Nighthaunt slightly delayed by grandfather Nurgle

It has been way too quiet on my blog this past month and  I blame dear old grandfather Nurgle. He kindly blessed me with a bad case of the flue. As a self employed madman professional I had to switch to a slightly higher gear to catch up with unfinished work after that. Nurgle aside, I also spent way too much time testing out this newfangled Elite Dangerous game. I played this game rather fanatically in the eighties and now they seem to have added textured the wireframes (and added some other stuff*). Luckily Fallout 76 turns out to be a bits of wood and metal collection simulator, so I get to use my hobby time elsewhere**. That in turns mean I found the time to finish five Chainrasps. That makes the production of a new army official. Here's a group shot of the five with some other models that accidentally fall within the range (and mostly have nothing to do with the army I'm working on).

* a lot of other stuff...
** note to self: don't ever pre-order games again...

I had to re-glue the Spirit Hosts in the back (left) for the tenth or so time just to fit them into this picture. I don't think I'll be using them on a tabletop, it will cost me too much glue ;)

Trouble in Teufeltal session six, Steam Tank Rally

After fighting an Orc Shaman and freeing Otilla the group decided to take it up a notch. They planned to rescue the girls studying at DeBlanc's School for Ladies, recruit the wizard Dieter von Heinz and convince the knights at the White Wolf lodge to join the defense of Schluesselschloss.

Only now do I realize I missed a perfect chance to add some chariots to the spectacle.

Skaven Moulder Packmaster

As (hobby wise) I have been a bit pre-occupied with computer games lately, I did not get a chance to practice my painting skills. This weekend I suffered through the lousy ending of Kingdom Come: Deliverance and found myself with the time to start painting again, but where to start? A while back I was lucky enough to get some free left over miniatures from a friend at the local gaming club. One of them was this Skaven Packmaster from Clan Moulder.

That way!

Demonstrating wargaming at Spellenspektakel 2018

Eindhoven has a yearly recurring gaming convention called Spellenspektakel and this year we had a chance to attend with the Sword Brethren Eindhoven, our local wargaming club. As the audience sometimes wants to participate in games we split our gaming table, using one half for Warhammer 40K Kill Team and the other to play Age of Sigmar Skirmish. One of the wonderful moment was explaining the games to the smaller kids attending our table (with a few heart attacks along the way as the models got handled ;) ). In the end I think this look says it all: hooked for life.

Used with permission, (c) Judith Tielemans

A small update on lots of little projects

These past few weeks I've gotten a bit distracted by work and the ever dangerous time sinks called computer games. If you value your hobby time I suggest you skip The Long Dark and Kingdom Come: Deliverance. With Fallout 76 almost out I worry it'll be December before I get around to some serious painting again (probably not, I tend to get bored quickly and suddenly after too much screen hours). In the meantime I have found some idle moments to blast away with my airbrush, drop some superglue on unsuspecting models and take my brush to (ancient) metal. It's just that every time I start, there's a computer game calling my name...

I think painting dead(ish) skin is one of the most Zen experiences in the hobby.

Rebasing Skaven and Orcs for Age of Sigmar

For a game that was supposed to do away with bases, I seem te be rebasing very often since Age of Sigmar was released. To be honest it's mostly me, I just want my models to look right (and prefer round bases for that) and I don't mind trying out new things (like multiple models on a single base). The occasional rebasing is just part of the cost for this attitude. As it stands now, AoS plays better if each model has it's own little plastic bit of the world to stand on. Which brings me to my Skaven.

They may not have been expertly painted, but there's a lot of them with color on, so impressive enough for my tastes...

Orruk Boar Boyz arrive just in time for Orctober

For a second I was worried that I did not pay enough attention to orcs/orruks this Orctober (Orruktober?). But a quick scroll through the past month shows I need not have worried. I did complete Grom (honorary orc) and had some fun with orcs in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th. Now all I needed to do to complete Orctober was to finish painting some actual Orruk/Orc/Ork (this is getting out of hand) models. Luckily two projects have been hiding on my painting station: Kaptin Badrukk and five Boarboys I picked up second hand a while back. This weekend I completed the Boarboys.

Oh what a day. What a lovely day!