I'm Getting Better

My eyesight is slowly improving. Nowhere near ready to paint minis yet, but getting better.

Anyway, the real reason I'm posting is that I've found the inspiration for my Pax Arcadians.

They will be painted in a camo pattern to match that, arctic tundra in spring time. Will also give me an excuse to buy all sorts of new basing materials as well.

Also on the 6mm front, I've made a trade with Legion4 over on Tactical Command and am receiving 39 stands (just shy of two companies worth) of Space Marine infantry and four Land Raiders. Obviously I'll need to get some stuff to round them out, but I'm thinking that they'll get a nice green paintjob. Specifically, something that'll airbrush real easy. Vehicles may get masking tape two-color camo jobs. I'm also working out how I want to round out my Andrayadan forces and have been eyeball the Skyth from DRM as well as some of the infantry from Exodus Wars.

A Couple Buildings and What's on the Bench

OK, so the whole prioritized list thing went all topsy turvy. I ordered Sara the Seeress with a few CAVs earlier this month because, well, because I had a few extra bucks in my monthly allotment. Sad isn't it. Anyway, I got that for Aprile on the condition that I actually paint it. The impending arrival of a bunch of DRM minis for use with FWC will most likely also affect things, nay, already have affected things.

In the last week I've finished up a couple of my JR Miniatures 6mm buildings. The paint jobs aren't fantastic, but they match the casting of the pieces. I've also managed use colors other than gray as well on them. :gasp: I'm trying to figure out why all sci-fi buildings are painted gray. So my goal is to have a colorful down in sandstones and blue and steel and other colors.

I've got a start on the Gladiator II and the Centurion. The legs to the Centurion need a touch up though as the gray is nearly indistinguishable from the green. I used the airbrush on them and I have to say that I have to be careful to not obscure detail with the ProPaints when using it or thin them even more than I have. I've managed to add three projects to the CAV list. Mainly a Black Lightning Dictator with the arms having been donated graciously by Lanse (Froggy the Great on Reaper's boards) and two Moguls (Kahns with Gkw-12y Gauss Cannons). Unfortunately the Dictator I ordered has some bad mold lines and soft detail. I'm very tempted to request a new one but don't really want another pair of Dictator arms. Maybe if one of the Kahns aren't up to par I'll ask for new pieces.

And then there's Sara. When asking Aprile about the base she said she doesn't like my flock. And that she just wanted a sand base. Well, I didn't feel quite like cutting off the integral base because it's a horrid pain in the butt. So I got out the greenstuff and filled around the edges out to the edge of the washer that she's glued to. Then it had the standing on the pitcher's mound look. So using my immense sculpting skills added a rock outcropping. Aprile's out of town till tonight so I have to get design approval before moving on, but the plan is to have Sara done tomorrow. The upside is that if I count the two buildings (which I probably shouldn't) I've averaged a mini a week so far this year.

Wednesday I get laser eye surgery so next weekend probably won't be very productive. Hopefully it doesn't screw with my ability to paint minis. I doubt it will, but I'm concerned about a reduction in clarity when looking at small details...like on miniatures.

Depending on how things go I may take some pictures tomorrow. But I've also got to start getting ahead on my college homework so I'm not trying to do it during my various holiday vacations that are planned.

The Pax Arcadians Are Coming! The Pax Arcadians Are Coming!

So I submitted a wishlist of miniatures to my wife yesterday for Christmas, and apparently she ordered every one. They're all Pax Arcadians. I'll be using them with FWC. This initial force will be mostly infantry with a dropship, 1 blister of each of the buggies, and a small handful of tanks (1 blister of Chasseurs and 1 blister of Tigers).

So, obviously I won't be able to start working on them right away as I won't be receiving them until Christmas and I'll be out of state then, but I can start planning. A few things I'm debating though:

1. Base size: in FWC base size doesn't matter. I'm struggling between 20mm squares or 10mm x 40mm rectangles. The handful of Andy's I have are on poker chips which have roughly the same area, but I'm thinking that won't look as good for the humans for some reason.

