Weekender XLBS: Gerry Shows His Stones & What Keeps You Building An Army?
March 24, 2019 by lloyd
For some website features, you will need a FREE account and for some others, you will need to join the Cult of Games.
Or if you have already joined the Cult of Games Log in now
What difference will having a FREE account make?
Setting up a Free account with OnTableTop unlocks a load of additional features and content (see below). You can then get involved with our Tabletop Gaming community, we are very helpful and keen to hear what you have to say. So Join Us Now!
Free Account Includes
- Creating your own project blogs.
- Rating and reviewing games using our innovative system.
- Commenting and ability to upvote.
- Posting in the forums.
- Unlocking of Achivments and collectin hobby xp
- Ability to add places like clubs and stores to our gaming database.
- Follow games, recommend games, use wishlist and mark what games you own.
- You will be able to add friends to your account.
What's the Cult of Games?
Once you have made a free account you can support the community by joing the Cult of Games. Joining the Cult allows you to use even more parts of the site and access to extra content. Check out some of the extra features below.
Cult of Games Membership Includes
- Reduced ads, for a better browsing experience (feature can be turned on or off in your profile).
- Access to The Cult of Games XLBS Sunday Show.
- Extra hobby videos about painting, terrain building etc.
- Exclusive interviews with the best game designers etc.
- Behind the scenes studio VLogs.
- Access to our live stream archives.
- Early access to our event tickets.
- Access to the CoG Greenroom.
- Access to the CoG Chamber of Commerce.
- Access the CoG Bazarr Trading Forum.
- Create and Edit Records for Games, Companies and Professionals.
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
![Warcradle Studios Reveal TINY New 10mm Festive Marker! [Updated]](https://images.beastsofwar.com/2025/11/christmas-kyle-main-600-338.jpg)
Happy Sunday!!!
Happy Sunday Backstagers!
Happy Sunday, congratulations on the prize matey 🙂
Thanks! I’m been bragging to my fellow gamers that if they were on OTT on a regular basis then they could win something too. ?
Future Wash is a marvellous substance It has so many wonderful uses
the future’s bright 🙂
It even come in an orange bottle now lol
I have to wear shades. 😉
Happy Sunday
Happy Sunday one and all!
Just a quick “hello” to say I’ll be live streaming today at 7PM GMT on the Sitrep Twitch Channel, hopefully playtesting new vehicles in Valor & Victory: expanded to 1982 Lebanon. We have Israeli M113 Zeldas (troops transports and gun IFVs) along with Palestinian technicals (with DShK 12.7mm HMG and ZU-23-2 twin autocannon).
Hope to see some of you there, to see how these new units work!
https://www.twitch.tv/sitreppodcast/
Happy gaming, everyone!
Hopefully I’ll be up and watching.
I’m a giant M113 Fanboy so I’ll set my alarm now.
I’ll set a reminder on my phone and try and catch this.
Hopefully I’ll be back home from my second drive about here in Kansas, photographing small Western Train Stations for my ‘Dead Man’s Hand’ table build.
Thanks to everyone who stopped by! That was a great stream! I was only going to stream for an hour or so, turned into 3:45:00! I will be “off the radar” next week due to EOQ at work, but i really hope to be back starting on April 6 for some live games, either Valor & Victory Lebanon, Vietnam, Panzer Leader WW2, Panzer Leader Lebanon, Panzer Leader Gulf War 1991, or of course Darkstar!
Thanks for walking us through V&V and spending that much time with us.
Looking foreword to Jennifer’s ‘Live – Modern Miniatures Wargaming Cooking Show!’ ??
Happy Sunday everyone!
Happy Sunday!
Large armies seem to be a thing of the past for me now, well at least starting any new ones. I have a 40k one I’ve been trying to sell for a while; my Beastmen and various LOTR aren’t going anywhere as the prevalence of new open model rulesets shall breathe new life into them.
As for those potential armies still in the form of sprues… I shall be retiring eventually and at that point with plenty of time on my hands I’ll probably get around to moving the boxes somewhere else ;~)
lol
In terms of smaller forces for skirmish games I do get inspiration from playing legacy, escalation campaigns; for example starting off Infinity with 50 points and adding 50 points each round. Also a good way to get other members up and running with a new game for them
At some point you know you want to plan adding a 70-90 point Tag so you have to leave some points in the bank the previous round.
