HowdyHammer

Wow, I cannot believe it has been two months since our last update, as you’re about to see, I have kept myself busy the last 60 days. This was a very fun stretch of time, full of new hobby experiences so enjoy!

September and October Hobby Update: Adventures in Eriador

Ever since my Dad took me into a gamesworkshop and bought me my first box of models (the Fantastic Fellowship of the Ring Starter set) I have wanted to create my own gaming board set in Middle Earth. Fast forward about 20 years to 2024, and Gamesworkshop releases the new Fall of Arnor supplement, and my lovely fiancé heads out of town for the weekend and the timing was perfect for long weekend project.

Taking full advantage of my free weekend, I ordered the supplies (so, so many supplies) and that Thursday night, I leapt to work! I will now walk you through the long, and labor intensive project step-by-step! Please enjoy my slow descent into the world of middle earth (and potentially madness)

Forming The Landscape

The first step was to create a sturdy frame for the board. I plan on bringing this board to events or game days outside of my house, and as such, I needed a solid wooden structure to prevent damaging the board during travel. This process isn’t necessarily hard, but I quickly found that most of my power tools had vanished, leaving me with nothing but a handsaw to cut the pieces to size hnurting both the speed and the crispness of my cuts.

nonetheless, I persevered and I ended up with some mostly straight wooden frames.

Once the framing was completed, the fun really began in earnest. The next couple stages were the longest, but also the most fun and impactful. This is where I was able to really determine the literal lay of the land.

The first step of forming the landscape is to lay down foam carved in the rough shapes of the hills and valleys that you want to make up the board. You can be very rough with this as you can see below. You’re really just aiming to get the general shape of the land, it will all be smoothed out in the next steps.

I decided to stick with the semi modular layout you see above. I took great inspiration from the old plastic citadel realm of battle and I love the layout that I ended with.

The next phase is the longest, but most certainly the most fun. Taking about 5lbs of sculptamold, I slopped down the groundforms, smoothing out the hills and laying down a thin layer of plaster that gives the ground a more natural texture compared to the foam and wood framing.

After laying the ground form, it took a full 3 days for the sculptamold to dry and solidify, after the second day I was starting to get worried about mold but pointed the biggest fan I had and started blasting. The results were fantastic and the board dried 3 hours later.

Once completing the ground shape, it was time to get painting! I used a variety of browns for the dirt, and some greys and ochres comprised the rock color palette. I’m very happy with how the ground cover turned out.

The longest steps done, it was time to give the ground a realistic texture. To produce the ground texture, I used a mixture of actual dirt (nothing like dirt to look like dirt) and some brown tile grout. As the below pictures show, this turned out perfectly!

Last stage, was adding the grass! I used a mixture of three flock colors to provide a more natural, interesting texture.

I absolutely love this board, I have a long list of things I would do differently but I absolutely loved this process and look forward to using it as a backdrop to the Fall of Arnor campaign I plan on running this winter. Just needs some stuff to put on top of it…..

Filling The Land

Once the board was done, I needed to fill it with the beasts, spectres, men, and elves that would call it home.

First up, I painted a pair of Barrow Wights, I was heavily inspired by the Barrow Wights from the Rings of power.

Next up, the brave men of Arnor hopped onto my painting table. I picked a more foresty green on these, a choice I was very happy with. The green cloaks matches the dark blue color pallette of my Gondor army and I think this mirrors the “sister kingdom” vibes.

I was prolific with my Arnor project, finishing both 13 warriors, 12 rangers of Arnor, as well as 2 heroes; Malbeth the Seer, and a noble Captain of Arnor. I ran through all of my warriors this month, just recieving some reinforcements in the form of 6 knights of Arnor this week. I hope to get these, along with some of the new Arnor heroes built and painted by the next article!

Next up, I painted up some terrain, a very sweet Barrow (for the wights) and a small ruined building. Both of these turned out very nice and I fully plan on adding several more of each to fill the board.

A Storm of War

In Mid September, the newest edition of Bolt Action was released. I wasn’t particularly excited about this to start, but as I walked in and out of my local Hobby shop, I found myself more and more engrossed in the idea of trying it out, so I bought the new American Rifle Platoon in winter Uniform box and the rest was history.

I blew through the construction, and even made some incredible painting progress!

I’ll talk about this a little more in the next article though, I can’t spoil you lot too much!

Kevin C.

So, I missed last month. After NOVA Open ended, I had a few days of rest and time with the family before trucking off to France. Biked over 200 miles in southern France, drank a ton of wine, and overall had a great time where I did zero work, both professionally or hobby-wise.

