SYW Russians with another layer of paint

Going to be a busy weekend. Saturday is an afternoon meeting for my Viking re-creation group (currently Regia affiliated) and then a birthday party for my friend Chibbs. At that birthday party will be a bunch of board games, as that is the goal it appears, for us to play with. I will certainly blog about whatever game Gretchen and I end up playing.

Sunday is the Super Bowl. I'm a Raiders fan so no dog in the fight for me other than any connection I have to Seattle by living a few hours south of the place. Plus, being a Raiders fan, I hate the Broncos. I am not putting money on the game as I hope Seattle wins but I have a feeling the Broncos will take this one. For the record I am not too stupid to know that my team kind of sucks... they have for the past decade.

Here are some pics of my 54mm Russians with the last round of paint on them:

 Apsheronskiy, officer in green coat.

 Grenadiers, all in green coats.

 Same Grenadiers.

Observation Corp 1st Musketeers, officer in green coat.

The green I'm using is "emerald green" from Vallejo. I tested a figure with regular green first and did not like that shade. I chose this one as it is lighter and I think it will look different after I dip the figure in some Minwax for the protective coat and shading.

Also, my Val'Serkers are done, my female berserker unit for Saga:

 Just finished paint job, no shading.

 Shaded with Minwax Walnut poly-stuff. I dipped her directly into the can, brushed off excess, let her dry.

The Sisters, all together and ready for the table. Well, I'm going to flock the bases with grass.

Have a good weekend folks, enjoy the Superbowl if you are into that; if not quit your crying and go do something else. No one's stopping you and there is plenty to partake of.**

**I have a co-worker and someone I would consider a friend that just had a tragedy that would trump what most mopey people could not even imagine. He's a stone getting the job done and I'm putting things into perspective.

Wizard World Comic Con, Russian troops for SYW, All the King's Men - next few steps

I was at Wizard World Comic Con this whole weekend. Brother in Law bought me and the wife 3 day passes for Xmas. Had some fun but found that big comic cons like that hold little interest to me. Everything costs a lot of money and there are lines, constant lines.

On Saturday I had gotten a Ron Pearlman photo op for my Dad, he's a big Sons of Anarchy fan. He arrived and my wife graciously waited in line with him for 30 minutes just to get in. I then took over and waited in line with him for about an hour and 15 minutes for the Ron Pearlman photo. We were in it together. Ron Pearlman was as nice as a person could be in 5 seconds of contact. Seriously, no slight against that man... cool as anything that can be cool.

I learned the fine art of photo-bombing. My first was quite by accident. I was wandering about after first entering the con (my wife and BiL waited in line while I went and got a coffee and pastry and sat at a table content with meandering in some time after the doors opened and not waiting in line) and accidentally photo-bombed "Bobba Fat". I thought, "hrmm that was fun" and began photo-bombing every pic I could. Some would say it's a dick move but so is stopping traffic of the con every 20 seconds so someone can get a picture of "Poison Ivy and her huge tits" or "Batgirl and her humongous tits" or "some girl in a costume and her frikkin tits".

Things I got with cash money:

USCM patches, W-Y and LV-426 patches, a Comic Con patch

TWD comic Rick Grimes piggy bank

I prefer TWD comic memorabilia more than the TV show. The TV show is great and I love it and all but the comic is OG and there is less stuff for it. Plus, I like the comic Rick more than the TV Rick. Also found a TWD (comic) Risk game. I can buy one at my FLGS though so I will do so there and support them. The game actually looks fun - some light acquisition mechanics and a lot of rolling attack dice and taking land... all mechanics I love in a board game.

Suffice to say I did not spend too much money. $60 maybe? What I was looking for was things that I could not get locally and support my FLGSs nor things on Amazon. The price was right for that Rick Grimes thing and the patches are hard to find, even on the netz.

I did see a merchant that put up a 9.6 CGC'ed Saga #1 for $225. I plan to get my Saga #1 CGC'ed now. I would like to sell it but would also like to get as much as I can for it. Great comic but if people are putting out that much money for it than I am totally willing to take said money.