2. Figures per base: I know the usual standard is 5 per base. But I'm thinking I can stretch things out a bit if I go 4 per. Though then I run into problems with the number of sergeants. However, the Reg Command blister has more command groups than I'll probably need, so I could conceivably raid that for more sergeants. I'm going to have to run the numbers and see what I can come up with. May have to order another command blister though that would seem to defeat the purpose of putting fewer figures per base.

3. Basing vehicles: to base or not to base? I prefer to not base vehicles, however, 6mm vehicles are much smaller than the N-scale ones I'm used to and I'll be the first to admit that I'm clumsy. If I do decide to base the vehicles, what size would work best?

4. Color: Ahh, the bane of miniature painters, color selection. I want to something suitably tactical, but not desert, urban, or woodland. I have too many other forces in those schemes. Hmmm, tundra maybe? Suggestions welcome!

Oh, my ordering and receipt of FWC has effectively killed my "Beer & Pretzels 6mm Sci-Fi" project. This will most likely have an effect on the sequence of my To Do List.

Busy busy busy

I managed to get some minis finished this weekend. No gaming though due to a work related issue, but next week the gauss rounds will fly and missiles shriek to their targets! Any way, I decided that I should finish up Sadie (version b) from Hasslefree. I had started her back in December with Ray. I used the assault rifle arm, but had issues with getting it to fit right so ended up putting my negligible skill with greenstuff to the test. The join turned out mostly alright. As always, I used Reaper's Master Series paints, though the Leather Brown gave me some issues. It came out super thick and after thinning it had little granules in it. First time I've had any issue with MSPs. The skin was a little darker than I had anticipated, but I think that's mostly due to the dark gray primer I used rather than white. Over all I'm quite happy with her.

Since I had the same color out I decided to finish off the base to another stand of Andrayada infantry (Dark Realm). I was going to wait until the other three stands, which were taking a Simple Green bath, were done and ready for basing. But since I had the same color out for the base, I figured I might as well finish them off and seal them.

Also did some work on a couple of Jovian Chronicles ships. I think they're frigates of some sort, I lost the packaging. I found them in a bargain bin and picked them up some time ago. Nothing outstanding with the paint jobs. Need to touch up a couple areas and they'll be ready for sealer.

Finally, I grabbed some CAV infantry that have been waiting for an inexcusable amount of time to be painted. They are the light infantry with heavy weapons. I'm doing them in a simple khaki and dark green pattern. Nothing fancy, just a get it done color scheme. That and I've established that all my infantry for CAV will be generic and color coded. Khaki base is for light infantry and dark grey base for Armored Infantry. Colors on the shoulder pad indicate what type of team it is. Red is for Rifle Teams. Light Gray is for Armored Rifle Teams. Dark Green will be for Rifle Teams with a weapon upgrade of some sort. I think I'll use blue for Heavy Mortars Teams and probably orange for Light Mortar teams.

Hopefully some pictures tomorrow. Or I may go for a motorcycle ride if things warm up a bit.

And for the second post

OK, so since it's the beginning of the new year I might as well post the handful of minis I've finished since January 1st.

First a kitbashed CAV that was supposed to be my XCAV3 entry at Mil-Net. Unfortunately I didn't get pictures in time for the contest so it sat around for a while waiting for me to finish it. So I present to you the Gunslinger.
It was made with a Dictator 60 and the Gauss Gatling Cannon from a Warden. Construction was simple, clip and file the guns from the 60's arms and file flat, file the peg flat on the bottom of the GGC, glue the GGC to the arm. Unfortunately I didn't dry fit the arms and found out later that they could be positioned in the more normal horizontal position, so that's why it is posed that way. The whole idea was to have a shredder weapon equipped CAV that could keep pace with the Dictators in my main armor sections.

Next was a Kikyu that just needed to have the base finished. The plane itself had been finished some time ago. The camo was airbrushed and done to match the Kikyu I did for Mil-Net's gunship painting contest last year, however this one wasn't done to the same level of detail as that one.

And finally a bunch of Dark Realm Miniatures Hubrie figures that I decided to rebase. I originally had them based individually and decided to rebase them in pairs and they didn't look quite right by themselves. That and if I should decide to play using DRM's rules the Hubries are supposed to be based in like pairs. They are based on poker chips which have bits of cracked CD (I think that particular one was a PC Gamer demo CD) as slate and then liberally covered with a textured resin paste. I then painted the stone and dirt with craft paints and added some Woodland Scenics Blended Turf flock.

