One of the first things that comes up when people start talking about Warcrow, after they learn what it is, is the fact that it uses custom dice. Some people absolutely hate custom dice and will refuse to play any game that uses them. I don’t mind them, especially if they are used well.

But first…

What is Warcrow?

Warcrow is a new property from Corvus Belli, the makers of Infinity and other games I enjoy. This is a fantasy property with a boardgame and skirmish wargame. The boardgame is called Warcrow Adventures and the skirmish wargame is just being called Warcrow. To simplify – since I’m not getting the boardgame – whenever I say Warcrow from here on out I’m referring to the skirmish game. At least CB has learned their lesson from the SEO nightmare that is Infinity the Wargame. Even the official site has a nice URL, and easier to spell than Aristeia!.

So, the wargame, from all the information I’ve been scouring, is a small-unit skirmish game set in a fantasy world created by Corvus Belli. There’s the regular cast of fantasy races you would expect – Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Humans – with a bit of body horror in the form of the Scions of Yaldaboath for spice. They are not monolithic structures like other fantasy worlds where each race is a self-contained faction. Instead the wargame’s factions are nations which may contain examples of different races.

For my taste this is the perfect balance. When I think of fantasy I am thinking of these classic races. Yes, there are great examples of fantasy where they create their fauna out of whole cloth, but there are plenty which just change the name without adding anything new. Like the bard said, a rose by any other name.

I recommend checking out the playlist I linked for more details on the lore.

What is the game like?

The skirmish wargame of Warcrow is what I’m most looking forward to. I have become a one-game-gamer after decades as a butterfly, playing Infinity almost weekly for over a year now. I am also a big fan of Aristeia! which is set in the Infinity universe. When Corvus Belli announced this new game I’ve been eagerly snapping up every nugget of information I could find.

The game is most likely going to feature small units of fantasy warriors lead by heroes. The miniature count is expected to be around 20 miniatures per side, with units of 3 models plus a hero shown in demos.

Character models are available in named and generic versions. Some will operate solo, some will join units and some will have the option to do both.

Magic carries a cost, so casters have the option to trade power for something called “tinge.” This gives players some interesting choices which keeps magic from just being a differently flavoured ranged attack.

Custom Dice

Like Aristeia!, and some of Corvus Belli’s other games, Warcrow uses custom dice. This is something that rightly brings some level of complaints but is not too much of a concern for me. Replacing rolling against a target number with symbols can speed up gameplay, and in the case of Warcrow they are leveraging the symbols to do more with a roll than could be done by saying “hits on a 4+”.

There are 6 dice types in the game, and stats are given as a dice pool. This is already automating a lot of mechanics and providing more nuance than is possible with numbered dice. There are attack dice and defense dice. You compare the number of stars rolled to the number of shields rolled. Any excess stars cause damage. There are also “specials”, which are the exclamation marks, or as I like to call them, “bangs.” These can be spent to trigger “switches” on a unit or character’s card. Let’s take a look. Thanks, by the way, to Corvus Belli for their excellent press kit. I hope someone uses it to promote the game widely.

There are two lines of stats, representing the full strength and weakened versions of this unit. The sword is a melee attack, the tower is the defensive roll. This is based on memory and interpreting the design, so may not be perfectly accurate.

On the attack the Bucklermen roll 1 Red and 3 Orange dice. CB kindly gives colour-blind people a thought, at least on the unit cards. They still need someone to tell them which physical dice are which. On the roll, any stars are hits, and any hollow specials count as blocks. This hints that it’s possible to inflict hits when defensive.

On defense this unit rolls 2 Green and 1 Black dice, with the more common specials adding additional blocks. This indicates that this unit is very defensive and should be able to hold their own against nastier fighters.

Specials are not the only results which can trigger switches. This character has the same switches on attach and defense, and has multiple switches to choose from. I don’t know if this has been officially announced, but based on Aristeia! I expect that the symbols used to trigger a switch are “spent” and cannot be used for multiple purposes. For example, the Orc Hunters unit has the option to trade shields for stars on their defense rolls. Those shield could not then be used to cancel attacks.

So, not only do custom dice allow dice pools to give nuance to rolls, not only does looking for successes instead of comparing results to target numbers speed up gameplay, but the switches in this game provide gameplay and choices that just wouldn’t be practical with normal dice and a target number. How could you possible recreate this with normal dice? Comment below.

The dice in the skirmish game are the same as the dice in Warcrow Adventures, the rulebook for which has already been released. We can see the different faces and the distribution of symbols. Dice which have more successes tend to have less specials and vice versa.

I understand that custom dice can be annoying because they represent a cost to pay to play the game that isn’t miniatures. I am also resentful of any money I am forced to spend beyond miniatures. And some games don’t really leverage their custom dice as much as they could while also charging premium prices for the dice. I hate having to roll dice in batches but I’ve accepted it for some games because the price for additional dice is just too high.

Warcrow itself really requires having all the possible dice you can need. It’s one thing to need 10 dice, roll 5 and remember how many were hits and how many were crits. In Warcrow you have to remember hits and specials, plus hollow versions of each. I hope that they keep this in mind as they design stats and don’t charge too much for their dice.

Based on their history I don’t think this will be a problem:

Don’t forget, this is Corvus Belli. The rules will be free, there will likely be a free army builder. Yes, you have to buy custom dice and custom measuring sticks, but after that it’s all miniatures all the time.

In the end, I think Warcrow will be an example of how to make use of custom dice in a way that is worthwhile and not possible with normal dice.

When is it out?

Warcrow is going to be released at Gencon 2024. Pre-orders will start 15 days earlier. Normally I am not a fan of pre-orders but in this case I plan to put my name in with my FLGS, Red Dragon, to get a copy as soon as possible.

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This week screamed past, but I did paint nearly every day, so that’s good.

Ariadna Para-Commando

I finished the Para-Commando, the last miniature from Corvus Belli’s Operation: Crimson Stone box. All that’s left is to paint the bases with their obnoxious “tactical rocks” and varnish everything.

I did enjoy painting the Para-Commando. He was a relatively simple model so I spent some time detailing the paint chipping on his armour panels.

Conquest Konungyr

Splintered Brush gave me this model for a Secret Santa but I needed a break from Conquest so I only started it now. Conquest is an interesting line of miniatures. It’s a mass-battle game which some very interesting mechanics but the sculpting is a bit crude, a fact made more obvious because the miniatures are 38mm.

I find it hard to speak about the quality of these miniatures. It feels like if I don’t say they’re the best I am saying they are the worst. However, they are suitable. Even that sounds overly critical but it is the truth. They are ok. Some are better than others and there is a clear improvement from their earliest miniatures to their current miniatures. These miniatures are the work of young journeymen, not masters.

Conquest Trolls

Since I’ve painted everything I had purchased recently, plus something from my backlog, I had the pleasure to purchase my next box of minis: Conquest Trolls for my Nord army. I’ve only just assembling them but they are certainly reinforcing my views on Para-Bellum’s quality. They’re ok but they have a few areas where a really competent company would have made different choices.

Generally these are “multi-pose” kit in name only. Heads and arms can be swapped but the way the arms connect to the body is pre-determined. This gives a worst-of-both worlds where the separateness of the arms is apparent without creating a wide variety of posing.

The standard is the worst part of the kit. It’s 4 pieces if you don’t count the arm it connects to, with three parts connecting to each other without positive registration to make sure they fit. The 4th part, which doesn’t need to connect to another else, does have positive registration but doesn’t need it due to the shape and large connecting surface. The hand sculpted on the staff is so high on the staff that it’s impossible for the standard to be held straight. Instead the top must be canted far from the body, making it prone to tripping and interfering with the tight basing of the game, or, if you are clever, it can be tilted towards the body, with the butt sticking far off the base.

Like much of what Para-Bellum produces they are fine but could be much better.

I’m looking forward to getting these Trolls assembled and painted so I can return to painting Infinity

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I am cautiously excited about Corvus Belli’s recently announced fantasy skirmish game, Warcrow.

There is precious little details beyond:

• A Kickstarter for a dungeon crawler boardgame will happen in the Fall.
• A wargame version will be released GenCon 2023.
• The initial box will be plastics similar to their Aristae! game, everything else will be Siocast. Although apparently it isn’t.
• Miniatures and dice mechanics compatible between wargame and boardgame.
• Dice are speciality dice, which some people are very mad about but doesn’t bother me.
• 15-20 units per player in the wargame.

Most of this information comes from the infamous Infinity Forum which I will monitor so you don’t have to.

I’m interested. More in the wargame than the dungeon crawler, and definitely not as a Kickstarter.

Infinity Nomad Hellcat

What a difference a week makes, or rather, work makes, in my painting speed. I somehow went from finishing a model every couple of days to taking a week to finish one. When I was off I didn’t really paint for longer, I just managed to fit a couple of extra painting sessions in each day. Almost makes me wish I could paint full-time. Almost.

On this model I leaned even harder into the warm-red and cold-red split. Once again I used Magenta as the base for the cold red but it feels pinker than last week’s Sombra. Meanwhile the warm red ended up hitting orange rather than the brick red I was looking for.

This is the natural outcome of my undisciplined blending. I’m not trying to match anything specific so I just let the paints mix as the mood strikes me. If I did want to get closer to an example colour I’m able to.

I am continuing to try to add interest to models with freehand. You’ll never improve at anything if you don’t practice, so the more freehand I add the better my skills will become. Doing it when it doesn’t matter lets me get that practice in without pressure.

Infinity Ariadna Para-Commando

The last miniature of the Crimson Stone box set for Infinity. I really hope to get this more or less finished this Sunday or Monday at the latest. If I can and I can finish the Conquest Konungyr I can pick up my next project: A unit of Trolls for Conquest.

This is an interesting model in that it has very few colours. Even compared to other Ariadna models, which have a basic colour scheme, I feel like it uses even fewer colours. I’ve already rendered both the mid and dark greens. This means I have mid grey, light grey, black-grey, blue, weapons, visor and tubes left.

I’ve spoken about flatting before and while the reasons I gave for using it are still valid I find I must enjoy how easy it makes the rest of the painting process. It is a map of how to paint the model and every time I sit down I just have to pick which colour I’m going to render. Being able to ease that decision-making process really translates into a smoother start to a painting session, which translates into making me more likely to start a painting session, which leads to getting more minis painted faster.

Conclusion

This week, compared to last week, really shows my normal painting speed. I’m happy with it, and happy that I’m writing me second weekly wip post. Soon I’ll have to actually write a non-weekly wip post but for now I’m satisfied just to update this blog frequently enough to not have to introduce my articles with an apology for not posting.

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Infinity Nomad Sombra

I really enjoyed painting the platonic solids on the back of this Infinity Sombra from Corvus Belli. I was tempted to add some freehand markings to the cylinder, a simple line around the circumference, but decided not to. I have been adding more freehand to my painting and while this is a good subject I will let my moods guide me in this regard.

Infinity Ariadna Zenit-7

The Zenit-7 was an interesting miniature to paint because I attempted a simple camo scheme on the poncho. Camo can be difficult because you don’t want it to be so effective it makes the forms difficult to distinguish, but you also want it to be visibly camo. I don’t think I nailed it but since my philosophy is to “improve on the next one” instead of seeking perfection I will learn from it and move on.

Infinity Nomad Hellcat

This is the last of the Nomad models from the Operation Crimson Stone box. Once this is done all I’ll have left is the Ariadna Para-Commando.

The Para-Commando was mispacked so it wasn’t assembled and primed with the rest of the box. I’m going to prime it along side a Conquest Konungyr which is in my backlog, before buying anything new.

I had a timeline for this but I completely forgot I need to paint all the bases of these miniatures, so my already ambitious timeline is likely to get pushed by a week.

Maintaining a Painting Log

Getting Back into Infinity

As may be obvious from the miniatures I’m painting I’ve returned to one of my long time favourite games: Infinity. I’ve been “playing” since the second edition, with playing here meaning I’d sometimes buy a few miniatures and think about playing again but bounce off the fact that I didn’t have a full list and would likely need to replace a large portion of what I did have painted to make one.

Now I’ve accepted the fact that there is no “list” for Infinity. It’s a collection of miniatures which you choose from to make lists for specific missions, and proxying, as much as I dislike it, is the name of the game.

Personally my goal will be to eliminate proxies from my lists as much as possible. It’s not that I’m against the concept and don’t want anyone to proxy. However, my focus is on the aesthetics of miniature gaming, so using the right models, painted, is how I want to play.

Conclusion

Well, that’s if for this week. I’m not sure if next week will be as long. Since this is the first time posting in a while I’ve had a lot to discuss. Next week, if I’m still painting Infinity I may not have as much to talk about.

The post Weekly WIP: March 27 2022 appeared first on The General's Tent.

Wait, is it too early for Covid jokes?

So, people haven’t ever been asking if I’m back, and since they haven’t been asking, I haven’t really had an answer, but yeah, I’m thinking I’m back.

My Twitch and Youtube careers never went anywhere and yet I am still compelled to help people paint. While I quit streaming and videos for the same reason I quit this blog – I didn’t feel like enough people were watching/reading to sacrifice time I would otherwise spend painting – I’m going to give the blog another chance.

Isn’t blogging dead? Probably, but it is less effort than Youtube.

Here’s the thing: I hate hearing from people who are afraid to paint or are hating the process or their results. It hurts me. If I could make it so that everyone could enjoy themselves and paint models that they were happy with, of any quality, I would be happy. Since I can’t just give people unsolicited advice I’m going to have produce something which people might choose to consume.

So blogging it is.

Starting Small

Let’s start things slow and easy – a casual set of blog posts where I talk about what I’ve been painting and thinking. Nice and easy and short. Bring blogging back to the roots where people wrote a journal and incomprehensibly exposed it to the public. I’m going to do that.

At first I thought I’d do a weekly post summarizing my painting to date. I’ve done this in the past because I couldn’t fathom what was the point of Twitter (and later Instagram) if I was also posting WIPs here.

Instead I held them back and posted them as a single post. This is good, but it was also a little hard to fill the space around the pictures. I think going forward I should instead skip the individual WIP shots and just show the last things I worked on.

For example. I was off recently and I was painting a miniature every couple of days. However, it was more like a miniature a day except I’d start a miniature in the evening, finish it in the afternoon and start it in the morning. This played havoc with my paint log – I’ve since changed how I track things.

Anyway, this would mean a bunch of pictures of each stage. However, each stage is not a true WIP as it shows a completely painted section. So, instead I could just show the last picture I took of each miniature, comment on it and move on.

Like this, an Infinity Nomad Sombra that I’ve been painting. It’s part of Operation Crimson Stone, that if I had been back on the blog a month ago would have its own project page. Another time, perhaps.

Currently the miniature is only flatted except for the dark grey bodysuit and the central red areas. Normally I like to have a cold red in the center and a warm red on the extremities, but this time I actually started with Kimera Kolors Magenta. I think it works and will make a good contrast with the orange.

And that’s it for this week. It actually isn’t the weekly post but rather just my “I’m Back” post. Except another post this weekend. This is just to get me started.

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It’s been a while…

<cast of Critical Role, in chorus> Been a while…

… but I am back making content. I’m streaming again on twitch and I’m trying to step up my game by also editing videos for Youtube as well. For those that haven’t followed me to Twitter or Instagram I thought I’d embed the videos here as well.

This is a quick video from my twitch stream which I edited so that it focuses only on one part of the model. It’s not a full step-by-step guide but I hope people find it useful.

In addition to this new content I am drawn to post new content to this blog every time I return. So, maybe we’ll see some more updates to this blog.

If you have a moment please leave a comment to give me an idea of which of my comment you are currently following and what your preferences are. I don’t want to just duplicate my content everywhere but in the same way I strive to always improve my painting I can’t coast on social media.

Now to decide whether I need to re-do all my pages and headers.

The post Simplify NMM – It’s not that hard! appeared first on The General's Tent.

I probably should find a larger blog to contribute to instead. I should be a team player for someone else. I have this intense desire to do things my own way and be the leader of my team, even if my team is just me and even if I’m playing in the most minor of minor leagues.

