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

Test game: Osprey's "Ronin"

 I had some free time this afternoon so I decided to squeeze in another game before the weekend ended. I've painted a fair few samurai and other Feudal Japanese miniatures this year, and I've been itching to get them on the table for a proper samurai game. I had a pair of 100-point "Buntai" lists drawn up for Osprey's "Ronin," and decided today was the day.

 A pretty simple meeting engagement to get a feel for the mechanics of the game - a Takeda Clan samurai and his ashigaru bodyguards are waylaid at a river crossing by a gang of bandits. 

 The Takeda won priority, and one of the spear-armed ashigaru moved forward; the bandit archer snapped off a shot, stunning him. Both buntai moved forward, the bandit and ashigaru musketmen exchanging ineffectual shots. During the action phase, the bandit archer fired a second shot, putting a light wound on the ashigaru he'd previously stunned. 

 The bandit second-in-command charged forward, and the two ashigaru spearmen moved forward to meet him. The melee was on!

 Here's where I got a taste of the "combat pool" mechanic - each figure has a combat pool, and when melee begins draws any combination of Attack and Defense tokens up to that number. They then use these to attack, enhance their attacks or improve their defense. Normally, you'd be playing against someone and you'd keep what you were drawing for your pool a secret, resulting in there being a bit of a gamble to each combat - you have to wager on what your opponent has in mind and how aggressive or conservative you want to be. Some of that's missing trying to play it solo, unfortunately, but them's the breaks.

Unfortunately for the bandit second in command, he gambled poorly.

 At that point, both buntai were fully committed; the spearmen moved on to engage other low-ranking bandits, while the Takeda samurai faced off with the bandit leader.

 The more heavily armored samurai buntai made pretty short work of the bandits, with the ashigaru archer and musketmen finishing off their counterparts and the spearmen carving their way through the other bandits with ease, receiving only light wounds in return. 

 With a final sweep of his sword, the samurai cut the bandit leader down, and was free to continue on his way.

 

It was a pretty quick game, only about an hour, maybe an hour and twenty minutes, and that's with double-checking the rulebook every few minutes. I feel like I got the hang of the mechanics pretty quickly, especially melee combat and the system of enhancing rolls, which are potentially not the most intuitive since it's not the same across initiative, attack and defense.

I did realize right at the end that I'd forgotten that musketfire largely ignores armor, which may or may not have made that big of a difference in this game, but will be something to keep in mind next time. 

I should get some terrain rolling for the next time I want to play Ronin as well. I do have an MDF temple from Things From The Basement to work on one of these days... Possibly in September, since I really should spend Augut focused on getting things ready for Zombie RV at Wargames Among the Warplanes next month.

FINISH HIM!

 A few more Crooked Dice martial artists finished this week. We have a very humid week ahead of us, so I might not be at my painting bench too much - even in the basement, just sitting there painting, I start getting sweaty and there's no place I can conveniently plug a fan in to keep the air circulating. 

First up, two copies of "End Level Boss A," painted as the characters Scorpion and Sub-Zero from the "Mortal Kombat" video game and expanded media franchise. Both characters used the same model, just palette-swapped, in the original video game, hence using two copies of the same figure! Scorpion is depicted with pupilless white eyes in most media as a nod to him being undead, and I copied that on to my paint job here. 

 

I also finished "Street Fighter A," which I painted as the villainous Chong Li (played by Bolo Yeung) who went up against Van Damme in 1988's BLOODSPORT. 

 These will eventually see action on the table in future games of "A Fistful of Kung Fu."

In other news, my picking up entirely too many plastic zombies from my friend Dave has been delayed by his attending Gen-Con and coming home to find his dryer had given up the ghost, so I'm still in the green! I did pick up a couple of vintage "Clan Wars" samurai figures cheap at one of my local game stores who are still clearing out stock from a previous owner. I was looking at the Reaper paint rack and I think some of those colors were discontinued before I reentered the hobby in 2014...

 

Miniatures Acquired: 186

Miniatures Painted: 195

Terrain Acquired: 2

Terrain Painted: 8

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 10

 

Finally, some real progress!

 I've had a baker's dozen of figures on my table, slowly chipping away at them one step at a time, one hour of painting time a night (if that). No reason for me to rush anything, so I chose to savor the process and really take my time and try to push myself a little bit on some of these. And as of last night, they're finished! I got them varnished this morning and now here they are.

First things first, here are the three Samurai from North Star that came packaged with the ashigaru I finished earlier in the month. Together, these nine figures make a 200-point warband, or buntai, for the Osprey game "Ronin." These are again painted as Takeda clan, and I used a fancier version of the clan emblem decals for the banners they're wearing. The armor got a little more attention plus the lacing picked out in different colors.

 Next up, a set of eight figures packaged as a set from Grey For Now Games for their samurai game "Test of Honour" - these are the Rogues and Ruffians, who can be played together as a thematic gang of bandits, or hired off individually into warbands to provide color and some unique abilities.

