A little bit of pulp ...

I recently put together some playing cards for a game of Pulp Alley we're planning to try. It was quite fun and utilised my crafty side, which I haven't used in ages!

Here are some pics of the process. It's a very simple deck - there are 5 "Rewards" cards, 5 cards that appear only once and 20 cards that are duplicated in the deck, all labelled so it's easy to work out which one's which:

 

They're just printed on paper and glued to coloured card, then slipped into some deck protectors to make them easy to shuffle. You could laminate them too, I guess, but I always find that laminated things tend to stick to each other ...

The finished product:

Beginnings ... Wood Elf army

I've been collecting wood elf figures for some years now and haven't gotten around to putting much together. I think I've assembled some dryads and a couple of glade riders ...

However, I recently picked up a box of Wildwood Rangers (incidentally, also a box of Eternal Guard) and here are the beginnings of the first line:

Yes, I know the musician is missing an arm! Have you ever tried to whack on those one-handed giant axes? Not musician friendly. Anyway, he will probably end up with a sword in his other hand. Looking forward to putting together the rest and moving onto my Sisters of Twilight model I've been wanting to work on for ages!

Kickstarter campaign: Dark Sword Miniatures/Stephanie Law range

Hi all,

I thought I'd take a moment to share this Kickstarter campaign for a lovely range of miniatures based on the artwork of Stephanie Law (website).

There are lots of free miniatures to be added to the core bundle and some fantastic add-ons if you increase your pledge by various amounts. Here is a look at a couple of miniatures included in the core bundle (obviously they come unpainted):

And here is the link to the campaign. The campaign has already reached and surpassed the initial goal, so you're guaranteed the core bundle plus all the free minis and add-ons (additional $$) unlocked so far!

Anyway, that's my plug. Normally I don't go for these campaigns, but I really love the miniatures in this range!

Building progress - Flintloque hotel

It's been a while, but here is the progress on my building, which I've decided will be a hotel to use in our Flintloque games. This hotel will accept all kinds, from ogres to hounds, as you can see from the two-door entrance, which caters for all-sized guests!

 

 

Still a ways to go, but getting there! Need to make some shutters and roof tiles, and put in a balcony on the top level, cutting into the roof. Bring on the challenge!

Feedback welcome :-)

** Disclaimer: Mini is my husband's! Used to show proportions, as my pups were busy hiding in a box somewhere!

My first building - progress

So, I've finished all the beams and added some extra rocks and polyfiller for the rendering ... it's coming along!

I still need to tip off the loose rocks and do another layer of them, but it's still drying. Left to do are the windows and maybe some sills and shutters, as well as the rest of the rendered bits and rock border along the bottom of the entire building. Oh, and the roof!

My first building - WIP

So, here're the beginnings of my very first scratch built building! Supervised by my ever-talented husband, given the most complicated piece of terrain I've ever put together previously has been the perimeter of a fountain pool out of Hirst Arts bits ... Hopefully it turns out alright:

 

It's going to be an inn or manor, haven't decided yet, but will most likely be used in our Flintloque games! feedback welcome :-)

Painting goals - March 2014

Okay, so given there hasn't really been that much progress in my February goal (which was to finish painting all the non-civilian or non-special character Dogmen for Flintloque), that's going to feature in this month's goal, but I'll make it a bit more achievable and with some variety ;-)

MARCH GOAL
Finish painting all my non-civilian/non-special character Dogmen Line Infantry and Jagers for Flintloque! 
That's about 6 or 7 miniatures, including a dwarf who's joined the Royal Guard after fleeing his homeland, and a jager to go along with Jager Meister (previously posted) ;-)

Prepare some Maiden Guard for painting!
So I've got about 40 or so ladies waiting to be glued onto bases and filed etc., so I'd be happy if I managed to get 10 or so ready for painting (and maybe 1 or 2 actually painted!)

Wish me luck!

M&M horde!

Very excited to have received a mini horde of Maiden Guard in the post this morning! These ladies bring my Maiden Guard troops close to (if not over) 40!

