Basic Impetus - Fantasy edition

The long-awaited fantasy supplement to the Basic Impetus rules is available:

Basic Impetus - Fantasy

It is a PDF, and best of all it is free!


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Table

Along with the long work weeks, another obstacle arose in the path of my painting plans: the dreaded furniture move!


Here is a current pic of my painting table... strewn with the debris of a hasty movement, and this is after some time already spent on re-organizing!

Along with the tedium of moving boxes and other furniture items around, there was unexpected joy. During the shuffle, I discovered yet another box of minis that I had thought (or wished!) long gone. This discovery, however, just muddles my plans even further, as the minis are of yet another, different scale. A sharp-eyed observer will recognize some of the mini packaging on the table in the pic - Peter Pig, Essex, Battlefront (!), and even DP9. 15mm! The 15mm pile spans a lot of different eras and genres - Bronze Age chariots, Vikings, AWI, Ottoman Turks, WW1, WW2, and even sci-fi.

So, what to do?

Having already tried 6mm and 10mm, I am going to try my hand at painting a few of these 15mm minis. I do need to straighten the table out first...


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This & that...

Sorry for the lack of pics - hopefully this will be the last week of long work-days and I can relax a bit.

I made a minor change to this blog's style - what do you think?

I'm slowly working on painting those Old Glory orcs; the skin colors are an ongoing struggle. No green-skins though for this batch!


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Tekumel on the Lost Minis Wiki

Eyin of the Lost Minis Wiki has started a specific page for all of those Old Guard/Ral Partha/PhD Games minis for Tékumel - Legions of the Petal Throne


He is missing a number of pics but it is a good start!


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Empire Outriders, part 6

Here is a pic of the very first horse I have done in 28mm:


Wow, not nearly done yet, but it is getting there. I used a mix of Daler and Rowney Burnt Umber ink and 50% Future and coated the entire horse except the saddle. I like the effect of the ink on the horse; the mane and tail will require some dry-brushing to make them look right. The tack does not look good, so that will need to be repainted and then a wash of Reaper Pro Paint Wood Stain Ink to give it a more leathery and less pink look. The saddle will be dark grey and the blanket will be dark blue.


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Fantasy plans

In a rare departure from the norm, I am trying to set forth a plan for painting up that fantasy Pile of Minis. Making the plan won't be hard but sticking to it will!

First off is the orcs. I am not going to paint these up as the usual GW-style orcs; I have so many lizardmen types (Reptus and Reptiliads) and humans (maybe - the Yan Kor troops are a 'future' purchase) that will be in green, so the orcs will be different. I intend to shamelessly steal Tim's orc skin scheme - a reddish-brown as shown very well here. It will not be exactly the same, but rather close.

I also need to re-base most of the orcs onto round bases from square. Taeklonn has offered a handful or two of old GW slotta bases that will work perfectly.


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Halloween terrain bits

Feawin and I were at the local store the other day, and stumbled across their Halloween display. One item caught my eye immediately:



These are supposed to be sprinkled across a table for a kid's Halloween party, but I think that they will make great terrain bits. They are a bit big - the skull piece is just over 1" long, but for fantasy games they will be just fine for an ancient battlefield or graveyard of giants! 25 pieces in all - skulls, rib cages, hand-wrist-forearm, feet, and thigh bones. The store we bought these at (we grabbed two) is notorious for overpricing, so these should be available for much less money.


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Planning and scheming

I hate to admit it, but I spend more time thinking about minis than painting them. I always have some new project in the front of my brain and I never seem to get much progress on the projects on the painting desk. And, right now I have several items on the future to-do list:

1. Romans v. Celts - I should be doing much more on this than I have recently - as always I'm a bit distracted. Feawin and I have discussed this somewhat; she does not want to use plastic minis which leaves Warlord Games and Wargames Factory out. As this project is more about battles in England I would like to use Romans in lorica segmentata. Foundry is out due to pricing (although I do vaguely remember having a few Wargames Foundry Romans stashed somewhere!); I don't remember if Old Glory has Romans in segmentata (i.e. Early Imperial Romans). OG's Celts are not bad and a few are already represented in the handful of bowmen on the desk. Gripping Beast and Crusader might be the next logical choices.

2. The latest distraction - Napoleonics. That one word can conjure up a lot of gaming passion in some. Napoleonics has been a bit of a side show for me. I have played several Napoleonic games in the past - Napoleon's Battles, Shako, Piquet - and have even painted a few. My first non-naval, non-micro scale historical unit was a 6-stand 15mm Ottoman Janissary brigade mounted for Napoleon's Battles. But, lately, I have fallen for all of the new 28mm Napoleonic minis that are being produced. And, true to form, I am actually looking at something different than Peninsular battles or 1815 - the great campaign against the Austrians in 1809 or the Revolutionary battles in Italy 1796-1800 would be more to my liking. This would be in the skirmish scale, with maybe Sharp Practice or Song of Drums and Shakos as the rules. More thought is necessary for this one...


In another seemingly minor note - if you go back to my Piles of Minis post, you will see a number of minis primed black. I normally prime my minis in white or light grey. Being somewhat lazy, I do not want to strip and re-prime all of those minis, so the painting desk will see more experimentation than usual in the near future. Who knows, it could revolutionize my painting methods!


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Legion of Ever Present Glory, part 5

So, so close to being finished !


Here is the command group for my first group from the First Legion of Ever Present Glory troops for the Tsolyanu. The pic is a bit blurry - I forgot to hit the macro button prior to launch. I have finished the bases in a more temperate fashion, as I am trying to co-ordinate all of the skirmish-based minis into a single scheme. I might add a bit of coarse flock from Woodland Scenics - maybe not.



All twelve of the troops arrayed. I believe that the trim on the shields is the wrong color - should be black I think. They still look OK in my opinion; not enough red to make them into Mu'ugalavyani. Now I just need to paint a few dozen more, especially the bow-armed troops!

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Moving slowly, but progress

Small and infrequent they are, yet some paint is being applied to minis -- sorry but no pics yet --

The first small set of Legion of Ever Present Glory troops for the Tsolyanu are almost done. I completed the bases earlier in the week; they only need a clearcoat (which will be yet another story as I am definitely not using the wonderfully toxic Dullcoat anymore...).

The unit of Empire Outriders is getting a dab or two of paint also. I am about to start Step 2 of the horse painting experiment - the block colors are done (with the exception of the saddle) and now a wash of ink will be applied over the entire creature. Scared? Yes I am.

As the prospect of having completed minis is getting closer, I have been thinking more about terrain. I have a few plans and some materials gathered, so soon I will attempt to make... something.



There is yet another MMORPG that is absorbing my time and attention. It is a new game from NCsoft called Aion and it is quite simply beautiful. The graphics, from characters to terrain, are stunning even with our outdated graphic cards. I will try to post some screenshots - I have a large collection since I have been using them to get ideas for mini terrain projects.


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