Week 20 - A Mighty Cave

So I know it has been a little picture (and progress) light around here for a while so just to prove I'm not a complete slacker, here is what I've been doing for the last few weeks.

Not pictured: 2 more that are on bases already...

That is almost all the remaining resin Plague I have. I still have 2 swarms, 2 Terratons and 4 Stage 1s to go, before I even think about the 85 or so zombies... I'm also going to re-purpose some of the Zombicide zombie dogs to act as more 3Ds at some point in the future. I need a whole pile of resin bases to actually finish these guys off though (I only have 13 left at this stage) so most won't see paint for a while. Hopefully soon though!

After my last post I did some thinking and decided that it was time to give up on a couple more of my long term goals. The undead and goblin armies are just far too time consuming to do, despite having most of what I need for both. This has meant that the undead have been listed on TradeMe and the goblin infantry will be following once I gather them all up for a headcount. I will keep the goblin cavalry though, as a cavalry army has appealed to me as well and seem like a good compromise.

I had some time to myself last weekend so started on my next big project, a decent man-cave! True to form I forgot to take a 'before' photo so instead I will just save up for a big reveal once it is done. I aim/hope to have it finished before the end of the year, pending small influxes of cash to pay for it all. I'm going for a classic wood finish and possibly slate coloured walls/ceiling. It should be classy as you can get, complete with an improved gaming table and hopefully TV and sound system, at least eventually. The wood paneling has been started and phase two was assembling a kit-set shed to store all the gardening gear. Unfortunately it was missing part of the gable roof! So now I am waiting to hear back from the supplier as to if/when I can get the part. The delay is a bit frustrating but serves me right for not just going to Bunnings...

Oh, and I got the dip on the last 4 Dreadball figures, they are too wet to photograph though so look for them next week!

Day 137
165/137 Painted/Days passed
Goals:
Commission models - 10
Finish painting Infinity Morats - 11/11
Paint all DZC Scourge - 31/32
Paint all Directorate - 44/44
Build and paint remaining KOW Elves - 68/83
Build and paint all Deadzone Enforcers - 0/34
Build and paint all Deadzone Plague - 0/21
Build and paint a full Malifaux crew - 0/14
Finish all of the Dreadball teams and MVPs. - 0/4

Week 29 - Productive Procrastination

So I have 99% finished my terrain competition entry, I just have a final little finishing touch for the buildings. As a result I won't post pictures of the final products today, I will take photos of everything together at the competition instead. The competition was postponed another week (to tomorrow,) giving me time to finish... Yay.

As the post title suggests I wasn't exactly focussed these last two weeks. I do find it funny that I was procrastinating hobby stuff by finishing other hobby stuff. For my efforts I have finished up the two sentry guns for my Deadzone Enforcers, the rest of a Plague starter (also for Deadzone) and a prototype for my Human Dreadball team. Photos are below.

This means that I have finished two more goals this month. Which isn't too bad for just over half way through the year, in my opinion anyway! Behind the scenes I have been working away on the other goals; I have assembled and undercoated the rest of my Haqqislam models, been assembling the rest of my Dreadball models and assembling the rest of Kirais crew. I still hope to finish these goals by the end of the year and so far I think it is still possible. The Dreadball models will be the real test...

Day 201
35/201 Painted/Days passed
35/65 Painted/Bought
Goals:
Build a permanent gaming table.
Build a Kings of War army for playing with.
Complete my entry for the terrain competition.
Build and paint a set of Deadzone battle groups.
Build and paint a full Malifaux crew.
Finish all of the Dreadball teams and MVPs.
Finish painting an Infinity group.
Make some headway on my Warpath fluff.

Week 26 - Plague, Loot and the Old West

I have spent every day this week sick, but could only afford to take two days off from work. Throw in some very early nights and fever related concentration and you wouldn't have thought I would have done much this week. I have to admit that I made more progress than I expected! I busted out the paintbrush and started on my Plague for Deadzone, finishing 4 dogs and getting the first colour stages on the rest of the starter.

I also made significant progress on the Malifaux board. The board has been painted, flocked and is generally ready to go. It did warp in the middle of the week with the heavy rain, which was extremely disappointing but some weight on the ends has mostly sorted that out. I am very likely to shift to using foamed PVC sheets in place of MDF when I start making these for other people...

Luckily (?) the terrain competition is being delayed for three weeks, which means that if I can get some buildings and scatter terrain done by then I may have an entry... I have some building frames on order, hopefully they arrive with sufficient time to detail and paint. I have also roughed out a building from my scraps of foamed PVC which I will build to fit with the bought ones.