Oh, we met this guy and my Wife bought the 451 t-shirt (Fahrenheit 451). He was low on the Baltor is my Homeboy shirts so I will get one later.

http://www.enclothe.com/shop/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCategory=2

Enclothe is in Southern Oregon, having just moved up from San Francisco.

MY RUSSIANS!!

I did some white:

That's it for now. More coming soon.

Special! Zombie Squad "appearing" in Dead Snow 2

Link to Dead Snow 2 trailer

About a minute in you will see a guy in a "ZS" tshirt. Yes, that is our ZS... Zombie Squad. Yes, that is the non-profit organization that I am president of the Oregon Chapter of (ZSC011).

It's all legit, use of the name and logo was cleared last year in production of the movie.

I'll post more in my blog about ZS in the future but if you are interested in learning more on your own:
http://zombiehunters.org/

Our logo

Outreach and info table at OryCon.

My wife Gretchen and I at Zombie Prom.

Russians in 54mm II, All the King's Men

Not only did I make a gaming mat on this last 3 day weekend, I got a bit further into my Russian musketeers for All the King's Men (in "54mm").

I started work on 3 units of infantry. We're going with Apsheronskiy, Observation Corp 1st Musketeers, and an as of yet undetermined Grenadier unit with bearskin hats.

Picture just to give the idea of "grenadiers" and bearskin hats; these guys are British I believe.

The plan is to speed paint:

1) Base with 1" steel washers (can get 100 of them at any hardware store for less than $9).

2) Base coat with Army Painter "red" spray colored primer. Pretty much all Russian SYW infantry wore the same uniform with slight differences. Red is the color.

3) Block paint details like hats, shoes, muskets, canteens, cartridge cases... mostly blacks, browns, whites, copper/brass.

4) Paint bases green... or flock them. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

5) "Dip" or quick shade them all.

6) ??

7) Profit

As I've already stated, I had some work to do on my "crouchers".

I sprayed down the 3 units (of 12 figs each) with the AP red. That step went well and was easy. I let that dry for 24 hours and started in on the blocking. First flesh for faces and hands, then black for headgear and boots.

Base-coated with Army Painter red primer.

Same, different figs and different angle.

Apsheronskiy with red gaiters

Observation Corp 1st Musketeers with black "riding" boots.

As of yet un-designated grenadier unit, they will get white gaiters.

Next will be white paint on edges of tricorn hats and bands above knees for boots and red gaiters and full up for white gaitered troops. I'll, probably, do eyes on these guys too as they are big enough for that. After white I will do brown on canteens, back packs, and musket furniture. Lastly will be metallics and detail out officers.

Russian troops wore mostly red, as stated above, and that is "summer" dress for them. "Winter" dress they'd add a green coat with red turnouts. I'm debating adding those. Many do add them even though most folks that base a Russian SYW paint job off Kunersdorf which took place in August 1759... summer... but, aesthetically all red is boring. I kind of just want to get these guys out on the table. I might do one with green coats. I will be adding an Austrian unit too so that will add some color to my side.

Right now I'm just getting the main colors out so what I actually do is still up in the air.

War gaming mat, spray paint and acrylic felt

Had a 3 day weekend, my work celebrates MLK's birthday so we got Monday off. I finished a few projects.

First, it was a nice weekend. Should of went out into the woods kind of weekend but stayed in town instead. Had a date night with the Wife and saw Thor: Dark World and loved it. Then we went and got some late night doughnuts!! When the kid is away the parents will play.

Saturday I finished up some other projects - took stock of my painting materials, cleaned up a bit, all that kind of stuff... just an admin day at my mini painting station.

Sunday was making my war game mat day. I've debated what I want, need, and am willing to pay for. I'm in love with the idea of a Zuzzy mat:
link to Zuzzy Miniatures
... but the actual process of getting one is both tedious and infuriating looking. I'm not going to pay $45 shipping for a $40 item, then wait 7-10 weeks with no updates, then finish the paint job myself. Ultimately I went with buying some felt and spray painting it.

Edit to Add: I really wish Zuzzy could figure out a distribution process. If I could just got to my FLGS and pick up a 4'x3' mat for $50 I'd have done that easy.

