Time to assess my projects. I want to decide if I can take on anything new. Many of the people I play Monsterpocalypse with are long time Warmachine fans. Their enthusiasm for the game is infectious. Playing so much Monsterpocalypse helps me realize that I don’t have enough games with regular opponents.Heavy Gear is one, but I haven’t enjoyed playing it as much as I had hoped. I have too many games where I’m working in a vacuum. This is a danger of historical games.

I cannot blame historical games alone. I tend not to finish my projects. Even at a slow pace I could have easily finished a large Warhammer 40k army. It was my first miniature wargame. It is the model that all others have followed. I borrowed a friend’s copy of White Dwarf. My friend didn’t play. I think he’d “inherited” two issues from another friend who had moved away, just as I “inherited” them from him, and whoever has the issue I’m missing “inherited” it from me. No one I knew played. I have never had luck recruiting friends to play. Those I recruit are never as enthusiastic as I would like.

The Ottawa Miniatures Gamers club was an excellent change from this pattern. Here were people as enthusiastic towards miniatures gaming as I am. However, historical gamers are fractured. Everybody in a Warhammer 40k club plays the same game. OMG was more about collecting and painting the miniatures needed for a specific scenario and then running it at the club. The only game that was wildly played was DBA, a game I soon found I disliked intensely. Not only did I dislike the mechanics, the attitude behind the game — how few miniatures you could get away with in your army — was contrary to everything I love about wargaming.

Now I realize that picking projects that appeal to me and finding people to play after isn’t always the right choice. I realize that it’s okay to compromise and play a game that isn’t one I would pick on my own in order to find active and enthusiastic opponents. This realization lead to a wild moment of thinking I was going to collect a Warmachine, Flames of War, and DBA army all at once. That insanity has passed. I’ve emerged with a clearer view of what I want to accomplish in my hobby. Part of that is assessing what projects I wish to pursue, something I haven’t done since last April. It feels just like yesterday. Nothing much has moved on my painting table in the past year. Time to get a move on.

The first thing I did was classify my projects based on whether I plan on building a gaming army, or I just wanted to scratch a painting itch.

Some people prefer to paint. Some people prefer to game. I like both, but I’ve been mostly painting. I’ve advocated modeling projects, but I’ve lost sight of the concept. My 1812 project was originally a modeling project. I wanted to paint a big battalion of Napoleonic soldiers. I didn’t want to get involved in a long term project. During my research the project got bigger in my mind. Suddenly I was painting both sides to the Battle of Queenston Heights in two scales. I always let projects mature. My first thoughts rarely match my end thoughts, or I waffle between different approaches. It’s back to being a modeling project now.

Modeling projects are simpler affairs. They take less time to complete. I paint a figure, or a unit, and I’m done. I have two in progress, Warhammer FB Orcs and Dork Tower miniatures for TMP. Once they are done I’m not entitled to paint anything more for them. There’s no guilt, just the pleasure of painting something for the fun of it. Sometimes I forget that. I put myself on the hook for more. While classifying my projects I made sure I was clear what project was what.

Next I looked at what projects I wanted to finish or add to. I have a painted army for Heavy Gear but I’m not anxious to play right now. I could add more units. I have unpainted miniatures for the game. I wouldn’t have to buy anything more. Still, I’m not excited by the project, so why force it? I’m excited about playing Warmachine, so it goes near the top of the list. War of the Ring, GW’s new massed battle game set in the Lord of the Rings world, while I don’t have any immediate plans to play, is really appealing. Plus I can start small, expanding the Lord of the Rings miniatures I have for the skirmish game.

I’m also not ready to abandon my Field of Glory plans, although I again don’t have any opponents lined up. It’s another game where I’m blazing my own trail. Those at the OMG that are interested in it are collecting armies in 15mm. I, on the other hand, prefer 28mm. Here is an interesting situation where I know I want to do something, but the project isn’t ready yet. I’ve painted some Romans, but I’m also interested in Dark Ages. Do I do both, or only one? Which one? Perhaps I should do Dark Ages in 15mm so I can play at the club. This project needs to mature in my mind. I’ll paint what I have and then put it on the back burner.

So, I am ready. Here are my hobby plans for the next little bit. I am trying to alternate between painting miniatures I own and painting new miniatures in order to reduce my store of miniatures.

