I haven’t used Army Painter products in the past myself because the cost was prohibitive by the time exchange rates and international shipping were added. I resorted to mixing my own dips instead. However now there’s a local supplier for Army Painter products with reasonable prices I may have to give them a crack. I’m also particularly interested to see how matt the Army Paint matt varnish is, considering Moana varnish is no longer being produced locally.

Slave to painting also carry a nice line of priming and basing products which also look intriguing, and are certainly considerably cheaper than Games Workshop’s equivalent products.

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1. Scrap Dragon sell Pig Iron Products

So I asked on our forum if anybody had a decent replacement option and Dustan chipped in with a suggestion. He’s using an automotive primer for his figures these days: 3M’s ‘Etch Primer’ which comes in a 400g can (see the photo). I nipped down to the local Super Cheap Auto and picked up a can for the low price of $19 NZD.

I’ve just finished priming my first batch of figures with it and it works just fine. I’ve finally primed my pewter 15mm Corvus Belli Romans as well as a box of resin Covenant of Antarctica ships for Dystopian Wars. I’ve noticed the spray coverage isn’t as fine as the Skull White can, but I’m only dusting figures and models with the primer, rather than trying to get solid coverage. A dusting of 3M’s etch primer doesn’t obscure any detail that I noticed and adheres well to plastic and pewter. It does adhere to resin, but not quite as strongly (you can scrape it off with a fingernail), but that’s fine as I’ll be over-painting it with several coats of acrylic paints. The primer has no negative effect on plastic or resin that I can detect and Vallejo and GW paints go over the primer coat just fine as well.

So if you’re sick of paying a ‘GW’ tax on their Skull White primer, try this product instead. It is just over a third cheaper, and you get more than an extra third of paint in the can as well. Thanks for the tip Dustan!

My order arrived last week and I was pleasantly surprised how much fun mold #320 is to cast and build with. It’s a pretty hungry mold plaster-wise, but a single cast gets you enough bits and pieces of pipe to make an interesting 6″ linear barrier for pretty much any 28mm scale war game you can think of. The pipe sections obviously work very well for sci-fi or modern terrain, but with the right brassy paint job a few pieces could probably be added to the side of a fantasy building for some kind of brewery or mad alchemist’s laboratory.

After casting the mold a couple of times I couldn’t resist playing with the parts and dug out a pre-cut and bevelled 3mm MDF base I had kicking around. I cut and bevelled a whole bunch of random organic shapes years ago and have been working my way through the stack ever since. It’s a great time saver for just cracking into a random terrain piece when you feel like it.

This bit of Necromunda/40k/Pulp terrain is made from just two casts of mold #320, a piece of cut chicken wire, some corrugated cardboard and based with a mix of kitty little and model railway ballast. The chicken wire and cardboard was used to build that little shack over a vertical tap piece which is obscured in the photos, but you can see in the unpainted terrain.

The pipes were painted with grey latex house paint and then weathered with the Vegemite technique before airbrushing them red with hobby paints and then over-painting them with my home-made dipping varnish. The base is just dry brushed with a couple of layers of dirty brown latex house paint as well. Things were left pretty generic as I plan to use this terrain for Pulp gaming, and possibly Necromunda or 40k terrain if I ever get around to playing those systems again. I’ve included a couple of Games Workshop Imperial Guard Cadians just for scale indication.

Related posts:

1. Hirst Arts Cathedral Update VI

First he built a master tile from a set of cast Linka mold pieces, filling the joins with a heat cured modeling clay called Duk-it (a cheap local equivalent to Fimo) that he fired with a hot air gun.

Then, taking a small painter’s roller he applied another layer of heat cured clay onto the roller and carefully rolled that over his tile to transfer the texture. It took him a couple of cracks to get a satisfactory result, mainly because of slight problems with the different thicknesses of the cast pieces in his master tile creating voids on the roller.

Once he’d transferred the texture successfully he carefully cured the roller with the heat gun again. I’ve avoided heat cured clay in the past because I’ve always been afraid of shrinkage causing warps if you simply baked it in the oven. For some reason it never occurred to me to cure the clay with a hot air gun like this. It may take a little longer, but it seems like an excellent way to control the cure to avoid warping issues.

