Welp, it has been a while.
Lots of things going on - work and family and such - but not much desire to post here, until recently. Now I hope to keep posting; there have been items to share but I'll keep those for later.
And, the usual table pic:
Covered with the typical chaos. Step 1 will be to clean and organize so there is more than a few square inches of working space!
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Welp, still here although hard to tell that recently!
Seems to be one problem after another and sometimes compounded - work getting worse with personnel shortages and technical issues, a bit of personal bad times as memories of my lovely wife that I thought were secured came flooding back, and assorted other things. But, I am struggling my way through them...
The table, showing some actual progress which has not occurred for a few months - working on Infinity miniatures and some terrain for Warcrow.
Apologies to those bloggers that I try to visit; and I will attempt to keep in the swing of things here again.
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Just a brief note to try and get myself back into a more regular schedule - Things are going on, miniatures painted, games played, etc! Here is a not-quite recent pic of the hobby table:
Overrun with Battletech stuff, except for the far left corner! Along with all of the collecting and painting, a local shop has a Battletech league running. Today is the last day, and I'll post more about it in the future.
Another, more recent pic:
These camouflaged mechs are my first group for the 22nd Dieron regiment, part of House Kurita. The background of House Kurita is somewhat based on current-day Japan, and my take on the camo for 22nd Dieron is similar to WW2 Japanese tank camo schemes. They are not nearly done - washes, details, decals, and basing are needed before completion.
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Well, 3½ months between posts was not the intended interval for this blog. Also, I fell far behind in my blog-reading habit. I am going to keep trying...
There have been activities behind the curtains though, and hopefully they will become the basis for more posts.
The painting table looked like this for a brief moment:
As one can see, plenty of Battletech miniatures continue to see attention, with Infinity and AoS figures lurking on the periphery. The two rules sets are very recent additions to the library. Recommended by another blogger, I am going to see if they might be used for my 20mm SCW project.
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Happy New Year everyone!
Well, here is the usual chaos on my table at the moment:
The now-commonplace assortment of genres and scales - fantasy, sci-fi, and historical - 6mm through 28mm. The pile of 'stuff' in the center is yet more vehicles and now infantry with their bases for BattleTech.
I continue to be amazed by interest that both of my sons have in BattleTech. My original thought, when I bought the introductory box set last year, was that I would need to collect all factions for the game, paint them, and cajole my sons to play. Boy howdy was I wrong, and we are in the process of collecting and painting more mechs, and now 3rd party vehicles and infantry, for the game.
Another popular game amongst my sons is Infinity. This is a sci-fi skirmish game by Corvus Belli with some of the most finely sculpted and cast 28mm metal miniatures currently in production. The troops in the middle of the pic above, both unprimed and in shades of red, are part of my collection.
Sci-fi is not the only genre getting attention here, however. I am beginning to dust off some older historical projects, starting with some Medievals:
These units are for a 14th century Scots army: Two units of schiltron on the left; and four Highlander units and their leader center and right. They are not quite complete as their flags have yet to be purchased. Somehow, these figures, and their unpainted counterparts, missed both the first and second sweep of 'disposals' last year, perhaps because I have a definite fondness for the project, which my lovely wife and I started way back when, and that a fair few were finished.
Here are the next two units, in a less finished state:
Two more schiltrons being sorted. All of these figures are by Claymore Castings, now available through Antediluvian Miniatures.
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Still not in the habit of blogging, and reading other blogs, but I am going to keep trying...
Many things on the table, from trolls and squigs, to different scales and eras of tanks, to sci-fi figures and mechs! And, finally, another unit for the Greek project - Spartan cavalry.
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Hmmm, 3½ months between posts... the interval is dropping so that is good, right?!
Let's start with an old tradition around here, the painting table pic:
The table is filled with the usual medley of stuff. By my count, there are seven different projects in the picture! The biggest change from my typical work process is that there is much more organization in everything, from paints to the figures themselves. I just need to sit there more often and get stuff done.
The 2nd Mantinea Battle Day project has taken a large step forward after languishing for too many months. I have finally settled on a rules system for all of my Greek/Persian struggles, and that is going to be Triumph. After reading through several sets, I find that Triumph makes more sense to me than other rules. Triumph does use the 'standard' DBx basing system for the most part, so I can easily switch to other rules in the future if needed. I am making one adjustment - the base sizes are going to be much bigger, using a frontage of 80mm. This will give a figure density that, to me at least, is more pleasing to the eye.
The army lists for the Thebans and the Spartans have been sorted as well. I used the description of 2nd Mantinea from Lost Battles as a baseline, and worked to adjust the army lists from Triumph (found online here at Meshwesh). After a bit of translation - Triumph is a bit different in its descriptions of units - two lists were made that seem to be consistent with the battle. The Thebans come out with a slightly larger force, which is suggested by contemporary writers, Xenophon and Diodorus, and modern historians. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the basic lists from Triumph fit quite well with Prof. Sabin's analysis from Lost Battles.
Now comes the mustering of the units, with the PSC figures pictured above being amongst the first to answer the call.
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At the risk of seeming to be a broken record, I am going to try and get the habit of blogging back into gear again. But first, here is a pic:
Lots going on there, which I will try to explain in due course.
A plan has been crafted that should see progress across a variety of projects while not making those projects seem too much of a struggle. In simple terms, each month will see a project make a guest appearance to the table - similar to those TV drama series with a core cast of actors and guests every week. Right now, my GW Age of Sigmar and 40K projects are at the core, with other projects making occasional appearances. I will make it obvious in the title of the post if GW figures are at the fore - some folks might not want to partake of that and it is fine; just come back next time!
I am feeling good about my hobby again, and hopefully I can make it last with measured (even if small) progress.
Again, my apologies to those bloggers that I have missed throughout this spring/summer. I think that I am back on track with online notices although I still get behind and delete notifications out of frustration.
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Impetuous would be a good word with which to describe my approach to this hobby. Just about anything is see and read about miniatures seems to be a Great Idea, and leads to a lot of informal planning and wishful thinking. My bookshelves can tell that story well! It also leads to adding just about any nifty blog to my Feedly files... and sensory overload is the usual result. This has led to cursory, at best, scanning of blog topics and mass deletion of items, sometimes numbering several hundred posts.
So, one experiment I am starting to try is a return to an older reader. Before I found Feedly, I used The Old Reader (TOR), which is based upon the beloved and now defunct Google Reader. TOR now has a maximum subscription limit for free accounts - 99 feeds - before one has to pay for a subscription. Slowly, I am loading my TOR account with blogs, up to the free maximum, with the idea that this will enable to keep up with the torrential flood of digital distractions and allow me to participate again in discussions.
Hardware has not been overlooked in the recent past either - a new painting table has been assembled and filled with all sorts of figures and paints: