This was a rough week. Storms, power outages, sick family, construction at our apartment. I got done as much as I thought I was going to and then some, but it was more like mechanical movements than an escape and meditation. This coming week isn’t looking much better, but I want to play around with video and YouTube a little more so I’m keeping the painting expectations down.
I’ve been on a 6mm kick for some reason. I’ve rarely played any 6mm but they’re quick to knock out and cheap to buy so in the scheme of things it’s cheaper than a movie…
This week was a good week, with a wide range of progress. I’ve tackled miniatures, work projects, block progress and YouTube progress, although I’ve slipped in my Instagram posting mostly because of the work project.
I finished up 10 Terminator Genisys resistance fighters in a similar urban camo paint scheme that I’ve been working on for the GZG figures. I’m not entirely satisfied with the paint jobs but it pulled together a little more after the ink was so I’m going to call them done and put them in the storage box. They’re just going to get cut down in droves by the terminators anyways.
I’ve been going through my tubs of minis and clearing half finished projects off of shelves. I’m really not interested in moving minis with half a paint job on them, I finished a bunch of my planned painting early this week so I wanted to knock out some quick progress.
I started finishing off a whole bunch of painted 15mm sci fi minis whose’s bases were never painted. I’ve looked into a rules systems called Mech Attack which uses hex basing and infantry on movement bases which lead me to take some 15mm mechs I had put on washers and take them off for rebasing. Unfortunately in the process some paint was stripped off of the feet and needed to be retouched. These Khurasan 15mm mech walkers will be used as infantry support mechs, the smallest mechs I’ll be fielding and probably designed as vehicles in the rules. Mech Attack doesn’t have rules for anything this small so I’ll have to figure something out. I also pulled out two un-built models, so I’ll be doing a video when I assemble and paint them. These are simple walkers with two twin autocannons and a 2 shot anti-tank missile launcher. They’re small and squat and serve as lower tech walkers in my Tomorrows War forces. Khurasan sells these as the Python Power Armour under their Nova Respublik line
I learned about Mech Attack from the Chicago Skirmish Wargames blog where they’ve done several write ups of club and convention games they’ve used the rules set for playing in 28mm with some awesome terrain and mechs! Check out their archives here: Chicago Skirmish Wargames
I also pulled out two Combat Wombat grav scout armored cars from the same box. One was finished, but the second had it’s commander bust loose before it could be finished being painted. The vehicle commanders are Brigade Models vaguely Russian troops. I’ve used them as DPRG in Tomorrows War where these scout vehicles are higher tech than their usual equipment and provided by their Earth based sponsors. I’ll be basing them on a hex base and giving it a floating appearance with some brass rod, which has to wait for Litko to open back up. Combat Wombat has unfortunately been out of business for years with the fellow who bought the line refusing to even answer questions about it any more, which is a shame because their turned brass barrels were awesome and a unique product in the 15mm sci-fi scene.
The third project I finished off this week was a set of Warlord Games Higgins Boat gunners. I go these well over a year ago for our D-Day in July game and didn’t get them finished in time for the 2019 game so they sat on the shelf. I don’t know if we’ll be doing a D-Day game this year with the pandemic but I wanted to get them finished and moved off the shelf of shame. I also have a third Higgins Boat to finish painting. It’s tough finding color photos of the drivers and gunners but the ones I found had the life jackets painted in some ‘Army Green’ colors, which is boring. So I went with the yellow life jackets, might not be historical but it does give them some more character and they stand out now.
As far as my 2020 painting goals go I only get to count the 28mm gunners, the others are just retouching so they don’t really count towards my 350, but I have 25 or so GZG 25mm ESU figures based and prime and I’ll start knocking them out next week, so April looks like it’ll be a good month.
The week started off well, adjusig my test paint scheme on my 25mm GZG ESU naval troops and finishing the figures I had primed up. There is a squad left in ‘cold weather capes’ that I need to decide how to make up with stealth camo cloaks. In the Tomorrows War setting the Chinese PLA has access to personal stealth technology so I just need to figure out how to model that on the cloaks.
I’ve had a productive week, especially after not getting a whole lot done in February. I’ve done two platoons of Ground Zero Games 25mm figures, so I wanted a little palette cleanser, Some variety to break up the monotony.
I keep breaking out my livestock for viking raiding games, so I figured I’d actually get more than a couple cows painted up to join my sheep and pigs. The Warlord Games farm animals are 1:56th scale with good detail, but the seams are ridiculous! I tried using the Vallejo Plastic Putty but it just wasn’t enough to fill them. The Pegasus Hobbies cows are mostly one piece, but 1:48th and have some soft details. The scale differences add some variety and I’m not too concerned about the detail level of a cow…