His resulting texture roller seems to work pretty well for what’s essentially an experiment. Here’s some more Duk-it clay textured with the roller. He can cover a lot of ground very quickly with his homebrew roller and it easily generates enough texture for nice drybrushing effects. Personally I’m looking forward to seeing some of this clay painted up! His whole roller experiment is documented on our forums here if you’re interested. The progress on his Malifaux table is on the forum too in a different thread.

The model was perfect for Callum, as it contained only four sprues to put together. He clipped pieces off, I cleaned them up with the Xacto blade and we dry fitted then and glued the parts together. The plane went together quickly over the course of a weekend and assembled into a tidy little Spitfire that Callum loved. We had to put it away for a week before we got a chance to paint it this weekend. A bit of blu-tack over the glassed camera ports and Callum learned how to spray prime plastic for painting.

I’ve never used enamel paints myself, as I started painting Grenadier D&D and Games Workshop 40k figures (beaky Space Marines) with Citadel acrylics back in ’82. So breaking out the Humbrol enamels was a learning exercise for both of us. Lots of mixing and a few lessons in brush control and directional painting and Callum was having a great time as you can see.

We’re half way through painting it at the moment and Callum is already talking about picking up another Airfix model to try. He’s keen on getting a tank next, possibly inspired by my collection of half painted 15mm FOW armor. I showed him the tank kits on the Airfix site and he was immediately taken with the Panzer IV, which is your archetypical armored fighting vehicle I guess!

Fortunately ModelAir, an excellent local model shop in Newmarket, have a wide range of the Airfix kits, including the Panzer IV for $17.90 which is perfectly reasonable. Although it’s out of stock at the moment – ah well I’m sure we can find a kit in store he’ll like. To be honest I no idea why we haven’t tried these Airfix kits earlier because they’re great fun!

That was fine until I borrowed Chris’s Dremel 300 and he pointed out Test’n'Tools sell Dremel in New Zealand for sane prices.

After using a Dremel tool first hand I can understand why people recommend them and I’ve picked up the basic Dremel 300 kit for $99nzd and added a keyless chuck so I can re-use my motley collection of bits.

For any hobbyists in New Zealand I’d heartily recommend Test’n'Tools for their reasonable prices, wide selection and excellent customer service. My order was dispatched the day after I placed it and arrived a day later in my PO Box. It’s always nice to find a local site that fast!

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1. Army Painter Products in New Zealand

I’ve been aware of Brickarms for a while now. They’re a US company that manufacture third party weapons for Lego Minifigs. I hadn’t ordered from them until recently as they don’t ship outside the US. However a Makeblog post rekinkled my interest and it seems they have an Australian reseller which I missed before.

I couldn’t resist picking up the World at War pack to add to my Lego Indiana Jones figures. At $20aud for a small pack of plastic pieces they’re not cheap, but after spending a couple of hours playing with them last night with my five year old son I figure it’s probably money well spent. Here’s a quick review of the Brickarms pack.

The pieces arrived in a small baggie and include the set of weapons you see above. I’ve photographed them next to several bonafide Lego pieces for scale. The Lego pieces are the standard shovel, the grey plastic revolver and the Star Wars blaster rifle to the far left. Overall the quality of the Brickarms pieces is excellent. They’re cast in the same hard ABS plastic that Lego is made from. This means they have the same weight and general feel to them as Lego pieces, down to the finish too. It also means they should have the same excellent long life as normal Lego pieces.

The sculpting on the weapons is superb and despite the fact some liberties have been taken to make them work with Minifigs, most of them should be instantly recognisable to any WWII buff. It was the M1 Garand and Panzerfaust in particular that compelled me to buy this pack. In fact many of the weapons are more finely detailed than their Lego equivalents which is obvious from the above photo when you compare the grey Lego revolver to the various German and American automatic pistols. A particular high point for me was the fact the Lewis gun has been sculpted with a clip at the bottom which will fit a standard Lego lever holder. That means you can easily mount the weapon on a Lego vehicle for AA protection.

In terms of casting they’re also very good, although unlike Lego pieces you may have to do a little clean up with an Xacto blade to remove rough scraps of plastic where the pieces have been detatched from their sprues. The weapons can be used without clean up, but the anally retentive modeller in me had to spend five minutes just tidying them up so they’re perfect. That’s really the only comment I have about the casting. Like Lego pieces they do have fine, almost unnoticable mold lines and pin ejection marks, but you can mix them with Lego pieces without any visible difference, which is a sign of quality casting.

