I Feel Salty

I've been working on my SDE minis more recently, as I have time now and a backlog of episodes of "Cognitive Dissonance" podcasts to get through (this is a very NSFW show, so be warned before looking  them up). As I listen to Tom and Cecil rant and rave about various woo-related topics, my paint brush darts across my chibi heroes and villains at a lightning pace. Thus, I have a few more minis to share.

First up, here are the Blaze Beetle and Roxor minis I forgot last time. I've been pondering if I should hit the beetle's carapace with gloss varnish, but right now I'm holding off.

Here's the completion of part of the project I was working on in the last post. The Shallow Grave spawn points are done, and I took a break from painting "normal" minis in order to get some paint on a few pets. I just got the joke behind The Colonel's name as I was painting him. Observation ahoy!

Here are the minis from the Salt Pillar spawn point. As I had finished painting the Fireflow Denizens not too long ago, and the minis are exactly the same, I figured I'd go ahead and paint these monsters now while I'm still in that groove.

And lastly, some bosses. Salt on the right there used the exact same colors and techniques as the minis above, so he was painted right alongside them. I decided to paint Von Drakk on a whim, along with the Herald of Vulcanis.Von Drakk and the Herald required the exact same method for painting their skin, so they were an obvious choice to go together. Of course, I couldn't paint up the Count without his shapeshift form Nocturne, so he was kind of forced into the queue.

As you can see in the background behind the bosses, the Death Spectre is gradually coming along. That scrollwork on his back is infuriating to get through,so unfortunately his progress has slowed. Not stalled mind you, just slowed.

Now, let's see if I compressed these pictures enough to get them up on the Soda Pop forum...

A Return to the Super Dungeons

As promised, here are my images of the Super Dungeon Explore minis I've painted. There won't be much in the way of writing in this post, as it's a show-and-tell sort of deal. Let's start with the boring stuff. Three treasure chests and a pair of Booty Grinders.

 

Next up, we have some Cavern of Roxor stuff. I'm done with the Rock Top Gang altogether, having completed the shells and bombardiers as well as the Rock Pile spawn point. I also threw Rock Gut into the picture to conserve space.

 

 

 Blogger is being weird at the moment, and it won't let me fiddle with the pictures the way I want to, So I'll adapt as much as I can. Above is the Lava Whirl spawn point flanked by a pair of Ember Hounds. Let me say that I detest the hound sculpt as they tip forward with very little encouragement. This makes painting (and worse, varnishing) pretty rough. With these monsters completed, I am only a few minis away from completing the Caverns of Roxor expansion.

Below you see the beginnings of the Curse Coven. The Pumpkin Patch spawn point was a blast to paint, with the bright yellow and orange. You can't mess up either color without a very long reset period, so it's a test of skill and patience for sure.

I also liked painting the Miserable Toads, as they're adorable. I matched the colors on the cards as close as possible, but I recently saw someone who painted up one of theirs as the Hypno-Toad from Futurama, and parroting that idea sorely tempts me.

Finally, I have Vandella. I've wanted to paint her for a good long while, and she was a blast! I'm super happy with her.

 

 

Next, some Undead. I started with the Rattlebones to get my technique for painting bone down. Again, I'm pleased.

The Necromancer was an adventure. As I try to match the cards as close as possible, I wanted to shade his pale blue flesh with purple.

 

 

More undead were to follow. A pair of Death Knights and  Dust Mages. No real commentary as I basically matched the cards.

 

 

Bone Heads below. It was interesting matching the various metals shown on their card. It was also a challenge painting their mouths, as unlike the Rattlebones they didn't have separate jaws. That meant painting black rectangles inside the teeth , and if you stray outside the lines you have to put coat after coat of white to cover the boo-boo. I did it a few times, and it was sort of maddening.

 

 

And what's Super Dungeon Explore without some heroes? Amazingly enough, the yellow detail was much harder than the white. In particular the Sister of Light's cross. The Celestial Herald was a joy to paint, despite slip-ups from coming pre-assembled with so many parts either super close or touching each other. 

 

 

And finally, some coming attractions. I'm working on the Shallow Graves in order to complete the monsters from Von Drakk Manor, as well as the Death Spectre since he's cool. I'm really not looking forward to the scrollwork on his robe (more yellow), but I'll soldier on.