• Finish painting Orcs.
• Warmachine Khador Battle Box — it’s enough to start playing.
• Romans — they’re already on my workbench.
• Aragorn and Theoden Box — I’m thinking Rohan vs. Isenguard for War of the Ring, so a mounted Aragorn and Theoden, plus three Warg Riders would make a good start, and I already own the box.
• Khador ‘Jack — to expand my Warmachine army.
• The rest of the Fellowship — More of the skirmish game, but I already own the models.

The order may change. I’m trying to paint in the evenings again, but won’t be buying any new miniatures until I complete my move. If I finish the Orcs I may skip ahead to the Romans. I hate seeing miniatures sitting on my workbench. Somewhere in there I should paint the last three Dork Tower miniatures.

Tyler

Here we go, starting in on the new style of blog posts. For the longest time I’ve been using this website less as a blog and more as a regular website with WordPress as my content management system. The other day I complained about lack of traffic. Instead of complaining and doing nothing I’m changing things up. Hopefully the increase in updates will show a similar increase in traffic.

I am sure that there are more than a few of you reading this and saying that traffic shouldn’t be the primary reason for creating this site. While that is true to an extent, if I didn’t care about traffic why spend the time and energy putting this online when I could easily create a project journal in Microsoft Onenote. I do have project journals that I find useful, but I also want to show off and share my hobby with others. All bloggers are in some way exhibitionists with enough of an ego to think other people will care about what they have to say. Most, like myself, were probably inspired by similar sites. We know people want to read this sort of thing because we want to read this sort of thing.

The very tempting Assault on Black Reach Starter Set.

Just a quick note: I am aware that the images on the top-left are skewed. This was part of the site redesign and I need to recreate all of the images. At the same time I’ll add some more. Otherwise, any feedback is much appreciated.

Current Projects

Speaking of projects, I’ve recently been rethinking the projects on my workbench. I’ve written about this before. I’m the kind of wargamer known as the Butterfly. Manly. The butterfly flits from project to project and generally shows the attention span of a gnat. As an example, I picked up a White Dwarf for the first time in forever. A podcast I was listening to mentioned that GW was focusing more on painting and modelling in White Dwarf. The theory was that this is to compete with games like AT43 by promoting the hobby sides of the game as a selling feature. A good idea, and the type of articles I felt I was missing when I stopped reading the magazine. I happened to be at Chapters and decided to take a look at the magazine. When I picked it up my mind was immediately made to give the issue a try. It wasn’t the cover, but the physical feel of the issue. White Dwarf #28 comes with two sample miniatures from the Assault on Black Reach game; a Space Marine Terminator and an Ork Nob. Sold!

I’ve enjoyed reading through it and realized something very important about myself. No-one is ever an ex-GW Fanboy. The recovering process, like that of alcoholism¹, is ongoing. As I read about the new release I thought that it might be fun to pick it up. After all, I am not the wargamer I was when I first played GW games. The last boxed set I purchased was Starship Troopers, and I’ve painted all the miniatures from that box. Perfect rationalization for buying a new boxed set. Nevermind all the other projects I should finish first, nevermind that I’ve decided to avoid GW products in favour of all the other excellent wargames that are much more affordable. I must have it. It must be mine!.

Then reason started to creep into my thought process. I purchased a large set of Space Marines years ago that I never painted. I have a couple of Tactical Squads, an Assault Squad, a Bike Squad, a Captain, Librarian and Chaplain on Bike, a Landspeeder and Predator tank all waiting to be painted. That’s enough for a decent starter army at least.

This boxed set almost ended my relationship with my wife before it even got started. In a fit of oxygen deprivation at a GW Store auction I spent all of my money on it, not realizing it would leave me too broke to even take my wife, then new girlfriend, out for her birthday.

Even this small level of madness passed; a display of awesome wargamer willpower. I already have enough on my plate that thinking of adding something new at this point is a bit premature. However, it’s not like I have so many projects that I can never add anything new. Which got me to think about what projects I do have on the go. Being a wargamer butterfly, this seems to change day by day as new projects grab my interest and old ones are temporarily forgotten. Here are the projects in the order I plan to tackle them. Remember, for me, a project is something like painting a wargaming unit, not a whole army. Right now I don’t get to play much, so painting an army is less of a priority than painting something interesting and different.

