Life in the time of Rona

Posted on February 6, 2022 by grumpyoldtin

I have been under the weather for a couple of weeks now but have been testing negative. Earlier this week Number One Son tested positive and I was still negative. Upto this point I had been the only family member to be free from the Rona.

Thursday night I had a bad night with breathing difficulties and a savage sore throat. Not to mention sweats and chills. Friday morning I tested again.

Arse

Got booked that afternoon for a drive thru which has confirmed that I am a positive person. Just waiting on the variant.

About two weeks ago, before this all kicked off, one of the Patreons I sub to posted this picture.

Image copyright Knucklebones Miniatures.

I saw this and had to have a variant of it. Knucklebones had made some scuttling bug-like legs for a previous model. I chopped them up in Meshmixer and cut’n’pasted the bits to extend them. With this I lasercut some bits to make two open troop carriers. I’ll show them in a later post.

That idea lead on to me thinking about about an armoured variant. More parts were lasercut then Papa Nurgle visited. Not really having the strength or motivation I pottered a bit each day making it.

This is the result

The main body is lasercut mdf and card. Bolts are lasercut card. There are resin greebles from Ramshackle Games and 3d printed ones from Knucklebones. The legs are 3d printed and are derived from Knucklebones.

https://www.patreon.com/knucklebonesminis

Orktober

Posted on November 1, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

Orktober this year has been rather busy. A trip to London and reorganising the hobby room so I can put a painting desk in for Number Two Son.

I did however manage to finish this little tankette.

The main chasis is from Ramshackle Games.

https://shop.ramshacklegames.co.uk/index.php?id_product=232&id_product_attribute=0&rewrite=plant-blank&controller=product

The main part of the turret, the exhausts and the Schürzen are scratch built.

The Ork is from Kromlech

https://bitsofwar.com/home/125-orc-tank-crew-.html

Things that I like

Posted on September 5, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

There are things that I like. Sculpts by Bob Olley and Kevin Adams. Gnomes from Ols School Miniatures. And parts from Ramshackle Games.

http://www.ramshacklegames.co.uk

I don’t know what it is, but when I get a box of bits from Curtis my imagination gets fired up. This part might fit well with this, ooh and then if I add this etc. etc.

I’ve known about Ramshackle Games for about ten years, maybe a touch more. I started off getting some fantasy models.

In my Lead Mountain I have a mahosive squiggoth-like creature which is destined to be for my Orc Overlord.

Then a few years back Ramshackle Games had a Kickstarter for sci fi troopers. This was my starting point for my necromantic “Not Imperial Guard”.

You can see more images waaay back in my blog

Ramshackle also make vehicles. Here is my command APC.

Later Ramshackle ran a Kickstarter for the parts to assemble Jet Bikes. Obviously I sucumbed. I have only constructed one so far. Painting it would be nice.

Then I have recently been in the mood to bash up some tankettes for my Orks. Curtis, the ever obliging, helped.

Very recently I ordered some parts to make up a robot walker type machine. In the box was included a few other bits and bobs. This one was a personal project of Curtis’s for his Realm of Chaos warband. I saw it and it called out for a little floating platform. A sort of mini Slann.

Here is the walker.

And it is accompanied by a floating sensor/gun platform. Based on a Kinder Egg with extras from Ramshackle.

If you haven’t as yet come across Ramshackle Games do have a peek at the website. There is bound to be something there for you. Would free world-wide shipping be an incentive?

Just say I sent you

Transport skiff

Posted on September 4, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

This model was loosely inspired by a model I saw in the Trash Bash Bits group on Facebook. The original was made from a fly-swatter. It wasn’t quite what I had imagined but it sparked an idea.

The first iteration looked like this.

Standing figure from Moonraker Miniatures and the seated figure is from a batch of “O” Guage model railway figures sourced from eBay.

There were some issues, some of which I addressed in the next iteration.

The next iteration was like this.

Correction required.

Comparison shot of the two. You can see I have added some extra detailing to the cabin roof.

Iteration two with cargo and kitten for scale.

Iteration three will elimate these issues and hopefully be the final model.

Updating

Posted on August 20, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

So that’s the Summer done and dusted. I have been a little slow on the progress reports. A combination of laziness and the Black Dog.

Look forwards to a flurry of updates, well maybe one or two. Let’s start with the painting done before Electric Love.

These two are from the Old School Miniatures range. “The Circus of Corruption” Jamie sent them to me and it seemed rude not to paint them up.

https://www.oldschoolminiatures.co.uk/circus-of-corruption-15-c.asp

More from Jamie. These are from the abolutely gorgeous Gnomes range. This is part of the Baggage Train. I swapped out the goat and replaced it with a snail which I thought was more appropriate.

https://www.oldschoolminiatures.co.uk/alpine-gnomes-3-c.asp

As you might have guessed I love this Gnomes range of Jamies. Some scenery is forthcoming from me and this is the first.