First I had to decide if I just went with some green acrylic felt. Nope, I wanted something that had more detail than solid green. I have a bunch of spray paint so I went on the nets to see if spray painting felt was an option. Not a ton of info other than "yeah, sure" and my own personal experience with spray paint. I did find a lot of tutorials on some really advanced work - like canvas and textures and flocking felt and rolling on latex paint and such. I just wanted to hang a chunk of felt and spray it with some spray paint to add some details. That's all.

My friendly local fabric store has craft felt in a golden brown that I could buy 2 yards of. This would net me a 6'x6' chunk of felt. My end goal was to have two 4'x3' sections. 4'x3' is "regulation" for Saga and I could put them together for a 4'x6' piece for other war games. I printed a 50% off coupon, drove out to the store with my wife for help as she knows where the stuff is, bought 2 yards at $4.99 a yard and paid $5 for the whole thing with that coupon. When I got home I cut two little squares off (2" or so) and sprayed them with my Krylon fusion and it held well.

Sunday was sunny, dry, and 52f. Not the best conditions for outdoor spray painting but better than rain and fog and wind and 41f. When I went through my stock the base color of green I wanted was a bit low so I went out and bought another can of Krylon Fusion dark green. Friendly local hardware store had it for $5. I have a full can of light green already.

I wanted some brown "roads", green areas to depict grass and such, and some light green highlights. Nothing special. I decided to do the whole felt piece and cut it in half afterwards so any roads matched up when I put it together to make a large field. As an aside, road or grass field has not different designation in Saga unless otherwise noted in a specific scenario.

Finished project:

I can go over details of the process more but it is pretty cut and dry. As a matter of fact, after it dried (about 2 hours) I cut it in half at the visible fold mark down the middle. They now both sit rolled up in a corner of my den awaiting play time and photo ops. Suffice to say, the spray paint made the felt pretty stiff and I would not fold these mats at all.

Edit to Add: Whole thing cost me $10, I already had some paint. Took about 2 hours of time.

All The King's Men Russian army - starting out

I also play All The King's Men - 54mm scale wargaming.
All The King's Men - Toy Soldier Wargaming

Spencer and I play the Seven Years War era, mid 18th century, leads up to American Revolutionary War. The buy in is simple - any tricorned figs in 1/32 or 54mm - ish scale will do. It's all about color scheme. Here is my main source of info on the history and uniforms:
Kronoskaf - Seven Years War nerd-wiki

I started off with buying the $9 Battle of Yorktown ARW figures:
Amazon link - Battle of Yorktown figures
Two bags enabled me to put up 4 infantry units (12 figures per) and one skirmisher unit (6 figures) plus enough left overs for casualties and maybe some artillery crews.

Spencer already has enough figures to run a game, 4 infantry units, 2 cavalry units, 2 artillery, and a skirmisher company per side. We've been playing with his guys but I finally decided to paint up my own unit. For ease of painting I went with Russian - all units look the same with red waistcoats, red pants, green coats in winter, black tricorns. Flags and footwear would be the signifiers. All I got to do is mount on bases, base-coat in red, brush on details like flesh/hats/muskets, shade and protective coat. I will not give them a dull coat as a shiny toy soldier looks pretty cool. The end goal is for these to look like a shiny toy soldier.

My first unit to get painted will be my Russian main line infantry unit Apsheronskiy. These guys are cool. Same uniform as the rest but they get to wear red gaiters as they distinguished themselves in a battle by holding the center of their line. They were "standing knee deep in blood".

The first thing I needed to overcome (Did I mention yet that I truly believe in the adage "you get what you pay for" so I knew I would have things to overcome putting these guys together?) was the crouching guys' lower knee was totally out of spec thus making the crouching musket guy not able to stand up right at all without some kind of support. I wadded up some Milliput and put them under the knees of my crouchers.

 The one with the green, in the middle, was an experiment with another product that is much more expensive than the Millput stuff in brown.

I let those sit for a bit and dry, over night.Next day I popped them off and put a drop of Zap-a-Gap into the proper areas and put the fig back on and, as of today, I have a solid 54mm crouching musketeer troop mini.

