My Hobby and Blog in August 2016

A lot of rats at the adventurers' feet...

I started this blog on August 2015 which makes this blog to be one year old now! Painting the 15 "classic" Warhammer Fantasy armies was the original reason for making this blog. Fantasy armies are still one of my goals, but the blog now encompasses a lot more, such as miniatures used in board games. Overall, I want to use this blog for organization of multiple projects and as a record of the work I have done so far.

The Four Heroes Workshop

Anything related to my projects, modelling, painting, etc.

Blog Updates

I have finally caught up with all the archive posts up to when this blog was started a year ago! Now my priority is to transcribe the daily hand written notes on the models worked on since 2015. That should lead into 10 archive entries of miniatures completed in 2015-2016. There will be a "Working Notes" section in the archive article that goes into the nitty gritty of things done on a day to day basis. That type of information was part of the Log entries. Now, log entries are used more for overall plans and progress made in the projects.

What I Have Been Working On...

I have completed the Rat Swarms in Castle Ravenloft and started some background reasearch before painting the Wolves and Spiders. Work has started on the Wrath of Ashardalon heroes with a first coat of paint. I hope to have these heroes finished by end of September and also start back up on the Battle Master miniatures.

Terrain Project

Modular tiles for both war games and board games are something I have been thinking about for a while now, but I recently started to think more concretely on how to accomplish this. The Secret Weapons Mine Dungeon Tiles Kickstarter that I am backing led me to think of creating my own tiles for games using both Hirst Arts molds and Happy Seppuku mold and stamps. Several things I plan to do in the immediate future are: Paint up some of the the sample bases I stamped in April for practice on color schemes; Test out Durham's Rock Hard Water Putty and other casting compounds; and to make some 6x6 tiles of common themes: Dungeon (common, more focus on the crawl, confined space), Wilderness (common, more focus on encounters, open space), Civilization (not as common, numerous NPCs, crowded encounters).

The World of Games and Miniatures

Anything related to past, current, and upcoming games and miniatures

Miniatures

August 2016 Releases

For the August announced Infinity products, must buy for me are the Imperial Agent,Pheasant rank. I am more interested in later products announced such as the new starter packs for the Shock Army of Acontecimento and the Bakunin Jurisdictional Command.

A category of miniatures I want to get are themed around cowboys. I looked into Shadows of Brimstone (dungeon crawler type of board game) and Malifaux (skirmish war game) and decided ultimately to splurge into Malifaux, a strange take on Victorian and Wild West themes. I will be reading up on the different factions and themes to determine which miniatures I want. Now I have several miniature games based loosely on ancient/medieval times, victorian/modern times, and also futuristic time, 

Kudos to Games Workshop in what seems to be a better range of products for a larger consumer base (Battle for Vedros, Kill Team, etc). They seem to be releasing many different price points for their products. This led me to finally get a little bit of everything to have small representation of each major Xenos factions in Warhammer 40,000 that includes Orks, Eldar, Tau, and Necrons. I am fairly happy with my Warhammer collection for armies or small fighting forces.  Maybe I will collect some more Stormcast Eternal models to round out the army from the Starter box, but I think any more purchases of Games Workshop product is if I can see them having use for role playing games (eyeing some of the new Sylvaneth products) or a box game with a good deal of miniatures.

Tiles - Secret Weapon Mine Dungeon Tiles, Hirst Arts, and Happy Seppuku

Secret Weapon Mines Dungeon Tiles

Being a fan of their modular tiles for war games, I decided to back up Secret Weapon Mine Dungeon Tiles. Some random points on the Kickstarter product:

• I worried on how curved the tiles will be using the "Bones" material. From experience with larger model pieces from the Reaper products (dragons and structures). they are less prone to be curved compared to smaller and thinner items (humanoid weapons).
• The mine theme seems to be a mix between dungeon and cavern theme. Dungeons being a man-made setting while caverns are natural settings.
• Seems to fit well with the Tablescape Forgotten Ruins 12x12 tiles as it appears the base is 1/4" in thickness.
• These tiles provides me with a good amount of professionally made tiles for tile-based games (whether for role playing or strategic battle games and also provides a basis of height and proportions for me to make my own tile pieces. I plan to use Happy Seppuku stamps for this purpose, allowing me to make dungeon, wilderness, fantasy urban, or science fiction urban tile pieces.
• To give me more options are three dimensional objects and terrains, I invested into the Castlemolds made by Hirst Arts to focus mostly on accessories and walls. They also have a lot of options for buildings which is something I am interested to do in the future.