bob gobba gobbalin

Finally, here is my first completion of 2012, a rowdy little goblin patrol of Hasslefree miniatures.




They're pretty nice little figures, though definitely dimunitive, and like many HF multipart figures they have pretty small contact areas, and could probably benefit from pinning- of course the shoulders are very thin, so there is only the tiniest amount of metal to bite into. I decided the risk wasn't worth the pain, and didn't pin them myself . . .we'll see how they hold up.

General strike

I finally finished the groundwork on my general yesterday afternoon. I've always thought this figure was a perfect choice for a general, leading from in and among his troops. You don't get a much more iconic empire weapon than the halberd either.

Very happy with him, and a great way to wrap up 2011.

General principles

This'll likely be the last empire project of 2011. I mean, sure, there is still this guy to take care of, but he's just sitting patiently on my desk, waiting for me to figure out what color to paint the trim on his robe.

The current front burner project follows smartly on the heels of the army standard bearer, the army general. Everyone needs one. He's been serving in the front ranks of my units for several years as a raw metal figure among more garishly festooned subordinates. But that time is drawing to a close. This month's contest theme over at the Empire forum is generals, so I'm determined to keep up, and get mine finished too. It'll be a nice coda to the year of painting and the renewed focus on my empire collection that I've had these last months.



Also, I'm open to suggestions for that wizard's robe trimming.

keep on keepin' on

Aside from a few spots I realize that I need to go back to now that I look at these pictures, this handsome little piece is done, yay!



Once again, hard to say enough good about Hudson & Allen. This is my 4th piece of theirs, and while they aren't cheap, they deliver on nice designs, solid materials, and paintability.

Keeping it real

While sections of the ruined tower were drying this weekend I spent some time prepping this wonderful citadel I've had for years. Its an expanding foam-resin model from Hudson and Allen, and I've always been really excited by its simple classic design and clean lines. So excited that I've never painted it, even!

It is finally underway, and I'm pleased for to be able to say so.



Also, while I was doing these first drybrush coats tonight, Juno paid a visit to the game room, which is a rarity. We talked about the tabletop, somewhat RPG-ish game I want to run for her and some of our other friends. I've had the idea for a year or so, and having some interesting player character figs outside the idioms of my existing WHFB collections is what drove many of my one-off character painting projects last winter. It was really helpful to sketch out some ideas I had and hear what interested her. She's probably the least into rule intensive, chart heavy, math laden gaming of any of our friends, and yet has an incredible imagination and appreciation for a rich world laden with real emotions, motivations, and other facets of character and story development. She'll be a real bell-weather for guageing how well I'm strinking a balance between hack-and-slash, and heavy role play elements. I don't want an excessive amount of either, and the whole thing is intended to be fun and easy, and free flowing. A tall order, but I'm interested to give it a shot.

I've also been revisiting some of the rule sets I started investigating for these games over the last year or more. So far the top two contenders are looking like Songs of Blades and Heroes, and Broadsword Adventures. SoBH looks a bit too simple, and straight up fighty... BS seems to have better flexibility for a little character development, and a not too complicated, but diverse enough basic character concept to allow us to deal with some of the crazy and creative things I expect my friends will want to do during adventures. It'll need to be stripped down on some fronts though if I use it, as only one or two folks I know have the patience or interest in something even as complex as that. If anyone has managed to run a light weight RPG / dungeon crawl with either of these sets; something a step or two up from beer and pretzels, several steps down from D&D, I'd love to hear any opinions you might have on it.

Anyway . . . I hadn't really indtended to write all that... mostly it was all about, Hey, check out the grey drybrushing on that keep, yo.

broke down palace

Knocked this guy out this weekend:



Didn't spend as much time on it as I did on the nicer LotR pieces. I just wanted to get it done, so its a little more bish bosh than some of my other stuff. I don't mind.

Its the most recent ruined tower kit from GW. Not amazing, but serviceable. I found one for a fair price, and a ruined keep is a nice bit to have on hand I reckon. I had originally planned to carve out all the skulls and resculpt in some bricks or something, but when it came down to it, I couldn't be bothered for the sake of this piece. Its fine for what it is, but not worth much effort to improve it. Basically I could buy it for less than my effort and time would be to build my own ruined, multi level, tower with interior access.

The World Serpent & The Hidden Hand

I finally finished my army standard bearer. Once again props go to the warhammer-empire.com forum for their monthly competitions which have motivated me to knock this one out, and get started on next months project (empire general).

Oh, and incidentally, my militia won last month's contest over there, which is pretty neat. That makes 3 wins for my figures... I hope people aren't getting sick of me. :/

I'm going to enter the standard and the general, since I'd planned to do them all year, but maybe I'll lay off next year. Unless there is a category for artillery piece. . .. I feel a hot pot coming on soon!

Anyway, here be the grand standard of the Imperium Ordo Templi Illuminatus: