2023 Hobby Log

Another year has come around and it’s time for some goals. I’ve some bigger than normal life stuff this year so hobby goals are going to be a little easy going for 2023.

1. After last year’s pathetic two games played, play more games is the first goal. I have two local clubs (each of which has one to two sessions a week) and a small group of gaming friends, there’s really no excuse to not get something to the table.
2. Paint complete armies/forces to get them on the table, not just for the fun of painting them. I realised last year that only one project was a complete force for a game. I have several half armies, lettuce try and finish some. I also have a few smaller warbands for games that could fairly easily get painted up and played with.
3. Finish painting the terrain that is hiding in the cupboard. I get bored really easily when it comes to painting terrain but it really does make a difference when it comes to Goal #1

That’s it. Just three things. Seems perfectly reasonable.

We’ll see in 12 months time!

So far January has been about painting dwarves but to start my week long holiday, I wanted to crack into something a little different. Part of getting to play more games this year is about having complete armies for games others around me are playing but I also want to get starting forces up for games I want to introduce people to. Team Yankee is one of those games.

I picked up the current two player starter box because, despite having no interest in having a US force, it is a great value box for getting into the game. The Soviet force will get used once I expand anyway and neither force is huge out of the box.

The Americans have three Abrams, two Bradleys and two M60 Pattons.

The Soviets have four T-80s, three T-64s and two BMP-3s.

So 16 models in total.

Rather than build everything all at once and overwhelming myself, I decided to just build and paint one unit at a time. So Friday evening came around, I stuck on a new show in the background and away we go…

I’m not fussy when it comes to camo for these little tankies but Wargamer Pete has a really simple tutorial that I followed the rough jist of but using the colours that I happen to have.

The colours I used were:

Prime black

Scale 75 American Olive

50/50 mix of American Olive and Vallejo Khaki

Army Painter Fur Brown

Vallejo London Grey with some black paint mixed in

Seraphim Sepia and Nuln Oil

Weathering was thinned down Stirland Battlemire and very light drybrush of Army Painter Desert Yellow

The Wee Man was painted up with Kislev Flesh and Velljo Russian Uniform (WW2)

First unit done. Now I really should get back to those brock riders for Kings of War…

• Unpainted 2878
• Painted 39
• Bought 16
• % painted 1.3%

• Paint up an Underworlds warband for a one day event on the 11th.
• Finish dwarf units for Kings of War Ambush
• Base colours down on one unit of AOS trolls
• Build Necromunda team for a campaign in March
• Get started on Moonstone and Rumbleslam models
• Sell some miniatures so the cupboard is a little less terrifying to open

I’m still pretty ill so, though I am signed off work, painting time has been losing out to video games most of the past week. I’ve also had to admit to myself that I’m not going to be well enough by Saturday to be heading out to a one day Underworlds tournament. I finished up the warband I was going to take so at least they are ready for the next event in March.

Next up, I decided to try and get some terrain done. I don’t enjoy making terrain and as a result, no matter how grand my plans might be, tables just don’t get finished.

I’m going to try a slightly different tact for a bit and just do buildings once in a while and hopefully little and often will get more done. To begin, inspired by all the chat on The Weekender about Dead Mans Hand, I thought I’d go back to a table I started 18 months ago.

Originally I wanted to try and make the table from scratch but realised that just wasn’t going to happen and it I want to play this game, I need to be the one to do the terrain. I looked at the TT Combat White Box of Western terrain but I’d like to try and stick with plastic for this one so it is easier to throw in a box for storage. In the end I went with some buildings from Renedra from their American line.

The broken record returns; still ill, still off work, still not up to much hobby time. I have been working on a 20 model unit that I’ll post about when it is finished. The one is about the American Church from the last post.

The plastic Renedra kit was easy enough to put together and I wanted the paint job to be quick and cheerful.

Primed with a mid-brown

Vallejo Pale Sand sponged over to give them weathered painted wood look for the walls.

Vallejo Dark brown and Mournfang Brown for the doors, window shutters and the cross.

Contrast Wyldwood on the roof shingles and a dry brush of Vallejo Color Model US Field Drab.

Vallejo Air US Field Drab (weirdly a totally different colour compared to the Model Color) for other bits of wood to just differentiate them (window frames etc).

Total painting time was about an hour not accounting for drying time. Every time I thought about adding in little details, I had to remind myself that it is just a terrain piece and done is the point. It’s a little small once you put it up against the miniatures (one is a Great Escape Games plastic gunslinger and one of their metals) but once there is a whole table, I won’t care. Other people might. The wrong kind of people who have no place in my gaming life.

Another piece of terrain done watching the XLBS yesterday. It is sort of a test piece for a near future project.

The building is the Routledge Barn from Warbases.

• Once built, I sprayed it with a coat of varnish to seal the MDF before priming with Colour Forge Black
• Sponged on a mix of Vallejo London Grey, Army Painter Greatcoat Grey, GW Elysian Green, and Vallejo US Field Drab for the walls
• Sponged the inside of the barn section with Vallejo Charred Brown, GW Mournfang Brown and then stippled some brown texture paste
• Door and gates painted with Vallejo Charred Brown and GW Mournfang Brown
• P3 Coal Black and a 50/50 mix of it and Vallejo Prussian Blue were sponged onto the roof
• Watered down texture paste and some GW Elysian Green were put on the roof and walls to age it up a bit (I think a little too much however here we are)
• Some fine turf flock and some clump foliage for moss
• I didn’t do anything with the inside of the room behind the door; I’m too lazy

Part of being off this month, I have been reading a fair bit. One of the things I decided to get to was rereading Discworld in publication order. I usually dip in and out of the series as the mood takes me but I’ve been meaning to go start to finish for a while now.

Seems like a good time to finally get round to painting the Discworld miniatures that I have had sitting in the cupboard for a while… and to have an excuse to pick up the others as I read through.

First up, The Colour of Magic. Sadly not one of my favourite books. I’m just not a massive Rincewind fan and I’d never recommend it as a starting point for anyone starting on Discworld for the first time. It was fun to go back to where it all began though and putting paint on the luggage was very pleasant distraction.

Up next The Light Fantastic and model Rincewind himself

Time for last month’s goals and achievements.

Sold: 99

Painted: 39

Bought: 16

Total Unpainted: 2700

• Paint up an Underworlds warband for a one day event on the 11th.
• Finish dwarf units for Kings of War Ambush
• Base colours down on one unit of AOS trolls
• Build Necromunda team for a campaign in March (halfway finished)
• Get started on Moonstone and Rumbleslam models
• Sell some miniatures so the cupboard is a little less terrifying to open

Also added in the first of my space dwarves and two buildings!

• Decide on Spring Clean Challenge project (it is narrowed down to two at the moment)
• Paint up a unit of AOS trolls; I’ve had to pull out of the league due to ill health but getting some paint down should encourage me to keep going with them so when I am able to get games in, the army will be ready
• Necromunda campaign seems to be off the table for now i.e. no one in the Discord has mentioned it since early January but I have partially built a team so aiming to at least finish building and getting primer on them.
• Possibly refresh some Malifaux miniatures as there is talk of games at the club in the next few months