Next phase is to base-coat them in Army Painter red colored primer.

Finished Saga Vikings part 2 (and the Val'Serkers)

I started basing my vikings. What I like to do is a 2 layer effect - sand, let dry, fine grade grass/green flocking, let dry. I prepped the first layer and watered down my glue (Elmer's Glue-All, what I normally use) in a 1:1 mix. I brushed it on and dipped it in sand and set it aside to give it a day to dry.

I started to get de-lamination issues on my bases. I looked it up on the netz and found nothing. The above process has worked fine in the past. Here is what was different from the last times I did it:
1) I used Army Painter spray color primer - which I just lauded as an excellent product. I normally prime in white brush-on primer. The fender washers I use as a base are galvanized (?? maybe ??).
2) I mixed the Elmer's glue 1:1, I usually use less water.

Not able to figure it all out I tore off the sand flocking bases on the worst of them (6 of the 16) which was easy to do and tried to cover up the best of them (4) with the green flock phase. Here's what the worst of them looks like now:

Anyways, I secured the best of them with a drop of Zap-a-Gap because it fits the name of the product. I finished my basing procedure and they came out good.

I then quick-shaded the minis. I used some Minwax walnut poly stuff. It shades just fine like the much more pricey Army Painter Quickshade product, which I own, but at 1/3rd the price. AP QS is fine and all at $30 but I'm pretty dang happy with my easily got at the hardware store Minwax that cost me around $8. Plus I can better multitask the Minwax for it's true purpose if need be.

I brushed on my Minwax and let it dry for 2 DAYS. Yes, 48 hours. I've had issues with tackiness before after 24 hours with both Minwax and Army Painter QS. 48 hours seems the magic number. When dry it leaves a very good protective coat and a gloss. If this were 54mm guys I'd leave that glossy coat for  that "toy soldier" look but I like a nice dull matte for my 25mm guys. I just wantto reiterate though that this step leaves a good protective layer on your figs. To me it makes them feel more solid and "sealed in".

You can see the gloss here, nice and sealed and handle-able.

I sprayed them down with some matte to dull them up and let them sit for another day and VOILA! I have some minis ready for the table.

On the side I also wanted to make up a Viking Berserker unit, as per the rules they are a hearthguard unit of 4 minis designated as "berserkers" (less armor, more attack dice - fire and forget type unit). I did not want to buy more minis though so I looked at what I had laying around. I have a painted Reaper metal Valkyrie, an unpainted Reaper "viking girl", and an unpainted Reaper Bones Valkyrie. These would be my 'serkers or Val'Serkers. At our table historical accuracy is an option.

Older pic, base coated, it is finished now with a ink shading and highlights painted on. Was an NPC in one of my Pathfinder games.

"Viking Girl" - typical fantasy fur bikini thing. Was in my unpainted stock. Had it for years.

I was short one of the Reaper Bones Valkyries but I knew where I could get one. I went to Guardian Games and bought a second one for $2.50. 

I mounted these on my ubiquitous 1" fender washer, sprayed them in Army Painter "platemail silver" colored primer, did my base-coats, got tired and decided to leave them mostly silver, quick shaded them in the above Minwax-walnut... bang! Ready to play. I'm going to do some grass on them though. All I got to do now is quick shade the one in the fur bikini and I've got 1 point of Val'Serkers. 

Finished Saga Vikings, 2 points and some new warlords

Finished some more Viking minis for Saga this weekend, I "fast painted" them. Started with the remnants of my Wargames Factory boxes I bought last spring. Had enough parts left over from my first batch of 6 points of Viking warband. Had enough parts for 16 warriors (spears and shields, various armor). This would be 2 more points worth of viking figs for Saga.

Glued on arms, heads, and 1" steel washer and gave it all a good layer of Army Painter base-coat (colored primer) "leather brown". 24 hour dry time. I did not apply weapons or shields yet as I want to paint those separately. 

Next was to give it all a good basic painting. dark grey for metal helmets and chain mail byrnies. Laid some sand down on the base. painted flesh and beards. Did some color on some tunics and pants. 

