Arabian Knights

There's a Kings of War tournament at the store in November. Its about time I build up my paltry 750pts of kow into a respectable 2000.

Here are the k rights for the force. I'm using the dornishmen yellow, but this army is not Done. At least its not meant to be.

Game of Game of Thrones

I had a chance to pit my Dornishmen against the other factions of the Cardiff Westeros group. An initial fight with the Boltons ended in a pretty solid victory for prince Obryn. After that there was a big multiplayer game pitting Borathians, Nights Watch, Unsullied, my Dornishmen and a Dragon against one another. Sporadic pictures below.

Its worth noting that this was one of the few winning nights for me. I think in these rules, its good to have a good mix of heavy hitters and some fodder to back them up.

I picked up some gripping beast plastics at the shop, so I'm going to try my hand at converting up some wildlings and a giant.

Winter is coming

Well, here we are again. Its been two years since I've posted. There's been a lot of new jobs, fulfilling Kickstarters a failed attempt at PhD funding and various late 20s life events. But to misquote Jeff Goldblum, gaming finds a way. 

So here we are in the new era of Over There. I'm still in the UK, but far away from being a student. My buddy's foray into blogging has inspired me to dust off my own blog again.  

My hope for the future of the blog is to use my phone to do a bit more candid blogging of my gaming exploits. So please forgive the eneviatble blunders. Though auto correct on android is much better, so my writing should be more befitting of a native English speaker. 

So without further ado, here are my efforts for my gaming group's Game of Throne's campaign. One of the guys has written a super simple mordheim adaptation. The main rules are intact, but the campaign rules are much simpler and abstract, which is good for me since my warnands always look like a hospital ward aftery first game of straight mordheim. 

The figures are mostly unconverted GW Lord of the Rings Haradrim. Prince Obryn (or less generously, Charles Bronson) and the gentlemen with shields are a mix of Fireforge Games Mongol infantry and Gripping beast Arabs. We are living in an age where there are enough plastic kits to cobble together basically anything from plastic bits. 

So there it is my return post. If anyone is still out there, thanks for reading. 

To Infinity And Beyond

This blog seems to have more comback tours than Cher. the dreaded "Real Life" has gotten in the way of the hobby. After finishing my Masters, I've been swamped with work (slinging satelite TV boxes) and fighing the good fight to get some PhD funding for next year. The application to extend my visa finally pushed out gaming in my freetime. Now that that is submitted, i can gte back to painting. Here is the first real painting that I have done in the last month an a half or so.

These are some Infinity Ariadna figures. I got these for cheap on Ebay and painted them in the hope of flipping them once a give a few rounds on the gaming table. The Infinty minitures are supurb and I really wanted to do them justice.

I tried very hard to "up my game" painting wise with these figures. I'm trying to incorprate more wet blending and I'm really focused on the fundementals (paint consistency, brush stroke, and highlight placement). The Camo pattern turned out well but was a real pain to do, being three times the work of a single colour. I'm really pleased with the results, though the photos leave something to be desired. I really need to get bigger lamps and a dedicated photo booth.

I do plan on playing infinity come Janurary. I have some Nomads coming for Christmas and I'm excited to get a brush to them. Stay tuned for mor miniature madness. hopefully I can get some more painting done in the new year.

Some Steamy Capitalism

I figure I would post a photo and a link to a converted Malifaux crew I featured here a while ago, and is now up on ebay. There is a miss-spelling in the listing, so be assured that there is less competition for bids. Free UK shipping and reduced international shipping if it goes for over 60 pounds.

Thanks for looking.

Straight outta Malifaux

Here is a picture of my attempt at making some Desperate Mercenaries, a new unit from the second Malifaux book. These are converted from some Copplstone Castings High Adventure figures. I wanted them to be somewhat cohesive so I sculpted some cleavers out of styrene. I imagine them to be some sort of strange Malifaux axe gang.

I'm trying to improve my photography. I think the lighting is a little better, but I think that I still need to eliminate some shadows.

My Malifauxificent Return

Desolation engine, Four A Miniatures.

Steampunk Abominations. Left two are Mantic ghouls, while the right one is Four A again.

Necropunks, Four A Miniatures.