Here’s another scale shot of Lego Indy and Henry Jones Snr ready for action. You can see the weapons look great on the figures and as I mentioned my young son has already had fun with them, conducting terrible warfare across our kitchen table as all manner of hell was unleashed. The more politically correct amoungst you (I doubt many of my visitors are but who knows) may mutter something about glorifying war etc, however as many Lego ranges already come with weapons (Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Star Wars, Lego Agents etc) I’m going to happily ignore you.

To close, Brickarms weapons are excellent and although a little pricey compared to normal Lego are well worth it, particularly if you’re already a Lego fan and want a little more variety in your Minifig armory.

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1. Review: Hasslefree Sci-Fi Weapons
2. Review: Black Scorpion Tombstone Miniatures

One mildly annoying aspect to them though, both for gaming and painting, is that none of them are on a standard base. They have a mix of wierd and wonderful bases, the most problematic being the fellow standing on half a Terminator. He’s hard to paint because there’s really no where you can get a decent grip on that base with a tool so you can dip the figure and I’ve resorted to hand painting dip onto that particular figure. The odd basing is also a problem from a gaming point of view because some of those larger figures can be hard to stuff onto a board laden with Genestealers.

Look carefully at some of the figures and you’ll see some dip runs, particularly around the knees and feet of the Genestealers and some of the 45 degree slopes on the metallic bases. The perfectionist in me is mildly annoyed I’ve let that happen, but the pragmatist in me can live with it. The green dip gives the figures a nice ‘slimy’ sort of feel, and the odd run sort of enhances that somewhat. Plus heck, I’m speed painting so you’re going to see the odd run here and there. Once the figures are in play on the table I doubt you’ll even notice them.

I showed Griff what I’d painted last night while he was GMing a game of Dark Heresy and he seemed generally appreciative which is encouraging (hi Griff). I think a Space Hulk board full of these green Genestealers will look pleasing to the eye.

If I make some effort I think I can probably do another 7-8 Genestealers this week and still have time to play a few Xbox games. I guess at some stage I should also start to think about how I’m going to paint the 11 Blood Angels Space Marine Terminators in the box. These figures are considerably more detailed than the Genestealers and while I still plan to dip paint them (with the same chestnut dip I used on my Warhammer Orcs) it’s going to take a bit longer to base coat each figure to the dipping stage.

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1. Space Hulk and Another Hobby
2. Long Range Desert Group Recreators

First I’ve started a new hobby and blog: physical computing with an Arduino board, which has been stealing some time from modelling.

Secondly, it’s because I’ve got a bunch of projects on the go at the moment, but haven’t made enough progress really to warrant a blog post. I’m still painting Orcs and Zombies using dipping and since we’ve been playing a bit of Mordheim recently I’ve started planning a new, small terrain piece for that – which I intend to turn into a tutorial about building Mordheim ruins.

Finally, the recent arrival of the latest addition of Space Hulk has also been taking up some of my time. Alas I didn’t pick up a copy ($185 locally in New Zealand is a bit rich for me), however my mad friend Griff did and somehow I’ve managed to rope myself into assembling and painting all of the figures in the box for him…? Most likely I’ll be painting with some very quick dipping. Honestly I should have kept my mouth shut, but I think Dustan’s excellent conversions of his own Space Hulk figures must have inspired me or something? Anyway this project is sure to feature in the near future – once I figure out a decent colour scheme for dipping Genestealers!

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1. Space Hulk: Dipped Genestealers Group

I’ve ordered the following from them to bulk out my Orc’n'Gobbo force. I’ve put the GW NZ retail price in italics for comparsion:

$49.50 ($55) Night Goblins Regiment
$22.50 ($25) Night Goblin Fanatic Box
$49.50 ($55) Orc Warriors Regiment
$36.00 ($40) Orc Warboss
$67.50 ($75) Warhammer Giant
$225.00 ($250) Total

That’s a 10% discount on GW retail and free shipping. I’ll be using Imperial Games from now on for most of my hobby purchases, particuarly since they carry several other lines I’ve mentioned in the past and the Ziterdes range includes lots of useful terrain.

I also have no problem recommending them to any gamer based in New Zealand. It’s fantastic to finally have a professional, discount Games Workshop web-store based here in New Zealand.