 

 

As much as I've completed so far, It is only a drop in the bucket. I laid out my unpainted minis to fill the many gaps in their bases, and now that I look at them, well, there are a lot left to do. Plus with wave two getting ready to be packed up and put on a ship, there will be more and more minis on the way...

 

 

Finally, I just noticed that I forgot to take a picture of my Blaze Beetle and Roxor! They're up in the top right corner next to the figure case, of course obscured by other stuff. I'll get pics of them as soon as I can.

A Long Time Ago, On a Blog Far, Far Away...

Well, it has been quite a while since I was here, months in fact. It's not that I haven't been gaming, quite the opposite in fact. It's just that I really haven't had anything to report.

I have been playing a lot of X-Wing. No painting involved there, and since I'm not really good at the game I don't have any tips, tactics, or lists.

That was until I heard the rumors...

Warhammer was going the way of the dodo! Well, at least Warhammer as we know it. Flurries of rumors about round bases, limited release regiment, reality bubbles bumping into each other...

I was horrified. Quickly I scrambled to the eBays and snatched up any classic Skaven I could get my claws on. Every regiment I don't currently own. Now my army is nearly complete- I'm just missing a couple of the less useful weapon teams. I'm hoping to fix that as soon as possible (in metal of course since GW's resin is terrible). I have been painting these fellas in the last couple of days, but my new (awesome) job keeps me pretty busy. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to post soon.

Oh, also- I got my tracking email for the first wave of Super Dungeon Explore yesterday. Those little fellas just beg for paint. First of course I need to finish Caverns of Roxor and Von Drakk Manor.

A hobbyist's work is never done it would seem.

SDE News Abounds!

So, as you can see I got back onto the Super Dungeon Explore wagon. I figure I'll go ahead and finish up my Caverns of Roxor minis before I move on to the Von Drakk Manor stuff. Once the Ember Hounds and the last of the Rock Top Gang are completed I'll be grabbing Link- er, I mean the Deeproot Scout, and get to painting him. I'll be keeping up my previous "hero, monsters, hero" rhythm I set before.

 

Why this sudden interest in SDE again? Well, for those of you out of the Kickstarter loop, there's a new expansion on the horizon. I suppose it's less of an expansion and more of a backward-compatible reboot of the game. So far I like the direction the game is going- streamlined and simplified. This is a Very Good Thing, as honestly the game currently suffers from rules-bloat right out of the box. Soda Pop Miniatures is removing the "Power Gauge", the "Loot-o-Meter", heck, most of the record keeping the game had before. Now instead of the Consul throwing waves of minions headlong into the blender of death that is the heroes and then having the Boss swoop in and off everything, spawning monsters is a choice that must be carefully considered because every time a Spawn Point is used it (or they in the case of double points like the Kobolds use) suffers a wound. This gets rid of the tactic I use currently in which I jam up a door with Kobolds and just deny the Heroes access to any further rooms. Honestly, I'm glad to see it go as it just plain puts the game on "easy mode" for the Consul player.

 

The game also has two more great additions for multiplayer games. First, the addition of "Princess Coins". These can be used to return a character to life after they have been slain, so that player isn't stuck sitting on the sideline for the remainder of the battle. Second, there is "Arcade Mode" in which the players band together to fight cooperatively against a card-driven "A. I.".

 

I do wonder however if the Consul is in some way getting the short end of the stick here. The heroes have upped their game considerably, and this makes me wonder if the "rebalanced" cards for the initial releases make the enemies a bit nastier. The dragons really need it, and while I have yet to employ the Rock-Top Gang I don't think they look too menacing on paper.

 

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Forgotten King edition of the game, and I will most likely wax more as more gets "leaked", but mostly watch here as my minis come along toward completion in the next weeks.

Crusher Crushin' and Robots... Robotin'?

Let the hero crushing commence!

Well, after a struggle with Blogger's... interesting interface, I had to delete my last post and start all over. On Monday I finished up Crusher (above) and took a quick break from Super Dungeon Explore.