Next up is from Alternative Armies. This guy will be used in my Beastman unit in my “Not” Imperial Guard Army.

GRN53 Zarglain High Prefect

I couldn’t get (rather couldn’t afford) the Beastman Squad Leader, so I settled for this guy from Forgeworld.

More updates on the painting coming soon. KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES!

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Tabletop Knights Gaming Day 2019

Posted on May 3, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

I really should have written this much sooner, as always laziness overtook me.
For a far more eloquent account of this event I will direct you to
https://www.battlebrushstudios.com/2019/04/show-report-tabletop-knights-games-day.html
I decided to forgo Walter’s Austrian Salute this year. Walter has no intention of expanding and with last years event with a lack of sales and culinary disaster I wasn’t keen to attend.
Christoph’s event, Tabletop Knights, was a bigger event and he is keen to expand.
Preparing for this event has taken a couple of months making two display boards, Nessus and Gone?
Two days beforehand i was struck down with the lurgy, cold, tired runny nose. Great!
First day of the school holidays, which would normally be spent sleeping in, we got up extra early so we could drive to Germany and set up for nine.
There were a couple of traders there.
Obviously Christoph with his lasercut Roostermodels products. Which reminds me to get a banner made up.

Roll The Dice. I had made some little give-aways for them and Martin appreciated them. I had hoped that he would bring some paint along as I have a few gaps with need filling. Sadly no.
Spiele Cafe had a tombola, which my Son’s happily indulged in, and some demo games.
Spellebrette (can’t read my writing) had discount GW.

My table set up

The day was started by and address by Korbi.

View of the hall

There was a 40K tournament running downstairs

So on to the tables and games.
Roll the Dice had two demo games. Wild West Exodus and the Warlord Games ripoff of Wings of War.

GW Night Vault.
Unpainted figures.

Summoners
Interesting models.
But not another rule set?

A Song of Ice and Fire

Gates of Antares
Interesting cardboard scenery

Last Days
Yet another zombie apocalypse!

Test of Honour

Frostgrave
With Christoph’s scenery

Dead Man’s Hand
Something that potentially of interest to me.
Christoph’s scenery

Freebooter’s Fate
Nice scenery from 4Ground

Guildball
Bloodbowl anybody?

Age of Sigmar
‘Nuff said

WH30K
Nice scenery from Deathray

WH40K
With added Tyrannids, a lot of them!

Walter playing Saga

The usual Star Wars
Legion and Armada

Painting competition

Trade was very slow. Until lunchtime my biggest sellers were some coffee mats that I’d made with scraps of wood from the Happylab recycle bin. I managed to sell my entire box of scrap off-cuts from laser cutting. I had a couple of enquiries about making some custom token trays. Sadly nothing has come of this. Martin from Roll the Dice bought some of my static grass to test out the waters.
I did enter the painting competion, and got a third place in the single figure catagory with my Earth Warden.
There was no culinary disasters and the food was hot, plentiful and reasonably priced.
Overall the day was a bit of a disapointment. Low sales, a supposed gaming opponent didn’t show and a long wait due to the 40K tournament for the awards ceremony. If I do attend next year I will not be putting such an effort into a display board.

Gaming Day

Posted on April 11, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

This is where I have been concentrating my energies for the last couple of months.

http://tabletop-knights.de/gaming-day/?fbclid=IwAR23rjTal2ubKyRXsgiAtH03nTu1fnTIlgy6ZOfkbogBfsIlvSetIT8jynM

There will be a rather more informative posting next week.

Not Imperial Guard Beastmen

Posted on October 2, 2018 by grumpyoldtin

I think I have found some ideal figures to represent Abhuman Beastmen in my Not Imperial Guard army.
Moonraker Miniatures Phagons were in the running, but these popped up in my news feed this morning.

This comes from Albedo Combat Patrol Miniatures Game
http://acp164.com/
There will be a Kickstarter later this month so I will keep updating with more information.
So now the search is on for this miniature to be the squad Leader.

First off the block

Posted on January 13, 2018 by grumpyoldtin

A really quick and dirty job. These are from Dreamforge Games and I’ll be using them as Storm Troopers in my Not-Imperial Guard Army. It was a quick hose with the airbrush and a few little brush additions. Not my best work, but I just wanted to knock one out and have something on the table in a couple of days.
These figures actually deserve a bit more time and attention as they have some lovely detail.

