200th Post! (And a competition.)

As I sit here about to watch Wales versus England (AND WIN!!!) in the group stages of the Rugby World World Cup, I realise that I've been at this blogging business almost 4 years and am now writing my 200th post. Not as much as some, but certainly impressive for a lazy sod like me. So with me averaging almost a post a week and at the writing of this post having 111 followers on my widget-thingie I'm rather chuffed in this blogging effort of mine.

20 year old jersey still holding up. :)

Enough going on though. Meat and 'tatoes-wise, this post is a bit weak on substance as this week has been a tiring one at work and I've only managed to get the remaining 3 skeleton warriors finished of my original 10. Same recipe as the other seven and all together they do look rather splendid and Harryhausen-esque if I do say so myself!

Quick and dirty bone-boys

These chaps ain't got no back.

Group shot! Heroquest sorceror is happy cos he finally is seeing some action!

Now. With 200 posts and seeing other bloggers doing similar, I thought I'd put back into the blogosphere some and offer up a small contest for the occasion. So here are three prizes I plan to send out to three lucky winners, announced on.... oh... maybe Halloween (So my feeble memory doesn't have an excuse for forgetting.). All you have to do to win is be a follower of my blog, leave a comment and let me know just how much better the Welsh game was in the 2nd half compared to the Saesneg fumblings. You didn't have to have watched the game, just get creative. :) I'll pick three winners at random and will ask for email addresses once picked. Prizes will be one each and selected in the order that the names are picked out by those three. If you somehow feel you'd like to advertise this competition elsewhere, then leave a link in your comment below to said advert and I'll give your name a 2nd chance for the draw for these "fabulous" prizes. (I'll cover shipping, though I'll not cover any customs fees that might, but shouldn't, arise.)

1990's Ral Partha Ghost Dragon

A complete set of WEG Storm Troopers from the original d6 Star Wars rpg.

This book chronicling Abaddon's 13th Crusade or some such.

Thanks all for following, reading and commenting on my posts. The pleasure through these 4 years has been all mine.

Even more rpg figs

Last week was super stressful and busy with Jury service and all sorts of other shenanigans. But all done now and I did manage to get some painting done.

These are more minis for my upcoming roleplay group campaign.

This is an old Citadel Norse sculpt who's hand had been lost to time and so got a clumsily sculpted hand holding a torch. I plan to use him as an NPC guide for the party. His wide-eyed look is to help make him look scared about having to lead the party of adventurers into yet another slime encrusted dungeon where he has a rather certain suspicion he'll not come out of!

I also sculpted a pommel and cross-guard in the scabbard so it looks like his sword is sheathed. The Kite-shield covers that up mostly though. 

The torch was also a bit of Greenstuff sculpting. Again, bit naff, but with the paint, it looks close enough to fire in my mind.

This is a lesser water elemental from the Reaper Miniatures Bones2 Kickstarter. It was made in soft clear blue plastic, which was cool and made painting the actual elemental easier. 

The fountain was super easy to paint. I have a fun encounter to run for this piece.

Again from the same Kickstarter in the same blue clear material, this is a "Wall of Ice" for when a wizard casts the defensive spell with the same name. 

Another NPC, another Citadel Miniatures Talisman figure. This is the Gypsy and she got a super fast and dirty effort. Not sure how I'll use her in-game, but for some reason I had a hankering to get her off my paint queue.

Her basket had no sculpted detail so I lazily threw on some cross-hatch to make it look woven from far away. In a dark room. Perhaps in another country. 

Long gypsy curls. 

And a lot of attitude. I had a Roma-Gypsy girlfriend when I was 21 - she was a LOT of attitude.

A metal Reaper Miniatures coffin for some scenery and quest objectives.

And look who's inside!

The end. No seriously, it is.

More rpg figs

Painting bug is back so taking full advantage of it.

Got the rider done for the Dire Wolf I showed last post. Although he's supposed to be an orc, I painted him up in the same colours as the Hobgoblins I'd completed months ago. He'll be their leader and I hope will put the willies up my players when I plonk him down on the map. The figs are old Grenadier sculpts and the rider used to have a metal crescent shaped back banner thing, but I've long since lost that, so used a plastic GW bad moon one instead. Looks okay for what I need it for.

Hoshaar the White Crescent is a slaver who's business is thriving under the current state of things in the Riverlands.

Perhaps could have done a little more on the rear of the back banner, o well. 

Wierd sculpt on the Wolf's tail - looks more suited to a horse tail to me.

Got a little lazy on those elbow spikes and painted them the same colour of the leather. 

