2018 Closes

         Here I sit at the end of the year, with an honest summary of the lies told to myself. I continued buying boat loads of minis. Several armies purchased, one sold. Cherry picking bullshit in full effect.
         The kickstarters never opened were sold off. The printers were started up again, then promptly broken.
         I got a house. I do have a room to paint in, a wargaming table is in need of a builder.
         Never ever really got behind the brush on the Colonial project. Hundreds of 20mm Colonial dudes wait NIB. 1000s of Ansar are washed. This was the worst part. I must finish the project. That means chipping away at what left unpainted and getting games on the table. Hosting a Con game.









         What happened was Warmaster and returning to work. Way too much time picking around with a system that was only to assist in getting me some more playing time with little effort.

         I spent a fortune buying ancients, tomb kings, araby, and samurai over the last two years. Ancients started fall in 2017. Most of time and energy pissed away with ancients shields, getting 2 jobs, buying a house, and moving everyone back to the states.
         With all those excuses/lies. I only managed 2 out of the 6 goals with one half way achieved. At least my ability to speed paint has improved. With it I was able to crank out 730 miniatures.

2018 Projects and Goals

        Get the Sudan project on the table. I only managed a to finish the Naval Brigade, Egyptian Infantry, and 1/2 the Baggage train. Only about 8% of the Ansar were painted. They were the major goal.
        
         20mm Moderns. I got a bunch of characters, pulp, and Zombies finished.  All the Afghans as a goal this year totally missed. I got a butt ton painted up, nothing related to the original goal. Plus a small purchase of a large number of painted US 1st desert war dudes.

         NetEA Imperial Fists and HH World Eaters armies.  Imperial Fist got some love. The WEs got nothing   

         Attend 2 HMGS cons and AdeptiCon.   Only made cold wars, NEAT, & Adepticon.

         Painting  800 plus dudes painted last year. The goal was 600 this year.  Smashed with 730+ painted

20mm Colonial project "wood filler?????"

         I have had painting sticks full of British dudes for months and months. They were all primed up and maybe just the helmets painted. I carried them with me since the Cali trips. Never, ever could get into painting them.

Empty sticks, need more dudes

         On this road trip, I made it a priority. They would be first to be done and I would not dick around with anything else until they were finished. I still dicked around, but I got them completely paint, and based.
         The next step was to put filler around their feet. I had always used wall filler. It is cheap and easy to use. It cleans up with water. After it dried, as it is white dirt is brown, I had to paint the wite wall filler. Two days of sitting around waiting for it to dry. And if, if you use a different brown to paint the filler the flock changes tone. Which is the root cause of the Colonial basing tone issues.

        I hate seeing the flat chunk of metal or plastic on the bottom raising them above the flock. It looks terrible! One of the reasons I rebased the entire Warmaster Tomb King army. That 2-3mm metal strip they stand on makes the basing look extra crappy.

         I did not have any wall filler with me. I had time and a goal. Off to Home Depot. Now I had just been watch that Luke painting service dude. He had made some temple thingy and used colored tile something or other. Not my idea! Hmmm if I had colored wall filler shit, I could save time and cut a step out, and establish some sort of uniformity across the future base color. So Tile stuff comes in 17 lb box, nope. Colored wood filler is small light and 4 bucks.

This is what you get.

Next washed, final highlight and the bases get flocked.

Painting at work again.

         Short work week. People have use it or lose it time. And everyone wants to take 3 days off for 11 days. I was not up on the rotation, but I volunteered to be. I am the only eng that could cover the Northeast without flying on Xmas. Nice guy maybe, but no. I did it as a trade for AdeptiCon time with no issues.
         I left the day after Xmas at 2:30 in the morning for a contract customer. Sucks? Yeah, but I am a sneaky fucker. Remember; Short work week. People have use it or lose it time. And everyone wants to take 3 days off for 11 days. This fact creates 3 full days of painting for me. No one to bother me, no guilt, and I won't be doing jack shit because; Short work week. People have use it or lose it time. And everyone wants to take 3 days off for 11 days.

Here I am in some dudes office painting and drinking dew.......

My trusty world traveling GW case

poor bastard's desk

          I have done nothing here. I have painted epic, 20mm colonial, samurai, roman, oscars, tomb kings. Next week will be a busy basing week.

Terrain repairs "GW table 3"

        This one I got two years ago while in Argentina. It was 80% finished with 2 extra flat tiles for cost. They haven't sold extra flat tiles in like 8 years. Well....It arrived at dad's house and sat there for years. I think it came out once for a HMGS Con. I did nothing with it.
         Now after finishing the repairs for the desert board. Which were easy and not so time consuming. I am hot to finish this one. Then figure out which to extend with the extra tiles.
          The fireworks are not part of the build.








         First step with any GW Realms of Battle Board is filling in those dam skulls. Everyone covers them up. Or they fill them in. How in the hell did they get thru the design process? It is the single down side of the boards.

Cruel Seas

           I got a starter copy as an early xmas present. Spending that grandma money before I got it. The rule book is shit. It is printed on magazine high gloss paper. Other than that is is a good little one off game. Something easy to learn and can be played in an hour.

          I will paint them up to a very limited effort. Just enough to be barely interesting. It is a fancy board game. 2/3rds of the models took less than an hour. The British boats are next in-between main projects.

