Argh Painting Takes TOO LONG (Plus Game Organization Tips from Me to You)

Yeah. This took me about SIX FREAKING HOURS:



The process I used:

1: Spray both sides of the model using Krylon Fusion (Dark Brown I think).
2: Paint arms and face using Citadel Foundation Tallarn Flesh.
3: Paint helmet and torso armor using mid 90s era Citadel Colour Brazen Brass.
4: Paint spear tips using mid 90s era Citadel Colour Chainmail.
5: Paint helmet plume with Citadel Foundation Mordian Blue.
6: Paint grey rocks with Valejo Game Color Cold Grey.
7: Cover flat part of model base with mid 90s era Citadel Colour Vomit Brown.
8: Dip wet base paint into Tupperwear style tub of Woodland Scenics ballast. (Forget exact name.)
9: Use Vomit Brown around edge of model base.
10: Paint gloves black. Paint back of shields black. Paint Tail and Hooves Black.
11: Use new Citadel Washes Ogryn Flesh on the fleshy bits and the grey rocks. (Should have used Badab Black wash on the rocks looking back. I might go do that if I go back and drybrush the tails sometime.)
12: Drybrush mid 90s era Citadel Colour (man do those old paints store well or WHAT?) Snakebite Leather on the brown horsey bits.
13: Glue shield on.
14: Tape up pegs on the formation trays.
15: Spraypaint with Krylon Fusion tan(or light brown.. I dunno) over the trays. Once dry pull off masking tape or regular old clear tape.
16: Wonder why it took so damned long for such little models and feel bad because there is more detail to the minis I just skipped painting because I am lazy.

I need to learn how to paint faster and nicer because this whole box of nearly 200 minis needs some painting done to it:

15 Roman Spearmen/Shieldwall and 15 Egyptian Archers not shown due to Krylon Fusion/primer drying

Luckily the rares and uncommons mostly just need a nice Badab Black Citadel Wash and my favorite quickie base flocking method as I described.

But notice that Plano case? That's a great way to store your Arcane Legions minis, as well as many other minis. In Arcane Legion's case especially since I want to paint and flock the bases we need a quick way of determining the model's ID codes. Thus I size the models with some room to breathe/grow, and put a piece of semitransparent tape on the spot above the model's new home and write down the code. (If I had a label writer I could really get fancy!) If I buy more boosters I have room for extras, and the tape lets me remove it and resize in the future if I choose to spread things out a bit more and go to 2 cases.

The things are a pretty good deal for under 5 bucks for this sized one, and the variable slot setup lets me fit things better.

Painting. Why I hate it in a visual guide.

That back unit? About 5 hours for a basic flesh coat for the Night Goblins and the bases flocked. What a boring waste of time.

And then I can play AT-43 with these lovelies looking like this OUT OF THE BOX?


(My UNA forces being used as a Necromunda gang.)

I understand that some folks love to paint, and that is cool. But some of us hate this time wasting mess. But as the upper picture shows, even a rudimentary two color job with a flocked and painted base looks better than bare metal/plastic, or an unfinished base. I do plan on adding 2-3 colors and a drybrush highlight to the Gobbos eventually. I just have two more units to get to that level. Ouch.

And more AT-43 to scale with a Warhammer Night Goblin. Excuse my bad black coloring in of the Fire Toad's 01 designation, imma gonna change that soon.

Tuesday and Wednesday Game Reports Plus a Little Bit More

This previous week was a mixture of limited gaming on Tuesday, and a TON of gaming on Wednesday.

Tuesday was a little Solace on my iMac with Starfury, MagicDrew, and 9IN followed up by some Three Dragon Ante. Solace is basically a medieval version of Axis & Allies, albeit one with no air units and with a vastly improved balance between the two sides. We played it as a free for all, with me winning, taking MagicDrew out with some devastating cavalry unit attacks and running roughshod through an AI player and Starfury. Three Dragon Ante was a pair of games with me getting utterly demolished in the first game, and winning solidly in the next one.

