Antenocitis Workshop Asian Wall Set v2, Neo-Tiki Motel Office WiP, and the Accidental Dwarf Army

 Antenocitis Workshop has a couple of new prepainted MDF releases in their Made for Infinity line. 

They are well designed and are sized to be LoS obstructions even for 40K. These will be great with the Asian Restaurants or the Neo-Tiki Motel that Antenocitis also have on offer.  The wood color is actually laser charred and not paint... which makes this kit have a strong odor of burnt wood even before opening the box.  This dissipates eventually and I hit them with some Dead Flat sealer so they can be handled more casually.

 Our trusty Burna Boy is checking out the rental office of the Neo-Tiki Motel. This is a small building with a GIANT sign that services the Neo-Tiki Motel.  This is a WiP and the Neo-Tiki Motel have detailed interiors sold as a separate upgrade pack that contains both interior sets.

  The Asian Wall Set v2 makes 11 wall section and one (working) gate.

The Prepainted MDF has a covering that is a single color with details laser cut in so its not completely or 'finely' painted but it does make a great surface for adding in those extra details if you like without it looking so much like painted MDF.

 It is recommended to varnish or seal the prepainted MDF to reduce smudging from handling.  I had not though of that and wish I'd seen the recommendation before working on Hab 3 from the Forward Base line.  Once the clear acrylic components are installed sealing becomes more tricky! Its a learning process.  My current plan is to seal the interior upgrade pack before removing the components from the MDF sheet and then do any extra detailing after that... resealing if required.  The reason being that the clear acrylic doors and windows really need to be installed before the model is assembled.  Otherwise there is a significant risk of damaging the MDF.




While we're talking about Hab 3 I'm making some progress on the resin bits.  I'm interested to see what the difference is between the old resin accessorized offerings and the new "all MDF" versions.











Lastly a couple of pictures of the Accidental Dwarf Army that is on the painting desk because I has a paint mix error that resulted in me digging out The Battle for Skull Pass box set and... since I was doing the goblins to eat up the erroneous paint mix I , of course, had to do the dwarves because they were there!










These will initially get some use as Imperial Dwarves in Kings of War but will certainly find their way back onto the table in my Oldhammer games.

These guys are a uniformed army while my Freeholds will be built from Atlantis Miniatures Dwarfs and then there is the giant pile of Mantic Dwarfs to grapple with...





Back to the desk!

Avatars of War Dwarf Slayer Statue 3D print

 I'm back from a holiday bout with bronchitis and thought I'd start with Avatars of War.  The Dwarf Slayer statue is the first of their 3D printfile offerings.

The website is a little unusual in the way it handles this sort of product and it took me a few days to figure it out... they handle it mostly like their physical products in that they check product availability etc via several emails instead of just having it in a cart for instant download.  I'm sure they'll sort that if they continue down the file sales road.

 The model printed well on the Snapmaker at high resolution.  It printed in three sections which fit together very well.  Printing it in three sections means that its easily handled by even the most petite of print beds... which, as a Snapmker user, I'm particulary happy about.

I printed in PLA this time without supports and did zero cleanup before assembling and painting.  As the temperatures here have been hovering around -4 F I was unable to spray primer it and used a brush on of thinned craft paint.  Sealing will have to wait for a warmer day.










Here is a scale comparison with reliable Canoness Verydian.

The work up was Thinned craft paint gray base, dry-brush with Concrete (Reaper), dry-brush with white craft paint, wash the dragon with Green-Black (Secret Weapon), wash the rest of the model with Steel Wash (Reaper) dry- brush all with white craft paint.  Reds are Forge World Weathering Powders: Dark Rust, Light Rust, Orange Rust.












Here are a couple of shots of the raw print.  I've become a fan of painting the black PLA for fast paints and bulk because it holds paint well and doesn't really require primer for paint adherence.  The material is a bit shiny so I like to hit it with a thin coat of primer or paint just to take the sheen off the high spots... the crevices tend to get covered during the paint process and are not shiny if a spot is missed.

 Some other things from the table... more bats from a recently rediscovered Kickstarter bonus pack for The Order of Vampire Hunters.  There is a hug pile of models just wrapping up from this pack for the next post.

Lastly an updated Lady of Destiny from the first Heresy Girls Kickstarter.  After looking at the photos I thought she was a little too Ultra Marine so I went back to extend the yellow trim to make her a bit more chaos ornate.

Mantis Warriors and Ork Dok & Grots WiP

We've been living in a hotel room for the past month which has played Havoc with my Hobby time!  I've got a few bits of work done but have mostly been consumed with the moving process.

Anyway I did manage to build and prep some of the new Mantis Warriors from Raging Heroes TGG 2, a Dwarf Drill from Mantic's Kings of War bonus points program, and an Ork Dok with some Grot assistants from Kromlech via Bits of War.  All are still very much WiP.

