Showing posts with label Model Mondays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Model Mondays. Show all posts
It's time for another radical gear shift in Model Mondays. There's a big reason I've stepped back from my Empire army to post bits and bobs instead: I find it much easier to paint a single miniature than to paint an entire regiment. Rest assured, I'll coming to my black-and-yellow boys soon enough, but for now, let's talk about one of Games Workshop's greatest and all-too-brief forays into skirmish-style tabletop gaming.
Games Workshop has done warband-sized gaming before, most likely as an attempt to reach out to a market that can't afford $500+ for their standard tabletop wargames (Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000). With each of their universes, they've brought out skirmish games (Necromunda, Mordheim), small-scale strategy games (Warmaster, Epic), and even fleet games (Dreadfleet, Battlefleet Gothic). Every time this happens, GW always puts the new game front and centre, flashing exciting advertisements on their website, and in their own publication, White Dwarf Magazine.
And then support almost immediately evaporates.
As a company almost nightmarishly focused on a profit margin, GW seems to demand immediate monetary gain from its games, and responds like a sulking child when sales are lacklustre. They go just as quickly as they arrived (in the case of Dreadfleet, seemingly over the course of a matter of months).
Simultaneously, support for so-called "specialist games" like the ones I've mentioned is quickly overshadowed when GW finds a quick and easy market like it did with its Lord of the Rings tabletop game. The measurement of marketing funds during the boom of LoTR was easily traceable in the column inches of White Dwarf as articles shifted to Frodo Baggins and orcs.
Nowhere was this more obvious than in the tragic development of Inquisitor.
Games Workshop has done warband-sized gaming before, most likely as an attempt to reach out to a market that can't afford $500+ for their standard tabletop wargames (Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000). With each of their universes, they've brought out skirmish games (Necromunda, Mordheim), small-scale strategy games (Warmaster, Epic), and even fleet games (Dreadfleet, Battlefleet Gothic). Every time this happens, GW always puts the new game front and centre, flashing exciting advertisements on their website, and in their own publication, White Dwarf Magazine.
And then support almost immediately evaporates.
As a company almost nightmarishly focused on a profit margin, GW seems to demand immediate monetary gain from its games, and responds like a sulking child when sales are lacklustre. They go just as quickly as they arrived (in the case of Dreadfleet, seemingly over the course of a matter of months).
Simultaneously, support for so-called "specialist games" like the ones I've mentioned is quickly overshadowed when GW finds a quick and easy market like it did with its Lord of the Rings tabletop game. The measurement of marketing funds during the boom of LoTR was easily traceable in the column inches of White Dwarf as articles shifted to Frodo Baggins and orcs.
Nowhere was this more obvious than in the tragic development of Inquisitor.
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| mmechtley via Compfight cc |
An Inquisitor ponders the merits of selling out to McD's
When this game was coming out, the hype was HUGE. There was a huge campaign instores, online, and in print. GW even constructed a viral website that required a unique password, which turned out to be the first letters of each word of the campaign's tagline: The Ends Don't Justify The Means. Later on, they released some of the imagery from the rulebook, which was even darker in content than the standard Warhammer 40,000 fare, with great lines like "The Battle for the Emperor's Soul."
The coolest part about this game, though, was that it promised miniatures in mighty 54mm scale, nearly twice the size of their ordinary 28mm scale.
Like I said, it was going to be huge (PUNS!).
When it did arrive, reception was largely positive, however some critics seized on the fact that quasi-roleplaying in the Warhammer universe didn't make a TON of sense (perhaps best summarized in this strip from Penny Arcade). This was especially evident in the game mechanics; rules favored a large focus on storytelling and quickly grew murky on even the basics of movement, shooting, etc. Also troubling was the initially small product line; my personal recollection was of a group of only 9-10 distinct models.
At the time, though, I fell in love immediately. The models which they released then and subsequently are beautifully sculpted and have a lot of great detail to them. They're articulated and multi-parted in such a way as to make parts-swapping a snap, even for a relative amateur like myself. This customization factor was a big selling point in the Inquisitor marketing.
Then Lord of the Rings happened. And slowly but surely, Inquisitor faded away, to the point where the models are out of production, the rulebook is free online, and no new errata is being offered. Not with a bang, but a whimper.
Now that the story's out of the way...let's talk about MY WARBAND!
Yes, I assembled a small group of these nifty minis, and over the next few weeks I'm going to feature each one.
Without further ado...
