More Devils, Rats and Scatter

The plan is to begin my "When Nightmares Come" campaign on October 2nd (I've got the day off work), so I'm bustling to get as much painted as I can before I start, so that there's less pressure on me between games.

I do have all six games plotted out using the generator tables in the rulebook, so I know what games I need extra "Alpha" Dark Spawn models for and more or less what terrain is going to be on the table during each game, which helps quite a bit. I had a lot of things very close to done at the time of my last blog post, and now they're all finished and ready to be shown.

 First things first, I finished my final five succubi; these are a mix of Heresy and Reaper Miniatures, and will be "Terrors," the most dangerous of the three tiers of Dark Spawn minions. 

 These followed the same color scheme I used previously - base coat of VGC "Gory Red," washed with GW "Carroburg Crimson," highlighted with Reaper "Fire Red" and "Regulator's Scarlet". The membranes of the wings follow the first two steps, but are then only re-highlighted with the "Gory Red."

I'm a very big fan of the chubby succubus from Reaper, she was a delight to paint and I'm looking forward to putting her on the table.  

For those keeping track at home, here's all my devils together:

 Next up, I needed an "Alpha" Dark Spawn for game 3, which is the last game featuring the lowest level of Dark Spawn, which for this campaign are Rat Swarms. These "Alphas" appear as bonus threats with certain rolls on the tables for generating a case file, and are slightly tougher versions of their normal tier. In this case, I dug around in my backlog and found some Reaper Giant Rats I bought ages ago. I glued one to a base and gave it a pretty straightforward paint job. 

 

Base coat in black, drybrush with "Stormy Gray" and "Cloudy Gray," then glaze with GW "Bloodletter" over the areas where the sores are visible. These were then picked out with Reaper "Moldy Skin" to give them a properly pus-filled appearance. The tail is "Tanned Shadow" washed with GW "Reikland Fleshshade" and drybrushed with "Tanned Skin." 

The narrative I've built around game 3's dice rolls is that the Webster Street Irregulars will be investigating mysterious disappearances against the backdrop of a sanitation workers' strike, which means I needed some piles of garbage! These are 3D prints bought from a licensed seller on Etsy, with the STLs designed by "Tiny Furniture" on MyMiniFactory. 

 I kept them fairly simple, without worrying too much about excessive shading or highlighting. They went pretty quickly and were a lot of fun to paint. 

Looking slightly further ahead, I got a package in the mail today with my terrain for game 6.

 These are, as you can see, from Warbases, and are very nice looking little kits. They're going to be customized into summer camp cabins, and despite their small size will have detailed interiors if everything goes right over the next few weeks. I got a couple sheets of laser-cut roof shingles as well, so I will be gluing those over the plain MDF of the roofs. Because why make it easy on myself when I can make it look better instead? 

So let's update that tracker:

 

Miniatures Acquired: 214

Miniatures Painted: 231

Terrain Acquired: 7

Terrain Painted: 10

Scatter Acquired: 15

Scatter Painted: 24

 

More Seedy Terrain

 I've been very up front that my modern terrain collection is based very heavily on the Rust Belt surroundings I've spent my entire life in. Buildings are run-down, poorly maintained, businesses cater to rougher, less-affluent clientele. Nothing is classy or upscale. 

Which brings me to my latest completed building from Atomic Laser Cut Designs. This is "Retail Store RS1A," which I ended up with two of; Vince at ALCD sent me a complimentary one as a thank you for showing off photos of my finished Urgent Care, which arrived just hours after I ordered one for myself. The complimentary one became my Liquor Store, and now here's the one I bought. 

 

You remember the bit in the movie Beetlejuice, where Beetlejuice makes a strip club ("Dante's Inferno Room") manifest on Alec Baldwin's model train table, and Geena Davis gets mad at Alec Baldwin about it? That scene will forever play a part in my deciding what buildings to add to my terrain collection. 

 Signs are all printed paper as usual, and the graffiti on the exterior walls are all decals from Dave's Decals. Similarly, the curtain in the window is an image taken off an Amazon listing for curtains and printed at my local Office Max. The name and color scheme are a nod to the "Adult Galaxy" superstore on Niagara Falls Boulevard, just minutes from my house, which sits snugly between an Urgent Care and the "Weed King" cannabis dispensary. 

