Off-Track Betting - Finally Furnished!

Back in August, I finished the building itself for an Off-Track Betting location for my modern urban tables, but I was waiting on some 3D printed furnishings for it from a friend with a printer. Once I got those from him...they kind of sat for a while. I did get them all primed, but they sat in a box on my workbench awaiting my attention. 

I had a four day weekend for Thanksgiving, but I spent most of it running errands, socializing, and overall spending my time on everyone and everything but myself, so by Sunday morning I was feeling a bit frazzled, and certainly not as relaxed and rested as I would want to be on a four-day weekend! So Sunday morning I got the crockpot loaded and rolling for a couple days' worth of dinners and parked my butt at my workbench for probably five hours, my phone turned off entirely, and sat and painted some odds and ends that I wanted to get clear - including the furniture for the OTB. 

I'm really enjoying furnishing my terrain builds - it adds a lot of personality and flavor to each building, and it's a fun challenge to include enough furniture to sell the idea of what the building is supposed to be without making it too cluttered to move figures around in. And this is no criticism towards people who leave their interiors entirely open and unadorned to maximize play space! I think there's a lot of wisdom in that approach as well.

Bobby Dipshit, in his sweat-stained tank top and track pants, is waiting on race results.

The bar, drinks shelves and TV racks were STLs I bought on MyMiniFactory and had a friend print up for me. I kept the paintjobs pretty simple, and didn't even bother to paint the side of the drinks shelf that's touching the wall. 

The slot machines (three out of five in a set) are 3D prints that I bought from Kirk at Miniature Building Authority, where I've bought a lot of my furniture for these builds from. They came with a set of stools as well that I opted not to use. The prints are super crisp and detailed; I've gotten a few 3D printed bits from MBA that still have a lingering whiff of uncured resin clinging to them, but these were perfect, and you can see just how much detail is crammed into them; the text on the buttons is legible in the print even if my potato-fingers can't manipulate a brush finely enough to do the individual letters in "MAX BET."

These were also a significant reminder that I'm overdue for an eye exam and updated prescription on my eyeglasses. 

Finally, unrelated to the Off-Track Betting, I painted a pile of sleeping bags and bedrolls piled around a cooler that I got in a Mantic TerrainCrate set. It's glued to a 40mm Renedra base and will work great as an objective marker in modern games.

 Honestly, I wish I had another one of these, but I'm not sure I can justify buying a whole additional summer camp box for it. Though more of the various tents and unrolled sleeping bags wouldn't hurt...

More Modern Terrain

 Casting about yesterday for something I had primed and ready to take to my usual Monday night paint and chats, I settled on some scatter terrain I'd primed months ago but never gotten around to - some 3D-printed wrecked cars that I'd glued to MDF terrain bases with some Mantic "Terrain Crate" bits, and a set of six barricades from the same Terrain Crate box. 

While I'd gotten a lot done on them last night, I was able to polish them off this afternoon (I'd scheduled myself for a half-day at work to avoid the quarterly in-person meeting, and with it, a two hour commute and three hours of mandatory "fun"). I think they turned out really well:

I used some acrylic paint pens I'd picked up on my last trip to Harlequin Hobbies to ink some angry slogans on a few of the barricades, which I think turned out really well although the blue ended up weirdly metallic. 

The rusty silver car and the car on the bottom of the stack are done with Army Painter speed paints "Broadsword Silver" and something-"Copper," respectively, over black primer. The upper two cars in the stack are done with a couple of coats of TurboDork colored metallics. My friend Dave offered me a bottle of "Dirty Down Rust" effect to play with, but I either failed to shake the bottle sufficiently or failed to splodge the contents on heavily enough, because it looked more like a grease stain on the silver car than rust when it was dry; I sponged on some "Chestnut Brown" and "Carrot Top Orange" over it. 

Overall, I'm happy with how everything turned out, and happy to have these no longer hanging over my head waiting to be painted. 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 199

Figures Painted in 2025: 162

Street Scatter - Car Accident

 Nothing too special today, readers, but I did finish a bit of Mantic "Street Scatter" I'd picked up at my local game store a few weeks ago. Realizing how well the crashed car and truck fit into each other, I made up my mind to put them on a base together; a quick purchase for irregular terrain bases from Things From The Basement later, I had my base. I coated it in fine model railroad flock and primed over it to give myself a rough texture to paint.

Except it wasn't that easy! Once primed, I discovered I needed to flood the coated base again with thinned PVA to try and prevent the flocking from coming up with each brush stroke. Then I hit it with a heavy coat of spray varnish, then spray primed it again. Now I had a solid surface to paint over! 