I’m not 100% convinced I want to give up streaming. It seems like it’s a wonderful medium and has the advantage that it has the highest ratio of time spent to content creation. All things require some social media promotion so let’s ignore the time spent there. With Twitch I can sit there and paint and that is the content. With a blog I also need to stop to take and process pictures, then write the actual article. I hope it shows that I spend real effort attempting to write well, which takes time. Time that I am either spending with my family, or spending painting.

It is hard to argue with zero Twitch channel growth. Sure, in a year I had managed to amass over 200 followers. The problem was it was a rare occurrence that even one would show up to watch the stream. I streamed for only an hour a night – that’s how long I paint – and I don’t think I had the following that would make someone plan to watch my stream. An hour was just too short to catch people’s attention.

There were other issues as well: my promotion skills are poor. I do some promotion but it is all tainted by an mistaken belief that if I paint well and am entertaining that people will find me. In all my years of twitter I had jealously read #followfriday posts looking for my name and never once made a post promoting the people I followed. I awarded likes greedily as if they were precious jewels I didn’t want to devalue.

Enough negativity. For whatever reason my painting, twitch, twitter, instagram and blog are not as popular as my ego tells me they should be. I am not an influencer. I need to decide to decide if I can be a content provider with no following, or maybe just a consumer of content. Maybe the world doesn’t need to see what I am painting.

O ye dead Poets, who are living still

Immortal in your verse, though life be fled,

And ye, O living Poets, who are dead

Though ye are living, if neglect can kill,

Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill,

With drops of anguish falling fast and red

From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head,

Ye were not glad you errand to fulfil?

Yes; for the gift and ministry of Song

Have something in them so divinely sweet,

It can assauge the bitterness of wrong;

Not in the clamor of the crowded street,

Not in the shouts and plaudit of the throng,

But in ourselves, are triump and defeat.

The Poets by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The post I Might Be Back, Maybe appeared first on The General's Tent.

And who knows, maybe the very act of posting here again will make me re-think abandoning this blog.

The post Interested in Kill Team appeared first on The General's Tent.

This would be difficult as certain decisions of arms and armour were made for me by the game’s designers and sculptors. Still, I wanted to keep as close to the book as possible in regards to uniforms.

It turns out I’d have an easier time baking Lamprey Pie; George R.R. Martin spends far more time describing food than he does describing outfits. This is fine as a writer but frustrating for someone trying to envision how the armies in his books would have dressed.

The red cloaks wore mail shirts over boiled leather and steel caps with lion crests.

George R.R. Martin – A Game of Thrones

This is pretty much the entire description of Lannister guards throughout the first book. There may be more elsewhere but with all my other projects completed I didn’t want to wait any longer for research.

The colour scheme for the Lannister army will then be red trimmed with gold. Since there is no mention of plate the pauldrons and gorgets will be interpreted as boiled leather. This is more likely than plate as it is both lighter and cheaper. The Lannisters may be rich but I don’t think they’d waste money on their common infantry.

Being leather the armour could then be dyed red to make the colour scheme.

Although I originally planned that the troops would have gold thread embroidery I felt that even the Lannisters would not spend so much on troops. Yellow-dyed cloth and paint would work well enough. This also leaves me room to make my commanders and uniques stand out by painting their embroidery as golden thread.

Since there are so few descriptions of Lannister soldiers in the books I’m leaving myself free to come up with some of my own interpretations – for example the standard bearer wears a white feather instead of red to signify the honour in bearing the standard. Similarly the Guard Captain unit attachment will have a gilded helmet. The Captain is likely a minor bannerman who has brought this unit to answer the Lannister call.

I think the finished unit came out well. I like how the red paaldrons look different from the red cloth and the steel helmets draw your eye to the heads.

It took just over two weeks to paint. I am hoping to find some efficiencies to speed this up. One more unit of guards to go.

– Tyler

The post Painting the Lannisters appeared first on The General's Tent.

It arrived when I was on vacation in July. Although I was excited to begin painting the miniatures I was in the middle of painting some Guildball Fishermen which I had received this past Christmas. Sticking with my goal of painting all purchased miniatures before starting more I finished the Fishermen so that August 21st was the first day I applied brush to miniature.

Do not ask me what made me choose the Lannisters first. I am a Stark by nature and if I were to pick an army to complete for this game it will be a Stark army. None-the-less the Lannisters were the first prepped and so I have begun.

Plans for Painting

I have not fully decided on the painting order for the A Song of Ice and Fire core set. I can either paint all of the Lannisters first and then the Starks, or I can alternate unit by unit. Additionally I need to decide if I want to paint all the units and then all the leaders, or use the leaders as rewards for painting units.

The answer to both questions is how I want to balance momentum and motivation.

On one hand if I stick with Lannister units I am painting similar miniatures using a similar technique. Lannister attachments and commanders would be painted in a somewhat higher quality, requiring a change of technique which will invariable reduce my speed. Switching to Starks would have a similar if not more pronounced effect.

Meanwhile, painting only ranks upon ranks of infantry might become tiresome and boring which would also slow me down. However, much like taking a decision out of your hands often reveals your preference describing my two options is pushing me towards momentum over monotony. The thought of switching gears and losing momentum is more distressing than the thought of painting the same unit multiple times.

How about you? Do you prefer to get everything done in big batches or do you need to break up projects to avoid burn out? Let me know in the comments.

– Tyler

The post Starting the A Song of Ice and Fire Project appeared first on The General's Tent.

Flatting, Rendering and Detailing Miniatures - Breaking down painting into basic stages helps us understand and improve.

I’m also working on a new project: A Song of Ice and Fire by CMON. Expect to see more of that soon, although if you want an advanced look either follow me on Twitter or Instagram.

The post New Painting Article Posted appeared first on The General's Tent.

Essentially I was feeling like I didn’t have enough readers to warrant the effort.

Nothing’s changed in that regard, but if you are a follower throw a comment down below. I’m not going to start begging for comments but it would be interesting to get an idea if there is anyone actually reading this.

Comments are the currency that I measure my success. I see other blogs with multiple comments on every post and I think I must have been doing something wrong all these years.

If you are reading and have suggestions on the kind of things you want to see, let me know.

The only reason I’m back is that I missed talking about the hobby. I’ve been watching painters streaming on Twitch and ignoring the streaming just to talk about the hobby in the chat.

I also find I’m referencing some of my more explanatory articles on Reddit more frequently.

So, I am back. I am going to post articles about specific techniques or experiments rather than WIPs. It won’t be frequent but in the world of RSS feeds that shouldn’t cause anyone any issues.

That said, here’s what I’m currently painting because I can’t leave an article without a picture:

Jayne Cobb from Firefly Adventures by Gale Force Nine

The post Anyone Still Here? appeared first on The General's Tent.

I just watched this video by Aythami Alonso Torrent which I found to be well presented and informative. I’m not sure how helpful it will be for me but it is certainly one way to paint miniatures.

This is not my normal reaction to seeing a painting video. Recently I watched a Beasts of War video on two brush blending that had me considering the technique. I find often when I watch a painting video, or read a tutorial or just hear someone describing their technique I want to try it.

For the longest time I attributed this to pure ego. My natural reaction to seeing someone achieving results that I envy is to deny their superiority and think to myself that “I can do that. I can do that better, even.” This natural reaction is quickly followed by the acknowledgement that if I want to think this way I must prove it. I only paint as well as I do because every time I see a higher standard I vow to surpass it. Strangely I don’t really want to be the best painter, I just need to be better than everyone I meet or who’s work I see in person or online.

Putting aside this ugly facet of my personality I had an epiphany of what my real fascination with painting tutorials. The reason I’m always driven to learn new techniques and adapt them for myself is a fear of becoming hidebound and formulaic with my painting. When painting becomes too mechanical I can see the quality of my painting decline while feeling a reduction in pleasure.

I encourage all painters to experiment with new techniques and styles of painting. All growth comes from experimentation and not simply copying painting steps by rote. I also suggest you indulge your inner egomaniac and view all other painters work as within your ability, then work to prove that you are not merely conceited.

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Saxon Thegns as Saga Anglo-Dane Huscarl by Gripping Beast. Painted by Tyler Provick.

I was able to progress quickly to painting the shields since the mail shirts covered much of the tunics of the Huscarl. Since the central boss is metal I wanted to paint the shields before reaching that section. While I’m not sure it is accurate I decided that my Huscarl were more pious than the Ceorls and used more Christian iconography on the shields. Again I took inspiration from Little Big Men Studio transfers while attempting to not copy them directly. The knot-work pattern on the black shield is likely not accurate to the period.

Saxon Thegns as Saga Anglo-Dane Huscarl by Gripping Beast. Painted by Tyler Provick.

Mid week I was starting to get my groove painting the shields. Here I completed four shields in a simple session and started experimenting with outlines. The shield at the back is probably terrible inaccurate.

Saxon Thegns as Saga Anglo-Dane Huscarl by Gripping Beast. Painted by Tyler Provick.

Normally I don’t use washes at any point of my painting process. With things like mail shirts they are warranted so I alternated between painting on metallic paint and then adding a black wash. I’m pretty impressed with the quality of the mail sculpting considering that these are plastic miniatures.

Anglo-Dane 4 Point Warband by Gripping Beast. Painted by Tyler Provick.

I finished the miniatures on Thursday. They are not yet based as I don’t have enough neodymium magnets and ordering them from Ebay is incredibly slow. Once they arrive they will be superglued into the pre-drilled holes. A layer of modeling putty will blend the bases together and add texture. This will then be painted brown and flock applied for grass. I’ve cropped the extra miniatures out of the image. There are 4 extra Ceorls and 2 extra Huscarl, plus a Huscarl banner bearer. I picked randomly here but will probably pick my favorite shield designs.

Friday Saga Battle Report

Sadly my Friday game fell through. Not only was there no-one available to host and few people looking to play but I ended up working the whole evening. All I can say about that is everyone needs to limit the levels of subfolders they use and keep file and folder names under 10 characters if possible.

Future Plans

I’m taking a little break from imposed deadlines and massed unit painting. My plan was to return to the Walkin’ Boss figure I’ve been slowly chipping away at. I haven’t yet and instead have been putting together the last of my unit of 1812 Upper Canadian Incorporated Militia I started so long ago that they pre-date this version of the blog. It turns out that I only had 16 miniatures left, a number that currently sounds very small.

Victrix Napoleonic British figures.

I have 10 figures left to assemble, which I’ve started on since I’m taking a short painting break. I’ve forgotten how wonderful and frustrating these figures are. The multi-part plastics gives you lots of options for posing but also increase build and cleanup compared to Gripping Beast’s Dark Age Warriors. To make matters more difficult the plastic is resistant to the Tamiya Polystyrene Cement I’m using. It does work but it takes a long time to soften the plastic and doesn’t penetrate deeply. For the shoulders I’ve taken to scoring the joins with my knife to aid penetration of the solvent-based glue.

My plan is for multi-based miniatures, 8 figures to deep base so the muskets and bayonets don’t overhang the front. I’m using a very narrow frontage, only 60mm for 4 figure ranks, or 15mm per figure. I haven’t glued anything to the base yet, planning to arrange the models in pleasing mini-dioramas. For example, this is supposed to show a sergeant assisting a private in reloading his musket while his own it leaning in the crook of his arm.

I’d like to finish the unit before I start anything new. I won’t be following my normal policy of painting all the miniatures in the box whether I need them or not. I don’t know how many of these miniatures I’ll need for my large project. All the officer, sergeant, drummer and colour bearers have been used for the unit. I think that each box of 52 figures will leave a few privates behind and eventually I can combine them with some metal officers to form their own unit.

The post Weekly WIP: The Last of the <em>Saga</em> appeared first on The General's Tent.

Batch Painting

I have painted miniatures in batches before. My first choice was how large a batch I wanted to paint. Too large and I would feel rushed and frustrated. My rule of thumb is to size my batches based on what I can paint in a week. In the past this has been 4-6 miniatures. Any more and I quickly fatigue and slow down. My last project felt fast at one week per miniature.

Saga Anglo-Danes by Gripping Beast.

For Saga I made the strange decision to paint 10 miniatures per week. I noticed that the 4 point starter box actually came with 20 warriors, 10 hearthguard, a standard bearer and the warlord. While I only need 16 warriors, 8 hearthguard and a warlord I try to make it a habit to paint all of the miniatures I buy when I buy them. On the upside if I pull it off, and paint the Warlord and Standard Bearer alongside the Hearthguard (so 12 miniatures that week) I’ll be done in three weeks. I like the sound of that.

Painting Shields

The next choice came during assembly. How did I want to tackle the shields. The fastest, and perhaps smartest, way to paint the shields would be to leave them separate, use some wonderful Little Big Men Studios transfers, and glue them on at the end of the painting process. Of course that would have meant ordering the transfers in advance and forfeiting the ability to be creative and practice my freehand.

It occurs to me now that I could have probably received an order of transfers by the time I was finished painting all the miniatures and applied them in one big batch. It didn’t occur to me last week so I am committed to freehand. Personally I am happy with my freehand and although it significantly increases the painting time I am happier knowing that I painted the shields myself, however great the LBMS transfers look.

I must admit that I took a lot of inspiration from the available LBMS transfers. I had tried to find some historical sources but our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon shield designs is very spotty.

The Next Point

My next batch of miniatures for the project is another 10 warriors. In Saga 8 warriors costs 1 point so I’m painting an extra 4 warriors. So far I am on target for a three week completion, assuming I don’t decide to paint the Warlord and standard bearer by themselves.

The post <em>Saga</em> Project: The First Point Defines Them All appeared first on The General's Tent.

Dark Age Warriors by Gripping Beast. Painted by Tyler Provick.

Sunday night, when I was writing the last Weekly WIP, I was painting the shields of my first unit of Warriors. I picked a colour to use as the base of the shield then painted a design in a darker colour over top. While the freehand was a little rough I found that adding some painted-on battle damage really help distract the eye.

Saga Anglo-Danes by Gripping Beast. Painted by Tyler Provick.

I followed the same process to paint the shields on all 10 models then used a few rough glazes of brown to give them a dirty appearance. Like the battle damage this was very helpful in improving the appearance of the shields. I had finished this Sunday and started assembly of the next batch on Monday.

Masking the bottom of miniature bases.

When painting large batches I like to mount the miniatures to craft sticks using hot glue. I found the first batch of warriors I painted were difficult to remove from the hot glue. Taking inspiration from 3D printing I experimented with masking tape on the bottom of the base. My theory was that I could remove the tape if the glue proved stubborn. It turns out that the tape has a perfect surface for staying in place while painting but cleanly releasing when I am finished.

Dark Age Warriors by Gripping Beast. Painted by Tyler Provick.

Painting of the next batch was started earlier in the week than the first. Realizing that the first colours picked for my batch painting process will be the most common colour in the batch I chose red and green as being unrepresented in my first batch. Although I am painting in batches of 10 I have no intention of fielding models painted in the same batch together. Splitting them up will give a further feeling of individuality.

Dark Age Warriors by Gripping Beast. Painted by Tyler Provick.

By Tuesday I was almost ready to start painting the shields. Tuesday was when I started my first batch and I let the feeling of accomplishment drive me forward even as I started to feel the first signs of fatigue.

Dark Age Warriors by Gripping Beast. Painted by Tyler Provick.

By Wednesday the shields were complete. I’m not as happy with this batch compared to the first and this was a direct result of losing a little steam. Particularily the yellows and blues feel too bright and could have been desaturated for a more accurate look.

Saxon Thegns by Gripping Beast. Painted by Tyler Provick.

Thursday was spent finishing the last batch of warriors and the final 12 miniatures, 10 hearthguard, a warlord and a standard bearer were assembled Friday. I was a little intimidated to go from 10 miniatures in a batch to 12. Not only that but I was planning to paint more intricate patterns on the shields to show the hearthguard’s higher station.

This coming Friday the Dice Devils will be playing Saga. I plan to be there regardless of the state of my miniatures but I will be much happier to have fully painted miniatures to show. It’s too bad my magnets haven’t arrived, I’m not able to complete the basing until they do.

