Snow

This is the forgotten post. It was nearly ready just after I finished my Winter War Russians earlier this year, then forgotten until now. Enjoy!

For my Winter War troops I needed snow-covered bases. A quick check of the closest gaming stores got me two different snow-effect thingies suitable for basing.

I basecoated all bases in white before I started with the snow-effect.

Heki Shneeglitzer

Made for the railroad crowd and at 250 g it will last a long time. I applied a thick coat of white glue to the bases and dipped them. The result is very sparkling and it looks like ice-crystals. Suitable for dry snow.

Tamiya – Diorama Texture Paint – Snow Effect White

This rather big pot, 100ml, will last a while. It is a thick paste that is easy to paint on to the bases, it sticks well and looks like wet snow when set. Sparkly and nice.

Both works well, but my favourite is the Tamiya snow effect.

Dust – Heavy Flak Grenadiers

Late spring a new Kickstarter appeared, Dust: Operation Babylon. I knew my pal Thomas had bought into the system earlier, and asked him about it. He said something like “Let’s play a game”, and I’m sure he grinned evilly saying that…

That's an awful lot of enemies. I'm not sure this really works...

Said and done, we had a short and fun game of Dust Warfare over a couple of beers. It turned out this is a good beer and pretzels type of game and I rather enjoyed it. Figures are really nice. Fun theme. What’s not to like?

I jumped into the Kickstarter. Laffe (also grinning evilly) dumped his bought-but-not-played-with minis on me, as did one of his pals.

So I suddenly had a bunch of minis and more to come from the Kickstarter (very, very late. They were supposed to deliver in August, still nothing…)

I needed some respite from Brimstone figures and especially the Night Stranglers, so the first unit hit the painting table – Heavy Flak Grenadiers.

These are heavily armoured troops wielding Fliegerfausts, a real weapon used sparingly in the very last days of the short-lived 3^rd Reich. In Dust the year is 1947 and the Axis troops are de-nazified.

Anyway, to have a chance of ever getting painted models on the gaming table I decided to go for simple paint-schemes – no camo-smocks or anything fancy.

Paints used:

Armour – Vallejo 995 German Grey drybrushed with 992 Neutral Grey

Cloth – 830 German Fieldgrey WWII washed with Army Painter Dark Tone ink

Fliegerfausts – 920 German Uniform washed with AP Dark Tone

Chinstraps – P3 Bootstrap Leather

Tubing – 836 London Grey

I haven’t done anything with the bases as I intend to base all my Dust figures on clear bases from Sally 4^th, but I have to order them first.

A fast paintjob, done in little more than an evening. More Dust figures will appear shortly.

Goldberry from Mithril

When I visited Alphaspel a while ago I found a large bargain bin full with Mithril figures from their JRR Tolkien’s Middle-Earth range. The sale is still on if this is your thing, all packs for between 30 and 40 SEK, which is a very good deal for the bigger packs.

I fell for M321 Goldberry, a beautiful model. I bought a couple of other packs you will see here on and off.

I see her as a useful civilian, be it in a fantasy, pulp or modern setting.

Paints used:

Skin – Vallejo 955 Flat Flesh, washed with Army Painter Soft Tone ink (Strong Tone around the eyes) and layered with 955 afterwards

Lips – Citadel Dwarf Flesh

Dress – Citadel Snot Green washed with Citadel Thraka Green Wash and drybrushed Citadel Scorpion Green.

Hair – Vallejo 822 German Camo Brown with a wash of AP Dark Tone

Flowers – Vallejo 948 Golden Yellow, washed with 937 Transparent Yellow and AP Soft Tone and finally a highlight of 928

Welcome follower Kris Marquardt with blog Wargames and Railroads, a nice mix of articles and what drew me in was the Old West stuff. He’s got a great comparison of different 28mm Old West buildings that are well worth a look if that’s your thing and a review of different MDF manufacturers. Much more to see. Recommended.

Magister 11 and J.R. Riedel are new Google+ followers.

If you have a blog, then put a link in the comments below so I can link to it.

