Epic - Base(ic) Psychology

Hi Folks,

I finally knocked off a 'Hobby Goal' from 2018, despite thinking i already had done previously!

So some history... (Feel free to skip this and just look at the pictures... I know i would, but there is a point to all of this, honest!)

My Epic Blood Angels Space Marine army came to me as an eBay purchase initially, in the heady days of late 2014.
A battle company, Land Raider company, some bikes, land speeders, termies, predators, and some specialists. (I'll throw a pic in at the end of this)

A pretty solid start, and all painted in a fairly robust paint scheme, with lovely Goblin Green bases, straight out of 1990's white dwarf!

I picked it up as it was a bargain, and my intention was to have it tucked away as solid little army that i could use to teach any friends that showed an interest, how to play the game. Board game pieces that i wouldn't cry over if someone knocked a stand from the table and squashed them underfoot.

I added a couple of units such as some classic Thunderhawks, and made a start on a Death Company (in 2nd Edition Space Marine/NetEpic, you roll per infantry detachment and see how many leave their unit and join the Death Company, a ferocious close combat unit)

As i picked up more Space Marine minis, i spread them amounts my various projects, Ultramarines, Dark Angels, Imperial Fists, World Eaters, and if anything remained... then these Blood Angels got the scraps.

They were my ginger stepchild, my shame. I hadn't painted them, so how could i love them?!

One day however, my opinion changed. I threw an 'agrax earthshade' brown wash over them to pick out the details and tone down the bright red a bit. As soon as it dried i had in my hands an army that i had contributed to, and began to see in a different light.

From then on i knew that this would be my primary Space Marine army.
I'd still dabble with other chapters to try out a different scheme, or just to have a small force to use as allies or in smaller marine on marine skirmishes, but these Blood Angels went to the top of the food chain.

The biggest issue i had was that as bits were added, different reds were used to paint them, and the basing was a mix of solid Goblin Green, or sand with the edges painted either black, tan or brown.

It was a mess, and it has taken me until today to realise something...


tl:dr;

Basing matters!

if you have models that don't match... sticking them on the same base as the guy next to them tricks the viewer into seeing them as the same thing.
Do this across a whole army, and wow... what a sight.
Do this across a whole game system... Yeah, i'm not there yet.

Painting the Frostgrave guys over the last month really brought this home.
Now i have a box full of minis sporting mis-matched scale, differing colour palates, even paint style, yet having them use the same basing scheme somehow makes them look like they belong together.

Suddenly makes the half-naked jungle tribesman throwing spears at the viking barbarian with the fur cloak seem like it was meant to be!

The issues i have now are;
1) I have used all of the basing material i had for this army... so if i add any more models to it, i'll be subtly diverging.
2) Where do i stop? It didn't take too long to do this army, but the through of tackling all those guardsmen or Orks fills me with dread!

Anyhoo!

I wasn't all basing this week.
There were new units.

My (now beloved) Blood Angels got their wings, in the form of a full company of Assault marines.
this spurred me on to bring my tactical detachment up to company strength, and of course this meant more bodies on standby for the Death Company.

I also found i had enough of Vanguards' excellent Novan Elite Heavy troops left, which proxy great as Grey Knights, this gives my armies of the Imperium some much needed demon killing power!

Onwards and upwards - my plans are to now work my way through my remaining unpainted boxes of shame and see what i can add to my existing armies, with the rest being sold off to make some much needed space!

Thanks for reading, especially if you made it through my brain dump on the importance of basing! :)

Photos!

 

 

Epic - Kit-bashed Eldar Super heavies

Hi,

Hoping everyone is staying safe out there!

I've been doing a wee bit of a loft clear out, as well as marking some hobby stuff for eBay.
I found a couple of Eldar Tempest hulls, some doomweavers, and a titan pulsar, and figured, why not!

I do still fancy picking up the likes of the GW Cobra, Scorpion, Void Spinner etc, but for now these will serve as suitably old school proxies!

I make no apologies for the paint job - it was 20 mins from bare metal to done and away in to the box.

As I've said before, for me it's sometimes better just to catch my brain off guard and do it before it can react with any thoughts of 'get the airbrush out' or, 'let the wash dry over night', as i know if it let this happen, then they will live on half finished on my shelf of shame for ever more!

This being said, i did go back to my reaper bones werewolf for a quick highlight job as it was sloppy even by my standards!

the other photos are all that remains of my 'in progress' and unpainted epic stash... I might actually make it to the end!

So, next up will likely be some more Frostgrave, and then, Orks!

Frostgrave - Churning them out

I'm stepping up my painting speed now as i realise that you actually 'need' a decent amount of minis, terrain, objectives etc to play Frostgrave.

I want to ride this train of motivation , but knowing how fleeting it is, i'm willing to let quality/detail slip a bit to get things in a tabletop ready state.