A couple of them have broken spears and obviously quite a few of them have a date with Mr Simple Green tonight, but now I have HEAPS OF MAIDEN GUARD!! Now comes the epic decision of whether to have one massive unit or two. They'll be standing in as "Spearmaidens" (core troop choice) when I play with them, seeing as I don't particularly want to convert them to use halberds or something and become a "counts as" unit of Phoenix Guard or something. ... I have enough command figures to have two full units, but I'm also looking to make a couple of conversions with the spare minis. Hmm ...

Also in the mail today, another Marauder unicorn!

Love this sculpt, which I've purchased previously together with the HE Sorceress (also Marauder). Since I didn't expect to like the full miniature, I had planned on using the unicorn for a Wood Elf conversion. It's growing on me, though, so the sorceress might get to keep her mount while I use this other one for the conversion. Then again, I recently found ANOTHER conversion that I'd like to attempt that also requires a unicorn ... Decisions, decisions!

Or maybe I just need a third unicorn?

Schnöselburg jager

The next RGFSS recruit is a jager. I forgot to take a photo of him before painting, but if you compare him to his musketier comrades, you'll see the conversion work my husband did to give him a field cap instead of a shako.

Introducing Jager Meister! And here he is in his brand-spanking new uniform!

 

 

He'll shortly have a scruffy friend joining him. I want to see if I can have a few different types of dogmen in the jager unit ... they seem a ragtag bunch already!

New lead ladies!

Very excited to have finally nabbed a copy of the Ariel, Mage Queen of Loren figure! She's a hard one to come across at a decent price, especially still in the box!

I also got a couple of new maiden guard figures for my ever-expanding units(s)(?) in my parcel today, and an OOP wood elf sorceress that I believe is the rough equivalent of today's "Spellsinger" or "Spellweaver".

This is a pretty interesting conversion using the wood elf sorceress that I came across today:
Spellsinger on Unicorn ... I quite like it, so I'm wondering if perhaps I shouldn't have two of these!? Hmm, there's food for thought ...

I think I will be giving my Ariel a bit of a nose job, though, as she appears to me to be wearing too unpleasant an expression for a faerie. I feel she should be serene-looking ... I know she's not considered the nicest of sculpts from GW, but there's something about her that appealed to me and I wanted one.

I did see one version of this mini (this one on CoolMiniOrNot) that seems to have had some nose-work done - or, perhaps it's just the way she's painted - and she looks quite nice. In any case, I don't think it can hurt to give her a bit of a makeover! We'll see how she turns out ...

February painting goal - progress

When I made my February painting goal, I didn't really realise how much of February was actually left, let alone remember that February is a short month! So it's not looking likely that I'll finish all my rank and file minis, but I will definitely try to finish at least the remaining musketiers (and one pikeman!?).

Here are some crappy progress pics - most base colours on the musketiers. Will take some nicer ones when they're finished:

The black undercoated figures are another officer and a new addition to the jager unit. I have actually finished my first jager, and pics of him will be coming soon!

After this, I still have a few grenadiers to go. They'll likely join my March painting goals list, which will also include some civilian and character figures.

Pegasus! Unicorn! OOP! OOP!

In addition to the hoard of stuff I won in that eBay lot from my previous post and another one from this morning (yep, that's right!), I had ordered this figure about two weeks ago for a conversion I am going to make, and it just arrived:

It's the same Marauder Pegasus as the one in the lot I won yesterday, which I'm happy about, since it has no barding so that makes it easier to convert without having to "re-brand" it from its original army. This one will become a Pegasus-cross-unicorn - simply because the idea appeals to me - and have a maiden guard rider.

Maybe I will start working on this on the weekend. After all, I'm supposed to be working on my Dogmen for Flintloque, too! Will see how I go :-)

I also received this OOP Sorceress on Unicorn in the mail the other day, mainly for the unicorn, though the sorceress is pretty nice as well:

(picture taken from eBay listing)

This unicorn will be for a Wood Elves conversion ... stay tuned to find out what it is! ... and the rider will probably end up on a horse or something. I won't post any hint as to what the conversion will be, as it's not likely to be happening any time soon :-P

OOP High Elf extravaganza! Chariots galore!

