HMGS MidWest Little Wars 2017 Convention

I attended the Little Wars 2017 convention in Lombard Illinois on April 28th. Unfortunately I was only able to attend on the convention on Friday. There were a lot of events I was interested in scheduled for Saturday and Sunday as well that I had to miss out on. Even so, was able to play in two games: a Hail Caesar game of Romans vs Britons, and a Black Powder game of Poles vs Russians set during the Polish uprising of 1794. And I found some bargains in the dealer hall and flea market. I also took some pictures of the other games that were set up Friday morning. Have a look below for my general pictures of other games, followed by pictures of the two games I played with details of the how the games went.

Painting Winter War Soviets

I have finalized my process for painting my Winter War Soviet infantry. There are a lot of steps, but most of them go very quickly and don't require careful painting or much skill, so I was able to get my infantry painted relatively quickly using this process. The paints I used are mostly out of print Citadel paint colors, but hopefully by looking at the pictures below for each stage you can figure out an equivalent color to use, if you want to follow a similar process.

Here is the full list of steps. Further down I have close up pictures showing the results of applying each step. The order can be changed around on some of the steps, and they are actually in a slightly different order in the pictures. I primed some of the models white and some grey, and it didn't seem to make much difference, so either is fine.

1. Codex Grey - basecoat greatcoats, equipment, M27 caps, bases
2. Adeptus Battlegrey - basecoat black boots and rifle metal
3. Fortress Grey - wet brush greatcoats, M27 caps, and equipment
4. Fortress Grey - highlight boots, rifle metal
5. Skull White - dry brush greatcoats, M27 caps
6. Mechrite Red - paint collar diamond patches and cap patches
7. Nuln Oil - wash coat, cap, rifle metal, black boots, and bases
8. Calthan Brown - basecoat belt, ammo pouches, rifle wood, blanket roll, gloves, entrenching tool handle, brown ankle boots, khaki pants/puttees/helmets, and NCO fleece cap (this is the hardest step, and I actually broke it up into multiple steps when painting up 30 of these guys at a time)
9. Desert Yellow - edge highlight rifle wood, wet brush gloves, blanket roll, brown ankle boots, khaki
10. Bleached Bone - paint rifle straps, dry brush khaki and cap fur
11. Devlan Mud - wash blanket roll, gloves, rifle wood, belts, ammo pouches, and brown ankle boots
12. Sea green (don't know the actual name of this paint) - wet brush backpack, gas mask case and straps, bottle cover, and entrenching tool cover (don't forget the straps around the blanket roll)
13. Athonian Camoshade - wash backpack, gas mask case and straps, bottle cover, entrenching tool cover, and khaki
14. Tallarn Flesh - basecoat faces
15. Elf Flesh - wet brush faces
16. Dwarf Flesh - paint lower lips
17. Chainmail - paint cup, rifle bolts, and belt buckles
18. White - paint eyes
19. Black - dot eyes

Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower Episode 2

See the previous episode here.

After their successes in obtaining the fragments of Hysh and Shyish, Byron was persuaded by his Aelf companions (against his better judgement) to attempt the trial of Ghyran. They didn't get far. The party immediately encountered a fleeing skaven deathrunner assassin. Before they could defeat the wily adversary, the acolytes it was apparently fleeing from arrived. The Aelf assassin, already badly wounded, was butchered by an acolyte with two weapons. (Already with four wounds, he was wounded a further four times by the one acolyte.)

Byron and the mistweaver saih (and Byron's skeletons) fought on without their comrade (as they had grown accustomed to doing) and defeated the deathrunner. Before they could finish off the remaining acolytes, another deathruner assassin and more acolytes turned up. The two adventurers fought on heroically, but eventually the mistweaver and finally the necromancer were brought down by the deathrunner and the acolytes.

Baker Company Winter War Finns First Wave

My first batch of Baker Company Winter War Finns (from their long-ago Kickstarter campaign) are finished. The sculpts aren't great, and I think some of the casting on these was rushed and they suffered some issues as a result. However, I did get a lot of Finns and Soviets for my money. Below you can see pictures of my first batch of Finns, consisting mostly of the basic infantry squads with a few extra things thrown in. There's still much more to do. I came up with a painting method that was pretty fast so I could batch paint these to a decent enough standard fairly quickly. If you're interested, you can see all the details of my paint scheme in a previous blog post: Painting Winter War Finns.

Unfortunately, the pictures didn't turn out great. I don't know if it has to do with the lighting, or how much white is on the miniatures, or more likely the glare from the transparent bases. Many of the pictures came out dark and a bit blue-ish. I'm not sure how to fix that, but hopefully these give a decent impression of the results I got with my batch painting method.

