Red Lizards Rising

These four Reaper Dark Heaven lizards took WAY too long to complete - but they are done. They will bring up two of the existing Red Lizard units to full 10-figure strength.

 

The lack of shading is intentional, I assure you.

I ran into some issues with the acrylic gloss varnish. It's been a minute since I last used it and it was kind of lumpy, even with vigorous shaking (the bottle, not me). For a good bit I was worried about it drying cloudy, but it dried mostly OK and required only minimal touch-ups to meet my less-than-exacting standards.

Of course, these four figures are the only lizards that have the goblin green basing - all of the previously completed lizard figures have been re-based to squares, but they need the full goblin green treatment. 

Maybe they'll be done before 2027?

In other news, I ordered a few things to beef up my Blessed Sisters to 2000 points: 

• 9 Sisters Repentia + a Repentia Superior (already assembled and primed - woo!) 
• A 3D printed Rhino-type thing (APC) to zip them around the battlefield. 

The printed APC was significantly less expensive than an official GW Rhino. Hopefully it holds up to game use.

OPR allows "Fanatic Sisters" (their name for Repentia) in blocks of 5 or 10  but GW annoyingly only includes 9 in a box along with a Superior. Fortunately, I have two that were on the Combat Patrol sprue I purchased awhile back for the extra Battle Sisters and the Penitent Engine, so I can fill out this unit with one of them and use the other to fill out a future, second, Repentia unit.

Btw, I would have gone 3D printed for the Repentia, but most of them look ... questionable for gaming in public.

Ultimately, I want to field a version of a Penitent Host, but for OPR - Repentia, Penitent Engines and Mortifiers, oh, my!  (Probably no arco-flagellants as I don't like the models - GW or 3D printed.)

While I eagerly await the arrival of the above, I'm prepping for a Basic Fantasy RPG session this Sunday and trying to finish up the interface for the Solo Wargamers Association's Lone Warrior index, so we can roll that out. I'm very excited that we're going to be able to offer a better glimpse at the contents of past issues beyond article titles!

Code Word: Santa's Got a Brand New Bag

Like a lot of wargamers, I purchase my own Christmas presents. I know I know, you can hear the piteous violins softly in the background.

But we do what we must and bear the terrible burden.

Now, I could wait until after Christmas to share my modest haul, but I am too excited by the last item pictured to wait.

So without further ado, here is what Santa will be putting under the tree this year.

First up is Space Marine Adventures: Labyrinth of the Necrons. 

After going most of my wargaming life without making any Games Workshop purchases, I've made one each Christmas for the last few years (I blame my son). The tradition will continue this year with another of their self-contained box games.

I really enjoy Fireteam, Space Marine: The Boardgame, and Blitz Bowl, and Alex (UpTheBlue) did a play through of this awhile back and it stuck with me. So, when it was on sale for Black Friday, I took advantage. 

 At the very least, at less than $20 USD for five GW miniatures it was a no-brainer.

Will I paint the figures? I might. I might not. If I paint them, I'll probably paint them all as Blood Ravens, despite the heresy of it all.

Next up is a bundle of new recruits for my lizard folk army. My goal is to field a 2000+ point 28mm force for Age of Fantasy that I can bring to the local One Page Rules gaming group meetups. This lot, plus several sprues of Wargames Atlantic lizard folk I still haven't touched, and a second Dark Heaven command set, also taking space in the Pile of Shame, will get me there.

The one in the baggie is possibly my favorite - it's an old Grenadier model:

He's a bit vertically challenged but I'll just build up his base so his head is about even with everyone else.

Though it's jumping the gun a bit, I have already decided his paint scheme will be based on the yellow-headed gecko (not to be confused with the yellow-headed day gecko)

I had considered picking up the Grenadier lizard-man champion with lance, which was one of the first miniatures I ever had (in a Grenadier box set, when I was a kid, around 12 years old- when I had started playing AD&D - from Kay-Bee Toys, a gift from my Grandma). But seeing it now - it isn't nearly as grand as I recall it. I suppose that's true of many of the things of childhood. 

That said, even as I type this I still want one, so maybe for my birthday!

For now, all of the above is hidden away - although I hope I can remember where I stashed them when the day comes. I'm quite good at forgetting where I put things.

Santa himself will probably gift me some cash this year, and so a book or two is probably in the cards as it wouldn't be Christmas without some new reading material, but I don't want to presume anything and spend money I haven't got.

Rest assured, I have quite a long list of potential titles! 

