Sellsword Captain and Les Impes!

This past weekend I finished up 4 more models for Frostgrave.  In spite of that I missed my deadline for getting my wizards done so boo me!

First up I needed a captain to join my Frostgrave warband.  There are a lot of different options for what kind of captain you can have but I wanted a fairly traditional older warrior type.  I had an extra Denethor (Boromir & Faramir's father) from Lord Of The Rings and he felt perfect.  He's wearing mail armour, armed with a sword and as a bonus has a fur-lined cloak so he felt he fit the background very well.  I went with a largely black colour scheme so he will blend in with some Darksword miniatures I'll be starting in a couple of weeks.

I also needed some Imps to add to the ever growing pile of wandering monsters.  I actually painted 5 of these same figures (on bevelled bases) last year for a D&D game but I wanted consistent basing across my Frostgrave stuff so I painted 3 new ones.  These are "Les Impes" from Ex Illis a Canadian wargame that had great figures but failed to get any traction in the market a few years ago.

Alright.  Here's my new "to-do" list  (all by Friday):
- 6 Rangifers (Frostgrave)
- The Mad Hatter (Batman Miniature Game)
- Mature Nephilim (Malifaux)

Maybe I'll get it ALL done for once

-Jay

Plan B?

Sometimes you paint miniatures and a game falls through, or rules change or you just plain end up not using them.  That's a fairly common occurrence when you're a casual miniature gamer because you buy stuff without fully thinking through what you are going to need for a themed force in various circumstances, but it's less common (in my experience) when painting miniatures for an RPG.

Nevertheless, as I have been painting stuff for my current D&D game I did end up plotting out a couple of encounters that I ultimately didn't go through with and therefore the miniatures never made it to the table.

First up a steampunk witch from Reaper.  When I plan encounters I usually plan them around miniatures I want to use.  This is the first case where a Reaper Bones figure completely let me down.  When I saw the original (metal) steampunk witch I thought it looked great and I had just read the first Girl Genius novelisation of the ongoing web-comic so all around I was excited about the idea.  Unfortunately the Bones version loses a lot of detail (I could have sworn she had a nose before).  So basically I dropped the idea all together.  Having said that she's done and she'd be great if I needed an extra fig in a Malifaux or Warmahordes setting.

Next up are 5 (of 10) figures I've had half painted for months and finally just decided to finish last night.  These are Imps for Ex Illis.  I had originally started painting them because I needed some lowly non-goblinoid minion models for my current D&D game but eventually I realised I just liked the Malifaux Ice Gamin figures better.  I still like these little guys and I'm sure they'll see a tabletop eventually.

There you have it.  I thought I knew what I was painting these for but it turns out I was wrong.

-Jay

Zoe's World: Faerie Princess

Last night's daddy-daughter painting session was a huge success! 

My 7 year old daughter Zoe got her first model completely painted in just about an hour and had such a great time doing it that as soon as it was done she asked me when she could do her next one.  I am super-impressed because as any of you with kids or who work with kids may know at 7 sometimes patience and focus are not where they need to be to do something like this.  First up lets take a look at Zoe's model.  She will be using this figure to play in a stripped down D20 game because she also mentioned she wanted to try one of daddy's games.

So let me start by answering the obvious question which is; how much did I help/do?  I got the paint on the neck, I touched up a few spots where the purple got onto the red and the red got onto the purple, I painted the dagger...and that's it, the rest is all her. 

This all got started because Zoe wants to participate in some of the things I do with my leisure time and she loves little figures (she has a ton of my surplus Heroclix on her dresser).  I'm also really excited to using gaming to help her with her basic math skills and sneak in a little teaching on the side.

Here's a question for me to throw back out to the rest of you; can you recommend figures that meet the following criteria to help grow and build Zoe's collection?
-female
-plastic
-no overly fine pieces that stick out
-"appropriate" for a 7 year old
-any genre

That does it for me for right now, but painting with her I was able to get another one of my projects done so that will shoe up here later today.

-Jay

Hobby Grab Bag: Now with 100% less theme!

I'm all over the map this week...and this stuff doesn't even include the Lord Of The Rings Elves I'm trying to finish....

First up I've made a little bit of progress on my Pathfinder Goblins.  I'm contacting my players tonight about picking a date to play so I need to get serious and get these guys finished.

Next a friend of mine recently let me look through his Warzone Resurrection rules so I'm eager to play!  I've got a Capitol army list I can use and the Imperial rules aren't out yet but a new version of a game feels like it calls for a new army so I've decided to start a Bauhaus army.  To be 100% honest I always knew I was going to end up painting a Bauhaus army when I started painting my 'space fascists'  but now I've got an actual structure to apply it to.  I'm going to start off with 600 points and I'm kicking that off by painting 2 squads of Hussars.  These should fit in with the Wargames Factory Greatcoats I painted awhile back so more to come on this shortly.

This next project is less motivated by short term need or game use and is more about trying some new products out.  I need an unarmed Steamjack for my Witchfire Trilogy game (eventually) but when I was at my local comic shop last weekend they had the new Citadel Technical Paints in.  I want to try out the Nihilakh Oxide and the Typhus Corrosion and this fig will let me do both!  The figure itself is a Cygnar Heavy Jack from the Grind game.

The last figure I want to call attention to is extra special.  My 7 year old daughter has decided she wants to paint her first miniature to play a game with and after deciding that a magical fey princess is the perfect character for her try out a stripped down version of D20 with we picked out this Ex Illis model from their core game.  She'll be getting painted up tonight in our first daddy-daughter painting session!

Hopefully I'll have some finished models to show off before the week is out.

-Jay

Ex Illis....some mixed feelings

As part of my ongoing prep for my Witchfire Trilogy campaign I realised there would be a number of occasions where I would need figures for members of the city watch.  These are basically men-at-arms wearing heavy armour and armed with halberds.  I got a copy of Ex Illis a couple of years ago so I already had the perfect figures on hand and I'd been looking for an excuse to paint them for a little while.

Once I dug these guys out I started going through all my Ex Illis stuff and getting really excited again.  The game has great figures and a fantastic plastic tabletop as well as a cool setting with lots of neat stuff.  I got so excited about the figures that when I was done putting together my men-at-arms I threw together this Decurion (an angelic army general) to lead my forces.

By way of a coincidence Ex Illis (which was discontinued about 18-24 months ago) is re-launching via a Kickstarter campaign.  The great thing about the re-launch is that this time they are going to publish a rulebook so you don't need an iPad to play the game.  I don't want to turn this into another discussion about the many reasons I'm not a fan of Kickstarter (support your local retailer by the way) but I do have to point out that this particular Kickstarter seems even more ridiculous than most.
Basically the only new product included in ANY of the Kickstarter packages is the rulebook, every other incentive or add-on or whatever is a model that existed before and has probably been sitting in a warehouse for a year. 
I say my feelings are mixed because I am still genuinely excited to be painting Ex Illis models again and I intend to support the game once I can make my purchases through a brick and mortar retailer again but this is exactly the kind of thing that makes me question whether crowd-funding is actually doing anything for us (you know us; the crowd) or if it's just become a low risk way for game companies to sell us products? 

-Jay