Sometimes I’m adding models already in my collection, painted; but often this a great excuse to treat yourself to some new models for which you have time and motivation to get table ready.
oh I’m all for that, it was the “I’ll probably get around to moving the boxes somewhere else ;~)” that almost had me snorting coffee over my screen 😛
Happy Sunday lads and ladies. Looking forward to Saga talk or anything Dark Ages really. I’ll settle for Saga terrain.
I like to think of terrain as 60% of the game, the minis being the last 40%. It’s always there even when your warband is dying or gone. A good table really makes it.
@lloyd you didn’t really subject your poor wife to that abomination of a movie did you? The History is actually not too bad but those effects are garbage. My Third Most important Battle in History (Number 2 is Tours and Number One is Milvian Bridge). Fun Fact Napoleon eventually became the owner of King Sobieski’s Sword and gave it to his son in his will but I’m not sure what happened to it after that (His son died without an heir in his early 20’s).
I lost it at Knightfall and stopped watching after it was pointed out to me that I was yelling at the TV more than I was watching it. Really a Templar is going to throw everything away for some woman? Imagine you have $20 Million in the bank, a very comfortable house, a guaranteed income that meant you’d never go bankrupt and could live comfortably for the rest of your life and your children’s lives. Now you give all that up to serve God. You take Holy Oaths of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience and give up all your money, land and titles, never have children and your family dies with you. Then some Damsel in a skirt come along and you think “Eh you know what I gave up a lot to do this and if I screw it up I’m going to be in serious trouble but why not?” You had to be an Aristocrat of some stripe to be a proper Knight Templar, this isn’t the Nights Watch.
Really liking the terrain guys.
All my non-historical armies have stories. Heck even the minis I just did for @laughingboy s Competition have stories. https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/1365678/
My Star Wars Legion are Urban Fighters with an established Story.
My Counts as Imperial Guard that I haven’t even finished yet have a giant pile of story, rnak structure, Regimental/Planet History and even explanations of how a Percussion Cap Looking Rifle can be an Assault Rifle.
My Greek Style Vampire Counts are the one I’m most proud of. The Vampire has a story, the area he “lives” in has a story, his army has a story, his mentor has a story, every character in the army has a story and every unit has it’s own specific reason for not being what it “should” be. Rather than Skeletal Black Knights he uses Heavily Armoured Humans (Warlord Games Sarmatian Cataphracts
?v=1397473712) that want to become Vampires, but he has a flaw that he inherited from his mentor that makes it incredibly hard for him to make Vampires and most of them end up as Vargheists.
Happy Sunday guys
@avernos lovely work on that scenery buddy you have really brought them to life. Are you going to leave them there or look into moss and lichen techniques as well?
@lloyd if you want a shine on the ice maybe using a masked area or all of it, you could try clear plastic lacquer or maybe even Halfords clear coat spray. It may end up too reflective but it is a cheap try.
@brennon great book sir loved Sturm. Also, glad you’re going back and picking up the Dark Elf trilogy one of my personal favourites. Dragonlance Tales may be your next purchase though if you enjoy the Chronicles, it is a heap load of short stories based around a lot of the characters from Chronicles.
@dignity good to see you back buddy.
cheers matey, the yellow patches are lichen, I’m toying with some blended turf for moss on the ruins along with some more tufts, but I don’t want to go over board as they’re just quick scenery pieces.
Happy Sunday!
Another great wee show.
@lloyd and @avernos Claymore Castings and Antediluvian Miniatures are awesome. Claymore have some new English archers coming out soon, which are possibly the nicest archers I have ever seen. My wallet asks you not to mention these companies on the show too often as I have too many unfinished projects at the moment…
@lloyd great idea for the frozen water effect. Perhaps a light gloss varnish would help give it a little sparkle. I must give it a try at some stage. One idea I have for snow is I find a lot of snow products to be very flat, and am thinking of adding a small amount of glittering to see if I can get it to have a little sparkle… Might be an idea.
Also that antislip thing from Lidl looks a good job, must have a wee peek in there next week.
check out https://www.precisioniceandsnow.com/ I have their snow effects and it’s fantastic, a little pricey so I also use Woodland Scenics snow flock, which I think is the best on the market outside of Precision’s stuff.
Build up with the Woodlands and then a dusting of the sparkly stuff over the top.
@avernos I picked up three sets of the Vallejo Paints like the wood ones and are great and easy to use.