I went ahead and hit Michaels for beads to convert my minibots into scouts, and hit gold. I went ahead and snipped the heads off of all my lil' guys, glued the beads into place, and took a step back. The robots now had the look I wanted, but they had holes in the tops of their heads. I could either; A) fill the holes with green stuff, or B) get creative. As you can most likely tell from the image, I got creative. Looking for the more cheesy sci-fi approach, I snipped off little pieces of paper clip and glued them into place to look like antenna. Now, not only did they look more goofy, but they could relay the positions of enemy troops back to their Grey Alien handlers as well. More in line with them being used as marker drones n the table. Now for primer.

I did a poll of my wargaming buddies and asked what colors I should use for their suits. The unanimous decision was purple. I'm going to go ahead and take a tip to break up the purple with a nice icy blue. The models will have a "cool" coloration from head to toe, which leads me to wonder if I should paint their bases red (like my Chaos Marines) to offset the mini, or brown (like my Dark Eldar) for a more neutral color, or to come up with an entirely new color (dare I say green?) to branch out my painting.

Priming is soon to come, and following that the first drop of paint will hit the minis. I hope to have everything sorted by then, rather than waiting for the muse to take me. Time is running out though, acceptable priming weather is (supposedly) on the way.

SDE Progressey Goodness

More of the Rock Top Gang and...

Friday saw some more painting from me, in particular the completion of some fellows that had been sitting unfinished in my closet for about a year. These six turtles have haunted me for a long time, so I decided to jump on the painting wave and get crackin'. I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out, in particular their eyes where (I believe) I achieved a rather demented "not all there" expression.

 

...Nyan Nyan!!!

I ultimately did roll a die to determine which hero to paint, and Nyan Nyan won out. While painting her I made the discovery that she's not actually a catgirl, just a girl wearing tiger pajamas! Again I am not pleased with the way the white came out. I think I need to find a new brand of paint to try (perhaps P3?) and see if I can get better results. Her orange areas could use a little... Something to liven them up too. Looking at this photo I think I should go back and retouch the open area around her chest too. I guess I'm just plain not satisfied with the final outcome. Perhaps I should add some yellow to the orange for some higher highlights?

 

While I've been contemplating what I should do to Nyan Nyan to be satisfied, I've been getting started on another member of the Rock Top Gang, Crusher. This is a pretty big boy, so it will call for a fair bit of patience on my part painting him. I just need to keep my eyes on the prize, as once I finish him I'm two models and the Spawn Points away from being able to use them. I guess I could use them now, but unpainted minis seeing table time? Blasphemy!

 

I've laid down the base coat and chesnut ink (yep, I still have a tiny bit of that treasure laying around) on his skin. I figure that this is the best way to get the closest results possible to the card art. I want even new players to be able to know who's who at a glance, plus I can be a little OCD about such things.

 

Gettin' ready to crush some stuff.

Next I'll just need to go back over the skin with the base color, mix up a highlight or two and put them on, and then it's just shell (which I have gotten good at), the tummy, the claws (which are also quick) and the eyes (which I enjoy). In my opinion the skin is the only real hurdle in my way. We'll just see how this turns out.

 

That's today's update, tomorrow should see some real results, as I'll have all day to listen to podcasts and apply paint to minis.

Super Dungeon Explore Hobby Bonanza

Flame on!

A fair bit of hobby news to report today. I have finished all of my Burning Gels and Fire Gels. For the most part I'm happy with how they turned out, bit the big fellows above could have had better looking eyes. It's hard to tell in the above photo, but the white paint didn't come out perfectly smooth. It's a little streaky, a little textured, and it goes outside the lines a touch.

 

Lil' squirts.

The little fellas came out much better, but as you can see in the picture above, somehow the mini in the middle of the front row got scratched twice above his eye. It may be hard to see, but I know it's there. It annoys me greatly.

 

Getting ready to roxor your soxorz.

I also picked up some white primer yesterday. This means I was able to prime the rest of the models for the Caverns of Roxor...

 

Heroic heroes.

...As well as prime my heroes and the small mini-bosses. I'm going to finish the turtles I started in the picture of the Roxor box above, but once they're done I'll paint one of the heroes to break up the monotony of painting the Rock Top Gang, I'm torn between Nyan-Nyan, Princess Ruby, and the "I sear I'm not Link" elf.

 

There was also some progress on the Von Drakk Manor set, where I primed the big fellows as well as the spawn points. I'll have photos of them as soon as I remember to snap them. (^_~)*

 

A Grymm situation.