Inquisitor: The Rogue Trader
Inquisitor: The Rogue Trader
One of my favourite aspects of Inquisitor was how it fleshed out the 40k universe. The tagline of 40k - "In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future, there is only WAR" - would have you believe that quite literally the entire universe is fighting. All humans fight, all Orks fight, all Eldar, everyone fights, and all of them naturally obey their racial traits and governments.
Inquisitor gave us a look at the independent people of the Imperium.
Rogue Traders are very much the Han Solos of the 40k universe. They toot around the galaxy, conducting affairs with whomever they please, ignoring the xenophobic laws of an oppressive government. They collect wacky weaponry, items, and followers.
To this end, when I made my rogue trader, I wanted to throw a lot of things on him. This guy is primarily two kits: the Von Castellan Rogue Trader, and the Inquisitor Covenant. To start with, I wanted to give him a more solid looking stance than the Von Castellan figure, so I took the legs and bent them into a walking position. I swapped Von Castellan's laspistol for the stub-pistol from Slick Devlan's kit. Von Castellan has his sword out, but I preferred the look of having it sheathed, and tried to position his free hand to look like he's about to grab his shotgun from his backpack.
As it is, the hand being close-fisted doesn't really look quite right, but meh. The backpack itself, I have to say, is a gorgeous little accessory. The chained book is a great touch, perfectly selling the idea of "forbidden knowledge" in one handy snapshot.
For a paint scheme, I tried to keep it to dark tones, but went with bright red on the sword scabbard and belt in attempt to make the blade look more daemonic. I'm not sure it worked. As it is, it certainly makes it stand out from the rest of him, but he does look a bit TOO fancy now.
One last thing I have to mention. I hate ponytails on men. I have no idea why they felt compelled to give most of the male inquisitor models ponytails, but there you go. Chopped it off and tried in vain to sculpt a hair-shaped blob of green stuff. He kind of looks like Mr. Spock now. ANGRY Mr. Spock.
One last thing I have to mention. I hate ponytails on men. I have no idea why they felt compelled to give most of the male inquisitor models ponytails, but there you go. Chopped it off and tried in vain to sculpt a hair-shaped blob of green stuff. He kind of looks like Mr. Spock now. ANGRY Mr. Spock.
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| I can't reach my shotgun! Highly illogical! |
That's all for this week! Next week we'll continue the warband with "The Rogue Enforcer."
It's a simple head-swap with a blob of green stuff on each, but overall I'm pretty happy with the look. I'm starting them up around the idea that these guys are based on Atria, a world that's offhandedly mentioned in the Imperial Guard army book: "The Conquest of Atria IV is halted when Imperial forces are unable to retake the Palace of Hate." Whatever that means.
Personally, I like the idea of a regiment fighting to take back its world. So I thought these guys might wear all-black as a sort of mourning garb, with green berets on display to indicate their dress uniform / lineage. Basically, a very dour, serious lot, with firm formations and hardened vets. As such, a very basic, dark colour scheme seemed suitable to me. Leaving aside the joke that they are now literally wearing about 50 Shades of Grey, I really like the look and feel of them.
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| Especially mad eye-patch dude here. He's my favourite. Don't tell the others. |
I painted the bases green but didn't finish them because I'm not yet sure if I want to go back for an urban style. I think it would might suit them better, but green bases are the go-to for playable armies, so there you go.
I used the Tank Commander body and head for the Sergeant, and gave him a bolt pistol and an extra shortsword to make him look a little more NCO-ish. I like the peaked cap look for a non-commissioned officer better than for a lieutenant or higher. He's not quite finished yet, on account of me swapping out his hands at the last minute prior to this post.
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| Somehow this pic looks squished in. He's not really that odd-looking. |
I'm especially happy with the awards hanging off his chest, which are tiny bits I clipped from an Inquisitor model.
I love the look of the bald, grizzled Karskin sergeant, and think it translates well into an officer of this imagined regiment.
Any feedback is welcome!
I'm going to talk about stripping paint off miniatures. But before I do...
Today's post was slow to update for a few reasons. Firstly, I somehow deleted my original "before" image of the miniatures I performed my tests on. Secondly, I wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something colossally stupid in putting my amateur chemistry online. I'm still not sure I'm not being colossally stupid, but in an attempt to limit any possible repercussions:
A DISCLAIMER
1) This entry is NOT intended to serve as any sort of guide or instruction manual for the handling of chemicals. I am not a chemist or chemical professional of any sort.
2) I, Tim Ford, author of this blog, do not assume ANY responsibility or liability for any personal injury, death, or property damage resulting from trying these methods yourself.
