2024 Hobby Log

After a good few months of working on big projects, I decided I wanted to work on something more contained. Something that could be done in a month and possibly get a game in. I’m working on Burrows and Badgers but that is mainly just terrain as the warbands are already painted up.

Going into the stash, there were several options jumped out but I fancied a little something sci fi. I’ve had a Deadzone starter box in there for a while so out it came.

There aren’t a lot of models to [paint up (24 in total) but there is a bunch of terrain. Until I figure out what arms etc to stick on the models, I thought I’d pick out and clean up the terrain first. Part way through I remembered that someone I was on a discord with a couple of years back gave me a bag of Deadzone tiles so I have a few extras. I  also added in an extra Terrain Crate (one of the £30 booster sets, £24 from your online discount retailer of choice) to have access to more intact walls.

Then, before I did anything else I went back and re-read all of Draconis’ magnificent Delving back into Deadzone project here on OTT.

My whole plan had been to be mostly intact buildings but once I got started putting everything together, I really liked the look of the ruined bits. It makes every space playable and while that might not make sense if we want to get into the woods of what each building is designed for, it’ll make for a more interesting play experience.

So I stuck on Fellowship of the Ring and got to cleaning and dry fitting some buildings. As designed, the terrain comes with these little plastic tabs that mean you don’t need to glue anything and every piece can be modular. Possibly I’m just a pathetic nerd with no upper body strength but I found the piecing together just annoying enough to realise that I don’t want to have to do it every time I want to play a game. After a bit of online research, I decided instead to stick with a couple of fundamental footprints (2×1, L-shaped and a small tower) that I could glue together and some scatter for cover. It was important that it fits back into the starter box for both storage and ease of taking wherever I can get a game in.

I know that the conventional wisdom says terrain shouldn’t be too colourful or it up-stands the minis. I get that, I do. But… Look at this stuff from a Kickstarter a while back? Doesn’t that look neat? I have a second table planned for Deadzone that will be more neutrally coloured so in the meantime I’m going to live my colour loving life.

As it is terrain, it seemed like a good opportunity to use up some cans of white primer that I’ve not really been impressed with. The TT Combat sprays have been great but for some reason the white is always a bit spluttery and this can in particular is really bad. After trying to battle through, it was making such a mess I had to chuck it and go for a can of Colour Forge’s Wight Bone.

Next was some masking tape. The band at the bottom of the buildings was to be quite narrow with a wider one at the top. This secondary colour is Army Painter Deep Blue. Unfortunately the white primer had done a bit of a number on the plastic in places but some weathering should cover up the worst of it.

I went round with Wraithbone in a pot and tied up the little spots of bleed once the masking tape was off; not an exact colour match (the pot is a little darker) but it won’t be very noticeable on the final product.

I wasn’t going to spend a lot of time on details but going through and picking out a metallic vent here, exposed rebar there. I do want this terrain to look like a clean version of sci-fi (the planet has only recently been declared a Deadzone). To look a little more fancy I went with a Vallejo Black Metallic paint for the vents, door panels etc. I then went over the exposed rebar with some Citadel Leadbelcher.

All this was done over the course of a day with lots of time waiting on primer drying. This is where it will have to stay for a few weeks as I’m on a bit of a slog at work and I want a nice clear weekend for the next stage.

For the last few years, I’ve spent my Sunday evenings through the autumn and winter playing solo board and card games. One night a week completely offline, playing a game – it is delightful. This year I’ve decided to add in miniatures games to the mix; a chance to try some new games and paint up some of the minis from the stash that don’t really have a reason to get painted otherwise.

One of the genres I have a couple of games for is science fiction. Thankfully I also have a bunch of minis that I can paint up but I was lacking some basic cultists. Now I could have bought a box of Stargrave cultists and weapon swapped them but I really don’t like the look of the Northstar plastics and didn’t enjoy painting them for Frostgrave a few years back. Great kits, it is a me problem. Thankfully, the old GW cultists are cheap as chips to pick up on eBay and I got 20 odd of them for £12.50.

They came “fully painted” according to the seller but they are awful. I was going to strip them but the layers that are there aren’t very thick and, at the end of the day, these are just cultists… 

1. a couple of evenings painting over the existing base colours with the Army Painter Fanatics paints, tidying as I went was nice easy work. 
2. Everyone got a dark tone wash – this left them all shiny but other than a pass with skin tones, I’ll only be knocking that back with matte varnish.
3. Basing is going to be done later once there is a bunch of stuff that needs done in one big batch
4. This is sci fi so obviously the rims are black.

And just like that, some of the cultists are done. They won’t win awards but they don’t need to… they need to die in droves while the big bad plots and the good guys go do a do-gooding.  I’ll keep working my way through them but they are really dull to paint so I might mix them into other things for a bit.

