2013 Plans

2012 was productive for me hobby wise, with a pleasing amount of miniatures and terrain pieces assembled and/or painted over the year.  I also managed to get a decent amount of gaming in, both tabletop miniature games and board games.  I hope to continue these trends into 2013 and so I am sketching out a rough plan for this year.

Its impossible to say which of these projects will get priority as the year goes by.  Also, unexpected additional projects usually creep in as different rule sets, books, films, tv shows, video games etc draw my attention.  That said, by this time next year it is likely that at least some of the projects listed below will have been tackled in some form or another.  A little uncertainty here is fine with me: while I want my hobby to be productive, it isnt a job.

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Dreadball

I got in on the Kickstarter for this miniature based boardgame last Summer and the figures started to arrive just before Xmas.  I have only played one quick game to learn the ropes so far, but the rules look promising.  A number of the people that I game with have invested in Dreadball to some extent so there is a lot of enthusiasm for it and we have a inaugural session coming up very soon.  Fingers crossed that the rules hold up for that.

I am currently working on my first team which should hopefully be painted and ready to go on time for that first make or break game session.  If Dreadball takes off then I expect that I will get a number of figures painted for this game in 2013, but no matter what happens I will have at least one painted team finished and posted up here soon.

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Judge Dredd

Although I got very few Dredd related miniatures painted in 2012, I did get a number painted in 2011.  This project is still high on my to-do list, backed by the fact that I have a pat-wagon load of miniatures waiting for attention.

A lot of the miniatures for Dredd gaming will be just as useful in 40K skirmish games as in Dredd-specific settings (the original 40K Rogue Trader was designed with very many influences from 2000AD incorporated into it after all), so that makes those figures that bit more likely to bubble to the top of the list.  Rewatching last years solid Dredd movie next week will also likely reinvigorate this project.

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Rogue Trooper

After the success of their Judge Dredd Miniatures Game  Kickstarter, Mongoose Publishing is due to run another miniatures Kickstarter based on a second 2000AD property in late January.  What this means in real terms is that Mongoose have this particular fanboy by the balls, so I am likely to contribute in some fashion to the Rogue Trooper Kickstarter.  That said, I wont be seeing any Rogue Trooper figures until at least the Summer I expect, so this project may not get off the ground this year, even if it cuts a big ol’ lump out of my 2013 budget.

Like the Dredd figures, a lot of my miniatures and terrain pieces for 40k skirmish gaming will fit well into this setting, and vice versa.  In particular the GW Wall of Martyrs trenchworks set that Santa brought me will be ideal to represent some of the battle scarred surface of Nu Earth.

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WH40K Skirmish

This is a very broad project that encompasses things like the Space Dwarf, Veer-myn and Necron forces that I painted last year in addition to many and various oddball individual figures that I have waiting for paint.

I have a specific rule set that I plan to use for gaming in the 40k-verse and I already have plenty of suitable terrain and very many suitable figures painted.  I also have a number of interesting individuals and other factions that I want to get painted up for this.  As mentioned already, many of the suitable miniatures and other pieces for this project overlap with the Dredd and Rogue Trooper stuff.  This project rates very highly on the likely-to-actually-get-done-o-meter.

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Wasteland/Post Apoc Terrain

I have a lot of PA terrain now and it is the most coherent terrain set that I have put together to date.  I still have a few more bits and pieces that I want to add to it and I hope to get them finished before I start work on my other planned 2013 terrain set.  The wasteland terrain is useful for all three of the planned games mentioned already, so its not going to be wasted effort or anything, but I do want to get the backlog of post-apoc terrain pieces done before engeage in the next terrain set.

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Sci-fi Urban Terrain

Sci-fi urban is the terrain set that I have wanted to game over since I first got into the hobby in the eighties.  A number of my other miniatures projects are waiting for this terrain set to come together before they can fully shine (Dredd games in particular are crying out for a nice urban set).  Its a pretty daunting task, but I feel like I might have the resources to tackle it this year.