The sets I have are
MERDC Camo Colors – https://acrylicosvallejo.com/en/producto/hobby/sets/afv/merdc-camo-colors-71202-es/
US Modern Desert Colors – https://acrylicosvallejo.com/en/producto/hobby/sets/afv/us-modern-desert-colors-71209-es/
Wheels & Tracks – https://acrylicosvallejo.com/en/producto/hobby/sets/afv/wheels-tracks-71213-es/
The Templar movie Gerry’s taking about is one of the Arn movies. Apparently there are several, including a TV series. It’s based on the books written by Jan Guillou.
https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0347188/?ref_=m_ttfcd_wr1
that’s the one, didn’t realise they’d made a series as well, I’ll be watching that this week.
Great show all! Gerry, your Simpsons reference was class! Love it! Also those stone walls turned out amazing totally life like!
Interesting bit of chat about the building of armies, I myself tend to build my forces around how I see my army working, or building around a particular unit or model that I love the look of! I dont think I’ve ever been one for spam, or min maxing units to give myself a competitive advantage! For me my enjoyment comes from the narrative side and theatrics that I envision during the game, while trying to provide my opponent with an enjoyable game too!
HAPPY Sunday! And I really like those models of the Scotts, and Jerry great work on the stone buildings. Lloyd, don’t worry about too much over your experiments on making grass lands, I just happy this was an episode with no Burrows and Badgers (we don’t need no stinking Badgers). I wear a prosthetic on my left leg and on occasion the security makes me take it off an hop through the x-ray machine. The snide comments from others in line who are witnessing this border on the X rated and sometimes make me really laugh.
I’m shocked Ben didn’t see how good an idea that the grass would be for B&B.
Lovely looking terrain @avernos I think its time i make myself a project list, to actuely get more of my stuff done ;D but the fields Lloyed been building looks fantastic aswell
Building army list, I usally choose what I like modelwise or lore wise in 40k, scifi, and fantasy. In Bolt Action i try to built a historical themed army.
I enjoyed Knightfall and looking forward to series 2 especially as Luke Skywalker himself Mark Hamill is in the second series as a Templar trainer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIp1HInSTTE
52.22.@caesar ” comic come to life “……
It’s uncanny
Happy Sunday all.
Happy sunday folks! 🙂
All my armies are based/themed around a story or fluff from the various background books. Once I have a setting and theme it’s very easy to start building armies to fit that….. and then keep going… until your house is full… @gerry understands 😉
Some examples of my armies:
Horus Heresy:
– Iron Warriors are the loyalists from the Invasion of Paramar from Book 3, lots of infantry squads, armour support and flyers.
– Death Guard started life as Istvaan III loyalists, but soon became Istvaan III traitors when the proper DG units where released, mainly infantry with a few tanks.
– Ultramarines are based on the final battle at the starport from Know No Fear, infantry hunkered down in the ruins with heavy armour support, no fast-moving units.
– Thousand Sons are an armoured column from the Battle of Tizca in Book 7, every squad mounted in a Land Raider, bike squad and flyer as fast support, couple of tanks to back up the infantry.
40K (Pre-8th):
Minotaurs are from the Battle of Amarah Prime from Imperial Armour 12: Fall of Orpheus – the 1st and 4th Companies.
Bolt Action:
Eastern-front Germans ~autumn 1944 were from a FoW source book (damned if I can remember the unit now though!)
Of course, the obligatory 101st Airborne from Operation Market Garden / Battle of the Bulge
Star Wars Legion:
Imperial Hoth-based force – Veers, lots for snow troopers, E-Webs and an AT-ST
Oh, and G’man and Hellblasters… yeah that’s just horrible. One of the final games of 8th I played before I quit 40K was against Calgar, Lt and 10 Hellblasters. They just deleted every unit they looked at in a turn with re-rolls for days… no fun at all.
@avernos broke @dignity at 1.41.
I never touched him!
” Slam them together…Now Kiss ” i believe is enough evidence for a Hobby Court charge of breaking @dignity .
oh yeah I forgot about that 😀
I won’t.That’s going to stay with me for a while….
I really love those medieval demons.
@brennon I hope you enjoy Dragonlance, I love it and have ALL of the books, the modules and the campaign setting material 🙂
Certainly looking forward to it!
Like Justin I enjoyed Knightfall; it might not be entirely historically accurate, but it still works as historic fantasy. Interested to see where things go when Luke Skywalker joins the cast in season 2.