The Mantis Warriors are brilliant sculpts with fixed leg poses and ball joint shoulders.  There are, as is typical with RH kits, a fair amount of spare bits... in this case mostly claw arms in different poses, or heft. 

 I'm using the basing scheme I used with The Blood Rain and painting these in sort of an earth elemental style with the idea that I might use them as alternative Wracks for Dark Eldar, as Wood Elf Dryads, as part of a Forces of Nature collection for Kings of War, or Daemonettes.

I've based these Vallejo Foundation White and then base coated Vallejo Dark Flesh. In the test model I've followed that with an application of Secret Weapon Green Wash to hair and clothing bits then washed the whole thing with P3 Flesh Wash... which is a purplish flesh and seems to sit well with these colors.

The Kromlech Orks are hilarious sculpts and easily large enough to stand with GW Orks. they cleaned up well and take paint quite well but are a bit on the brittle side, as resin goes, so there was some breakage, particularly among the tools, that I'll have to patch up.

I've been experimenting with an ultrasonic cleaner on these new models with mixed results.  Hopefully that will improve as I get more practice using it.  Basically it does a great job on metal but resin is still hit and miss.  The Kromlech stuff came out clean on the first bath but the RH models took about four baths with some good scrubbing in between.

Rats old and new, undead musician discovery, and a basing a Kings of War Dwarf Host

 Since I really am a bit OCD about painting stuff that is out of the box before opening something new... I thought I'd better tune up these old Skaven Models, acquired in a partially painted state some time ago, while I was doing the Bones Ratmen.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that one of the Skaven was actually some sort of Undead Goblinoid Musician!  Worse still... it was originally painted goblin green as though the previous owner was conscripting the unlucky guy into a regular goblin unit!

 If anyone recognizes that fellow post a comment or send me a PM.  I haven't got round to researching him but I'm dead curious.

There was also an incomplete Skaven Warlord, or hero of some sort, that I touched up quite a lot.  I left the banner peg in place because I'm certain, at some point, a back banner will show up that is suitable for him.

 The bases are relatively neutral and void of fiddly bits because I'll want to make a coherent theme for them and haven't yet settled on one... although with a few weeds and bits of junk these might work out fine there is a small Skaven ally force around here somewhere and I'll want to combine them up with these fellows and rationalize the basing.

 The new rat!

This is from the Reaper Bones I Kickstarter.

Looks like it might actually be a ginormous Were-Rat.. 

I based it for use as a Rat Ogre.  This guy is actually a bit larger than the legacy Rat Ogres and will make a great 'Hero' for the unit. 

The Reaper Ratmen have very long snouts and, except for the tail, look rather more like wolves to me than rats.  I'm working on some Ratmen assassins and the wolfish look is very pronounced on them.

 Basing was Grey Pumice which gave a good heft to the figure and stabilized it.  The miniature is made of the light, soft plastic like, bones material and took some convincing to stand in all but the most ideal circumstances. 

 Size comparison with the Skaven and the Reaper model.  Its a good size for a Rat Ogre and much more dynamically posed than its legacy companions.









After a series of Kings of War games it became clear that King of War was written more for movement trays than for miniatures.  There are no pesky formation changes and its even recommended to mount you miniatures, in a visually appealing density, directly onto the movement tray.

With that in mind, and under the direction of Bevie to "Create a Dwarf Host for Bevie! STAT!", I decided that the best approach was to make an army of 17 movement trays painted up in a dwarf theme so she'll have a fun looking army of movement trays to keep her entertained while I get to work on the actual dwarfs!

These are made by Customeeple and are avilable through the Mantic Website.  Once the braziers (really good for holding a die showing the morale status and to provide a kind of handle to move the tray more easily) and any of the curbing is added the trays hold slightly fewer than a full unit number of models while still looking great which allows us to swipe a few minis here and there to generate an additional unit.






The prototype base is the one with the blue, orange, red, and gold.  After looking at this it seems a bit busy so the production bases will be this blue, mauve, and gold (not yet painted).  I think its less busy and the orange was kind of jarring for something on the floor. I will likely match the prototype to the new scheme but I'll wait till the end to see how the new one turns out.

Back to the bench!

Mantic Dwarf Berserker Brock Riders and Hero

As commanded by The Bevie!

Our Kings of War Dwarf army is founded with the completion of the first unit of Berserker Dwarf Brock Riders and the Berserker Dwarf Hero on Brock.

Now she'll have to get to naming them!

These are great and inexpensive models that I built with very little clean up or prep.  They are pretty characterful with expressive faces.

I painted up all the extra arms and heads from the kit which gets me about halfway to the next unit... in arms and heads anyway!

 The unit comes with a brock cape for every rider but I elected to leave those off except for the unit champion and standard bearer.  The cape makes the figures very stable on the brock but the overall effect was very very gray... especially on these gray bases.  I went with gray bases because Bevie wants to use dwarf themed movement trays.  Those are Dwarf Hold stone gray and once I get them in I'll color-match the base with the movement tray or vice versa.   I think the little bit of color from the cape-less dwarfs makes the unit stand out better.