Related posts:

1. Dipping Orcs – Warhammer
2. Dipping Orcs Ranked Up – Warhammer
3. Magnetised Giant – Warhammer

I decided to revamp my tired old painting table with a stepped shelf system designed for more comfortable painting and protection from my daughter Pagyn (almost 2 at the time of writing). I wasn’t alone on the mission as my boy Shaun lent a hand and was a wonderful help to keep things flush while I screwed them.

The materials were all scavenged from about the garage. I had a 1200x600mm sheet of 4.5mm MDF, the chipboard was about 200mm x 595mm at 20mm depth. The screws were the only part I needed to buy, about 85 screws all up at $0.10 a piece. The tools used were a jigsaw, skill saw, coping saw, a couple of clamps and a drill.

The table has been kicking arround with me for the longest time, it is an old TV table and I have been using it as a paint station for years. It’s a good size for hiding between furniture when not in use and the lower part of the table is where my current models, bitz and tools are stored.

I sketched up a diagram of roughly what I wanted it to look like, then after cutting the back and sides I drew the plans straight onto them. This first shot shows the table with the back and splash shields in place. I didn’t have any hole cutting drill bits so I used a coping saw to make the water jar hole. The cuts were made by clamping a guide rail onto the material to cut. The shelves are made from a system of screwed together steps with MDF tops and chipboard walls.

Here’s a shot of the fully stocked table so far. I am also over half way through building a breadbox style lid, made from old ventian blind slats, which will slide into the void above the top shelf.

So far construction has taken about six hours, and the design and measurements where largely made up on the fly. Painting at the table is nice as everything is available and arranged tidily, and the high sides limit Pagyn’s angles of attack which has made it much easier to get things done.

Very nice work Dustan. I admire both your scavenging and DIY abilities, and I particularly like the inclusion of a large storage area underneath the work surface. I’m also slightly jealous of your collection of GW paints. Most of mine have been used, or dried up and I’m left with the horrifying prospect of purchasing some more, at $7NZ locally for a single bottle! – Stu.

A group favourite from Adam’s collection is Race for the Galaxy, which as the title suggests is a race to build the highest scoring galactic civilisation. Also like a typical race, there’s no interaction between the competitors. It does however have an interesting mechanic where players decide which phases of a turn occur in any given turn, so a canny player can sort of parasitically benefit from the other player’s choices. This is a card game you can finish in under an hour, even with four to five players and each game is varied enough that we’ve gone weeks just playing Race.

Andrew has dragged out Clans once, which I found to be an enjoyable game of diminishing resources and escalating scoring with a single core mechanic that sort of feels like crystals forming in a solution. Possibly it’s a little too simple though as we haven’t replayed in the three months I’ve worked so far, although I’d happily try it again. It plays quickly too so you can get a couple of games in over an hour.

Zombie Fluxx is a card game that Adam bought in for comparison after I purchased a copy of Munchkin from Board-Games.co.nz. Having played Zombie Fluxx over a lunchtime this week I have to say I wish I’d purchased it instead of Munchkin! It has the same kind of ‘beer and pretzels’ feel of Munchkin, plays in a similar fast and furious fashion, and has the same large element of luck but the Fluxx mechanic of playing cards to change the game rules (including the victory conditions) is just a little deeper and more interesting than Munchkin. Plus you know, it’s got a Zombie theme, which actually works quite well with the rather abstract game.

In closing I’m also surprised to find how relaxing a midday board game is. I work in IT as a software enginner, which while not a physically draining job, certainly can be a mentally tiring one. Board and card games are an intellectual exercise too of course, but they’re also social affairs. Something about a game over lunch keeps my mind sharp enough to head back into the code in the afternoon, but is sufficiently different to refresh me as well. Possibly it’s the invigorating smack talk that goes on during the games. If you have the means I’d seriously recommend getting a gaming group together at your office.

I’m also interested to hear any recommendations for interesting board or card games that can be played with three to five people in around an hour. Any suggestions dear visitors?

Related posts:

1. Dustan: HeroQuest Redux – Part 1

January, February

The Hirst Arts Cathedral saw some good progress early in the year, but has stalled again as I’ve run out of Ultracal 30. In the new year I’m definitely going to visit TopMark in Auckland and grab a fresh pail.

