Tuesday, March 25, 2014

A Freeblades Excursion

I've noticed a pattern with my blog.  All I fiddle with is LOTR/The Hobbit SBG stuff.  It feels like I'm a "one trick pony", which kinda sucks.  So today, or rather this upcoming week, I'm going to divert into something a little different.

Last year at Adepticon, I spent a good hour talking to one of the developers from DGS Games.  I had seen a fair amount of coverage of the game from BTP, and I was interested.  Basically, its a skirmish tabletop game with the intricacies of a D&D type game, utilizing different types of dice besides your average d6, and I was really digging it.  I miss the old Mordheim days, and this seemed to be something similar yet different.

To make a long story short, after talking with the guy for over an hour about the game, I ended up buying two different freeblade gang boxsets and the core rulebook.  Sadly, the boxes remained untouched and the rulebook only flipped thru a few times.  In my stroke a brilliance, I decided to sign up for a "learn to play" game Saturday morning and a scenario game which includes some huge awesome castle I will never have the skill to build later that same day.  I figured this would motivate me to get a band together so I didn't have to use they're stuff, because... you know.... who wants to use someone else's game stuff when your more than capable of painting and bringing your own shit.

Alas, I'm less than a week away with no Freeblade band ready.  So, we need to change this....

This past Sunday after posting pictures of my display board, I cracked open my box of Haradelan Questers.  This is what they looked like....




After supergluing my fingers together 3 times, cracked the bow off at the bottom on the one guy, almost breaking the hammer off the warrior priest looking dude, filing the mold lines, and greenstuffing the gaps, I got them assembled.  Yay me!!!!  So phase 1 is complete.

Looking at them assembled, I have to say.... they are quite handsome figures.  I hope my brush skills will do them justice.  I am in a time crunch though, but hey.... it's Adepticon, when am I not in a time crunch when Adepticon rolls around.

So with almost exactly one week to go, I have a goal and an entire weekend to get them done.  It's only 7 figs.... right?  Wish me luck.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

The adepticon 2014 display board

Some of you may have noticed a lack of updates lately (over a month).  No, I haven't died or been indisposed.  After painting a large army to the highest standard you are capable of, sometimes you need to put the brushes down and go do something else for awhile.  Sadly, I don't half ass much in my life when it comes to entertainment or enjoyment, so when I picked up my game pad, I have a hard time putting it down.  For those curious, I completed the following games....

Lord of the Rings: War of the North
Of Orcs and Men
Dragon Age Origins
Dragon Age Awakening
Dragon Age II
Mass Effect
and I'm two chapters into Mass Effect II and itching to complete

alas, with Adepticon being less than 2 weeks away, I needed to complete my display board and hopefully finish my Freeblades Band.  The display board is finished.  Not the prettiest looking thing, but never the less, not bad.  Anyhew, here are some pictures I took during the process.



So to start off, I bought a small 12"x18" cork board from Office Depot for the base of my board.  I didn't feel like making the wood siding out of wood as I lack the tools, motivation, and skill to do so.  So, I let office depot do the work and buy it for dirt cheap.


We need material to make the rock out of, and I don't know any material better than insulation foam.  This particular piece was 1" thick.



After a few minutes of chopping, we got it to a rocky looking.... well.... rock.  It covered most of the board which was the original goal.



Kids, I don't recommend doing this someplace you don't want to get foam shards all over the place.  Anytime you mess with foam, things turn into a mess.



Everyone seems to have they're own formula for adding texture and coating.  I've found that I'm a fan of these materials.  PVA glue, hydrocal, general purpose caulk, water, and generic sand.  It adds a nice texture and seals the foam quite nicely.





After coating it, it should look something like this.  Reminds me of my mom pumpkin slices, minus the granny texture look.  I basically just slop that shit all over it and spread the bigger pieces of sand out, trying to give it a more natural look.


After letting it sit overnight, I undercoated it with generic black paint I got at the local craft store.  I basically do the same thing with any type of terrain piece I'm doing.  You could use black spray paint, but it's like 20 degrees outside, plus I'd rather use it for figures rather than large terrain pieces.




I spent a little time trying to get it to look like the bases of my army.  After failing over and over again, I decided to just base it dark brown, then paint it with shades of gray.  Yeah, I could do better, but this piece isn't going to get alot of use, and its just something the army is going to sit ontop of during Adepticon.

So now onto what some people have been asking for.  Full army pictures.  Note, every figure here has been on the blog before, so there isn't anything new in terms of models....




















Take note that this is just my collection of finished dwarves, which total count is almost 70 which is why they appear to be kind of crowded.  My adepticon army is only like 41 models, so they'll be plenty of space.  I hope you enjoyed what you saw.