Season of Scenery - Part 3

Stayed home yesterday with a nagging cough (Mostly gone now though.), so got a small moment to work on another pair of the 3D printed terrain pieces in my backlog.

This is a well. Not all that exciting. Just a well, but it'll add some more character to my WW2 East Front setups and something else for opposing forces to hid behind. It'll get "Winterizing" along with my other finished pieces.

I'd originally planned to add a little length of paperclip to act as rope dropping into the well's depths, but time wasn't on my side so that might have to be done at a later date.

Along with the above, I worked on this fiddly bugger. Each of the wooden barrels were individual 3D prints and I decided they'd make better as a based in-game objective or just scatter terrain, setting dependent. To that end, this piece will be based with a "neutral" grassy, non-winter theme so it'll fit more games. It took way longer to paint than anticipated with all those "iron hoops" banding each barrel, but I'm glad it's done; just needs a flat coat varnish and some grassy effects added. 

On the table is another East Front 3D printed house and the remainder of my Fidwog Quar figs (That I'm determined to get finished before the imminent release of the new Starter Set next month.).

Hope all are safe and well out there and prayers to those poor souls in Nepal and Tibet. 

- Dai

3rd Awr-Range Wardens (Quar Fidwogs - Part 7 & Season of Scenery - Part 2)

Another chance weekend where I was afforded time at the hobby desk whilst my wife and her sister and Mum went shopping!

And so I present yet another Quar update to showcase the troops from my second squad of Fidwog infantry, an Anti-Tank Lancer and the cutest trio of "Fidwog Fydo's" you ever did see. 

These plastic infantry kits are lots of fun to assemble with plenty of options to help customize poses and so forth and that's even before adding some 3D printed arms and accessories (Like the below shown pair of soft caps.) to further personalise. 

The Fydos themselves are 3D prints ordered directly from the Zombiesmith Miniatures website - smaller than I was anticipating but otherwise lovely crisp sculpts with a huge amount of character that were loads of fun to paint up.

Group pic proving that even I can "batch paint". Kinda. 

As with the members of the first squad, here are individual closeups and some blurb to give them more character.

han-Gaefyn Alchaehyl is "han-Gaefyn" in name only. Half the day he seems to be high, smoking some mountain weed or other. His squad members do appreciate how his drug usage helps keep the squad LMG operator cool under fire though.

Gaefyn Chir is a local from the Awr Range area, coming from a small gold mining settlement near the 3rd ARW outpost. His father was killed, serving in the 3rd ARW during a Tokish incursion and so Chir felt honour-bound to enlist once he turned of age to follow in his father's footsteps. He both wields his father's aged rhyfle and sports his soft-cap. 

Gaefyn Marn also wields an aged rhyle though no-one else in the squad knows where it came from. Marn is known to "appropriate" items, often selling them on to others in the regiment. Questions are rarely asked though as his ability to source hard to find comforts has become very much apopreciated.

Gaefyn Raessi is the cousin to Gaefyn Chir. He too wears his father's outdated softcap in honour of his parent's sacrifice at the front. Raessi is known to take silly chances in battle, only the Ancestors know how long his luck will hold out before he is called to their number. His cousin feels responsible for Chir's safety and is constantly checking over his shoulder.

This is Yawdryl Fynn, a no-nonsense squad leader, or at least that's what he thinks. The truth is his Quar see him as just "loud noise" and don't take him seriously at all. Luckily they are well trained enough in the regiment to perform their duties at a more than efficient level. (Fynn also has a reputation for visiting the single Dynas (Female Quar) in the local villages far more frequently than the other squad members. His appetite for their... "services" is well known.)

The following pics are of a trio of Fydo's, canine companions and guards the 3rd ARW use in the narrow passes and mines of their alpine territory. In the Clash of Rhyfles rule set they are fast close combat critters that I'm excited to try outwhen I next get to play.  

Fydo's in the Clash of Rhyfles are typically illustrated and painted up with more normal "dog" fur colouring, browns, black, white etc. I felt mine needed to stand out more so I went with some whimsical bright schemes instead which I felt was lots more fun.

Rus is the only male Fydo in regiment's kennel. He can be a little erratic whilst out in the field, but he is the best tracking Fydo of the three.

This sculpt has the Fydo cocking his leg to pee. I took that as an excuse to glue on a small length of paperclip for further effect. Think it turned out pretty good.

Cam is a good girl and the kennel-master's favourite. He claims she is as smart as any Quar. Rhyflers at the garrison joke that he'd probably leave his wife for Cam the way he speaks so fondly about her.

Was a little worried using pink on this one due to it looking a bit "Cheshire-cattish"?

Duro is the youngest of the Fydo pack and still learning the ropes. She seems happy following the others though and should prove a capable addition to the 3rd in time.