Finally, on the Grey Alien front, my walkers from Hasslefree just arrived. I am now torn about my army list, as I want to swap out the Heavy Rail Rifles I currently have in my army list (represented by the weapon on the right) for High-Yield Missile Pods (to be represented by the linked gatling guns on the left). I'll have to fiddle around with my "army construction software" tonight to see if that's even an option, but it's hard to resist that many shots. No matter what, I'll be interested to find out which bases they'll have to go on. They come with a 50mm base, which is not the correct size. They'll either end up with a 40mm or 60mm base, depending on how wide the finished models are. I'l be pondering that tomorrow as I clean and pin all four of these walkers, as well as head over to Michaels to try to get beads for the heads of my robots. I checked on their website and couldn't find anything, so wish me luck.

 

T. U. R. T. L. E. Power

Not teenage or mutant and definitely not ninjas.

 Another Super Dungeon Explore achievement. I finished two rollers last night. I also completed painting my Burning Gels, but unfortunately I have no picture of them to share. Now I just need to varnish these fellows. Short post today, and still no end of year wrap up, but you get what you pay for, right?

 

In all seriousness, happy new year!

Von Drakk Gap Victory

I got some green stuff from GW last night. Not quite a deal, but at least I have it now. With any other bases I would have just glued some receipt paper over the holes, but since the bases are already textured, I get to sculpt the flagstones into the putty I'm using. This is not such a bad thing, it's just time consuming. Good thing I have a job, eh? Yep, once again I'm doing hobby stuff here at work. Call it consolation for the awful end to an awful season for Washington's pathetic NFL team. I will not sully the face of my blog by mentioning them here by name.

 

What good came out of the game is below:

 

Von Drakk villains and then some.

 Yep, the bases of my Von Drakk Manor villains have all been filled. Not just that...

 

Von Drakk heroes & Nyan Nyan.

 ...The heroes are good to go as well.

 

Base gap lacking.

Not too much content today, just pictures for you. Painting here would be nice, but I'm already pushing it. (^_~)*

Closing The Gap (Or Not)

 

Bat butt. Also base gaps.

Well, last night I pulled out my epoxy putty to go about closing the above holes in the bases of my Von Drakk Manor miniatures. Turns out it, over the years since I bought it at my local(ish) model train store, it has turned into a brittle roll of not epoxy putty. This sort of brought my base fixing aspirations to an abrupt halt. Today I have nowhere to go with my minis (at least not here at my desk), and it is unlikely that I will be able to finish my pre-painting necessities before the new year. I'm a bit strapped for cash, and without putty and primer these fellows will have to hang around unloved for a while until finances dictate my ability to get the items I'll require to make them as spiffy as possible.

Annoyed EV is annoyed.

This is okay however, as I have pulled out my Caverns of Roxor stuff to get back to painting the Rock Top Gang tortoises included. They are quite a hassle, make no mistake, but all I will need to finish them is a $4 pot of paint. Much more reasonable.

The reason for the hassle is their shells. They are a very dark brown, and I have not the color to properly highlight them. This is one of the few instances I hope for the usual translucent properties of Citadel paint as this will permit me to build up highlights slowly, as opposed to my usual banded highlighting.

I'll try to go into the exact process I'm using later. For now, suffice it to say I'm using a great many layers to paint these fellows.

I'm also planning on putting up images of my long since finished Fire Gels. I'm also well into the Burning Gels, and they'll be up as soon as I finish them. Which will be finished first? The Gels or the Rock Top Gang? I don't know. It will depend on which one holds my attention better and longer.

SDE Update- The Mold Line Massacre of Von Drakk Manor

Yep, that's my desk.

 

Lots of work has been put in tonight, and lots of mold lines have been removed. These minis are rather interesting to clean up, as the mold lines, while small, are difficult to remove. They go across detail, they go down jaw lines, and they go across hair at bad angles. This has been a test of my patience, and I won. Now for the real test. It's difficult to see above, but there are gaps in every last base above. These gaps need to be filled with green epoxy putty, and sculpted to match the rest of the base. This is not horribly difficult with the proper tools, but it is an unnecessary hassle. I'll power through- I have a game to listen to, and nobody in my building to worry about, so I can sculpt away. Let's see what kind of damage I can do here.

For The Glory of Irk!!! Also, Christmas. Kill Team Too.

