Tabletop World Bulding of the Week: Mansion

 Happy New Year!

Managing to sneak in just under the wire we have the brand new Mansion from Tabletop World.

I've been running a building a week for a while but this monster took two weeks!  Actually the Holiday season slows me down for a bit but still this building is a LOT bigger than anything else I've seen from them.

This is an amazing model and makes a great centerpiece.  My main criticism is that the floors and, especially, the roof, fit very snugly.  The roof rubs the tower pretty good when being removed/replaced so I anticipate having to do some additional touch ups from time to time.

Additionally... things and processes that worked very well on cottages and town houses... even the  relatively large Coaching Inn became a big task on this one.  For example... a single window face has six to eight steps... a basic Town house has 5 window faces... the Mansion has 49!  ...indeed... 49... window faces.... there are some dormer windows that do not have interior faces... whew!

 For scale I've unearthed a Sigmarite Sister... a kinda scary looking one even... to stand in for scale.  TTW buildings are really designed around the 20mm square base metric so stairs, porticoes, porches, etc... all work out reasonably well (ie. model can stand/fit) while larger bases don't work in these areas.  The main areas work fine with larger bases but the fiddly ares... sigh...

 Our Sister seems to be searching the building... likely looking for heretics... or warpstone....shhh...

Each level is detailed inside and out... even the underside/ceilings!  For some reason this makes the completest in me unreasonably happy!

 I'm particularly happy with the green turret roof.  Looks like a lot of birds found it irresistible!

The spire is very very pointy!  I've magnetized it so I can , hopefully, refrain from utterly destroying it with a sleeve!

 Those same birds liked the chimney caps as well!

Interestingly the Mansion is a bit shabby and run down so it got a lot of mildew applied.  Not a single broken window but all manner of roof shingle missing... how very... odd!

 Now that this monster is finally put to bed I can get back to the immense pile of Raging Heroes!  Wave 2 arrived and that puts a couple hundred minis on deck.... I'll still be cranking out TTW buildings as I have several left... and hope to get the village set up for photos in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime Jailbirds will be cranking and their support vehicles have been ordered.  Some of those should start showing up in the near future as well.

Raging Heroes Wave 2 Arrives in time for the Holidays!

 First the happy picture!  A couple hundred of the Toughest Girls in the Galaxy laid out for inventory!  The box also included some of the very cool mantis warriors that will very likely be cross dressing as daemonettes... yummy!

Now the scary picture!  The box arrived with a corner torn our and leaking packing peanuts!  ACK! The minis inside are in unlabeled ziplocks so it'll take a little while to complete the inventory... fingers crossed that none of them escaped!

Looks like I'd better get cracking!

Bretonnian Sorceress, WiPs and more!

Once upon a time this blog was almost entirely GW related. Certainly there were a few major excursions into games like Flames of War that had no real GW equivalent but here lately just about all I've worked on has been from Non GW sources...  I haven't even been using much in the way of GW paint.  I remain a dedicated fanboy of of all things Warhammer but the building insanity of the business side of the house has propelled me to investigate alternatives.  That turns out to be a good thing for me because WOW are some of the new miniature manufacturers putting out some inspired stuff!

 Today gets a nod to my roots in late 2nd and early 3rd edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles.  This a a Bretonnian mounted Sorceress from 1997.  Its not the oldest thing in my backlog but ....  yeah.

This was done as a holiday gift for a friend.  The bulk of my Bretonnians are still in a BIG box and I will eventually get them in the queue!

Since the figure is in an old style and reminded me of old woodblock icons I wanted to paint it in that sort of abstract style.  The rest of the scheme is simple and intended for tabletop use.  I'm getting inspired by a lot of the crazy freehand that is going round the painting circles these days so the next one might be more involved!  Curse you Brush Mistress! =)

She was fun to paint and my friend seems to like her so all is well!  I'm going to have to sneak a few more Bretonnians into my sequence!

  What a crazy week!  I'm all over the place on the workbench and will have to do a solid burst to get everything on track in anticipation of the Arrival of Wave 2 Toughest Girls in the Galaxy.

Here are a couple of pics of the Jailbirds Cruz and Punky in progress.  You can see some of the subsurface effects that will, hopefully, get smoothed out a bit later in the process.  I've also shamelessly swiped some elements of the James Wappel method to modify for use with my own style. 

What is this... from Croatia!

I'm not up to his level of work but I'm making steady progress developing my own styles.  Its easy to do when the project is as inspiring as the TGG has been.

 These continue in the refugee army theme and Punky is getting a few modifications to the banner pole.

 Tabletop World's amazing Mansion arrived yesterday!  Om Nom Nom!

There was some minor damage, easily... and seamlessly, repaired with some very thin super glue.  There was also a long crack in the accompanying Townhouse 1 model that was also repaired with the thin glue.  These things really like the glue!

 Below you see the full contents of the big box.  The mansion, two Townhouse 2, and the Christmas bonus sale Townhouse 1.  This is the way they look out of the box.  Cleaned and prefitted  for assembly then taped together with their small bits stashed inside and packed in newspaper.

 The small components are cleaned, prefitted and then bagged.  Look at the super sharp spire!  I'm thinking about doing the magnet thing to it might have a chance to survive the next move...

Here is the remaining line of Tabletop buildings awaiting their turn under the brush... although I juggled the line up when the Mansion arrived.  It, and one of the Townhouse 2 models, moved in front of the already primed Townhouse 3.  The Mansion itself is half primed at the moment... finishing that step today!

 On the Secret Weapon front... I selected the 6x6 Rapid Response kit as the light armored vehicle of the Jailbirds.  Its an amazing kit with a ton of weapon options!  It will also mix nicely with the general APC chassis that I'm looking at for the rest of the Jailbird light vehicles.  More on those when I actually pick some up!