Shadows of Brimstone – Stranglers

Six Stranglers in the Shadow of Brimstone – City of Ancients box. These are multi-part miniatures - body with two legs and one arm, separate arm, 2 separate tentacles and a tail. There are some mould-lines you have to scrape off, but nothing serious.

The fit is decent but you will get some gaps that needs filling.

 I used green stuff.

Paints used:

Skin – Citadel Vomit Brown washed with several coats of Citadel Washes Baal Red around maw and on tentacles and Army Painter Strong Tone ink on the rest of the body.

Maw – progressively darker Citadel Red Gore/Citadel Scab Red/Vallejo 859 Black Red

Teeth and claws – Vallejo 034 Bone White washed with AP Strong Tone

Varnished with Vallejo Matt Varnish, tentacles and maw-area (essentially everything red) got a coat of Vallejo Gloss Varnish.

I based these on 25mm transparent bases from Sally 4^th instead of the original 30mm bases.

I’m very satisfied with the result, they look real icky and weren’t too time-consuming to do.

Next on the paint table will be the Night Terrors. I’m not too sure about those, not my favourites. See what I can do about them.
Click here for the rest of my painted Brimstone minis.

28mm well

I just finished this well from Great Escape Games. A nice little terrain piece at £5, including a bucket and the rope. It will serve well in a wild west town or anywhere else for that matter.

Shadows of Brimstone – Void Spiders

There are 12 Void Spiders in the Shadows of Brimstone – City of Ancients box, making them one of the bulk monsters. I do like their enormous mouths, making them creepy and other-worldly. Not your usual spider, but something a bit special (and with six legs, they are obviously not true spiders anyway...)

Smile, you're on Candid Camera!

These are one-piece with some mould-lines to scratch off. Did that with a knife and really no problems there. The details on these minis are a bit vague, especially the corners of the mouth (where I had to do some free-hand painting), the sides and leg-joints.

Paints used:

Body – Six painted with Citadel Dheneb Stone and the other six with Citadel Codex Grey. Washed with Army Painter Dark Tone ink and drybrushed with Vallejo 171 Green Grey.

‘Feet’ – Black drybrushed with 171.

Mouth – Vallejo 944 Old Rose washed with AP Strong Tone.

Teeth – Vallejo 074 Bone White washed with AP Strong Tone and high-lighted with more Bone White.

I tried the Dheneb Stone with the first half, and that really didn’t work out as well as I had hoped. I painted the reminaing six grey, and it was better, but marginal... I’m not super exited of the result, but they are OK, I guess.

I used some of my Black Scorpion Wild West minis as stand ins for the Brimstone Crew in this action shot. No Void Spiders were hurt making this picture.

Next in the painting queue are the Stranglers or possibly the large Night Terrors. They will all need green-stuffing. Will take a couple of days, but I have some wild west terrain and maybe a figure or two nearly ready and pining for a post. 
Click here for the rest of my painted Brimstone minis.

Shadows of Brimstone - Tentacles

The first group of monsters from my Brimstone boxes is finished – tentacles! My philosophy on the Brimstone minis is essentially to get it all painted in a relatively short time, so I’ll try to use simple paint schemes, washes and drybrushing. Nothing fancy, but I’ll try to make decent paintjobs.

To be able to start playing with my toys I will concentrate on one of the boxes to start with. City of the Ancients have most appealing monsters as a whole, in my opinion, so they go first.

You’ll find six tentacles in each of the boxes, so these were the perfect ‘monsters’ to begin with. I did all 12 of them in one go, to get an assembly line going. They are one-part but have rather disappointing mould-lines. I had to accentuate the folds in the hide and also carve out some of the suction cups as some of them started out as lumps more or less. Not too difficult though, and well worth the little extra effort.

Adventuring really sucks!

Paints used:

Skin – Formula P3 Traitor Green with an Army Painter Strong Tone wash and drybrushed with Vallejo 914 Green Ochre.

Suction cups were drybrushed Vallejo 944 Old Rose.

Rocks – 987 Medium Grey with Strong Tone wash.

Finally a group-shot of some of the monsters. As you can probably see there will be a lot of green-stuffing the next couple of weeks…

Next on the painting table will be the spider thingies.
Click here for the rest of my painted Brimstone minis.