Hollow Waifs. Right, West Wind. Left Copplestone.

I fell like I've done more comeback tours than Cher. I'm now settled into my new room in Cardiff and I thought that I would show you, my loyal readers, the fruits of my unemployment...

Here are some pictures of my freshly painted steampunk undead for Malifaux. After a three month painting hiatus, I tried to bring my A game to these figures. They are all pretty heavily converted with various bits I had lying around. I am especially proud of the Desolation engine, both in painting and converting.

This group of figures primarily uses miniatures from the relatively new Four A miniatures. I have blogged about them before briefly. This is the first time that I really had a chance to work on and paint the figures that I bought from them back in April. The casting is clean and well defined. The figures take paint well and gave me a chance to put some love into them. They are well worth a look.

I was also mightily impressed with the Mantic plastic ghouls. They are really detailed and at times have finer features than a metal figure ever could. Mantic is really showing what plastic can do. They were also a joy to paint. I'm going to be keeping them in mint if I ever need more undead stuff.

A fair bit of comparison

From left to right, West wind(heavily modified), GW, Privateer Press, Four A, Heresy

I wanted to post a quick review and size comparison of the new tophat miniature from Four A miniatures. Four A is a new company based out of county Durham. I'd like to add that, even though Andy at Four A and I are realtivly close in proximity, I am in no way affiliated with the company. I have only met Andy recently and I have never gamed with him. Rest assured this review is objective and independent.

Tophat is arguably the most promising figure form the new range. I was immediately drawn to the figure as a substitute in Malifaux for Hans, since I was not too fond of the stock Wyrd miniature. What I really like about this figure is that it dosent go overboard with the steampunk elements, somthing that Privateer and Wyrd have been guilty of in the past. This figure suits me fine. The details are crisp and the casting is very clean. Although, I would expect this since its coming out of brand new mold.

The figure is listed as being 38mm from the feet to the top of the hat. This has drawn some flak on the LAF, being rather large for a 28mm figure. The turth is that this is a very large 28mm figure, but a 28mm figure none the less. You can see from the comparison above, that Tophat is much taller than other heroic 28's. That being said, the proportions are similar to the more popular lines out there. I think he'll fit into my existing figures as a taller man.

Overall I would recommend this figure for any steampunk or sci-fi gamer. Despite its size, it fits well with most existing line and should fit even more with official Malifaux miniatures. I hope that all of Four A future figures are not all so big, but I think this one provides some good variety in a Malifaux crew. A great start for the fledgling miniature company.

Its Electric! Boogey Woogy.

Here is a pic of a more unusual figure for my Malifaux Arcanists. As far as a know, Wyrd doesn't make a figure for the electrical creation, which is essentially a walking bomb that the arcanist can summon to the battlefield. There are a few versions of the construct on the web. I made mine from a foundry Ancient German that I had lying around. I removed the head and the bits from the figure and replaced the head with a ball of greenstuff. I really wanted this figure to be humanoid, but have no distinguishing personal features. I really think Malifuax is an opportunity to play with some subtle horror themes. The fantasy Inuit and the electrical creation are a few 'studies' I did with faceless miniatures. I'm trying to use that facelessness to make the figures slightly disturbing.

The painting was really simple. I tried again to practice the source lighting. This was a really interesting piece since I wanted to give the effect that the whole figure was glowing and casting a pool of light on the base. Overall, I'm pleased with the results.

Some Naked Capitalism

This isn't this weeks main blog post, but I have decided to sell me painted wab ancient German army. Don't worry, I'm still heavily invested in barbarians. Back in the US I have 12lbs. of unpainted ancient German figures. I'm getting rid of these in the interest of space and that they are more useful to me as cash rather than sitting in my case. I cant say I'm terribly fond of the WAB rules either. Warhammer isn't as much fun without the dragons and magic. Also I figured out that I will never paint enough Germans to have a decent army. This collection here represents around two years of work and only comes to around a 1000 points. Onward and upward. Its time for some new projects.

Here's a picture of the whole army.

Here is a link to the ad on the miniatures page. I would like £450 but I will accept all reasonable offers. you can see the full details in the ad.

This type of post will not happen often. This is just a big sale and I want to make sure I get all the offers I can.