Studio gaarew Blog: #workbenchWednesday 21/03/18

That time again then. Workbench is relatively quiet, just 2 minis on it at the moment.

Reaper Bones - you get what you pay for, right?

Now, I have a tonne of Reaper Bones, the original ones, all of the first Kickstarter and some of the second. Let's be honest, they aren't amazing. Now, don't get me wrong, the price is fine, but the material leaves a lot to be desired, like, I'd rather have 10% of these minis in metal, than a pile waist high that I'll probably never touch. The clean up isn't fun, the fact they move when painting them isn't fun, and the fact they can still be "sticky" years after priming them isn't fun. Still hasn't stopped me considering the newer Frost Giants for Blood Eagle though. Seriously though, I'm not really a fan of the Bones material, it's way down the list for preferred mediums for me, alongside Chinese hard plastic and just above the original Finecast. Having said that, I've noticed that some of them seem a lot firmer than others, and the Griffon's wings seem a lot firmer than the body. The Wolf wasn't too bad, so, hopefully I can get these done without hating them too much, and maybe work on more stuff from the pile.

The Griffon is intended for Dragon Rampant and I had planned on putting a spare Conquest Knight onto it, to represent a flying Hero type, then realised that I had used him for my Mounted Warlord for Saga, so that can wait until I get another box, which I need to fill out a unit of Mounted Warriors, as I'm only using the bodies without chainmail. Hell, Bones are cheap right, I could just grab another Griffon too... The Wolf is planned for a Blood Eagle Jotun Warband, so will be painted to match the bluish fur I've used on my Frostgrave minis. I had considered doing him kinda polar bear colours, but I'll save that for if/when I get some suitable bear miniatures. Pretty sure he can also pull double duty in IHMN Gothic, Empire of the Dead, Witchfinder General, or any of the other Gothic style rules I have. Both are on round lipped bases naturally as they just look better, the Wolf is 50mm and the Griffon is 65mm, which I found Stateside.

So, what was I up to prior to this point?

Thursday and Friday was spent finishing off the Levy unit for my Saga Normans. I kept the grey cloth more muted on them in the end, seems to have worked.

12 model units. Fun. I could have 3pts of Hearthguard in the same time...

What a difference a day makes.

Really pleased with how these guys turned out. Pleased enough that I would consider building the rest of the box to give me another unit. Not immediately, but at some point.

Saturday was given over to the necessary evil of adding basing texture to the growing pile of assembled miniatures I had going on. The remainder of the Frostgrave Barbarians box, half the Cultists, a few more Soldiers, another Wizard and Apprentice, the Oathmark Dwarf metals and 4 plastics, the new Dracula's America Werewolves, a Faceless Horror, the Lucid Eye Corelocks, a pair of Foundry Elven Revenants (Vampires) plus the Bones figures I am currently working on.

All your base are textured by us.

Sunday, I started cleaning up some Warmahordes minis, turns out when you run events, you are the main person to ask to borrow minis from... So, a unit of Farrow Valkyries, a Circle Orboros Blackclad Wayfarer Solo and Woldwarden Heavy Warbeast hit the table. Plus I dunked a part painted Celestial Fulcrum Battle Engine I picked up in a trade into some Tesco All Purpose Value Cleaner to get rid of the naff brown and black primer. Hit 11 weeks of #hobbystreak today as well, so was feeling pretty good about things.

Honestly not a chocolate cake.

Monday. Hmmmm. Monday was a bit of a lost cause. See, I spent 4 hours in A&E overnight after picking up a concussion at work, so, between painkillers and dozing on and off, whilst being wide awake and exhausted at the same time, I didn't get anything done. Thankfully I had my arranged game of Frostgrave at the club to carry me over. Then that got cancelled due to a family emergency on my opponent's side, but, I managed to get in on a pick up game of Zombicide Rue Morgue, so, managed to add to both my board games played and new opponents played tally for the year.

I mean, that's not even a lot of Zombies.

We played 7 survivors vs. the horde, and ultimately escaped intact, with only one Survivor wounded. It was touch and go for a while after we cleared our way to the escape zone, but the Abomination spawned behind us, and we had to double back to take it out. We had a choice of areas to engage the horde, and settled on one with good firing lines, but further from the escape, and risked the chance of the Abomination respawning whilst we made a break for it. Thankfully, that didn't happen, and we escaped safely. Was a good game with Sarah, Martin and Stephen.

Tuesday, still wasn't feeling 100% so wasn't in the mood for painting, and couldn't really focus on any one thing. I did get both the Bones figures hand primed, and then started my normal procrastination/organisation thing of re-arranging the cabinets in the games room. It;s something I tend to do when I am at a loss for how to progress, a way of "controlling the chaos" if you will, imposing some sort of order onto 1001 projects. It does prompt some crazy ideas however, like, "I should inventory my entire miniatures collection" and that sort of nonsense. I dunno, sometimes there is a sense of despair, that I won't ever get around to painting all these cool minis that I want to paint, and always add more to the pile. It's oppressive in a way, and is sometimes a sharp reminder of the ceaseless advance of time...

And on that gloomy note, I did take some shots of the cabinets once I'd moved things to where I want them, more or less, there is still some stuff to change, but for the moment, my newer and current projects have moved up from floor level, and it looks a lot better to me, as there are more painted minis on display when you walk into the room. The top row is all my Warmahordes stuff, the next row is mainly "army level" games, along with Sarah's Menoth and Mike's Farrow whilst I finish them off. The third row is mainly Skirmish level games, and the bottom layer is the hidden assembled and part painted minis. Here's a selection of some of them -