I want this set to be a non-ruined, non-gothic urban area reminiscent of Mega City 1 and Bladerunner with a little bit of Futurama and The Jetsons in there too.  I have been stockpiling suitable bits of junk for scratch built elements for years and I have also picked up a number of suitable kits and bits of set dressing.

This project is a biggie with some planning required and I dont want to tackle it until the Wasteland/Post Apoc terrain is fully finished.  Therefore I am pretty certain that this project will not be completed in 2013, but I am hopeful that it will get started upon at least.

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So thats my hobby 2013 sketched out.  It will be interesting to take a look back at this next December and see how much of it has materialised.

My 2012 Output

Assassin

Servitors

Astropath

Scourged Forest Zuzzy Mat

Wounded City Zuzzy Mat

Graveyard trees

Mausoleum 1

Mausoleum 2

Mausoleum 3

Mausoleum 4

Graveyard Statue 1

Mausoleum 5

Graveyard Walls

Graveyard fences

Graveyard Gate

More Graveyard bits

Graveyard in situ

 

Riddick

 

Dark Judges

Lady Justice Malifaux Crew

Malifaux Objectives 1

Malifaux Objectives 2

Santiago Ortega & another creepy tree

Executioner

Robo Sheriff

Scales of Justice

Austringer

 

Veermyn

Veermyn Squad Leader and trooper.

Veermyn heavy weapon trooper and trooper.

Veermyn Commander

 

Space Dwarfs

Stormrage Veterans

Steel Warriors

More Steel Warriors

Space Dwarf Engineer

Space Dwarf Commander

Space Dwarf Artillery

10mm Evil Army

10mm Saruman

10mm Goblin spear unit.

10mm Nazgul mounted on Fell Beast

10mm Goblin spear unit 2

10mm War Trolls

10mm Mounted Nazgul

10mm Orc warriors

10mm Orc  & Goblin Heroes

10mm Goblin Wolf Riders

10mm Orc Stone Thrower

10mm Hobgoblin Wolf Riders

10mm Mounted Goblin Heroes

More 10mm Hobgoblin Wolf Riders

Blood Bowl Elf

Skeleton Robots

Cyber Reavers

Necron Scarabs

Chaos Android, Necron Warrior, Necron Warrior

Chaos Dreadnought

Terminators

Necron Lord

Fishmen

ALF

 

Thats my output for  2012.  Totals are ~104 miniatures (counting 10mm bases as one miniature) and ~55 terrain elements (which vary in size from a 28mm scale book to 6×4′ terrain mats).  It a little less than my output for 2011, but its still pretty good I think.  I reckon that I could push productivity up a bit more if I really tried, but then it might become more of a chore than a pleasurable pastime.  I suspect that future years will have about the same output, which really means that I should buy far, far fewer miniatures than I do currently.

My recurring late Summer-Autumn slump happened again this year.  Keeping this blog has made it apparent to me that the slump seems to be a recurring seasonal thing, which is interesting.  It also means that when it happens I now get a little less frustrated, as I expect it somewhat and have a rough idea of its frequency and duration.  Monitoring output was one of the goals in my blog mission statement when I started it a few years ago so this sort of information is interesting and potentially helpful I think.

My rough plans for miniature related things for 2013 will go up here soon.  Happy new year.

Seasonal Output

One of the reasons for this blogs existence is to monitor potential patterns in my hobby output.

Something that has come to light over the last couple of years is that the August/September period tends to disrupt my toy soldier focus, for numerous disparate reasons.

2012 is following that pattern.

With that in mind updates around here might be a bit more sporadic for a little while.  On the other hand I may be inspired this evening and start churning painted figures out, who knows?   The main thing is that I cant guarantee a worthwhile weekly update at the moment, although I am hopeful to be back on track within a couple of weeks.

In the meanwhile check out the prepainted  figure that I am considering using as a Dreadball team coach…

(Veer-myn included for scale)

2012 so far…

Early August is a little late for this, but whatever.

On February 1st last I put up a post about my hobby plans for 2012.  I listed a number of projects that I thought would likely be tackled this year.  As part of the mission statement for this blog is to get a clearer picture of my hobby output and stick-to-it-ness levels, today I am going to review my progress so far.