 The interior has some shelves and a check-out counter, also produced by Atomic Laser Cut Designs. I grabbed some posters for vintage adult films, rescaled them and printed them to decorate the walls, and I printed another poster advertising "Welfare Wednesdays" at a strip club and added it to the back room. 

 The floor is printed paper as usual, though a different wooden floor design than I've used in other buildings. There was a bit of a saga there - I'd initially cut the paper floor and pasted it to the wrong side of the base, necessitating cutting a second one to glue to the right side. The second one wasn't quite a perfect fit, so there's spots along the wall where you can see the underlying painted MDF. 

Somehow, I don't think I'll be bringing this one to public-facing events! 

 

Miniatures Acquired: 214

Miniatures Painted: 222

Terrain Acquired: 5

Terrain Painted: 10

Scatter Acquired: 9

Scatter Painted: 16

 

From the Files of Police Squad!

 The two police cars are finished:

 I kept things pretty simple decal-wise; the word "Police" on both front doors, and "911" on the rear next to the gas cap. I had to buy two sets of decals to get enough black-letter "Police" for both cars; I may get some more Crown Vics at some point and paint some as Highway Patrol or County Sheriff vehicles. 

In other news, the MDF buildings I alluded to the other day arrived, along with a box of resin accessory bits - air conditioners, filing cabinets, vending machines, etc - from Oshiro Models. 

 I've never built a TTCombat kit before; I picked this one up because it's got a very different footprint from the other buildings I've got, plus I liked that it had a fire-escape. Should give me plenty of opportunity for customization as well.

On the right in the ziploc bags are two kits from Atomic Lasercut Designs; one is a two-story building from their "Mean Streets" line, with a commercial space at ground level and apartments above. The other is a rooftop access point, which I'm going to glue to the roof of the building to add more height and make it a little bit different from the similar two-story building I've already done. The rooftop access has a removable roof as well, and the interior could offer some fun customizing opportunities. 

I'm hopeful to get these both done before winter, along with the two Atomic Lasercut kits I've currently got on my workbench. I feel like my modern urban terrain collection (and figures!) are replacing the Oldhammer Orcs as my "Hobby Home" - the thing I can always take out and putter away at in between other projects or when I'm not feeling inspired for something. At this point I'm fairly certain I could cover my entire dining room table (which is 3' x 5'10", which let me tell you, is annoying for trying to get a mat to cover it!) with terrain and have some left over, but it's just so relaxing to paint and assemble. 

 The two buildings and the cars are already factored into my finished tally, but I think I should count the electrical transformer substation I got from Oshiro as scatter. Let's update the tracker:

 

Miniatures Acquired: 212

Miniatures Painted: 215

Terrain Acquired: 5

Terrain Painted: 9

Scatter Acquired: 9

Scatter Painted: 15

 

What I'm working on

 Just a few small things today - first off, I finished a piece of scatter terrain from Miniature Building Authority that's been sitting, unhappily half-painted, for six months on my workbench. I'd used too yellowy of a brown for the wood of the crates and it looked bad. I stripped it, reprimed, and repainted, and now I'm happy with it. I especially like how it can sit flush against the wall of a building.

Had some opportunities for some fun details - a radiation hazard symbol on the barrel (that's probably fine to leave in a random alleyway, right?) and "FRAGILE" upside down on one of the crates.

 

Some months back, I got another set of irregular terrain bases from Things From The Basement, and built them up with cork layers with an eye towards making another set of jungle terrain.  Well, the second batch of trees I got were just absolute junk. Greasy, warped plastic in weird colors. So I never got around to making the jungle terrain, and these corked-up bases were just sitting there, until I started working on my samurai and I thought, "some pieces to make a bamboo grove would be nice."

So I ordered some model bamboo, and set to work painting the bases. Tonight, I drilled holes in two of the bases and inserted some bamboo stems of different sizes to see how they'd look:

 I might have made a mistake by not flocking the bases before drilling holes, but overall I'm happy with them and I can flock around the stems without egregious difficulty. I packed the bamboo in pretty densely so nobody can argue with me about whether or not they'd block line of sight. 