Wish me luck.

The post Weekly WIP: Full <em>Saga</em> Ahead appeared first on The General's Tent.

My plan has been to glue magnets into the bases of my miniatures and use metal containers, such as Christmas cookie tins for storage. The magnets have worked a treat and haven’t been too terrible to retrofit into my existing collection, ignoring many of my miniatures mounted on metal washers.

When I saw the X-Case review on Wargamer Girl’s Youtube channel I was instantly interested in the Kickstarter. I had a few questions and thought I would request an interview with Active Minds so that I could share what I learned here on my blog. Kenneth Romero accepted my request and I eagerly sent my questions.

The Interview

Tyler: When I first saw the Kickstarter I was instantly interested in the X-Case. I’ve been looking for a storage system for a long time and generally make do with DIY solutions which don’t really work. Buying foam and bags is very expensive and I have armies which are not finalized. I’m always afraid that I’ll buy foam that doesn’t fit my future needs.

My first question is on the design. It seems the intended practice to to carry the X-Case with the doors facing inwards and then opening the case wide to allow access to the miniatures. Is there any reason not to connect the X-Case so that the doors face outwards allowing easier access to the miniatures inside within a smaller footprint?

Kenneth: No reason, I just find when showing the cases off a book opening setup works best. For transport though it is purely owner preference.

X-Case Clear by Active Minds Games.

Tyler: I am very interested in magnetic basing. I’ve started attaching magnets to the bases on my miniatures. I noticed that your system uses magnets in the case with ferrous material in the form of “Flex Iron” which is sold cut into standard base sizes. Is it possible to attach the Flex Iron to the case to allow storage of miniatures with magnetic bases?

Kenneth: Yes, it is possible to attach flex iron to the case and we do sell it in strips the same width as the magnet 2″. The Flex Iron would have to be glued down since it does not have adhesive on one side as the magnet does. If you double up the Flex Iron the hold will increase in strength as well.

Tyler: For those that are planning to use the standard system you include with the cases for attaching the miniatures I was wondering about the strengths of the magnet. The magnetic strip I’ve seen in craft stores doesn’t seem strong enough to handle large metal miniatures. Is your material different or is the Flex Iron that provides the strength? What types of miniatures have you tested with the system? A large metal Warjack seems like it would be a challenge.

Kenneth: The Magnetic strip we use is a high energy magnetic material. Unlike craft magnetic material it is quite a bit thicker and unfortunately limited in the available widths thus the 2″ width of the strip. It is plenty strong as far as pull goes and most pieces stick to the magnet great with the Flex Iron base the larger the base the more magnetic hold. That said there are top heavy or extremely dense metal pieces that with enough vibration or hard enough impact could knock loose. For those we recommend gluing an extra layer of flex iron to the base and you will gain a very noticeable increase in hold. At only 1/32 inches thick even 2 layers has a barely noticeable impact on the profile appearance. I am not familiar with the war jack and without actually testing I cannot guarantee but large base figures, max 2.74 inches.

X-Case in multiple colours by Active Minds Games.

Tyler: What is your goal with the Kickstarter. Generally Kickstarters are to allow the funding of new projects. You are already selling the X-Case on your website so the only obvious improvement of the Kickstarter over the current product is the additional colours and a price discount. Is this for a new tooling of the molds or is the goal to introduce the different sizes of X-Case hinted in the stretch goals?

Kenneth: Well the Kickstarter is primarily to bring the new clear units to market, make a few minor improvements, refill our nearly sold out inventory, and hopefully provide the units to some people outside of the U. S.. We would really like to reach the stretch goals allowing us to start production on the custom inserts for holding cards, tokens, and other game, painting, collection related items.

Tyler: Any hints of what colours we can expect in the stretch goal or anything you’re really excited about?

Kenneth: I am most excited about getting the inserts made as I believe they are the next best step for the XCase. Color plans are really just for special events and of course Kickstarter backers who choose that reward level. Economies of scale make it difficult to have more than a few primary colors. We had plans for adding a stretch goal to make larger units but that may have to wait until a later date since current backing pace probably will not reach the level required

Tyler: Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. Good luck on the Kickstarter, I’m excited to see what designs you’ll come up with when you hit your stretch goals.

Kenneth: Thanks for inquiring about the XCase. I look forward to reading your blog.

The post X-Case Kickstarter Interview with Kenneth Romero of Active Mind Games appeared first on The General's Tent.

At the end of March 2017 one of the Dice Devils decided to adopt the game system and I jumped at the chance to join them. Since then more and more members have come on board and the game has reached, as Russ Waiklin would say, “new hotness” status.

An active group of gamers playing a game I want to play and I’m in during the initial wave of enthusiam. This is my ideal situation.

This Is My Army

The first step of the process was to choose which army I wanted to collect. I don’t like to spend too much money at the beginning of a project so I restricted myself to the factions available in the base rulebook. Of the four Vikings seemed like the obvious choice. If you could pick between the people who roamed the seas winning fights and the people who they preyed upon wouldn’t you pick the Vikings? Plus the show Vikings is a strong incentive to pick Vikings.

Anglo-Dane 4 Point Plastic Starter Set from Gripping Beast. Battle board and Saga dice sold separately.

So of course I took the Anglo-Danes. If Vikings were popular, I reasoned, then Anglo-Danes will be scarce. I always try to avoid the popular factions. It’s a terrible way to make such a large commitment but that’s my nature. Hearing that they can be difficult to use properly is just icing on the masochistic cake for me.

Anglo-Danes have the normal selection of Hearthguard, Warriors and Levy. The only weapon options is that Levies can have bows or slings and the Hearthguard can have Dane Axes.

It is the Battle Board that makes the Anglo-Danes so formidable. Their strategy is to fight defensively until their enemy starts to tire and then make a decisive attack.

Raise the Fyrd

In every other project I have planned to recruit a smaller than regular force to start with. I don’t like buying more than I can easily paint in a month so normally this makes sense. I’ve noticed that I struggle to then bring by army up to the normal size as doing so usually means leaving some of the units out from my smaller force.

Saga doesn’t have this problem, everything costs 1 point, I still want to plan my large army and then paint a section of it at a time.

What I Have

I’ve already purchased some miniatures for this project so they will form the basis of my army. Each entry, except for the Warlord, is worth a single point.

• 1 Warlord.
• 4 Huscarls (Hearthguard) with Axes.
• 4 Huscarls with Spears.
• 8 Ceorls (Warriors).
• 8 Ceorls.

What I’m Planning

This leaves me with 2 points to spend. My first thought is to add some Geburs (Levies) as it is the only way to get some missile troops and will add some useful flexibility to my army. The Saga alpha of our group is a big fan of Footsore Miniatures and I’m looking to them to round out my army.

Footsore Late Saxon Archers. Image by Footsore Miniatures and used without permission.

This leaves me with 1 last point to spend. I’m not sure the most efficient way to spend it. I am debating between adding more Huscarls or Ceorls. Either way I want to combine them into a large unit to allow me to field a warbanner. Being able to shed fatigue is great but I mostly like the idea of having a banner in my force.

The 4 points plastic starter comes with some extra figures. I have 4 extra Ceorls and 2 extra Huscarls with spears. I also have a model carrying a banner wearing chainmail which would work for Huscarls. This means I’d need only to paint a single Huscarl to bring me to 6 points.

Then again, I’d only need to paint four Ceorls to add another point of Ceorls to my army. Choices, choices. I think the best choice would be to pick up a metal Huscarl and four Ceorls, one with a banner, and paint them all up. This way I can try both and decide which works best.

Conclusion

So there we have my plan. I’m going to paint 4 points at first and then add another three by adding a unit of levies and a few other miniatures to bring my left-over Ceorls and Huscarls to a full point each.

I have to agree with Henry Hyde about the joys of project planning. With my last few projects I’ve discovered a real joy into organizing my hobby activities into defined projects. Finishing a project doesn’t mean that I am done with a game but it gives me a reasonable framework to plan my purchases and painting to keep me on track.

I have far too many games where poor planning has left me with a “starter sized” army and an awkward expansion to the standard size that requires me to drop a bunch of already painted figures from my order of battle. Thankfully Saga’s point system means that I’ll never have to worry about being underpointed because I didn’t fit my army together efficiently.

The post <em>Saga</em> Project Introduction and Goals appeared first on The General's Tent.

Gripping Beast Plastic Dark Age Warriors. Painted by Tyler Provick.

That night I had assembled 10 Warriors and by the time I put down my brush on Wednesday I have painted the skin and half the clothing of the batch. These miniatures are high quality with well-sculpted faces full of character that took my simple highlighting well.

Compared to my Guild Ball Project I used a very simple three step painting process. From black I applied the darkest shade of the colour I was painting. Unless the coverage was particularly poor I didn’t worry about achieving an even coat.

Then I applied the midtone, leaving the shade in the recesses and following the Zenithal Lighting approach. Again I only worried about a second coat if I felt it was really required.

Next I applied my highlight, worrying only about the tops of surfaces. This was normally my last step but if I felt that the jump from midtone to highlight was too stark I quickly mixed the two tones together and painted a layer at the boarder between the two.

Gripping Beast Plastic Dark Age Warriors. Painted by Tyler Provick.

Thursday night was more painting cloth followed by painting all the wood. In Saga Anglo-Dane Warriors are not a professional fighting force and I wanted them to look suitably motley. I spent some time researching what types of clothes they would have based on the available dies. I focused on the clothing instead of the details to make them look ragged. The wood and leather on all the miniatures can be painted the same and they will still look different.

By the end of Thursday night I was thinking that I’d made such good progress I may be able to paint two batches of 10 a week, for a staggering, compared to my Batman Miniature Game average of 1 figure a month, total of 20 miniatures a week. It is theoretically possible; if I had the fore-sight to order some shield transfers and the desire to use them. Instead I will be painting freehand all 10 shields, a feat that alternatively fills me with apprehension and excitement. Fortunately for me I want my Warriors to have much simpler designs than my Hearthguard. Which will make things easier, until it’s time to paint my Hearthguard.

Gluing magnets in Renedra bases for Saga.

It has been a while since I’ve painted 10 figures in a week and this speed is making me look forward to other projects involving large forces. The group I’ll be playing Saga with also plays Napoleonics so we may see a renewal of that project.

How do you paint large batches of miniatures? Leave your tips in the comments and tell me how much you’re able to paint in a go and how.

The post Weekly WIP: <em>Saga</em> Finally! appeared first on The General's Tent.

Apparently Gripping Beast has been so busy prepping for Salute that an order placed April 3rd hasn’t shipped by the 24th. This is assuming that the store who has placed the order for me isn’t covering their own mistakes. Now I’m only mildly annoyed and acknowledge my own feelings of entitlement but if I had known it was going to take this long I could have probably started and completed a small project in the meantime. I didn’t because I felt my hobby money and time was going to be completely occupied with Saga.

I wasn’t completely idle, however, and managed to participate in, but not play, a game of Saga with my local group. It was the first time that I was able to attend a large event and meet the majority in person so I had a great time. Since I didn’t have any models I wasn’t playing. Instead of focused on helping out with rules interpretations as everyone learnt the rules together. We made plenty of mistakes but fewer than if I hadn’t helped.

At the same event I was able to teach a game of Guild Ball. As my most recently project where I successfully completed two full forces within a reasonable time period I’m still trying to find more opponents for the game. There has been some activity within the somewhat dormant Guild Ball community lately as well. Alas I didn’t take advantage assuming that if my Saga arrived I’d be much more interested in starting on it than playing Guild Ball.

Since I am terrible at Guild Ball and always will be I lost to the player I was teaching. This is the problem with games that reward player skill over dice luck: I can’t rely on dice luck to win me the game. Which is amusing because my dice luck is pretty poor.

Saga Arrives

This post languished for a week because I just didn’t have the energy to complete it. Last night my Saga order arrived and I’ve already assembled 10 warriors for my Anglo-Dane warband. Tonight I hope to prime them early enough in the evening to start painting them tonight. My goal is to exceed my previous best for painting speed and knock the entire warband out in short order. Thankfully my research into the clothing worn during the period hasn’t turned up much in the way of patterned cloth which greatly simplifies the painting process.

The post Weekly WIP: Waiting for <em>Saga</em> appeared first on The General's Tent.

Still, some time has passed since my mistake and I think I am ready to take another crack.

There hasn’t been much progress on my X-Wing project. I’ve wiped off my oil wash but want to let the oil fully dry before applying a clear coat and then adding more oils for weathering. I’m not sure if it’s necessary and before I go further I’ll be looking up some tutorials on the technique. I know that the oil wash can be lifted by the thinners I will use but I’m not sure if that will be a problem. It’s as good an excuse as any to watch Fichtenfoo’s videos on weathering the Millenium Falcon.

Don’t worry, I haven’t spent the week watching paint dry. I was able to make a rare trip to the gaming table in order to play some Batman Miniature Game. I’ve been off the game due to it not having an affordable option to get the most up to date rules. However I found an opponent who was in the same position as me. I don’t mind playing old versions of rules, I really hate playing a different version than my opponent and the arguments that this causes. It’s one thing to misunderstand a rule, it’s another to fully understand a rule and be wrong.

Batman Miniature Game by Knight Models

I’m too excited by the imminent arrival of my Saga miniatures to start any major projects but I have been slowly chipping away at my Walkin’ Boss figure. I’m not rushing to finish it but am trying to keep the painting habit going until I see if I can better my Guild Ball productivity when Saga arrives.

Walkin’ Boss by Bent Bristle.

This week I’ve painted the shirt and vest. I’ve tried to open up my stiff painting style by roughing in my opaque layers before smoothing things out with glazes. I’m still forgetting to worry about making sure I’ve rendered the gross surface shape before worrying about details like folds. I think I’ve managed to do a decent job on the vest which has a generally darker value the further down the vest we get but it was more luck than artifice.

The next step will be the jacket which I hope to tackle tonight. I’ve been hesitant to start it because I feel like it will be a long task. I think this is a common roadblock to people who are happy to jump from one short task to another for hours but balk at committing to something longer. Not that it should take significantly longer than the vest. Painting large surfaces doesn’t seem to take significantly longer than medium surfaces. Most of my time is spent mixing paints anyway, or so it feels.

Well, that’s it for this week. I need to work on an article about Saga to kick off the process. Hopefully I can provide a bit more detail than my Guild Ball project.

The post Weekly WIP: X-Wing, Walkin Boss and return to Batman appeared first on The General's Tent.

Still, the silence wears on me. Come Sunday evening I have an unease feeling that I’ve forgotten something. I am still focused on wargaming but when my interest inevitably switches to RPGs, and I must admit that I feel that distant pull, what will happen with my posting productivity?

The solution is to change the nature, but not the name, of my Weekly WIP. Instead of specifically focusing on what I’ve painted in the week I’m broadening the scope to anything hobby related I’ve been doing or thinking.

Of course I am keenly interested in feedback on this new direction. Did you know that you can comment directly on each post of my blog and that I am so desperate for attention I reply to every comment as soon as I see it?

Bolt Action

After missing the past two bi-monthly Bolt Action games at Boutique FDB I’ve finally managed to make it out. This time the organizer gave a specific point value instead of a range which meant I could make my list and arrive confident I wouldn’t have to make any last minute adjustments. Unfortunately my opponent was not so prepare and I ended up with a lot of time to wander the store while he made his list.

The scenario we randomly chose featured an objective in the center of the board which could be captured and carried off by a unit of infantry. My opponent is playing with a cavalry heavy army and it happened to be the perfect force for this scenario.

Moving my troops evening onto the field.  The rifle section on my left flank (your right) are too far to effect the fight for the objective. Bolt Action Gameplay at Boutique FDB.

Not that I didn’t have an opportunity to stop his units but I wasn’t considering the objective or the presence of infantry which can move 18″ per turn until it was too late. If I had I would have concentrated more firepower around the objective to make it less likely that a unit of cavalry could run out, grab the objective and run back without being annihilated by LMG and rifle fire.