(the post title is from the movie, Elf, spoken by my favorite character - the toy department manager)

Insert Witty Title Here

I have not been able to concentrate much on anything lately. 

Peppermint, who has diabetes (which is what led to his cataracts) was diagnosed with kidney disease a few weeks ago. Oh and they found he has hypothyroidism (getting him to take his pill is an event worthy of pay-per-view. And he usually wins and I find it on the floor sometime later).

Today, they found a clot in his aorta - he'll be at the hospital overnight at least, as he hasn't been eating and his blood sugar levels are insane. It's a juggling act of treatments and problems and, if he refuses to eat even with medication, then it will greatly limit our options to manage his diseases. Painful as it is, we have to prepare for the possibility that we may need to consider hospice-type care (honestly, I think I am sharing this to help prepare myself as much as it is to let his fans know of his current state).  

For those of the praying sort, please feel free to say one for him or to send him a mental pet.

I took this a few days ago. The difference between then and today is like day and night.

To distract myself, I picked up a paint brush. At least it guarantees quieting my mind for awhile. 

The result is that I finished painting the four Reaper Dark Heaven lizard warrior archers I had started earlier this year.

On their own, not terribly impressive, but ...

with the others, they do create a nice horde.

These figures will allow me to field a unit of Dark Heaven archers on foot, rather than on the howdah. A few painted Wargames Atlantic lizards will crew the howdah eventually.

Lizard Warrior Archers

To my surprise, I stuck with my plan and finished up my Reaper Dark Heaven lizard warrior archers and drummer (from the command pack) for my planned howdah crew. Although I prefer to stick to three figures or less at a time, they are only 28mm and fairly simple paint jobs - although they do have ample detail for those who go for that sort of thing.

Not sure why some are naked and some wear loin cloths. Must be a cultural thing.

I based them like the others on 1"- 1.25" rounds, which, though it will make the howdah a little oversized, means I can dismount them if I choose. Frankly, I love the sculpts of the Dark Heaven lizard warriors and may pick up some melee weapon armed figures to allow me to filed a 10-12 figure unit. They are also some of the very few metal 28mm figures I have and I do like the heft they have. I almost understand why people like metal figures so much.

I can only assume the fletching is green because there are lots of green-feathered parrot people on Venus. I didn't say the lizards were friendly chaps. Blue to match their tongues might have tied the look together better though.

While I've been working on these, I have been making some additional Venusian/Lost World jungle terrain. The picture in the previous post looks quite full, but in reality that's a trick of cramming as much of terrain into the camera's view, not a table thick with vegetation.

However, due to the wedding I'm in next weekend and the cost of travel there, the rental car, the hotel, having to buy a suit and a tie (I don't use those things for work and I have but one that does not meet the requirements set by the bride and groom), I'm trying to keep expenses in check (mostly). 

Behold, the masking tape, paper, and florist's wire palm:

I got the idea from Reese's recent Rumble in the Jungle post over on Heroes of the 54mm Empire. I believe those trees use pipe cleaner, but I have none. I do have a roll of florist's wire though. The paper by the way is not the palm leaves (those are masking tape over a florist wire stem), but the core for the trunk (it's just a paper roll covered in spiraling masking table and painted with watered down Raw Sienna - "highlights" are where more of the masking tape shows through).

I'm using fairly narrow tape because it's what I have on hand, but a wider roll would work quite well for some broad leaf palms no doubt. I have a few more in progress. My goal is a dozen. They aren't hard to make, but I wanted to spend more time painting the howdah crew.

Next on the paint table? I don't know. I might start making the howdah as I have a few different ideas or it might be the French Legionairres with red trousers. Or perhaps tackling some arditi.Or maybe I'll actually play a game.

Crossing the Streams : A Scruby Question

Some of you know that I am the website manager/administrator (not really sure what my "title" is now that I think about it) for the the Lone Warrior site. I don't generally like to cross-post between blogs, but we had a question come in from a reader that I am certain someone out there in wargaming-land can answer, but so far it has been crickets.

You can see the actual question over on Lone Warrior.

However, tl;dr: they are trying to find two particular Jack Scruby figures:

• Item #9731-02 “Rebel (firing, kepi hat)” from the Civil War Assortment and
• item #9732-13 “British Grenadier (at attention)” from the American Revolution Assortment

They are, if I understood their post correctly, 54mm figures, and I have pointed them to the Little Wars Revisited forum and to HistoriFigs (who still produce Scruby figures).