Painted shields and spears separately. In the pic below you can see I laid the down on a stick and secured them with poster tack. I brush primed them in "khaki" primer. I then painted them individually. I learned it was easier to do it this way from my last batch. I tried some various shield patterns and screwed it up enough to not vary much from just "halving" the shields with 2 colors. When the base-coat below dried (24 hours) I flipped them all and did a dark brown on the other side so it would appear to be plain wood.

Not pictured are how I painted the spears. I just stuck some poster tack onto a stick, stuck spears in it head first, painted the hafts medium brown, couple hours of dry time, flipped them, painted spear heads gray.

When shields and spears were dry I glued them on to the figs using Tamiya light cement. It works fine going through paint and primer.

Once I got the main colors applied, and spears and shields in hands I sat them down to settle for a few days.

In those 2 days I worked on 2 warlords - a generic and Official Gripping Beast brand Ragnar Lothbrok:

"generic" - We can name him Ulfgier

Ragnar and his (poorly pictured) hairy breeches

Stay tuned, more to follow!

Movies: THACO and Zero Charisma

Saw 2 movies this weekend that derive from tabletop RPG culture - THACO and Zero Charisma. I'm not good at reviewing movies as I ramble on so I will keep this as short as possible, first links to the movies:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1408329/  -- THACO
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294965/?ref_=nv_sr_1  -- Zero Charisma

1. How did I watch them?
I rented both of them on Amazon Prime for $2.99 and $3.99 respectively.

2. Did I enjoy them?
Yes, as did my wife Gretchen. My kid, who is 12, also watched THACO and she seemed to enjoy it also as she sees herself as part of "modern nerd culture".

3. Do I recommend them?
Yes, each one for separate reasons. See below.

THACO came out in 2008. I've heard of it but never really sought it. I found it on Amazon Prime Friday night as me and the family had a night in and wanted to watch something new. I found THACO and decided the rental of $2.99 wasn't bad.

It's low budget, like the actors are first timers and have little experience. You can tell. That's OK. The story revolves around a gaming group of nerd-dudes in their 30s(?) and they are trying to game on their game night but one of them is really late. We see how the other 3 guys waste time while waiting for the 4th guy to show up. They tell jokes and anecdotes that are extremely gamer-centric. D&D gamer-centric and then you get into the other games like Shadowrun and GURPS. We even get a bit of pre Edition War edition wars (2ed vs. conversion to 3ed).

"I can be a drow monk?"

I got all the jokes, the Wife got half of them, the kid maybe got about 5% of them. It's because the guys that did this movie? My people. I grew up with them and am still them just with a job, wife, kid, car, and other interests and hobbies.

The editing is good, the movie never drags on. I liked every minute I was watching it.

The movie is PG-13ish. Some cussing and references that could be construed as salty. Other than that it is light and there is no heaviness to it. At the end, the 4th nerd guy shows up and all is well.

Zero Charisma came out late 2013, last fall. It is filmed in Austin and was crowd-funded with Indieagogo. Production is much more "professional" than THACO but still not "Hollywood". Was good though, like mistakes or over sites (if any) seemed to make the movie more realistic.

The main guy is a 30ish loser named Mark. You never really like this guy. If you are a gamer you've probably met him and not liked him. I have. Even if you have no similarities to Mark it is uncomfortable to watch him. Truly, he has Zero Charisma. Mark is the epitome of "loser D&D player". He has hit rock bottom without committing a crime.

Mark lives with Grandma in her house. He thinks it's his. His only friends are his loyal players of his home-brew fantasy system he's been running for 3 years. His job is at a doughnut shop. He got fired from his game shop job that has increased sales 200% since he was fired. It's been referenced in the movie he's been caught masturbating multiple times to comic books and manga. He doesn't know how to act around women nor have a normal conversation with peers that involves him saying things like, "That's awesome for you, good luck."

Some cool hipster-nerd enters and he's way cooler and nice to the game group. He has a cool job, hot girlfriend, cool nerd stuff PLUS he drinks beer and knows lot's of other cool hipsters and chicks. This is when things fall apart with Mark and then his estranged Mom shows up and G-Ma has a stroke. It just gets real uncomfortable in the end.