I'll work on finishing these two bases tomorrow and then tackle the next five or six - I forget how many I've got. Enough for a respectable grove!  

 

Miniatures Acquired: 207

Miniatures Painted: 210

Terrain Acquired: 3

Terrain Painted: 9

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 13

 

The Road to More Terrain

 A couple of packages arrived today, both furthering my goals to play more samurai games. 

First, a resin house, a well, and some accessory odds and ends picked up from Oshiro Model Terrain. I did a lot of thinking and weighing options for Feudal Japanese terrain, and I decided that, at least for smaller buildings, I like the Oshiro Japanese houses best, plus they've got the best line of accessory bits. 

 The roof comes off the house and it has a plain, though accessible, interior. I'll be adding a base to it, much like I did with the MDF temple kit. The plan, such as it is, is to ultimately add a few more of these houses to my collection over time so I can put a small village, or at least the outskirts of one, on the table. 

The other thing that arrived today is a 3D print of Itto Ogami and his son Daigoro, the titular characters of the "Lone Wolf and Cub" franchise. Lone Wolf and Cub ran as a manga series from 1970 to 1976, and has been adapted to television, film and even the stage, the story following Itto, the shogun's official executioner, as he is framed and disgraced, forced to become an assassin with his young son in tow, and ultimately strives for vengeance (consistently described as "The Road to Hell" in the manga) on those who framed him. More recently, Disney's "The Mandalorian" is basically a retread of this with a Star Wars gloss applied. 

 The print came from a vendor I found on eBay, and came in three pieces - Itto Ogami himself, the baby cart, and little Daigoro. I've had a lot of disappointment from 3D prints this year to the point where I'd basically written off the entire medium, but I took a chance on this and was really pleasantly surprised. It's a really nice, crisp print, it was delivered to me almost totally free of any supports or excess bits of material, and without any odor. This last one's been a big deal for me! Almost every other 3D printed figure I've gotten this year has been inproperly cured, resulting in a powerful resin stink and in some cases the figure still being sticky. 

 Scale-wise, it's about on par with my Bad Squiddo samurai for size, and a little smaller than my Clan Wars figures. Once painted and on the table I don't think it'll be too noticeable.  

 The resin house has already been accounted for in my tracker, but I'll add the Lone Wolf and Cub, counting them and the baby carriage as three figures.

 

Miniatures Acquired: 207

Miniatures Painted: 210

Terrain Acquired: 3

Terrain Painted: 9

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 12

 

Temple Complete!

 There's still varnishing left to be done (pending a low humidity day!) but I'm happy to report that I've finished the Temple kit from Things From The Basement. In truth, I got it to a basically playable state on Saturday - over the course of about 10 hours I got everything piece spray painted with its base colors and assembled, including coating the base with homemade texture paint (eyeballed mixture of PVA glue, paint and sand), plus outlining a path with some gravel, and priming, base coating and drybrushing it. Once the drybrushing was finished on the base, I could glue the Temple down, paint the rocks, and apply fine model railroad ballast between the two lines of rocks to create a gravel pathway. 

 The slow part was flocking the base! First (once the gravel was totally dry and had had PVA layered over top to seal it), I applied some patches of Woodland Scenics green "blended turf" fine flock, as well as some small bushes on either side of the stairs. I let that dry for probably about 12 hours. Once totally dry, I went over the flock and bushes with thinned-down PVA to seal it in, and let that dry for 24 hours. 

 Once totally dry, I applied some tufts in a couple dry, brown and pale green colors. I like the way these stick out above the snow, and also applying just a tiny bit of PVA to the tips of the strands so glue adheres to them looks really good to me. 

With the tufts set in place, I splodged on some irregular patches of PVA, making sure not to completely cover any of the green patches, and applied Army Painter snow. 

 Thinking about what a pain in the ass it is to completely clear snow off my own porch, I added some snow to the rear corners around the railings. I think it's a good touch. 

Part of me wants to add some icicles to the roof, but those are in danger of breaking when I take the roof off to play inside; maybe attach them to the overhang of the porch? Something to think about. 

 Overall, I'm really happy with how it turned out and look forward to seeing it on the gaming table. 

In other hobby news...