Tricky to tell with the lighting in the first pic but this little fydo is having a good scratch at her cheek with her back foot.

Last up for this post is another of the 3D printed WW2 East Front buildings I previously posted about - the Russian Orthodox chapel. This is a very nicely detailed print and I really enjoyed putting colour to it. The interior also has detail and I even glued in some bench-pews but my back was killing me so I called it quits. I'll come back to the interior another time. (Probably when I add Snow effects.)

And that's it for this post. Hope all are safe and well out there. It's supposed to be 105 degrees here today... If I don't melt, maybe I'll be able to post again should time allow for more hobby.

- Dai

Season of Scenery - Part 1

 Dave Stone at the Wargamesculptorblog is running his annual Season of Scenery "challenge" - an effort to encourage his readers and blog subscribers to push out some terrain items from their backlogs. (Vehicles count too!)

I have plenty of unpainted stuff sat in tubs and bags and of late, my gaming table decor has started to feel a little stale, so yesterday I decided try and get some of the 3D printed pieces I'd added to my collection a year ago painted and ready for Winter effects (That I plan to do to all of the 3D printed pieces at once when they have been painted.).

Not hugely exciting, but I think the following will help add more depth to my play setups and only the one pic cos... c'mon, they aren't exactly "eye candy" right? :)

Three tri-stacks of hay, a small shed, two out-houses, 2 log piles and a wood-cutting scene. All kindly done on a mate's fdm printer.

It was a decent tho humid day yesterday, so I set up to paint these primarily with craft paints. Think they came out okay. They are currently drying after being dullcoted. 

Short post but at least some progress and nine items marked off the paint mountain AND I primed six of the 3D printed East Front buildings from the same set so they are ready for the next round. Not a bad start. Hope to get more done this weekend. 

Hope all are safe and well out there,

- Dai

Season of Scenery 2025 (Part -1)

 The estimable Dave Stone who runs the excellent Wargamesculptors Blog  is running his annual "Season of Scenery" challenge. While I'm really not finding myself with a lot of hobby time these days, I decided to jump on board and try to crank out some terrain pieces I've added to my collection this year. 

Quality-wise, I've put in as much effort into these initial entries as time allowed so I am aware that they could be so much better, but we work with what we have, right? I'm planning to use both on my WW2 East Front Winter table so snow effects still need to be applied, but I want to do that once I have a number of them done so the snow can be added at the same time. (Also, these pics were taken prior to a coat of flatcote was applied so excuse the shininess.)

These are 3D fdm prints from a Kickstarter I backed ran by a very respected fellow in Canada who goes by "Deweycat" online. A friend here at work kindly printed off all the files for me and so I have a veritable village's-worth of buildings to get painted and ready for my setups

Nice rural East Front Barn with a tin roof. The doors came loose, but I glued them shut to make the whole thing more sturdy.

Am hoping the roof looks like rusting/dirty corrugated tin? 

A removable roof and loft option. I glued the ladder to the floor cos who wants to faff about with silly things like that mid-game?

Outside slouch/shed thing with tiled roof. 

My latest delivery, a whole slew of mud-road pieces. They printed out a bit narrower than I was expecting, but I think they'll still work out fine as my East Front setups tend to be more rural in my mind so I doubt there'd be paving or metalled roads out in eastern Europe in 1944? 

Okay, that's entry #1 for the challenge, let's see if I can find more time to post a second and possibly a third. 

It's all Greek to me! (Part 8 - Infantry Squad #3 Complete! And a whole lot more.)

**Settle down, grab a beverage and some reading glasses - this post is going to be a long one. **

Well, as in most cases, "best laid plans" tend to end up floundering and so my plans in fine form for this project followed suit in short order. I managed to get the 3rd squad of Greek infantry I mentioned in my last post finished but could only find time to slap on a couple of base colours onto the 4th squad and so had to attend the event on Saturday 7th February with only 95% of my force fully painted. Not bad, but not what I wanted. 

The 3rd squad though does look rather splendid and fits in nicely with the others I've painted up so far. Once again, these are metal sculpts by Great Escape Games and were fun to paint.

Infantry Squad #3 - lots of tasty 'tache's in this group.

Also painted up this fun little Orthodox priest who I add to my FAO team who'll ask the big feller above for extra luck getting those off-table artillery strikes on target for once. (With my dice rolling, I need all the help I can get!)

This little fellow has since been given a coat of flat varnish. 

The whole Greek WW2 collection as it stands - best pics I could get with the time, space and lighting available. Just a pair of trucks to paint up and then they'll be done, "Fully Painted" if we want to be specific and add titles. For now. (I'd like to pick up a few more pieces of armour and another pair of Bren Carriers, but those are purchases for next year.)