Firstly I will list the items that I thought most likely to be worked on when I wrote the post in early February.  Secondly I will list other projects that have come to the fore unexpectedly and that have in turn reduced output on some projects that seemed like safe bets at the start of the year.  Try to stay awake.  Just look at the picture perhaps.

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The predicted projects last February were:

Adeptus Mechanicus: I have only got a pair of figures for this project finished, although I did get some other preparatory work done on it.

I am not too worried about slow progress on this one.  I have enough long term interest in it to reckon that it will bubble to the top sooner rather than later.  I also quite like the monochrome look that these figures have, although I dont know if it translates very well to the photos.

Gears of War: No progress.

Dreadfleet: No progress.

Judge Dredd:  No progress.  This is a little unexpected really and a little disappointing as a result.  The time that seemed likely to be spent on this project has been eaten up by a couple of unexpected out-of-the-blue projects, as shown below.

Inquisitor Warbands: Slow progress here, although as this project dovetails with the Adeptus Mechanicus above and the Veer-myn and Space Dwarfs below it isnt really static.  But as far as actual Inquisitorial retinues go, its really just these two figures shown.

Standard Falls post-apocalyptic terrain: No further progress on the shanties worth talking about.  I will get a bout of enthusiasm for it at some unknown point in the future and plough through the remaining bits that I have.

Zuzzy Mats: Completed.

Although the urban mat is still waiting for the appropriate terrain before it gets used properly, the wasteland terrain has been used for about thirty or so games of Malifaux since it got finished, which is satisfying.

Of note is that the Wasteland mat is currently showing zero signs of wear, which makes me about as happy as I can get from my toy soldier stuff frankly.  The mat adds immeasurably to the visual aesthetic of the games that I have played on it and it looks durable enough to last for quite some time yet.  Hooray.

Unusually the mat hasnt been used to play a dice game yet due to Malifaux using card decks as its random number generator.  Tomorrow is scheduled to be the first time that dice will be rolled on the mat (via Kings of War, which involves large quantities of dice) and sad as it sounds, I am actually looking forward specifically to that bit.

Yeah its pretty dorky, but if you dont like dorky stuff then what the fuck are you reading this for?

Graveyard Terrain: 90% complete.  Other than an afternoon spent working on making some more strips of gravestones, this project is complete.  Like the wasteland Zuzzy mat above, this terrain has been involved in a decent number of games already, which increases satisfaction levels.  Another success story, go me.

Colonial Marines: All the stuff is bought and has been sitting in a box ready to go for about two years now I think, but as yet nothing to show.

This project has become a running joke of sorts in my mancave.  It is a monkey on my back that I will have to spank soon.  But right now I dont know when.  Bah.

Riddick: Completed.  The entire single figure project has been bought, cleaned, assembled, undercoated, painted, varnished, based, photographed, blogged and put in the display cabinet.

Titans: No progress.  No prediction of possible delivery date.

Zombies: The closest things to zombies that I have finished this year are the Dark Judges. I get a warm fuzzy from looking at my own painted versions of icons from my childhood

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Unexpected projects that got done this year are as follows:

Malifaux:  Getting regular local games of Malifaux played since February has been a big motivator and time sink.  Although I havent got many Malifaux figures painted I am pretty pleased with the figures that I have finished so far.  Malifaux games are the reason that the Zuzzy mats and Graveyard terrain shown above got completed too.

I have plenty more figures for this in the pipeline too.

Veer-myn: After I returned from my 2012 trip to Salute I felt compelled to paint something other than Malifaux for a while.  Firstly I painted the Veermyn that came with the Project Pandora game.

Space Dwarfs: After the enjoyable process of painting the Veer-myn, for reasons that I am still unsure of I decided to paint space dwarfs.  They came out well I think though: they have a Rogue Trader vibe.

10mm Fantasy: The most recent project that I have been working on is 10mm fantasy.  As a pair of the old guard dug out their Warmaster armies and have been playing Kings of War with them, so I decided to get in on that too.