• TMP Article: This is a short project. I am painting some miniatures for The Miniatures Page. I’ll link to the workbench article when it is finished.
• Warlord Games Romans: I painted 16 Warlord Games Romans for a Battlesgames article. I haven’t heard if it’s been accepted yet, but I still have the remainder of the box remaining. Instead of packing them away I am going to finish painting them to create a complete unit. Unfortunately I won’t be able to describe how they were painted for a while, if ever, because of the magazine article.
• Warhammer Fantasy Orcs: Remember when I was painting these guys? I stopped before they were finished in order to paint the above Romans for a deadline. Once I start painting them I’ll actually be able to get some more WIP images on the site. I started painting this to encourage a friend to paint his Tomb Kings. He hasn’t even started so I doubt I’ll be playing with him. Meanwhile, one of my Magic and D&D players, an ex-Assistant Manager of a local GW store, has started painting again after a hiatus. He’s doing up some Warhammer Chaos figures, giving me a reason to continue and perhaps expand this fun project.
• Heavy Gear Blitz! Army: While the army is complete, I still have plenty of Gears to paint to increase the size and give me more options. Now that my current job means I’ll always have weekends off I can consider playing this game regularly. Actually playing a game is a great incentive for painting.
• 1812 Project: This project has been on the backburner for a long while. I need to take some pictures of my miniatures in terrain and paint some new figures. It’s something that I’m interested in, but it is a long-term project and not something I expect to be able to play anytime soon. Sometimes I get the urge to move faster on it and painting up a unit will scratch that itch.
• Field of Glory: Although I’ll have a unit of Early Imperial Romans based for Field of Glory soon, I’m still undecided on what army I want to collect. Although I started with a lot of enthusiasm, much like my 1812 project, I despair of ever finishing it.
• Warhammer 40K Space Marines: Will this become a project, or will the urge fade by the time I clear my workbench? I certainly plan to paint the Terminator and Nob as soon as possible.
• Necromunda: Some of my friends still idly talkk of starting a new Necromunda campaign. They’ve been away from wargames for a long while and I wonder how much is nostalgia, and how much serious plans.
• Warmaster Ancients: Another Ancients wargame where I’m not set on which army I want to paint. I’m not sure if I’m going to ever return to this.
• Warmaster: I’ve painted two armies, not sure if I’ll ever add to them.
• Battlefleet Gothic: Another old friend is talking about returning to this game. While I have fond memories of playing it, I sometimes think I’d rather find a similar game and use some of the awesome Ninja Magic miniatures. They have their own rule system too, hmm. Oh no, another project!

Well, so much for more frequent, quick blog posts. This one has turned into a monster. Once again, feedback is much appreciated. Please do me a favour and take the time to leave a comment. It’s simple and easy, no login required.

Tyler

1) I am not seriously comparing purchasing hobby products to the disease of alcoholism. Buying GW products is never romanticized in movies or tv. Seriously though, I’m just goofing.

Things are a little hectic around the old homestead at the moment. I’ve just delivered another article for Battlegames Magazine and started a workbench article for TMP’s Workbench section. This means that what I have been working on, I cannot show you. Additionally I’ve taken delivery of a wonderful baby girl I ordered nine months ago and am enjoying what looks to be a long project of raising her. Which means it’s time to fall back on the old standby: Gallery Updates.

A small section of infantry on the march.

These are Dream Pod 9′s Northern Infantry for their Heavy Gear: Blitz game. I purchased them for my Cangames Heavy Gear: Blitz! army but didn’t include them in the final force. Overall I wasn’t impressed with these miniatures. These are actually from DP9′s old tactical game repackaged for Blitz!. It was intended that they would be resculpted by Philippe Le Clerc, but there was always something more interesting to resculpt and eventually Mr. Le Clerc left DP9.

These miniatures suffer from soft, confused and unclear details. They are essentially humanoids covered in greebles. Greebles are bits of meaningless detail made to break up flat surfaces, used mostly on spaceships. While there are a few details recognizable from the Ghislain Barbe illustrations that these miniatures were based on, the rest is unclear and hard to distinguish.