As I like to build my fantasy armies to be compatible with 3rd Edition WHFB lists I'm at a bit of a loss with these.  No dwarf cav in that list, and certainly not Slayer cav!

That said I also elected to not paint the whole unit with Slayer orange hair... I like the more Nordic feel these guys have.

Mantic Berserker Brock Riders WiP, repairs day, and a Mystery figure

 Lots of stuff seeing the light of day after a long time here... Given how often I move its no surprise that I am often rediscovering projects that have languished for years, sometimes decades, in a storage box or bin just waiting to be finished.  Today I knocked out a few.

Random GW ghoul that I got from a friend who was , sadly, getting out of the hobby.  This is a salvage job that had been partially painted a long time ago.

 With salvage work I like to retain what I can of the original paint scheme and you see that in these GW Zombies.  They came along in the same batch as the ghouls and had been base coated and the first colors blocked in... primarily the yellows and blues... I kept the scheme but gave them the Blanche treatment which narrowed, and dulled, the color palette and gave them a "just dug up" vibe.









Some GW Spectres or Wraiths... I don't remember which ... and there may be one of each..  These are form different editions and show the growth in figure size over the years... mind you,... both of these are older edition models and, as such, are considerably smaller than their modern equivalent.  Fortunately the Undead army they will be joining has been kicking around the tables for for 35+ years so they are in good company scale wise.

 A mystery figure.... Hey Pat!  I think this might be one of those Rackham models.

This is a really great Elven Fire Mage.  I'm going to lump it in with the Carnevale stuff for the moment and use it in that game until I get Cadwallon running...

 Mantic Berserker Brock Riders!

Ok its just the Brocks at the moment but they are well under way.

Here you see the size difference between the Hero mount and the regular Brock.... That is one big hunk of angry metal there!

 I'd first thought of Brocks as bears... but on closer look they remind me more of  badgers, wovlerines, or some similar feisty... subterranean... rodent thing.... obviously not sourced from the Skaven.... but.... if you are gonna have some shame to work out ...

Bevie has comanded the creation of a Dwarf army stat!  and wanted Berserker Brock riders first!  Of course, it doesn't fit with the "Everything Fantasy must be playable in 3rd Edition WHFB"  but maybe I can get a friendly geek to cobble me together an army entry for them anyway!

Next post should have the final Iron Empire Mecha up and more salvage work...

Iron Empire Mecha 2 and Mantic Musings

What's better than an Iron Empire Mecha?

Why two Iron Empire Mechas!  The second of three rolled off the line today after some major construction mishaps.... I managed to drop the thing during assembly and accidentally batted it across the room while trying to catch it.... making a small drop into a long journey.











The beast broke apart as expected but the bad impact angle caused half of the Halo to snap off and those tine little resin support struts were a booger to reconstruct.  Its together now so I'll try not to repeat that particular bit of drama in future!

Number 3 is coming along which will finish up the unit.











Here you see the pair escorting Hilda.










 I'm leaning towards calling these mummy driven mecha "Ushabti" in keeping with my Necrontyr theme.  These are great Tomb Guardians and life support systems animated by the will of Necrontyr nobles who have aged well beyond their normal span of years.  These heroes are trapped within the life-giving shells and have been maintained for centuries in the twilight land between life and death.

 Over the Holiday... and really a bit before that... I got involved in a ton of Mantic Kickstarters.  I've always been attracted to Mantic because of the price point but had been afraid to get much from them because I'd heard horror stories about the tremendous amount of clean up they required.

I bit the bullet and went in for Abyssal Dwarfs and then Regular Dwarfs and then.... Warpath and Deadzone... DoH!

 Anyway after looking over the minis I was very pleasantly surprised!  The minis were great quality, the casting was relatively clean, and certainly no worse than average... the material is solid and dry to the touch.  It took primer very well so I'm not anticipating any problems with paint adhesion..  all in all I gotta say these are ace models and a great value for money as well.








I got in about a dozen games of Kings of War second edition over the holiday and now feel like I've got a grasp of it.  The rules are very fast playing and easy to learn.  I think they are a bit too streamlined for my preference, but not a lot so and I think a few house rules would make them just the right amount of fiddly... for example there are no formation changes in KoW.  It would be pretty easy to add that to the game and bring the complexity level up to my comfort zone.  Also there are only about six spells in the magic system... its a very tight system and that would be harder to mess with in terms of balance.  I approve!  Mind you I'm a 3rd Edition WHFB player at heart so all of my fantasy armies are built with the idea that they'll be used in that game as well.

Finally... Our friend Ed let us know that we'd missed out on a pile of expansions for Firefly the Board Game!  For Christmas we got ourselves that big pile and are busily working our way through them!  Zoom Zoom! 

See it set up on a 6x4 table... lots of board and just enough room for all the card decks.


All is shiny in the verse!