Bandai X-Wing

For the past few years Bandai has been making a huge selection of snap-fit kits for Star Wars properties in the style of their Gundam kits. These are high quality kits which snapped together but weren’t simple or toy-like. They are cast with different colours and types of plastic on the same sprue which meant they could be build without paint for a reasonable effect.

Bandai 1/72 X-Wing Fighter

These models represent a break from painting miniatures. I can assemble them without worrying about painting. In the back of my mind, however, is the idea that I would like to paint them at some point. I even started one years ago but left it with just a simple base colour.

This is what I’ve been primarily working on the past few weeks. I decided just to “get’er done” and have used the supplied decals and even a paintbrush to add the different markings. I’ve made a number of mistakes in the process and will probably use masking and paint for future models. Despite the mistakes it feels good to be nearing the end of this build.

Batman Miniature Game Terrain

While I was waiting for my opponent to build his Bolt Action army list I noticed some laser-cut garbage skips from TT Combat. They were discounted because they had separated the fences that normally come with the kit, likely for a customer who needed more fence and have plenty of skips. It worked well for me since I had no desire for the fences which I hadn’t even realized were missing when I bought them.

Knight Models Batman Miniature Game Joker standing next to TT Combats Refuse Skip.

I had hoped that the skips would be low enough to provide cover without blocking LOS but sadly this is not the case. In order to allow them to do so I’m going to create some wooden pallets which I can stack to form cover or side next to the skip to form a firing step.

TT Combat’s website is dangerous, especially since I know I can have my local store stock it. I’ve found a number of things I’d absolutely love to have, such as:

TT Combat’s MSV Ironsides would look great on my table.

Designing Widgets

Speaking of laser cutting I’m getting in the habit of keeping a monthly booking at my local library in order to use their laser cutter. The idea is that by the time the booking rolls around I’ll probably have a number of things I want to make, as opposed to coming up with something to make and then trying to book the equipment. So far I haven’t been able to book anything earlier than a month out which means long waits to build what I need.

With Saga on the horizon I’ve been looking at measuring widgets, fatigue tokens and playing around with basing ideas. My biggest concern is deciding what I want to make my bases out of. 1mm card would be nice and thin but maybe be too thin for the magnets I plan to use. 3mm mdf will fit the magnets but may be too thick, especially if I want to make sabot bases or movement trays. Then there’s clear plastic bases which is another wrinkle all-together.

I’m also designing the wooden pallets I mentioned above. My plan to cut a number of rectangular strips, plus 6 risers which will be doubled for thickness. I should be able to fit a tonne on a 20″ by 16″ sheet although cutting time will probably be high.

That brings me up to date with my current plans. Once again, let me know whether this time of journal-style post is interesting or not in the comments.

The post Weekly WIP: Playing <em>Bolt Action</em> and Building Models appeared first on The General's Tent.

The Masons Guild is an easier guild to paint than the Brewers. Not only is there no tartan their outfits are much simpler. Skin, black cloth, blue cloth, brown leather straps and armour. Easy, right? Of course I decided that I was going to not use metallic paint for all the armour. Painting NMM is sometimes seen as an advanced technique but I wanted to show that it doesn’t require perfectly painted reflections of imaginary scenery to make normal paint look metallic.

Guild Ball Masons team by Steamforged Games.

Metal isn’t an impossible surface to paint, nor does it need a special set of rules to do so. Cloth is all diffused highlights and metal is all specular. The light hits the same spots but then reflects into our eyes differently.  Generally this means that the contrast between light and shadow is stronger but also areas which would be lit by diffused highlights on a piece of fabric are deeply shadowed on metal.

Now that this project is finished I am free to pursue other projects. I had originally planned on painting the Fishermen Guild immediately following these two guilds but as I said in the last project update this is something I am putting aside for now. I need a break.

Unlike last time I have seen an upswing in activity within my local community. Our Vassal League has moved from the group stage to the playoffs and we had a local tournament where I won best painted army and, more shockingly, a game of Guild Ball. I still really enjoy this game and am considering my next steps. I still want to play the Fishermen Guild but maybe I should expand both the Mason and Brewers guilds into 9 player teams. In a tournament you are supposed to bring 9 players and draft the 6 you want to field during a specific game.

Whatever choice I make it will be a new project. This one, I am very pleased to report, is complete.

The post <em>Guild Ball Kick Off!</em> Project: The Masons appeared first on The General's Tent.

I painted the Brewers one miniature at a time, taking about a week per model. I tend to paint weekday evenings and occasionally on the weekend. I would estimate I spent roughly 6-7 hours per miniature with the more recent miniatures taking even less time. In my painting quality scale I’d say these are a step down from my highest wargame quality as demonstrated on my Batman miniatures.

Guild Ball Brewers by Steamforged Games.

One of the struggles I faced while painting the miniatures was a desire to keep painting one area to make the blending look like what I achieved with my Batman miniatures. I had to remind myself that I didn’t need to hide all my brushstrokes and blending and to not linger too long on any miniature. This is why my later miniatures, when I had more fully embraced this philosophy, took less time.

During this time I’ve also managed to play a few games of Guild Ball both as the Brewers vs. the Masons that came in the box and online using Vassal. For the Vassal tournament I am playing as Fishermen since that was the guild I originally wanted to play. Unfortunately the active group I saw when I made the decision to play Guild Ball in October has evaporated to follow other interests.

I haven’t been focusing solely on Guild Ball during this time. I’m also participating in a Bolt Action league at the local store. It makes me question how much I will be able to play this game I was so excited about. I will be finishing this project but I am no longer planning to immediately purchase and paint a team for the Fishermen’s Guild. For one, I feel I will want to use the two guilds I’ve painted despite them not being my first choice, and also there are other projects attracting my attention.

I really want  to ride the initial wave of enthusiasm for a game instead of coming in as people start losing interest.

Looking forward to the rest of this project I have decided that I am going to attempt to paint the Masons Guild two miniatures at a time. Hopefully I will either finish early or be able to incorporate other projects into my painting queue.

The post <em>Guild Ball Kick Off!</em> Project: The Brewers appeared first on The General's Tent.

Guild Ball Masons Flint and Brink by Steamforged Games.

As usually I layed out my colours, making choices about which sections are going to be blue or brown. It was at this stage that I realized that Flint had a “brah” beard and decided that it would be a dark brown instead of blonde like his head.

Guild Ball Masons Flint and Brink by Steamforged Games.

I wanted to linger forever on Brick’s right forearm to render the shapes perfects but I forced myself to move on. These shapes without an obvious way to highlight and shade are the most interesting to paint.

Guild Ball Masons Flint and Brink by Steamforged Games.

Speaking of interesting shapes to paint I made a mistake on Brick’s right leg. I focused too much on the creased cloth and forgot that the shape was simply a tilted cylinder. I must remember to work on the large shapes before I add details like creases.

Guild Ball Masons Flint and Brink by Steamforged Games.

The blue I use is Vallejo Model Colour Dark Bljue. It found that the highlights looked very flat, especially across Brick’s shoulders. I really don’t use blue very much in my painting.

Guild Ball Masons Flint and Brink by Steamforged Games.

I stopped taking pictures until I finished as I was rushing to get things done. Despite having the “perfect” environment I am less happy with the metal on these miniatures compared to Honour and Mallet from last week. There just isn’t enough contrast.

Once again I an relieved after attempting to paint NMM to be otherwise finished. Just the darker metal like the chain, the brown straps and the hair. I decided to give Brick a monobrow. I’m not sure I like it but it is done.

I haven’t taken any pictures yet but this week I’ve also been working on a Universal Carrier for Bolt Action. I’ve assembled, primed and airbrushed the basic colours. Next step will be to finish painting the crew. There’s no way to finish assembling the carrier and then add the crew so I’ll be be performing weathering and details with the crew in place.

I missed this week’s Bolt Action game and I will be focused on finishing the last two, three if you count the ball, Guild Ball miniatures to finish my Kick Off Project two weeks early. When that’s finished I’ll be digging into my backlog instead of starting something new.

The post Weekly WIP: Brick and Flint appeared first on The General's Tent.

Part of the “problem” was that I had spent the previous week painting a QF 6 pdr for Bolt Action and was technically behind on my Guild Ball project. In order to get back on track I had decided to paint two Guild Ball miniatures at the same time.

I don’t paint blue often so I always forget how differently it behaves compared to other colours. Guild Ball Masons Mallet and Honour by Steamforged Games.

Deciding to paint two models at the same time wasn’t just a response to trying to fit the Bolt Action model into my painting queue while keeping on track. I am also hoping to finish early for no other reason than I think I can. Now that I’ve been painting the Masons I’m confident I’ll be able to increase my speed. Their outfits are simpler than the Brewers before even considering that I don’t have to spend so much time painting tartan.

The brown straps were painted on Wednesday and then I didn’t touch the brush again the rest of the week. This is when I started fearing that I was going to fall behind again. The problem was that Friday was busy with board games and Saturday with a painting demo at Boutique FDB.

There isn’t much to paint brown except for Mallet’s shoes, pouches and the weapon shafts. Guild Ball Masons Mallet and Honour by Steamforged Games.

With more than a little ego I thought to myself that I probably didn’t need to be there for a painting demo.  While there is still many things about painting that I can learn my reason to attend was motivated by a desire to  spend time with fellow painters more than listen to beginner techniques. I assembled my painting supplies and decided I would try to paint at the store. Not only would it be a pleasant experience but maybe I could catch up on my Guild Ball painting. I hoped that I wasn’t being rude painting instead of paying attention to the seminar.

There are areas where the metal could be done better but it looks like metal to me and matches the level of the rest of the miniature. Guild Ball Masons Mallet and Honour by Steamforged Games.

The first thing the organizer said when I arrived was something along the lines of “What do I have to teach you?” When I explained that I thought that I’d paint he replied that he’d hoped people would come to paint. I guess I wasn’t going to be rude after all. That said, there is plenty to learn from anyone willing to teach and we are close enough in skill that I can’t tell if I am a better painter, or only thing that I am a better painter.

Normally I like Boutique FDB’s lighting. They have bright florescent lights generously scattered around the store plus large windows letting in copious amount of lights. One of the many reasons I prefer to play there has to do with the lighting. If I’m going to spend so much time and effort painting miniatures I want to be able to see them when I’m playing.

Painting at FDB is a different experience. Now the windows are an impediment, throwing my miniature into silhouette and making it very difficult to see. I think that the better I get at painting the more small issues become major difficulties. I felt completely blind and spent more time blending by feel and glazes than I normally would. I did have to remind myself that I wasn’t giving a seminar of NMM painting and things didn’t need to be perfect.

A last few touches and the miniatures are done. Guild Ball Masons Mallet and Honour by Steamforged Games.

Sunday was just a few finishing touches and I’m back on track for completing my project on schedule. Depending on the demands of the Bolt Action escalation league I may even get ahead of schedule. Painting two figures in one week can really take a huge chunk of time off.

The post Weekly WIP: Guild Ball Masons Honour and Mallet appeared first on The General's Tent.

Painting miniatures on a craft stick makes it easy to paint them quickly. WWII Canadian Anti-Tank Team by Bolt Action

Turns out I’m looking for a “small army league” as the escalation part is killing me. Now that I’ve joined a Bolt Action escalation league I’ve found that I’m struggling to keep up. We meet every two weeks and each meeting requires a larger force within a set range. I thought I was fielding the max size but I wasn’t which means I have to grow even more for next meeting.

It wouldn’t be as bad if Bolt Action was better stocked in my town. Ordering online really cuts into my painting time and I’m still trying to complete my Guild Ball project on schedule. Yes, I realize I’m also behind schedule on an update to that project too. The past week I was lucky in that a local player had a spare QF 6pdr lying around.

Compared to painting just the skin of a single miniature in an evening I was able to paint the skin, battledress and webbing of these miniatures in one evening. WWII Canadian Anti-Tank Team by Warlord Games.

Painting the anti-tank gun was a nice break from both Batman and Guild Ball. I was able to completely let go of my perfectionist tendencies and paint the figures quickly. My loyalty lies with men over machines so I don’t get much practice painting equipment like the anti-tank gun so it was also an interesting change.

I started by mounting the men on a craft stick using hot glue, then attaching that to my painting grips. This let me paint all of them at the same time without constantly picking up and putting down small miniatures on a cluttered workspace.

The finished crew were superglued to the base and then Liquitex Modelling Paste was applied to blend them in. The paste was worked with a stiff brush as it dried for texture and the wheels of the AT Gun pressed into the surface. WWII Canadian Anti-Tank Team by Warlord Games.

Since it has been so long since I painted my last WWII figures I had to break out my previous painting log to see what colours I had used. I write down almost every colour I use in a log so I can recreate colour schemes without too much hassle. At first I would carefully record mixing ratios and even paint swatches but now I don’t bother. WWII Canadians are fun since it’s hard to get a consensus on uniform colour and no-one makes a paint that works for their uniform out of the bottle. I’ve experimented with a number of mixes and have expanded the saying to “horseshoes, handgrenades and Canadian Battledress Green”.

As usual I flatted the miniature with the base colours and then applied a shadow, highlight and them tied the two together with a mid-colour. If I were to do it again I think I would flat the miniatures with the shadow colour to save a step but even so I finished all three in a couple of evenings.

After the base was painted and flock added the AT Gun was glued to the surface, then the whole thing was varnished together. WWII Canadian Anti-Tank Team by Warlord Games.

Once the crew was painted I glued them to the base and applied modeling paste to blend them into the ground. Once the putty had dried slightly I used a damp, stiff brush to stipple the surface and give it texture. Once I had painted and added flock I glued the AT-Gun in place and varnished the whole thing.

It was nice to get it finished in time for my game on Sunday. I managed with win, although a miscount at the end made us think we had initially tied. Now I have the grow my army even more and I’m not sure I want to go through this every week.

Compared to the Brewers the Masons have a simpler colour scheme. The challenge will be keeping the metal looking good without spending too much time on it. Guild Ball Mason’s Mallet and Honour by Steamforged Games.

I did manage to paint a little of my Guild Ball miniatures. I had the idea to paint two figures at once for Guild Ball going forward and with the time I spent painting the anti-tank gun it has gone from a chance to finish early to a chance to actually finish on time.

Mallet’s face really came together well and I’m hoping that will represent a good omen for the rest of the paint job. Guild Ball Mason’s Mallet and Honour by Steamforged Games.

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Heavy Gear Southern Cobras by Dream Pod 9.

The last miniatures of the Southern faction from the Heavy Gear Kickstarter are finished. Again, I was pushing the brightness of my airbrushed highlights which can be seen most clearing on the King Cobra on the right. The miniatures still really need a strong shadow to break apart the surfaces and shapes of the gears to make them more visible but I’m not planning on spending any more time on them.

In fact, this marks the end of the entire Kickstarter Project. I have too many other things that I want to paint to waste time on disappointing miniatures. I may return in the future but for now my focus will be getting all my Guild Ball miniatures painted.

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Wednesday I was working on my designs for the laser cutter booking I had made for Thursday. I kept making mistakes and having to re-do my designs. Obvious things like laying out based on the bed size instead of my material size and silly lack of concentration things like not holding CTRL while I rotated an object and having it be slightly mis-aligned. I also played my first game of Vassal Guild Ball in a tournament using a guild I had no experience with. I lost 12-6 but with the difference in experience I am satisfied with the result.

Assembling laser cut storage containers

It’s a tedious process of laying out my cuts to make the most efficient use of material and time. For example, having a cut for one shape also cut a second shape is efficient. However if you just attach the two shapes together the laser will cut the line twice. In order to avoid double-cuts lines have to be deleted and once this happens the layout can’t be changed.

This means that Thursday I spent the evening at the lasercutter. Some of the items didn’t cut right due to some user error. I did successfully cut 10 more shipping containers out of 4 sheets of material, up from 8 containers from 4. I adjusted some of the dimensions to fix some mistakes I made on the previous batch but there are some areas where I still have to trim to fit.

