I’m going to have a Bar Room Brawl this Christmas!

When I saw Mantic Games were releasing a single run Advent Calendar  (https://www.manticgames.com/barroom-brawl/ – link to show what I know about it and not face copyright problems although I’m sure Ronnie isn’t as harsh as YouTube ( which was a great insult when I lived in Edinburgh (and yes multiple brackets – remember BODMAS))) I was intrigued.

I’m not usually a fan of the fantasy games with some exceptions, Moonstone Gerry, but the fact that this was called Bar Room Brawl gave me flashbacks to my youth.  Yes I grew up in a Catholic household so Advent Calendars and Candles were a thing.  The Bar Room Brawls came in my 40’s but that’s a different tale (message me if you want to hear some cautionary tales, proud but not proud of defending drunks from predators).  So you can see why this game/piece of Festive Cheer would appeal to me.

As I said in the Title/Headline the aim is first of all to resist the temptation to open the windows before December 1 and secondly to have a fully painted game by 25th December.   6 minis in close to a month you say, no problem.  Read on.

There are a number of challenges I face with this:

1. I have some problems with my eyes which means sometimes I can’t do any painting and days I do 5 hours is about my limit.
2. I work nights as a Retail Replenishment  Colleague for Produce ( yeah Bubble doesn’t stick the veg out at Asda, I do) and this is about to be the busiest time of year.
3. My son is staying with me and sleeps in my painting room but works days so access to my hobby space is limited.
4. I have no idea what is behind each window, Advent Calendar etiquette leaves the biggest reveal for the 24th but game logic would say dice on the 24th.  If it is a mini I am working Christmas Eve.
5. Finally, I’m also trying to get an Enforcer’s team built and painted for Necromunda.

That is all my excuses laid out in advance.  Now the Plan.

1. Paint each model to a good table top standard at the very least, after all these are limited edition hand cast resin minis.
2. Try to get them painted on the day of opening, or at least until the next one is revealed.
3. Make use of Contrast/Speadpanit/Xpress Colour where possible to, well speed thigs up and add contrast in an Xpress way!
4. Keep terrain simple – basecoat, wash, drybrush should do it.
5. And finally try to upload an update each day – my Advent Calendar to you x.

That’s all for now – see you Friday (and I’ll try to use less brackets( and some of my Bar Room Brawl stories do involve wearing a kilt(although to be honest it had a zip so it was a skirt!)))

Please note this message is not meant to glamorise violence of any kind but let’s face it we play war games and life can be S**t.  Love to you all.

After waiting a few weeks I finally got to open window number 1 and now I have something I always wanted – a bar in my living room.  This should be a quick and simple paint job but more of that later.

Yay, the first of the figures and it’s the bouncer (I think) so I better behave! A lovely sculpt, I especially like the pressies round his feet and can’t wait to get some paint on this but that will have to wait as I have work later.

See you tomorrow.

Just a token gift behind the door today (see what I did there) but I do like the odd shapes.

The first of the heroes revealed and a very nice mini it is too.  It doesn’t show in these images but you can see that the skirt is made from individual rags with distinct stitching and she clearly has elvish ears.  The image on the front of the box and the silhouette do show her with a Santa hat and antlers which aren’t actually on the model but this is no big deal – I hate Christmas hats as well.  A fair bit of clean-up to do on these minis but again no big deal.

Missed another day of uploading but now I have seen the light.  Yes this one was a brazier on a pole, some of this scatter terrain intrigues me – is it just for flavour or will it have some part in the rules?

I will probably attach this to a 25mm base to give it a bit more stability, I have some resin cobbled bases I made a few years ago that I made by cutting up bits of sprue, gluing to a cardboard disc then making a silicon mould.  These along with some simple wood picture frames and a wooden door and frame combo make great dump moulds for any excess casting resin you may have mixed up. 6 days in and some actual hobbying tips!!

Casks of ale. my Christmas is made.  ‘Nough said.

Ok, so first impressions.  Under £30 for a limited release item this set is amazing, a bit of clean-up needed on the minis, a warped base (solved by dunking in hot water) a slightly bent brazier (hot water should fix that but may leave it).  Anyone new to Mantic and the quality of the minis this is a great intro to what they can achieve (I have a 1000 pt resin/metal/plastic Firefight army – see the project – https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/1776060/) and also to their Terrain Crates which I had never seen in person.  It puts me in mind of the Vinyl sampler albums that record companies used to put out, a mixed bag of stuff they had available but around a common theme and at a greatly reduced price.

My week in general, work, eat, sleep and yesterday I took advantage of the clear skies to take a (cold) trip to Liverpool.  Sent off a Christmas present to a friend, Loke Battlemats Calendar.  Wrapping and postage cost more than the present!  Bought myself some Monument paint primer, Black and White (2 bottles not all in one I already had grey and they don’t do striped), some Speedball Pink Soap brush cleaner and a Winsor and Newton Series 7 No 1 brush (Cass Art £20 rather than £29 but always out of stock on-line so you need to visit a store).  They also do a reasonably priced set of self branded Kolinsky brushes at a decent price.  Resisted the temptation to buy myself more paint, a box of Votan Brôkhyr Iron-master to add to my Christmas Battle box and a Hellblazer Graphic Novel.  As a further aside apparently there is a shortage of Manga, the main US publishers are having supply issues.

On the painting front I managed to get some paint on minis but not as much as I hoped, I worked an extra shift Monday night so only had a few hours sleep and also had 3 baskets of veg fall on my right shoulder, only a glancing blow but giving me occasional pain.  Simple grey prime and white zenithal on all the models with a Xpress color Wasteland Brown on the wooden items, it’s a yellowish brown with good coverage and the coffee staining that occurs when painting flat areas does help with the realism, most bars I have seen in the rougher bars have an uneven look to the surface finish and I even used this to my advantage to add some glass ring staining from spilt drinks on the bar surface.  I may add a black oil wash to the bench.  I started painting the female character but my initial thoughts of slapping on a bit of contrast/speed paint/Xpress Color went out the window they are just too nice not to spend at least a bit of effort on them so I didn’t get this finished in one sitting, I hope to get some more done today but as I start work at 10pm and I woke at 7 am I may need a bit of a kip this afternoon.

Note – I will add some WIP pictures later but at the moment my son is staying with me and asleep in my hobby room so I  can’t get at the mins.

Until next time, take it easy and don’t let Christmas stress you out. Oh and Happy Hanukkah to our Jewish friends, if you have the Bar Room Brawl calendar you can open 3 windows a day over the 8 nights!

Pictures now attached, noticed there is a bit of paint missing from the tip of elf’s nose so need to touch this up, otherwise quite pleased even though painting the presents after the figure was a nightmare.

No need for a picture today, It’s another brazier.  These must play some role in the game, guess we’ll find out in 16 days.

Hi def macro photos on your computer show all your mistakes, looks like my female hero had the paint rubbed off from the tip of her nose (need to fix this) and from some angles she looks like a clown!  I have so much respect for the painters who can do eyes but I will persevere.  In reality on the table top I think she looks great especially for around 4 hours work, but that nose has kept me awake all night (good job really as I was at work).

For anyone who is following along it would be good to hear from you, criticism accepted (be kind), advice, tell me you love what I am doing, tell me a bad joke or just say hello.  Remember if I disagree with you and we meet in a bar we may brawl (Whetherspoons at UKGE 2024, I’ll bring the game).

I have heard of scatter terrain but this takes things to a new level.  Better not sneeze when painting these items!

It’s time for the 3rd mini and this time it is the Bar Keep.  I feel there should be some joke here about him being the token dwarf in the set but I can’t think of one.

Clever one this, in the set of tiny  terrain pieces we got a fire, now we have a hearth to place it in.  My mind quickly went to OSL for the painting but we’ll see how that goes!

This is why we call them tabletop games.  Wonder if day 13 will be a little copy of Bar Room Brawl.  Halfway there so time to get some more paint on plastic.

Another mini, that’s 4 down and 2 to go with 11 days left.  It looks like Mantic were keen for us to have these painted in time for Christmas Day which is excellent.  I love the look of this one, very elegant but that candy cane is going to be a pain to paint.

Managed a good session yesterday, everything so far painted and varnished, took about 7 hours including breaks for drying, more details tomorrow in the weekly update.

Oh and don’t tell Ronnie but someone slipped me an extra base!

And let’s see what’s through the Oblong Window (ask your mum!) it’s a Round Table.

Not much of a ramble this week as not a lot happened other than the calendar and the fact I have everything up to day 12 painted.

I’ll start with the simple things first, everything got a prime in either black or grey followed by a zenithal of white.  All the wooden items were painted the same as last weeks with Xpress Color Wasteland brown.  The fireplace was a simple black/grey paintjob on the stone with a wooden mantle although I did add a bit of red/orange OSL into the hearth and some darkening over it to represent smoke damage.

The braziers were painted with Pro Acryl bronze with black Xpress Colour for the coals and a glaze of red/orange over the centre of this.  These were then attached to some cobble bases I had previously made to add some stability.

Talking of the braziers , those weird spikey bits that came in the bag of little items – flames for the braziers as far as I can tell but for now I have left these and the other tiny items stuck to a painting stick until I find out if they play a part in the rules.

Touched up the nose on the female hero from last week.

I had planned to try NMM for the first time on the Bouncer’s armour but realised it had too many separate panels in different facings so stuck with Pro Acryl dark and light silver.  The cloth parts where painted in a simple black Xpress Color – this colour scheme is based on the bouncers in Tux’s from the nightclubs of my youth.  The red hat and book add some visual interest and if your name isn’t in the book you aren’t coming in! As a bit of an aside I once went to a Lindesfarne Christmas concert and the Bouncers in monkey suits were sticking party hats on everyone.  You didn’t refuse (I said no once and was growled at).

The Dwarf Barman, that was obvious, Santa but I went with the green as I guess Coca Cola wasn’t invented at this time.  Again it was basically just an Xpress paint job with the dog being painted using Speedpaint Hardened Leather.  But check out the filthy grey cloth, maybe not the best place to drink.

I finally gave all the models a coat of Satin Varnish.  And now on to next week  – not long to go now.

Dice to see you, to see you dice.  It’s a Brucie bonus.  I’m not usually a Dice Man (just ask Luke Reinhart or George to his mates) but these Christmasy ones are nice and big.

A different set of tokens – these look like the ‘did you just spill my pint’ tokens.