Arrayed for battle. The Grizzy is not part of the Infantry blister

In addition to the sculpting issues the pack layout wasn’t useful for the current game system. You get 36 infantry in one of three poses and 4 officers in the same pose. This would work perfectly for the 4 sub-units required by the rules except for the poses. Each different pose carries a different, fairly unrecognizable weapon. These include, I assume, a rifle, a machine gun and an anti-gear rifle. To make the necessary twelve stands of miniatures I glued three miniatures to a base. I tried to include two of the same special weapon and one rifle per base, replacing a special weapon with an officer for the command bases. I would much rather have had two rifles and a special weapon to a base. The reason this ratio of weapons was included was due to the way the molds were made with one of each weapon per sprue. Seeing as the molds from metal miniatures are replaced on a regular basis, it would have been nice if DP9 had re-adjusted things for their new rules system.

I must admit that I was going through a bit of a slump in my hobby at the time I painted these. I wasn’t much in the mood, but wanted to continue painting through it to avoid a long downturn in painting. It still happened so I’ve learnt that it isn’t worth it to push myself like that.

The process can be seen in the following posts:

• http://tyler.provick.ca/?p=183
• http://tyler.provick.ca/?p=184
• http://tyler.provick.ca/?p=193
• http://tyler.provick.ca/?p=205

Painted: May 2008 with Vallejo Paints

Heavy Gear: Blitz! Northern Infantry produced by Dream Pod 9.

Tyler

Well, no painting or modeling done this week. However, I did finish those Northern Guard Infantry a while ago, so I figure now is as good a time as any to post them up.

The platoon, all together.

I like how the infantry give a sense of scale for the Gear. If I was in the mood to dig it out, I would have preferred using a Hunter in the picture, as the average-joe Gear. However, I’d pulled the Grizzly out to try to match the basing during that stage of the painting and never put it back, so he was handy. I like the Grizzlies though, so it works.

The left side.

Unfortunately, with the small size of the infantry it is hard to get a good depth of focus, even at f11. I guess I could have cranked up the flash (laying on the sink with an incandescent filter) but I wanted the balance from the bathroom lights. Yes, these pictures were taken in my bathroom. It’s a pre-made light-tent. I will go into the details in a later article. With pre-modern miniatures everything is very linear, so getting everything in focus is a lot easier.

The right side.

The miniatures are not the best I’ve ever painted. To be honest, I rushed through them. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned a few times, the detail was indistinct, so trying for some sort of colour-scheme would have been problematic even if I had been in the mood for it. What you cannot see is, on the back of each base is a three digit number. Each squad of 3 bases has its own number to make it easier to track them during the game. I chose a three-digit number to make it look less like I was just numbering the miniatures, and more that it was a designation used within the entire military.

Other Painting

I’m not sure why I’ve had such trouble sitting down at my painting table. I have plenty of motivation: I would like to finally get the sculpting finished and painted to see what it looks like. I have Wargames Factory 28mm Hard Plastic Romans coming in the end of May that I will really, really want to start in on straight away. Hopefully, I’ll be able to scrape together the cash for a box of Warlord Games Romans as well. Comparison review? Oh yes, I do hope so.

Except mine’s Midnight Blue!

On the Magic front, my Shadowmoor box arrives today. It’s a bit lucky that I put in the order before I got my slip, as I don’t think I could have rationalized buying a Booster Box whilst on the breadline. Tonight, I hope there are enough sane, rational people getting their box that we can get a quick sealed tourney. I think if even 4 people want in, we can do it. Although I’d change the format from single elimination to some sort of round robin points thing. 4 people means three rounds to play everyone, with the winner determined on points. Hmmm, excuse to bring my notebook? Oh yes, I think so. BTW, anybody seen my baby? Again, purchased right before the shoe dropped.

Tyler

I finally picked up the brush again after a long break. It felt good, and I finally got a chance to try the reading glasses I’d picked up at the dollar store. I’d asked my eye doctor if wearing reading glasses just for the magnification would harm my eye sight. I was assured that this was safe, so I thought I’d give it a try. At worst, I’d be out a buck-fifteen, at best, I’d have a very inexpensive stereo magnifier. It turns out it was a waste of money for me. I don’t really have that much trouble seeing what I’m painting. I think I’m like many people who think that a magnifier will somehow help them steady their hands. I certainly don’t like the short focal range, and the fact that I either have to load my brush blind or shift my glasses. The transition from glasses to naked eye¹ is not smooth for me, so it ends up slowing down my painting, as I load my brush often.