Unattractive but functional

I also made some measuring widgets which were disappointing in finish but actually useful. My laser settings were poor and my etching didn’t even cut through the protective film on the acrylic sheet while my cutting was too hot and left ragged edges. I thought I could save the light etching by using the film as a stencil. I carefully painted two coats of black paint and peeled off the film when it was dry. This is when I discovered that though you could just barely see the etching on the surface I hadn’t cut through the film. All the paint peeled off along with the film. In the end I just sharpied the labels on the widgets. It doesn’t look great but they work.

Friday was Nerdnight, where I have friends over for board games. I ended up playing Guild Ball, which was nice, but I lost 12-0 to an inexperienced player. There were a few times when the dice really let me down but the real reason I lost is that my opponent made effective use of his players and I didn’t. I will take losing when I know what mistakes to fix over losing with no idea of how to avoid it next time.

Ok, so this was a lot to report after all. What I meant was that I didn’t think I would have a lot to report when it comes to painting miniatures. While my 3 month deadline for painting the Kick Off boxed set is completely arbitrary I decided early Saturday that I wasn’t read to give up on it just yet.

I worked hard, sneaking quick painting sessions while I could at the same time as I was building the shipping containers. I am happy to say that I was able to achieve my goal without completely ignoring my family. Not only did I finish Tapper, the last of my Brewer’s Guild miniatures, on schedule for my Kick Off in 3 Months project but I was also able to assemble all 10 containers.

Instead of commenting on each stage I photographed I’m just going to share them as a gallery. If you want to see what I’m painting as I’m painting it you can subscribe to my Twitter or Instagram feed.

The post Weekly WIP: Tapper for Guild Ball appeared first on The General's Tent.

Painting

Looking back at my Google Photos 2016 folder I can see what I was working on.

Batman Miniature Game Ringmaster. Model by Knight Models. Painted by Tyler Provick

January 5th is the first image in the folder of the Ringmaster from Knight Model’s Batman Miniature Game. I had just finished painting the contents of the Dungeon Saga Kickstarter, or at least the base set. The extra heroes, orcs and demons are sitting unprimed on my shelves to this very day.

I wasn’t painting much then as I was focused more on roleplaying via Roll20. I posted mostly about roleplaying and specificly 13th Age until April when I returned to the Ringmaster. This illustrates the point I was trying to make recently about painting frequency being the bigger factor in how fast I paint compared to all other considerations. I finished this model mid-April and started on his boss.

Batman Miniature Game Joker. Model by Knight Models. Painted by Tyler Provick

The Joker, who needs a new picture taken now that I’ve fixed his smile, took me another four months to paint. Someone asked me about commissions this year and my speed, or lack there-of, is a primary factor in my refusal. I find I get even slower when I have someone waiting on me. My blog posts during this time focused on painting faster and finding motivation, which seems on point as I was obviously struggling with finding the enthusiasm to paint.

Batman Miniature Game Sniggering

Sniggering came next. I like this model as his assault rifle really rustled Batman’s jimmies in the last game I played. Three blood damage per hit is nasty. Here my speed was starting to improve, mostly because I was painting more frequently. I painted Sniggering in a little over a month. Preparing for the Heavy Gear Kickstarter was a big motivator, little did I know how things would turn out.

Batman Miniature Game Shield Clown

It only took me 12 days to paint the Shield Clown and I was even able to live tweet painting the skin and transform it into a tutorial. I really had fun painting his shield despite the panic I felt when I realized the angle of the highlighting didn’t match the way the shield attached to the miniature. I made the decision to glue it on so that it looked right, but those who peek under the shield can clearly see that the forearm is broken in the middle and isn’t even attached to the rest of his arm.

The Heavy Gear Kickstarter

At this time my backer rewards for the Heavy Gear Kickstarter arrived and my excitement and enthusiasm quickly turned into something else. It was so bad that it has shaped the way I see all Kickstarters.

Heavy Gear Kickstarter Southern Faction by Dream Pod 9.

I spent about a month quickly painting the Southern faction. I tried to start another faction when I decided that I had spent too much time painting something that I didn’t want to paint. I may return to it as I’m trying to avoid leaving miniatures unpainted, but not yet.

Guild Ball

It was in October that I started paying more attention to Guild Ball. Heavy Gear was a bust and my Batman Miniature Game group had moved to a night when I wasn’t free so I was looking for a game with an active group. With Steamforged Games announcing one of the greatest starter sets in the history of gaming, which must stand in for my review for now, I wanted to give the game a try. The problem was that November 25th was so close to Christmas I figured I was better off saving it.

More Miniatures and a Laser Cutter

Having decided to take a break from Heavy Gear I wanted something I could paint up quickly while I waited. I had previously complained about how many accessories were required to play Batman Miniature Game so I decided to do something about it.

Batman Miniature Game Objectives by Knight Models.

My first step was to create a bunch of paper tokens to represent sewers, lamp posts, objectives and the like. Then I painted a set of objectives for the game and finally I created counters, tokens and even terrain using a laser cutter available at my local library.

Lasercut Card Shipping Containers

A Little Infinity

In November, after finishing the objectives for Batman Miniature Game I didn’t want to start any long projects so that I could jump into painting the miniatures from the Kick Off box as soon as I got it. Infinity has fallen a bit off my radar but I still had one unpainted miniature from the old Nomad starter set that I quickly painted just to say that I had painted all my Infinity miniatures.

Nomad Securitate for Infinity by Corvus Belli.

Although I haven’t taken a picture of the finished model she is complete.

The 2016 Miniature Figures Ottawa Gatineau Show

This year was the first in which I participated in the Miniature Figures Ottawa Gatineau Show. I meant to go last year but confused the date. I had a great time and plan to go next year. I won a figure in a raffle and in order to achieve my goal of showing a competition painted miniature in the next show I started painting it

Walkin’ Boss by Bent Bristle.

Painting a figure for a competition was a real eye-opener. When I’m painting a wargame figure I make it a rule to not worry too much about imperfections and move on to the next miniature, applying what I learnt to it. Painting a figure for a competition means going back and fixing areas which aren’t perfect. I spent three nights working on his skin, the image above is from the first night. I would have called that good enough with any other miniature despite knowing it wasn’t quite right. It even took me some time just looking at the miniature to figure out what was off about it.

Unpainted Kick Off Miniatures by Steamdforged Games.

The year ended with me opening the Kick Off starter set but that is a project for 2017.

Plans for the Future

There were plenty of large gaps where I didn’t paint this year. These gaps, more than any factor, influence my painting speed. Despite this I am happy with the amount and quality of miniatures I painted this year. My goal in 2017 is to reduce the amount of non-painting gaps. When I’m on I paint every day of the week with the occasional gap. I need to make sure that when I’m off I pick up the brush at least once a week to keep things going.

I’m also hoping with Guild Ball to play more games this year. I’ve been trying to focus on only a handful of games and chasing active groups of players which hasn’t been terribly successful. In order to play more games I think I may need to play more games, as in a wider variety.

When I decided to focus more I was painting a few figures for one game and then moving on. If I ever thought about playing I would become discouraged thinking about all the miniatures which still needed painting or in some cases, the accessories I still needed to gather for the game.

Now I have a number of games in a playable state. Instead of maintaining my focus on them I’m thinking about allowing myself to branch out again. This way I can go where the game is instead of hoping to get my miniatures painted before a community evaporates.

How was your year? Were you happy with the number of miniatures painted or the number of games played? Let me know in the comments.

The post 2016 In Review appeared first on The General's Tent.

Guild Ball Brewers Hooper by Steamforged Games.

With how well last week went I decided it might be good to knock off a ball at the same time. When I primed the model I thought that the right hand was strangely over-scale. Considering how well sculpted the miniatures in the Kick Off boxed set are I found it odd to see such a mistake. When I started flatting I realized that Ol’ Hooper was wearing a heavy leather glove. I didn’t notice the glove in the card art as it mostly obscured by the stats.

Guild Ball Brewers Hooper by Steamforged Games.

Keeping on from last week I’m trying to complete at least two areas every evening. I’m not painting longer so I’m having to work faster to finish what I want to finish, no more spending too much time trying to get perfect blends.

Guild Ball Brewers Hooper by Steamforged Games.

Based on my experiences painting the Brewers Guild I would recommend anyone who wishes to get better at freehand paint a bunch of miniatures with a tartan pattern. Where I started painstakingly painting lines and carefully thickening them I am now painting the lines in stronger, more confident strokes. For the majority of miniature painting brush pressure isn’t an important consideration. Sure, we may catch edges with a light brush to highlight but controlling the thickness of a painted line by carefully controlling brush pressure is a skill which I had not yet strongly developed.

Bolt Action

In addition to painting and running a demo game of Guild Ball I also managed to get my first game of Bolt Action. When the 2nd Edition was announced there were a few people talking about playing. I picked up the book myself this Thursday and took part in my first league game this Sunday. I’m planning a slightly more detailed battle report for the Dice Devils’ blog but I will say my dice were hot and an assault a better player would never have attempted ended up winning me the game.

I had fun and am excited about how open Bolt Action’s army building is. What I didn’t realize is that I’ve entered a slow-grow league which means I need to field more points for the next game. I have two weeks to locate and paint the miniatures I need and I am determined not to derail by Guild Ball project.

The post Weekly WIP: <em>Guild Ball</em> Hooper appeared first on The General's Tent.

I sat in with a group in October right as the Kick Off starter set was announced for November 25th. While my original choice of guild was the Fisherman’s Guild I decided that the starter set was the best way to get into the game.

Planning for the project is simple since the boxed set comes with two full teams. My goal is to paint all the miniatures from the box by the end of March 2016.

Brewers

I will paint the Brewers first.

• Tapper
• Hopper
• Friday
• Scum
• Spigot
• Stave

Masons

Of the two teams in the set I am more interested in the Masons. I’m painting them last so I can use them while I am painting the Brewers.

• Honour
• Harmony
• Brick
• Flint
• Mallet
• Marbles

Accessories

The boxed set comes will all the accessories needed to play the game which I find to be excellent design on the part of Steamforged Games. I really like that all the counters and tokens required for the teams are included and wish all future releases would follow this pattern. When I buy a miniature for X-Wing it comes with all the counters required.

There are a few things I want to add to the base set.

• 1/2 Inch wide measuring sticks from 4-10 inches.
• Measuring widgets allowing accurate measurement of curves
• A neoprene pitch.

Except for the pitch I plan on cutting the measuring widgets myself on my library’s laser cutter.

The post Planning the <em>Guild Ball Kick Off!</em> Project appeared first on The General's Tent.

Guild Ball Brewers Spigot by Steamforged Games

Monday I wanted to maintain my momentum and instead of painting one area as is my practice I painted both the cloth and the pants. I was able to get both done because I resisted the urge the plan around too much with the blending, a bad habit I started with Stave.

Guild Ball Brewers Spigot by Steamforged Games

The picture is a little blurry but I finished the tartan and the white bandages on Tuesday. I was feeling a bit confident and decided to take an easy night with those two small areas.

Guild Ball Brewers Spigot by Steamforged Games

It was Thursday before I took up the brush again. Wednesday is supposed to be my local store’s Guild Ball night. I wasn’t able to arrange a game but I showed up to watch a game planned by two other players. Unfortunately neither showed and I ended up hanging around with a bunch of Warmachine players. It wasn’t a total loss as I find socializing with other miniature gamers gives me a change to talk about my hobby which I don’t get with my other friends.

Painting-wise I completed the boots and brown straps. Looking at it now I may have rushed the straps although it looks fine on the table.

Guild Ball Brewers Spigot by Steamforged Games

Friday was my board game night. It was a small crowd so after playing a couple of hands of Android: Netrunner, or as I call it: The Corporation Always Loses, I tried to introduce a new player to Guild Ball. For the first time I used the “Read This First” booklet from the Kick Off starter set. I felt it would be a quick way to introduce the concepts and get playing.

While I’m not sure if I’ve created a new Guild Ball player the tutorial did get us playing the game quickly. I played the Brewers against the Masons. After the book walks the Masons through scoring I helped my friend see some plays it usually takes a few games to notice. This resulted in him immediately stealing the ball and scoring on his first activation, then stealing the ball and scoring on his next activation.

On Saturday I painted the wood of the barrels and the steel. It felt strange not to paint the split-barrel shoulder guards of Friday and Stave.

Guild Ball Brewers Spigot by Steamforged Games

Finally on Sunday night I completed the hair, bottle, mug, cordage and brass accents. While Spigot is a little rougher than both Friday and Stave I’m happy with the progress I am making. I’ll prime Hooper Monday and see if I can’t beat my pace.

The post Weekly WIP: Spigot appeared first on The General's Tent.

Guild Ball Brewers Stave by Steamforged Games.

I must admit that when it came to Stave I spent more time smoothing blends than I should. My self-imposed goal conflicted my desire to enjoy the painting process. At least with Scum I could paint him fast. I airbrushed him the same night I painted Stave’s beer foam and a could of days later finished all the detailing.

Guild Ball Brewers’ Scum by Steamforged Games.

I tried to add some fur texture with the highlight but it came out to crudely painted. Fine for a wargame piece but not what I intended.

Guild Ball Brewers’ Spigot and Stave by Steamforged Games.

This morning I started by flatting Spigot. It’s interesting how little the flatting process reflects the final miniature. I had hoped that Scum would have saved me more time but it turns out it just let me have a few nights off when I wasn’t filling well. At least I’m back on track.

The post Weekly WIP: Stave, Scum and Spigot appeared first on The General's Tent.

Heavy Gear Southern Iguanas by Dream Pod 9.

One of the advantages of trying to smash through this Kickstarter project is using painting techniques I don’t normally use. This is the second project where I’ve airbrushed the primary colour and I’ve found that I kept pushing the contrast after each batch of miniatures. With these Iguanas I feel that the extra contrast helps show the shapes of the model better. I have added an edge highlight but I think that the miniature is really missing a strong shadow. This is most apparent where to surfaces meet. A small gap will create a deep shadow but isn’t picked up by the airbrush.

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Guild Ball Brewers Stave by Steamforged Games.

Compared to Friday Stave is already looking like a more interesting miniature to paint at the flatting stage. There are nice big folds in his toga plus interesting muscles to have some fun with.

Guild Ball Brewers Stave by Steamforged Games.

In what will become a bit of a pattern I spent more time on the skin than I planned. At least the skin is a large part of the miniature and it looks decent. It isn’t my best quality and most of the extra time was due to having too much contrast in the shadows. I wanted Stave to look pale as his pseudo-Scottish heritage would indicate. I do plan to go back and add some reddish glazing to indicate his heavy drinking. There are also some cuts which will need attention.

Guild Ball Brewers Stave by Steamforged Games.

I spent an enjoyable evening painting the folds of Stave’s toga. It wasn’t quite the full attention I would spend on one of my Batman Miniature Game miniatures but it was much more than I intended for these Guild Ball figures. I will need to be more disciplined if I want to get these done quickly, although it’s hard to feel too bad about a pleasant evening spent painting.

Guild Ball Brewers Stave by SteamForged Games.

Compared to Friday I opened up the tartan pattern to let more of the shading and highlights of the cloth show through. It’s not technically a tartan pattern but the Brewer’s aren’t technically Scottish so I’m not fussing over technical accuracy. If I do ever want to paint a real tartan I’ll be sure to refer to this excellent tutorial on painting tartan.

Guild Ball Brewers Stave by Steamforged Games.

I realized after I had finished the tartan I hadn’t painted the wounds on poor old Stave. In Guild Ball Stave is considered a bit of a punching bag and source of momentum for the other team. Needing a 2+ on a D6 to hit and having no armour means that most enemy players can farm momentum off him at will. Although the other members of the team show similar injuries it feels extra appropriate on Stave.

I also painted the wooden barrel and shoulder pads. A heavily textured wood can be hard to highlight properly and could have used more time. This is the miniature as of Saturday evening and my goal of finishing him Monday is looking out of reach. If I can paint the white bandages on his legs and all the brown straps Sunday night that leaves the boots, metallics, mustache and airbrushing the beer froth Monday. Perhaps I should paint up Scum next for a quick win.