I think Lloyd’s AstroTurf mats work well even without the paint as they look like long grass especially from some sort of Vietnam flick or the like. Would be interesting to see a fantasy game on it with halflings on one side; I imagine they be able to completely hide in the long grass/corn so could be a nasty surprise for your opponent (just don’t forget where you put them if they’re on your side lol) 😉
Turd Turnover Sunday?! oO
Great show guys as ever.
@lloyd Loving the work with the ice. I’ve been trying to create Frostgrave terrain to do each of the published scenarios justice and the second one from the main rulebook (Battle on the River) has had me stumped for a while, but you have cracked it with this technique.
Regarding army projects and planning, I fall into the camp of , plan, build, paint and move on. For example with 40k I sit down and plan out a 1000 point force sometimes with a theme and sometimes just to build a good army then complete it and move on to another army or force just to keep my collection growing and to keep myself interested. When I feel the time is right I return to the army and usually add extras in 500 point blocks to either cover gaps in the force that I’ve discovered in playtesting or to add a cool new model I really want to add to the army. Once Ive done this a few times I get to 2000-2500 points of models and can then start really mixing up my lists.
The key for me is that doing it in discreet blocks helps me to keep my focus and productivity up.
I’ve had one eye on the Fogou stuff,a measured purchase over a few months ( wallets strained atm with Salute and Mantics May 4th Open Day on the horizon ) will have to be looked into though.
Lloyd to get a shine would using a satin or gloss vanish over the paint work than the film?
@lloyd @avernos Might be a bit late but a lot of gamers use these there 6.5 feet by 5 feet and they take aerosol spray really well
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gaveno-Cavailia-Fleece-Blanket-Double/dp/B003YUMMK4/ref=asc_df_B003YUMMK4/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=262036648989&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16610735999291039687&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=t&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045196&hvtargid=pla-435787935494&psc=1
I think that’s what he used, albeit in brown rather than green
These ones are faux mink so the hairs or whatever there called are shorter and finer
I had a great time at Charles du Gaulle Airport with their security people. I had already visited London and purchased a very large number of 1/3000 scale warships from Navwar but had no weight left in my suitcase. So they all went in my backpack at the bottom. Apparently on the x-ray scanner that looked like a solid, spikey mass of doom and the two security people were understandable worried.
My explanation that they were ships didn’t make it through the language barrier so I pulled out a few to show off. Somehow, divine luck was on my side because I pulled out the aircraft carrier… Charles du Gaulle in the first handful. They were so curious the line got held up for a good five minutes while they asked me all sorts of fascinated questions. I had a similar experience at Heathrow the following year except the British manning the line were just dead inside and waved me through once the supervisor said it was okay.
For anyone in the UK the Thomas Asbridge series about the Crusades is on iplayer. His books on the subject are highly recommended as well
Happy Sunday!
“.. and slamming them together and going ‘now kiss’ ” – Oh my word, I laughed so hard!
Happy Sunday!
A very strong and steady show today, it felt almost like i was sharing an afternoon with some friends in my living room!
Airports! Oh my God! I used to do a lot of traveling around Europe when i was younger and i used a 75lt backpack rather than standards suitcases as it was just a lot more convenient and comfortable for me.
In 1 year of flying, i made 13 flights between England, Spain and Germany, of those 13 flights i was stopped for a “Random” search 11 times!! It was funny the first two or three times by the eighth or ninth time it got very old!
Anyway, did anybody else notice Loyd sub-consciously stroking his pet grass every now and then? Made me chuckle 🙂
I think i will have a look at the Dragonlance Chronicles, I’ve been reading a lot of sci-fi recently but i think i may just switch gears and dip back into fantasy for a bit. Also the book series Uberstandtfuhrergrossuniversemeister Gerry mentioned about the SS group sounds very interesting so thanks for the heads up on that one.
Thanks for the great show and the lovely Sunday comfort that XLBS has become and keep up the good work!
It’s called Tragedy of the Faithful by Wilhelm Tieke, it is not an easy book to find in English, small canadian publishing house do it in limited runs. But it’s a fantastic read with a lot of unique photographs from the author and other members of the unit.
Thanks for the info.
Happy Sunday! @avernos Those buildings are looking great. Hope you manage to keep momentum on ticking things off your list. I’m trying to do something similar, to get stuff finished, maybe i should nick your idea and do a project-log to keep me on track.
Gerry, who makes those not Star Wars troops?