I drybrushed these miniatures with a bit of VMC English Uniform mixed with white. I painted the weapons with VMC Dark Sea Grey mixed with black, highlighted with VMC Dark Sea Grey mixed with less black. I also tried to pick out some items with VMC Buff, highlighted with VMC Buff and white. This is somewhat of an “artistic license” situation. I’m treating these items like they are pouches, while in some cases they are thigh-plates or random pieces of belt. I was also not consistent with what was what. The plan was to try to break up the monochrome look. I don’t know if I succeeded, but at least there’s a reward for those looking closely. Monochrome uniforms are fairly standard in the world’s modern armies, so the urge to make the miniatures wear otherwise is strictly aesthetic. It they were carrying more kit it would be better, or if what they were wearing was better defined, I might have made more of an effort.

Almost finished

Speaking of the sculpts, I have to say they are unimpressive. I believe they are older sculpts, but I really dislike miniatures where even the sculptor isn’t sure what it is her or she is sculpting. It may not be the truth, but that’s the impression I get from the miniatures. I’ve really fallen out of touch with Dream Pod 9 in regard to new releases, so don’t know if a new sculpt has been released yet, but I hope there is.

Another problem I have with these miniatures is that there aren’t enough basic rifleman. In a pack of 40 there’s 12 each of three poses, and four officers. The three poses are rifleman, machine gunner and rocket launcher. At least, that’s my best guess, as the weapons are fairly indistinct. This is because each pose was cast on the same sprue. A better arrangement would have been to cast a larger sprue, or have 3 of the same pose on each sprue, then cast them in the ratios needed for the current rules. A perfect ratio would be an officer, rocket launcher, machine gunner and six riflemen for the current rules. However, these miniatures pre-date the current rules, so one cannot blame DP9 for not redesigning a mold which will probably be retired shortly. However, a little forethought for flexibility would have made things easier for use who don’t want to have each base including a rifleman, machine gunner and rocket launcher. Or rather, one squad have two rocket launchers and a rifleman, or two machine gunners and a rifleman per base.

These miniatures are almost finished. Most likely I am going to base them up and be done with them. They just don’t warrant that much effort. They will most likely not be included in any Cangames army if I participate this year, in order to defend my “Best Painted Army” crown. Unless, of course, they end up as the only addition to my army. I’d rather lose that feel sheepish for winning twice with the exact same miniatures. Someone who makes the effort to paint up a new army shouldn’t lose to someone who didn’t.

Tyler

The first layer finished.

One of the cardinal rules of painting is to always paint from the inside out. This means, invariably, paint the skin first. It is always a good starting point as the finished skin makes it look like a person wearing all black from there on. Also, when reaching into little nooks and crannies it is often impossible to avoid splashing a little paint on the surrounding surfaces. Don’t paint in this order and risk having many touch-ups to keep you busy. However, like most rules associated with art, it can be broken if there’s a good reason.

There have been a few miniatures where I had wished I had painted some item out of order because it would have been easier to get first. Weapon hilts, handles and stocks are the most common things. Usually the majority of the weapon is the very last layer of the miniature to be painted before basing. However, there is always a part of these weapons that is wrapped in, and thus inside, the first layer, the skin. I have yet to start painting handles first, despite resolving to each time I splosh paint on carefully details hands.

With this in mind, it is very hard to say something is wrong when it doesn’t follow the normal rules. The polite thing to do is consider the possibility that this new technique answers the usual question in a new and interesting way. In this case, you don’t need to worry about being polite. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I started painting the miniature. Actually, I do. I was thinking about what colour I was going to use for the miniature’s armour, not about what colour to paint the skin. So, when it came time to paint I started painting the part that was foremost in my mind. I often skip steps like this. Fortunately in this case the only thing missing is the face, sculpted without features and thus not requiring much work.

I went with VMC English Uniform because I like WWII and it was a colour I’ve worked with often. I didn’t want to go as bright as my Gears and I didn’t want to go green. I’ve painted two thinned coats of the miniatures, trying to work quickly. I think I can say that the trick to breaking the “every miniature a work of art” habit is practice. It’s desensitization training. Of course, my next miniature will have to be something nice to prove to myself that I’ve “still got it.”

The lack of features in the face is a bit strange. This miniature is 1/144 scale, close to 15mm. I have 6mm miniatures with detailed faces. Overall these miniatures are a bit soft in the recognizable details. The sculptor gave the armour a strangely undefined bumpiness. Sure, there is detail, enough to take the wash and drybrush I am planning, but I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be. Then again, I’m very picky about my miniatures. I’m always wanting the best, the best casting, the best sculpting, the best of everything. The fact is that smaller companies cannot always provide the best miniatures. While there are some excellent small miniature manufacturers that produce beautiful, crisp miniatures, the major of manufacturers are supplying a wargaming market, where a lower price becomes important when collecting an army.