Wednesday was the feast day. A late start, but the trip to Sarge's included myself, 9IN, and Pico, with Starfury meeting us there. A nice game of Necromunda was started up, but called with my Van Saar gang holding a tenuous lead. With it being a holiday week, comics come in a day late. Meaning the store had to close an hour early so the books could be picked up in the morning the next day. We did meet some interested people who might join into the Necromunda games while we were there though.

A dinner run and then it was back to my house for the old ICE Hobbit Adventure Boardgame. Its a rather simple and modestly fun boardgame based heavily around drawing cards to boost your Hobbit or give you monsters and events to deal with where you then try to take out the Dragon who is totally not Smaug. *Snicker* Pico won and I bailed out towards the end game. See there is actual player vs player opposition. But its done with riddle cards. You play a riddle card and the opponent has to have a riddle card with the answer on it. I had one card in my hand. EVERYONE took this to mean it was time to gang up on me and get the victory perks from winning. One of my items, money, or these special amulet type items.

Needless to say, there was no need for me to keep playing. My gaming rules include NOT PICKING ON THE WEAKEST PLAYER, so having this rule broken took what enjoyment I may have had out of the game. Its not cool. Whoever is on the losing end just feels belittled and has almost all their chances of winning removed to boot. While everyone should try to win, there comes a point where it should not happen.

After this was a 3 lap race of Formula De using 1 lap car sheets. It was a fair match, though most of us made some mistakes or hit some bad luck during the race. Pico ended up winning, 9IN came in second, Starfury third, and me fourth. I probably wasn't thinking all that clearly because of the last game and took too many risks. And once things got bad, I had to take more risks. Which meant I tended to screw up more. Usually given be being me I would have been lapped multiple times, but I actually pulled back into second place for a short time so for me that was pretty good. It was an early gearshift rules confusion that hurt me. 9IN read the rules to us as I had forgotten most of them (I waited for ThoughtHammer to get the game back in stock for at least 6 months. We have played it once in the near year I have owned it until now. Yeah.) and forgot to mention there were bad penalties for multiple downshifting. Oh well, its only a game and I learned from it. I can tell I played it MUCH better than the first game oh so many months ago.

Starfury is looking into a store that has more tracks for sale which are getting tough to come by so we might get a nice league going sometime. He also had some car issues and has gotten my old Ford Escort off of me. I now had money for a Warstore order to all but finish what I need for my AT-43 Therian forces, and some extra UNA forces, with the UNAs doing double duty as my Necromunda Van Saar gang, the Raiders of Sherwood. I ordered it Monday. It will arrive on Tuesday. WOAH.

Thanks to Ebay I have gotten a hold of 7 more of the old 2nd edition 40K Ork Stormboyz I need, bringing my mob up to 12. I just love those old WW2 German outfit inspired Orks with Rokkit Packs over the current Mad Max Orks we seem to be stuck with. The big green clown Orks were more fun somehow.

On that note this week is a Tuesday only gaming week unless I decide to schlep down to Sarge's even with the ever increasing gas prices. I've been playing 3 times a week and not doing anything but gaming and Internet. Very few projects are getting done, very few chores are being completed, and my DVR, DVD, and Videogame queue has gotten to the point I don't get much new. (Though with my current Saturday and Sunday no Internet sabbaticals I did FINALLY get through my DVR list and even a DVD disk.) Pico and 9IN are off to a Yankees game this week. This also delays our Warhammer Fantasy game another 7 days giving me more time to at least get all my Gobbos painted up in two colors and with flocked bases. Ok. I have around 50 Gobbos to paint their skin and do their bases so I might not reach my main goal. Painting is such a boring chore! It is a big reason I want AT 43 to do well. No painting, yet no collectible blind buy nonsense. But compared to how many Gobbos I had ready when I called Pico to war I have made MASSIVE inroads. Army built, figures assembled and organized, models assembled and base colors thanks to Krylon Fusion applied. Beats a bunch of unpainted plastics and metals in a bunch of big Ziploc baggies!

Thursday, Tuesday, and Wednesday game reports!

This Thursday was no gaming, and next Tuesday looks to be no gaming, and the actual game reports are so short it can be compiled into one teeny little update!