3) This entry is NOT intended to replace any professional instruction for handling chemicals. Always employ proper safety gear when handling chemicals.
4) With that all out of the way, we're handling Pine Sol and Dish Soap today. That probably sounds anticlimactic after all the crap I just said. Seriously though. I'd better not hear anything about this I swear to god.
Phew. Glad that's out of the way. Let's get on with...
Stripping Paint from Miniatures
Like many miniature collectors, I buy a lot of my figures online - through ebay, mostly. A lot of minis simply aren't manufactured any more, and ebay is one of the best sources out there for tracking down those hard-to-find collectibles. Generally speaking, though, you're buying used property, and in the case of models, that means buying a product that already comes painted.
If you're like me, half the fun of owning miniatures is painting them, and regardless of how well the previous owner painted them, you're probably going to want to do it yourself at one point. You could very well just paint overtop of the old coat, but there's many reasons this is a bad idea, not least of which is that layers of paint will cake on and you'll lose the figure's detail.
Another good reason, of course, is that the previous owner's paint scheme was hideous.
BUT ANYWAY.
There are lots of methods for stripping paint from your minis, each with pros and cons. You'll have to find the best one that works for you; I'm only going to talk about the two I tried and liked today. The important factors to take into consideration when you pick your solvent - the chemical that will strip the paint - are:
a) What kind of material is the miniature made out of? (resin, plastic, pewter, lead, etc.)
a) What kind of material is the miniature made out of? (resin, plastic, pewter, lead, etc.)
b) What kind of area do I have to work with? (a garage, a kitchen sink, a workshop, etc.)
c) What kind of paint am I stripping? (these should MOSTLY be latex-based acrylics in the case of model / hobby paints)
This determines the kinds of chemicals you can and should be using. Here's a complete list of the chemicals I've heard of hobbyists using:
- Pine Sol
- Dish Soap
- Castrol Super Clean
- Brake Fluid
- Acetone
I'm sure there are many more besides, but these are the ones I've seen articles on. I've only tried - and will only be talking about - the first two.
Dish Soap
Specifically, Palmolive Dish Soap.
The test minis: a group of 4 pewter halflings, painted in citadel acrylics. I could be wrong, but it seemed like the undercoat wasn't evenly applied as there were some flake off bits here and there.
The setup: did it in the kitchen sink. No measurement, just a goodly amount of dish soap and a goodly amount of water to get a nice frothy mess.
So for starters, safety. It's dish soap. Don't inhale it, don't eat it, use it in the kitchen sink. Don't be a moron.
I tried this out two ways. First, by mixing up a standard 50/50 solution just like I was doing the dishes, letting the minis soak about 8 hours, and using a wire brush (of medium firmness).
This didn't work at all. It stripped the flock (that's fake grass, for those who don't know) off the base all right, but none, and I mean none, of the paint.
Then I tried, at the suggestion of a forum post, putting some of the dish soap on the brush and really giving her.
That netted this result:
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| Sorry, like I said, I deleted the before pictures. |
You can see that it DID get some of the paint off, but I think this was more to do with the aforementioned poorly applied undercoat. You can see that the mini on the right was barely affected at all.
It can at least be said that this method is wonderfully safe. Sure, my fingertips were all pruney, but I didn't have any chemical burns. Hurrah!
Still, in the words of Inception...we need to go deeper.
Pine Sol
I'd used this method once before, and achieved good results. Here's how it went this time.
The test minis: a couple of plastic blokes from an old (OLD) "Adventurer's Party."
The setup: I mixed Pine Sol with water at a ratio of about 7:1 (water:Pine Sol), in an old margarine container, the 427 gram size, filled up completely. You definitely want to do this in a ventilated area, because the pine smell can get pretty strong.
Obviously Pine Sol is a great deal more corrosive than Dish Soap. I handled the minis with my bare hands, which probably wasn't the smartest, but had no problems. I suggest you take precautions nonetheless (gloves are great).
I let the minis soak for 6 hours, then scrubbed them down with a toothbrush. Here's the result:
As you can see, only the deep recesses were a problem, and I know for a fact these were undercoated properly - I did them myself.
I'd heard horror stories about plastic being dissolved in Pine Sol solutions, which is why I used a relatively small amount of the stuff. In addition, I used a toothbrush instead of a wire brush out of concern a wire brush would scratch at the plastic.
The results are pretty good. I left the paint in the deep recesses so you could see it for comparison's sake, but using a metal pick of some sort (like a paper clip or hobby knife) worked well. I suspect a wire brush would have done the job just right.