I was finally able to pick up the bags of Wargames Factory zombies from my friend Dave. It's actually less than I'd been expected; there were a bunch of old Bolt Action Wehrmacht sprues mixed in and some of the Zombie Vixens are really worse for wear. I did assemble and prime a dozen male zombies, so I can start painting those tomorrow. As such, I'm only going to add 12 to my "Miniatures Acquired" tally for now.

 

Miniatures Acquired: 204

Miniatures Painted: 198

Terrain Acquired: 3

Terrain Painted: 9

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 12

 

Lion Clan Samurai and the Start of a Temple

 One of my local gaming stores has quite a bit of old stock left over from a previous owner; some of the Reaper miniatures and paints on the rack are very old, some of the paint colors having been retired more than a decade ago. The current owners have some of them marked down to get them cleared out, and I grabbed probably 8 or so blister packs of "Clan Wars" miniatures from the period circa 2003 when Reaper Miniatures had the license. 

"Clan Wars" was a rank and flank miniatures game of fantasy samurai, set in the world of Rokugan, made popular by the "Legend of the Five Rings" collectible card game, roleplaying game and associated novels. The Reaper figures in 2003 were my first introduction to the setting, though I never had any at the time. I fumbled through playing the card game a bit in college and have enjoyed some of the novels, though I still haven't made my way into playing any edition of the RPG. 

Here are the first couple I've painted. On the left, with the two swords, is "Lion's Pride female samurai" while on the right with the naginata is "Lion Clan Heavy Elite Infantry." Both members of Rokugan's Lion Clan, the most militant and valor-minded of the seven clans. The middle figure is an unaligned "Samurai with Polearm" but painted in Lion colors.

 I've also begun work on the last piece of samurai terrain I currently have, the Temple kit from Things From the Basement. I've got it built up into sub-assemblies for spray painting, hopefully tomorrow. I also opened up a pack of 12" MDF squares I'd bought a while back with an eye towards seeing if I could cut a base for the temple. 

Well, when I opened it up, I discovered that it's not MDF like I'm used to, these squares are more like really dense, 1/8th inch thick cardboard. I marked out the size of the base I wanted with a pencil and used a saw to cut it, though next time I might be able to just score my way through it with a box cutter. Then I used a file to chamfer the edges. It's not a perfect rectangle but it's good enough for my purposes and I'm pleased that I put the work into it myself.

 The second pictures gives you a bit of an idea of what it's going to look like, minus the roof tiles, railings and the timber frames on the building. I think I might make a gravel path leading up to the front steps, plus add some bushes and the like during the flocking process. 

In other news, I still haven't been able to pick up the Wargames Factory zombies my friend Dave found in his pile of shame and set aside for me - he got a case of Con Crud from going to Gen-Con, and so the usual Monday night get togethers he usually hosts have been on hold. I'm hoping for this coming Monday - I'd like to be able to get some assembled and painted in time for Wargames Among the Warplanes! 

I did add some more figures to the leadpile, but I'm still in the green - some figures I'd ordered a while ago from Heresy Miniatures finally arrived, along with a Reaper "Bones USA" ogre mage I intend to paint up as a second oni for more fantastical samurai gaming. 

I've also placed a small order for some Japanese terrain from Oshiro Models. I've decided I'm going to go with James' resin-cast pieces for as much as I can going forward - it's a bit pricier but I think it's worthwhile. 

 

So let's get the tracker updated:

 

Miniatures Acquired: 191

Miniatures Painted: 198

Terrain Acquired: 3

Terrain Painted: 8

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 12

 

Starting the Samurai Terrain Collection

 If I'm going to play games set in Feudal Japan, I should have some terrain that looks the part. Six or eight months ago I bought a few MDF kits from Things From The Basement here in the US, and today I've got two of them - if not "finished," at least in playable shape.

 

 

First up, a truly towering torii gate; these gates are placed at the entrance of Shinto (and some Buddhist) shrines to mark where the mundane world and the sacred space of the shrine meet. This one's a full 6" tall.

Next to it is a kit that Things From The Basement lists as "Prayer Wheels" and while prayer wheels are a thing that exists in Japanese Buddhism, they don't really look like this. This arrangement looks more akin to how offerings of sake are placed at Shinto sites as an offering to the spirits, or kami.  