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So thats the output for the first seven months of 2012.  Totals are ~70 miniatures and ~55 terrain elements (which vary from a 28mm book to 6×4′ terrain mats).

Not bad I reckon  I slumped and got nothing done from September to Xmas last year though, so it will be interesting to see if this higgledy piggledy approach, regularly chopping and changing from one project to another rather than forcing myself to work on specific things when my enthusiasm wanes will make a slump more or less likely to happen.  We shall see.

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10mm Kings of War

Real life has been kicking me in the nuts a bit lately, so I havent managed to get any photos of my most recent 10mm fantasy stuff taken yet.  There are quite a few new things coming though.

In the meantime I will direct you to the blog that a long term gaming crony of mine has been getting up and running recently.

My orcs rounds the mountain into insult hurling range of TheOttoVonBismarks halberdiers.

The Otto Von Bismark (also known as SOS around here occasionally) has recently been documenting various attempts at gaming with 10mm fantasy figures.  The system that has been getting the most love has turned out the be one designed for use with 28mm stuff: Kings of War.

It seems to be suiting our group for now, with its quick and streamlined play.  Its early days yet, but it has been working better than many other systems that we have tried over the years.  Its free too (although there is a new and rather nice hardback rulebook thats worth a look).  The free stuff is available here.

Some photos of my new 10mm bad guys will be up soon.  They are fully painted and all that, so its just photography time required.

10mm Fantasy Project

Image borrowed from somethingawful.com

I am more of a sci-fi nerd than a fantasy nerd.  Observing this distinction renders me a quantum nerd.

Although I have read a number of fantasy books and played numerous fantasy games over the years, I would always rather that a setting included a robot than it included a horse.  A robot horse would be ideal.

Robot House HORSE!”

My enthusiasm for Warhammer 40,000 and Star Wars confuses the issue further, as both settings are very much science fantasy or space opera rather than hard sci-fi.

With that predilection in mind, and with Monte Figuero ever expanding, I traded away 99% of my unpainted 28mm fantasy figures earlier this year.  One of the few fantasy projects that I held on to was my 10mm stuff.  Even more surprising is that I have actually done some work on them.

SOS (AKA The Otto Von Bismark) and MT have had Warmaster armies painted up for a decade or so.  MT was kind enough to donate the core of an Orc and Goblin army that he knew that he would never get around to painting a couple of years ago.  I subsequently added some more bits and pieces from various 10mm sources to the Warmaster models that he gave me, so I have loads to keep me going for now.

I hope to get some Warmaster played with these figures.  I would also like to try Hordes of the Things and the upcoming Song of Armies and Hordes from Ganesha Games too.  Mantics Kings of War looks like a system very well suited to that scale and base configuration (despite the fact that it was developed for a company to help them to sell 28mm figs) so I plan to try that out also.

Some photos of my 10mm Orcs and Goblins should be posted up here later this week.

Back to the (Grim Dark) Future: Warhammer 40,000 6th Edition

deadly embrace:

1. a standstill resulting from the opposition of two unrelenting forces or factions.
2. A stalemate that occurs when two elements in a process are each waiting for the other to respond

Events have conspired: I will be playing Warhammer 40,000 this weekend.

One of my 40K figures which may or may not be used in a game of 6th ed in my house this weekend.

I have been keeping half an eye on the scuttlebutt about sixth edition for the last couple of months, mostly because of how fear of change has given dull competitive players diarrhoea of the soul.  Hi-larious.

Regardless of all of that, I didnt plan to pick up a copy of the sixth edition rulebook any time soon.  By way of example, I picked up a second hand copy of the 5th ed rulebook in a trade a month or two ago and I have yet to read it.  Considering I have waited four years to read fifth edition I was in no rush to get sixth ed.

The Nob here may well be used in 6th ed games this weekend, but it depends. The ally rules seem very suitable for use with small forces like my Gorkamorka Orks, Da Bigdogz

For unrelated reasons I have a gaming weekend planned starting this evening running until Sunday.  The other half of this man-date is MT, a gentleman human that I got to know over a 40k table over a decade ago.  We had no specific games planned for the weekend, although boardgames are our usual choice these days.

These 40k figures are highly unlikely to feature in games this weekend, but I may squeeze them in somewhere just because I like them.

Unexpectedly however MT used his massive leverage on the Irish gaming scene (read: none) to get his hands on the rulebooks today: a day before release.  This was all we needed to make us engage in an activity that we had sworn to give up numerous times in the past.  We also decided to play 40k.

Therefore this evening we will each be sitting at a scenery covered table opposite one another, each with a ludicrously expensive hardback book in hand (a copy each, naturally).  As we both have access to hundreds upon hundreds of painted miniatures for this specific game, we figured “Why the hell not?  How bad can it be?”  Watch this space…

Astro-Pat here will make a good MaGuffin for a scenario, so I will try to get him to feature.

The last time that we played 40k is documented here in five easily digestible chunks (with my most recent 40k games before that being an eye watering eight years ago in 2004).

Rereading about those 2010 games a couple of years later it seems that I enjoyed them more than I remember now, which is interesting.  We played five small games in rapid succession, so maybe we might stick to that formula.  Or maybe we wont, who knows?

This guy is old school awesome. I am definitely going to play a game using him.

I will take some photos one way or another.  I havent rolled and dice on my new Zuzzy terrain mats yet either (Malifaux uses cards instead) and they are crying out for it.  Dice make a soft rumbling noise as they land on the mats, like chestnuts wrapped in felt landing on a waterbed.  Lovely.

Malifaux Project

I have started yet another project.  Its Malifaux this time.

Malifaux is a skirmish miniatures game set in a steampunk Western dystopia with horror elements.   It appears to me that this odd mashup occurred because Wyrd Miniatures produced an eclectic range of figures before the game was even conceived and then decided to shoehorn the lot in to the game.

Despite how dodgy this sounds, Wyrd did manage to create a game world that feels unique and pretty coherent.  The fact that the majority of Wyrds miniature output is really very nice also helps.

There are a number of reasons why I have decided to add yet another project to my already ludicrously big list for 2012:

The first and most important reason is driven mainly by the fact that I have found a local miniature gaming opponent and he and I are trying to get a regular Mancave mandate going.   For this to work it will involve a little give and take regarding what games to play and paint miniatures for.  My opponent (hereby known as COM) has a number of Malifaux forces painted up, as well as all of the necessary rulebooks and the like.  Therefore painting up 5-10 figures for the game is an easy buy-in for me.

Secondly I already own a Malifaux starter box of five figures.  I bought them back in ’09 because I liked the look of them and without any plans to play Malifaux.  Because of their cowboy aesthetic I had planned to use them in post-apocalyptic games.  I had not got any further than priming the figures so this gave me an opportunity to return to an old project and get some closure.

Thirdly my post apocalyptic terrain, in particular the Standard Falls stuff  is well suited to the setting.  It is visible in some of the photos of games shown in this post.  It lacks some of the more steampunk elements from the Malifaux setting but a few features that resonate with Victorian sci-fi are easy to add at a later date.

Lastly, it is a very small project and quite easy to achieve.  At the time of writing I have five figures painted with work beginning on others.

Those five figures from my Lady Justice/Death Marshals set will be going up daily here, starting in a minute and continuing daily until Sunday.

Plans for 2012

I was looking at the miniatures plans for 2012 at Phreedhs Mini Stuff the other day and two things struck me:

1. thats a very big list.
2. I also have a very big list of plans that I will be lucky to complete a fraction of.

But I decided to make a list anyway.  While I have an interest in completing all of these projects, it really is hard to say which ones will bubble to the top.  Sometime the obvious projects dont hit the table properly for years, while the oddball ones occasionally get done in a surprise bout of enthusiasm.

So below is a list of projects from which my output this year is likely to come, in no particular order.

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Adeptus Mechanicus:  I spent a big wad of money on Mechanicus related figures last summer when I had a little bit of spare cash.  As I have already done a pretty big chunk of work on these guys they probably get my vote for ”Most Likely to Actually Get Done in “2012″.