The reason I limited myself to just these two ways is because a) they're cheap and b) they're safe. Neither chemical is particularly corrosive or harmful, and neither produces dangerous fumes. And, let's be honest here...they're CHEAP.
So those are my thoughts. I like the Pine Sol method, but I've heard that Castrol Super Clean may be the way to go.
Let me know in the comments if you have your own methods, or if you like these, or anything else!
For my long-term projects on Model Mondays, I'm going to be putting together a series of complete Warhammer Armies, from Games Workshop/Citadel Miniatures.
For those who don't know, Games Workshop is a UK-based gaming and model company that has producing its own series of fantasy and sci-fi tabletop war-games since the 80s.
Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 are their two main hobby games, and they saw a major surge in popularity in the mid-late 90s. Given how expensive it is, though, people who actually PLAY the games are often rarer than people who collect and paint the miniatures, like myself. There's a lot of reasons for this, not least of which is that putting together a game requires a dedicated room with a large table and a sizeable chunk of time in a busy schedule (usually a couple of hours to an entire afternoon).
Long story short, I don't play any Games Workshop games these days. But I still quite like the hobby of painting and assembling the miniatures, and I especially like the look of a complete army.
So, to start off with, I'm going to be assembling a large Empire force, styled in the colours of the province of Averland.
If you're interested in the backstory of the Warhammer universe, and the Empire in particular, you can always check out the links here and here.
The backbone of the Empire is their large infantry blocks of State Troops, resplendent in the finery of their provincial colours. To this end, I'm starting off with two State troops kits I had: swordsmen and spearmen.
Sadly, I didn't think to take any "in-progress" pictures of these fellows as I went along, so we'll have to settle for the finished product:
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The swordsmen unit is an older kit, actually the 5th edition handgunners kit. Basically, what they did back then was they supplied you with a basic empire soldiers kit that included all the usual arms, legs, etc. and also provided a separate blister pack with metal arms that held handguns. I prefer the look of the new 7th edition handgunners, which we'll get to in a later entry, so I simply made use of all the sword arms and left the metal arms in their pack.
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The spearmen are the new 7th edition version, and to be honest I think they're kind of a pain. A term you might hear tossed around by Warhammer hobbyists is "seeing if the models 'rank up.'" In other words, when you assemble your minis, you want to put them in poses such that they don't bump up against each other when arranged in a regimental block like so. I found it extremely difficult to put these guys together in poses that DIDN'T result in them smacking each other about the head and shoulders with their spears. The older 5th ed kit had them posed with spears held straight up and down. Perhaps not realistic from a combat point of view, but certainly more practical for placing them on the tabletop.
At any rate, I'm reasonably happy with how these first two regiments (blocks of soldiers for the newbies) turned out. They're not about to win any Golden Demon awards or anything, but they're not going to embarrass me on the battlefield either.
There are a few things that I might do differently with future regiments:
1) Bugman's Glow is the basecoat I use for flesh, with a layer of Elf flesh overtop. I think I either have to switch out the Elf Flesh for Bronzed Flesh or the Bugman's Glow for…something. Right now they seem to have a creepy, pallid look to them.
2) I'm not altogether thrilled with how the bases turned out. I was using static grass from the Citadel Starter Hobby Kit, which also comes with sand. This was because I initially wanted to model Averland's flowing, open plains (which they use to raise horses) but instead I might go for a "Black Fire Pass" style (a mountain road that Averland patrols). I think what I might do is do a thin layer of sand with static grass as highlights to model the more rugged terrain.
3) You'll notice a number of the troops have bronze breastplates on. I'll be honest here: the way the moulds are done, it can be tricky to tell who's wearing a breastplate or leather jerkin or no armour at all. Not the end of the world, but I think there's a couple cases where my choice looks…odd.
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4) I'm really fond of the champion figure that came with the Handgunners set. His head and arms are pewter, and I don't think they came with any other Empire Soldiers kit, so that makes him something of a rarity these days. I just like the idea of him pointing somebody out and going all COME AT ME BRO.
That's all for this time, folks! Next week we're going to talk about some tips and tricks for collecting and cleaning those hard-to-find miniatures...
I don't think I can pinpoint the exact moment I first got interested in models. Like many kids in the 90s, I think the proverbial "gateway drug" that led me to being the miniature junky I am today was a brightly coloured, glowing mecca of geekdom, with a simple, two word message that invited me into its warm embrace:
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