Admittedly, when I got back in late September, I had a pretty bad hobby slump. Many of you know the feeling: you look at the thing you were planning on painting, and you are just not motivated to do anything about it. You actively look for things to do other than put paint on the brush.

This is the sight I came back to. I had already assembled the substructures for the titans, and even added magnets to some of the Warhound weapons, but I was just not motivated to move further for 2-3 weeks after returning. 

I have heard others suggest, in order to get out of such a slump, to find a miniature or project that you are excited about and to start on that. I have never found that this works for me. In fact, what works for me is close to the exact opposite – find a project you don’t care about, and just put paint on it, no matter what it is. 

This prevents you from getting to much in your own head about how it will look, and suffering what I would call “analysis paralysis”. I normally use terrain to do this for, since I am not as keen on making terrain look great as I am my own models. Sadly, I did not have any terrain built on hand, so I sucked it up and started putting paint on my titans.

Legio Invicta Titans

I started with my Warhounds, partly because they were already magnetized, and partly because they were the smallest and hopefully the quickest to finish.

I chose Legio Invicta, which does not have any rules in Adeptus Titanicus (yet) but plays a prominent role in one of my favorite novels from Black Library, Dan Abnett’s Titanicus. I plan to play with these in Titandeath games of Legions Imperialis in the near future.

I got many of the titans that I painted from friend-of-the-blog Tom second-hand, in a trade of my completed titans for his uncompleted ones. This may sound like I got the raw end of a deal, but I did not like how my titans turned out, and I wanted a fresh start. After basing them in red, and peeling off the pieces of armor that were heretical, I got to work on building the layers back up.

The skeleton was straightforward, and applied across the entire miniature: Leadbelcher Base, Nuln Oil wash, Balthazar Gold Details, Agrax Earthshade wash, and a drybrush of Necron Compound.

The armor was more time consuming, although fewer steps: Mephiston Red base, Sycorax Bronze trim, Agrax Earthshade wash, and a final retread of Mephiston Red. I tried putting in a few highlights of Wazdakka Red, but there are not a lot of edges on the armor, so I started skipping this step.

I used the same combo for the bases that I used for my Legion Imperialis army: Wraithbone Base, Seraphim Sepia wash, White Scar dabs. I think it works quite well with the red and brass of the Legio Invicta colors. 

For the muzzle burns which I applied to almost all of the weapons, I used a layered rainbow of five contrast paints: Nazdrag Yellow, Gryph-Hound Orange, Volupus Pink, Magos Purple, and Akhelian Green. It’s not the best weapon style I’ve done, and I did it rather haphazardly, but it was neat to experiment with the process.

The Reavers were much harder to magnetize, and I’m still not entirely pleased with how I have magenized them. That being said, the weapons stick, and that is what really matters.

Finally, I was able to complete my Warlord Titan before the end of the month, marking the end of October. The only thing I need to figure out now is names to give these mighty walkers of war.

Next Project

So, given that there is an anime movie coming out from the Lord of the Rings universe based on the Rohirrim, and that a new edition of the Lord of the Rings game is coming out (which I have never played but looks intriguing), and I have tons of Rohirrim assembled and unpainted, I will be finishing the year painting my Rohirrim Army. Lots of horses to follow in the coming months.

And here I thought that I’d be done painting horses after finishing my Bretonnians…

Austin B.

Post-NOVA Break and Distractions

Much like my other compatriots, the time post-NOVA has seen my hobby progress slow down considerably. It was not helped by my work picking up again and keeping me busy and drained of motivation. But I tried to keep up the hobby work, and I have certainly kept up with the gaming (more on that shortly), doing at least something to both effects each week even with my limited time. Though, due to certain recent events, it hasn’t been painting almost at all! While I am slowly working through my Black Powder as shown off last article, something else did grab my attention in the post-NOVA shuffle. IF any of you are familiar with other games, and have seen my previous posts, you may know to what I am referring. Yes, Bolt Action third edition! 

Having released late September, just as I was getting back into the swing of things after NOVA, the edition’s release and how it’s changed up the rules has thrown a bit of a wrench into things. I have had to reconfigure armies and even shelve some projects for it. Both my Canadians and my FSSF, the latter of which I have shown off on here before, now need some updates for the new edition, mostly in the form of additional officers. While I am still waiting for some of those models to arrive, I also reassessed my two Axis forces to see which I could move forward on – as I had been holding off on both till we got a clear idea on what the new edition would be like. My Italians, unfortunately, have been temporarily shelved in their partially-finished state, due to just not working in the new edition as they were focused around a special campaign book unit that has no equivalent anymore. But my Germans? Well I can move forward on them with relative ease! The only issue? They were unbuilt, and in some cases, unbought! So I spent a week or so rejiggering lists for the new edition, seeing what I needed, and buying more than that to cover for any edits or allow for larger games (as my group tends to prefer 1500+ games, when the standard is 1000-1250.) 