I picked up Kill Team Hivestorm recently because everything in the box looked cool and the solo/co-op play mode interests me. There is a pretty strong local community for the game here but I’ve found them more focused on min-maxing and tournament play which is the last thing I have an interest in, especially for skirmish games. To be clear, they are a nice bunch of guys but when the main person spearheading the community doesn’t paint minis and only plays with the strongest current team, we’re just not both going to enjoy our game.

So solo Kill Team gets a roll out. Even if it isn’t fun, the models in the box are lovely and I’m excited to paint them up. The terrain doubles up on some I already had but the two big stronghold buildings will be nice additions.

A couple of evenings with a good audiobook and everything was built. Unfortunately the Scottish autumn is truly with us and spray priming had to be done over two days. I’ll cover each of the Kill Teams and the terrain in their own posts so let’s start with…

The human faction in the box were destined to be painted up as my personal Guard outfit, Rath’s Furies. The models are great and because they are for solo play, making sure the team was WYSIWYG just wasn’t a priority.

Painting:

1. Prime Colour Forge Matt Black
2. Main armour colour was Vallejo Model Colour 70.980 Black Green
3. Trim and metal detailing was done with Citadel Canoptek Alloy to make the metal a little warmer than a more normal (for me anyway) gun metal.
4. Straps and leather pouches with Citadel Doombull Brown
5. Only the leader went without her helmet to make her easier to spot on the table so she got some Citadel Kislev Flesh (wash with Citadel Reikland Fleshshade and highlight back up with Kislev)
6. Gasmask tubing was Vallejo Model Colour 70.988 Khaki
7. The fabric clothing under their armour was left black
8. All the weapons were left black but got a light drybrush of Army Painter Gun Metal, as did the jumpacks
9. The officer’s bunnet was Vallejo Model Colour 70.982 Cavalry Brown
10. lenses on the helmets got dotted with Army Painter Fanatics Pure Red
11. All the bases got a thin layer of Citadel Technical paint Astrogranite
12. Everything got an all over wash with Citadel Nuln Oil
13. Highlight back up with base colours
14. Bases got a drybrush of  Citadel Dawnstone around the edges leaving under the model darker thanks to the Nuln Oil. It is a bit of a cheat but it gives a rough idea of shadow
15. They are sci fi minis so of course they were rimmed with black

Over all they took a day to get done, most of that being because I find trim work mind numbingly tedious and kept getting up to make another cup of tea. I’ve happy with the end result though; they would look better with an extra pass of highlights but I’ve turned into a much lazier painter over the last couple of years and rarely bother with anything more than just a highlight with base colours.

From the first post in this project:

1. Play more games. Last year I got to meet Woodstock and had some great game days with them. I played with a few other people and, even when I didn’t enjoy the rulesets, the games were fun. This year I’d like to play more games with more new people. If I could get to the table with something twice a month, that would be fantastic. Solo games would also count for this. Failed – only four or five games played all year, only one new person met.
2. Paint for more charity events. I used to do a 24 hour charity stream every year but my health doesn’t really mean that is possible these days so focusing in on other ways I can contribute to charity work would be nice. After the success of The Ginger Dwarf raffle and the Space Ducks projects over the last two years, giving my hobby time feels like a logical way to do that. I did paint a handful of models for a charity raffle back in the first half of the year but it feels like maybe this is just a thing that has passed now.
3. Finish up the year with more models painted than unpainted in my collection. I have fallen back into bad habits over the last couple of years, especially when my mental health is bad, buying models I don’t need and can’t really afford and then doing nothing with them. Being honest with myself, there needs to be a big cull but also just working on painting existing projects will help. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…. Failed. This year I painted around 400 miniatures (counting smaller scale minis by bases only… I’m not working out how many tiny space marines I painted!) but my overall painted % is abysmal right now.
4. A big group game for a big celebration in the summer. Failed.
5. Try going to tournaments – likely Kings of War. I’ve never been to any kind of tournament and it is a side of the hobby I’d like to try. I’m a scrub player but I want to see what another way of playing looks and feels like. Failed.

So, that’s a whole lot of failure there. With the exception of goal 3, all the failures were related to the social side of the hobby. I’ve really struggled over the last year with being social in any way, shape, or form and so it’s not a surprise that those goals were amongst the detritus of my personal life. 

Goal number 3 was an unmitigated disaster. Not only did I not fix it, I made it significantly worse. It is however something I have been quietly focusing on for the last two months and will be a goal over the next couple of years.

1. Play games. This  isn’t about playing more, beating previous goals or meeting new people. I just want to play games. I’m not going to suddenly fix my social anxiety but I can try to be a bit better about it. 
2. Paint more than I buy. I paint a lot of models but I also, especially when feeling low, buy a lot. Like the first goal, this isn’t something I have a magic fix for but painting more than I buy feels like the kind of mantra I should be able to keep in my head.
3. Finish projects. I have a swathe of unfinished projects in my wake this year and I don’t feel great about it. The projects I have finished (or got to defined break points) feel really good. So in 2025 I’d like more of the latter feelings and fewer of the former.