 Of these, my favorite is "The Witch" in the first picture, wearing the black kimono with the white sash and kabuki facepaint. She gains differing abilities in game depending whether she's wearing her mask or not, which is pretty cool. The kanji on her kimono reads "DEATH" if I drew it correctly. I decided, as a witch with an enchanted mask, she could afford to be a little extra flamboyant in her personal style. 

I also tried my hand at OSL on the lantern bearer in the last picture. I haven't done it in years, and with varying degrees of success at the best of times. I think this turned out solid, if not perfect. 

Next up, the "Ronin, Shojo" from Bad Squiddo Games. According to the description on their site, Shojo randomly arrives at inns, challenges everyone inside to a drinking contest, and by the time anybody wakes up the next morning, she's gone as if she'd never been in the first place.

 I think she's one of my favorites of this bunch - everything just worked right on her in terms of colors and placement. She's wearing more neutrals and desaturated colors compared to the Takeda samurai above, befitting her lower social standing, the the face half-hidden by the hat is a very neat "woman of mystery" effect. 

And lastly, my big favorite of this bunch. This is an "Ogre Mage" from Reaper Miniatures, but very clearly based on a Japanese Oni demon in appearance. I've had my eye on this figure for a very long time, and finally the time was right to paint him. I really tried to push myself to make him the best figure I've ever painted; I chickened out a little bit at the thought of painting a pattern onto his pants, but overall I'm really pleased with how he turned out, and was well worth 20+ hours at the painting desk to bring out every detail of the sculpt.

 To give an idea of size, he's on a 60mm x 40mm oval base - his pose made him overhang a 50mm round base by just a little too much for my liking! I'm really pleased with the depth of color I got on the shell of the kappa clinging to his basket. These little water goblins have a depression on their head filled with water; if this water is spilled, they're paralyzed until it's refilled. They're nasty little critters with a taste for human intestines but unfailingly polite - if you bow to one, it will automatically bow back, spilling its water. 

So that's 13 figures added to the "Painted" side of the tracker, 14 if we say the Oni is large enough to qualify as two. In fact, let's do that.

 

Miniatures Acquired: 135

Miniatures Painted: 112

Terrain Acquired: 4

Terrain Painted: 5

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 4

 

The Hounds of...Maybe Not War, Exactly, But...

 Two more figures off the workbench - a pair of Pugs from Dunkeldorf, sculpted by the Pugmeister himself, Jason Wiebe. These were fast, easy and amusing to paint. I could see using these in a scenario where a VIP must not only be protected/captured, but their precious dogs as well. Having these move randomly across the board with player characters in pursuit...sounds like fun to me. 

 I've got a baker's dozen of other figures - samurai, bandits, the oni - moving along towards completion, slowly but surely. I'm only getting about an hour's time per night to work and I'm at the stage where I'm doing more of the detail work versus broad brush strokes. 

I've also had some terrain come in to work on: Three sets of Feudal Japanese terrain from Things From The Basement here in the USA, which will be combined into a single terrain tile. I've got a Buddhist temple, a Torii gate, and a set of prayer wheels that will all be attached to a 12" square MDF tile that will be textured and painted and flocked and probably have a copse of trees as well.

 

 Base colors for these will all be laid down with spray paint on sub-assemblies before weathering, and it should go pretty quickly and look decent on the table. I've never done a terrain tile before, always just had loose buildings so I can arrange them as I please. But I think it makes sense to combine these into one tile, since they'll always been fielded as a group on the tabletop. And since they're going to be combined, I'm treating them as a single terrain piece for the purposes of my tracker (already counted below).

 

 

Miniatures Acquired: 135

Miniatures Painted: 98

Terrain Acquired: 4

Terrain Painted: 5

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 4

Ashigaru - Takeda Clan

 I've continued to make progress, slowly but steadily, on some Feudal Japan figures, rotating back and forth between different groups of figures as needed while paint or washes dry. And I'm very please to report that I've finished the first batch.

 These are the ashigaru (peasant light infantry) from North Star's "Bushi Buntai" box set, one of several that were released in support of Osprey's "Ronin" skirmish ruleset. The three samurai that were also in the box may be the next figures I finish, sometime in the next few days. The sashimono back banners were completed with decals from Battle Flag, marking these men as serving the Takeda Clan. Both Perry Miniatures and Grey For Now Games offer miniatures of Takeda Shingen, lord of the clan during the height of the Sengoku Period, and I think eventually I'll have a small Takeda army. 

 Beneath the red armor, they're a little motley - shirts are either a dark blue-gray (basecoat Reaper "Midnight Blue," washed with AP Soft Tone, then highlighted with Reaper "Twilight Blue") or a desaturated green (basecoat Reaper "Jungle Moss," washed with AP Soft Tone, highlighted with "Highland Moss"), while pants are base-coated with either Reaper "Uniform Brown," "Shield Brown" or "Cloudy Gray," washed with AP Soft Tone, then highlighted back with the base color. 

I'm still really pleased with the winter bases. I'm looking forward to incorporating that look into some terrain pieces. 

Yesterday morning, my wife handed me her credit card and told me to buy myself some terrain to go with my samurai as a birthday present, and I ordered a few pieces from Things From The Basement that will be combined into a 12" by 12" board with some trees and scatter that can be placed on a larger tabletop.  