I did a couple of passes with drybrushing a medium gray craft paint until I had the cement tone I wanted, and then gave it a very light drybrush of a lighter gray. 

Each vehicle was primed black and given four or five coats of TurboDork metallic - specifically "Redrum" for the car and "Multipass" for the truck - and then details picked out. Windows were just repainted flat black. 

Overall I'm happy with how it turned out; it's not going to pass close scrutiny but it's good enough for the terrain collection. I think it'll be a nice playable piece too; plenty of space for figures to duck behind cars or even stand up in the bed of the pickup. 

I have one more of each of these cars primed and awaiting attention, though they might be left separate or even unbased for more flexibility. Alternatively, they might get incorporated into a permanent "junkyard" piece of terrain...decisions decisions...

Figures Purchased in 2025: 66

Figures Painted in 2025: 85

Fat Dragon Self-Service Ramen

 Last night, after I finished posting about yesterday's game, I put the finishing touches on another building kit from Atomic Lasercut Designs. This was a blank storefront that I bought a month ago with an eye towards turning it into an automat-style self service restaurant. 

The sign out front (and interior art) is all just stuff I grabbed off Google Image Search and mocked up in MSPaint, printed out on the laser printer at my local copy shop. The graffiti decals are from an EBay seller, and the furnishings on the interior are mostly from Oshiro Models, with the booths and arcade cabinet from Miniature Building Authority. 

And here's a better look at the drinks cabinet - I used UV resin to give it a "glass" front.

What's next? Well, a buddy of mine is setting me up with some 3D printed modern buildings and street scatter, I have the three gangs of Mafiosos to paint up, and I picked up a set of Mantic street scatter at my local hobby shop yesterday:

I also found out that Harlequin is hosting their next Demo Day event on June 14th...one week after my game at Wargames Among the Warplanes! So it sounds like I should maybe not bother unpacking my car after I get back from WATW...

Figures Purchased in 2025: 58

Figures Painted in 2025: 70

Happy Birthday to Me

I turned 31 last week, and as befitting the age, only my better half Gina and I got me presents.  All wargaming-related this year, and some lovely new toys among them.

Here's what I purchased for myself:

Two rollers from Green Stuff World (plain and "Dark Runes") as well as a pack of "Blue Stuff" thermoplastic which can be used to make molds and cast copies of pieces.  Then the latest issue of Miniature Wargames magazine; I would normally get this sort of thing digitally but I wanted the sprue of "Gun Dogs," steampunk artillery contraptions, from Wild West Exodus that came with the physical mag. 

Since I've decided to start up with Kings of War again, Gina gave me $100 and told me to buy myself the beginnings of an army; having been in love with Games Workshop's Chaos Dwarves since my first start in wargaming back in 2003 or so (naturally, after GW stopped producing them even semi-affordably), I decided to start on a force of Mantic's "Abyssal Dwarves," which share much the same tone and aesthetic.  $100 was neatly taken care of with the purchase of two regiments of "Abyssal Halfbreeds," Mantic's answer to the classic Bull-Centaurs of Games Workshop, and a package of movement trays to fit them.  When she saw what I'd bought, Gina told me that if she'd known I was going to buy movement trays, she would have given me an extra $20 to make sure I got some more fun stuff.

Moral of this story is always discuss purchases with your spouse. 

I've also dug my Age of Sigmar stuff out of the closet where it's languished for the better part of a year; I packed it up because I wasn't enjoying playing at the local Warhammer store, but a new guy wants to get Age of Sigmar started up at Just Games so I figured out an easy 1000 point list; all I have to paint is the Chariot I've had sitting primed and in sub-assemblies since last summer.  Unfortunately, it looks like the methods I used to try and clean up frosted varnish on my "Gaunt Summoner" have damaged his paint job, so I'll need to strip and repaint him at some point.  I'm not totally certain I want to get back into Age of Sigmar; I definitely don't want to be spending the kind of money Games Workshop thinks I should be, but a game or two couldn't hurt. 

I decided to get out some Green Stuff and give the Dark Runes roller a try on the chariot's base; I ended up creating two "eruptions" of runestones out of the ground that then sprouted tentacles, in keeping with the style of Chaos. 

Change of Plans; Rolling with the Punches

If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you may have realized I tend to flit from unrealized project to unrealized project, doing lots of planning but very little actual doing on many of them.  Sometimes it's a matter of time/money, sometimes it's recognizing that a project is going to require a big expenditure on my part with very little return, sometimes it's just plain short attention span.  Sometimes it's about other projects muscling in to claim my attention.

It looks like Kings of War is going to be a big focus for my painting and modeling time and energy in the foreseeable future; my friend Tom bought the 2-player starter box, and I'm just waiting to pick up the undead from him next time we meet.