Paint Every Night

This week I realized that I was well into a painting groove when faced with the decision between trying to find an opponent to play Guild Ball with using Vassal or painting some Guild Ball miniatures. I’ve been dying to play another game but the idea of losing a night of painting bothered me.

Making painting a habit is the best way to improve painting speed. I have lots of tricks to paint faster, some of which I hope to write about soon, but the biggest difference in painting speed is between when I am painting and when I am not.

Playing Guild Ball

I managed to get a game in this week, which is a bit unusual for me. Instead of visiting my FLCS for their weekly Guild Ball night I attempted to introduce the game to a friend. Although not a mniniature wargamer I was hoping that the tight rules and ability to out play your opponent would appeal to his nature. I’m not sure how successful I was as I was really hoping to spark a strong enthusiasm for the game where he’d be asking me for the next game.

This week I tried something a little different by editorializing about speeding up painting. This is an effort to add a little conversation into the blog. I hope people like it, let me know in the comments.

I’m also curious about how useful my WIPs are. Since my images jump from fully completed section to fully completed section I wonder how instructive they are. Theoretically this contains as much how-to-paint information as seeing the original flatted model and the finished piece. Or is the value in following my progress as a form of entertainment? For example, I like watching Youtube videos of people playing video games as a proxy for when I wish I could but don’t have the time or opportunity. Again, let me know in the comments.

The post Weekly WIP: Stave of the Guild Ball Brewers appeared first on The General's Tent.

Speaking of New Years and the Holidays, I hope everyone had a good one. Do me a favour, post your favorite hobby-related present or activity in the comments below. My best gift was the new Guild Ball Kick Off boxed set. My favorite activity was playing board games with some new friends.

A Small Diversion

This week I spent my time building a Gundam model from Bandai and painting Friday from the Brewer’s Guild of the Kick Off box. I’ll get to Friday in a moment, but if you have never built a Gundam I highly recommend it. They are snap-fit pre-coloured model kits engineered to an amazing degree. The kit I built, a HG Stargazer, featured some challenging foil stickers which gave the model a metallic gold and iridescent effect. The kit was full of gimmicks despite being a lower-priced choice. I’m not really a fan of the Gundam universe but the kits that Bandai makes are so compelling I enjoy building them none-the-less.

Painting Friday

Brewer’s Guild Friday for Guild Ball by Steamforged Games.

After some discussion with a friend I hope to rope into playing Guild Ball with me I decided to paint the Brewers first. Basically, I gave my friend a choice of teams and started painting the other team. This way if I accidentally damage the in-progress paint job it’s my own fault.

The rough surface appearance of the flatted miniature above is due to the way I primed it and not the actual finish of the cast miniature. The surface isn’t as pebbly as it appears, it’s just white specks over black.

Brewer’s Guild Friday for Guild Ball by Steamforged Games.

As normal I started with the skin and hair. My plan is to reach the same quality as my Infinity miniatures, such as this Interventor Hacker. I experimented with the flesh colour for this miniature. Normally I pair VMC¹ Beige Red with Mahogany Brown as my base flesh tone. Instead I used Chocolate Brown. This is a colder brown which can be seen by comparing the colour of the straps on the arms and boots with the colour of the wooden barrel and spaulders. The straps are Chocolate Brown and the wood is Mahogany Brown.

Brewer’s Guild Friday for Guild Ball by Steamforged Games

I painted the vest and skirt VMC Khaki Grey. Here is definitely an area which would have received more attention but in keeping with my plan to paint this model quickly I forced myself to move on.

Brewer’s Guild Friday for Guild Ball by Steamforged Games

The simple tartan I painted here really hides the worst flaws of the skirt. To make the tartan more realistic I should have mixed my stripe colour (Dark Blue Grey mixed with Black and Mahogany Brown) with Khaki Grey and only applied it full strength to the intersections.

The pants were painted Dark Blue Grey as well. In fact, I painted the pants first and used the left-over shadow colour for the tartan stripes. I highlighted the stripes using left-over mid tones from the pants as well, although this is more obvious on the back.

Brewer’s Guild Friday for Guild Ball by Steamforged Games

The next thing I’ve painted is the black boots and  wooden parts. For the black I googled some black boots and tried to replicate what I saw. This is something that I want to do more – look at real-world examples of objects I have trouble painting (which I failed to do with the tartan) to better understand where I’ve gone wrong.

I’m not sure I succeeded on the boots but by trying harder to replicate reality I think I will get the hang of it.

The barrel and spaulders where fun although I missed some highlights on the right shoulder when I took the picture. I’ve since fixed it. This was one of those situations where my first pass blocking in opaque colours came together very well and I didn’t need to spend more time trying to smooth things out. This is a good example of looking at how the paint is behaving instead of slavishly following steps.

Guild Ball Brewers Friday for Guild Ball by Steamforged Games.

Guild Ball Brewers Friday for Guild Ball by Steamforged Games.

I just finished this miniature late Sunday night. That makes a full week of painting which isn’t too bad. That means at least three months to paint both teams in the set. If I’m lucky I’ll be able to speed up the process. It sounds like a lot but then I’ve gone far longer than that without painting a single miniature in the past.

Don’t forget to tell me the cool things that have happened to you this past week.

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http://thegoldfishofjustice.com/the-black-tutorial

The results in this tutorial look great and I can’t wait to try them myself. For reference, here’s the last few things I’ve painted black. For Nightwing I was using the loaded brush blending demonstrated by Ben Komets of Painting Buddha. I found the technique very difficult to control and didn’t suit my style of painting.

Knight Models Nightwing painted by Tyler Provick

It’s still better than what I’ve been doing lately which is applying very sharp transitions and calling the black glossy.

Batman Miniature Game Ringmaster. Model by Knight Models. Painted by Tyler Provick

I had hoped to put the tutorial to use before I posted this article but I haven’t painted any hard black surfaces, only soft cloth. If you get a chance to use it please let me know if you found it useful.

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Painting a miniature for competition is a completely different experience for me. No longer is it possible to shrug my shoulders and say “I’ll do better next time.” If something doesn’t look right or work I must fix it, there is no excuse. This is something I knew going into to painting Bent Bristle’s “Walkin’ Boss” figure. I won it in a raffle at the Miniature Figures Ottawa Gatineau Show.

While I did very well in the show I knew that all of the miniatures I displayed were painted as wargame, and although I had used “Maximum Effort” when painting them I applied my philosophy of not fixing mistakes. If I noticed a mold line after priming that mold line was there to stay. Since the show is about improvement I thought that painting the miniature I won to a competition level would be a good way to show improvement for the next show.

For Example: Painting the Face

My first stop in painting any miniature is to begin with the flesh. I like to paint from the inside out and with few exceptions always start with the flesh. In this case I actually painting the gun handle first as he is holding it in his hand, making it a “lower level” than his flesh.

Bent Bristle Walkin’ Boss Face WIP

This image was taken after the first night of painting the flesh. I used my normal practice of working with opaque paints and smoothing with glazes. This isn’t really about how I painted the flesh though, or at least not the technique of it. It’s more how my approach has to change because of my intentions with this miniature. Normally I would be happy with the blending for a wargame miniature, but it didn’t look right to me so instead of moving on to the next part of the miniature I returned to the flesh again.

Bent Bristle Walkin’ Boss Face WIP

After a second night of painting I’m happier with the hands and how the highlights on the cheekbones look. However something about the eyes bugged me and it took an day of staring at this picture and thinking about it before I realized the problem: the darkest shadows under the lower eyelids are too stark.

Bent Bristle Walkin’ Boss Face WIP

I was able to fix this and improve the entire eye area the next painting session, but I’m still not 100% happy with the left (model’s right) eye. The lower eyelid isn’t visually separated enough from the eyeball and the shape and size of the iris isn’t right. Once I get that fixed I’ll be ready to move to the next section.

Added Stress

In the past couple of weeks I’ve noticed I am more reticent to go paint this miniature compared to wargame figures I have painted in the past. If I am completely honest I am terrified that I won’t live up to my own ego. Giving myself the permission to paint a flawed miniature means that if I ever see a better painted miniature I can tell myself: “Well yes, if I was really trying I could paint as well as or better than that.”

Now that I’m painting this miniature to the best of my abilities I will have to admit that this is the best I can do. Once I have accepted this the stress should fall away. I’m not there yet but like all my limitations I will keep on working at it.

The post Painting Competition Miniatures: No More Excuses appeared first on The General's Tent.

Heavy Gear Southern Black Mambas

I increased the amount of paint chipping to help break up the completely green paint scheme and I continued to paint the red and white pattern on the rocket launchers. They aren’t my best work but they will do the job. Next I tackle the Iguanas.

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Recently I thought it might be fun if I live-tweeted my painting session. I snapped quick pictures with my cell phone as I finished each stage and described what I was doing. The pictures are rough but I think show enough detail to get the gist. In a perfect world I’d take better pictures and figure out how to eliminate the glare from the fresh paint but for now hopefully they will be helpful.

Batman Miniature Game Shield Clown Flatted

Here’s where I started. The miniature is flatted with something close to the intended colours. I’ve described flatting before so you can read more about it in the article. However it’s important to note that the colours I use when flatting aren’t the exact colours each part of the miniature will be painted.

Mixing Paints

Step one was to create five versions of my flesh colour. The paints I used were all Vallejo Model Colour: Black, White, Beige Red, Mahogany Brown, Dark Blue, Pale Sand. There’s no exact mixing ratio but I generally start with an equal measure of Beige Red and Mahogany for my base tones. Black and Dark Blue are used to create the shade while White and Pale Sand form the highlights.

Paint palette with flesh tones

I really like a palette with paint wells over a wet palette. The wells hold the paint together which keeps them open longer and I can mix enough for my entire session. I arrange my different colours in a range and dump paint from one well to another until they form a smooth gradiant. In this case my first shade was too dark and my first highlight wasn’t light enough, but I was able to fix that as I went.

First Shade

My first shade is the closest shade to my mid tone. At this stage I am just sketching in shadows. I cover the lowest facing surfaces and try to overlap my midtone area. There’s no need to be neat at this stage as I will be coming in with my mid tone later to clean things up.

Batman Miniature Game Shield Clown First Shade

At this stage of the painting process the shade looks very dark. This shade is balanced for my midtone and the colour I used for flatting is a bit lighter. It won’t make a difference later but is important to be confident in your mix. To boost confidence it newer painters I’d recommend painting swatches of each of your mixed colours next to each other and let them dry to see how they’ll look.

The other reason this colour is so dark is because the Batman Miniature Game exclusively takes place at night in low light situations. The strong light-to-dark contrast is consistent with close, strong lighting such as provided by street lights. It doesn’t hurt that this is a style you’ll see everywhere among top painters.

Second Shade

It is important to remember that this tutorial describes only a way of painting, and somewhat only the way I painted this miniature. Lately I’ve been swapping the order of my first and second shades. Find what works for you.

Batman Miniature Game Shield Clown Second Shade

The second shade was mostly a thin line under some of the muscles, where the arms press to the body and under the left arm.

First Highlight

I skip the midtone and go straight to my first highlight. This is the highlight colour closest to my midtone. I place it on the top of surfaces, again overlapping my midtone to make sure I get my coverage right.

Batman Miniature Game Shield Clown First Highlight

It’s more obvious know that the base colour is too light as there is not enough contrast between it and my highlight. Don’t worry, this will be fixed.

Second Highlight

Batman Miniature Game Shield Clown Second Highlight

This highlight is much stronger is placed on the most upwards facing surfaces where it will catch the most light. You can see how strong the total contrast will be which is, again, meant to demonstrate a close bright light with low ambient light. It’s still an artistic rendering as such a light would be very hard with little transition between light and shadow.

Midtone

Here things start to come together a bit with the proper midtone added. This overlaps again the first shade and highlight, in a way this is my first blend.

Batman Miniature Game Shield Clown Midtone

Adjusting Position

If I were painting a quick and dirty army job I could stop here and call it good, but that’s not what this is. Up to this point I’ve been working with mostly opaque paint and just sketching in where I want my shadows and highlights. It’s important to get them where I want them now as it’s easier to move them with opaque paint compared to trying to shift them with a million glazes. At any stage, if need, I’ll go back with my opaque paints to move something where I want. I also know from experience that I’ll be pushing my mid into my shadow and highlight rather than pushing them into my mid, which is why there’s actually a bit more shadow than I need.

Batman Miniature Game Shield Clown Positioning

I apologize for the blurry photographs. When I took these pictures I was just trying to live-tweet my painting session and so I was just taking quick snaps with my cell phone.

Until this point I was working strictly with the five colours I had previously mixed. Now, as I’m adjusting where my highlights and shadows go I’ll mix two of the colours together to make a transition colour in order to better understand where I want things to go. For example, I clarified the shadow on the shoulder muscle by adding a transition colour so I have a better idea of where I wanted the shadow to fall.

Transitions

Batman Miniature Game Shield Clown Transitions

This step is often the longest which is why there appears to be so much change between it and the last photograph. Now that I’m “mostly” happy with the position of my highlights and shadows it is time to start the blending process. I say mostly because while this is maximum effort for a wargame model it is still a wargame model. It’s maybe 90% perfect¹ but that last 10% will take at least as long as it’s already taken, if not many more times as long.

Pushing past 90% is something I reserve for my competition pieces and even then I’d rather stop short of 100% and start painting another model. Even hitting this level improves my painting and I’d always rather paint two models in the time it would take to paint one. The second one, since I’m always pushing to improve, will probably be as good as I could have painted the one.

Enough about my philosophy, back to practicality. The previous stage was the first where I started mixing colours. In this stage I will freely mix intermediate shades to help smooth transitions. I work quickly, not cleaning my brush between colours and allowing some slight mixing on the surface. It’s not traditional wet blending where I apply two colours and them smudge them together on the surface. However, I am working fast so I take advantage of the paint being wet.

As fast as I am trying to work this stage it’s also important to slow down from time to time. Acrylic paint has an intermediate stage when it isn’t dry but it is no longer workable. It is not just thickened; people work with heavy-body paints all the time. Instead it has started to dry to the point where adding water won’t return it to its former consistency. When the paint gets to this state, and preferably before this, it is time to let it full dry before adding another layer of paint. I’ve gone into more detail on this in the past. The point is that it’s important not to become so focused on smoothing the blends at this stage that you overwork the paint.

This is also not the final blending stage, although certainly a painter can stop here and be happy. The goal is to knock down the worst transitions to save time in the final stage.

Glazing

The last stage and the first introduction of non-opaque paints, this is where the transitions will completely disappear and with luck everyone will think you are a genius.

Batman Miniature Game Shield Clown Glazing

When I first started working on this technique I would mix a glaze of each of my five colours. The glaze consisted of a 50/50 mix of water and matte medium with just a touch of the colour. I was always left with way more glaze than I could possibly ever use. Now I fill a paint well with my mix of water and matte medium and use it to spot mix a glaze on the flat spots of the palette. Normally I’ll fully load my brush with my glazing medium and then dip the tip into colour. This way I could vary the strength of my glaze as needed and it saved a lot of matte medium.

The glaze consistency should be similar to the consistency of your paint. It isn’t a wash and isn’t meant to flow into the crevices of the miniature. It needs to stay where you put it.

I start with my midtones pushing them into the highlights and shadows. When glazing it’s important to properly unload your brush into a rag and not apply too much glaze at a time. Always pull your paint to the location where you want the most colour. When you pull your brush off the surface there’s always a little extra paint left behind. If this is left on your edges it will be harder to hide the transition.

Again, allowing coats to dry is important during this stage. It’s less likely the glaze will fall into an unworkable state which will ruin the surface. The main issue is that if the first coat isn’t dry additional coats of the same colour won’t accomplish much.

Finished

Batman Miniature Game Shield Clown

Here’s the finished miniature. It’s a little easier to see the blending after I applied a coat of matte varnish. Of course the shield covers the most prominent blending, though it it helps the gradient on the shield was painted in exactly the same way.

I hope this tutorial was helpful. There’s a lot to painting that comes from practice and experience. Knowing when to move from one stage to another takes an understanding of the process that is impossible to achieve on the first attempt. This is one of the reasons I encourage people to paint as best they can and then move on to the next miniature.