March, April, May

February saw the start of a Flames of War three month painting challenge which I largely failed to complete. I painted a series of DAK Panzer turrets using an interesting weathering technique. To date I’ve only finished two of the Panzers that use these turrets, but as all the tanks have been based with dunkelgarb, I don’t believe my gaming buddies have noticed my laxness to date. I also sculpted an original little Flames of War objective for my DAK Germans, but haven’t got around to painting it yet.

I reviewed a couple of 28mm sci-fi products, Pig Iron Kolony heads and Hasslefree weapons that I intend to use for scratch building a Necromunda scavvie gang.

June, July, August

June and July were very quiet because it was the depth of winter and our whole family was fairly exhausted and often sick. However August I painted some 15mm Ancients, and knocked off a bunch of my Corvus Belli Carthaginians. This was an army I had intended to finish in 2008! I should certainly be able to knock them off early this year.

September, October, November, December

The release of Fallout 3 pretty much put paid to any hobby work at the end of the year as I played Fallout 3 for over a month straight each evening. All I achieved in these months was to start my Necromunda scavvie gang, which is based on a bunch of figures Daniel handed to me, and to finally build some 15mm flexible road strips for my North African Flames of War table.

Well that’s it. Goodness me, I really need to get stuck in this year. The recession means my hobby spending has also reduced, but like any hobbyist I have a large list of incomplete projects anyway. So 2009′s focus will be on finishing some of these – much like 2008′s was supposed to be! Anyway, hope you’ve all had a good Xmas and New Year! Roll on 2009.

However after playing at least 6-8 hours a week for the last couple of weeks I’ve maxed out my character and am plan to finish the main story line before Xmas. So hopefully normal programming will resume in the New Year. I’ve certainly got a slew of hobby projects backed up that I really want to knock off – mainly because some require almost minimal effort to complete.

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1. 2008 Annual Roundup

Way back around 1989 Games Workshop and Milton Bradley got together and produced HeroQuest. Set in GW’s Warhammer Fantasy world it recreates the adventures of four Heroes who battle the minions of the evil wizard Morcar (Zargon in America). I decided to paint up this set as something to play with my son who is turning six soon. This is the fourth set I’ve painted, for some reason they always seemed expendable when it came clearing out the cupboards, now it’s out of production I wont let this one escape me!

HeroQuest is a game for 2-5 players and comes with 35 miniatures, 15 pieces of furniture, 20 doors, a large game board and a host of cards, counters and dice. The rules are brief and simple and the quest book contains 14 Adventures. There is no system for creating dungeons as you go however a blank game map was supplied and later an adventure design kit was released.

The board consists of a grid of floor tiles with fixed walls, rubble tokens would block access to some areas to help change the shape of the map. In later expansions overlays were used to radically change the map by adding grassy caves, chasms and other special features.

The Heroes (Barbarian, Wizard, Elf and Dwarf) move around the board with 2d6 movement and are able to search for treasure, traps and secret doors. Combat is resolved using a special set of combat dice, the number of dice thrown in attack or defense was dependent on the combatant’s stat lines.

Searching for treasure allows the players to draw a random treasure card which could be anything from potions, gems, gold, items and even traps or wandering monsters. Each quest has an objective for the Heroes to complete, if they failed either by leaving the dungeon or being killed the Evil Wizard claims victory.

The game is not without its flaws. These issues were addressed by the later GW release of Advanced HeroQuest, which sadly is a little to complicated for casual play. HeroQuest’s flaws are:

• It’s designed more as a board game rather than an RPG it seems to suggest the Heroes  are competing against each other for treasure, this is of course dependant on your players.
• The random movement distances can really slow down this game, particularly if you are a low roller.
• Due to the use of equipment and treasure playing cards expanding the game relied on MB releasing expansions.

Despite this HeroQuest is a good gateway game and I hope it will encourage my son and later my daughter into the hobbies that have permeated my life.

There are many resources out there with new quests, printable tiles and house rules. I have included a few of my favourites to get you started.

• Ye Old Inn – Build your own set with complete scans of all the card components and rules
• HeroScribe – Mapping tool for quest building.
• Old Scratch’s HeroQuest Forum – Dedicated forums, some of the 3d dungeons are neat.

In the next post I’ll show you my work on painting the Heroes and furniture.