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.

Debased

I took a stab at the 6mm fantasy miniatures rebasing today. I was most concerned about how I was going to get those little mothers off the plywood bases. The models are thin and bendy and the bottoms of them are thin, not easily pried off the base. I needed a chemical answer, and not just gin and tonic.

So, for anyone who needs to do it, acetone makes re-basing miniatures less irritating. After a little internet research, it was decided that acetone might be worth a go. I took the boy to the mall earlier so I grabbed a bottle of the stuff while we were our for $3.00 First go around, I used an old paintbrush to apply it. No luck at all. I tried again but this time with a much more liberal application and two heapin' scoops of patience.

I used a glass medicine dropper to soak the bases and gave it three or four minutes. By that time, most of the Dark Elves were easily pulled off the plywood. 

Bam! Some stragglers were left. A bit more juice and one play through of Led Zeppelin's Battle of Evermore and they were released from the stand's ligneous embrace.

The tools of the trade

Thirty Dark Elf swordsmen looking for new bases.

I'll get in an order with Litko when I return from vacation and work on the whole collection.

Quick Update

 Just checking in. Not much going on here besides some painting. Ziggy and I did test out the Crusader Publishing game Legions of Battle last weekend. LOB is a high fantasy mass battle system along the lines of WHFB. It was a quick exercise meant to vet the rule system and serve as a decision point as to whether or not it was worth investing time into.

Dark Elves advancing on the Dwarves. Dwarven boar riders have flanked me up on that hill.

Turns out, the game is pretty solid, although we both agreed that post-melee break tests are entirely too vicious. That'll need to be corrected before the next outing. One failure and the unit is removed. Ugh. Our dice made it a point to roll high for break tests and we went from a full assortment of miniatures on the table to half that number in two turns!

So at the end of the day, yes, we'll put it back on the table. My 6mm fantasy armies are based on entirely too large 2 inch X 1.25 inch bases, primarily because I had a ton of them at the time. I really need to re-base on smaller, square bases. I finished up a 30 Dark Elf spears and based them on 1.25 inch squares. They look better and the smaller bases mean tighter footprints on the game table. 

 I decided I'm going to re-base the collection. It really just needs to be done. Of course that project will have to wait until my wife and I get back from our vacation. It's our 20th anniversary this week so we're jetting off to New England for the week. We've never spent much time up there - it's been over 30 years for me. It should be a nice get-away.

Recent Hobby Stuff

 Just a quick update on gaming things I've been up to recently. 

My wife and I played another installment of X-Files a couple weekends ago. We played out on the patio since the heat finally broke. There's a lot to be said for playing a heavily themed game on the dark!

There was a bit of a game mechanics change this time around. Instead of a head to head engagement, I took a note from Insurgent Earth. The FBI agents took on the role of the "survivors" while the US Military Industrial Complex took on the role normally occupied by the aliens in IE. The game played out well, with the agents locating all the evidence they were looking for and escaping. I think I need to add more bad guys for the next time through. A great time nonetheless.

I knocked out this MDF kit this week. A nice fountain and planter. 28mm of course. I'm sure they'll show up in a game of Infinity soon enough.