Raging Heroes has mentioned working on some very light vehicles, in the recon role most likely, for the Jailbirds.  I'm thinking some kind of Mad Max -esque armed dune buggies that will probably be similar to the Tauros family from Forge World... which is likely where I'll go for the very light recon vehicles if RH doesn't get round to their own version.

... and then this happened!  Axis and Allies 1914... now we're off exploring WWI.  We added some play money to use for IPC banking instead of a note pad tally.  I really like how they set this up.  My one criticism would be that there is no 'Turn Sequence" reference sheet./ That would be really handy!

Finally... whew!  Ubiquitous Rat and I are back on the Serene Dawn RPG thang.  So I'll have to move a bit of the painting schedule back out of the game development space. More on that as it develops!

Build it!
Paint it!
Play it!

Tabletop World Building of the Week: Townhouse 1

 Tabletop World Building of the Week is Townhouse 1... x2!

These are unmodified so I'll have to alter the entrance debris a bit for the next one... not everyone has a mop and bucket leaning by the front door! 

 This is your basic townhouse.  We saw Townhouse 3 a few posts ago and it is an extravagant monster of a dwelling suitable for a prosperous merchant or something similar.

Townhouse 1 is a much more basic structure.  It is a little bit larger than the cottage and implies a full second floor (unlike the cottage where a loft is implied).  Only the first floor is accessible for use.

 Mortaria Noctis is standing in for scale again.

As with all Tabletop World models it comes pre-cleaned and ready to paint.  I often get asked how I can finish these so rapidly.  The best answer is they are ready to paint right out of the box,,,no prep!  add to that my total, and quite cheaty face addiction to Secret weapon washes and they just hop off the table.

 Wrapping up the first shipment of Jailbirds you can see on of the few metal models I had shipped... the Aliens inspired Cruz.  The Heavy Weapon personality of the faction has plenty of attitude and a choice of two big guns.  I got to play with the green stuff a bit to get the bases into theme... fun fun fun!!  I've got Punky, the army standard on the table as well and then I'll hop over to Iron Empire for a bit and get mah purple on!

Raging Heroes: Tania the Tanker (Jailbird Tank Specialist)

 Tania is another Iconic pose.  With the 'automail' she really reminds me of an older Winrie from Full Metal Alchemist... or one of those old Soviet propaganda posters of Olga the steel working woman!

 These things appear to be in threes!  Most of the models I picked a number that would permit me to do all the variant options but with Tania.. even though she comes with an optional shotgun... I had to go with the LAW... MOAR BOOM!

 I still have another iteration of her en route so I'll try to do that one with the very cool looking shotgun!

For now, following the path blazed by Blondie and the Lulus I keep to the Apco survivor/Refugee army motif.

 The bases came from Iron Halo.  A NZ company that was very quick to ship so I had almost no wait time for these.  They seem to blend well with the other bases although they did have a few more air bubbles than usual. 

 These RH models are the first time I've gone in for a largely resin based army.  I'm a little worried about durability in the long term but love the light weight.  Only time will tell how well they hold up.

 U retouched the GW Nurgle's Rot after the group shot  when I realized the matt sealer had stripped the goo look right off it!  Green goo has to look ... wet!

I'm liking the yellow.  I originally was going to do Prisoner Orange but The yellow works better for me visually and I can always claim Hi-vis yellow is prisoner wear on the world.

Getting close to the end of this batch of Jailbirds with only Punky the Army Standard and Cruz the Heavy Gunner remaining.

Back to the bench... next up Tabletop World Building of the Week.

The Guild's Justice! (aka OMG Plastics!) Malifaux 2e.

Ok... I admit it... I'm slow!

Seriously!  I've heard a lot of people glowing about hard plastic minis but I hadn't really looked at one outside of a starter set, or a giant creature kit, in modern times.


I now see what I've been missing!

 First... and most important... you can do insane stuff with figure design in hard plastic.  There is no way you could produce these Death Marshals ,doing their acrobatics and coffin-fu, in white metal or even resin.  Not only do they defy gravity but, with the exception of the extrememly delicate sword of Lady Justice... yeah I snapped THAT right in two just getting it off the sprue... but the things are durable and take paint exceptionally well!

The set itself is done in the lavish Wyrd style with great art on the package, good assembly instructions, truly dynamic posing, and game rules (unit cards) all in one box.

I picked this up... because flaming coffins!... and because I hadn't done Wyrd plastics yet.  I have a couple of factions from Malifaux 1e. in metal and they were very awesome although the designs were sometimes a bit ambitious for the material.  With their obvious mastery of the hard plastic medium I'm expecting to be amazed right regular like!




 While I'm a fan of Lady Justice and The Judge the real show stoppers, mini wise, are the Death Marshals! 

 Now I must wander back to the table and get back to work!

Tabletop World Building of the Week: Blacksmith

 Yoko the Psycho is hanging out with her Firestarter at Tabletop World's Blacksmith.

Its a great kit... and quite sturdy!  I dropped one of the completed sections from three feet... it landed awkwardly and broke off a small area in three pieces.  The resin material took glue very well and the repair was seamless... not even requiring touch up paint...whew!

I had a lot of fun with the paint here and was able to practice some particle effects with the fire and some murky liquid depths with the quenching barrel.

The chimney top was also pretty cool playing with corrosion using GW Technicals.  Now that I've had a little practice I like the effect.

There was liberal use of Secret Weapon Washes as usual on these... they really are the secret ingredient that makes these paint up fast.

At the bottom you can see the completed building in its disassembled state... ready for storage.  It all fits together very snugly on the table and does not wobble with use... I especially like how the workbench is molded to the exterior wall and is used to anchor the working floor of the forge are firmly into place.  No unhappy jostling issues!

Happy painting!