tirith - Shield, Bow, Heavy Armor  60 pts
6 x Knights of Minas Tirith  84 pts
Warrior of Minas Tirith, Banner  32 pts
Warrior of Minas Tirith, Horn 28 pts
17 x Warriors of Minas Tirith - Shield  136 pts
12 x Warriors of Minas Tirith - Shield, Spear  108 pts
8 x Rangers of Gondor - Spear  72 pts
10 x Rangers of Gondor  80 pts

56 Models
2 Might points
1 Hero
1 Standard
600 points on the nose.

This is going to play as a horde army.  The Ranger's shooting should be able to put a hurt on most enemies.  They also have fight 4, but a truly craptastic save.  The WoMT are there to soak up casualties and swarm over the enemy.  The Captain will hang in the rear and wait for that perfect moment to call a heroic move.  The Knights are going to hammer enemy infantry.  The horn will help with terror tests and, sadly, with break tests once I get below 50%.  The banner, of course, is to help win fights.

I have not played with this army yet.  I don't even have all of the models yet as I need to buy another box of WoMT.  These tactics can win, I've seen it done with Moria Goblins.  I don't have any heavy hitters in the list.  What I do have is nasty shooting and lots of hard to kill warriors.

It should be fun, anyway.

Brushes

I use one brush.  I paint everything with it.  I have gone back and forth between Citadel (GW) and Privater Press.  The brush I have been using is starting to shed.  This means that it is losing bristles and getting a lot of bent bristles, which have to be trimmed off. 

I bought the giant paint set from Vallejo five years ago.  It came with several brushes.  They are synthetics.  There is a debate about synthetic vs sable.  I'm not sure how there can really be any discussion on this.  Sable is so superior that it blows synthetics out of the water.  The cost difference is just not worth the difference in quality.

Having said all that, both GW and PP make good brushes.  I have just worn out a PP brush, after using GW brushes for years.  As it happens, when I went in to buy a new brush today they did not have the PP size I have been using.  I bought the GW "yellow handle".

I hope it works out.  I have a lot of painting to get done.  I will use my just retired PP brush to paint the Quickshade on my Warriors of Minas Tirith.  There are two schools of practice among dippers.  (Perhaps there are more that I don't know about).  There are the pure dippers who actually dip the models in the dip.  This involves shaking a lot of excess dip off of the model, wasting dip, making a mess and making sore arms.  The other school, to which I belong, paints on the dip.  I avoid all of the above problems and it gives me more control over where the dip goes, and often more importantly, where it does not go.  The draw back to the painting method over the dipping method is that it takes longer.

I did not realize how rough the old brush was looking until I held it up next to my new one.  This should speed things up.

Painting Count Down II

I am making rapid progress.  Today I completed nine more Rangers of Gondor.  I took some pictures but they did not come out at all.  I will have to work on that.  Can't have a toy soldier blog without pictures.  The more the better.

I also completed my first Warrior of Minas Tirith.  I have not dipped him yet though.  That will probably happen tomorrow.  I started on base coating his fellows.  Eight warriors with shields and eight with spears as well as the six Knights.  There are also the three command models, Captain, banner and horn.  I will need to buy another box of Warriors of Minas Tirith and the army will be complete.

Once I have everything painted I will do the bases.  I prefer to do these assembly line style as they are very involved.  I'll detail my process once I get to them.

In addition to the painting I picked up a tray to use for the army base.  By me I mean my wife bought it for me.  She shakes her head and sighs a lot, but she supports me.  I also got the foam core.  Now I just need to figure out what I want the tray to look like and plan that out.  I am thinking of either a wall or a cliff with troops in front of it and on top.  The reason I want part of it raised up is so that I can build a pocket into the back to hold the mini rulebook, dice, pens and army lists.

I am ahead on my painting at this point so I should have time to do the display board.

Army Painter

Army Painter is a new line of paints from the Netherlands.  They are colored primers and Quickshade dips.  I love these products.  Colored primers save a huge amount of time.  I used to use gallons of the Games Workshop bleached bone primer.

I have, so far, used the desert yellow, green and plate armor primers.  The desert yellow has worked flawlessly.  The Green has had some issues with pooling.  I have not used the quickshade dip yet, though I bought a can and I am retiring my Minwax. 

The coverage on the nozzels is perfect.  I only need a single pass to coat the model.  There is no loss of detail at all, unless you put too much on, which is true of any paint.  The nozzle doesn't clog up and the quality is consistent across all of the cans I have bought.  I have had issues with Privateer Press's primer being inconsistent between batches, and sometimes from the same can over time.

These primers save a lot of time, whether you use the dip or not.  They do not allow some of the shading techniques that are favored by expert painters who use black base coat, but they are fantastic for getting an army painted quickly. 

Dipping is a technique that some love and other hate, much like raw oysters.  If you use dipping then these primers are really a no brainer.  At $15 they run about the same as GW primer.

Gathering in the Desert

The Gathering in the Desert is an independent tournament for The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle game.  It is held in Phoenix AZ in the middle of February.  This is the third year.  It will be my first time attending.