Reflections on 2017

Posted on January 11, 2018 by grumpyoldtin

I’m somewhat late on this one as I’ve been laid low with a rather unpleasant flu-like lurgy.
A quick catch-up on a couple of pieces from my last post.

Here is the Barbarian from the OS Miniatures Company. This was a challenge that I undertook to have him painted before Christmas. Nobody else took up the challenge which was a pity.
santa
This was from Warmonger Miniatures, again painted up for Christmas.
There is one more figure which was supposed to be my last figure of 2017, but the lurgy stopped that. I’ll post when it is finished.
Old age seems to have telescoped the year. Blink and I’ll miss it.
The first three months were taken up with making the Rogue Stars display board. April/May I did some landscaping in the garden converting a be-shrubbed steep slope into a flat grassy terrace.
June/July/August were at Electric Love. I had a great time and it gave me enough money to buy my own small laser cutter.
The rest of the year seemed to evaporate, lttle jobs around the house and making bits with my loot from the summer.
2017
Here is a group shot of what I finished painting. There is a lot more half finished and the 2018 goal is to finish all the half started jobs from the past few years, the Heresy Dragon being the main target, get all that out of the way so I have a clean slate. Then one project at a time, start it and finish it.
Yeah right!
Product of the Year 2017
On reflection it has to be the laser cutter. It’s small and slow but it has enabled me to prototype ideas and to make stuff on the fly. Christmas cards, party invites, party bag goodies, cake icing molds and gift tags just to name a few bits and bobs.
Heroes and Zeroes
Firstly the Heroes.
At the top of the list are the Facebook friends; EvH, DW, SR, ME and CF. They have been a constant source (sauce?) of inspiration, advice and encouragement. I might actually meet some of them in RL oneday.
Then comes the figure manufacturers who have gifted me with lovely toys this last year.
Ramshackle Games
http://shop.ramshacklegames.co.uk/index.php
The OS Miniatures Company
https://www.facebook.com/OldSchoolMinis1985/
Avatars of War
http://www.avatars-of-war.com/eng/web/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=59&Itemid=51
Warmonger Miniatures
https://www.warmongerminiatures.com/
Finally Revolution Events
https://www.revolutionevent.com/
For fun, education and loot.
Now to the Zeroes
Wayland Games for lengthy delays, poor communication and their unwillingness (or inability) to combine orders.
TNT for their lack of customer service and making life just that little bit harder.
Games Workshop for tantalising me with the new rules for 40K, promises of fewer books and then conveniently forgetting about all that.
The new plastics are beautiful though.

Dark Imperium

Posted on November 6, 2017 by grumpyoldtin

This, I expect most of you know this already, is the eighth iteration of the Warhammer 40K rule-set. I hadn’t played since Rogue Trader, the first iteration, back in the eighties.
I was lured to this by a new streamlined ruleset and the promise of not having to lug around armfuls of codices like the previous editions.
Something simple for me and the Boys.
I used the money earned from gardening towards this coupled with a discount from my “Local” (ha ha) gaming store.
The box is rather beautifully presented and it feels value for money. Fifty odd figures, thick rulebook and dice etc.
No complaints there.

A unit of Pox Walkers from the box

Top left, an old Chaos Marine from the eighties. Centre three figures from the Death Guard “push-fit” box. Rear right, a plastic Chaos Marine from the nineties?

Also purchased were three Index books with the stats for the new rules. Had I have known that G’Dub were going to publish new codices immediately I wouldn’t have bothered and saved myself some money.
I visited my local WARHAMMER store to introduce myself to the new Red-Shirt and in chatting mentioned that I was a bit peeved about the time gap between Indices and Codices. “Well I knew that!” I was helpfully informed. “But I didn’t. Me customer, me spend money. Peeved customer not spend money.”
That didn’t go down too well.

Die Grüne Horde

Posted on June 4, 2017 by grumpyoldtin

As usual I’m far behind in my posts. Laziness, a trip to Legoland and starting work at Electric Love Festival. The ELF is my work for the next seven weeks with some very long days ahead the nearer the festival gets, so don’t expect much posting from me. If all goes to plan I want to by a small (400mm x 300mm) laser cutter with the money.
This was the event that I had been invited to the previous year and due to communication problems I didn’t make it. This year I did. Okay there were some problems with road signage and autobahn exits that were closed, but I was there.
It was advertised as a gaming day and it most definitely it was. There were three tournaments that day; Warhammer 40K, Infinity and Firestorm Armada. Also being played was Saga, Bolt Action, the ubiquitous Frostgrave, X-Wing Age of Sigmar, Kings of War, Force on Force, Kugelhagel and a very brief appearance of Test of Honour (replaced by Halo Fleet).

It was held in a much larger space than the Austrian Salute. The thing I have found at gaming days is that I felt very slim. The average physique on display was, politely, well rounded.