VERY excited to have just won an eBay listing for some OOP High Elf stuff! Among other things, the lot contained some maiden guard figures (awesome for rounding out my growing MG collection ... hmm, might have to split them into two units!), a metal Dragon Princes standard bearer and a HE Pegasus (as seen below)!!

I was excited that it seemed to include the rider, though was missing the throne/chair, but it was a Prince Tyrion model. Not to worry, though, as I'm sure I can pick the throne up somewhere eventually and am pretty certain I can almost exactly convert the Prince Tyrion (since I think I've already got him!) into this Pegasus knight (and by "I", I mean my husband haha!):

Last night I also picked up this old Tiranoc Chariot from 1997 on eBay as well:

Lots of excitement in the High Elf camp! So far, I have acquired 5 chariots - all (technically) different! So, my army will include:

• Metal High Elf Tiranoc Chariot 1997 (pictured above)
• Metal High Elf Tiranoc Chariot 1993 (?) (pictured below)
• Plastic HE Tiranoc Chariot (current) from games Workshop
• Plastic Lion Chariot of Chrace (current) from Games Workshop 
• SPECIAL Everqueen Chariot (which will be a conversion from the current plastic GW kit and will feature the OOP Alarielle the Everqueen figure along with 1 or 2 of her maiden guard as charioteers!)

Very excited, as I never thought I would enjoy High Elves this much. To be honest, seeing the mass of rank and file troops on game tables in Games Workshop never really inspired me when it came to High Elves, even going so far as to say they were boring. But with the discovery of older, more charismatic figures, it is fast becoming one of my favourite races for Warhammer!

First game of Flintloque!

We’ve been busy the past couple of weeks putting some things together for a game of Flintloque, but on Sunday we decided to have a little test game. The board wasn’t even A4 size, but it was great for a three-on-three scenario. Here, the Dogmen of the Royal Guard of the Free State of Schnöselburg have come upon the elves of the Swizzic Republic, who are going over some secret plans:

(Board, house [left], hedge and table [both right] built from scratch by Christian.)

It is the Royal Guard’s objective to steal these secret plans, but the elves will protect them with their lives. You can see my grenadier has already been bested by the elves’ sure fire! Next, the cowardly Rittmeister Heißhund takes cover behind a barrel and fires his pistol at the elves:

Soon, the dogman musketier fires at the elven musketier from behind a tree trunk and the elf is hit and removed from the board. The dogman then engages the other elven musketier in melee and dispatches him brutally. Then the elven section leader takes revenge and removes the golden dogman from play. This leaves the two section leaders to battle it out in close combat. It is a tight struggle, but the dogman has the upper hand with his bonus from his sword of exquisite quality, and the elf is soon defeated:

The cowardly officer takes his prize gleefully:

Since we were just trying out the rules, we decided not to do away with any of our characters who had the misfortune to actually die. But we did roll for their fates anyway, and it was pretty simple to figure out what happened to each character. The rules are fun and creative, especially the special skills and traits (though we chose not to use them in our test game). There were a couple of spots that had us a bit confused, but after some more careful reading, we were able to figure them out. All in all, it was pretty easy to get a game going and certainly lots of fun!

Painting goals - February 2014

So, I was considering trying my hand at the Lead Painters League competition on LAF, but I just don't see myself being able to keep up with it. However, I do want to keep myself motivated to do more painting, so I've decided to set myself monthly goals instead.

Here goes:

FEBRUARY GOAL
Finish painting all my non-character Dogmen for Flintloque! 
So, that's about 10-12 (I think!) miniatures, including one dwarf that has sought sanctuary among the open-minded citizens of the Free State of Schnöselburg.

CanCon 2014: A spectacular find!

Drove down to Canberra for the Australia Day long weekend with my husband, to visit CanCon, as we do every year. It was surprising, though pleasantly so, to see a change in atmosphere. I was happy to see more female hobbyists, as well as young families with children and even non-gamers/hobbyists wandering in to see what it was all about.