Playing around with my phone's collage function.

 

Well, most of my Irken force has arrived. I got a box from Zombiesmith on Monday, and then a box from Hydra Miniatures on Tuesday. I've put together all the included minis, and as you can see there are a lot of warriors in my army.

 

All is not well in EV land though- I started drilling the holes in the heads of the minis to put the antenna into, and things could be going better. They're ending up all over the place in the minis heads. They are not being drilled in the places I would like, and this is causing the models to look... Not Good. I'll have pictures later, but once you see them I think you'll agree that things have gone awry. Perhaps (most likely) it is because I am using a Dremel to drill out the holes. I really wish this weren't the case as drilling 122 holes by hand will be a nightmare. Not to mention the wear on my hands. I'm going to give it a shot on a few more minis, but right now I don't like the look of things. I'll stick to it though, as this is sort of a fun thing for me (in theory) and I really don't want to admit defeat here.

 

More exploring of Super Dungeons.

Next up is Christmas. I was a good Vassal this year, so my family got me Super Dungeon Explore: Von Drakk Manor. This both pleases and irks me. Now I honestly do not know what to paint. Listen to me here; I love, repeat love the aesthetic of SDE, and I still have most of the Caverns of Roxor to paint. This places my SDE queue along the magnitude of my Irken, and they need less (read no) fiddly drilling into tiny metal heads. Just mold line cleanup and base hole patching.

 

White primer is needed for both, so no difference. What else is there? Likelihood of use. This one's a really tough call. I'm not sure here. Demitra and I are less and less likely to be able to get a full game of 40k in any time soon, as my "job", despite my protestations, has begun to fiddle around with my hours. This reduces our Tuesday Gaming Time to being long enough for some Infinity or X-Wing, but not really much more. Super Dungeon Explore does not fare much better here. The game is fun, and I do have one person interested in playing, but as far as I know that's it. It's a really tough call.

 

This is worth the price of admission.

Finally, on the whole 40k note, I went ahead and downloaded my first Games Workshop digital book, Kill Team. For those of you who don't know what this game is, allow me to explain. Kill team is for those of us who like to take an occasional break from the legion-sized battles so common in the 40k universe. It is the polar opposite of Apocalypse. Kill team is about one or two squads of elite troops who infiltrate into no-man's land or even enemy territory to accomplish a vital mission. This is the scalpel to regular 40k's sledge hammer.

 

Every miniature, despite being purchased as part of a squad, deploys and plays as a unit consisting of a single miniature.

 

I love this way of playing 40k.

 

Now, this version of Kill Team (for those of you familiar with the game) is tighter and brighter. They have tweaked several things that made original Kill Team... A little unbalanced. New composition rules are in place for your team, which are:

 

- 0 HQ, 0-1 Elite, 0-2 Troops, 0-1 Fast Attack, 0 Heavy Support.

- Must consist of 4+ non-vehicle models.

- Nothing with more than 3 wounds.

- No vehicles with more than 33 total armor across the total of all three values or more than 3 Hull Points.

- No Flyers.

- Nothing with a 2+ Armor Save.

 

Now, I disagree with the 2+ save rule (as this removes the super-fluffy Grey Knight Terminator squad suicide mission option) but all the rest I am down with. There have been Kill Team events where the "elite fighting force" consists of a single Riptide (not exactly subtle). Big vehicles (and especially flyers) would just plain remove playability. Lots of wounds means things like Trygons & Carnifexes, which again are not exactly the "elite fighting force" the designers professed to envision. There is also the ability to have the elite hero/villain surrounded by a bunch of mooks, which I also kind of like. It's tough to play against, but as Demitra will attest to, it's not unbeatable by any means.

 

Further tweaks can be found in the Specialist rules. For starters, you Leader now cannot be a Specialist. Instead he gets a sort of "mini Warlord Trait" that can either drastically alter the game, or in a few cases do just plain nothing. Secondly, the Special Rules your Specialists can take have been tweaked. Gone is the ability to give Shrouded to your heavy weapon trooper (or anybody at all). The Special rules have been broken up into categories- Combat, Weapon, Dirty Fighter, Indomitable, & Guerilla. Your three Specialists must choose their abilities from amongst these groups, and a group may not be repeated. Special Rules are now clearly defined as to what kind of weapon they can be attached to. For example, a Fleshbane weapon may only be a close combat one.