While I am still awaiting some models (orders from Artizan always seem to take forever), and I still have others unbuilt (some Pioneers for the Germans, awaiting some Blue Stuff so I can mold more pioneer packs), I can safely say I’ve still built an army and then some for the Germans in what little spare time I’ve had. A few dudes here, a tank there, just chipping away at it week by week, till now. Due again to a busy streak these past two weeks, I haven’t gotten to really start the painting as I hoped, but I likely will be very shortly. In the meantime, we can bask in the glory of all these assembled models!

So many Germans! So many vehicles! The plans for the army is undoubtedly late war, particularly focused around the fighting in Italy in 1944 and 1945. The battles of Anzio and Rome were my central focuses, but I have included some items which might feature later in the war in Italy, such as the Hetzer. Each of the squads is built with some options as well, to give me some variety when building lists, and I’ve constructed a few extra men to help serve the same purpose. Mostly what is missing now are sufficient officers to lead the troops. As well as duplicate mortar and machine gun teams, but those should be arriving shortly with my Artizan order. Eventually I will be adding a Pioneer platoon to this as well, once I have the tools to complete those models. But for now I want to finish my 1250-1500 point lists, which requires me painting most of the primed infantry above, and a shifting selection of vehicles. The plan is to have that force at least done by or around the release of the German army book in January – though I will likely intersplice that with a few other projects, such as my Black Powder, Shatterpoint, and a Vampire team that is in desperate need of completion…

But not all of the last two months has been building. I did finish painting at least one model! And a fairly large one at that!

Yes, I have completed a Churchill tank to add to my Canadians. With two different turrets! This specific Churchill belongs to A squadron of the North Irish Horse. Wait, North Irish? That’s right! IT’s not Canadian! But then why am I adding it to my Canadian force? 

Well, I’ve been sitting on this Churchill for quite some time, not sure what to do with it, as my Canadians, whom are also themed around the battles in Italy, wouldn’t have had any Churchills of their own at the time – having ditched them just before the Invasion of Sicily in favor of the Sherman. But one came with the starter set, and so I just had to eventually make use of it. Upon digging, I found out that the Canadians in Italy were supported by the North Irish Horse on a few occasions, whom were mounted primarily in Churchills! And so I finally had my solution! Even more fun, the North Irish Horse were actually asked to add the maple leaf to their unit insignia for their dogged support of the Canadians in the breaking of the German defensive lines in Italy. You may just be able to see it in the brigade insignia below….

But with that, I’ll be calling it a month! I’ll catch you all in the next, perhaps with more painted this time around!

Michael S.

I got to work on a variety of projects this month across some different model lines. Due to a little bit less hobby time, I tried to push myself to move a bit faster than my normal meticulous pace when it comes to painting. This involved some trial and error getting techniques right that I wouldn’t have used before.

First up are some second-hand Lumineth from Age of Sigmar. These fellows were originally painted a bright red. I decided to toss them into an ultrasonic to see if I could get down to bare plastic using some LA’s Totally Awesome. With 2 scrubs and a handful of ultrasonic cycles I was able to get the original primer off. It did leave behind a textured surface in some areas, however.

At this rate, I was taking more paint off models than I was putting on. I opted for a “speedpaint” style scheme that would let me use a lot of my undercoat in the finished product without looking unfinished. This led me towards a more grimdark paint job.

Given the models’ looks, I wanted something that looked like it walked out of Elden Ring. Leaning heavily on a sponge, I put down some base colors for the near-black cloth and chipped armor. I quickly went back in with some very dark red to hit any details like the crest and ribbon. It still lacked visual interest, so I also decided to line the armor filigree with brass. To add contrast to these dark, muted colors, I added some extreme highlights and was left with this.

All in all, quite happy with how it ended up given the departure from my normal painting style and a time budget of about an hour.

Next up on the list are some Eldar that have been featured on and off this year. I finally got some color down on the converted Dire Avengers, though I ran into some issues with the contrast paint I tried to use drying oddly. After mixing for a few years, I managed to get it to behave properly. Lots of work to go on these, but I did manage to get an Autarch nearly painted up.

Last up is an hour or so of last-minute work on my Imperial Fists. I brought out a Tactical Squad and laid down some base colors. Nothing much, but it’s a start!