One Page Rules Part Three: Last Overview?

 It has been a while but I have more fun pages full of pictures and a handful of images covering more info and a couple pictures of play, albeit without a ton of rules detail.

 

 Yes I am using a variety of miniatures and terrain boards from all sorts of companies.  And ideally?  I will do it even moreso in the future!

One Page Rules Part Two: I Guess it is a Blog Thing?

 Yeah.  I guess so.  Ideally I will talk more about rules and stuff and not just a general overview of how things work but right now it is more just how the whole thing is going.

 Hopefully the next part will include talking about the models in the first set I bought, the rules I purchased and got printed, and maybe even a mini battle report?  Who knows?

One Page Rules Part One: Or How I Learned to Go Generic and Love my Minis

 So yes.  I still function more or less.  And I have been working in the miniature building mines.  All thanks to https://www.onepagerules.com/ So let me bring back my comic style because I want to and I feel like it in between whatever games I have been replaying.  (Bloodborne, Battletech 2018, and Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.)

   As always you can click for bigger pictures if you want. (EDIT:  Original version of these images were simply too large and absolutely sloggy.  While mad crisp nobody needs 20-30 megabyte images.  Have ones roughly 1/3rd the size.)

 

 

 

Well I already have the pictures and ideas for the next installment in the work folder so hopefully sometime soon we can see the depths of my loony current obsession in tabletop gaming.  Or maybe not.  We know how I do.  Or I know how I do by now.  Let's hope we see each other really soon and I don't like get distracted by something like a cookie.

Warmachine Hordes Journeyman League: The Path to Painting Inspiration?

Or should I say Paintspiration?

No?

Kiss my ass then jerk.

Anyhow yes.  The local Warmahordes (combination of the two Privateer Press sister games Warmachine and Hordes which are fully compatible with each other outside of how their wizards work basically) had a Journeyman League go on.

Basically you paid the store five bucks, and then got a record sheet to keep track of your wins, losses, and other achievements.  And then got some sticky patches to make your Trapper Keeper look cool.

 Each week you get points based on playing up to five games each week, and hobby points based on what you painted.  After so many points you got a patch add on.  If there was some sort of league prize for overall winning I have no idea.  Didn't ask.

And to make it more interesting we had weekly special achievements you could get.  The bottom shows the scenarios of the week, and the composition rules.  Our Press Ganger (basically the local "Street Team" promoter of Privateer Press stuff) allowed us to use any basic battlegroup we wanted, not just whatever was in our chosen faction's starter box.  So I went with Grim Angus, a Troll Bomber I had magnetized so I could swap hands and head to also use it as a Mauler, and an Impaler.  Making me 3 points under for the first week.

Until the last week your Battlegroup had to stay the same, though in the fourth week you could begin to switch said Commander Wizard.  (Basically your Quarterback in US Football.  If Phil Simms and Joe Montana could fire out devastating magical spells anyhow...)

This is cool because it gets newer players to slowly get used to their pieces and gives veterans incentives to try out new builds or maybe a new faction.

Given my free time and work schedule I could usually only get a game in each week especially once we reached the 25 and 35 point levels.  You got 3 points for winning, 2 for losing, and then paint points.  I won the paint part like a boss.

AND AS WE ALL KNOW I BLOODY HATE PAINTING.  I am super slow at it.  Like glacially so.  And never totally happy even when things turn out nice.  But I ended up with multiple Journeyman Chevrons, and the Paint Thingie which now are on my 15 dollars from Aldi Ipad case:

(I have three blood donor stickers in total on this case.  On the top flap that magnetically closes it and thus hides the speaker and camera hole I have an Intellivision sticker and a miniatures game sticker.  I have room for a couple more blood donor ones on this side and the back.  The magnetic holder and the way the case bends obviously mean my Journeyman patches aren't gonna fit properly but who cares?  I also have Derpy Hooves (PS BRONIES SUCK GO AWAY YOU FEDORA WEARING PERVERTS), Olaf from Frozen, and a graphical abortion from SA Retrogoon Acid Police.)