We picked up some awesome stuff from the Bring and Buy, as well as the folks at Eureka. Probably the best thing I got was this old elven attack chariot - coincidentally one I've been hoping to find for ages - though it is missing a couple of accessories. We'll see about finding some replacements or doing some sort of conversion to make up for it, but SO happy to finally have one (and it was a bargain too!):

I also picked up some cool, old high elf dragon princes in metal to go along with my plastic ones; some 15mm fantasy minis (including a tiny Pegasus!); a dark elf bolt thrower; another plastic high elf lion chariot (not sure if I'm going to build it as the regular Tiranoc plastic chariot or do some sort of conversion with it).

From Eureka, I picked up this helmet tank - simply because it's quirky, but it will definitely fit in with my steam-punk figures if we ever get around to playing Empire of the Dead:

I also bought one of the new female elf conversion kits - the semi-armoured one, though they also have fully-armoured and unarmoured archer torsos available - BEST thing they've brought in for a while! They only come with heads and torsos, though you can buy spear arms separately. With the abundance of spears I already have in my high elf army (16-strong unit of maiden guard - plus the Everqueen - and 20 Lothern Sea Guard), I thought it would be nice to have some archers - though I wanted semi-armoured ones rather than the unarmoured ones in the kit from Eureka - so I picked up some legs, quivers and archer arms from Bitz Galaxy. Looking forward to putting them together and seeing what they look like! They'll make a nice balance for my troops, along with the unit of Sisters of Avelorn (also archers) I picked up from Good Games last year.

As always, post-CanCon enthusiasm has also led to some unplanned purchases, mainly to use with my high elves. Stay tuned for some interesting conversions!

The Free State of Schnöselburg

Welcome to the Free State of Schnöselburg, a territory of the world of Valon! I have to admit I'm not that much of a fan of modern history, but when Christian showed me the dogmen figures from Alternative Armies, I loved them! Here are the first few recruits of the Royal Guard of the Free State of Schnöselburg:

The ranks are as follows:

• Rittmeister Heißhund (captain)
• Grenadier Schnüffler
• Musketier Leckenstein
• Musketier Sprungstien
• Musketier von Schüssel
• Trommler Schwanz-Wedelte

TIP: check out a German-English dictionary for some interesting name translations!

The musketeers come from this set of line infantry and the captain is in this set here. The grenadier is from this set and there are plenty more of them waiting to join the ranks!

I've also got a jager coming along soon! He's from the infantry set. Pic to come shortly!

Got some more plans for the RGFSS, so stay tuned!

We sing for Wanderers!

With Christmas rapidly approaching, my husband and I started wondering what we could give my brother this year, since he has the tendency to buy whatever he wants the second he sees it! As he'd liked a couple of mini dioramas Christian had made him previously, we thought we'd try a soccer-themed one! He is an avid Western Sydney Wanderers supporter and part of the RBB band, SO we made this:

Here, the Wanderer (with a replica of my brother's jersey) faces off with two Sydney FC defenders. Needless to say, he thought it was AWESOME!

The figures were painted mostly by me, with the small details done by Christian, particularly the writing on the jerseys. The terrain was done by Christian and the team colours on the base by me. Was an interesting project ... the minis are very slight so they were a tad difficult to hold while painting, but they turned out pretty well in the end.

We didn't get a chance to get a photo before wrapping it up, but I will get some better pics to put up soon!

New year, new projects!

Happy New Year, all! 2013 was one hectic year. But here's to a new start in 2014!

After a fantastic trip overseas, I finally got into painting some Flintloque minis from Alternative Armies. They're not quite finished yet, but I'm hoping to post some pics by the end of the week!

My husband and I also put together a mini soccer diorama as a Christmas pressie for my brother - pic to come soon, too!

I'm looking forward to actually getting some projects finished this year - a new year's resolution, one of many! CanCon is coming up in a few weeks, which is always fun, so hopefully I'll pick up something interesting there. I usually do!

Just a bit of a hint (or wishlist, perhaps?) as to what I plan to work on this year:

• The Free State of Schnöselburg (stay tuned!)
• GW High Elves
• Large models (have a couple I've wanted to get started on for a while!)
• Christmas in July (a Flintloque escapade!)
• Some more VSF and mythology models
• Supercity!

It's going to be an interesting year in terms of study and other things, but this is my plan. Here's hoping!