I recently added the Defiance Games UAMC marines to my Colonial Marine review. As I was playing around with assembling the minis, I remembered I had some of Hasslefree‘s wonderful pulse rifles kicking around. These guns are the pick if you’re looking to convert minis to an Aliens setting, so I figured I’d try one out on a DG marine. I did a very quick, rushed job (it’s still in need of putty work and filing), but as you can see, it makes for a very nice Colonial Marine. The size and scale of the HF gun is spot on, and the end result works really well. This combination is definitely worth considering, if you’re looking to make your own on the cheap.
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The more I keep looking at that, the more my inner struggle against laziness increases. While the guns the DG marines sport are nice enough, the HF pulse rifle is a perfect rendition of the Aliens gun. Luckily I only have a few HF pulse rifles left…for now.
Time to get back on the posting horse again, after my trip to Malaysia. I’ve been a bit busy lately, so really needed to stop for a moment and put a post together in order to keep this blog from going dormant.
I was recently asked to do a group shot of the terrain pieces I’ve finished for the Aliens board game, so I quickly rounded up the nine finished pieces and added some Colonial Marines and Aliens for style and scale. Below you can see the set piece of a valiant CM last stand.
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Personally I think the miniatures and terrain pieces go together very nicely. What’s most important to me is that they capture that Aliens feel. Then again, I might just be blind to my own work, what do you think?
Also, I have to mention that I just got a new job as a project expert, working on a project focusing on preventing video gaming and gambling addiction in adolescents. So happy about this, as I actually get to combine my degree (MA in Education) with my interests and get paid to do it!
Work continues on my Aliens game board pieces. This post showcases one of the larger pieces on the board, a large vent with a hapless colonist who has been used for Xenomorph breeding. He still grasps a pistol, but his arm has been secured into the wall to prevent him from ending his miseries prematurely.
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The item is another case of trash bashing. It consists of a deodorant spray bottle cap, some bug screen, a gadget piece from an old Ral Partha Shadowrun mini, a few decorative beads, electrical conduit tubing and a hefty amound of silicone paste. I gave it my normal paintjob for this project. The metal parts were drybrushed first with Vallejo Oily Steel and then Vallejo Natural Steel. The Alien goo was given a drybrush first with Citadel Codex Grey and then Citadel Fortress Grey. It was then washed over with Citadel Badab Black and given a gloss varnish. The OSL from the red warning lights was simply drybrushed on with Citadel Blood Red. It gave me quite a headache, as I had to repaint it from the start once – you know, the “I’ll just add a little..ARGH! Well, I’ll fix it up with some more…ARGHHH! Just a little more then..ARRRGHG it looks horrible!” syndrome.
The colonist is a chopped up pre-painted plastic mini from the Horrorclix Aliens set. Too large to use with most 28mm miniatures, I’ve been trying to find a use for him as I have several. Here I chopped off his feet, crudely repositioned his arms (the paste handily covers the rough cuts on the shoulders), drilled a hole in his chest and then added some detailing with Procreate putty. The model has a suitably horrified expression as the original model is fittingly enough about the get attacked by a Xenomorph. I gave him Bishop-style blue-grey coveralls as they immediately remind me of Aliens. I think he turned out pretty nice, I guess all that zombie painting has helped with the dead look.
I’m very happy with how the piece turned out. The different parts fit together to form a nice whole. In my opinion, it’s the nicest yet on the board! I really liked constructing this, as it was kind of like a mini diorama. I might add an Alien egg on a separate terrain piece in front of the colonist to complement this one. Comments welcome, as always.
I’m leaving for Malaysia for two weeks tomorrow for some kung fu training, so the blog will be quiet for a while. Fear not, I’ll get back to updating once I’m back here in sweet Finland.
A few days ago I did something I don’t usually do: a slight repaint on one of my models.
I had this werewolf from West Wind, who I originally painted for my Underworld project (now sadly defunct), and happened to need another werewolf for my Blood Bowl team, the Drakwald Ravens.
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A quick pant and base repaint later, I had a new player, Anti-Christian Wolff. Apart from the base and the pants, I didn’t change the model and the differences apparent are due to photography. This repaint was actually a step back, due to my decision to not highlight the black on the Ravens’ uniform. It does make for a sleek, sporty wolf though.