Warmaster "Finishing an army" part II

         Tomb Kings are done for now. Everyone is on a Shogun magnetic base. All the bases have been re-flocked with MIG desert paste.

   
















        In the future, I would like to create the 4 Egyptian Divisions. That would take repainting part of the army. Maybe 2020, not next year.

Terrain repairs "GW Desert table"

The Games Workshop Realms of battle Desert table.

          It is showing wear and bald spots. The are indentations, craters, and chunks sticking up. This is mostly my fault. The initial layer for sand was wrong. I got so cheap sand from Home Depot. Not play sand, more like construction sand.

          The sand was not uniform in size. It created a very uneven surface. Stands and model would be off balance and tip. The rough nature also was very rough on terrain and models. Some larger chunks stuck at odd angles and stuck up too much. Those broke off right away. There by creating holes.
          Also half way thru I started to sift the crap out. Then the nozzle on the spray bottle clogged. It was not spraying, but shooting out a jet. The jet moved the base layer around, increasing unleved, crap surface.

         The table has been around for about 2 + years now. In the condition that it is currently in and with little to do this week, it is time for repairs. The first step was to scrap the top genteelly with a paint stirrer. This would bust off the larger chunks sticking up and attached poorly. The surface was then brushed and vacuumed. The second step was to take FL beach sand, very fine sand to level the surface. I soaked the original layers with watered down white glue. Then using a shaker bottle coated it in the fine sand. The fine sand self levels.

         I don't want it totally flat and level, because ground just ain't that way. Just level and flat enough  that stands are not wobbling like drunken sailors.

         The edge along the hills took a beating. 

        The 3rd step is matching the tiles to each other. 3 different home made flocking mixtures were used.

        If you even do this, remember sand gets darker when wet. You will need to soak it. As in below, it does not look very desert more afghan like. Once it dries, which will take forever, everything will lighten up.

Terrain "The Rivers"

         I had a bunch from long ago. Mostly purchased over many years at the HMGS Cons. All from Terrain Concepts, I think. Then maybe 4 years ago these rivers developed a limited availability.

        While in Argentina I bought a collection that had a huge number of them. Plus some of the smaller and largest sizes. After returning to the states they surfaced. Now I got some time to finish them just before the Holiday BS starts.

        The edges touching the water are flocked with the desert table base. The outer edge get the FW table green flock. 

         47 Additional river pieces completed. Now all the river sections are done and match. Next the Desert table repairs!

This year's Warmaster sickness

          So way back when all this BS started. I was going to buy a painted army. I would use that army to play at AdeptiCon and a few pick up games here and there. Thereby increasing the number of games I would get for my troubles. That was it! I had other stuff going on and no time to cycle another system across the painting table.


         Last AdeptiCon I was issued a loaner. I played with the New England group with a loaner. Then shorty after found a big completely painted Tomb King army for nothing. Which I expanded. Then glued magnetic bases to the bottom. Next I started to rebase and paint the army.

         There went an easy solution.  Which quickly preceded to exploded into a total cluster of unrestraint. I could try to explain my ruination as the resin/plastic/lead crack problem that I am known to have.
          It is more so the down and dirty speed and quality of the Warmaster system. As a gaming rule set/system, it is quick to learn. Yet there remains a depth to it. Strategically challenging. One can replicate historical battle maneuvers with an accuracy to actual results. Including but not limited to the trick battlefield deployments. Most importantly! It has an existing stable player base.


         All along and continuing with the desert theme, I start a Araby army sourcing historical minis. The WM Araby are more Ottoman Turks than actual desert peoples. Using Old Glory I chose all Persian troop types.

         After returning from Japan, of course I just had to buy a Samurai army. Yep I bought Jap terrain too!

        Note: 3 armies that are now unfinished. A Tomb King that requires the basing at the very least completed. An Araby that is 600 points painted. A Samurai army in route, to be smuggled into the house.

It doesn't end with that.

         In between last Xmas and AdeptiCon 2018, I started looking at ancients in 10mm. 10mm because who in the seven frozen hells can paint that many 28mm. I tried and failed. Boxes of 28mm lead are some where.
         Why not use Warmaster and/or HC? I could host Con ancient games, right? I am an Old Glory Army member.
         I responsibly picked a time period. Responsible in the idea that the period chosen would allow for multiple basic troops to cross from regional power to regional power.
         Irresponsibly I purchased in bulk Rep Rome, Cartho, AtG/Successor, Spanish, Hannibal, Pyrrhus. All of which remain 95% bare lead in baggies.  

         And then there is the terrain. I have a cubic ass ton of 15mm stuff for ACW RF&F. And a bunch of items kicking around. The Old Glory 10mm Viking Village stuff for example. I got in a trade 8 years ago got painted up. I need to complete the river sections. Dusted off all the fields.
           Then I bought a secret weapon table, Military discount. Some Dust Babylonian items, arabic tents, 10mm desert buildings, greek type ruins, a Greek/Roman-ish temple. All of which sits raw and boxed.

         Exactly! Next year will be a 10mm year. I will have to finish multiple armies. What, like 6? And a butt load of terrain. I am so fucked. I need a plan!

Saddness

Castle Arts is closed! In a fit of broken heart-ness, I reached out to the owner. He agreed to sell the left over stock to me. I bought everything he had, 900 + Euro. I will soon be up to my tits in samurai.