Ninja Attack!

 I'm pleased to report that I seem to have refound my painting groove and have a project going that I feel good about, I'm motivated, I'm enjoying the process. 

Back in 2024, I bought a handful of Feudal Japanese miniatures with an idea towards making that my big project for 2025, which ended up not happening beyond a few test figures. Having grabbed a few vintage figures for AEG's "Clan Wars" miniature game, I felt my interest in samurai gaming rekindle. As an added bonus, my home convention (Running GAGG in SUNY Geneseo) has announced the theme for the 2027 show as "Pirates Vs. Ninjas" and now I feel like I have a defined goal to work towards - put on a game with some ninjas in it! And it just so happens I already owned a couple of ninjas that were primed and ready to paint!

These are the "Shinobi Sisters" from Bad Squiddo Games. I've got a few more of their Feudal Japan figures waiting in the wings, and am looking forward to buying more because they're great characterful sculpts.

Rather than just going with black clothing with maybe a gray dry brush, I went with some darker colors that would actually blend into the shadows better - a very dark, drab brown (Reaper "Woodstain Brown," washed with Agrax Earthshade, then drybrushed with Reaper "Powderburn Brown") and a dark blue (Reaper "Coal Black," which is actually an extremely dark teal, drybrushed with "Midnight Blue"). One of them I'd glued to a Renedra Cobblestone-patterned base; you'll see more of these as I continue through the collection of primed figures I've got for this project. I'm using them a lot for figures who are on tabs instead of puddle bases. I'm continuing the winter basing theme I started with the ghost samurai last week. 

What's next? Well, I've got some Northstar figures, designed to accompany the Osprey game "Ronin," half-painted that I'm hoping to finish by early next week. And I've started work on an Ogre Mage (inspired by the Japanese "Oni" demon) from Reaper Miniatures that I've wanted to paint for...a very long time. I think I must have seen it on their site when I first discovered Reaper 20 years ago and at the time I always passed on it in favor of getting multiple human-sized figures instead. Over the years I always had something else taking priority, but I finally bought him in 2024. Now I'm not just painting him, but giving him the absolute best damn paint job I can. Here's a WIP shot:

The fur vest he's got on is going to be painted as a tiger skin.

I was a little bad, though, and bought more figures today at Harlequin Hobby. I knew they had some Warlord Games samurai stuff on the little historical shelf they've got (which is mostly Bolt Action and a little bit of Victrix Dark Age plastics) and I decided to take a look. Along with boxes of plastic samurai and ashigaru (which, if I was a plastic figure kind of guy, I'd probably order Fireforge's sets instead), they had three boxes of metal figures, all branded for Warlord's "Warlords of Erewhon" fantasy game that I think has largely flopped. Two of the boxes were plain olive drab with the Warlord Games logo, with only a sticker describing what was inside. The third box was "Bandits & Brigands," with a characterful assortment of ten figures. This last one came home with me today.

Having opened it, it looks like the figures fit well size-wise alongside the figures I've already got. There's some bent swords that I'm hoping I can straighten without breaking, and some of the figures have separate arms to glue on. I'm looking forward to mixing them with the Grey For Now Games "Rogues & Ruffians" I have primed and awaiting my attention. 

Miniatures Acquired: 135

Miniatures Painted: 90

Terrain Acquired: 3

Terrain Painted: 5

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 4

We Built This City (on Frost and Graves)

Inspired by Tom's buildings from Wednesday night, and wanting to both beat the oppressive heat and humidity Rochester was experiencing today and avoid writing about Tuesday's Cthulhu game twice (I already wrote my write-up for Chaosium today, now I'm procrastinating on the blog post) I decided to start assembling some of my "Ruined Hamlet" from Warlord Games.

The Ruined Hamlet is really just three Ruined Farmhouse kits in one box; taking one baggie of pieces out and opening it, I began dry-fitting pieces together and figuring out what I wanted to create; I decided on one relatively-intact building and two smaller, more rubble-y pieces.  I retrieved my trusty bottle of superglue and set to work.

The biggest struggle I had was with gluing in the wooden loft of second floor; I felt like it wasn't real secure just glued to the wall the way it was, so I decided to reinforce it with a few toothpicks.  Once everything's painted I think they'll blend in nicely and keep the piece sturdily in place.  A Reaper Bones "Anhurian Crossbowman" demonstrates how nicely the loft will serve as a sniper's nest in Frostgrave.

I really like the little piles of rubble Warlord Games included; they're really good for supporting a join where two wall-pieces meet and keep them aligned properly, and likely will make the buildings a little more stable on the tabletop.

One down, two to go!

What to Buy Next?

Gina and I have been on hobby no-buy for the month of December - I can't buy toy soldier stuff (not even based or flock) and she can't buy knitting supplies. Well, one of her favorite indie yarn dyers put out an update last week and Gina would have been unable to purchase any of the one-of-a-kind skeins if she'd been forced to wait until January 1st - they would have been completely sold out.

So we came to an agreement; I would turn a blind eye to her buying a few skeins of unique yarn, and she would turn a blind eye to me making a toy soldiers purchase AFTER Christmas - she's buying me some toy soldiers for Christmas so doesn't want me buying anything she might have picked out for me.

Now, I know what I showed her in terms of miniatures I was interested in, so I have a pretty good idea of things I won't find under the tree. So I'm considering what my "post-Christmas" present to myself would be. I've narrowed it down thusly:

photo courtesy Warlord Games

1.) Terrain for Frostgrave. I have two warbands and might be able to put together a third or more after Christmas, so I ought to get some terrain going for games. I'm eyeing a couple of Warlord Games' bombed out farmhouses from their Bolt Action line and maybe the snap-together gothic buildings that I think Pegasus Hobbies currently puts out. I'm curious to hear from readers who've built these structures about how the construction process went.

2.) Colonial/Victorian/Steampunk-appropriate figures from Wargames Foundry. I've been rereading Chris Palmer and Buck Surdu's Victorian Science Fiction skirmish game GASLIGHT lately, and I'm more impressed with them than ever. I haven't run GASLIGHT in years and don't have the figures from those long-ago days any more. I think I'd like to be able to run demo games of both GASLIGHT and Frostgrave at conventions by autumn 2016, and that means new armies need to be painted. Colonial-era games are tricky things in our current hyper-sensitive climate; it's too easy to get accused of ethnocentrism by putting on a game set in this era.

I'm thinking a couple packs of Foundry figs would take advantage of their end of year 20% off sale, and build a force of Belgians (who were dastardly in their dealings in the Congo, no doubt) and some stalwart Brits to oppose them. I've got a pretty nice mental image of a demo game in which rival European expeditions racing to the entrance of King Solomon's Mines - which happens to be located in a "Lost World" valley populated by dinosaurs who don't care about the national origin of their next meal.

photo courtesy Wargames Foundry

The thing is, I'm not sure if I'm spreading myself too thin by dividing my time and money between two games; would it be better, I wonder, to focus solely on Frostgrave for now, get my warbands painted, and start playing the game, learning it as best I can before I start building armies for another game? Or would being able to go back and forth between working on the two games make me less likely to experience burn-out because I'd be painting a greater variety of figures? This is the first time I've ever really had the income to where I could work on two games at once. I'd love to hear others' experience, ideas and advice.