Finally, more pictures

Finally got off my lazy butt and took some pics. I've talked about the minis in previous posts so I'm just gonna post some pics

Up first, the first ship in the class, the Constitution.

Followed by the frigate, USS T. Roosevelt.

Next up is a Hasslefree Adventurer, Sadie, which will be used as part of a Free Company for 5150.





Got some CAV infantry stands on the table now and primed up a bunch of stuff today. Hopefully I'll be able to field a Ritterlich force soon.

Oh, you may notice that I've added some stuff to the sidebar. Basicially it's everything I have left that needs painting. Rough guess a little over 200 (don't have an exact count on how many IG still need painting) not counting terrain pieces. I think this is entirely do able by the end of the year. No particular reason, just want to get through as many as possible.

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.

Two finished minis and a bunch of terrain

Hooray for finished models! The Czar is a new color scheme I'm thinking of using for a Templar force. It's Rainy Grey and Pale Lichen (Reaper MSPs) washed with Pure Black and drybrushed.




Next is a Hasslefree mini I finished up before Christmas, so I'm not going count it toward the total on the sidebar. This is Ray from their Adventurers series. Anyone who's seen Shaun of the Dead will doubtless notice certain similarities. I was going to gore him up some, but ended up calling him done in order to move on to other things. I don't his hair quite the right shade and the highlighting on the pants could be better. Overall though I'm quite happy with him.


Another project finally finished in the last couple weeks was this cardstock flying transport. It's been an on-and-off project for several months now. It can be seen here with a squad establishing a perimeter to protect it from the evil WIPs.


A recent purchase was some Krylon H20 spray paint, which I had heard from various source online doesn't melt styrofoam. So I bought a can of the tan and took it to a bunch of hills I had cut out of the stack of styrofoam I've saved from various boxes and packages that is in my garage. I dries a bit glossy, but a drybrush with some craft takes a lot of the shine out. I may try brushing some artist acrylic matte medium and see how that works. In the meantime I think they turned out rather well.




Another terrain related project was taking some molded cardboard packaging material and turning them into some non-scale specific buildings. I hit the packaging with a grey spray primer, then drybrushed with a medium gray then a bit of silver (these two being craft paints). A little sealer for protection and they were done. I could've gone and added some more details to them, but in an effort to keep them usable across several scales I left them as is, so a little imagination is required. Here's some pics and shot with some 6mm infantry, a 6mm hover tank, a stand of CAV infantry, a CAV Dictator 60 and a Falcon, and a GW Cadian to give an idea of size.




And although I keep saying this, hopefully I can make some time to get decals on my Federation Commander ships before this weekend. Meant to do it last night, but ended up doing a repair job on the front door. Anyway, questions, comments, and critiques are welcome.

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.