However, if you can help, please feel free to head to the Lone Warrior post linked above and leave a comment - you don't need to be a member (although if you aren't, might I suggest you consider membership? You don't even need to be a solo gamer - take a look at the sample articles, free rules, and book reviews for example.) If you prefer, though, feel free to leave a comment here and I'll relay it.

 And, because every post should have a picture, even one unrelated to the content:

The ambush. (not from a game, just trying out my jungle scenery)

 

First Venusian Lizard Folk Unit Complete!

 Admittedly they aren't 54mm, but it's a start!

Twelve Reaper lizard warriors (ten Bones and two Dark Heaven).

In case you're wondering why the blades are periwinkle - it's part of the fiction that I'm making up in my head. Some kind of Venusian stone that the lizard people prefer.

Those are tomato stems covered in PVA in the background - they look suitably odd for the Venusian jungle. The other plants are paper or sourced from Dollar Tree plastic floral supplies.

Next up?

Probably finish off the first unit of French Foreign Legion and then finish the first unit of the Tanitians (the not Carthaginians).

Lizard Warriors Big and Small

One of the problems with relying on the internet for purchase decisions is that you are beholden to reviewers providing info that you need and your own ability to find said info. You would think that as a "librarian by training" (I have an MLS) I would be good at the latter, but not that is not necessarily so.

Case in point - I recently ordered and received a box of Wargames Atlantic 28mm "Lizard Men". The reviews I found talked about how well they fit with this or that figure. What I failed to grasp  or determine was that without specifying an exact size dimension and not possessing those comparison figures, I was left guessing if they would mix well with Reaper lizard warriors:

If by "mix well" I meant "could be their children" then I suppose they do indeed. However, as that is not what I meant, I'm at a bit of a loss. B, the person who I will be playing Venusian based games with in-person, suggested they might be skinks (Games Workshop makes skinks for their lizard forces that are notably smaller than then regular lizards). This is an option.

We're now looking at using the big battle version of Fistful of Lead (it has edged out G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. for now), I could make a larger than normal unit and give them some penalties for their small size. 

In any case, they are definitely not going to be the majority of my lizard troops as I was planning. Instead, I picked up a few more Reaper lizard men to top off my existing figures at a full unit, plus command and some archers for the howdah on the triceratops. I still have plenty of other unit ideas for this force.

 By far the best inexpensive-ish 54mm lizard warrior choice is the SCS Direct figure (available on eBay and Amazon):

I get the feeling the number of lizard warriors you get per box of creatures varies. There were six in my box and that means another box is needed eventually unless I can find them in job lots on eBay. 

They are a soft plastic - more rubbery than not, in my opinion. I coated this one with Modge Podge before hitting it with the black acrylic. It scales well with the Armies in Plastic French Legionnaire. The lack of pose variety (just one) might seem damning but they are hackable if that's your thing. If I get extras I may try to do some customization, but for now they'll stay as is. 

Finally, I have from time to time seen on various blogs, people posting a beverage they enjoyed while gaming or painting. So here is mine:

 

I am a sucker for new flavors of soda. Being this is Mtn Dew, I didn't go in with high hopes. And therefore I was not disappointed. It was in fact, not bad. It was so not bad, that I'd drink it again. It's not so good that I'd hoard bottles before it's discontinued.

It most definitely, and disturbingly, tastes like gingersnap cookies.

Painting Table Update

While gaming and game related activity took precedence this weekend, I also finished a few figures.

First up, I've finished the firing poses for the Bersaglieri and am now moving onto the advancing troops. These three together will form a bombing squad in Trench Hammer.

 Next up, the last of Reaper Bones lizard warriors for the games to be set on Venus. I could have sworn I had three archers as well, but that seems to not be the case.  I have only six total which is not enough for a unit - but they can function as dino handlers, howdah crew, etc. in the meantime.

And here's the current state of the paint table.

The elephant is not in the queue yet - I just have to find someplace to put it while it waits. The HaT Carthaginians will serve as some kind of Venusian - these two are for testing some painting ideas I have. Also pictured, Armies in Plastic French Foreign Legion and Austrians. 

Hoping to get a chance to work on the French soon as they finish up quickly once the white is painted in.

Thunder! Thunder! Thunderlizards, ho!