Gears of War: like Doom: the Boardgame before it Gears of War: the Boardgame is supplied with ~28mm scale miniatures.  The quality of the figures for the Gears game is a big step up from Doom.  Despite the failings of the Gears of War video games I do still enjoy them an awful lot, so painting up the Locust bad guys from the boardgame is something that I am looking forward to.

Dreadfleet: another boardgame, Dreadfleet consists of a variety of improbable pirate ships having ridiculous fights.   It sounds like fun to me and as a project of finite size it has a clear start, middle and end.  What does hamper this is that it isnt sci-fi.  I find it rare that I get enthused enough about non-sci-fi projects to get working on them.  It will happen at some stage, but I dont know when.  This project gets my ”Least Likely to Actually Get Done in “2012″ award.

Judge Dredd: I made very successful headway into my Judge Dredd project last year, but I still have loads to do.  As well as more judges I have lots of perps to do.  Apes, robots, mutants, gang members, batters, fatties… the list is huge.  As I have made quite a bit of progress with this project already it seems likely that more progress will be made throughout 2012.

Inquisitor Warbands: I have been reading 40K fiction recently and I have been taken with the idea of playing some games involving Inquisitors and their retinues in James Bond like scenarios, but not using actual Warhammer 40,000 or Inquisitor rules (for obvious reasons).  It is a nice way to get to paint figures that are definitively 40K but that rarely show up on the tabletop, like Astropaths or Navigators or whatever.  I have a ruleset in mind and a whole cast of guys that will each make nice quick sub-projects themselves, so this one looks likely to be tackled.  In fact my recently painted assassin fits right in here, so its started already really.

Standard Falls post-apocalyptic terrain: I have a load more post apoc terrain bits and plans sitting in a box that are crying out to be assembled and painted.  I also plan to revisit my dreaded post apocalyptic fort to work on some of the elements that I am least happy with.  Before I tackle any of that however I want to finish my…

Zuzzy Mats: I bought two of these last year.  I suspect that painting them wont take more than a day or two each, with most of that being drying time.  Until I get those done I wont be tackling any other terrain elements.

Graveyard Terrain:  I plan to quickly paint enough graveyard terrain pieces to populate a 4×4′ table.  I hope that Inquisitors can investigate cult activity around them and the like.  It will also be suitable for Buffy games whenever I get around to that.

Colonial Marines: always bridesmaids these guys, they never seem to get the attention that they deserve chez sho3box.  Right now I dont think that I will get to them in 2012, but with Prometheus coming out maybe that will get me back focused on those tough hombres.

Riddick: this is a bit of a cheat as it involves only one figure.  I recently decided that I actually like the Riddick franchise, which surprised me as much as it probably surprised you.  With that in mind I want to paint my own miniature version of the character.  The figure will fit in nicely to the Dredd and Inquisitor projects.

Titans: researching my Adeptus Mechanicus project got me thinking about playing some more games of “Mighty Monsters” and its upcoming sister ruleset “Samurai Robot Battle Royale” using 40K titans.  I have a load of suitable scenery pieces waiting for paint so those and the titans themselves constitute yet another project that I would like to get off the ground.

Zombies: I always seem to come back to these guys.  With Resident Evil 6 and Operation Raccoon City lined up for release on Xbox this year it seems that I will not be short of inspiration to get working on more living impaired.

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So, loads of stuff to do there.  Some of it will definitely get done.  When it does I will document it here.

Mancave Upgrade Complete

I finally got my hobby room tidied up and functional again on Xmas eve.  It was driving me nuts because of the state of it for the last couple of months.

The room now looks like this:

Many if the items on the shelves need to be rearranged a little, into some sort of order but that can wait.  For now at least the room is operational again.

A knock on effect of this de-cluttering was that some actual miniature painting was completed over my Xmas break.  This was somewhat satisfying as I havent managed to finish painting a figure since last August.

Assuming that I get a half decent chance to take a few photos over the next while I will be able to start regularly posting here again.  The posts are all written, I just need to get the photos sorted.