A new adventure… Frostgrave

Wow, it’s been a long time since I updated this blog.  I’d love to say that I’m going to be better with future posts but I don’t suppose my track record would indicate that is true!

Maybe I’ll do a future post about how my hobby interests have changed over the last few years… But the point of this post is to show off some new models for the newest game system that has really grabbed my attention: Frostgrave!  Frostgrave caught my eye as it seemed like a simple rule set, set in a wizard filled fantasy universe, and looked like a bit of a RPG cross-over. Wizards were always my favorite character class during my Dungeons & Dragons games through the years. So this seemed like an ideal fit.

I intended to use Reaper Bones models for my warband but then I got sucked into the awesome sculpts that are produced with the official Frostgrave line.  Here’s a few photos of my wardband as I’ve been building and painting them.

Here are a few individual close-ups Of the Soldiers…

A ranger model (Reaper Bones)

 

 

Knight (I think this was a Gripping Beast Viking)

 

Thugs (Frostgrave Plastic Soldiers).  I got a chance to try some Object-Source Lighting on two of them:

 

Archer (Frostgrave Plastic Soldier):

Two more thugs (Kit-bashed with Gripping Beast Vikings (I think) and Frostgrave Plastic Soldier Bits:

Barbarian (Frostrave Metal Model):

Thief (Frostgrave Metal Model):

Apothecary (Frostgrave Metal Model):

I really enjoyed painting all the models – the Frostgrave ones are beaming with character!

Hopefully this is the start of much more regular posts for me again!

 

Bolt Action – The Rock of Anzio

My next major project has been involved in a brand new game for me – Bolt Action by Warlord Games.  I’ve never been much of a history buff so despite many of my gaming friends talking up this game, I wasn’t sure it would be for me.  To be honest, I found the equipment names, formation names, and general feeling of the game to be quite foreign.  However, as most of my friends were starting to migrate to this game and I haven’t been all that impressed with the direction Games Workshop games have been going, I was ready to dive into something new.

So, with the thoughts of Bolt Action and World War II on my mind, I needed to figure out what to do.  I figured the best plan was to embrace the history that I’d never really gotten into.  My Grandfather served in WWII in Italy and I knew he received a Purple Heart but beyond that I didn’t really know much about his military past.  Since I was interested in building a WWII army, why not dig and research his past?  Luckily for me, my aunt had been collecting remnants of his old war journals.  I’ve got over 50 pages of typed text that she’d be transcribing.  It was a fascinating to read and while most of the text was about life around the war there were certainly some passages around the events themselves.

My grandfather, Walter S. Dodson was a 2nd Lieutenant in the 157th Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division.  He started his tour of duty in North Africa and was part of the Italian / Sicily campaign.  He was wounded during the last battle of Anzio where some shrapnel caused him to lose an eye.  However, during his time in Italy his platoon saw a lot of combat througout the Italian coastline.  I’ve found some great books on this part of the war.  Its not as glamorized as the landings in Normandy but it was an important part of the Allied War efforts and the units he served in were an important part of liberating Rome.

Enough history… on to the photos!

First up, here’s an image of the infantry patch the 45th Infantry wore on their uniforms.  They were the “Thunderbirds”

I tried to do the best I could painting this on each of the infantry models.

Here’s 2nd Lt Walter Dodson and an extra man:

Every Platoon for Bolt Action needs at least two Infantry Squads.  I’ve built four.  Each are lead by an NCO with a Submachine Gun and have a infantry soldier with a Browning Automatic Rifle.  I also have one Infantry squad armed with Anti-tank grendades:

I have a number of other specialty troops, including a Sniper Squad, Bazooka Squad, Heavy Machine Gun Crew, and Medium Mortar and (Spotter)

Lastly, I’ve got some attachments to the army including an Air Force Forward Observer (and extra man) and a 57mm Anti-Tank Gun and crew:

Last thing to show off is my “Pinning Markers”  These were made so that I could spin the dial and set the number of pins from 1 to 9.  I have enough for each unit.

Sorry for the long time between posts.  I’m looking forward to getting these models into action at the Gathering in the Desert: Operation Scorpion tournament next weekend!

Ancient Civilization Project

In my kids school district, sixth grade is the “Ancient Civilization” project for Social Studies.  This is a several month long project where they have to research a civilization and do any number of special projects that relate to their civilization.  The big project involves building a model representing something from the civilization they are researching…  you can see where this going right?  Well, dad excels in these type of school projects!