For the Venusian campaign, it seemed impossible that there would not be dinosaurs other giant fauna (not to mention flora). However, unless you've shopped for some recently, you'd be surprised how hard it is to find inexpensive hard plastic dinosaur toys of any appreciable size. In the name of safety, although I suspect it's mostly marketing, dinosaur toys are more often now made of "soft and safe" plastic which squishes or at least flexes and bends with ease. 

Great if you have a destructive toddler bent on destroying your flat screen with flying objects. Not so great for my purposes.

My local DollarTree, bastion of inexpensive toys from China, had no dinosaurs of note save a few that would best be described as "gummy".

However, I finally found a set of larger hard plastic dinos on Amazon with a 30% off coupon that put the price around $2 USD + change (also USD) each.

Well they are mostly hard plastic. Frankly at this point, I'll take what I can get.

Three will most definitely be pressed into service. The others will probably see life as background / set dressing or be pilfered by my son when we're playing with toys together.

Wagon train. Well, one wagon so far. Another stegosaurus though and I'm calling it a train.

Spinosaurus was either not known or was prejudiced against when I was a kid and excluded from the books I had available - loaded with illustrations of boring green and gray dinosaurs dragging their tails on the ground (amazingly we still though dinosaurs were awesome). I only learned of it when my son was born and Dinosaur Train became a staple for a time. It is, second to stegosaurus, my favorite dinosaur. I intended for it to be led on ropes by handlers into battle, where at that point it's a free for all.

Triceratops with a howdah / platform. Well, it will eventually have one, this is just to give an idea of future plans.

Size-wise these aren't far from 1/35 - well the stegosaurus isn't far from it at least. I haven't checked the others. Obviously, scale accuracy wasn't really my goal but I did want them to convey a certain mass and I think these do the trick.

Some Figures and a Trench Idea

I don't usually post so quickly but it was a busy weekend!

Early days on my Venusian forces yet. However, there are now three completed Armies in Plastic French Foreign Legionnaires ready for basing and a game.

 

Yes that's a pumpkin.

 

 

The more I paint Armies in Plastic figures the more I like them. They paint quickly - the hardest part is mold line removal. No matter how often I tell myself I'll just leave them, I end up removing most of them (I don't mind a little here and there but long lines running across a helmet drive me crazy). A heated pin, clamped in an X-acto handle has made this task far easier and a great deal more consistent.  

 

I only plan to paint up a 10-figure GASLIGHT unit, with an additional 4 figures to man a Gatling (provided by the British as I don't feel like painting another just yet), so I'm actually pretty far along on this force!

Next up are three 28mm lizard warriors from the Reaper Bones line.

Still a pumpkin in the background.

Despite my attempts to make the orange different on each figure, my "random" markings ended up remarkably similar. I chalk it up to my human eye being unable to discern the distinctions that seem so natural to the lizard folk themselves.

Finally, the trench idea.

While I love the Atherton Scenics trenches as well as some other vacuum formed offerings, for a larger game where I want to put say, two or three trench lines on the table, they are somewhat large (given my small table space) and expensive for that. More importantly, they also are very "realistic" looking and if there is one thing I am not known for, it's realistic looking terrain.

And so, let us consider trench tiles:

Hand painted MDF coaster and craft paints.

This idea was borne of some of the fine Portable Wargame playing areas on the facebook group for those rules as well as the inclusion of some top-down trench section cutouts in Wargames Illustrated #235. The latter provided the inspiration for exactly how I approached the illusion of depth . 

This is a roughly 4" square MDF coaster available on Amazon. I use them for my WW2 AT guns and for bases for my One Hour Wargames medieval armies.  

I'm not an artist but it certainly is functional, cheap (relatively, depending on the brand. A 9x9 table is still 81 squares after all but I've seen other brands for as little as $20 for 100), has the right "look" for my tables and is easy to produce.

I'm not sure about the bare MDF -I may paint the space at the bottom by the sandbags the same color as my figure bases or perhaps a basic green. Inside the trench is another story - brown? grey? just MDF? the jury is still out.

For a 1:1 trench raid involving a handful of figures, or for Trench Hammer, I think I'd prefer something 3-D (which i can fake using books and foam under my ground cloth), for a battalion attack on the first and second trench lines, this would work for me..

It probably helps that I have long been a fan of dungeon tiles, which these remind me of.

This also makes me think you could make a fun "dungeon crawl" type game for Vietnam tunnel rats. Which means I'll probably have to buy some figures for that now, too!

Planning for the Rest of the Year and Beyond

One of the many enjoyable aspects of our hobby is planning. Of course, planning leads to lead and plastic piles, so it's fraught with danger and one should proceed with caution. One definitely shouldn't shop on ebay while taking pain medication for a tooth extraction.