So let's update that tracker:

 

Miniatures Acquired: 135

Miniatures Painted: 96

Terrain Acquired: 4

Terrain Painted: 5

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 4

 

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

Breaking the Rut

 So I've been in a painting rut for most of the month. Either I've struggled to find enough enthusiasm to even pick up, much less paint a given thing on my workbench (the Mesoamerican buildings, the handful of Maya awaiting paint), or it's a frustrating painting experience (I've got a Wargames AEgyptus chariot mostly assembled and painted, but something went funny with the primer and even the most careful handling is causing paint to flake off, necessitating seemingly endless touch ups). I needed something fast and easy to break me out of feeling like I'm just not accomplishing anything during the time I'm sitting at my painting bench.

Casting about, I found this "Skeletal Samurai" from Reaper Miniatures that I'd mostly primed last fall; I'd sprayed one side of it white, I think a sudden change in the weather stopped me from priming the other side. Either way, I took advantage of the nice weather to finish priming, and then set to work.

Rather than paint him as a corporeal animated skeleton, I opted to paint him as a ghost to make things simpler on myself. A nice coat of GW "Nilakh Oxide" was allowed to settle into the various crevices, creating a very nice "Force Ghost" look - painting ghosts is actually the entire reason I bought a pot of this paint in the first place! 

Once that was dry, I painted the base with my usual brown, and flocked with my regular "dirt" flock from Woodland Scenics. Rather than go with my usual grass patches, I applied a few dry-looking tufts, splodged (technical term) some more PVA on and dipped it in some Army Painter snow flock. 

While I was at it, I touched up the primer on some samurai I've had sitting in a box since 2024, as well as primed a few additional ones, including a set of "Rogues and Ruffians" from Grey For Now Games that my wife bought me last time I got the bug to do some samurai wargaming. I've been seeing some really nice samurai figures on social media lately and been starting to feel that flutter of excitement for a new project again. Thankfully, I have all the unpainted figures from the last time I got the flutter for this particular project, so I can dabble without spending more money. 

Naturally, I ordered the rulebook for "Test of Honor" today anyways. 

Miniatures Acquired: 125

Miniatures Painted: 88

Terrain Acquired: 3

Terrain Painted: 5

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 4

October Progress Report

 I'll be honest, I've slowed to a crawl with the goblins. I've painted 16 over the past month, but I'm kind of feeling burned out and maybe sludgey towards the orc and goblin project right now. Some of that is, I just painted 16 goblins and a giant and I'm ready to do something else for a bit. Some of it's that anything I paint is going right back into storage as soon as it's varnished because we're having trouble finding space in our house for me to put a display case and put my army up on display. It's a small house and other things have gotten prioritized; things we might have put downstairs in the basement otherwise have to be upstairs for my wife to be able to use them - her MS has left her with nerve damage in her legs that makes walking up and down stairs challenging for her. At this point, if I get a display case it will probably end up in the basement next to the laundry area. C'est la vie.

Goblins aren't much of anything to look at, but I am well pleased with how the giant (Bert from Old School Miniatures) has turned out:

And I've also painted the first two figures for wargaming with samurai:

The figure in the blue kimono is "Toshiro, Male Ronin" from Reaper Miniatures:

And his companion is an unnamed ronin from Bad Squiddo Games. Yes, her kimono is based on the Arizona Green Tea can.

They kind of have a "winter and spring" vibe that I think means I'm going to end up painting a "Summer" and "Autumn" ronin to go with them. 

Planning Ahead for 2025

 First things first...Goblins are still in progress.

With October being "Orctober," my immediate goal for October 2024 is to finish off the unit of 40 goblins, plus shaman and three "Lurking Skulkers" that, under more recent versions of Warhammer Fantasy Battles (and now Warhammer: The Old World), can hide in regular goblin regiments and leap out when melee begins to try and shank the front row of the enemy unit. I'm also aiming to have my 2002 Ruglud's Armored Orcs regiment completed by the end of the month.

Beyond that, I'm looking forward towards 2025 and giving myself a dedicated project to work on in the new year. My wife and I just watched the new FX adaptation of James Clavell's Shogun, and enjoyed it very much; between that and listening to the Yarkshire Wargamer podcast interview with Trevor Dixon of Dixon Miniatures, my thoughts have circled back towards a long-standing desire to paint samurai.

So I placed an order with North Star for a couple of skirmish rulebooks - Ronin, from Osprey Games, and Daisho, from the Ministry of Gentlemanly Warefare - two prepacked warbands for Ronin, and then another order with Badger Games here in the USA for a couple packs of Bad Squiddo Feudal Japan warrior women. 

These will get me started for samurai painting and wargaming; eventually I'll pick up "Test of Honour" as well and start expanding my forces and building terrain. I've also dug a few samurai I bought in 2016 out of my bits box - a couple from Reaper Miniatures and a pair of AEG "Clan Wars" samurai archers, long out of production, that I'd bought off someone on Facebook. From there I'll start adding Perry and Dixon Miniatures samurai and retainers to the mix.