Yes I effectively paid five whole dollars to have embroidered stickers on my Ipad Case.  But the painting part got me working.

It inspired me to paint.

Let's inspire you shall we?

 On the right we have a bare metal Trollkin Scattergunner from the metal box I got at half off at Connecticon 2013.  On the left, a figure from the same box at what I consider "Base Painted".  Primer.  Core color spraypainted.  Flocked base with painted lip.

Even this small amount looks so much better than bare metal right?  It shows you CARE.

 This is the same model with spray primer.  Again, it alone looks better than bare metal but the leftie is still further along.  (In the back you can see my plastic Dire Troll kid in the process of having magnets and liquid green stuff putty applied.)

And now the base color.  This isn't hard to do at all or will take much time.  And it makes your stuff look better even if you don't have proper time to paint, or much time period.  Just spray around the top and sides of the model in a paint box or a well ventilated basement (I do most of my spraying by the bulkhead door in my basement on the steps.), let it dry, put it face down and spray it again to get those under parts, dry again, spray the front.  EASY PEASY!  Some cardboard to stand them on and you can rotate the board to cover all angles.

But let us go DEEPER, eh?  Howabout we add in some flesh to one of our Troll Impalers?

 While leftie is a starter box plastic and rightie is a metal they are roughly the same design so it will work.  I tried to be as careful as I could to avoid overspill and just adding in the big parts of skin makes him look so much better right?  

Wouldn't take a lot of time to get an entire small sized miniatures army up to this standard.  Just paint a little bit each day you know?

 Now we add some metallic colors.  Tin on top of the brown makes for a great low tech metal armor as the Trollbloods might have, and some silvery metallic for the spears and the keg.

 And now we give him a hair color, and use two different brown paints to be rope and wood.  I generally thinned my dropper bottle paints from Vallejo and Army Painter and my mostly mid 90s Citadel Colour ones were right from the bottle.  (And the few mid 00s Foundation but that subline always dries out and needs water so ends up being thinned in the bottle anyhow.)

Now even stopping here gives you a decent looking figure at least at a distance.  Give extra coats where needed, and clean up missed spots and where you went "out of the lines" when coloring in 3d.

But washes and shades?  As the local Press Ganger calls them:

Liquid Skill

Armor wash on the spear tips makes them feel alive and used!  A blue wash on the skin and a little wash in the eye socket brings out the detail and natural shading.  A brown wash over the wood and rope makes it used and lived in.  And the current Nuln Oil Citadel Shade everywhere else for a very light matte wash that is practically MAGIC.  

Sure it won't win any awards but who cares?  Cool Mini Or Not has people approving of Eldar Guardians having their breastplate removed as an Imperial Guardsman is undoing his pants as his troopers watch what obviously terrible thing he is about to do to her.

We don't give a happy crappy what they think!

Its a simple and effective setup and I used the base color as a foundation.  Rock on!

While it took a TON of my free time over those five weeks I did a bit every day that I could, sometimes just doing a little bit to a figure each day...

I worked hard, even trying out some HAS CHEMICALS THAT CALIFORNIA SAYS CAN CAUSE CANCER, BIRTH DEFECTS, OR OTHER REPRODUCTIVE HARM (and it says you want to keep away from an open flame) Tamiya Weathering Powder to get a great worn and rusty look to my CANCER BEAR.  (Ok if I had skill he would have been a Panda, maybe even the super cute Red Panda.  But I do not.  As it is, my super glue drippage on many of these models took out a bit of detail on the models.  How people can glue after they paint blows my mind.  Even if it does make getting in all those tricky spots easier.  On the upside, you can't see everything so don't worry about those spots as much.  Its why a good base color makes a big difference.  Or if you just hand paint everything go with black primer for natural shadows.  Unless you love to use yellow paint schemes anyhow..)