THURSDAY: No actual tabletop gaming happened. Pico got his economic stimulus check and bought Rock Band. We named our group "Furioso" after the Blood Angels dreadnought, and proceeded to play it instead. Our characters look too neato after customization to the point I want to run them in some sort of RPG campaign, probably one involving ROCKING OUT. I just need to find the right fashion term for my Bassist. She sort of has the "Gothic Lolita" look going on, but its not that gothy, and the whole term lolita is tinged with 100 pounds of creepy in a 10 pound bag. Its not really Victorian or Steampunkish, but its got a tinge of it in there. Maybe I can get a photo of her and someone can give me a better term. She looks totally awesome though.

TUESDAY: A short Car Wars scenario, with the usual Tuesday suspects. 9IN and Rufus lost tires while interfering with an undercover cop being chased by a crimelord. We sort of shot at the wrong target since radio communication was a no go. Luckily the cop survived, the crook took a spin off the pier, and newschoppers got the whole thing on video. Rufus continued his loudmouthed tirades against evil, either going to be interviewed by the TV station, or sending an editorial to the newspaper. Justice will be done. That or every 2 bit crook where we are at is gonna be after our butts because Rufus keeps talking smack about them.

WEDNESDAY: A 3 way 750 point 40K game where it was mostly sit and shoot for my Chaos boys, causing a decent amount of antitank damage to an Ultramarines Land Raider, and making a Slaaneshi Chaos Lord go poof. Kind of a dumb game, but mildly amusing. Followed up by a little Magic play and some conversation. At least I bought some more comics trades to bring myself closer and close to having all my stuff current. But given I collect around 20 series in trades this is a rather difficult feat and will never totally happen. Even if I could afford it. (For the record it was Oh My Goddess Volume 8, Ultimate X Men Volume 17, and Girl Genius Volume 4. I passed on Ultimates 2 volume 2 for another time as it will finish off that series for me. Utimates 3 is a complete trainwreck no sane person would ever want to read. Nice to know Marvel wants to make the Ultimate universe suck as hard as the regular one. Saves me money anyhow...)

So not the greatest week and a half of tabletop gaming. Not the worst either mind you. It gives me more time to not figure out which RPG I will run next and for what group. I'm roughly undecided between Mekton 2 and DC Heroes, with D6 System coming in a semi close third.

Showing off the Collection Part 1

Given that the man whose vision is responsible for my colossal waste of money has left us, its all too appropriate to show off my goodies. It'll take a while to show it all off, but today I will display the D&D, Horror, and Retroshelf!


Top shelf has the White Box Original D&D with all the main books except for the Gods, Demigods, and Heroes book. The messy bits are hiding many classic AD&D 1st edition adventures still waiting to be run, and a fair number of 2nd edition too.


Some 1st and 2nd edition books. I have a few more here and there, and that reminds me I need to get Deities and Demigods back from Magicdrew.


My horror shelf, celebrating Call of Cthulhu and Ravenloft. The binders contain legally purchased PDF printouts of classic adventures I missed over the years. When I put all my in print White Wolf stuff up, the binders will be moved.


About 1/3rd of my D&D box sets, more adventure modules, and some Dungeon Magazine issues.


One of my "Where the hell am I gonna put this?" stacks. In this case most of my Warhammer RPG collection. Another copy of Dark Heresy, WHFRP 1st edition, and the Dark Heresy GM pack aren't featured.


The stuff from Sarge's Comics' 1 dollar RPG book thingie. Its gonna get bigger over the next few weeks. Again, I have to figure out where to put it. And my camera continues to pick up dirt, dust, and stuff my naked eye doesn't see. Time to get out the vacuum!


A mixture of stuff to find a place for (the AD&D stuff I got for a great price from a Something Awful sales thread), and my go game stuff ready to be played. The tote bag has my New World of Darkness books I actually use in play (Rulebook, Second Sight, Armory, Dark Alliance: Vancouver (oWoD). The plastic thingie is my Federation Commander collection ready for classic Trek action. The black bag is my Warhammer 40K bag. Currently my Tyranids are in it waiting to eat things for the Hive Mind.