It's dark, and it's thoroughly enjoyable (and also not as "cliquey" as THACO thus a wider audience appeal). I know all the characters in the movie. I can relate to all the characters in the movie, both positive and negative.

So, if you want to see some gamer-dork movies, here's 2 you might like.

2nd Saga game, spray paint, and Happy 2014

Friday after Xmas and had a night of war gaming. It was Saga again - my Vikings vs. Spencer's Anglo-Danes. He whooped up on me again in 2 games.

Game 1:
Clash of Warlords - on my right flank was a rough and rocky hill and on my left was a nice rolling hill. I arrayed my Vikings before me, lessons of the last ass-whooping still fresh in my mind. I moved forward but tried to get all tricky again by sending a warrior unit and hearth guard unit wide around the rocky hill. Never saw them again until the end of the game and it was too late.

Anglo-Danes just spun back on my right flank and created some distance while engaging what I left in the middle with all his strength.

Victory was his and my grand plans fell apart again.

Game 2:
More straight forward. No terrain, line them up and charge. This was more my style and I fared well until the end. All that was left on the battlefield was our warlords and Spencer's Anglo-Danes took the day again with having 2 warriors left on the field with said warlord.

Lessons learned II:
No more grand plans! The victory conditions for "Clash of Warlords" scenario is "points via killing". Get those.
Set short term goals - like what do I want to accomplish this turn? - Use your battle board to accomplish those goals.
Exploit opponent weakness and exploit my own strengths.
a. Viking Strengths are the ability to roll a lot of attack dice.
b. Anglo-Dane weakness is lack of attack dice multipliers... I think (will have to look at battle board).

Some day I'll get this all sorted!

After a few nights of playing Saga I have learned a bit about the game. The rules are simple,  like it confounded me at first simple. I'm so immersed in 3.x and Pathfinder rules that I forget to stop thinking so hard when rule sets are simple. When it comes to hard general rules for the game everything is pretty much the same. All armor is the same (4, 5, or 6). All attacks are the same. Everyone collects fatigue the same. Movement is pretty much standardized for all as well as ambiguous but realistic terrain rules. The majority of the differences and flavor come from the battle boards. Vikings hit hard, Saxons are good at defense, Welsh are good at going through terrain and attacking, Normans have horses.

Know your battle board. Learn to read your opponent and anticipate. Know your scenario and stick to it.

So I am painting up the "extras" of my Wargames Factory sets I bought to make up my Saga Viking warband. I was able to put together 2 more points (16 total figs) of warriors, and one Warlord.
  http://www.wargamesfactory.com/webstore/hammer-of-the-gods 
I also have decided I want to make a berserker unit. I didn't really feel like shelling out the cash right off to buy one so I looked into my own collection of minis to see what I had that would suffice. I have one Reaper Valkyrie/Viking Female (fantasy) already painted.

I also had in my stock another metal Reaper mini, "Viking Girl", and I got that prepped and primed and based.

About a month before, I was shopping at my FLGS and I picked up some very rightly priced Reaper Bones for my general stock. One of them was the later sculpt of the Reaper Valkryie:

I went back to my FLGS, Guardian Games in Portland in particular, and picked up a second one of the above - and completed my 1 point of berserkers. A unit of shield-maidens. Same rules as berserkers, just non-standard minis which is fine at our table.

I took a week off work between Xmas and NYDay. Gave me some time to get this project done and now, one week into it I almost am. I will document my process for the 16 warriors in a later blog post but I would like to mention one product.

Army Painter spray paint... or "undercoat" as they call it:
http://usshop.thearmypainter.com/products.php?ProductGroupId=2
It's expensive as Hell and, so far, the only spray paint that has worked consistently for me to paint minis. It is a colored primer. As advertised, one spray coats well if you do your part. No need for primer then base coat, one step. As advertised it saves time and money in the end. Buy in is $15 per can (yeah, I shit myself seeing that at first too). After 6 months of use I feel it is well worth it as it has given me zero drama regardless of outside conditions - which seems to be the story of spray paint.

Happy 2014 for those of you that care. I hope it is a good for you all and may all the things you are passionate about stay enjoyable to you.