On February 8th I attended the 2nd annual Operation Sweetheart event at GameKastle Sacramento. It was the first 3rd edition event in the area, and I played my first three games of the new edition, winning one and losing the following two. Not a bad result, especially considering as I brought my Greeks and they had little to no anti-armour options. A fun day and great to see both locals and travelling players from the Reno community. There was a good turn-out including some new players and also a young-blood (13 I think?). Being that the event was 4 months ago I don't recall hard fast details, but my first game (A win vs late war Germans) was highlighted by my rolling immensely well, the second (A loss vs an all over the place german list) marred by my opponent bringing an almost all unpainted army who also proxied about half his force, and the third and last game (A loss vs late war Brits) where my dice and lack of ability to hurt the multiple armoured options of my opponent caused a little frustration. Regardless of the result, a good time was had and it was fun to take my Greeks to an event.

Pics are in no particular order and included here just so you have pretty things to look at. 

Sideways? Poor editing on  my part.

Now that the event is done and long past, that 4th infantry squad will get done.... sometime. Moments for hobby are back to being few and far between - curse you real life!

I also managed to get in a game with my gaming pal Densmol whilst our respective wives sat on the lawn and drank alcoholic seltzers and chatted about whatever it is women discuss when menfolk are elsewhere. As you can see in the pictures, this was my test run also for my WW2 Airfield terrain setup. Still more to add and plenty to paint up, especially that Heinkel, (The large building is not part of the set along with some of the scatter terrain - I just needed to fill the table moreso) but I like the direction it's headed.

I provided forces for both sides - Densmol played my Winter Germans and I faced off against them with my Winter Soviets. It was a fun learning game for both of us using the now not-new 3rd Edition of Bolt Action. Densmol ended up winning, lots of new rules were forgotten or plain mis-played, but we both had fun. 

Blanket as a game mat. Not bad, but not great. Needs some variation in shades of green and a jolly good iron!

One drunken evening I found myself trawling online stores and made some purchases. I only found this out the following morning when I saw the order confirmation emails in my inbox. (Don't tell the wife.)

Water Buffalos for my Late War Canadians

Fuel Truck for my Airfield terrain, BA-10 for my Winter Soviets and a pair of sd.kfz 10/4's for my Germans. 

Also some "not Beakie Space Marines" by another Etsy store that I had the seller upscale a little to the same size as Primaris cos I like my mutant human warriors huge. (Poor Greek soldier included for scale)

The Beakies came in a squad of 5 cool individual sculpts. I also stupidly jumped on the chance to pick up an in scale classic style Space Marine Dreadnought by Hybrid Miniatures on Facebook. I have a buying problem, it's true.

It's always nice to have new things, even if you really don't have time to paint them.

Last year I put a (very) small amount of cash into a Kickstarter for some 3D print stl files for some East Front terrain. I then found out my co-worker has a printer at her home and she offered to print all the files out if I provided the filament. So here are some of the prints - very crisp and well detailed and currently in the queue for primer, paint and snow effects, hopefully getting done this Summer. Am hoping joining Dave Stone's "Summer of Scenery" challenge at his blog, will help motivate me.

Soviet Schoolhouse and a tin-roof'd barn

Some cool scatter terrain to add extra flavour

Log cabins

A small Orthodox chapel. I also have some benches to place inside. 

Back to painting progress - I managed to get in some painting time this last week whilst my wife was away on a trip to Oregon to visit her grandparents. 

First off a pair of Anti-Tank Rifle teams for my Greeks, bringing the total of these I can drop on the table to 3.

More metals sculpts by Great Escape Games

And then a pair of furry faced warriors for anthropomorphic skirmish game Burrows and Badgers. Both leaders of their respective warbands. These are the first painted for a campaign me and my pal J are going to play through when opportunity arises in the future.

Sir Rowland Othyr, Otter Lansknecht

And Ylvis Sez, leader of the Freebeasts

 And lastly, on the 24th of June, I got in a game of Bolt Action at my mate Stephen's place. 1000 points each side, I took my Greeks again and he faced off with some cool Early War Germans (A mix of Fallschirmjager veterans and Regular Heer.). My dice were hot this game and once again, even though I really should have struggled to deal with his German armour, somehow I managed to drop mortar rounds in the right places and blew them up and then proceeded to grind down his support assets to win 10-9. Beautiful table to play on and a great host. 

My Greeks

Stephen's Germans

And some pics in no particular order - just here to look cool. Stephen's setup was great looking and made for a very narrative gameplay.

A very pinned out sd.kfz 222 armoured car. Crazy what VB and Light mortars can do!

The man himself - Stephen is also the Official Warlord Raider for Northern California and Nevada and origanises all the events and tournaments.

Okay done now. If you managed to read this far down, apologies for the lengthy silence. Am hoping I'll have time and enough content to post again before the blog's 14th birthday on 1st October, but I make no promises as this summer is super busy with famikly stuff. 

Hope all are well and happy out there,

- Dai