I then went on to finish up another trio of skeleton warriors to join the other 4 I showed last post. More of the same from last time - simple quick paint jobs on some old sculpts.

For being 30-year old or so sculpts, they still look pretty good.

Not sure what I'll work on next, there's still 3 of my skeleton warriors to go and 6 archers too. Though I'll probably get started on my 28mm WW2 Winter Soviets as Densmol is coming over Wednesday for a paint session.

Handful of rpg minis

Been trying to get through the basic block of minis I think I'll need for the initial chapter of my upcoming rpg campaign.

First up, completed ninja character mini. Again, an old 1980's Citadel Miniatures sculpt made for the original Talisman boardgame.

Huge feet obviously means, he wears huge shoes, right?

Fed up with stupid sword hand that has come off and been reattached 20-odd times in 20-odd years so it stays as is. A little wonky, but it'll do.

Next up a small group of skeletons. These are also old Citadel Miniatures from their first plastic Skeletons boxed set. Seeing as they're just going to be fodder for the heroes to take down, I didn't bother to get rid of mold lines and their paintjobs are super simple.

Blood smear on their foreheads is part of the magic ceremony to animate them!

Still 6 more of these warriors to do and a further 6 skeleton archers too.

Lastly, part one of two on this one. A "Mini-boss" and it's mount - a Dire Wolf.

This sculpt reminded me of Gmork, the wolf-villain from the 1984 film, Never Ending Story.

Skulls, for the Wolf Skull God?

The rider will be up next!

Star Wars: Armada Repaints

I'll start this post with a swift public message:

THE BLOGGER APP IS A PILE OF CRAP

*this message was brought to you by a disgruntled Dai who'll not be using the listed phone app again. Ever.*

Ahem. But I digress.

The reason for this mild outburst is from when I attempted to upload a new post using said phone app, it instead deleted my previous post (Apologies to those kind enough to add comment) and the full post I had laboriously typed up up til that point.

Enough whining about the past though.

Here are my repaints of my friend Gregg's Rebel ships so that they look better on the tabletop and also can be more easily told apart during games.

Kept one in it's original colours so the classic Tantive IV ship from Episode IV can be represented. Just gave it's markings a sprucing up and the general body-work some highlights.

Engine Glows got a touch up on all ships.

Switched the red markings on the 2nd Corvette to blue. I like it.

Complete re-paint on the 3rd Corvette. Saw one like this on the internet and decided to copy the scheme.

Blue glows on this one as orange would have blended in too much with the red. 

Gregg's 2nd Nebulon-B repainted green with orange stripe. 

So now Gregg's fleet at least looks boss, even though it's yet to win a game...

I also got these two Confederate Officers done for ACW games. I intend to use them as Brave Colonels in Regimental Fire & Fury and as Heroes counters for when I play Sam Mustafa's Longstreet rules set. Simple paintjobs on some characterful sculpts.

Blue Moon 15mm sculpt on the left, unknown manufacturer on the right.

Late last night I also started getting paint on my skeleton warriors that I intend to use in my rpg campaign. Still 6 archers to get started on too, but I'm going to let my son do those.

A Disapproving Pair

In my last post I presented the Serving Girl for my rpg tavern scenes so here are her parents, also by Reaper Miniatures. Easy to paint and given a quick and dirty paint job so they're off my painting queue.

The bloke actually has stubble painted on his face, but the light washed it out, which is annoying. 

The yellow for the barman's shirt is some freebie paint that Reaper stuck in with my last miniatures order from their website. I really like the colour, but the paint itself went on somewhat thinly and needed 3 coats before I was happy. Can't complain about free though!

Per usual, these pictures are from pre-varnish stage.
Nice to have some non-combat NPC's in my collection to be honest.

This evening I'm demoing a game or two of Star Wars: Armada for my mate Densmol and on Sunday I am playing again with another mate, Stew who has also yet to play. Will try to get some AAR's up if I remember.

A bear it was! A bear, a bear!

Super simple bear painted up as an animal companion for my previously featured Druid rpg character. The bear is by Reaper Miniatures in their Bones material. Not much more to say on the beastie, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Unlike most of these Reaper pieces, I really liked the moulded base so I made sure to give it a tad extra love.

I also got a quick'n'dirty effort done on this wee buxom lass, also a Reaper Bones effort. Went with wooden/clay mugs as that seemed far more believable than glass in a fantasy tavern.

Am sure she's a firm favourite amongst the local village lads showing off her cleavage like that! 

Next up are her parents, the owner of said tavern.

No so sure these parents look all that approving of their daughter's "friendliness" with the clientele. :)

The ninja is on pause - not feeling so enthused by him right now.

That's it.