Grunhilda says hello

 A little late for St. Patrick's Day, but please allow me to introduce Grunhilda Vert, part of a project I'm working on for my gaming group. The figure came from an Arena of the Planeswalkers game I picked up cheap a few years back.

I painted this mini by basecoating with some brush-on craft paint (I learned the hard way that Rustoleum spray primer on other models from this box remained tacky for more than a year; it took covering them with regular acrylics to get rid of the stickiness), overbrushing gray, and drybrushing white. 

The casting's details showed up easily under the drybrush, and I then used various shades of speed paints and some craft metallics with a wash to apply the color scheme. The banner is paper covered with craft paint and wrapped around a coffee stirrer straw that fits over the wand she's holding. 

It was a quick task for a tabletop standard, and I'm happy with the result. Now, who wants to guess what I'm gonna use her for?

Don't wake the dragon!

We tried a new scenario recently for Oathmark. It was basically a meeting engagement, but when you arrive at the battlefield, you find a dragon slumbering between the opposing armies.

The drake would awaken if any unit moved or cast a spell too close to it, or if anyone attacked the sleeping beast. Once conscious, it would attack the closest unit in its line-of-sight or make a random move. This had us both literally tiptoeing around the middle of the battlefield.

Eventually we moved into combat with one another, and I had my archers shoot at the dragon to wake it up. This backfired eventually when the wyrm randomly turned and started focusing on my units.

One non-dragon highlight of the battle was when our heavy cavalry--mine led by a champion, his by a prince--met in combat, and we both rolled 10s on the Champion die, our leaders dying at each other's hand.

Even though the dragon decided to snack on my units, tipping the battle to my opponent, it was a fun time and a nice way to get such a creature on the board without unbalancing either side.

Some toasters

Another batch of battlemechs, which my wife christened "toasters" because of their resemblance to the Cylons from Battlestar Galactica.

These guys were simple and quick to paint: Gloss black spray primer, and sucessive drybrushes of metallic black, metallic gunmetal gray, metallic silver, and metallic white (all craft paints).

I applied some color-shifting black to the cockpit canopies, then picked out a few weapon muzzles in metallic red to give that Terminator vibe, and I was done.

From left: Commando, Wolverine, Shadow Hawk, and Locust.

Some UrbanMechs

As you may have noticed, I recently got back into Battletech--or more accurately, Alpha Strike. The game plays extremely quick, and I really like the look and sizes of the plastic minis from Catalyst Game Labs. 

I've got nearly four dozen battlemech figures, but not enough of the light 'mechs, so I decided to pick up an UrbanMech lance to supplement the more substantial combat walkers in my collection. 

Painting was super-simple, thanks to my set of speed paints: One solid color for everything but the weapons (black) and windows (just craft paint pearlescent white with a blue wash). Now I have another quartet of units for Alpha Strike!

6mm civilian vehicles

Having recently returned to Battletech via the more streamlined Alpha Strike rules, I find myself in need of some 1/285 scale terrain suitable for the battlefields of the future. But even the 31st century has a need for construction equipment and delivery vehicles.

 

These castings were originally player tokens for Monopoly City that I had acquired in the process of building my Monopolis. For some reason, likely to resell them on eBay, I put them aside years ago. They came to light a couple of weeks ago as I was cleaning out my game room, and I noticed they fit in perfectly with the new battlemechs from Catalyst Game Labs. 

Some spray paint and a few details later, here we are! Anyone else using these minis?

Still around

 I know it's been awhile--OK, a year since my last post. I have fallen out of the blogging habit, with no real motivation to post more regularly.

Don't worry, though! I am still gaming and still painting miniatures. As proof, here is some sort of giant model I picked up at a flea market last year. I think it's from a Vikings boardgame.

This figure was very easy to paint, thanks to the sculpting and to the Army Painter speed paints I was using.

I was planning on using him in Oathmark, D&D, or Frostgrave, but instead my wife took him to put on her desk at work. I'm flattered she likes my work that much!

Who knows, maybe I will start blogging more soon. Meanwhile, happy gaming.

A different kind of convention (for me anyway)

Earlier this month, my wife and I went to our first ever science fiction convention: ArmadilloCon here in the Austin area. 

My wife did confess that at first she thought I had talked her into attending a game convention, and wasn't sure about going. However, once we got there and she realized that it was more of a book fans' event than a comicon or wargames show, she got into it.

While the con did have open gaming (which we did not take advantage of)--and a dealer room and an art room, both of which sucked away some of our money--the main attraction was all the authors who participated in readings, discussion, panels and book signings.

My favorite panel was the first one we attended, "Spotlight on Southwest-Themed Sci Fi and Fantasy," which had four Texas authors talking about (mainly) the Lone Star State and its influence on speculative fiction. 

I enjoyed that all the panel members were from or currently living in parts of the state where I had resided at one time or another. I also got a kick out of the fact that two of them were originally from my old stomping ground in West Texas, and their discussions about that region took me back there. They also name-checked several Texas writers, including Robert E. Howard and Elizabeth Moon.

Other panels were just as interesting (like the one on "What have Texas Infrastructure Failures Taught Us About the Coming Apocalypse?") and had may authors from around Austin as well as other parts of the state. We also heard from local horror author Gabino Iglesias, and went home with a couple of his books as well as his autograph.

The highlight for us was special guest Cory Doctorow reading an exceprt from one of his upcoming books, The Lost Cause. His writing captivated my spouse and I, and his take on the future, which can be described as "hopepunk" is one I enjoy.

So that was our first science fiction convention. I think we'll be going again next year.