I'm lining up my excuses early, and i would like to think that i'll come back and do some tidying up, pick out some details, paint the eyes, etc. at some point, but that could be another 20 years from now!

Ironically i have all i need to play Star Wars themed Frostgrave right now, with my imperial assault collection, but keen to get the vanilla game finished first, before i go learning a modded version.

It does appeal to my sense of minimalism to have one system that plays in fantasy/medieval, jungle/lost world, and sci-fi. Saving room in my brain for other things!

I do feel another audit coming up soon however, with the guilt of buying 10 or so sprues of minis and another box worth of terrain, i think something will have to go.
Unpainted 40k stuff could be first on the chopping block, as well as any surplus terrain.

So for now, here are some *nearly* finished barbarians, wizards and their apprentices, a thief, some blue dinosaurs(?!) and a werewolf (he will definitely be getting some more paint before going into the box)

Frostgrave - Strange times

Its fair to say times are a bit strange at the moment.

Many hobbyists are thriving with extra time at home to focus on projects. 

Oddly, i'm busier than ever at work, so i'm really having to force myself to take some time to do a bit of hobby time.

My office space is also my hobby room, so it's difficult to form barriers but i realise that i'm lucky have the space, and indeed a job at the moment, so mustn't grumble!

Despite all my efforts to 'minimise' my library of games, and my collection of models and terrain, i have slipped a little!

And by a little, i mean I've jumped head first into Frostgrave and Ghost Archipelago, my justification being that i already had the rule book, some minis and some terrain, so might as well flesh it out to have enough to play with.

I picked up a bunch of the official Northstar sprues for minis, as well as some Wargames Atlantic skeletons, and various other toys for creatures, none of this broke the bank, which was nice. I also made some terrain for specific scenarios, but where i splurged was on a new game mat and some resin pre-painted terrain from gamemat.eu. On the face of it, an expensive and unnecessary addition to my already bulging shelves, but i blame boredom!

It's fair to say our X-Wing campaign is on hiatus at the moment, so i'm tentatively looking at getting the other half involved in some Frostgrave, which partially justifies my recent efforts :)

In addition i'll dump some photos below of everything since my last post, which isn't much!

Starting with some 'baddies' or wandering monsters, and even some epic too, just to keep on-brand with the blog!

X-Wing - Saw's Renegades

Sticking with 6mm Sci-fi, but with a slight pivot to a galaxy far, far away...

We recently got back into The X-Wing Miniatures Games, after a brief period of collecting dust. Sticking with v1.0 of the game as none of us need more cardboard in our lives, and as i've mentioned before, my gaming group never massively got into 'the meta' and all of the wild exploits that came at the end of the v1.0 games' life.

We have kicked off a campaign, set loosely in the time of the Galactic Civil War and have wrapped some narrative around what is effective an escalation type system, where we all start restricted to rookie pilots (PS1) and unlock veterans and unique characters through winning battles. This is really refreshing as it gives us the chance to play with pilots/ships rarely fielded.

Please see my friend's blog to follow the campaign > http://thebissler.blogspot.com/

One essential purchase for me as the Rebel player was the Saw's Renegades expansion - which 'fixes' the classic T-65 X-Wing and newer U-Wing featured in Rogue One.

The only downer to my eyes was the paint job. The black/white pattern should have been striking, but for me it just lacked excitement, and looked out of place with the rest of my fleet. (I also attempted to fix the sticky S-Foils on the X-Wing, and failed miserably)

So I've given a very quick and dirty going over, and whilst it is by no means perfect, I can explain this away as some slap-dash Rebel workmanship, and i was happy to get painting again and get something knocked out in a couple of hours, rather than have it sitting tormenting me half painted for the next 10 years...

Also - full disclosure, i nicked the schemes from a google image search, and imitated them poorly, so apologies and thanks if you were the originator of my inspiration.

Epic - More Greater Demons

Painted up the last of my unpainted Chaos metal and despite me saying it before... "I think this concludes my collecting of Epic Chaos minis for the time being, at least until i can get more games in and enjoy what i have so far..."

We shall see! (i'm still looking out for Moritarion and Fulgrim models...)

Anyway, Magnus is a good-get. He is getting hard to find at a reasonable price, and unlocks a lot of options for me to field a decent sized Tzeentch force.

I went with the 'red' style of paint job for him, which i think i prefer to the 'blue-space-monkey' look of the GW 'Eavy Metal one.

Along side him as another Keeper of Secrets for Slaanesh. Shame its the same sculpt as my other one, but i couldn't find the alternative one and it came in a job-lot.

It also gives me some more options for larger Slaanesh forces, so handy to have regardless!

Epic - First Chaos (For 2020 at least!)

Just a very quick one to kick of 2020.

I picked up another few greater daemon/primarchs for Chaos, meaning i can field bigger armies.
Still waiting on my Magnus the Red arriving and i'm looking forward to painting it in all it's ugly glory!

In the meantime i knocked out Angron and another Nurgle Great Unclean one;