The red was all done with spray paint, while the bases were sprayed black and sponged with browns and grays for stone work. The roof tiles are corrugated paper painted black and drybrushed with gray. 

Nothing fancy, but off to a good start! My initial plan with these was to incorporate them, along with a temple kit, into a single 12" square terrain tile, maybe with some trees, but I think this particular torii is simply too big - it towers almost 2 full inches over the roof of the temple!  So let's treat these as scatter instead. 

 

Miniatures Acquired: 186

Miniatures Painted: 195

Terrain Acquired: 2

Terrain Painted: 8

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 12

Pick Up A Pint

 I've been pretty effusive in my praise for Atomic Laser Cut Designs' MDF kits, and have built several of them. Well, I posted pictures of my Urgent Care on Facebook and tagged the company in the post, and Vince, the owner, was pleased enough with my work to send me a complimentary copy of one of the latest kits - a long, narrow retail space with a small back room and a trap-door in the roof in addition to the normal front and back doors. As soon as I saw the design, I knew it'd be perfect for a liquor store - one of the businesses I'd been wanting for my table but hadn't found an option I was happy with for yet. 

 

I started off with a spray of Montana Gold "Sahara Beige" for the exterior, picking out the bricks first in a raw sienna craft paint, then doing singular bricks in shades of brown and tan. My usual lost dog posts and "No Entry - Staff Only" signs are on display as well, along with some Greenstuff World graffiti decals. The sign over the front door is printed paper, cut to fit over a 50x25mm Renedra flat base painted black. 

I didn't bother with a printed paper floor this time, in part because the gray spraypaint I put down with on splotchy and with a lot of texture. Bare concrete floor it is! 

The interior walls were primed white and painted with a bottle of craft paint called "Sea Glass," a very pale blue-green tone. I printed a bunch of alcohol ads scaled down to serve as posters on the walls, along with "No Refunds" and "No Sales to Under-21s" signs. I need to get a counter for the store, but once I do it'll go right in front of where these signs are hung.

 The backroom has a pallet and stack of cardboard boxes, both of which I pulled out of a Mantic Terrain Crate set - "Abandoned Factory." To this I added a pair of 3D-printed boxes I had laying around.

 What's in the boxes? Who knows - there might be "business" being conducted in the back room unrelated to liquor sales...

 More furniture to come - I'll need to get some shelves and a counter at the very least. But considering that I basically dropped everything (except the zombies, which I mostly painted at my usual Monday night paint-hangouts) to start this kit immediately, I think I've done a pretty good job.

It's a little different from previous ALCD kits I've built - the base plate is different, lacking the front sidewalk and with the walls plugging flush into the edges of it instead of slotting into holes cut into the base. It's not bad, just takes slightly more effort to ensure the walls line up with each other. I've got a second one, because I ordered a copy of this kit before I knew Vince was sending me a complimentary one! 

 

Miniatures Acquired: 184

Miniatures Painted: 168

Terrain Acquired: 2

Terrain Painted: 8

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 10

 

Here Come the Zombies

 The first 20 Zombies are finished, which means hopefully I can get a game of Zombie RV in sooner rather than later!

 This first batch are 50/50 Copplestone Castings and Recreational Conflict figures. I like that there's themed groupings within the Recreational Conflict line - this batch has four zombies in paper hospital gowns, a zombie doctor and two zombie nurses - one in scrubs and a hairnet, right up front, and one in the little white uniform who's not super visible in the group shot. 

So let's break this group down into smaller groups, shall we?

First up are the Copplestone "Zombie Troopers." This was a fun batch, and I kept their clothing uniform - Army Painter "Woodland Camo" pants, Reaper "Desert Stone" shirts, washed with Army Painter "Strong Tone" and highlighted with the base color. The body armor was Reaper "Midnight Blue," washed with "Strong Tone," then highlighted with "Twilight Blue."

 Next, the Copplestone "Plague Zombies":

 I appreciate that two of them are in their underwear. 

Next up, the Recreational Conflict zombies - Doctor, nurses, and four patients in paper hospital gowns:

 And yes:

 And finally, for now, another three Recreational Conflict sculpts I grabbed from my primed pile:

 The one on the left is a surfer, I just still need to paint and affix the remnants of his surfboard, which appears to have been bitten in half by a shark.