Leave a comment if you have any questions. I sometimes feel the urge to make painting videos which I may yet do, provided there’s enough demand.

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The Format

The show uses an interesting Open Format which I haven’t seen before. Instead of being a painting competition with 1st, 2nd, 3rd prizes in various categories the show looks at a participant’s miniatures and assigns them an absolute, although still subjective, value. There was a Best of Show and Best Knight Models miniature award, plus the judges ran a separate competition among themselves where show attendees where given a vote.

I like this format because it is easy for a small regional competition to be dominated by a single painter. Any community that has even two painters legitimately competing for the top spot is extremely blessed and even then it can be very discouraging for those painters who aren’t at the same level. Painters are essentially competing against themselves and I spoke to a number of participants who were looking to beat their previous year’s result. The environment becomes more of a community coming together to share knowledge and techniques and chat with fellow painters.

Entrants can present as many miniatures as they would like. Judges pick what they believe to be the strongest and award it a level, either no mention, Merit, Bronze, Silver or Gold. It is possible, it happened in 2015, for there to be no Golds awards.

My Entries

I displayed all of my painting Batman Miniature Game and Infinity miniatures but only entered the above figures. Originally I was only going to display these figures but I was encouraged to put them all out. The idea of the show is for people to display their work and having more miniatures out gives people more to look at.

When I painted my BMG miniatures I had decided to paint them to the best of my ability with one caveat: they were still wargame figures so I wasn’t going to redo areas where I made mistakes or kill myself fixing casting flaws. Basically I spent a day on each main area but wouldn’t repaint finished areas or keep working them endlessly. In this way they are not true “competition” miniatures.

My Results

So, how did I do? I won Gold but not Best in Show or Best Knight Models miniature. In my opinion, and there is 100% a level of conceit in this statement, I can paint better than the winner of either award. Although, I must admit, I technically haven’t, yet. The same can likely be said of Guillaume Juneau, winner of Best in Show, or Justin Rae, winner of Best Knight Model. However, and I don’t think I’m delusional, there are parts of my miniatures which are better than any part of either painter’s entry. There are also parts of my miniature which are far, far below. By the time I’ve reached the boots of any miniature I am ready to move on to the next and I tend to rush. It is absolutely correct for the judges to notice such a small detail so I am not disappointed with my results. Next year, however, I will contribute some miniatures which are painted to a competition level. It’s good to stretch yourself from time to time, especially since I feel the need to prove to myself that I am not being an egomaniac when I look at other people’s miniatures and say “I can do better.”

Other Attractions

In addition to the miniatures on display from the participants and judges the day also featured a painting lecture by Justin Rae and a speed painting contest. I enjoyed the lecture but declined the speed painting. I enjoy the challenge but this was one of those “for fun” competitions where painters are provided with terrible brushes, half-dry paint and a limited selection. I’ve done both a contest where I was able to provide my own materials and one in a similar vein and I much prefer one where the challenge is to see what can be accomplished in an hour instead of an exhibition of schadenfreude. Not that I didn’t enjoy watching the mayhem.

Feedback For Next Year

The day was well organized, well run and enjoyed by all who attended. Without any changes I’d be happy to attend each year and would even like to see the frequency of the event increased. There is something wonderful about being able to talk to like-minded people about our mutual love of painting miniatures. That said there are a few things I’d like to see in future events.

Fan Vote

Each entrant was given a vote for Best in Show Judges miniatures which allowed the judges to show off their work without damaging the integrity of the main event. I like this but would also like to see a similar vote open to all visitors for best model in show. I don’t think there needs to be a big award for the winner but I think it would give visitors a reason to look closer at the miniatures on display.

Slightly Improved Awards

Awards are not the real focus of the main event. Sharing your work with your peers is the main draw. However there are certificates given out for each level achieved and I would like them to be slightly improved. My Gold Certificate is an image of an orc bitting a gold coin on cardstock. At the very least I think the event title, date and award achieved could be written, although I’d also love to see the competitor’s name and entered model written in.

More Seminars

I have a feeling that there was one painting seminar because Mr. Rae either offered or is known to give them. I believe I attended one of his seminars at the first Batman Day. However I’d really love for there to be more, I’d even give one. Even a Q&A from some of the better artists would be good if they don’t feel up to teaching. Sometimes just watching people paint can unlock secrets impossible to describe in words.

Looking Forward to Next Year

In the end I was very happy I attended. I owe my attendance to Martin Laliberté, who encouraged me to participate and provided advice for best displaying my miniatures. I’m really looking forward to attending again and hope that this time of miniature show becomes more common.

Leave a comment if you’ve ever participated in a miniature painting event and what you thought of it. Also, let me know if you look at someone’s miniature and think: I can do that, or do you get discouraged.

The post 2016 Miniature Figures Ottawa Gatineau Show Report appeared first on The General's Tent.

Fast forward to the present and as grumpy and disillusioned as I am with Kickstarter I keep a wary eye on it, like the antelope who follow lions to avoid ambush. When Moonstone was announced I was instantly attracted to the miniatures’ close resemblance to Brian Froud’s work. Maybe it was time to change my tune about Kickstarter.

What is Moonstone?

The game is a 32mm skirmish game where two to four players compete to gather magical moonstones which grow by night and evaporate in sunlight. Each player controls three to six unique miniatures and the main gameplay is managing their special abilities. The game is being Kickstarted by Goblin King Games.

The Miniatures

I am most interested in the miniatures for Moonstone. They are something which I would want to paint for the pure aesthetics. While the last Kickstarter I backed was a disappointment in the miniature department it’s nice to see that Goblin King Games, the creators of Moonstone, previously ran a small Kickstarter for some individual miniatures as a test of their production capability. This is something that anyone trying something new on Kickstarter should pay attention to. There are many hidden costs and delays that occur when establishing a production line. These bugs have been dealt with in the first Kickstarter so backers can be confident that Goblin King Games will be able to deliver what they promised.

Firespitter and Baron Von Fancyhat models by Goblin King Games.

As the Kickstarter progresses more and more miniatures are being unlocked through stretch goals. Due to the Kickstarter’s success Moonstone now meets Wakelin’s Law of Four Factions. In addition to the goblins and humans featured gnomes and faeries have been added to the mix. I’m very pleased with this because when I compare the humans to any of the other models I have to say they have the least appeal. They are poorly sculpted but the goblins, gnomes and faeries promise to be so much more interesting.

Doug the Flatulent for Moonstone. Copyright Goblin King Games, sculpted by Tom Lishman.

The Rules

One of the dangers of backing a Kickstarter for a game is not knowing if the game will be any good. Dungeon Saga, for example, was plagued with complaints that the campaign setting just wasn’t up to the expectations of the fans. Personally I find the miniatures so nice that I don’t think I’d be angry to merely paint and display them. None-the-less I took a look at the rules, which are available for free, and even plan to try the print-and-play version. There is even a series of Youtube videos teaching the game mechanics.

My initial impression of the rules were not favourable. Games which use card mechanics can quickly become a tedious exercise in shuffling. Moonstone exacerbates this by requiring the deck to be shuffled for each melee and spell. Trying to properly randomize a small packet of cards can be difficult, especially when compared to scooping a handful of dice and chucking them.

Moonstone Game Accessories by Goblin King Games.

Immediately my brain started thinking of ways to substitute dice for the card draw mechanic. In the end I had to admit that Goblin King Games was at least using the cards to achieve things which wouldn’t be possible with dice. I’m not convinced that it is worth the trouble and that a similar system using custom dice may come close to matching the flavour that the design provides.

For example, when in a melee each combatant draws cards equal to their fight value plus modifiers from the same deck. The deck has three copies of six combat maneuvers. They choose which maneuver they want to use with duplicates adding power to an attack. Each card compares the maneuver to all other possible maneuvers and are used to determine the result. Either the attacker or defender, or both, can do damage or not. Since both players are drawing from the same deck their hand will give them clues to their opponents hands allowing them to either choose the appropriate defense. Characters with a higher melee value draw more cards, giving them an advantage. Since duplicates increase a card’s power, having a max of three possible copies of a single maneuver caps the total damage possible.

Moonstone Cards by Goblin King Games

If this mechanic were simply replaced with custom D6s the same variety of maneuvers can be modeled. However, since each dice roll is independent of all others it isn’t possible to guess your opponent’s rolls based on your own. Additionally there is no automatic cap to the number of duplicate results.  Immediately the game becomes more random. The question is whether this increased randomness is worth the speed increase. It might be.

I’m not going to get into their so-called “Competitive Play” drafting mechanic. I would hate to paint a miniature and not be able to use it because my opponent selected it for themselves.

The Kickstarter

As much as I’ve complained recently about Mantic’s never-ending parade of Kickstarters I must admit that their campaigns have spoiled me for all others. Always Mantic provides a reasonably priced pledge level which provides the backer with the base game and the majority of stretch goals. Once committed backers are likely to promote the game hoping newly unlocked stretch goals will add more to their rewards.

Moonstone Starter Set by Goblin King Games.

Unfortunately Goblin King Games’ Kickstarter is not as ambitious. The basic pledge will provide the core game components, rules and six miniatures. At first only one stretch goal improved on the base pledge by adding a dice bag, which is a little funny for a game which is primarily card based. Perhaps some custom art tuck boxes would have been a better idea. Later, perhaps as a result of fan feedback, they added a Kickstarter exclusive alternative head for Doug the Flatulent, a faerie queen at most backer levels and a notice that the Kickstarter prices are likely to be 20% lower than retail, which is fair.

More recently Goblin King Games added an “everything” pledge level. At £200 it is expensive but includes the base game and all add-ons which includes 27 metal and 2 larger resin miniatures. Not a bad deal but far out of my comfort range.

Strangely this seems to indicate that there will be no further stretch goals, which is disappointing. I can think of a number of great stretch goals that could be included in the base set. Cardboard tuck boxes for the arcane and melee decks would be nice. Card sleeves would also be nice, especially since the base set includes a dry erase marker. I would think that sleeves would be harder to obtain than something available in any office supply store or dollar store. Finally some card stock terrain would make a nice stretch goal.

Beaky Bobby for Moonstone. Copyright Goblin King Games. Sculpted by Tom Lishman.

Sometimes I think we’ve been spoiled by companies like Mantic who offer tremendous amounts of content for their Kickstarters. 35mm metal miniatures aren’t 28mm restic miniatures and £40,000 is not $1,000,000. I think these monster campaigns can hurt smaller companies who can’t expect to scale the same as more popular companies. The gaps between Dungeon Saga stretch goals were bigger than Moonstone’s funding level.

My Conclusion

I’m still on the fence about backing this Kickstarter. The changes Goblin King Games have made to their campaign have definitely worked in their favour. As much as I’d rather they ditched their card mechanics for dice I’m much more interested in the miniatures than the game. If I do back it will be their starter set pledge level. This gives me 8 metal miniatures plus Diana, Queen of the Fae and the game components required to play.

Anyone else thinking of backing this Kickstarter? Let me know in the comments. I’m sure we could probably brainstorm a few more stretch goals.

The post Moonstone Kickstarter for Brian Froud and Labyrinth Fans appeared first on The General's Tent.

Heavy Gear Kickstarter Jagers

After calming down from my initial disappointment with these miniatures I realized that I am unhappy with the amount of unpainted miniatures and abandoned projects haunting me. While in comparison to an “average” wargamer my unpainted pile is small, I’m not letting it grow any more from this point out. I think this is one of the reasons I was so frustrated with this Kickstarter. Buying so many models at once is uncharacteristic for me and commits me to a project for far longer than I would like. I would rather buy some miniatures for a game, like Warmachine for example, paint them up and find out I don’t like the game. At least I have some painted miniatures for my shelf.

These miniatures were painting with a mixture of airbrushing and regular brush painting. I airbrushed them green, adding a shadow and highlight layer with the airbrush. I then painted all the metal bits with a grey. I varied the lightness of the grey, dark for downwards facing surfaces, medium for vertical surfaces and light for upwards facing. I added edge highlighting of different intensities as well. These two colours form the majority of the paint scheme. I added a few touches like the yellow flamer fuel tank and red and white LRP covers. Finally I edge highlighted the green and sponged on some damage to the lower legs. Although none of the Kickstarter miniatures will be kneeling this is a pose that Heavy Gears do take and I can’t conceive that this wouldn’t destroy the paintjobs on the legs.

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This has to change.

Batman Miniature Game Paper Token Example

Paper Tokens

My first step was to print some simple paper tokens. These were created in Inkscape and featured black text on a white background. I printed them out on cardstock and punched them out with a 1″ punch. Simple and cheap, they suffer from a number of problems.

First, the light weight of the paper means they are not robust and will start to bend and fray as they are used. While the thin paper means a stack doesn’t take up much room it also makes them hard to pick up and sort through when looking for a specific token.

Batman Miniature Game Paper Token on Base Example

Paper Mounted to Bases

Attaching the paper counter to a spare base solves a number of issues. The game specifies a size of 30mm for many of the tokens and markers such as sewers, lamp-posts and objectives. The base adds a little weight and thickness to make picking them up easy as well.

If this was as far as I was planning to go I would spend the time to improve the visual appeal of the token design. Some graphics or even white test on a black background would look nice if the base was painting black and the paper decoupaged[^1] to the surface.

[1^]: Decoupage is decorating by gluing paper to an object.

The easiest way to get high quality colour images for this type of application is to have someone like Costco print the tokens onto photo paper. Costco is especially good for this since they don’t auto-expose their prints like some box stores do.

Batman Miniature Game laser cut token example.

LASERS!!!!

My local library offers access to both laser cutters and 3d printers. The example in the image is a prototype on scrap paper. I want to cut coloured acrylic for my final set of tokens. With the laser cutter I am only creating condition markers, Raise The Plan markers, wound markers and the like. The sewer, lamp and objective markers will eventually be modeled terrain features so the temporary paper tokens will work fine.

Obviously not everyone will have access to a laser cutter but there are a number of companies offering suitable markers, including Knight Model’s official markers.

Once I have all the accessories I will be able to play the Batman Miniature Game assuming I can play at a store with terrain. This means my next project will be to make some terrain for my home gaming space. I wonder if the laser cutter can help with that.

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Dungeon Saga from Mantic Games

If Mantic Makes a Game, They Kickstart It

Mantic has taken up a pattern of Kickstarting every game they make. It has a whole slew of advantages such as building a community for a game, helping finance a full product line and making sure that Mantic isn’t taking too big a risk when they introduce a game to market. It’s great and it’s obvious they love it. It is good for fans as well, based on the one Kickstarter I’ve backed with them, Dungeon Saga, backers receive a tremendous value for money.

After the Kickstarter is complete, however, it’s time for the next one. Mantic is always preparing their next campaign and fulfilling their last simultaneously. Their latest campaign, Star Saga, is about to launch and The Walking Dead: All Out War has set a final change of address deadline of Monday, October 3rd 2016. This indicates that they are close to shipping. Actually, there’s another Kickstarter outstanding, Dreadball 2nd Edition which was backed in August 2016, which means that they have two Kickstarters on the go and are starting a third. Oops, I forgot, Deadzone: Infestation completed shipping in August 2016.

Why is Kickstarter a Problem?

For Mantic and its fans this cycle of Kickstarter projects means a constant flow of production that would normally not be possible. Surely this is a good thing. As I said I backed Dungeon Saga and also played Deadzone, two of Mantic’s more successful Kickstarter campaigns. Deadzone was fun, and I wish I had a chance to play it more, but has already had a second edition. Granted three years is not an obscenely short time for a new edition. There was only two years between Warhammer 40,000 sixth and seventh editions and an average of 4.5 years between editions. It’s exactly in line with the jump from Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition to 3.5 and it’s not like people complained about that, right? Well, even if they did at least you could use your 3rd Edition books as long as you don’t mind incorporating errata.

I feel for those games who bought these books when they were new, only to have them rendered obsolete.