As I hinted at in a previous post, I have some new projects underway. One is a French & Indian War  project - this has no defined parameters but I do know that I want to paint French regulars so that's what I'll start with.

The other project is a Victorian Science Fiction (VSF) project which will encompass both solo games and face to face games with a local 54mm wargamer. There are two of us in the area!

We have decided upon a game set on Venus. We'll likely use GASLIGHT to start, since it's one set we're both familiar with (I haven't played a lot of rule sets that aren't me just making stuff up).

That's what the French Foreign Legion figures from Armies in Plastic that I posted recently will be for - although I have both British and Russian colonial forces, French Legionnaires fighting lizard folk on Venus was my first venture into building proper wargaming armies (albeit in 15mm). The Earth colonial forces will play a small roll in the wars of the Venusian factions, so I don't need many of them, maybe 10 + a crew for a Gatling.

At least that's our current plan.

The aforementioned ebay shopping spree was not hypothetical but based on experience. I had two teeth extracted last Friday (not fun and not recommended, but the pain leading up to that was worse, so ...). The pain killer haze may have weakened my willpower. At least that's my excuse.

As a result, I purchased several boxes of Hat 1/32 ancients figures including: Roman triari, Roman hastati, Spanish infantry, and Carthaginians - they're short a few figures each but enough of each for  10-12 figure units. Except for the Gauls, these will make up one of the Venusian factions (for my own notes, I'm calling them Asterians). 

Hastati not pictured - they haven't arrived yet

But wait! What about lizard folk? 

Ah yes, a classic Venusian trope and one of my favorite D&D monsters to boot 

For them I am thinking a mix of 28mm (hear me out!) and 54mm figures. 

The latter are exceptionally difficult to come across in any quantity or a price I could afford in any quantity more than a handful.  However, SCS Direct sells a figure that will pass for a lizard warrior and is available in relatively inexpensive packs of mixed creatures. It was seeing them painted up on Quantrill's Toy Soldiers that sold me on them. One pack yielded me 6 such figures (10 is my starting goal):

By their smooth skin and serpent necks, I have inferred that they inhabit seaside marshes and are fond of Venus's vast oceans.

Size comparison to an Armies in Plastic Russian.

For a leader type, I picked up a 54mm figure from Iron Wind - a lizard shaman. I guess Iron Wind has a game about magic-users or something and a whole line of figures for it. To be honest, this figure's existence inspired the idea of uniting different tribes (read: figure scales) of lizard folk as my original plan was just to field a force of 28mm lizard warriors. I'm still awaiting delivery of this one, eagerly at that!

Eventually I plan to order some Wargames Atlantic 28mm multi-part lizard warriors. The box includes  parts for 24 figures for less than $35 usd which is quite a bargain, although you do have to assemble them yourself. Much like Ikea costing less because you have to do the tedious part.  

The figures come with a variety of head and weapon options but i'll be sticking with classic melee weapons. Sadly they don't come with bows or any warriors with shields. For those, I'll probably pick up some Reaper figures - Bones or Dark Heaven.

In any case, to my mind, the 28mm figures make fine pygmy lizard warriors.  

I have some Reaper Bones lizard folk to serve as proofs of concept:

A 28mm Reaper Bones mini next to an Armies in Plastic Legionnaire.

 As an example of what I intend visually, I painted one up quickly last night. I'm pretty pleased for what amounts to a single rushed paint session. Although in close up I am finding so much to fix!

The gloss is subtle on these figures perhaps due to the general lack of smooth surfaces?

And another comparison example:

In Space: 1889, the Russians have a force on Venus and they wear the white tops / green trousers. He probably should aim lower.

The SCS Direct set also includes harpie figures that I think will serve nicely as Parrot People (they are found in the jungles of Venus. Duh.),  to be supplemented by the Hat Gaul figures (one of the poses has a winged helmet and one pose is naked, good enough for Parrot People for me!) and maybe some Chin Toys Aztecs. Those latter aren't cheap and they only provide eight in a box.

What about all of the other figures in the assortment? Some will be painted, many will end up in my son's toy soldier bin.

Yes, all of this represents exponential growth of my plastic pile. And painting queue.

On the plus side, my Austro-Hungarians and Italians are moving along nicely and their portion of the pile is steadily decreasing. Hopefully this weekend I'll sneak in another game of Trench Hammer.