“Return to Normal” Gaming Challenge

Experimenting with basing for the Volcanic Dwarves that are the second half of this Saga project. These were home built with just cork board, green stuff, and wood glue. Now that the process worked. I’ll do a tutorial when I do the larger batch build.

I also got to play around with the new airbrush my wife got me for Christmas. It worked fairly well for this, but I think I need some kind of glaze to make it look less “dry”.

Took a swing at the test model for the sea elves. I decided to go with a Pacific Islander skin tone, rather than the pale sea-foam color of the GW models. To pull this off I needed to add some other bright color, so used bone for the armor, which also helped me avoid the use of metallics. I think I might need to go a little lighter on the skin tone to counter the dark blues, browns and greens, but I think overall it came out well.

So here’s the first completed model for my Undersea Lords of the Wild force. This is a Shell Cracker from the Wrath of Kings model Range. I’ve got 2 of them, and will probably expand it by another two to get a full unit of 4 Hearthguard. Im not sold on the swords they come with. I might kitbash them out with extras from the Idoneth range.

I plan to use the same dark sea-green in the clothing of all the models to tie them together.

So continued progress on my coral reef basing experiment. This first step shows the base with a layer of painting.

• Vallejo khaki basecoat on the sand,
• Washed Sand with GW Seraphim Sepia wash
• Drybrush with Vallejo Buff, or similar bone-like off white

After that, the coral was painted with GW Rakarth Flesh

• Wash coral with Athonian Camoshade (GW)
• drybrush with rakarth flesh (GW)
• Lighter drybrush with white

Coral reefs are often colorful, not just grey, so in the next step, I washed layers on the sides of the reef. Bottom half was washed purple, top half GW Colia Greenshade. I did the green while the purple was still wet, so they blended together at the edge.

Lastly I dry brushed again with the same Rakarth and white. Unfortunately it seems I didn’t snap a photo at that step.

after that, I took some brighter washes and paints (Caraborg Crimson, Fuegan Orange, Wraithbone) and picked out some shells and coral blooms.

Lastly I mixed some water-effects resin with a little blue-green paint, and poured it gently around the reefs. The resin doesn’t flow like water, it’s more viscous, so I needed to use a toothpick to tease it into the tighter corners.

Next update. No painting yet. However, as the WoK models come with these lovely recessed bases, I though I would try having them match in off a coral reef. These could turn out really cool…or fail horribly.

I started with cork board which I heavily distress with cutters and a knife, and glued it into the recessed area of the base. I then added superglue and baking soda as the main “grit” as it’s super-fine like beach sand. I then added small patches of normal playground sand for variety. Lastly I added small blobs of green stuff, and textured it by poking it with a sculpting tool, to give the appearance of coral “blooms”.

First update is my first set of minis for my fantasy undersea/sea elf army. Two sets of sea creatures from a game called Wrath of Kings. Picked up from the sales table at my local game shop. The “Shell Crackers” (conk shell guys) will make excellent Hearthguard (elite infantry) while the tentacle beasts will make great quadrupedal creatures, even if their bases are slightly large.

I’ve decided to take upon myself what I’m calling the “Fauci-Ouchi-Gaming Challenge” (I saw somewhere on social media a small child use the term for the COVID vaccine, and I’m using it from now on). The challenge is to pick a new game, and complete at least two small forces for it before the summer. This serves two purposes: (1) to give me a project to distract me from the daily WFH grind, and (2) allows me to run demo games when things start being more “normal”.

My pick: Saga, Age of Magic by Gripping Beast Games.

Saga AoM is a miniature agnostic fantasy game, like Warlords of Erehwon, allowing you to use any company’s minis. This makes it great for players with orphaned fantasy minis. What I also love about it is it has force themes, rather than armies lists. Each army has mostly the same units: Warriors, Levies, Hearthguard, Creatures, Monsters, War Machines. What makes armies unique is their “Battleboards”, sheets of special rules and abilities that can be purchased during the game.

Army themes are made to cover play styles, rather than races. The Great Kingdoms, The Lords of the Wild, The Undead Legions, the Otherworld, The Horde, and the Masters of the Underearth. This means not only could the same theme cover very different races, but the same army could be played using different themes game to game. The “Lords of the Wild” can represent Spider-Riding Forest Goblins, Wood Elves, or Beastmen, while beastmen could be played as “Lords of the Wild” one game, and “The Horde” the next. This format gives an enormous amount of both gaming and modeling flexibility.

If interested in learning more about the gameplay, you can watch videos on the Saga Thorsday challenge. A warning, he doesn’t have the most engaging vocal delivery.

My planned forces are a respin of my Warhammer Fantasy Battles Dwarves, and my own alternative take on a Sea Elf army. More to come on these.