Cabinets, altars and trucks.

I've broken one of my own cardinal rules and let my hobby table become a bit piled-upon by projects which are all on-going.

I normally try to discipline myself and build...prime...paint...complete a small project before moving onto something else.  My blitz of hobbying over the last week or two has left my table scattered with some bits and pieces.  Time to finish them up.

A remaining cabinet, a Reaper altar (with some books/scrolls added to it)

These are four little collected trucks which are about 1/300 scale.  They came with a service crane (pictured below) and were sold alongside some Japanese Dougram gashapon figures I was using to make some Battlemechs.  I pulled a bunch of bits out of my box and assembled four different utility trucks for use as terrain and mission objectives.  One is a coolant/fuel truck, one is a scrap/recovery truck, one is a communications/radar truck and the last is the maintenance truck (the crane below is how the trucks are delivered via ebay).

You'll notice heavy dip on the trucks.  I did a quick and dirty paintjob on them and as my Army Painter starts to thicken (sadly happens every can) I use it on more and more terrain bits and stuff I don't care about.  The heavier dip actually gives them a dirty worn in look, so I didn't remove all of the puddles with my normal method.

I also started to finish up a couple of suspended bridges I'll be using for the dungeon crawl, and painted up a handful of tokens for Blood on the Sands (gladiator game) which I was too lazy to snap pictures of.

Veteran dice.

The beginning, circa 1989-1990.

 

While pouring through my gaming accoutrement the other day I stumbled upon a small bag of my original Chessex dice.

When I was maybe 9-10 years old, I was in the habit of going to a small hobby shop in Springfield Mall in Northern Virginia. The shop was small, probably already failing (as all hobby stores in malls tend to do...) and only had a few stands of Ral Partha figures, some ESCI/Ertl miniatures and the occasional other stuff I wasn't paying much attention to.

Having cut my teeth on games like Hero Quest, Battlemasters etc., I had grabbed some role-playing-game books from the local used book store and had only figured out that dice other than D6's existed.

I used my allowance (maybe w/ help of my dad, a fellow hobbyist) to pick up a twin set of Chessex dice, seen above.  This was before the "tens" dice became popular and before you could get additional D6's or D10's with your set.  It was a root beer and brown pair of sets.  D4-D20 w/ no repeats.

The root beer set remains intact and the brown set is missing two dice, one of which was taken by my sister for use with a board game she made for the science fair.  A stupid thing which I still hold grudge for today.

It struck me as I glanced through the dice that they'd been serving me well for nearly 25 years.  I've owned thousands of dice in that period, sold dozens of sets on, etc.  The dice in the picture above have been used for most role-playing games I've played and have always been my go-to dice when large numbers of dice were not necessary.

The dice are so worn you can see the edges chipped and cracked on the root beer D6 (one must wonder how many foes have been slain, or damage dealt by this one dice over its 25 year use...).  Sadly some of the brown ones are starting to show cracks in the center and I occasionally fear they will shatter upon impact!

I'm going to set out to replace the missing dice and possibly replicate the set for further use.  Only in my mid-30's, nostalgia creeps in when I stumble upon something like this.  They're silly little bits of plastic, but they've brought me a lot of joy and stubborn heartache!  It's perhaps my adoration for these dice which make me feel traitorous when I occasionally throw out extra dice, or sell them off.

I hope they continue to serve me well, as long as they can.  Thanks Chessex for 25 good years so far. I only wish you still printed this set...(I've asked, they don't!)

Tomb of the Hideous Wraith

I knocked out a handful of figures the past day or two.

Some GW Skaven figures used for Ratmen.  I added wicker shields and de-horned/de-spiked them a good bit.  I don't much like the colour scheme, but I'll stick with it now that I've begun.  I have another eight I'll do up for a total of twelve (my goal number for most henchmen types).

Another six spiders to make a total of twelve.  Only difference on these was the red diamond in place of the prior beige one.

The disaster.  This was a random skeleton lord in Reaper Bones material that I bought for no reason.  It was a mistake.  Very soft detail, super bendy - not the best Bones figure I've purchased.  It didn't take paint too well and ended up a mess.  I almost tossed this guy in the trash.  As he's finished I'll keep him on for dungeon duty.

And now...something completely different.  These are the two remaining Gladiator figures I've had sitting on my desk primed for...over a year.  One is a judge/referee/doltore figure.  The fella in dark blue is Charon (sp?).  He was an attendant who used a hammer to verify that a slain gladiator was indeed slain and not simply trying to sneak out of the games with a gruesome looking wound.  They will serve zero purpose on the table, other than the referee perhaps being a mobile obstacle?  I just had to get them off the desk! 

Henchmen reporting, sah!

I decided to beef up some of my henchmen groups.  I've added a couple of Bugbears in the last post, this post I added some more ghouls/zombies and a couple of extra henchmen.  Next up is likely skeletons.

Additional ghouls/zombies!

Now, with 50% more henchmen in every bag!

 Only had six bone piles, so I added a few more and a small bad-magic-juju spellbook pedestal.

 One of the cell doors and a prior occupant (Zagat's Top 10 Dungeons "Would stay again, forever!".)

 A tremendous weapon cabinet.  And I mean...tremendous, it's wildly out of scale but I'll use it.

I slapped these small cell doors together out of plasticard.  Just wanted some quick fixes for dungeons.  I mean, who doesn't have cells...in a dungeon!?

Not sure what's next.  I did slap together some battlemechs, but I'm on a dungeon roll at the moment and have a game to run on Saturday.  

Cobwebs in the Caverns!

After playing a mediocre game of Frostgrave (undecided on how I feel about that game), I got the urge to sit down and crack on with some painting for the dungeon crawl project.  This was a nice change from the utter blitzkrieg of Battletech miniatures lately (disclaimer: I received eight city-tech plastic mechs in the mail today, so look for that soon!)

Here ya go!

I did up two of my last Tre Manor sculpted Bugbears (really dislike some of the other bugbear figures I had done -- wanted some options).  The Bugbear unit is up to eight figures now.

The dogs are from Reaper I believe, and I just needed some suitable hounds, since they pop up in a ton of dungeon crawl games, as opponents and allies.

The last three figures were a complete...random project.  I was watching a certain film about a suitably sized amount of mischief in the rather diminutive orient and suddenly wanted to kitbash something for the dungeon crawl.  They'll work as any kind of undead beastie (necromancer, wights, etc.).

More stuff in the wings and in process.

Updates (11/1)

Light:

• Added 3025 Javelin, Wasp, Stinger, Locust, Urbanmech, Ostscout, Firestarter, Valkyrie blank cards.