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Anti-Christian’s debut started out pretty impressive, as he scored what proved to be a winning 2-1 goal against the crafty bourgeoisie dwarves of Blackpit Arsenal. A few turns later a disastrous sequence of dice rolls meant that poor Anti-Christian dropped dead – from heart failure due to the elation from the goal, we concluded.
After a moment of despair and bafflement I’m back on the painting track. I’ve decided to keep adding to my Colonial Marine force, slowly expanding it outside the Alien canon and building it more into a generic human scifi army. This means I finally get to paint all sorts of wonderful stuff I’ve collected over the years. Maybe I’ll even find a new use for some old models.
I’m currently working on a group of four minis, who will all join the ranks of my CM force as various specialists. First up is a medic. Unarmed and -armoured, she doesn’t really seem to be geared for combat. The model’s posing still suggests that she’s out in the field, so maybe she’s been called up in an emergency situation or perhaps she’s aiding some civilians.
The miniature itself…well, what can I say. It’s a repaint of a Heroclix Paramedic. This was pretty much what I was working with (pic lifted from eBay):
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While I did strip the model of paint with acetone, I was still left with some gritty, uneven surfaces, flecks of paint etc. Also, I didn’t notice some glaring mould lines until I was far into painting, so I had to go back and scrape them off. To be honest, this was a miniature I just wanted to paint quickly as it had been sitting (with a twin sister) in my miniatures cupboard for ages, so I didn’t do a very thorough job . Some will certainly be bugged by this, for me it was much more important to just finish the mini before I got frustrated by the soft detailing.
I think the model turned out ok. There are problems with it, especially a lack of detail on some parts. For example, a large part of the hair strands have been painted on. The paint coat is very uneven and frankly ugly in some parts, but the varnishing will help a little with this. Below is the medic on her own, as well as with a selection of other Marines. I think she fits in nicely.
I’m stuck with an amazing problem that I never thought I’d have: I don’t have a miniatures project to work on. Ok, that’s not entirely true, as the Aliens board game thing is still very actively in the works. I’ve already painted all the models I need for it, though, so I’m left with terrain building. That’s fun in its own right, but I love painting miniatures. I also love the feeling of picking new miniatures for a project and splurging on them.
I guess this is the fault of being far too active this year. All the Colonial Marines I currently need are painted, and I want a small break from them anyway. Same goes for the Aliens and the Predators. My Blood Bowl team is painted, down to the coach. I could of course add to both projects, but there aren’t currently any must-do things there.
There are a few criteria to a new project:
It should be gamable. Even if I never get round to actually playing a game, the potential needs to be there to experience that “oh this’ll be such a cool game” vibe.
It should be inspiring. Well, naturally.
Suitable miniatures should be available.
The project should be scifi-ish. As much as I like vampires, werewolves and zombies, I’m not really in the mood currently.
Simple, right?
There are a few possibilities, which I’m liking at a 75% level. One is expanding the Colonial Marines force outside movie canon, into the comic book and fiction territory. I have somewhat done this already with a combat synthetic. This is a definite possibility. There are plenty of cool things out there. Battle suits, more combat androids, specialist teams, colonists, Xenomorph variants and the like.
Another is some opposition for the Marines. Aliens and Predators I have. Who else? I’ve never been that big of a Terminator fan, and the miniatures might be a tad boring to paint. Any other suitable scifi baddies come to mind?
Any ideas, dear readers? Fiction, comic or movie recommendations? Cool minis for me to look at? Everything will be considered!
Funnily enough, this lack of inspiration -post is the 200th I’ve made, yay!
It’s time to present to you the coach of the Drakwald Ravens, Nekromantti Ruuminen. As is apparent to my Finnish readers, he is based on Antti Muurinen, the former head coach of the Finnish national football team. I named my coach in a spot of Finnish punning, and his Finnish name translates as “the necromancer Corpsy”.
Ruuminen has built a reputation for solid positivity in our Blood Bowl league. It should be no surprise, as this is what his real-life counterpart looks like:
That open smile, that wonderful moustache!
After the games, he tends to spout lines such as
Against an opponent like that, a tie can be seen as a victory, as can a narrow loss. Even a crushing loss, such as today, should be seen as a positive learning experience, and as such, a victory.