Lastly, I got a special package this week. In my Facebook browsing it came to my attention that a US company was producing geeky 'lootcrates' that are built to a theme which changes every month. A quick look at past crates had me hooked, so I took advantage of NZposts' Youshop feature and got one sent to me. Below is a picture of what came this month, with the theme 'Transform.'

So I got a T-shirt, Hexbug, Thundercracker figure, MLG month free voucher, MLG wristband, Lootcrate magazine, Warheads candy and some stickers. So it cost me about $45 all up to get, from that the shirt (or equivalent geeky print anyway) would set me back about $30 and the Thundercracker figure would be about $15. Those are items that I would have bought anyway, so I've not lost anything. The Hexbug looks pretty cool and sour candy is always nice. The magazine goes over the contents of the crate and some other little things and the Decepticon sticker will definitely find a place somewhere! The only things in the crate that don't really interest me were the MLG items. Seeing as my PC has a heart attack trying to open Excel, online gaming items aren't really much use to me...

If you want to get your own loot crate you can get a discount if you go through my referral link below:
http://mbsy.co/lootcrate/6857425

Next months crate closes on the 10th and has the theme 'Villains' with some items from Marvel, including a T-shirt.

Day 180
23/180 Painted/Days passed
23/57 Painted/Bought
Goals:
Build a permanent gaming table.
Build a Kings of War army for playing with.
Complete my entry for the terrain competition.
Build and paint a set of Deadzone battle groups.
Build and paint a full Malifaux crew.
Finish all of the Dreadball teams and MVPs.
Finish painting an Infinity group.
Make some headway on my Warpath fluff.

Week 25 - Painted Models? Really?

That is right, I painted something. Shock, horror, I know. I have basically finished the Sorylians, I haven't had much luck printing out the ship names for copying the font just yet, that is all that I am likely to do on them from now. One has been sacrificed to the 'test model' gods so I only have 9 now. It was spare anyway...

Out of nowhere I also got 10 Enforcers for Deadzone painted up this week. I decided that the blue colour scheme I had planned for them wasn't working so went for an easier, more identifiable scheme. This also gets me one step closer to my Deadzone goal, which is nice. The bases still need doing, which I am sure surprises nobody. I haven't yet decided if I will just do them in metallics or not just yet. I would need some new metallic paint for that though.

Lastly I have made some decent progress on the Malifaux board this week as well. No paint just yet but I should be on to that early this week. No luck having it done for the terrain competition but at least I am fairly certain it will be done for the charity event in two weeks time. Fairly...

Glue still wet. Close-ups once it is painted...

Day 173
19/173 Painted/Days passed
19/57 Painted/Bought
Goals:
Build a permanent gaming table.
Complete my entry for the terrain competition.
Build a Kings of War army for playing with.
Build and paint a set of Deadzone battle groups.
Build and paint a full Malifaux crew.
Finish all of the Dreadball teams and MVPs.
Finish painting an Infinity group.
Make some headway on my Warpath fluff.

Week 8 - Deadzone Terrain Review

So a little bit more distracted this week as I was still working away at my Deadzone terrain. I decided to do a bit of a review and give some hints to making things for those of you who might decide to pick some up.

What is it?

The 'Core Worlds' scenery pack is a set of 22 3" square 'sci-fi' terrain panels, 6 half size panels and various other barricades, obstacles and connectors. It is highly customisable and you can build just about anything you want out of the pieces.

The Good

You really can build just about anything you want to out of this set. It retails for about the same as the GW Cityfight buildings but as all the panels are the same size (including floor panels) you can build more things with a single kit. It also seems to go much further than the GW kits. Not only that but the connector system can make for very rigid structures, letting you build much higher and without the 'not so straight' issues the GW kits can have. The terrain also looks really good, even with a low effort paint job.

The Bad

So it was originally advertised as being able to be assembled and disassembled. While you can do this, I wouldn't recommend it. The connectors can get quite stuck and snap off when you try and remove them. Now while this could be filed in the 'ugly' section below I found that you really wouldn't want to assemble your terrain just before a game anyway. I've been plugging away at mine for about 6 hours or so of just assembly, not exactly suitable for 'just before playing' a game...

Some of the parts restrict assembly. Actually just one really, the extra straight connectors that allow the terrain to stand freely. It is great for making free-standing walls and barricades but you cant put a roof piece above/below it. The only other piece that is a bit iffy is the triangle support piece, mostly because with the placement of the connector ports they can overhang the windows/doors of the tile it is connected to...

You only get one set of connectors with each set. You could kind of do with two per set, as you start to feel quite limited as you build.