I am going to be taking a Gondor army.  This is an army of normal dudes with good armor.  I will be running a single captain, a whole bunch of Rangers of Gondor, who are good at shooting, and a bunch of Warriors of Minas Tirith with a banner and horn bearer.  There will also be six Knights of Minas Tirith.  I am still tweaking parts of the list, but I need to get it sorted ASAP as I have to get it painted.

I also want to do a display board.  One of the lessons I learned at the con I went to last year was that it is really nice to have a display board to move your army between tables.  If I have the time then it will be a nice piece of terrain.  If I do not then it will be something much less impressive.

I have to paint two models a night to be done in time.  So far I have eight models done in four days.  I'm on track, but that doesn't include time to work on the display board.  The good news is that the models I have done are the Rangers who, I believe, are going to be the models that take the longest.

Pictures will be upcoming soon.

Back at it

I walked away from this blog after a couple of weeks.  I just wasn't spending the time on the hobby that I needed to.  Things change.

I have a lot more time for this type of thing right now and the desire to update this.  The real catalyst was two things.  First was the slew of "this is what I did last year" posts on various blogs and fora.  I realized that I am not actually sure what I did last year.  Second was that I am entered into a Lord of the Rings tournament in February.  I have to paint my entire army from scratch.  I have not a single painted mini for Gondor.

I was working on my Rohan last year.  I still have the army but I am moving on.  The list is just so bad.  I don't mind losing all of the time.  I hate that my dudes just suck so much.  I will revisit them later, once I have gotten my Gondor up to strength.

I ramble, forgive me. 

WOTR

My local store gets its copy of War of the Ring tomorrow. I have been very excited about this. In order to get an advance copy a store has to carry certain sets from all three ranges. Collectormania only carried 40K and LOTR up to now. So now I get to see the WOTR book three weeks early, learn the rules, plan my army and mabey even play a game or two. I also get to see more Warhammer in the store. Now I need to get some more people playing/buying so Tim will want to keep stocking it.

I am excited about WOTR for a couple of reasons. First, I love the Tolkien stories and having the ability to play out the larger battles will be awesome. Secondly, it seems like a fun system that will play more quickly than Warhammer but still have a lot of tactical subtelty. One can only hope. Third, it uses LOTR mini's and is, therefore, cheaper to collect for. This game system just does not cost as much as the other two. The collector side of me loves that.

I am anxious to get off work tomorrow so I can check this out. I hope it lives up to the hype.

Warhammer

Warhammer Fantasy Battles is my first love with minis. This is the game that sucked me into the hobby. I love the background, the fluff. I love the armies, the rules, the community. I love the collecting.

I have been collecting Warhammer since 2002. I have a LOT of models. These games all use points to set up a battle. 2000-2250 is the normal point size for this game. smaller points will go more quickly, larger will last longer.

The biggest game I played at approx 120,000 points on the table. The table was eight feet across and sixteen feet long. For those following along at home, that's 128 square feet of playing room. We had both sides completely full of models with more off the table. It took 16 of us twelve hours to play the game half way through. I wouldn't want to play that way every day, but it was fun that time.

Empire is my main army. I like the idea of ordinary men and women trying to survive in a world full of giant monsters, demons, teaming hordes of rats and green skins and angry gods warping the very structure of the universe. This is an underdog army. Just the way I like it.

I have alot of empire. I probably have around 12,000 points. I will NEED to add some more this summer when new models come out. I am very good with this army. My friends won't play against it any more. I am pulling some of the other armies off the shelf to take them for a drive and see how they go.

My second army is Orcs & Goblins. This army has a huge variety of troop types and some rules that introduce randomness. This is not an army to play if you can't stand to watch your best laid plans go to hell because your troops decided to dust it up with each other in the middle of a battle.

I have a lot of these guys too, though not every unit, the way I do with Empire. I have only played these guys a couple of times. Right now I am trying to suck a buddy into the game and he is learning with these guys. I wish me luck. The hobby needs new blood and I need new oponents.

I also have legal, playable High Elves, Dark Elves and Dwarves. All three of these are limited in unit types, unit strength and heros, but I can put 2000 pt armies of each on the table. I have not played the Dwarfs at all yet. I have a couple of games with the HE's. They are sickeningly good. I just started my first game with Dark Elves, first turn, had to put it on hold due to sickness.

With the purchase of a battalion set and a couple of heros I have enough models to make a Brettonian, Lizard Men and Skaven army. One of these days, when someone expresses an interest in trying them or I don't have anything to buy for any of my other armies I will expand these. Actually I may bring the skaven up this year when the new book comes out.

This game takes way too much of my time, thoughts and money. I wish I got to play more, but at least I have my toy soldiers to stare at, paint and push around on the table.

Current painting

I am currently working on five Rohirrim. One captain, on horse and four riders. Two with bows and two with shields. I am just about done with these five, to table top quality. After that I will paint a whole bunch of horses. I already have quite a few riders done so I need to get the horses caught up.