Coming up with a suitable model to represent him on the sidelines was a grueling task. You wouldn’t think so, but it was. Out of sheer curiosity, how many smiling human miniatures do you own? Check it out, you might come away empty-handed. I did, at least. I spent a good while browsing through different manufacturers’ catalogues, thought about sculpting my own, asked around on forums and was left with no great solution to the problem. The few smiling miniatures were stylistically unsuitable for my uses.
Finally I happened to notice a model that was sitting on my desk. It was one that I received from fellow blogger Sho3box as part of one of our trades. The model was that of a man dressed for a wedding, about to pull a gun from inside his jacket. Now, it’s a cool miniature and there’s even a matching bride, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how I could best use him.
A bit later I had my coach. I used ProCreate putty to add the all-important moustache and to turn the mini’s fairly gruff expression into a smile. I sculpted the pistol grip he was holding into a handkerchief, and that’s pretty much it. I did a very quick job on him, and painted his eyes larger and more cartoony than usual. He came out looking like a kindly magician from a kids’ movie. Not my smoothest or neatest paintjob at any rate, but still: great success!
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I can’t keep myself from posting a song relating to Muurinen/Ruuminen. It laments the coach moving on. The chorus says:
“Wind, blow to where my walrus lies, play a moment with his moustache! Tell him of my love, tell him how I miss him, tell him that I’m still waiting.”
The song, a parody of this one (go ahead, treat yourself to some quality Finnish pop music – English lyrics included!), has become something of a running joke in our Blood Bowl games. Quite deservedly so.
Work on the board is progressing steadily. Since the last post I’ve managed to complete five more obstacle pieces for the board. Shown below are four normal, one square filling obstacles.
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The first one is a collection of beads and hardware store goods. The second one is a hollow wall anchor (as shown in the previous post). The third one is a container from Ainsty. It has been heavily alienized with conduit tubing and insulation paste. The fourth one is a small container from Ainsty. It has been left clean, as some parts of the reactor room will be relatively free of infestation.
The fifth piece I’ve completed is a large obstacle covering four squares.
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I have no idea what it is. It’s built out of a toilet bowl cleaner bottle cap, two wooden IKEA furniture pegs and two small beads. It looks scifi-ish enough I think. I was even adventurous enough to try some OSL when painting it. I tried to convey the look of emergency/alarm lights, and I think it came out ok.
Our Blood Bowl league has taken off magnificently. So far we’ve had a grand total of 19 [sic] games since the start of the season in January, and the fourth round of matches is almost finished.
The Swamp Shamans' Kroxigor Shiva prepares to lay down some hurt. (Click for a larger version)
Blood Bowl has really become something of a “thing”. The games and the league are turning into something much more than the sum of their parts. Let me list (since I’m partial to lists) some of the things that make it so much fun:
Social events. This is really what the games are turning into. More and more people will flock to see games played by others, offering their commentary and interpretation of game events, having a few beers and simply having a good time. With people working, studying, getting children and things like that, quality time like this tends to be hard to come by in the same quantities as five to ten years before.
Narratives. We’ve long had an internet discussion forum, which is nowadays almost completely devoted to all things Blood Bowl. One of the best aspects are the narratives building around the league, its coaches and its players. From the bitter hometown rivalry between the wealthy dwarf team of Blackpit Arsenal and their working-class opposition, the chaos dwarves of Blackpit Chaotic to the naughty nun team of the Marienburg Spankers (with their trademark pass action declaration ”Nun shall pass!”), the narratives, game reports and the like are often hilarious stuff. All the ten players in our league are avid role-players, and as such no strangers to happily making up intricate stories about simple events. The narratives also form something of a pressure valve, allowing frustratingly bad luck with the dice to be explained away as bribed referees and the like.
Excitement. Blood Bowl is an excellent game – I think the best one Games Workshop has ever created. It strikes a good balance between skill and luck. The games tend to be really exciting, with adrenaline levels spiking and palms sweating as a mere 2+ roll stands between victory and defeat. Today’s game was a great example, with the Lustrian Swamp Shamans squeezing a 3-3 tie against the Sea Elf Seahawks with a daring passing play – only succeeding on a roll of 6.
The Seahawks' elves Shanghai and Singapore try to stare down their cold-blooded opponents. (Click for a larger version)
These things combine to make our Blood Bowl league so much more than just a bunch of games played with miniatures. I can’t tell what it exactly is, but I can honestly say that it’s been a long while since I’ve enjoyed miniature gaming this much.