Part of the board and wargames closet that isn't yet set. ASL, Squad Leader, some CCG stuff (World of Warcraft and Magic the Sucking), Ogre, Car Wars, and Battletech stuffage. Itll be pretty eventually. Below it not seen is a couple tubs full of Heroscape hex terrain.

I have more to show, but its too messy and disorganized for even me to show. Sigh. Project to do number who knows out of HOLY COW DO THIS ALREADY!

Tuesday and Wednesday Game Reports

No pictures or anything this time as there was no game played Wednesday, and Tuesday was more Heroquest. While we now have an old member back in the fold, who I will currently refer to as 9 Iron Nuke, or 9IN if you will, not a lot really happened. The Priest of Sigmar and Dwarf Slayer both seem pretty well balanced and fun to play, though my playthrough of the Slayer was anything but.

Almost everything bad that could happen to my character did, killing him off in the final battle, meaning due to bad luck I spent a good 90 minutes of gaming having very little fun whatsoever. I might as well have taken a nap frankly.

Nothing like bad luck totally ruining the game. Then again, the only luck I seem to have in Heroquest is bad luck.

Not exactly the gaming week of legend by any means.

I got the 40K RPG in and the book is HUGE. Very impressive to look at! A few of the Warhammer Fantasy RPG items showed up too. But being books, until I get some time to read them, there isn't much I can say.

Sorry few people who read my blog. I just don't have anything interesting to update right now.

I'm not sure if I need gaming antidepressants or just antidepressants period...

*sigh*

My Poor Mac!

In August 07 I got a shiney new 24" iMac of happy joy. I sort of transfer stuff over from the little Mac.

2 weeks ago the machine's hard drive decides to die on me, leaving me without everything that wasn't still also on the small Mac. (Which wasn't much. Outside of it being hooked up to the printer so my tabletop gaming stuff is mostly on it along with my older iTunes purchases its kind of barren.)

Now thanks to Applecare and a home visit my HD was replaced, but I now need to call Apple and get my songs back, and hope my goodie goodie nature and abject paranoia kept the evil of the Internet off the old drive should Apple or whoever decide its worth refurbishing and poke their noses into the drive. (Probably not as the tech said because these 200+ gig HDs seem to be very unreliable in general. Still the principle of the thing! ) Luckily I don't keep passwords or anything on it and I am not exactly a porn collector like most people seem to be. In fact, at most I had less than 1/3rd of a gig if I had any at all on the machine.

(I probably had more pictures of toy robots in data space taken up than in 1 video involving an elf and a pirate if it happened to be on the drive. And I actually paid for it. Yes, something is horribly wrong with me. On many, many levels.)

Not to mention the net is so full of scary people I tend to avoid the seedier side of it just because its well.. if you have been on the net you KNOW the horrors of humanity I speak of, if not personally, from bloodcurdling tales of other less fortunate souls. (Why are people so broken?)

A shame I couldn't have tested the drive in an enclosure to get the data off of it if possible, but oh well. Nothing on there was that important anyhow. I should be able to get my songs back from Apple if I bitch politely enough!

Sadly, I now need to buy the newest OSX revision to use Boot Camp again as the old beta has expired, which means I am Windows less for a few months.

I'll be checking on that next.

Currently to get this puppy back up to snuff I have to:
Re import my iTunes music from Little Mac and set up podcast subscriptions. DONE
Reinstall VLC player and Windows Media Player for audio stuff. WORKING ON IT.
Reinstall and patch Comic Life Deluxe.
Get my Widgets set up again.
Boot Camp and Windows XP if possible. NEED LEOPARD.
Cry a lot at all the time I have wasted so far. DONE
Getting the rest of my bookmarks set up. 40%
Setting up Dosbox, Flash, and any other of that sort of program I need to have on the machine. MOSTLY DONE. SILICOIDS CAN KISS MY ASS DAMN YOU!
Stuffit Expander. DONE.
Miss all my robot pictures lost to a dead hard drive. :( DONE.
Install/Patch World of Warcraft for whenever I go back.