The Ugly

The main issue here is the connectors. The idea was really good but falls over in mass production. The mould lines and slight tool misalignments mean that sometimes the connectors really don't want to go in. A little bit of filing goes a long way when building this product. It also becomes essential if you paint it first...

Conclusion

Despite the issues I would still highly recommend the terrain, I'm even picking up 4 more sets. It does look really nice, goes together securely without glue and one box goes quite a long way for the price. Give it a go, it is also suitable for Infinity as well as 40k, although the lack of skulls will make it stick out!

Tips

1. Plan out what you want (even just roughly) before you start. Some planning will help make sure you don't get stuck trying to add panels in awkward positions.
2. Get a small square file. Seriously, this is mandatory. If you are going to paint after assembly then just have a light file of the connector ports on all the tiles. It will save you headaches later.
3. Decide early if you are going to paint before assembly or after. If you are going to paint before assembly I suggest putting bluetac or similar in the connector holes when painting. I didn't and now I have to file almost every hole to make connectors fit.
4. Don't get paint on the connector tabs. You will just have to scrape it off again. Save yourself some time, mask them off.
5. Buy spare connector sprues. One extra per terrain set should be good, possibly even two. It will give you far more options as you build, you won't regret it.
6. If you don't get extra connectors you can be fairly sparing with them and still get a rigid structure. I realised this about half way through assembly, you only really need about 2/3 of the maximum number of connectors on a tile to make a solid structure. I have about 2 tiles left over (I got a bonus sprue with mine so should have 4 less!) and a few barricade walls but absolutely no connectors left.
7. Once you are happy with it you may want to glue it together. I haven't done this yet but expect to once I get a couple games in.
8. If you get nothing else, try the accessory sprues. They aren't available singly yet but you get 2 crates, 2 double hazard barrels, 2 triple barrels, 2 ladders, 2 street lamps (double as wall connectors), 4 railings and 6 ceiling supports. All for $5 US during the kickstarter, so maybe $10-12 NZ if they become available separately.

The pictures below are what 2 sets can make with some slightly sparing connector use...

I finished trimming up the last of the accessory sprues and undercoated them today and also built some free-standing billboards for my terrain competition entry.

At least now that I have that all together I can feel comfortable going back to my terrain competition entry. Still so much to do, so little time...

Apartment Building

 - Windows

 - Balconies (x2)

 - Air conditioner

 - Ladders

 - Fences

 - Paint

Raised Garden

 - Make framework

 - Detail frame panels

 - Populate garden

 - Fences

 - Paint

Shipping Containers

 - Add doors

 - Fine detailing (windows, signs, vents etc.)

 - Paint

Crates

 - Paint 36 large crates

 - Trim and paint 24 small crates

Paint K-Rails

Board

 - Touch up paint

 - Add details

 - Add plastic to road edges

Paint up Billboards

Catwalks

 - Build

 - Paint

Day 54

0/54 Painted/Days passed

0/19 Painted/Bought

Goals:

Build a permanent gaming table.

Complete my entry for the terrain competition.

Build a Kings of War army for playing with.

Build and paint a set of Deadzone battle groups.

Build and paint a full Malifaux crew.

Finish all of the Dreadball teams and MVPs.

Finish painting an Infinity group.

Make some headway on my Warpath fluff.

Week 7 - Distracted By Deadzone

The title says it all really... Between waiting for parts and general laziness I haven't made any further progress on my Infinity terrain. When my weekend gaming got cancelled I decided to give my Deadzone terrain a quick spray paint to move it all along. The photos are a bit washed out unfortunately as the lighting was pretty bad... Basically I gave them a light blue base coat followed by a dusting of black spray. They look reasonably worn as a result, next I will sponge on some browns to up the wear-and-tear.

I hope to get a game in sometime this week, then I can figure out if I have enough terrain (NEVAR!!1!! lol) and then decide which sets I want to pick up from the final survey.

I also spent some time during the week making an abridged version of the Infinity rules (I use the term loosely as it is currently more pages) that includes a glossary. Hopefully I can finish it up in a week or so, making finding the relevant rules sections much faster! I also assembled more of my Infinity models, just a couple to go and they will all at least be assembled.

Day 47
0/47 Painted/Days passed
0/10 Painted/Bought
Goals:
Build a permanent gaming table.
Complete my entry for the terrain competition.
Build a Kings of War army for playing with.
Build and paint a set of Deadzone battle groups.
Build and paint a full Malifaux crew.
Finish all of the Dreadball teams and MVPs.
Finish painting an Infinity group.
Make some headway on my Warpath fluff.