*childish grabby motions*

I'll also be doing a second army, a Kingdoms of Men force using Perry Miniatures' War of the Roses line.  This began as a means to give my mother a list of miniatures I would like for Christmas that aren't all skeletons and ghouls, but I've honestly become really excited about the tactical flexibility that the Kingdoms of Men list allows for.  I've been spending a good amount of time toying with different combinations of lists - how much artillery do I want to bring to the table, what role do I want cavalry to play, how many units of armor-piercing "can openers" can I get away with, et cetera, et cetera.  Gina bought me a Reaper Griffon yesterday to help me recuperate from a particularly stressful day, which will become the mount of my General on Winged Beast in higher point games.  Truth be told, I'm so excited for this army that I may put the undead on the back-burner and focus on the Kingdoms of Men list.

I might be able to buy myself a regiment at the end of this month, even with taking care of Christmas shopping and putting money into savings, which would be exciting, but I may still hold off even if the money's there - we're firming up plans to do a little bit of holiday traveling and are also hosting Gina's brother for Thanksgiving, so I may not actually have the money handy to spend on foot knights and archers.  Which is fine, I should probably wait and see what sets my mother finds for me in London before I buy anything anyways.

This doesn't mean that I'm putting away Frostgrave - I may shift towards a focus on playing, rather than painting, when it comes to the Frozen City, but I will finish the warbands I have started.

What I think I would ultimately like to do is position myself to run demo games of both Frostgrave and Kings of War at Just Games, my FLGS - Matt, the owner, has mentioned that he'd love to stock Mantic products but he needs evidence that the demand is there before he pulls the trigger on investing money and store space in Kings of War.  I'm hoping running demo games would inspire people to want to play; this is a bit of an iffy proposition, as when a Frostgrave store league was attempted a while back, it quickly fell apart as people decided they'd rather play at home than at the store, and I think the Warhammer grognards in the area have either gone Oldhammer or switched to Age of Sigmar, and at any rate I'm fairly certain most of them hang out at one of the other game stores in the area.

All in all, I think I need to adopt a bit of a "wait and see" attitude while trying my best to get all this off the ground.  And, of course, doing lots and lots of painting wherever I can.

The Order Vespertilio - A Kings of War Undead Army

[Note: I have not read the official fluff for Kings of War.  This is me looking at models I have, models I know I'm getting in the very near future, and models I'm hoping to get further down the line and figuring out a theme that ties them all together nicely.]

Baron Vitellius, a vainglorious man, never failed to leap at an opportunity to have praise heaped upon his name.  Thus did he volunteer to lead a Crusade, to bring by fire and the sword the True Faith to the benighted heathens of the cold moors and shadowed forest of the northern region known as the Dark Country.  His host was marshalled - rank upon rank of pikemen, the mages in their peaked caps, and most importantly, the flower of chivalry, resplendent in their polished armor, the knights of the realm - and set off on their glorious crusade.

They were never seen again.

Well, that is not entirely true.

Ten years later, an army emerged from the Dark Country.  Rank upon rank of weatherstained skeletons, still clad in the tattered remnants of once-fine jerkins, marched in lockstep, the original heraldry of Vitellius still faintly visible on their battered shields, painted over with a new, crudely-daubed sigil - an image of a bat in flight.  Running, sometimes on two legs, sometimes on all fours, besides them, came hordes of crazed, naked cannibals, deranged by their appetite for undead flesh.  Behind these ranks came the horsemen - skeletal steeds, their barding now hanging in shreds, astride which sat cruel, skeletal or sallow-skinned mockeries of heroic knights.  At their head, the Baron Vitellius, his flesh pale and his eyes burning behind the eye-slits of his helm.  The signs of the True Faith had been effaced from his hauberk and shield, replaced with the symbol of the bat.  Gone was the once-proud knightly order - what remained was the Order of the Bat.

***

Mechanically, the way I think I want to go about doing this is to create a series of army lists, growing in 500-point increments.  Once I have a 500-point army, I can start playing small games while I assemble and paint the next 500 points, and then I can play in 1000-point games while working on the third 500-point block, etc.

So I'm starting off assembling a 500-point "Scouting Column," which I'm hoping to have everything I need for within the next week or so.  It may require a miracle, but there's part of me hoping I can assemble and prime everything for this before it really gets cold, because then I can make them a part of my entry in this year's Painting Challenge.

The Scouting Column is probably going to consist of:

• Horde of Skeletons
• Troop of Ghouls
• Regiment of Werewolves
• Necromancer

The 1000-point mark will be the "Advance Force," and the second 500 points will very closely resemble the first 500, with a unit or two swapped out for something new.