What do you look for in their miniatures. I started with GW, which is probably where I developed this preference. Gamers coming from a historical background seem to be more varying in their taste. Leave a comment.

Tyler

X = Heavy Gear Blitz! Northern Infantry

After a couple of posts promising posts soon, I think it’s time to actually make a real post. This is also the start of a new style to my posts. I think things had gotten a bit dry with post after post of WIPs or Gallery entries. There wasn’t enough meat to actually make this site something more than a place to pay a quick visit from time to time. Part of the problem was that I had stopped making my big monthly update. I only missed a few, but when they only come once a month, a few means months of posts about priming miniatures.

Not that I’ll stop making “I just primed X” posts. Otherwise I wouldn’t have anything to post today. However, I hope to put a little more into each post. Even if it isn’t strictly hobby related, I’ll make sure there’s something to read after looking at the picture which proves I did actual prime X.

WWIIOL

I’ve decided to return to computer gaming after a long absence. I had decided to stop playing computer games in order to focus more on painting miniatures. While it is true that I was painting a lot of miniatures, I missed gaming. Especially online gaming, since I am working a shift where my free time runs from 9pm to 1am. Not much social life, not much on TV, and I’m often too fatigued to think about painting. It came to me that playing some games online, perhaps with some co-workers on the same shift as me, would ease some of the loneliness and boredom which sets in when my wife goes to bed. For five years I played a MMOG called WWIIOL. It is the first, and only, MMOG that is also a first person shooter/flight sim/naval sim/tank sim. Think of it as Battlefield 1942 with a 10000 player persistent map.

WWII Online Blitzkrieg is now World War II Online: Battleground Europe.

For those five years I played with the same squad, The Virtual Black Watch of Canada, now called The Royals. As I started thinking of computer games as a solution the makers of the game decided to offer a promotion where players with lapsed subscriptions could try the game out and see how it had advanced. Serious changes have been made to the game in its history and some game quirk which drove a subscriber away may have been resolved in one of the many patches. It seemed like a good time to try the game again. While the game is still clunky and laggy, the camaraderie of playing with my squad-mates was really what I wanted.

Not to say that there haven’t been many improvements in the year or so since I last played. The basic concept is that there are units called brigades on the game map. Each brigade has a set list of what they can spawn. From tanks to infantry, there is only so much equipment a brigade can have in the field at one time. If you despawn at your brigade’s HQ, the equipment you were using becomes available again. If you die, that unit is lost. Players can join and leave brigades as they wish, but the brigade’s spawn list stays the same. Over time, the brigade is resupplied to replace lost units.

This adds a new dimension of strategy to the game, one that had been missing before. If a brigade is cut off from supply it doesn’t get new equipment to replenish what is lost. If the brigade loses its HQ, it loses all of its equipment. This means that it pays to pull out of situations where you are obviously about to lose a town or get cut off. In the last round the Allies worked hard to encircle a number of Axis brigades. Once the pocket was closed, those brigades could not move to a safe location without re-capturing a town to bring them back into supply, plus they were stuck with which-ever was in their spawn list. I don’t know the exact timing, but somewhere around 1-3 hours after a piece of equipment is lost it is re-supplied. Whole brigades were lost, which destabilized the Axis line and lead to the Allies sweeping the map and winning the round.

Tuesdays and Thursdays, around 9pm is when my squad plays. If you want to join us for a night or more, join the 4th Brigade and ask for the Royals. Tell them Coyote sent you.

Heavy Gear Blitz! Northern Infantry

It’s funny, getting into video games again has reduced the pressure to make painting my sole hobby. Pressure and hobbies rarely work together for me. Some people do well by putting themselves under pressure. It worked for me when I painting my Heavy Gear Blitz! army in time for Cangames. However, once I was finished I was ready to never touch Heavy Gear Blitz! again. Fortunately, I had such a great time at Cangames with Dream Pod 9 staffers and fans alike, that it kept my love alive. This is good, because I walked out of there with a lot of Heavy Gear Blitz! miniatures to paint.

Some new bare metal on my workbench.

