Tales of a hobby butterfly

I wanted to make the metal look more rusty and worn, usually I would use a rust effect like rhyza rust but was trying to use the pens as mutch as I could, so tried using the pen to gently draw on small dots of fire giant orange then smudged it with my finger, once dry I did the same again with hardened leather.

The edges of the weapons then got a line of polished silver on the edges.

I’m pleased with how quickly they were finished and ready for some dungeon shenanigans. Using the pens was quite different to a brush you can kind of relax a bit as the paint won’t run the pen like a  brush if you sit back and watch a bit of something before going back to colouring in.

The nibs are a bit chunky so some parts were a bit difficult to get to which is the main reason I used the strong tone was to cover up the gaps.

It’s cool not having to worry about getting clean water as there are no brushes to look after.

It was a shame the bases had to be painted with a brush, I suppose if I had used more layers it may have covered properly but that would not be speedy and would probably use a lot more paint so I’m happy to get the brush out for that.

All in all I enjoyed the pens a lot, it’s kind of cool to find new ways of doing things.

Got some funky cloaks in the post today, so thought I would have a go at making some Vikings I have for saga and other games like pillage a look a little bit more dapper before they leave on a raid.

The cloaks are fiddly to attach mainly due to my oaf fingers, I’m sure as I get more practice it will get easier.

To start with some modgepodge was added to the cloak and left to go tacky, some was also applied around the neck and back of the figure.

Once they were both tacky I used a needle to move the cloak to where I wanted it on the figure.

• Viking dude before he gets his funky new threads

Bam 💥 looking cool and ready to rampage

The tiles have loads of detail which washes and a good dry brush pick out nicely

At some point I will build the walls to go with it.

The termite was cool but a little small so decided they needed a land train or Squat part bus to cruise around in.

I had an old storm lord that was not doing anything so decided to pull it apart and see what I could come up with.

After wedging a cider can in the back to hold the turret up i then built around it in card and plasticatd.

I’m pretty pleased with the result so far

Hopefully in the future I can build some carriages to follow it into battle but an feeling the draw of another more dungeon crawly project at the moment so the land train may go on hold for a bit.

I have been quite enjoying getting the bits together to play solo games recently, and quite fancy giving five parsecs a go.

The rules are cool as they can be used for pretty much any settings you fancy.

Having a load of Star wars legion models that need painting I thought it would be cool to base the campaign in the grubby back waters of the Star wars universe. Keeping away from the sith and jedi and concentrating more on the scum and villaney elements

Maybe running my squad as a group of mercenaries going from job to job with rival crime lords to get credits to scrape by.

Or maybe use the bad batch models as my crew.

That’s a decision for later first I have some enemy’s to paint up.

A group of pike syndicate and black sun enforcers so my crew can work for rival crime lords

As well as bad guys, thought it would be cool to paint some dungeons and lasers sci fi scenery I had in a box.

This stuff is completely modular so could be used as internals for buildings or bunkers, should add some cool elements to the tabletop

I have been trying to decide on a colour scheme for my empire army for a while now.

I hear all the cool kids go with Averland so tried painting up a unit in black and yellow, but I struggle making black look right so tried a few other colours, blue and yellow green and blue so on and so on.

So I decided to leave it a bit and worked on some other stuff.

Then whilst eating a battenburg cake it hit me pink and yellow would be swish on the table.

This also gave me a chance to try out the newish speed paint pastel colours which was a cool bonus.

also gave me a chance to try out the krautcover mud effect which looks pretty cool and was simple to apply, the fixing agent that is used to hold it together works very well so should reduce the chance of the bases shedding over time

The crew move up towards the troops guarding the supplies.

Splitting into two teams, cooties stays back with the medic and Rostand to cover the other twos advance as they try to get into the trenches to outflank the defenders.

Rostand uses the calm before battle to dig for extra loot and finds nothing but stinking mud.

Cooties takes aim at the enemy and squeezes off the first shot of the battle, it’s a good hit, the target let’s out a muffled groan but keeps fighting bringing his machine gun to bear, seeing this the crew duck down behind the crates Corelli is too slow and takes a minor wound but nothing he can’t deal with.

Whilst the enemy is otherwise occupied, the other two keep pushing forwards towards the trench line trying to get the drop on the defenders.

Wolfgang drops into the trench followed by his team mate knife drawn and ready, a strange mewing noise coming from behind his mask.

They creep up to the corner and watch as the enemy move off towards the fire fight happening to there right.

Cooties keeps his nerve and fires again, he is painfully aware that he only has three bullets left.

Corelli stays put behind the crates and binds his wounds.

Rostand stumbles forward  to protect the others from the enemy scrambling out of the trench.

Wolfgang charges around the corner and stabs at the enemy causing a wound, startled the enemy fights back lashing out with a dud grenade as a makeshift club the fight carries on untill a lucky hit takes Wolfgang out of the fight.

Knife in hand and letting out a scream the nameless scrambles up the wall of the trench and charges into the enemy that is pinning the others down with his machine gun.

The knife does it’s work taking an enemy out of action, allowing him to then collect a supply crate.

Rostand hacks away with his shovel causing some damage but then takes a trench club to the face taking him out of the fight

Cooties aims and fires avenging his fallen comrade.

Corelli jumps into the trench trying to grab another supply crate.

With one round left cooties takes a shot at the last guard easily taking him out of action.

The trench maggot slowly squirms towards the fresh corpses.

With two of the creates in their possession and two members of the crew down and possibly dead they decided to withdraw to lick their wounds and resupply before venturing out into the fog on the next mission.

Back at the bunker the quarter master awards the crew 70 requisition points. Also both crew members that were down at the end of the mission pull through though not completely.

Rostand has developed tinnitus reducing his presence by 1 and wolfgangs wounds became infected meaning he will start the next mission suffering with a disease reducing his effectiveness all round.

Some of the requisition was spent on a flare gun to provide some light on night missions and will be useful to flame some monsters later on.

Cooties now has a bandolier and a reload for his rifle.

Corelli has a lantern to provide constant light for the other crew members.

The rest of the requisition will be hidden away in a safe place for use later.