Kingdom Death King's Man and The Hand

See below for some pictures of my painted King's Man and The Hand. I tried my best to get something close to the "official" color scheme from some pictures I found through Google. I think they were from art cards that came with the resin versions of The Hand and the King's Man. Currently the images can be found on a Kingdom Death fan wiki here: The Hand and King's Man. Painting the King's Man was pretty straightforward, but the Hand was much more elaborate.

The picture of The Hand has intricate patterns all over his clothing. I wasn't going to try to freehand paint anything like the actual patterns, but I did try to achieve a similar effect. All I really did was put random little squiggly lines all over, without trying to actually make a pattern out of it. Up close it is obvious the lines don't really form any kind of patter, but at a tabletop distance the effect is fairly convincing. So I'm pretty happy with how that turned out. I'm also pretty happy with the metallic cloth effect I was able to achieve on The Hand's cape. I don't think the gold armor pieces turned out very well, but maybe if I give them a gloss varnish coat to make them more shiny that will help.

Painting Winter War Finns

I have finalized my process for painting my Winter War Finnish infantry. There are a lot of steps, but most of them go very quickly and don't require careful painting or much skill, so I was able to get my infantry painted relatively quickly using this process. There are also some steps (like numbers 14 and 20-24) that could be left out without making too much difference from a distance, but I thought they added enough to the overall look to be worth the little time they took. The paints I used are mostly out of print Citadel paint colors, but hopefully by looking at the pictures below for each stage you can figure out an equivalent color to use, if you want to follow a similar process.

Here is the full list of steps. Further down I have close up pictures showing the results of applying each step.

1. Chaos Black - undercoat/basecoat everywhere
2. Adeptus BattleGrey - paint winter camouflage coat/pants and helmets, hats, gloves, black boots, bases, and NCO pants, leaving black in recesses
3. Fortress Grey - wet brush winter camouflage coat/pants, leaving some Astronomicon Grey at edges (AVOID boots, bases, gloves, hats, and NCO pants)
4. Fortress Grey - edge highlight black boots
5.  Codex Grey - dry brush NCO pants, black gloves, and cloth hats
6. Codex Grey - edge highlight cloth hats
7. Skull White - lightly wet brush winter camouflage coat/pants, leaving some grey at edges
8. Catachan Green - basecoat bread bags and straps
9. Salamander Green - paint helmets, paint wide stripe on NCO pants
10. Tallarn Flesh - basecoat faces
11. Gretchin Green - wet brush bread bags and their straps
12. Badab Black - wash black boots, bases, black gloves, helmets
13. Elf Flesh - highlight/wet brush faces
14. Dwarf Flesh - paint lower lips
15. Calthan Brown - basecoat rifle wood, brown leather boots, belts, mittens, and rifle straps
16. Calthan Brown - wet brush ammo pouches, beards, hair, and cap fur
17. Desert Yellow - wet brush/highlight rifle wood, brown leather boots, leather pouches, mittens
18. Bleached Bone - highlight/dry brush mittens, wet brush rifle straps, beards, and cap fur
19. Ogryn Flesh - wash rifle wood, brown leather boots, ammo pouches
20. Adeptus BattleGrey - highlight gun metal and bayonets, paint helmet straps
21. Chainmail - paint cap buttons, edges of bayonets, rifle bolts
22. Skull White - paint cap badges and eyes
23. Sky Blue - dot center of cap badges
24. Chaos Black - dot eyeballs

Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower

In a vast and statue lined Chamber did the champions first come together. Whether by the dark designs of the Gaunt Summoner, or the vagaries of fate and destiny, each champion descended the winding stairs to face one another across a sigiletched floor. How each had come to this place was an epic tale in itself. Why each had come remained a secret known only to them. Yet it was Clear that, for now, their paths were intertwined.

It was then that the Gaunt Summoner’s visage loomed above the champions in a blaze of unearthly light. In a booming voice the Summoner revealed that, should the champions wish to win his boon, they would have to best his trials. Only in this way might they gather the fragments of the shattered amulet upon which his truename was inscribed. Do this, the Gaunt Summoner promised, and the Champions would have whatever they desired. Fail, and they would be his prisoners forevermore. With this the Summoner faded from sight, leaving only his echoing laughter, and a glowing portal leading on into the Silver Tower’s labyrinthine depths.

Having arrived at the long-sought Silver Tower of Tzeentch, Byron quickly allied himself with a mistweaver saih and aelf assassin. He didn't have a great deal of choice, really. Even in the face of such peril as awaited them in the silver tower, many adventurers tend to avoid and distrust necromancers. The shadowy elves had no such qualms, however. And they spoke very little, which suited Byron just fine.