@lloyd tutorials on the grass please!
those are the FFG miniatures for Legion
I think @redsarge might be talking about those lovely sci-fi troops from Wargames Atlantic,the Raumjäger ? They’re on Facebook,with a website / store coming soon.
yes they’re on the way, sci-fi trooper and skellybobs. Fear not I will be returning to them when they are on release 😀
Thanks for the info.
https://wargamesatlantic.com/ site now live to preorder
This is definitely in my top 10 for Best XLBS. Just 4 guys talking hobby, having fun. Thank you for keeping me so well entertained.
that’s what we aim for, that and Columbo painting groups
We need to get Lloyd a ‘Bob Ross’ wig to put on as he paints ‘Happy Grass’ for us! ??
Very entertaining that would be!
lol empire verses the druids?
the silver an frost effect may be good for old windows? @lloyd
nooo Lloyd doing the dance of the seven play mats.
Happy Sunday all!
So I’m with @justin on the knight fall. Found it entertaining and fun to watch. But I try to never take any TV series/movie to serious and just try to enjoy it for what it is. Truth is no recreation of history is ever going to be accurate and us armchair historians (yes I’m one too!) just need to realize that our perspective is skewed by those who have written on it before us. If you are looking to TV or movies to be accurate it’s just never going to happen. Just enjoy it, life is too short to get wrapped up in the little things!
I read the Dragon Lance Chronicles over 20 years ago they are great, I still have my copies as I plan to re read them.
On the potatoe bread, you guys are spot on point! When my wife introduced it to me on my first visit to her family there I knew I had to marry her! ?
Guess the only humorous thing that happened to me more than once was the security inspecter wanted to look at my miniatures just because they were cool, and actually asked me to come back to another room just so they could look at them more, and she called 3 other guys into the room to have a look. I must have spent 15 mins in there with them asking me about my storyline that went along with each figure. Fortunately I was plenty early for that flight!
Love the bases on the minis…. is that the shops army? Where is the project for that?!
Yeah they’re the ones John painted up.
But is there a project? If not, why? 😉
not for the men, when FFG sent it it was under embargo and there was two days before it could be announced so John couldn’t live stream it, but it meant there wasn’t time enough to do any tutorials. He was actually doing a week long project of something else and had to stop that entirely to hammer those out. The later stuff, all the vehicles got one. But alas FFG was slow getting the initial set out.
Damn you FFG! DAMN YOU! *shakes fist at sky*
Waaait a minute… “@ceasar should be painting this” … he already did… What is this?! Conspiracy? Time loops? WHAT AM I?! HALP!
Funniest thing that happened to me at an airport… that’s a tough one…
because I have never been in a plane flying somewhere. So, looking from the balcony, waving my mum goodbye as she headed of for month to Bath. 30’ish years ago. That’s about my experience with airports.
Ok, well, technically I was stationed at an airport in my 4 years of military service but there was no more flying just our AA company and everything funny happening there is confidential. Soo… move along, nothing funny here, move along citizen.
I always build my armies narratively, there is more fun in making them for me. Like my Dark Angels 5th Battle Company, they’re 5th battle company and because of the way the Dark Angels work and based before the or around the era of the 13th Black Crusade they basically don’t have access to 2/3rds or maybe even more of the codex. And then the amount of things they can have is limited.
Ben, I think for your DND sessions you need to make Foogu a dark god or some sinister force….
Kngihtfall – Season 2 has just begun and has Mark Hamill. Season 1 watched – Average acting at best, Templar fighting in mud, next scene .. pristine without a hair out of place.
I have persevered because of Mark Hamill .. I am hoping is it ends up like Black Sails … First 2 seasons were painful but then it because a really good series. (Either that or I became numb to the badness 🙂
Happy Sunday
WarHound67
Loving the frozen lake stuff. Could you model a partially submerged ship stuck in the ice, (in a Shackleton type way). Could make a good objective? Or even crew verses natives that come onto the ice to plunder the ship?
Could work with SAGA Viking longboats stuck in the ice facing other vikings or even say native Indians?
If you guys invested in some green screen technology, wearable terrain capes could be cool for creating a “floating head” effect!
@avernos, your “Edgy” Joke was Tres amusing, but just a bit too smart for the room! I laughed out loud!
which was that, they keep me sedated so I have no idea what I’m saying
Hi Gezza, The bit about the “Edge” living in Los Angeles.
Full marks for the Vallejo wood paint set. I’ve been playing with it and it’s ruddy lovely!
Best Line ever. I took Linden home and popped my wee men’s into it….