I really made an effort to pull some miniatures out of storage and start painting after re-organizing my office space. I’ll have the details next week. Suffice it to say for now that I was tempting to forget painting until I moved into a larger space, something not likely to happen in the next year at this point. The longer I waited before painting again, the more likely such a horrible thought would come true, so I pulled out the Heavy Gear Blitz! Northern Infantry I had started painting before the re-org. I say started loosely, they had been cleaned and hot-glued in preparation for painting, but no actual paint had touched their bare-metal frames. During the re-org I had to pop them off their painting stands as well, making it necessary to repeat that step as well.

Hot-glued to a popsicle stick and primed.

I primed as normal with Liquitex Black Acrylic Gesso and water. It’s a good thing I discovered some empty glass paint jars I’d bought years ago during the re-org. For some reason, I gave my bottle of Gesso a big, enthusiastic squeeze and ended up creating squirting enough Gesso to last me through my next few priming sessions. I remembered the empty jars and was able to retain the left-over Gesso for next time. Next week I need to figure out what colours I’ll be painting these little guys.

That’s it for this week, please leave me some feedback in comments. Do you like the new chatty version or do you prefer to-the-point posts strickly about miniature painting and gaming.

Tyler

My first wargames tournament has come and gone. It is now nothing more than a slowly fading memory of a good time spent with good people. I must say that I really enjoyed myself despite loosing all my games. I am definitely looking forward to next year. I should probably plan my army now though, so I don’t face the same crunch I did this time. Much has happened since Part 2 which hasn’t been covered in my long post the day after, so I’m going to start from the beginning.

Finishing the Army

In Part 2 I was half-way through painting the forces I was planning to bring to Cangames. At the time I was afraid of not finishing. It was a good fear. It kept me motivated to work hard and not waste any of the time I had available.

Early in April I was putting the finishing touches on my first General Purpose squad. A month later I was only half-way through the Fire Support squad, with a whole General Purpose squad still in its box. At this rate I could expect to finish mid-June. With the fear of failure growing stronger I needed to speed things up if I expected to participate. A fully painted army wasn’t actually required to participate, but I would not let myself play with an unpainted army. I would have missed a great time through a combination of laziness and pride.

My completed army. The drones were not part of my army, but I painted them as they were part of the Fire Support squad.

As I went I started dropping parts of my painting combination. I kept things basic so that I would not get bogged down in details. The first step cut was the weathering of the knees. Not only did it take time, but I prefer the look of a clean Gear for armies. Optics will make the miniatures look muddy enough on the table without me adding to the effect. Better clean and bright in my opinion. Painting a one-off miniature, definately weather it. However, I was trying to get an army painted without having as much time as I’d like.

Other details were sacrificed to improve my speed. I spent less time on the metals. While it shows, the metals can actually be considered a detail. The tan and buff are the main features of the paint job, and if they look good, the miniature will look good. The same goes for things like the sensor eyes and rocket pods. One coat of Pale Bluegrey, then a coat of some bright colour like red or turquoise was all that was done for them. Sure, I could individually shade and highlight each, but unless you are looking it isn’t very noticable on such small areas.

This was the first GP squad I painted. I hadn’t yet started to feel the time crunch, so I spent a lot of time on it, including adding some scuffs to the lower legs to show the result of making such a huge machine kneel in sand.

I did keep the unit markings as well as the bumble-bee hazard stripes around the rocket pods. The unit markings were key for keeping track during the game, and the hazard stripes were too noticable to leave off. I did rush them. They are a little sloppy, but still servicable. Unless you are paying attention it isn’t noticable on the tabletop.

Cleaning and assembly was one of the longest steps of the whole process. I think that the Fire Support Squad was cleaned and assembled over two weeks. I started on the General Purpose squad with four days left before Cangames. Fortunately, the first three were my days off from work. I definitely didn’t have two weeks to assemble the GP squad before painting.

Luckily I had finally found some decent superglue and was fully switched over from my old habit of using two-part epoxy glue. I’ve always hated superglue, I found it a pain to use, it wasn’t as strong as epoxy, and no matter what brand I purchased it always dried out in the tube after its first use. However, I have two small tubes of a supermarket brand which have not been drying out at all. I haven’t even had to clear the tip of the one I’ve been using. Working assembly line style I glued together all five Gears of the GP squad in record time. I was even able to put a couple coats of primer on them before bed so that they could cure overnight.