 

Death Watch: the original kill team.

 

A personal favorite of mine is to attach Haywire to a Splinter Cannon. Now, not only does it shred any model that gets in its path, it will glance pretty much any vehicle to bits in a single volley. Yep, interesting combinations of Special Rules and miniatures abound in Kill Team. I've found a fair few, but I'd be tipping my hand were I to reveal any more.

 

I've been thinking up various Kill Teams over this last week. Purifiers in a Razorback, a Tau incursion team, Dark Eldar raiders...

Most likely naught will come of this but maybe, just maybe, I can find some like-minded individuals who would be up for a game.

I've rambled long enough. Happy Holidays to you regardless of which one, none, or all you observe, and thanks for reading over the last year. I'll see about an end or year roundup in the next five days, but failing that I'll see you in 2014!

 

The Irken Terror Arrives... But For How Long?

Well, at least part of my army has arrived. My big stompy robots came in the mail yesterday, and I am pleased. They are much larger than their box suggests, which means they fill out the oval bases they go on rather convincingly. I am pleased because, despite them being noticeably smaller than Riptides, they're still big. Especially when compared to my "Irken to be". I did a bit of "conversion" (if you can call it that) to the models, but this is best saved for a post with pictures.

Suffice it to say, I'm on a roll here.

This actually worries me a touch. Why? Because I don't want to be diverted. Already I am putzing around the interwebz checking on various other minis. This is, in a word, stupid. I need to focus. Here's the problem; I am missing some very key parts to the army. For example, no Irken. I know that Josh over at Zombiesmith runs his business out of his garage. I know that he is a two-man operation. I know these things. Unfortunately I am impatient. I have a lot of work to do, not the least of which is drilling two holes into each of the little buggers' heads to put antenna into. This is one of those times I would prefer resin to metal. Drilling holes into 61 minis' heads will be quite a process. That's 122 holes (Dremel time). That's 122 antenna to be clipped and glued into place. That's 122 gaps to be filled on 25mm bases. I'm game, but other projects beckon.

Nyan Cat.

Take, for example, Nyan Nyan over here. I got her for Super Dungeon Explore, mainly because she's a "limited run" mini. Now, I have yet to see a single SDE mini disappear- Candy & Cola, the Herald of Vulcanis, and Vandella the Succubus are still going strong, but dang it if I didn't want the mini just because she's a catgirl. Besides, maybe they did a more limited run of Nyan Nyan.

Yeah, sure.

What I'm getting at here is that I have many, many Super Dungeon Explore minis waiting to be painted. Pretty much the entirety of The Caverns of Roxor, and all three extra plastic minis. These guys and gals are fully assembled, most of them are primed, and all of them hold interest for me. This is also a game I can easily play. A fair few people around me would enjoy goofing off with SDE, but I refuse to play the game with unpainted minis. Entirely. This is just too slick a looking game to pass up the opportunity to play a full-on beautifully realized session. That means I pretty much only have the base game to use. This is not an awful thing, just limiting. Of course, I ought to get a few "Super!" level games under my belt before I aim too high. I've only played at the "8-Bit" and "16-Bit" levels thus far.

Remember us?

My point is, I want to paint these minis. I want to game with these minis. There is a problem, though. What I want out of these minis conflicts with what I want out of the other minis. The longer my Irken take to arrive, however, the more Super Dungeon Explore beckons. Besides, I've been feeling like painting in this style for a while now. I also have some partially painted (and then abandoned) minis sitting in my gaming closet. They need some lovin', and soon. I feel bad letting them sit there in the darkness...

I need to avoid distraction. Christmas is just a little bit away, however, and I featured the "Von Drakk Manor" expansion prominently on my wish list, so there's a very good potential for yet more chibi goodness on the horizon. They will get in the way. They will grab my attention.

My next post definitely will feature new pictures. I just had to get this off my chest.

Breaking Radio Silence: Lots of Progress

It's been a while, eh? Not that I've been lounging around, no, quite the opposite! First thing's first; my Zombiesmith grey aliens. Well, actually they're more the classic "little green men", but the point is now they have a ride. The UFO is known as the "Area 51 Flying Saucer, but I forget who made it. If you know please comment and I'll give the manufacturer their proper credit.

