Never stop terraining.

I guess the year of terrain is continuing as I've just decided to start fixing up all kinds of stuff.  I decided - for some reason - to finally fix my tree bases.  They've long been without static grass, and I decided to tackle all my trees today.

I re-did the dry brush on most of them, touched up all of the tree trunks and some branches.  I then re-did the bases edges in a more neutral colour...then finally applied static grass to all of them.  Needless to say, I'm...tired of static grass.

I also touched up some pine trees I've had for ages - taking the dark blue/green down several notches by spraying the trees with a mix of green spray paints.

The trees are shown here without their foliage - as I mainly did work on the bases.

More...and more scatter. Nonstop scatter.

I may not have painted as many miniatures as I normally do by this point in the year, but the "year of terrain" continues.  This is more scatter for the as-yet-secret terrain project.

I was so happy with the Wizkids stuff from the other week that I picked up some more - and I have even more to paint!  They really make excellent stuff for ancients and fantasy settings --- even if I prefer to repaint them to bring them tonally inline with my other terrain.

More stuff for the farmsteads and similar settings.

Some interior details and stuff I'll probably use in the dungeon crawl along with ancients and the fantasy skirmishes.

Some 3D printed fantasy scatter my buddy sent to me a while ago.  Actually put them under something, and forgot about them!

Pegasus Hobbies Fences: The Sequel

I recently painted up some scatter terrain for that project, and did another batch today - finishing another set of Pegasus Hobbies fences which I like so much.

These arrive in completely 'acceptable' condition, but I enjoy matching them to my colour palette.

As delivered, the Pegasus fences (each piece is roughly 6" long, so you get 36" of fence for around $15 which is reasonable) are painted typical brown and have a rather garrish green along the bases.  They're also a bit shiny.

When I receive them I do a few quick "touch-ups".  I first clip around the edges of the bases to round them off, so that the fences can align better when placed at non-90-degree angles.  I then apply some basing texture along the bottom, throw in some gravel, etc.  I then prime and re-paint them and thrown in some grass.  It's simple but effective and converts the fences to match my other normal terrain.

 

A picture "mid-surgery".

 

Zvezda 15mm T-70's...opinions included!

I've recently received a few orders from 'The Estonian' (an Estonian eBay shop which sells quite a selection of Zvezda at very fair prices).

I decided to start reducing the pile and I put together three of the new Zvezda 15mm T-70's.  While they're serviceable kits, I can't recommend them - particularly compared to the very nice Battlefront one.  However, as usual, at $3.50 a pop, they're tough to ignore.

The Zvezda models are far more true-scale, which means very very spindly/tiny gun barrels, tracks, machine guns, etc.  The pins/guides for assembling are very small, and I suspect as the molds age, this kit will get worse and worse.  It's also, unfortunately, a lot of pieces...for no real reason.

Am I happy having three more painted T-70s?  Sure.  But it was not a pleasant build and I highly suspect I'll be replacing snapped barrels sooner rather than later.  The Battlefront kit is simpler and more robust (admittedly some details are exaggerated, but for game play...I find this an acceptable trade off.).

Enough rambling, tanks!

Breaking the painting hiatus...kinda...sorta...

I've been off of painting for the past month or so.  Initially it was a week spent moving my brother into his new house.  Shortly before that I was sick for a few days.  Then after that...I was sick again for a week or two.  Since feeling better my motivation has been pretty poor.  I have - in fact - been working on "something" in the background, but it's not blog-worth just yet.

 I finally got off my ass today and did a little something.  I have ordered a handful of the rather decent Wizkids D&D pre-painted terrain sets.  They're selling for 30-40% off on Amazon and have proven to have some decent scatter terrain in them.  Of course, painted.

 Which...meant I opened the box and immediately primed them to repaint them!

Some various live-stock.  I re-based some horses I had from about a year ago, so that they match the table more easily.  I repainted the oxen and simply based the cows.  I may use the oxen to pull carts, and the rest of the animals are just for scenery (or use).

 

A bunch of the new scatter terrain promptly repainted.  It's some nice farm stuff.  The sculpts are not bad at all, though they don't clean too well with knives/files (it's that kind of plastic). 

 
 

Games!: Battlegroup, 15mm

 Played two games of Battlegroup yesterday (and one last weekend which I forgot to take pictures...).  Two games you say?  Eh, only because the first game went lopsided real-quick so we decided to re-rack and start over.

Games!: FSF and (unpictured) Armada!

Got in a lengthy game day today --- with one of my buddies who is off-work while recovering from some surgery.

We played a decently large playtest of Famine, Sword, & Fire.  Afterward we played a couple games of Star Wars Armada (but forgot to snap pictures!).

Some pictures from the game:

A few more berserkers and the painted lady...

 Just a few more models for the ancients army.