Scratch Building and some Painting... and Something Else

 I hope everyone had a fine Christmas and that Santa was good to you. I my sisters and their families were in town and we had a great time. Before everyone arrived though, I was able to finish up the terrain pieces I had been working on and I also put my final touches on some minis I was working on. 

First up, those minis.

A recent delve in the garage turned up some old GW minis, two Necromunda models from around 2000 and an Empire Champion from I don't know when. He's plastic and thus isn't terribly old. The Sniper is a much more recent Reaper Bones model. I figured the Necromunda guys would be fine for Stargrave and the Knight would be a useful addition to the Kings of War Vanguard stuff I have. I really enjoyed the trial game I played and have been wanting to take it for another spin.

The terrain pieces turned out nicely. Some spray paint and drybrushing and bam, job's done.

I really should make four more of these to ensure I get good table coverage. I'll get cracking on it this week I'm sure.

Of course those hills are going to have a little competition in the garage. My next guitar project is now to the point where it's going to start taking time and energy. I picked up an Epiphone Les Paul Jr body on eBay a couple months ago. I had a good bit of hardware already and got the rest in my Christmas stocking. I decided that the guitar, instead of being painted, should be stickered. I got at least a hundred stickers yesterday to add to the collection I'd already begun. Yesterday afternoon I spent about three hours doing this:

The stickering was a lot of fun. Next step with that will be applying a heavy dose of clear coat over those stickers. 8-10 layers should be OK. After that's done, it's on to the electronics! 

Be well, and if I don't post again this week, Happy New Year!

The Troll Toll

 Wifey and I had a wonderful trip to New England last week. We spent time in Portsmouth, Salem, Concord, Lake Winnipesaukee and Portland. I of course had a lobster roll which I thought might be somewhat overrated. It was good but not great. The chowdah though. Lots of good chowdah.

Between yesterday and this morning I finished up some trolls I've had in the queue for a couple of weeks. The models are Privateer Hordes "Trollbloods" minis. I love the aesthetic. These should finish off the warband I've slowly been assembling. These are bigger models, on 40mm bases - a good 50% larger than typical 28mm scale humans and orcs, as befits trolls.

A group shot of the whole gang.

A Recent Painting and GOT Thoughts

 I finished putting paint on a Hordes Trollkin yesterday. I've got a few of them and look forward to fielding an warband of them in KOW Vanguard one of these days. This guy is just a wonderfully characterful model that had to be included. It was one of those minis that was primed and got one or two colors then just sat for a few months. This week I had the urge to get him finished. 

Very militaristic and fancy. It's a big model, on a 40mm base. I'm happy to have another member of the Trollkin warband wrapped up. I've taken a picture of him with his new brothers in arms. They were finished in a much different manner, making them quite dark and grim compared to Gunna.

An imposing lot for sure! I scored a sweet deal on another group of models which will give me enough Trolls to fill out the collection and then some. Mode on that later.

In other news, my wife and I finally got around to watching Game of Thrones in the last couple of months. We finished it last evening. That's been a major contributor to my lack of painting production. My thoughts on GOT

1) Excellent show and I'm glad we spent the time on it.

2) I'm so happy we could binge-watch it instead of drawing it out over eight years. There is a lot to be said for wrapping one's head around the season-to-season continuity when there's no real-world gap between the end of one and the start of another.

3) We didn't hate the last season(s). I was quite aware of the popular opinion of the series ending. We though it was very much on-point with the rest of the show from a theme and tone standpoint. 

Spoliers ahead if you haven't watched it but might....

There are precious few situations in the show where "good guys" win. Our "good guy" characters are all killers with their priorities all over the place. Brandon is the only character that comes to mind who ends the show with a clean slate in my opinion. Sansa is too arrogant, Jon and Grey Worm are too honor-bound to make the correct decision. I didn't hate Jamie and Cersei's death. They got what they needed. Jamie got to die at her side and she was crushed to death being too stubborn and arrogant to leave. Daenerys was so wrapped up in her mental version of what's "right" that she was too blind to appreciate the bigger picture. Her heel turn landed OK on us. It brought her "my way or the highway" personality into laser focus Maybe overly dramatic for some but the series had to end eventually and her logical outcomes were 1) death or 2) dictatorship.

"Heroic" characters that are obvious favorites are Arya for starters. A weird fate to be sure, but she's a cold-hearted killer and to remain in Westeros would mean that she'd likely become a full-time assassin. Tyrion got to end the series doing something he genuinely enjoyed. 

The only deaths I really didn't care for was Varys the spymaster. It felt like he was the only one who really had an interest in the people of the realm. Perhaps selfish motivations much of the time, but I think we can all agree his actions were consistent in the interest of "the realm" over the course of the show. Daeny had already started tipping heavily at that point so it kept with the GOT-yness. Missandei's death was also quick and brutal, but unexpected and on-point with the GOT product. Every bit as shocking as Ned and the Red Wedding. 

I could go on for ages... be well!

A Bigger Than Typical Post

 Ye olde multi-topic post here, so get your notepad and pen ready.

Those of you who have been reading for any period of time may remember my adventures with luthier-ing which I posted about at least once. Well, during March and April I put together a new axe. I present you with The Green Monster.

Plays well, stays in tune. What more can you ask for? It was a lot of fun and did a passable job of keeping my off the streets.

On to actual game-related activity. I painted up a handful of minis quickly this week, a couple Bones Undead and some 15mm moderns.

The Undead are specifically for Mantic's Vanguard Fantasy skirmish game that I came across a couple weeks ago. They have a free basic rules and army lists for 15 or so various typical fantasy factions. Glancing through the rules, it's pretty close to what I've been after for many years - simple enough, small enough and generic enough. Since my 28mm Undead are mostly Ghouls and Skeletons, I figured some variety wouldn't be the worst thing. They were an easy distraction from the Infinity stuff I've been working on recently.

The 15mm are for my modern skirmish game I've featured on the blog a few times, SKIrmish. Those games have often featured the X-Files crew and space aliens, although I've got plenty of Army guys, zombies, nuts with guns and cultists to go around. My wife and I love the TV show Supernatural, so I whipped up some statlines for Sam and Dean (the two on the right) and more typical Hunters. I even found a suitable toy car for them which of course I forgot to take a picture of this morning. They'll be a fun addition to that game for sure! The models are Rebel Minis, and I ended up with 20+ extras who'll make great gangsters, thugs, etc.

I did get an opportunity to test out Vanguard last evening with my 14-year-old. It was a pretty straightforward Orcs vs. Humans affair with three objectives to control / fight over.

No full AAR, but a few pics.

I quickly noticed that my Troll was the fastest thing on the table and he bee-lined it towards the enemy!

Mister Troll gets jumped by a Halfling! Try as I might, I was unable to golf-ball the little runt off the battlefield!

A broad shot of the fight

The Halfling gets by with a little help from her friends. Mister T is taken down!

The offensive on my left is going well.

But as time ran out, the score was tied at six, each of us controlling an objective on the wing and neither of us ever able to gain control of the center point long enough to really claim it.

I like the game and it's passed my test. If you have a collection of fantasy minis and don't have a go-to game system, Kings of War Vanguard is worth a look. Although it does require some special "power dice" you could easily replicate their function with playing cards and about 2 minutes of effort.