Gorram’s Side Quests

In issue 448 of Wargames Illustrated, Lisa Smedman wrote an article in praise of a Canadian indie game called Close Quarters Battle. Cinematic rather than simulation, modern combat with a solo mode, a couple of campaigns in the core rulebook and a small line of miniatures to go with it. Though it could easily be reskinned to any modern era conflict, the theme is the War on Drugs. I immediately placed an order and during the wait I consumed all the greatest cartel based media I could:

• Sicario and Sicario 2
• Scarface
• Three seasons of Narcos
• Power of the Dog trilogy by Don Winslow
• Season five of Archer (Vice)
• License to Kill
• Crocodile Dundee 2
• https://youtu.be/UdzxHnzgbOI?si=mgS3QzTBofWbLmRS

Five weeks later, a box landed in Scotland with goodies in it. The rulebook is a good girth and the majority of it is campaigns and scenarios. I got the mixed token bundle which are lovely acrylic things. There are coloured base mounts so you can see at a glance which level of operative each is but as I’ll be playing solo I didn’t bother buying them.

The models themselves are nice sculpts, not too much detail so they are quick to paint but characterful enough that they look great. They are Siocast which is unfortunate because there was pretty pronounced mould slippage on most of them and the clean up stage on 17 models took a long time. Once they were primed though, they were a delight to paint. I was originally going to base them to match the jungle terrain but decided that the mix was a bit over the top for the scale. Instead I went with Geek Gaming Scenics Scrublands base ready mix.

It was around this point that I went back on the website and ordered more models, I’m in. Next up will be the operatives.

Like most places, it has been too hot here over the last few weeks for most painting. It has been great for getting a bunch of resin 3D printing done for a winter project but it hasn’t been very comfy to sit at the desk. I decided to carry out a big project that I’ve been putting off for a long time instead.

Organising the stash. SHUDDER IN FEAR!

I live in a pretty small flat but I am fortunate to have one good sized cupboard which is where the stash lives and an awkward space in the meter cupboard where I store some terrain. Between these two, everything hobby related fit but it wasn’t great. Nothing was going to fall on you if you opened the door buuuuut it was a pain in the hole to move everything to get something off a shelf towards the back, especially as I’m only 5’ 3” and have the reach of a common European hedgehog.

I still signed off work with stress so now seemed like the perfect time to actually do the work. Knowing that my flat was going to look like a hellscape for a couple of weeks, I started dragging boxes out of the main cupboard and piling them in the living room.

I’ve used Really Useful Boxes for years for storing armies, alternating between the 4L and 9L depending on the size of the army. The two boxes share the same footprint and size of lids so they stack very nicely together. Having a vague idea that I was going to undertake this tidy up a while ago, I’ve been buying up boxes every month usually four or six at a time.

85% of my miniatures are now neatly in the RUBS and clearly labelled. The things that aren’t are the ones that fit on the black bookcase (repurposed from elsewhere in the flat) or ones that I plan to keep in their boxes even after being painted (e.g. Walking Dead). There were projects that have moved into a pile to get rid/move on to someone else’s pile of shame. On the whole it makes finding things easier, picking out a project more enjoyable and has put in my head a couple of armies I’d like to get back to sooner rather than later. So far, so gravy.

The terrain was trickier to work through. I play a lot of games solo and I like well decorated tables. Unfortunately I have had to admit to myself I just don’t have the space for all the tables worth of terrain that I want to have. 

The pieces that get used across different tables (e.g. trees, walls, hedges, barrels and crates) have all been moved into 9L boxes to make grabbing them out of the cupboard easier.  My Hextech 10mm sci fi also got put into one of these with an XL lid.

The bigger boxes are 42L RUBs which happen to fit perfectly into the space. I can get seven in the cupboard so that is the hard cap on what tables I can have. There is stuff I have had to chuck and there is stuff that I’d like to replace for more flexible pieces in the future but for right now, this will do.

There is a box for Wild West, Normandy (28mm and 15mm in together), Frostgrave, Battlesystems cardboard fantasy city, Grim Dark sci fi (Imperial and Orky terrain), Clean sci fi for Star Wars/Infinity (28/32mm and Shatterpoint scale) and finally modern. There are some MDF kits that I am loath to get rid of but I just don’t know where I’ll store them if I build them… mostly this means my Gotham table is on an indefinite hiatus 🙁

It hasn’t been the most fun  hobby the last month but it has been very useful. Hopefully it’ll also act as a better reminder that I definitely don’t need any more models!!!