On a side note, those who have known me for a little while that for certain reasons I can't go to the FLGS and game there. Today I met with another gamer in pretty much the same situation and we have made plans to start gaming against each other. I'm really looking forward to it. I get to share my favorite game systems and he his. So far we've discussed me showing him CAV and he showing me Warmaster Ancients. This may motivate me to finaly get around to painting the fantasy minis I have had sitting around. Hopefully I don't have PCS anytime soon.

Because What the World Needs Now...

...is another blogger, like I need a hole in my head.

Well, I finally decided to join the rest of the world and try out this blogging thing. For now I'll just keep it to my miniatures as I don't really like putting my Real Life (TM) out there for the world to see too much. As it stands, I plan to add pictures of things I'm working on, what I've finished, hopefully some battle reports from games, and my musings on my experiences in the wild world of miniature wargaming. Don't expect too many battle reports as I don't have a lot of time to play, but when I do I'll load them up.

Why do this as there are tons of other miniature wargaming related blogs out there? Well a couple reasons. The first is instead of me posting the same pictures to five message boards I can put them here and just post a link and a teaser pic saving me time. Second, why not I've got my views on things and want to show off my stuff as well.

So I guess I'll start this off by identifying what I play, what I'd like to play, and what I'm currently working on. The games that I am currently playing or will be playing very shortly are CAV by Reaper Miniatures, 5150 by Two Hour Wargames, Federation Commander by Amarillo Design Bureau, and with any luck Warlord by Reaper Miniatures. You'll notice two of those are Reaper games, they don't do the best at publishing but their miniatures are top of the line and I really like the concepts behind their RAGE system. Federation Commander is to satisfy that Trek fix I quite often. Star Trek was my first exposure to the world of science fiction many years ago. I still remember the first episode I saw, the one with the Horta, Devil in the Dark I think is the title of that episode IIRC. 5150 was something I picked up to satisfy 28mm skirmish gaming as I grew tired of Warhammer 40,000 several years ago. I haven't had a chance to play it yet, but it attracted me due to the fact that it isn't tied to minis from a particular manufacturer and has such an unorthodox game mechanic. I'm really looking forward to playing it when I have the chance.

What I've been kicking around trying are historicals, small scale fantasy, and space ship combat not related to Star Trek. The problem I've had with historicals is that I can't seem to pick a period. Though if I were forced to pick right now I'd probably go with either ancients, Seven Years War, or Cold War. The issue I've been having with small scale fantasy is I can't seem to find figures I really like and I'm not really sure what rules are out there for that type of game other than Warmaster. Space ship combat is kind of a touchy point for me. I've been (im)patiently waiting for Reaper to do Imperator which was supposed to be space combat set in the CAV universe (which as you'll see over time is my favorite game and miniatures). I even went as far as to write a game using the RAGE mechanics, but haven't taken the time to test it. I have this problem where I'll do something just to see if it works or if I can do it. That project fell squarely into the "can I do it" realm. Once the rules were written I kept making lame excuses for not getting the miniatures I bought for it done so I could play it and tweak the point system and movement mechanics. So that's one of my goals for this year, finish those ship minis and play the dang game.

What I'm currently working on is the Border Box #1 from Amarillo Design Bureau which is a collection of 24 miniatures as presented in their Klingon Border box set. Right now I've got two each of Constitution Heavy Cruisers, Old LIght Cruisers, Burke Frigates, D7's, D6's, and F5's about half done. I've also got the base coat on a Hughes-Marietta Czar for CAV waiting for me to finish the camo scheme on it, four stands of Andrayada 6mm infantry from Dark Realm Miniatures waiting for primer, Sadie with pulse rifle from Hasslefree Miniatures waiting for more paint, and several CAVs waiting for primer. I've got a lot of miniature painting I want to get accomplished for this year. Maybe that'll be my next post, the to-do list for 2008, as this first one has gotten much longer than I had anticipated.