My display

There was a painting competition, which obviously I entered. I ended up with a third place in the Unit Category. I did expect to be higher ranked in this one as the quality of the other entries was okayish, in the other categories there was better painting so I didn’t expect much there.

Painting competition area

Roll-the-Dice was trading there
http://www.roll-the-dice.de
And I had an interesting chat with Martin, the proprietor.
Walter (Austrian Salute) was there and it was nice to see him. We chatted about the new edition of Warhammer 40K coming soon. And he managed to chat me out of some money for when it is launched.
There was a pro painter there
http://www.crissis-bemalservive.de
She wasn’t up to the standard of Sigur of Battlebrush studios but she did have some interesting iridescent effects, but not using nail products which I am currently researching.
The lunch was mediocre, luke warm, but the service was excellent.
I didn’t demo the game at all and hardly sold anything. But I had some excellent conversations with people there.

Number One Son eying up a scratch built titan.

Overall it was a pleasant day, not sure if it is worth the effort though. Quite a lot of traveling for very little result. I’ll have to ponder whether I want to attend again.

Well I found some plates

Posted on September 11, 2016 by grumpyoldtin

A few years back, when I was at CSM, the canteen was having a clear-out and I came across these plastic plates.

We used them in our greenhouse, back in London, to put plant pots on. But always in the back of my mind I thought they might be useful for something hobby related.
Over here now and getting settled. Time to start unpacking boxes and I came across them. Tick tick tick, hmmmm?

I laser-cut a base and some gubbins to make it a bit more interesting but I seem to have missed out photographing the base painting and the chipping.

Here we are masking the structure to add a white stripe.

Masking the whole structure to avoid overspray.

As you can see my airbrushing was not very successful. Instead of gently building up the layers I blasted away with the end result being this where the paint went under the masking.

This was remedied by adding a line of marker pen.

Adding rust streaks with oil paint.

The finished product. I wanted to provide a quick photo as I’m certain it is going to feature in more photos in the future.
If I can point you in the direction of this blog
http://port-imperiale.blogspot.co.at/
It’s Blogs like this that keep me on my toes.
Now that reminds me…. I’ve got some small flowerpots I picked up at Ikea because they had some plastic grass in them.

“Do you really think that’s wise, sir?”

Posted on August 3, 2016 by grumpyoldtin

First of all a warm welcome to my new followers. Although I have to say I am not quite sure what some of you stand to gain from following a rather niche blog. But it is gratifying all the same.
So without further ado here is some more waffle.
Next up in the sketch modelling is the first in some sci-fi buildings. This is a small habitation.
Here is a side view with Sergeant Wilson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergeant_Wilson) for scale. The exterior is going to have lots of gubbins like solar panels and heat exchangers. I think I might make the top of the roof flat so it can be used as another surface in skirmish games.

This is a front view looking into the car/buggy port. There will be a step/s leading up to the entrance.

A rear view shot. I’m not sure whether to recess this a little and have a little porch area.

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New blood

Posted on May 24, 2016 by grumpyoldtin

After the Austrian Salute and Sigur’s painting induction Number One Son has expressed an interest in painting toy soldiers, “Just like Papa”. So we sat down with catalogues and looked in my cabinets and he decided that he wanted to paint Space Marines. He was greatly taken by the blue of the Ultramarines.
So before I went to London I hit eBay and searched for Space Marines, found some and had them sent to my Daughter’s so I could collect them and save on postage.
After my trial and tribulations in London I was able to get back home in time for his birthday where he would get them.
The set I got was all the marines from GeeDub’s Dark Vengeance box set. We sat down and looked at the figures, I have to say that I am very impressed by the plastics GeeDub produce. I fell in love with the High Elves from Island of Blood and now these are worming my way into my affections. They are very crisply detailed and look to be a joy to paint, I wanted to steal one to paint, but I wasn’t allowed. Anyway looking at them it became apparent that they were a specific chapter and not generic marines. I said that as they were his figures he could paint them anyway he chose, looking at illustrations he chose to go with the green livery, Dark Angels, instead of his previous choice of UltraMarine blue.
Next up came construction. Then came Priming which involved setting up the compressor and airbrush. All of this also came with the first steps of zen patience, because nothing can be done instantly.
Painting was the next step and Number One knocked out a figure an hour.

Hard at work

The overall aim was to get him to game, but I didn’t want to complicate things too much, just toys on the table.
So I made up a very simple ruleset.
Movement 4 inches. I used some marker rods for ease.
Shooting/hand-to-hand combat hit on a 4, 5 or 6.
Armour save 5 or 6 (in our first battle it was 4/5/6 but it was a bit too easy)
Three lives.