And more Minion book bros join the fray!  Yeah you can see a little flesh color on the inside of Gudrun the Wanderer's cloak but you have to stare at it head on to see it.  And fixing it is nearly impossible unless I use a magnifying glass, those hands free grips, and a toothpick.  It will do.  Like I said, don't worry about what you just can't see!

And here we have it!  A full 25 point Trollkin army list all painted!  I need to touch up the bases a bit but they are done and will look so very nice on the table.  They won't be the match of the work of painting pros or anything but they are simple, clean, effective, and show I care.  

I just paint slow as hell.  Some people paint a model an hour.  I am closer to 4 hours a standard 28mm scale model.  Yeah.

But if you use things like a Journeyman League or self set goals you will get your models painted and you WILL make your games that much richer and more pleasing!

Even if you frequently get your butt whooped as I do.  (Though the regulars do say I have made a ton of progress as a player.  I really need time to read the full Hordes rulebook.  I've read the Warmachine book twice but that is every year or so and you forget stuff you don't use, you know?)

And of course PLAY MORE!

Takin the bros out to party inspires you to paint them!  It makes you want to buy more of them!  To try new stuff!  

TO

GET

IT

ON!

 Remember to BE AGGRESSIVE 

B

E

AGGRESSIVE.

(Just not too aggressive because then your Warlock gets eateded by nasty things.)

But sometimes other sides will do the same "Hail Mary" moves you do and you can pull out a win.

(Mostly just Gudrun the Wanderer keeps having to take more swigs from his booze.)

Hope this inspires you to paint more, play more, and check out any local leagues and mini tournaments for the games you enjoy.

Provided they aren't full of hyper competitive tryhards of course!

[Review Corner] Revel Snap Tite Y Wing Starfighter Model

Yep.  Last week I had a 40% off 1 item coupon from Michaels, which seems to be one of the few stores you can go in and buy model kits from.  While I was hoping to find a nice airbrush, none was to be found.

But for giggles I chose to pick up a Star Wars model kit.  The Y Wing Starfighter!

(As always, click on the picture for a larger one.)

It comes in a pretty hefty box with dimensions of the model, but no scale information.  Its for ages 8 and up, and had an MSRP of 28 dollars US.  With my 40% off I saved 11 and change.  Pricey still, but what the hey?

As a Snap Tite kit it doesn't require glue and given modern people (like me!) being lazy and to ease people into the joys of kit building it even comes prepainted right out of the box.

However, after popping open the box I had a bit of a let down.

Oh dear.  there is a giant bit of cardboard holding the box stable, and 5 plastic baggies containing the sprues, and 2 mini baggies containing the canopy and figurines.

Look at that.  HALF THE BOX IS DEAD SPACE.  It not only takes up a lot of room on a store or home shelf, its wasteful from an environmental standpoint.  Look at all that needless cardboard.  Plus for folks who don't pay much attention to the specs it is somewhat deceptive, making you think its this honking big kit when its full of air.

We see the sprues arrayed here.  The main ship body is a pair of halves with a basic but nice paint job on 2 sprues, 1 mostly unpainted engine sprue, a piece sprue containing some painted bits like the cockpit, 2 of the long frame bit sprues, a baggie containing a simply painted pilot and R5 droid, and another baggie with the painted canopy.  While some minor touch ups will be needed, most of the sprue gates aren't near something that was prepainted at the factory.

One thing to note is the main color is a form of very light beige or a light cream color.  Painters need to keep this in mind.  Thankfully when removed from the sprue the sanding and scraping don't really leave big scarring marks.

Overall, assembly and fit was pretty good.  Shown here is an example page of the 3 actual pages of assembly (its only 31 pieces after all!) and the model built stock with the tools I used.  A little Ogryn Flesh wash to the pilot's face, some black paint pen for the pilot's seat from the sprue gate, and the pliers & vise to hold down some parts.  I did use model cement in a few spots to make things fit better and to fill in the few gaps there were.  The only really heavy gap space though is the 2 large flat wing sections that connect to the engines, and the rear of the engines themselves.  You may want to use model cement and then hold it down with some small vises like the one shown.  A little putty could come in handy as well, but some cement or gap filling superglue does just as well.