 What's next? I've got another 14 Recreational Conflict sculpts to work my way through. But first...

I have to update another line on the tracker as well - Atomic Laser Cut Designs sent me a complimentary copy of one of their kits! They rolled out a new retail store kit and I'd commented positively on it on their Facebook page, as well as provided some free promotion on my own page. Next thing I knew, a copy of the kit showed up in my mailbox - just hours after I'd ordered a copy! Now I've got two; in keeping with the run-down, seedy and a bit low-life vibes I've gone for with my terrain, they're going to be a liquor store and an adult bookstore. I'm already working on the liquor store, and here's a sneak peek:

 

Miniatures Acquired: 184

Miniatures Painted: 164

Terrain Acquired: 2

Terrain Painted: 7

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 10

 

Hitting the Open Road

 One of the things I'll need if I want to start playing Zombie RV (besides zombies) is... an RV! Fortunately, I had one in my backlog - a clever 3D-printed kit from Miniature Tanks here in the US. I got a bunch of vehicles from them for Christmas this past year, and I decided it was time to get this one assembled and painted. Assembly was pretty easy, though I did need to use a pair of tweezers to glue on the railings at the top and the silver bits on the side - weight supports when parked, I'm guessing? 

 

Because it's a 1970s Ford F-150,  I started looking up 1970s paint jobs, and found a pretty sharp-looking black, red-orange and silver example. I decided to change the red-orange to just plain red, and got to work. Except for the headlights and taillights, everything here is just done with cheap craft paint instead of expensive hobby paint. 

 I painted the license plate yellow with blue lettering to match the color plates on my own car, and carefully freehanded "ZRV" in lieu of trying to squeeze on an authentic plate number. 

It's not going to win any awards but it's a solid addition to my scatter collection, and I'm looking forward to seeing it on the table. 

The Last Liners are never far from hand so obliged for a scale shot.

 

Miniatures Acquired: 178

Miniatures Painted: 129

Terrain Acquired: 4

Terrain Painted: 7

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 10

 

Urgent Care - You're Gonna Need It!

 While I still have furniture to paint and glue into place, I've completed the building itself for this Urgent Care center from Atomic Laser Cut Designs - making this my fifth building, and sixth kit overall, from them. As always, I've done a little customization and decoration to make it feel a little more alive.

 The exterior walls have gotten some graffiti, courtesy some GreenStuffWorld decals, as well as some lost dog signs and a "no littering" sign I pulled off Google Image Search and resized before taking to my local office supply store to print out. The windows (including the window separating the receptionist's area from the waiting room) have "glass" cut from overhead projector acetate sheets and glued into place.

 The floors are likewise printed paper, from a set of floor patterns I got from Sarissa Precision. There was a lot of careful measuring, re-measuring and cutting, believe me! 

 Inside, we've got more signs in the waiting room (including one on the receptionist's window reminding patrons to be polite, based on ones I've actually seen in waiting rooms post-pandemic), and a bulletin board in the receptionist's office. 

The one piece of furniture I've painted and glued into place so far is an air conditioning vent from OshiroModelTerrain. Most of the rest of the furniture I've got to paint is also from Oshiro, save for a pair of bench seats for the waiting room from GreenStuffWorld.

 I had some nerves going into this kit - it's one of the most complex Atomic Laser Cut Designs offers, with multiple interior rooms, and I knew I wanted to split the flooring between wood and tile. And yeah, I snapped a piece while I was test-fitting. But other than that, I just took my time and did a lot of test-fitting and sanding and cutting and ultimately it was less stressful a process than I feared it would be. 

In others news... while I'm not keen on zombie movies or TV shows much any more (post-pandemic they feel a little too close), I've gotten the bug to try out one of the solo zombie apocalypse wargames on the market - specifically, Zombie RV, which I know my friend Mike over at Lead Legionaries has spent some time playing. Thing of it is - I don't have any zombies! So an order was placed, and I fall well behind on my painted vs acquired tracker! At least they should be fairly fast and easy to paint up...

 

Miniatures Acquired: 173

Miniatures Painted: 129

Terrain Acquired: 4

Terrain Painted: 7

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 9