Now I'd like to find a skirmish game to use them with. Especially against the women from Venus I found a while ago.

Unfortunately the glue I used to attach the windows fogged them over. It's an annoyance, but not worth buying another kit.

My next project (and the one consuming most of my time) is the expansion of my new board. The original is starting to show its age and now is the time to upgrade. I started the project with gluing some trees I had lying around that I originally bought for 15mm gaming to some Games Workshop titan bases. The trees were far too big to be used in either Hordes of the Things or Song of Blades and Heroes, so they were pressed into service on my new board.

I then covered the bases with medium railroad ballast using Elmer's Wood Glue. Let me tell you, this stuff works wonders. I've yet to have anything I attached using this stuff come apart, and it goes on easily with a brush and a little water.

Next outside for a coat of brown paint. The stuff I use is as close as I could find to Vallejo "Earth" at Wal-Mart. I know, boo hiss for supporting a "big box store", but there's just not a mom and pop hardware store around here.

After the paint dried I drybrushed the closest color I could find to "Khaki" over the bases. This approach has given me a board that looks much closer to a desert than I had originally cared for, but over time the color has grown on me. Besides, the original game this stuff was assembled for is MalifauX. If that game doesn't take place in a desert no game does.

I kind of miss playing MalifauX, but oh, well. More eBay fodder for if I get into Dust Warfare. I do however once again digress.

I also went through and repainted my original forest templates from my first board. There was already static grass on the boards which kind of made them look a touch sub-optimal. I'm not sure if these are going to make the final cut. I'm leaning toward yes as I just don't want to go through and cut out more templates. You see, Demitra's jigsaw is a touch, well he uses the term "classic". This means the blade is dull and you have to push it with both hands in order to get it to cut. As I like my fingers where they are, I don't think we'll be utilizing that particular tool any time soon. In fact, that particular tool has stalled our current "making hills so that the table isn't totally flat and boring" project. I'll have more on that in a later post, but just know that they're in the works.

Next it was on to expanding the board from its original 4'x4' size to 6'x4' so that games like Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, and maybe one day Dust can be played on it. This job, while the easiest, would prove to be by far the most time consuming. The boards (made of MDF- ask for it at your local hardware store if you don't know what it is) were first covered in wood glue. You'll need to thin it out a very little bit to get it to go on evenly. Once that's accomplished, sprinkle your railroad ballast over the board, making sure to coat the whole thing. Now the boring bit; leave it alone for several hours to dry. I suggest playing video games during this time. Once the glue is set, go over it with your base paint using a paint roller like you'd use for your walls. This makes sure the paint both goes on fast and evenly. Now it's time for more waiting. The paint must be given plenty of time to dry, or the next step will only make a mess.

Grab your can of paint you intend to use as a highlight and a large paintbrush. Like painting your house large. A cheapo one will do the job just fine, as you're about to destroy it. Drybrush the table. be sure you get a good, even covering. This will keep your table from looking all streaky (like a few of mine do). As I said before, this will probably destroy your brush, so don.t invest in a good one. In fact, the stiffer bristles of cheap brushes actually help this part.

That's it, you now have a fully painted table!

You may, as I have done with this 3'x3' table, wish to add patches of static grass and/or flock of varying shapes and sizes to the finished board. Be sure to attach this with Elmer's Glue-All as wood glue will turn everything yellow.

One final thing:

The long wait is finally over. just a couple of days ago my Candy and Cola miniature for Super Dungeon Explore arrived. Again, finally. The wait time and total lack of communication on the part of Sodapop Miniatures was totally unacceptable. At least I eventually got my miniature.

Well, here she is! all painted up and ready to whack some Kobolds.

Now to wait for the weather to break (the humidity is nightmarish) so I can varnish her.

Super (Sized) Smash Brothers

Well, that's it! My Super Dungeon Explore game is completely painted. With the two Rexes pictured above, I have a complete set (barring Candy and Cola, who will be added soon) of SDE ready for tonight.

...At least until the Caverns of Roxor expansion later this year...

But let me tell you, this is quite a feeling of accomplishment. I think I painted the miniatures rather well, and that leads to my swollen head.

That's one more project off the ol' "Coming Attractions" list.

Now to get ready for some hero thwomping tonight.