I ended up chopping off most of the pins on the back of the engine pylons and just gluing the aft exhausts on the small nubs left.  It makes for a tighter and smoother fit than pure pins.

You may also want to chop the pin off of the pilot's butt and just glue him in.

The instructions were pretty clear and simple, though a few pieces are numbered though they are but in a baggie.  But with only 31 parts and mostly big obvious ones, these few were easy to suss out.

I kind of regret not using some clear nail polish on the Ion Cannon mount up on the top of the cockpit as it does spin around kind of easily, but not so easily as to make it constantly wobble unless you are flying it around the house.

While sadly the camera doesn't show it too well, I used a yellow Gundam Marker to spot fix the yellow on the front of the engines where the sprue gate interfered, and a panel inking Gundam Marker to do up the cockpit panels with some Q Tip wipedown.  The file was used in the build up.  I forgot that one to show in a previous picture.

Overall, to this easy point took me maybe 90 minutes, possibly a little longer as I was filing and sanding and using some cement.  A kid or more casual builder could probably build it up and have it still look pretty good in around an hour or so.

But for the price you may as well take your time.

One disappointing thing is the fighter HAS NO LANDING GEAR.  Not even removable ones.  No display stand either.  Thankfully its a pretty flat ship so it displays fine as well, but for the price its a real shame.

I chose to add in an extra step and give the whole model a paint wash using Badab Black Citadel Wash.

I lightly swabbed over it, then used the Q Tip to wipe things down a bit.  Here we see it brings the front of the machine to life, and doesn't interfere with the panel inking at all.  In the body, it really brings the machine to life.  The reference picture I used for painting at Wookiepedia (a Star Wars wiki) had it being brown and dirty, something the "Holy Trilogy" ships usually all were.  I have seen some Y Wing paint jobs at Starship Modeler that really get into making these ships look beaten down.  For the front I brushed in one direction instead of wiping in every which way, making it feel like the ship has gotten dirty flying through smog or some volcanic planet.

It took a little bit more time to cover the engines, but they are done too, and the model is complete.

We can see the pilot inside, and the R5 unit removed from the ship, and sadly fallen over.

Next to them is a Star Wars Miniatures 30-32mm scale R2D2, an old West End Games era 25mm scale Boba Fett, and a Galoob Action Fleet scale figure.

Given these figures we can see the ship model can be used as a "good enough for government work" terrain piece for the current Star Wars Miniatures game.  (Well its cancelled now but the figures and boosters are still available...)  It may not work for a diorama to enter in a contest, but you would probably be using a higher grade model such as those by Fine Molds.

The R5 unit is about 10-11 millimeters tall, making it loosely a 25mm scale figure as an R5 unit is canonically (again according to Wookiepedia) .97 meters tall.  R2 is a bit bigger and bulkier than him, but not by so much it would look too out of place in your miniatures gaming.  The pilot on the other hand looks to be more of a 20mm scale figure.  Maybe he is just kind of short.

(Thanks to the commenters for the catch on my Metric failure.  I blame the US education system.  Especially my local school which keeps wanting more money every year but still turns out retards like me.)

A look from the side and a handy ruler in the shot.  Officially the model is 8 5/8th inches long and almost 5 inches wide.  I would say the ship is about 1:72 scale overall.  But given some of my older non prepainted Snap Tite real world aircraft models, they aren't perfectly exact in scale either.  (If I ever cover those kits I will compare pilot figures for the example.)

And finally a shot of the butt.  You can't much see it in the photo, but the most visible gap in the model is on the rear of those engines.  Its got a nice simple color prepainted in there, but it actually makes things more noticeable.   I used some cement to seal things up and put some wash in there to hide any glue discoloration.  Also make note of the rear engine exhausts in the back.  The instructions aren't completely clear as to what the big panel orientation is supposed to be, horizontal or vertical.  I just guessed based on how they showed the pieces displayed in the instructions as there was no clear shot of them on the box.