Here, we add:

• Another Horde of Skeletons
• Another Troop of Ghouls
• Regiment of Revenant Infantry
• Another Necromancer
• Standard Bearer

At 1500 points, I'll have an Expeditionary Force, which will add some heavy hitters to the line-up.  This is going to be where the heavy cavalry, things like that come in.

At this point, I'm thinking:

• Another Regiment of Revenant Infantry
• 2 Troops of Revenant Cavalry
• Revenant King

Finally, 2000 points will be the entirety of the "Dark Host," Baron Vitellius' entire army from the lowliest ghoul to the Baron himself.  I think the final 500 points will be largely about cutting loose and going for broke on character models.

The only thing I think I have set more or less in stone here is that I want the Baron to be a Vampire Lord mounted on a Zombie Dragon.  I could add another Horde of Skeletons if I wanted to here as well, or a Regiment of Mummies, which in this case would not be the bandaged, dry Egyptian mummies but would be done up as Bog Mummies.  I could even add a full regiment of Revenant Cavalry if I wanted.  I think I may cross that bridge when I come to it.

Frostgrave AAR: The Diabolists of Belphegor vs. Tom's (Yet Unnamed) Dwarves

Tom and I reconvened at long last (our last game was in August) for a friendly Frostgrave match, and being a little more comfortable with the rules, we agreed to begin campaign play against one another (and possibly bringing in a few other people; a store league would be something fun).  We gathered around my dining room table, rolled up a scenario, and set into it.

We ended up playing "The Keep," a scenario marked by a set of four teleportation pads located equidistantly around the center of the table, each with a treasure token to be had on it.  Stepping on one of these pads might send your figure to any of the other three pads.  I had four unused 2" round bases, which made perfect teleportation pads, and I picked up a baggie of blue plastic "gems" a while back to serve as treasure tokens.  The remaining two tokens were placed in the center of the table, as per the scenario.

Tom was running an Enchanter warband, with two archers, two men-at-arms and two thugs; I had a Summoner band, with a knight, two crossbowmen, an infantryman, two thugs and a warhound.

We diced off to see who would go first, and I won the roll.  My wizard tried to cast Invisibility on my infantryman and failed to do so miserably, inflicted two wounds on himself from the failed casting.  My apprentice, meanwhile, successfully called up an imp, and one of my thugs stepped onto the closest teleporter and was sent to Tom's side of the table, where he managed to miraculously shrug off a volley from his archers and avoid injury at the hands of one of his men-at-arms before returning with a treasure.

The third turn is when things really started to heat up.  First, Tom's wizard vaporized my apprentice with a Grenade spell, and then my Summoner rolled a "1" while trying to cast "Summon Demon." This meant that a Minor Demon manifested behind him, very upset at being called into the cold, damp Material Plane.  The demon immediately attacked my Summoner, eviscerating him.  On the opposed fight roll, the demon scored a 22 and the wizard a paltry 4, meaning he went down and he went down hard.

Great shot of Belphegor and the demon.

So now we had two uncontrolled demons loose on the board, and all the closest figures for them to attack...were mine.  The Minor demon took down a treasure-laden Thug and a Crossbowman, while the Imp scored an incredible critical hit on the knight, one-shotting her into an early grave.  Unbelievable! I'm just picturing this little two foot tall imp screaming and catapulting itself into her face, clawing, biting and flailing about until it was either dislodged or hit something vital.

Tom was left with simply mopping up the board and collecting the treasure.  So Tom went up a level and collected enough treasure to not only set up shop in a base, but to add a giant telescope to the top of it.  I came out with 60gc, a grimoire containing the spell "Imp," and the lives of all my soldiers - seriously, rolling to see who lived and who died I rolled higher than I had all game.  One of my crossbowmen will have to sit out the next game but otherwise everyone is still in one piece.

All in all we had a great time, and laughed through the entire game.  Prior to the third turn, neither one of us could roll above a 10, from Turn 3 on, Tom's dice went hot; at one point he could barely roll under an 18 on the d20.  Meanwhile I kept rolling crap, but I was having too much fun to care.

Tom and I are thinking about trying to get a twice-monthly thing going at Just Games for Frostgrave to try and rope in some of the other interested potential-players; we've heard a lot from people who have the book and are interested but never quite get around to assembling a warband.

Additionally, Tom bought the two-player starter set for Mantic's Kings of War; while he's likely to put together a Skaven/"Ratkin" force, I'll be buying the undead figures from the starter set off him and putting together an army of skeletons.  I never got a chance to play Warhammer before it died (I could never afford to do so back in the day), but I've always been interested in games with big regiments of figures being pushed and wheeled around the table.  I've got some ideas for a "theme" to my army of the dead and I think it's going to be a fun project.