A version of KoW with no list building sounds pretty good to me and after watching the OTT unboxing, I caved. I had been told that my next project was going to be delayed by a couple of weeks due to holidays so having a little something to fill the gap and break up the batch painting of dwarfs felt “justified”.

Painting was quite loosey-goosey but was something like:

• Zenithal prime with dark grey and then white
• Contrast paints (Blood Angels Red and Gryph-hound orange)
• Use Army Painter Fanatics Pure Red and Lava Orange mixed with the contrasts to work up some basic highlights
• Armour and weapons was an AK marker (RCM011 Dark Aluminium) which I had forgotten I’d bought to try over a year ago. I also used RCM010 Aluminium for highlights though the point of the pen is a little bulky for fine highlights. This was a quick paint job so it didn’t matter as much but I think I’ll stick to fine brushes for highlights going forward.
• Leather was US Field Drab (Vallejo)
• Bone/fur AP Fanatic Ancient Stone
• Horns and claws Contrast Black Legion
• Gold details are all Retributor Gold
• All over wash of Marine Juice (updated recipe here Updated Marine Juice: Universal Wash with Current Materials [How I Paint Things])

Basing is:

• Geek Gaming Grim Dark City Rubble (applied with a spoon cos that stuff stains like mad)
• The sealant glue behaved a little weirdly so I tried dropping some of the Gryph-hound Orange in to give a sense of lava. Once dried, the black in the basing mix had darkened it down so….
• I went back in with Fanatic Lava Orange and Demonic Yellow. I went a little more overboard on the Cardinal himself as he’s standing on top of a pit into hell but I might go back and tone it down a little now I’ve been looking at it for a while.

The demons half of the box only took a weekend to paint up. As a break from the dwarfs, I had fun. When will they see the table? Not a clue. My next batch of dwarf infantry is up next but I imagine the other half of the box will get done in early September.

Halfway through last year the Games Night channel put up a great video of Bolt Action 1st edition being played with not-Lego. I loved it and then promptly forgot all about it…

Last month I finally got round to subscribing to Brickskrieg‘s Conscription service. For £17 including postage, you get a unit of models, a card for the free game that Brickskrieg have on their site (though you do have to give them an email address to get access to it) and a cool info sheet written in the style of a classified document.

It’s not a lot of money for a wee evening of building not-Lego and slowly building an army over time.

Sure, it’ll be ages until you have a full force but you can buy individual units or army box sets through the site as well. I didn’t want to commit to a lot of stuff because the quality of not-Lego varies pretty wildly. I don’t remember what the first month’s building experience was because that happen weeks ago and I have the memory of a jellyfish.

Let’s get the bad out the way first:

The instructions are only available through a QR code on the info sheet or if you specifically request access to the files in your account on the website. I get that this is to stop everyone just building without paying them anything but it is a real pain in the arse. I hate companies not including instructions with kits. It is especially irritating that it is such a hassle and involves waiting for permission. Once you get the instructions they aren’t even a file you can browse properly, just an annoying flipbook. The other company I’ve found that does similar kits email you a PDF which seems much more consumer friendly and might actually be enough to sway me over to them in the future.

There was an email to say that this month’s models were stuck in customs so they have changed the order but as there’s no way to know what you are getting on the website, who knows what it should have been. There was no unit card in this month’s box but I’m assuming that’s connected to having to hustle to get replacement kits sorted.

The vehicles come individually wrapped but I’ve found the instructions such a pain to work with that I just opened all the packs and build all three at once. The build itself was fine apart from two pieces

• one hole wouldn’t take any of the bits for making the tracks so I ended up just gluing it
• One of the pins didn’t have a hole all the way through… which was unfortunate as it was meant to hold the axle. Thankfully I have spare bits but otherwise the drill would have had to come out.

The good? They look cool and price wise don’t hurt too much. I haven’t priced it up vs BrickOwl for parts but it’s reasonable. Will I stick with it? Certainly for another month but I might try ordering a couple of kits from Build Army to compare quality.

It has reminded me how much I loved building mechs out of Lego for Mobile Frame Zero years ago…