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[Fury of Dracula]¶
Miniatures¶

Prime night! I have this game since 2009, ever since I wanted to paint these models. I basecoated with the airbrush and Vallejo surface primer black 28.012, now they are ready to be painted.

Published 2015-07-30 10:53:21

Board Game | Fantasy Flight Games | Fury of Dracula

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[Frag]¶
Board and Miniatures¶

Prime night! I basecoated both the Steve Jackson as well as the EM-4 models by airbrushing Vallejo surface primer black 28.012, now they are ready to be painted.

In the background you can see the Hirst Art molds, the plaster drying from the latest cast.

Published 2015-07-30 10:52:51

EM-4 Miniatures | Frag | Hirst Arts | Steve Jackson Games

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[Battlestar Galactica]¶
Daybreak Expansion Miniatures¶

Prime night! I got the expansion a couple of weeks ago, since then the models waited to be painted. I basecoated with the airbrush and Vallejo surface primer black 28.012, now they are ready to be painted.

Published 2015-07-30 10:52:13

Battlestar Galactica | Board Game | Fantasy Flight Games

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[15mm IABSM]¶
South of Cherbourg¶

Prime night! I primed the latest reinforcements to the US Army by airbrushing Vallejo surface primer black 28.012, now the whole force is ready to be painted.

Published 2015-07-30 10:51:41

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2 0 1 5 - 0 7 - 2 8

[Frag]¶
Board and Miniatures¶

While casting the molds 1-2 times a day to build up the needed number of squares, I removed the mold lines from the EM-4 miniatures in parallel.

I will not use the backpacks supplied with the models, as these fighters are not on a campaign, but on short arena fights. This leaves them with big holes in their backs, though...

To cover these I printed the following quite simple geometric forms on slighty thicker than usual paper

and glued two stacked pieces to each back to represent the body armour.

For the planned way to base the models, the bar below the feet is not helpful, so I removed it. Insted, I inserted a paper pin in one foot of each model. They will first be used to hold the model while being painted, later cut down and used to secure the model in the base.

The paper armour was then sealed with gloss varnish, before rinsing the models in warm soapy water to remove any casting residues.

Published 2015-07-28 11:00:51

EM-4 Miniatures | Frag | Hirst Arts | Steve Jackson Games

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[Terrain]¶
Modular Fence System¶

In our recent game (and first ever) of Warfork Fantasy Battles - Warhammer for Adults it became apparent that my supply of linear obstacles is quite limited - the walls you see on the photos in the AAR are all that I have. Among them only three corner pieces and no gates. Also, I do not have any sections to represent destroyed parts - which would have been of use with the cannon rules. Besides, these walls were done around 1998 - a time when my skill was a lot less developed than today.

Lets do some terrain!

What I do not like about many linear obstacles that you find pictures of online or which are even available to buy, is to recognize them as linear wargame modules. To illustrate what I mean lets take a look at the first fences I built for Warhammer 40,000 many many years ago:

The way the fence posts are placed is not as you would find them in reality, the posts would be evenly spaced, not two near each other as where two sections meet in the model fence.

So when designing my new fantasy fences, I thought of how to design them to disguise the obvious joins of the sections. The joins will be visible anyway, as there will be a physical join and I probably will not manage to line them up perfectly - what I am trying to achieve is to not have the joins obvious at first glance.

In the end I settled for the following design (designed in OpenSCAD):

The idea is, that the half posts on both ends join up to form a full post, like in the following two pictures:

The balsa wood for the posts and logs is ordered, the base plates I plan to get from the local DIY store. I will ask for sheets of 5mm MDF in 6" width - this way all the sections will have the same width. The long sides I will then cut by hand to get them in irregular shapes.

Let's see how this will turn out.

Published 2015-07-28 10:28:34

28mm | Fantasy | Linear Obstacle | OpenSCAD | Terrain

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2 0 1 5 - 0 7 - 1 2

[Frag]¶
Board and Miniatures¶

The weekend before last, I was on Norman's Stag Night, where I talked to Marco who told me about this nice, funny and quick game simulating PC shooters as a boardgame while we talked about the hobby we share.

I really just wanted to take a look at it online - but some clicks later I had bought a copy.

And found to many additional rules - like the capture the flag mode. For this type of game, the miniatures provided with the game might not be enough though - so I would need some more. I was always fascinated by the troopers from EM-4 Minitatures, but they never fit any of my projects. Now there was my opportunity...

Boardgames are optivally boring - flat, just coloured paper... A 3D board is so much better. Enter Hirst Arts Molds. I own quite some of them by now, and played around with some of the 1" floor molds. When placing the walls in 3D as well, they need some kind of broader foot, otherwise they will fall over. So I would need larger tiles, the 1.5" ones, so that the wall foot as well as the base of a miniature fit into each square. So I ordered some of them, enough for the flat floor squares as well as a mold for the power up fields, transporters and respawn points.

Thank you Marco... just another project I have no time for... ;-)

Published 2015-07-12 11:41:40

EM-4 Miniatures | Frag | Hirst Arts | Steve Jackson Games

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2 0 1 5 - 0 7 - 1 1

[15mm IABSM]¶
North of Caen¶

I experimented with different washes on the models,

and finally decided for 73.201 Black Wash, thinned a bit with water over basically the whole model except the uniform. Using a brownish wash with the skin was making it too similar to the uniform, the black wash gave more contrast. Also the Khaki had a better contrast to the uniform with black in my mind.

The wood of rifles and the spades were highlighted with 70.983 Flat Earth, the olive equippment with 70.888 Olive Grey.

Finally, the backpacks where lightened up again with a quick drybrush of 70.988 Khaki and 70.951 White.

Published 2015-07-11 11:09:33

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2 0 1 5 - 0 7 - 0 4

[15mm IABSM]¶
North of Caen¶

The stones are all painted and drybrushed. After this step, I went over the models again with Black and British Uniform to cover all the errors I did so far (mainly on the boots and lower legs due to the drybrushing of the bases), and repainted the helmets in Russian Uniform where the colour started to peel off.

As the peeling started, I now gave the models a coat of gloss varnish, to seal the current state. Especially the helmets, where I picked the models up mainly for doing all the bases, should be safe from chipping now.

Also, the gloss varnish will help the washes which are to follow to flow more easily.