I am painting these to a very basic level, first go around. My goal is to get them "painted" and on the table. I do play with unpainted models, but it looks SOOOOO much better with painted that it is worth the effort. I especially feel bad putting gray or primer black models on the table when my opponent has painted their army.

Once I have my army painted I will go back and do some more work on them. I am going to go over the browns and greens with a painted on furniture stain. The lighter colors will get a brown wash, as will the armor and weapons. The metal will all get a hightlight. Mithril silver for weapons and armor. Gold of some sort for the bronze.

I will also base the models once they are all painted. I am going to go with a bestial brown base. The top will have sand/gravel PVA'd (elmers) down, then painted bestial, highlighted up to khaki. Stones gray with white highlights. Two colors of static grass will go on, as well as some longer grass if I can find something I like. I always pictured Rohan as endless fields of green grass, not like the New Zealand countryside from the movies.

After that I think this army will be good to go.

Of course I may need to expand it for War of the Ring.

Current project

My current project is Rohirrim for Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game (LOTR, SBG). I have had some of the models for years, I picked up the Two Towers starter set from a friend and it was full of Rohan and Isengard.

Recently a fellow moved here from St. Louis. He is a huge fan of LOTR. He has been working with the local store, Collectormania (CM), and its owner Tim, to get a LOTR group going. Getting a gaming group started, and keeping it alive, are tough work. First you have to get people in to play the game, providing models and such. Then you have to organize enough events that you can keep people interested. Open gaming is fun, but from time to time you have to have tournaments or campaigns.

I have collected a few more models and played a few games. I even played in my first tournament ever, GengisCon. The Warhammer Fantasy was packed, and looked like a lot of fun, but I played LOTR, and had a great time. I have now played seven games. Three against Keith while I was learning, three at the tournament and one at an open gaming day at CM.

I like that the game is a skirmish game. Very different from my beloved Warhammer. I like that it is cheap to start an army and that the rules are both elegant and simple. I love the millieu, Tolkien being the catalyst for my love of fantasy. I love that I can actually find someone to play against from time to time. I hate painting.

I have made a deal with myself. I will paint ten models from the army I played for every game I play. Once the army is done, I can paint whatever I want. I have tried many of these deals over the years. Trying to find the perfect formula to get myself to paint. Nothing has worked up to now. This is actually going all right for me at the moment though, so I am still hopeful.

The history of gaming - my style

I have always loved games. Board games, miniatures even legos. I spent most of my time as a child playing by myself so games were my friends.

When I was young I would save my money up to buy board games. My best friend, Cam, and I loved Axis and Allies. I also bought Shogun, Rome, Fortress America and Broadsides and Boarding Parties. I loved all of these games, though Axis and Allies was always the best to my mind.

Legos were my first miniatures. I got my first set on my sixth birthday, starting a life long love affair. I have hundreds of pounds of legos (how do you measure legos?). In addition to the obvious use of lego people for armies, I wanted to play mass battles. This pre-dated Warhammer and such by a few years, and I was not aware of those games even after they came out.

I did collect the Dungeons & Dragons miniatures game. The cardboard cutouts never thrilled me but they did let me fight out some battles here and there. I also played the rules for armies, making hunrdreds of units out of note cards, playing out battles with the cards representing the units and tracking them through entire campaigns.

There was a period of about seven years, between 1995 when I graduated from college and 2002 when we briefly moved to England, that I did not play any wargames. Then, in 2002 we were in Harrogate. Tracy had gone home for a few weeks and I was wandering down the high street after eating dinner. I walked past the Games Workshop store. I stopped. I stared through the glass at the models. I did not go in. I knew this was a slippery slope. If I went in I was doomed.

For several days I walked past every night and did not go in. Then I crossed the threashold. I looked at the fantasy side of the store. I looked at the Lord of the Rings mini's. I looked at the 40k (Sci-fi) stuff. I walked out. The next night I went in again. The manager asked me which army I was going to play. I didn't know enough to answer him. I fled. The next night I was back. I looked at the books. I was drawn to Empire. I asked the manager questions. He was reasonably helpful.

After a week of going in I bought the starter set. Empire and Orcs. I got it back to the hotel room. I felt that old shiver of anticipation as I got ready to open the box. I pulled off the top and there it was. Sprues of mini's, rule book, quick start rules, templates and dice. I read the whole rule book that night.

I snap fitted the guys I could together. Some of them required glue. The next night I was in the store buying glue, the Empire and Orcs & Goblins army books and a paint set with paints, brush and six Bretonnian archers. (think feudal France). That night I had everything glued and was playing through the rules on the floor of the hotel. It was like I was 12 again. I was hooked.

Introduction

This is a small blog for me to keep track of my favorite Hobby, Wargamming. I play Games Workshop miniatures games. I own many board games but get to play them even less than my mini's.

This blog will talk about painting, playing and collecting. My hope is that having a blog to maintain will help me to stay motivated to paint. I am always motivated to collect and play.