So overall the kit has nice detail, relatively easy assembly outside of a few minor gaps and those funny engine pylons, and in around 3 hours total work looks mighty good even for a casual model and paint guy like myself.  Its large enough to be useful in miniatures gaming and RPG scenarios, and the prepainted bits do a good job of even giving an elementary school kid a fun kit to learn on as their first step past some of the modern easy models that just need a screwdriver.

However the price really hits this one down.  This kit is SOOOO not worth 28 dollars.  I would say 15 bucks is a better and more reasonable price for this.

If you want a quick build Y Wing with good detail, or a kit to bring someone into the modeling fold its pretty nice.

But given the price I can only give the kit an "Ok" rating overall.  So wait for the price to drop to at least 20, and if you see it for 10 on a clearance rack snap it up!

[Epic System] Preparing for Battle! Six Days To War Part 4

My status:  Currently battling DOS floppy disks that all seem to be dying in spite of not being used for 15 years yet being kept in excellent condition.  AD&D Dungeon Hack's Disk 4 is dead, and Warlords 2 Disk 1 has been unpacking the same file for 30 minutes.  I am scared for my babies.

But my continuing goal of course has been to build and paint my Chaos Epic forces for this week's introductory battle.

Everything assembled, the Thousand Sons were taken downstairs for their Krylon Fusion basecoating.   Magnus and the Tzeentch Disk Riders got a slightly odd light blue, and the rest a standard blue.

While doing this I also chose to attempt to fix Angron's doofy looking face that was killed by my shoddy attempts to paint his eyes yellow.  A dab of paint didn't hurt any, but I was still not happy.  I used some Citadel Foundation paints on Magnus' wings and hair, Mithril Silver for his loincloth, bronze for his metal bits (as I am out of gold brushpaint), an off white grey for the orb, Bleached Bone for the horns & toes plus the talons of the orb's claw, and  the same grey as a center for his eye.

(The early attempt at fixing Angron's messed up eyes.  I tried just filling it in with a red Gundam Marker, but it still looks doofy.  Note how his tootsies are unpainted.  He looks angry about that.)

(Magnus Saturday Morning)

More during the weekend involved Foundation Iyanden Darksun Yellow on the cloaks of the Disk Riders followed up by THREE coats of regular Sunburst Yellow.  They all get a nice drybrush of Lightning Bolt Blue , and I add in some details to Magnus.  Im not totally sold on his face (and the extra blue I needed to use to hide red & black splotches) or the simple magic effect I tried to put in the orb, but its better than a blank orb.  I may give it a silver paint application which should let the colors show through like a magical effect.

(Not everything I had painted last night on the Thousand Sons unit, but most of it.)

I give the Khornate vehicles a barely noticeable red drybrush, and pretty much repaint his face red, then using Iyanden Darksun to redo his eyes.  Its not perfect but its no longer god awful.  

(And my Khorne unit as it currently is.  Starring Angron in "LEARN TO FOCUS DIP*&^%^!"  Now with somewhat better yellow eyes, and a basic bright red face, the ears left dark washed.)

Between the pictures and now I have done a little bit of gold paint pen on the Thousand Son Rhinos, and flocked up the Disk Riders.  I will probably just use the gold paint on the vehicles, flock the bases of the Thousand Son Legion, and call it a day for painting.  Maybe I will paint more up after the fact, but those are the only things I seriously want to have done.  

Still, they are looking better and better.  Even a simple paint job helps.  By having them out in the open, sometimes I will crack open a bottle and do a color.  I also had run out of Goblin Green, but had accidentally picked up a replacement bottle that was instead Camo Green.  I actually think I like it better than my usual flocking paint.  Its subtler, less vivid.  It just looks a bit nicer really.