At least Deadzone received a second edition. Dungeon Saga is not so lucky. I had high hopes for the game to replace my happy, though all too few, memories of playing Warhammer Quest. This was a game not meant to be taken seriously and because of that was great fun. Dungeon Saga, I had hoped, would be the new Warhammer Quest. It really looked like it was and the basic game was great. The miniatures were sharply cast and fun to paint, the dungeon furniture made everything look great. The advanced game, sadly, was not a success. I haven’t been able to find a group to play it and haven’t pushed too hard. Those who had reported that the campaign rules didn’t have enough meat. Even Mantic has admitted that the game wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. Their response: Send it to Space!

Another Day, Another Kickstarter

So, instead of trying to fix the issues with Dungeon Saga Mantic is going to make a new, completely separate version of the game. Why, because whatever time they put into fixing Dungeon Saga is wasted on a game they’ve already made their money on. It’s out, we’ve all bought it, many in quantities which must be maddening for those who have found the game not worth their while, meanwhile they have every expansion that will ever come out for the game.

To be fair I don’t think Dungeon Saga is “fixable.” It’s too soon for a new edition if my point about Deadzone’s new edition had any merit. The parts they would need to fix includes decks of cards. The problem with Dungeon Saga is the risk that all Kickstarter backers face. We are backing the idea of a game, one that has had little to no advanced development and even if successful may not be the game we want to play.

There May Yet Be Hope

As if they read my mind Mantic has announced the formation of a Dungeon Saga Rules Committee. This is a practice of Mantic Games which I had not encountered before. It is both an encouraging sign and one which shows Mantic is aware that Dungeon Saga isn’t where it needs to be as a game. Who knows if they can fix the issues with the game, or if doing so would require the production of new AI and random dungeon decks.

https://manticblog.com/2016/09/26/join-dungeon-saga-rules-committee/

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Kick off! Guild Ball boxed set by Steamforged Games Ltd.

Since I have been thinking about starting a Guild Ball project I was very excited when their starter set was announced. Although it doesn’t feature the guild I was interested in I may be swayed. I do tend to cling too loyally to my first choice in these types of situations.

What’s In The Box?

The Guild Ball starter set is designed to act as a complete game system. Not only does the box contain two full teams of 6 but it includes all the tokens, markers, measuring gizmos, templates and other accessories required the play the game.

Guild Ball Mason team from Kick Off! by Steamforged Games Ltd.

Guild Ball Brewer team from Kick Off! by Steamforged Games

First off are the miniatures. The box contains two full teams of 4 players and a mascot. This is the same size that is used for all games of Guild Ball. Unlike many starter sets where players can play a few introductory scenarios before expanding their miniature collection to play the “real” game, Guild Balls low model count allows them to provide the full game in a single box. The miniatures are plastic and full assembled. The plastic is described as “board game plastic” which isn’t the indication of low quality it once was. Privateer Press has been creating high quality plastics for their board games for years.

The miniatures are enough to start playing Guild Ball but that’s not all that Steamforged Games includes in the box. There are counters and tokens which would normally be considered luxury items that many current Guild Ball players don’t have. Each ability of every model included in the game has a corresponding token to mark the effect. There are influence tokens, momentum tokens, goal tokens, dials for health and dials for victory points. I’ve noticed that except for a few items everything in the box is duplicated. There is a ball for each team, although only one is needed to play. The measuring widgets and scatter templates are also duplicated. This will make it easier for two players to split the box evenly.

Kick Off! Guild Ball boxed set contents by Steamforged Games Ltd.

Strangely there are no signs of the plot cards which seem like an obvious inclusion in the box. There are a couple of reasons this could be other than the obvious cost-cutting measure.

First, guild plot cards are being removed from the game. Plot cards are an interesting wild card, if you’ll forgive the pun, but not really a core mechanic. New players are frequently encouraged to leave them out as it reduces the number of things to learn. Once the game rules and player abilities are learned the plot cards can be easily added without causing a large paradigm shift. If I was trying to simplify the game plot cards are the first and easiest thing to dump.

Which brings up another option: they are being left out as the game is being sold as a “beginner box.” I’m not sure I buy that. If this were a board game, an argument which will be made when I try to introduce this on boardgame night, these would not be considered a complicated rule. For those unfamiliar with Guild Ball a sample Season 2 plot card is triggered when the opponent either scores a goal or takes out one of your models and the reward for playing it is gaining two momentum. This is something which could easily be introduced in the second game. In a boxed set where you receive two full teams this doesn’t make sense.

Release and Price

The announcement of this new boxed set leaves in a bit of a pickle as far as wanting to play Guild Ball. When I was considering it I was leaning towards the Fishermen Guild as my team of choice. I was thinking that I would reward myself for painting the first of four factions in the Heavy Gear Kickstarter by picking up the Fishermen starter box. Now I don’t think I could turn down the value of the box. Steamforged has set the price at £49.95 on their website. The starter for the Fishermen is £21.95. The cheapest 6 player team would be 46.80 for the starter, Greyscales, Sakana and Salt. I would still need tokens, templates, measuring tools, a pitch and a whole other team to match the contents of the box.

On Steamforged Games Ltd.’s website they say the release date is November 2016. I’ve heard the actual date will be November 25th. It seems both a long time away and perhaps just enough time to finish all my Heavy Gear stuff so I can focus on quickly painting both factions. That is, if I decide to get into Guild Ball at all. I still have half a mind to keep my next wargame project uncommitted in order to be able to finish what I have and be ready to jump in on something that is booming within the community.

Anyone else blown away by the contents of this boxed set? Leave me a comment. If the miniatures are good enough I think this boxed set could easily catapult Guild Ball to the very heights of its potential popularity.

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Guild Ball Fishermen Team. Copyright Steamforged Games Ltd.

Free Rules

I love me some free rules. As much as painted miniatures are a primary motivator for me I cannot play a game with rules I don’t enjoy regardless of how much I enjoy the miniatures. Having rules available for free helps me to decide whether I like the game or not. When a game offers their rules for free, like Infinity and to a lesser extent Batman Miniature Game, I am more inclined to want to like the game.

Guild Ball Theron Player Card. Copyright Steamforged Games Ltd

Everthing is Free

Steamforged Games takes the “give the rules away for free” model to a whole new level. Not only are the rules available for free, all the cards for the models are available, along with the Guild Plot cards. There’s even free standies (paper-craft models) so you can fully try the game before you buy. The only thing you need to buy are the models. They even have a Vassal module.

The Rules Are Well Balanced

I’m making a bit of an assumption based on talking to players of the game. I don’t believe you can truly understand all the implications of rules, especially considering all the model-specific special rules in Guild Ball. What I’ve been hearing is that Steamforged Games is dedicated to game balance. I have no problems with games which are designed to be enjoyed as a narrative. These are great for playing with friends, less so for playing with strangers and terrible for tournaments. I’ve been following the comments on a recent post over at Creative Twilight where Thor is finding the requirement for “comp rules”, that is, rules to limit abusive and unfair army composition, something which he can no longer ignore. Avoiding that situations with balanced rules and armies is a big plus for me.

A Healthy Ecosystem

I am a creature of the internet. If I can’t be playing or painting I’m often online watching videos or reading about the games I’m interested in. It’s nice to see that there is so much content being generated for Guild Ball. It is a sign of the quality and popularity of the game. I was also pleased to see the number and quality of the smart phone apps being made for the game. Well-assisted by the free rules and player cards there are multiple groups creating “army builder” and game tracking apps. These are small things but their existence makes me want to like Guild Ball so I can take advantage of them.

Guild Ball Midas. Copyright Steamforged Games Ltd.

Quality Miniatures

As part of my groundwork in evaluating whether I want to start playing Guild Ball or not I visited a local store during a Guild Ball night to speak with the players and see the game live. The miniatures look good and I haven’t heard of an unusual amount of casting or quality control issues. The poses look good and don’t have that over-the-top quality I dislike with Warmachine and Hordes. Should be fun models to paint.

It’s Not A Wargame

This is where we start getting into the negatives. Guild Ball is a fantasy sports game like Blood Bowl and Dreadball. I have a bias towards games which simulate combat which I recognize as unfounded. Considering my painful Dota addiction playing a game with a single scenario shouldn’t be an issue. I don’t know why it even bothers me but it does.

It’s Not Batman

I have two small gangs painted for BMG and need to arrange the tokens and markers necessary to play. Switching to Guild Ball now feels like the same misdirected instinct that makes me want to buy new miniatures when I still have stuff that needs painting. A part of my brain is making the leap from buying Guild Ball to playing Guild Ball while ignoring the time and effort required to get from A to B. Time and effort which could instead be spent building and painting objective markers for BMG so that I can play it.

Batman Miniature Game Figures and Markers

I Can’t Play for Two Months

The night I visited the local Guild Ball players was the last time I will be free during Guild Ball night for the next two months. If I rushed out, bought a team, painted it and had everything ready I wouldn’t be able to play for two months. I am still going to paint the Heavy Gear Kickstarter, I’m putting my foot down on buying new models without painting them, so it seems like I don’t need to make a decision right away. Although a small voice is telling me that it would likely take me two months to get my team painted and by starting now I’d make sure I was ready in two months.

The Final Decision

So what is my final decision? Sadly, I have none. I’m still on the fence about whether I’ll invest in Guild Ball. I am leaning towards it. If I had my BMG gangs at a full 300 points with all the accessories I’d be more likely to want to stretch out into new games. The discipline to finish projects is fighting with the new and shiney and neither is in the lead.

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I was a little surprised, then, that after talking about how disappointed I was in Heavy Gear that Jacob Ross approached me to promote his first Kickstarter. I guess he felt that if he could convince me he stood a good of convincing other backers.

A quick word on motives. Mr. Ross is trying to spread the word about his Kickstarter. I am doing so because I’ve never run an interview and was interested in trying it out. I have not received any promotional considerations and this is me reporting on something, not endorsing it.

An example of the type of art commissioned for the Kickstarter

Kaigaku is a high-drama fantasy samurai RPG in an original setting with OSR-inspired mechanics. The Kickstarter is not intended to fund the developments on the rules; the rules are finished and available as a free download from the author. The Kickstarter campaign’s goal is to raise money to pay for art and copy-editing. Mr. Ross has already completed additional rules in the form of NPC generators, a mass battle system, rules for using honor as a weapon and additional special abilities called “ryu”.

Mr. Ross was kind enough to answer some questions I had after reading the Kickstarter description and skimming the rules.

Interview with Jacob Ross on the Kaigaku Kickstarter

The General’s Tent: Kaigaku seems like a very simple game. The free rules are very short which seems to keep with the aesthetic of OSR games. I’ve noticed that the rules for weapons are basic but fans of Samurai seem to be obsessed with the exotic weapons of the period. Do you worry that the target audience will be disappointed that rules-wise, the Katana, Wakizashi and Ninja-to are the same?

Jacob Ross: While the Katana, Wakizashin and Ninja-to do have the same damage and other statistics, each weapon is used differently by the various clan schools. Additionally, we do have lots of exotic weapons, from kanabo to jitte and even guns and grenades.

The General’s Tent: OSR can be a divisive term with some people complaining that games are too OSR and some are not true to the spirit of OSR. What would you say to each camp that would make them want to try your game?

Jacob Ross: Kaigaku is descended from The Black Hack. It plays quick and its rules are easy enough that a group of people who’ve never played an RPG before can sit down and play without learning them beforehand. My wife and our friend were able to make characters and get in an adventure during their first-ever session. That said, Kaigaku has strategic depth to make combat more tense and interesting.

Kaigaku Sample Page

The General’s Tent: In your Kickstarter description you mention Chinese, Mongol and Korean influences in addition to Japanese. The Japanese influence is clear but what about the other cultures, how are they represented?

Jacob Ross: The Imperial Family is based on a mix of Chinese and Japanese structures. In real history Japan modeled itself very closely after the [Chinese]¹ political system. One clan in particular, the Shirai, has a Korean flavor in that they have a “noble youth” tradition based on the hwarang warriors and they’re led by scholars patterned after the Joseon-era court. The Mongol influence comes from the Kherin, steppe people from beyond Kaigaku who regularly menace the border. The Watanabe clan protects the Empire from incursions, but their current daimyo is half-Kherin and the rest of the clans are concerned about what would happen if the Watanabe were to ally with the Kherin Horde.

The General’s Tent: To be honest, and I don’t want to seem mean, your stretch goals are a little underwhelming. Any thoughts to spice them up? For example, will David Okum’s paper miniatures work well as tokens in Roll20? Any details on the contents of the periodicals which may entice backers?

Jacob Ross: No offense taken. That’s a good idea, the Roll20 tokens. The periodical, The Kaigaku Chronicle, is going to have several articles in each issue. These include adventures, fiction, write-ups of new Lesser Clans and their schools, notes on running various character types (ninja, bushi, etc.), information on ronin, criminals, sumo wrestlers and other roles in life, plus more information about the gaijin empires. The other expansions that I have planned are clan splat books. I’ve decided that each one should feature two rival clans and have not just background and new schools, but also material about using the tension between the two clans as part of a campaign. Depending on how things go I might present material from the clan splats in the Kaigaku Chronicle.

The General’s Tent: Recently I had a bad experience with a Kickstarter which has put me off somewhat. Why should someone like myself want to back your Kickstarter instead of simply waiting for the game to be released.

Jacob Ross: You and me both. Before I got started my wife actually told me “Make sure you don’t pull a (Name of Notorious Multiple KS Non-Deliverer)!” Kaigaku is already written up and edited. It’s currently in layout. There are some parts that have to wait until the KS campaign is complete before I can finish them (such as the index and table of contents) because I may make slight tweaks to the text based on backer suggestions. One really fantastic example was of a backer who asked for an optional skill system. I’d been toying with the idea myself, and I had one planned for the Kaigaku Chronicle, but I’m now putting it into the core book. Basically, there’s only one day’s worth of work left on the book, as far as layout goes, and waiting for art to deliver. Once I have everything it’s a simple matter to add the art to the pages, upload it to Drivethru and get the proofs printed.

Why You Should Back This

It probably seems strange that I’m reporting on this Kickstarter after swearing off the concept. It’s true that I’m not backing anything for the forseeable future but neither am I calling for a Kickstarter boycott.

In this case Kaigaku is a return to the original values of Kickstarter before large companies started regularly using it as a ersatz pre-order system. Jacob Ross is an independent game designer who needs a little bit of money to take his game from an amateur to a professional publication. Backing the Kickstarter helps that happen. Of I were backing the game I would go with the $15 pledge level. PDFs work for running RPGs and I wouldn’t want to back a Kickstarter without getting the stretch goals.

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Welcome to the first real post of my Heavy Gear Kickstarter project. As I mentioned in the introduction I’ve decided to paint the Southern faction first. I already have a lot of Northern miniatures painted from earlier editions of the game and hope by starting with the South I’ll quickly have a painted “demo” set to start showing off the game.

Heavy Gear Jagers Assembled

What’s in the Kickstarter

Here are the Southern sprues included in the kickstarter.

• 4x Jager
• 4x Black Mamba
• 2x Iguana
• 2x Spitting Cobra
• 1x King Cobra
• 3 Drones on the Northern Ferret sprue.

Each sprue can then make one variant available for that Gear. For example, the Jager spue (with some parts of the Black Mamba sprue) can build:

• Command Jager or a command version of the following.
• Jager – Light Autocannon.
• Striking Jager – Light Bazooka, Light Rocket Pod.
• Jager Gunner – Medium Autocannon from Black Mamba sprue, Light Rocket Pod.
• Brawler Jager – Light Autocannon with Light Grenade Launcher, Light Rocket Pod.
• Blitz Jager – Light Autocannon, Light Anti-Tank Missile.
• Flamm Jager – Medium Flammer, Light Anti-Personnel Rockets from Black Mamba sprue.

Build List

Since I don’t have a strong knowledge of what makes up a good force in Heavy Gear I’m going to try to create a balanced selection of models which will give me the option to deal with infantry, heavy armour and gears.

I’m hoping that as I build these models I can keep them in sub-assemblies to make painting easier. Next I have to figure out my paint scheme.

WIP Posts

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