After finishing the first three squads of the 15mm OutRim Coalition Infantry , there was no turning back. I had to go on.
I have painted standard troopers, medics, squad leaders and SAW gunners so far, but I decided to add more support weapons (plasma guns and two different missile launchers), snipers and two assaults squads. I used the SG15-RC09 and SG15-RC04 sets from Ground Zero Games’ OutRim Coalition range.
Continue reading The More the MerrierThough I haven’t planned starting a new army or collecting anything in 15 mm scale (all my minis are in 28mm), I knew there’s no turning back and decided to buy some minis from Ground Zero Games, after reading the Stargrunt II rules. The range is surprisingly huge, there are many factions with distinct appearances, units and equipment. After carefully considering, I chose the OutRim Coalition and ordered a starter pack and a few vehicles.
The figures are very neatly detailed, there is no real sign of mould lines and they are full of character. All the figures are in power armour (no skin to paint! 😊 ), and there are marine assault troops, command and comms squad, anti-armour and light anti-armour support squads, three different heavy weapon teams, a heavy power armour squad and grav bikes in the pack. That is almost 100 figures in total.
Continue reading My First Steps in the 15mm UniverseIf you’ve been following this blog, you might be wondering why haven’t I posted anything since the beginning of 2020. The end of 2019 and early this year was extremely busy with a lot of work, studying for exams, and visiting family (which also means that we’ll soon have a new entry in the “Painting with my nieces” section too). I also spent a significant amount of time with building and painting my brother’s Christmas gift in December, which is what this post is about.
Continue reading Soldiers of FortuneUndeniably, it’s autumn. Summer is gone and it’s time to recall a happy memory from July.
After our December visit to the family and our painting session with my nieces, it was beyond question that we would have more of these. Both of them and I enjoyed it a lot and I got the mission to find a decent Gryph.
Continue reading Painting with My Nieces – Summer 2019Being an uncle is entertaining – you bring presents, you know all the cool stuff, and you are a lot more fun than the rest of the adults.
Since we live in the UK and my nieces (6 and 8 years old) are in Hungary, I can see them only twice a year, so I try to make every visit special and memorable. Instead of just heaping them with random gifts, I always buy something that improves their creativity or their skills. To give a few examples, we have made gypsum mermaids and butterflies and we have painted them together. I showed them how to mix colours, I explained them colour theory, and I taught them techniques like edge highlighting, drybrushing and extreme highlighting. They are always curious and receptive, and the most rewarding thing in this process is that I can see that they use what they learnt earlier.
Continue reading Painting with My Nieces – Christmas 2018The local RPG club, where I spent several hours every week in the past year either playing or running a game as a DM, has recently become one year old. There were loads of ideas on how to celebrate the anniversary: throwing a party, having a cake, a charade, etc… – everyone was excited and busy with organizing the event.
We decided to give some kind of an award or memorabilia to gamers who have really outdone themselves. There was a surprise only two of us knew about: Crooked Dice Studio had a miniature with an uncanny resemblance to one of the iconic members of the club. The head, the pose and the cargo short were spot on, so we decided to paint them in gold, silver and bronze and make them our “Oscars”.
Continue reading The “Oscars”When I first saw Games Workshop’s Nighthaunts, I knew I had to build this army. I just loved the creepy and dramatic design of these miniatures, the clever usage of hollow structures and the mist-like shapes that give them a real ethereal look. It is design at its best!
When the two technical paints (Hexwraith Flame and Nighthaunt Gloom) were released, it became even more difficult to resist them: these guys developed special paints for the Nighthaunts! The reviews were all positive and I also found a bunch of amazing photos online. All you need is a white basecoat, a layer of these technical paints, and a bit of drybrushing or layering.
Since I also needed some ghosts for my RPG campaign and I have not seen any decent ghost miniatures anywhere else, I gave in and bought a set of Spirit Hosts.
The kit was a bit more difficult to build than I thought it would be, but it was worth it.
I got a bit stuck after applying the white basecoat: Should I give them a grim look with Hexwraith Flame’s dark blue, or a more mystical look with Nighthaunt Gloom’s vibrant green? In the end, I decided to do a colour test, try my glazes, shades, and other technical paints, and pick the one that works the best.
Every story has to start somewhere… but where should I start mine?
Should I start with my decades long love of strategic games and miniatures? Or with me getting back to role-play games, both as a player and as a DM? Maybe a bit of both.
It was kind of a milestone last June when I bought the Shadespire boxed set after a long hiatus. I’ll write more in detail about this game later, for now let’s just say that it’s a tactical board game with cards and miniature figures, I love it and I really recommend it. I have always loved minis and models, and I have built and painted many of them over the past decades, so painting the Shadespire figures was beyond question.
I started with the Sepulchral Guards, a warband of skeletons.
I have to admit, the result was very far from what I imagined… Sure, it wasn’t a complete mess, it was acceptable, something I dare to call tabletop quality, but I wasn’t completely happy with it. Absolutely not… Some details were lost and some parts ended up totally different than planned.
I continued with Steelheart’s Champions and the result was similar.
I knew what I wanted to do with the figures, but when I was painting them, I just couldn’t work it out properly. Of course, I could blame the brushes, blame the paint and the figures, accuse every painter who had better works with doctoring the images… But let’s face it: I need more practice. So I decided to get more experience, paint more figures and use the minis for what they are meant to be used: play with them.
This blog is going to be my journal, where I record what I do, what I learn and where I track my progress…and of course, it’s also about games: role-play games, arena games, skirmish games, narrative battles!
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