My daughter elected to Ancient Egypt for her civilization and she decided she wanted to build a pyramid.  So she enlists my help to work on this project.  We’ve seen all kinds of projects where people will build models from all sorts of homemade items.  The Sugar Cube pyramid is always a favorite.  However, the wargamer in me says we can do better.  What’s better than sugar cubes?  Well, Hirst Arts molds of course!!   I have a bunch of Hirst Arts molds but they were all the castle and fieldstone molds, nothing for the egyptian pyramids.  But that’s where my gamer friends come in.  I’ve got other friends that go all the pyramid molds so we met up and borrowed two of them.

We spent one whole weekend casting the molds – We used some Hydrostone plaster that I purchased years ago.  We had to cast the basic pyramid mold 20 times! Here’s the results of a long weekend of casting blocks.

We divided up the building over a few nights, putting the sub-assemblies together and ended up with the finished pyramid.  Complete with a removeable lid and furnished interior!

 

Finally, the model had to get painted.  Using the craft pants from Michaels, it was a quick basecoat and dry-brush.  The sarcophagus was detailed with some gold citadel paints.   We glued a bit of sandbox sand around the MDF board to finish it off.

All in all this was a fun project for the two of us to work on.  She did almost all of it with a lot of supervision (and some help from dad with the fiddly details during casting).  She is so proud of how great this turned out.

I don’t get time to post on the blog very often but this one was special and worth sharing!

Kicking it!

I know that Kickstarter is nothing new to the Hobby Blog community but I thought I’d do a post about my experiences with Kickstarter since last year.

Zombicide

My first Kickstarter was Zombicide! by Guillotine Games and Cool Mini or Not. One of my hobby friends sent me a random text message about this this cool looking zombie game that has Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory as a miniature. Well, I’ve never been a big “Zombie” guy but I was still intrigued. He sent me the link and that was my first taste of Kickstarter. What a interesting concept… well, I pledged full in on the “Abomination” level which covered the base game and then a host of extra survivor (and ultimately zombie-survivors) models as part of the stretch goals. The game delivered on time and I’ve had a load of fun playing with my son and his friends! I thought to myself, that this kickstarter thing was pretty cool and I really felt like a got a good value for the dollars I committed. We are still expecting the second wave shipment later this year – looking forward to all the new survivors. In the meantime, I’ve been slowly cracking away at painting my zombies. Next time we play a game, I’ll try to break out the camera and get some game shots!

 

Reaper Bones

Well, I really got caught up in the excitment over this Kickstarter. So many models for such a “small” dollar investment. They sucked me in pretty good with all the stretch goals and in the end, I even pledged to get the paints as well. I’ve always been a fan of the reaper paint line and the painting sets offered as part of the kickstarter stretch goals were cheaper than retail so why not… Having said that, my experience with this kickstarter was a bit more dissappointing. We are still waiting for everything I pledged to be delivered. I knew the models weren’t due until later this year but they failed to deliver the paint sets in November as they were orginally promised. Reaper was very up front with this with several email communications – basically they were overwhelmed by the success of their kickstarter and couldn’t deliver on the demand. So I’m still waiting for the paints to be delivered. Oh well, there are lots of goodies coming… though I have no idea what I’m going to do with most of the models.

So that ending 2012 and my Kickstarter pledges. I spent a considerable amount of time watching several other Kickstarters but ultimately held off on pledging.

Now in 2013, I’m getting sucked in again…

Rivet Wars

This is a 2 player game set in a WWI/Steampunk era. The models look like so much fun and the game play looks to be pretty solid. This is another KS from the CMON team so I’m very confident they’ll deliver. The KS is a little over a week old and it is already funded now we just watch it grow as the stretch goals roll on. They are already delivering some pretty cool cameo “Special Edition” miniatures – some of the movie references are beyond me (though Nick Fury was easy to identify). This KS is about to cross the $200K mark. At $225K things will get pretty crazy. I’d encourage anyone reading this blog to check out the Rivet Wars Kickstarter!

 

The Painting Pyramid

The last Kickstarter I’m backing right now has a local connection. Uber painter – James Wappel is running his program to publish a huge series of miniature painting DVDs. James is an amazing artist and his models consistently win prizes in every competition he enters. He played in my Bilbo’s Birthday Bash Tournament this year and ran away with the Best Appearance awards. Anyway, very happy to support a local guy and get some good advice on miniature painting too. Make sure you go check James’s Kickstarter.

 

Wyrd Hobby Services

Finally, not related to Kickstarter but Blog worthy… A good friend of mine has started his own Hobby painting and converting commission business. You should definitely check out his site. He’s one of the best painters and I know and he’d love a chance to work with your models! Go check him out at Wyrd Hobby Services!

Well, that’s all for now… I’ve got a lot fun Hobby things planned for this year and with any luck I’ll actually get some blog posts made…