The Fire Support squad was the most interesting to paint with the big Grizzlies. This is the first unit I completely assembled before painting.

I was painting, basing, or waiting for varnish to dry right until the end. I think Friday night I tidied the black edging around the bases before bed. As I went to bed I kept swearing that I would not be painting any Heavy Gear Blitz! miniatures for a long time to come. Not only had I had some bad luck with miscasts, but I found the miniatures difficult to paint. They had plenty of nooks and cranies and other small detail that needed to be picked out. It’s not a sculpting flaw, it’s just that mechanical items can really be a pain to highlight and shade.

Normally a 28mm humanoid takes me 1 hour to paint. Heavy Gears, while similar in size and shape, were taking me 3-4 hours to paint. I only managed to bring that down to 2-2.5 by cutting corners and rushing. A tip for quick painting: don’t bother fixing mistakes unless they are very noticable.

The last squad I painted. I spent maybe 10 hours over two days and, to me at least, it really shows. Many corners were cut to get these guys ready for Cangames.

The tournament has come and past and I had a great time. I think everyone involved had a great time. This is not my final report, just a quick post to capture my thoughts while I can still feel the afterglow. I did poorly, scoring points only in my last game against Philippe Le Clerc, Dream Pod 9′s sculptor. He was playing to bring the player count up to 8, so that no-one had to sit out any rounds, but wasn’t going to include his final points in the final ranking. While he still won, he was very patient and took the time to explain some of the game’s tactics to me in a way which I found very agreeable. It was a little obvious that he was trying not to roll over me, which I found funny.

A shot of my deployment for the second game. At first I kept things counter-light, but eventually I realized that I liked being able to easily see what the status of my units were.

Most people don’t believe me when I say that I rarely win at most games. They think I’m being negative or am exaggerating the situation. Truly, I really don’t do well at miniature wargames. For me, it’s a fact and I don’t get upset when I lose, as long as I can understand why. In one game I was up against an opponent who outnumbered me in combat groups and seemed to have units which, individually, were stronger than mine. It felt like I had brought a 750TV army to a tournament for 1500TV. After Philippe’s tutelage I understood that I had mishandled my Gears, making them very, very easy to destroy.

All my opponents were great sports and easy to play with. I had felt very self-conscious not having played yet, but everyone was so friendly that when it came time to play I felt very comfortable. It helped that I wasn’t the only Blitz! rookie at the tournament.

When the smoke settled we had each played three games and enjoyed ourselves immensely. Dream Pod 9 surprised me (this is my first ever tournament) by having prizes. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, but everyone there had been so nice and friendly it felt more like playing with a bunch of friends than a high-stress tournament with prizes on the line. First place received two Squad Boxes of their choice, plus two packs of the new Fighting Piranha decals. Second place received one Squad Box and one pack of decals. All participants received a pack of decals, even last place, held by yours truly.

My tournament winnings. I was thinking of picking some up, being sick of hand-painting the numbers on my Gears, so was happy to win some.

There was also a prize for best painted army. Fortunately for most participants, Mason hadn’t finished his army although he did take 1st and 3rd in the Cangames painting contest. Ahhh, the dangers of painting every Gear like a miniature work of art. To compound the problem, his army was a single squad. With Mason not qualifying I was rewarded with the Best Painted Army title and a Squad Box and decal pack. So, despite my rush-job I guess they turned out pretty good. I may have to write a painting article, but it isn’t likely to end up here. The article will first go to Battlegames, although I’m not very confident that Mr. Hyde is looking for any sci-fi painting articles in his predominantly but not exclusively historical-focused magazine. However, I’ll make the query none-the-less. Failing that, the article would go to Aurora. One might argue that it should go there first. In my opinion, there’s more publicity having an article in an independent magazine than a free, in-house PDF publication. That, and Battlegames pays. Call me a mercenary.

This post has gone unexpectedly long. It was just supposed to be a quick note before a more detailed write-up next month. I’ll end here so that I’ll still having something to say. In the meantime, look for a little intermission next week as I paint the last 6 miniatures from my first 1812 battalion. Although Thursday I swore off painting for the next few weeks, the sense of accomplishment of having a full painted army at Cangames has put my mind to what my next painting would be. With some new, free miniatures courtesy of Dream Pod 9 I’m also in the mood to paint more Gears, even though I was feeling pretty sick of them as I was putting the finishing touches on my Cangames army.

Tyler