Recent painting efforts

 Welcome back to the Vault. It's been quiet here, but the hobby machine keeps on running. I thought I'd post a quick update with some of the recently finished models.

First up is the most recent project; a Chaos Knight all ready to support the Iron Warriors at a Highlander event next month.

Alongside 12(!) War Dogs (I've also painted two more Stalkers since the last post) this brings the Knights project to well over 2000 points.

A Tale of Two Santas: Chaos Noctilith Crown

 Welcome back to the Vault, and a very Happy Christmas to you all. Regular readers will appreciate I haven't posted in a while; I've made some priority changes to my schedule in the last couple of months and whilst I am blogging less I am painting more. There is a veritable back log of Iron Warriors to share in upcoming posts.

I've been involved in a Christmas painting challenge. In 2020 a number of my friends participated in a "Tale of Four Santas" producing painted models as gifts for each other. This year we revisited the challenge in a slightly different manner; each participant would keep the model but the particular miniature had to be inspired by the lyrics of the "The Twelve Days of Christmas". 

For me there was an obvious choice; the Chaos Noctilith Crown aka the Stargate. The central ring would serve wonderfully as a Gold Ring. 

Munitorum Armoured Containers

 Welcome back to the Vault! Sometimes the hobby butterfly settles on an unexpected project and this week it's alighted upon a small terrain project. I have a subscription to the Imperium magazine and there have been several issues with Munitorum Armoured Containers.

These terrain pieces are a staple of many a 40K table and can be arranged in plenty of different configurations. I thought it would be fun to paint mine up and use them as an opportunity to try out some weathering techniques.

Battle Systems Terrain Sets

 Welcome back to the Vault! Long term readers will know I am something of a wargaming terrain junkie with a varied collection of pieces ranging from scratch builds to pre-painted resin pieces. I'm always looking at cool table set ups and thinking about how I'd like to replicate them at home.

My holy grail for terrain/set up involves:

• Easy to assemble
• Pre-painted
• Doesn't take much space to store

My eye had been drawn recently to Battle System's pre-printed card stock terrain sets and having expressed an interest I was gifted with a couple of sets for Christmas. One is centred around fantasy gaming and the other Sci Fi.  

First up is a Space Hulk/Under Hive arrangement:

The Dead Shall Rise

I see you have ventured back to the Vault once more. Whilst the warm summer sun tempts us away from the painting desks, there is dread chill in the crypts.  I've spent a couple of hours applying more paint to my Wraith diorama, and the model is now at a point I'm happy to call it done.

The Dead Shall Rise: Work In Progess

Welcome back to the Vault! The hobby butterfly seems to have settled in the fantasy realms as I've started on another "terrain" project.  This is a little different as it's an entry for the Frostgrave Facebook group's monthly hobby competition under the theme of "Wraith".  The brief is deliberately vague to allow the creative juices to flow!

I purchased the first issue of the Age of Sigmar "Mortal Realms" magazine when it appeared as two quid for a dozen or so miniatures was just too much of a bargain to pass up. And luckily a bunch of those were wraiths.

A number of other people on the group have made the same purchase so I've decided to do something a little bit different and incorporate some of the spectres into a diorama/terrain piece.  A quick dive into the bitz box and the hobby supplies found some useful pieces allowing me to knock this up:

Ruined Wizards Tower

Welcome back to the Vault!  Even though we are still in lock down I've been lucky to get some gaming in over the last week or so, having played in an online Dark Suns-esque D&D session, and my eldest daughter and I took on the Writhing Fumes solo Frostgrave scenario running a Warband between us.

Hobby wise I'm still firmly in the thrall of painting models for my fantasy based games, and I've been tackling a more significant project; the forgotten Wizard's Tower, now fallen into ruin.

Frostgrave: The Skull Throne

Welcome back to the Vault! We are coming out of the Easter weekend so that must mean its time for a bonus post.  I had the indulgence of another painting session on the Bank Holiday Monday and spent it on another piece of half finished fantasy terrain which has been languishing for far too long.

So here is the GW Magewrath Throne, aka the Skull Throne!

Frostgrave: The Arcane Ruins

Welcome back to the Vault once more! Today's post is a brief interlude from the Living Spells as I've been spending some of my lock down time revisiting old fantasy gaming material; D&D modules, miniatures and so on.  In doing so I've come across a half finished terrain project that I thought would be fun to complete; the venerable Arcane Ruin kit.

First Founding: The Big Build Evening

Welcome back to the Vault my fellow Venturers!  Tonight's post combines two topics close to my hobby heart; terrain and the First Founding Games Club.

Our club is very lucky to have on site storage space for our gaming boards and terrain, and a load of scenery for our 40K tables (as you will see).  However a lot of the pieces are starting to suffer from their years of long service and the cramped conditions of the storage cupboard.  So a call to arms was issued to the 40K community and a number of the regulars gladly exchanged their armies and games for an evening of sorting, gluing and painting as part of our first Big Build.

First up, we pulled all the terrain from the cupboard. There was more than we realised:

Kill Team Board Completed!

Welcome back to the Vault once again! Life has been very hectic of late, but I have managed to squeeze in a cheeky game of Frostgrave with a new War Band at the club (more of that in future), and I have managed a few hours of painting as well. It's been a productive session and I'm happy to share the fruits of my labour; I've finished my Kill Team board!

Reinforcing the Kill Zone

Welcome back to the War Zone my fellow Kill Team Leaders! This week's hobby time has been spent dabbling with Kill Team; as you can probably tell I'm really enjoying this new game! I showed off a lot of terrain I'd been painting in the previous article, and I've been working on a gaming piece to use with it all.

Kill Team Terrain

Time for more secrets of the Vault to be revealed! Regular Venturers will know that I have been playing the new Kill Team game recently, and I have been spending my hobby time painting up some terrain for the game.

The Kill Team box set comes with some new GW urban terrain kits plus a nice printed card game board; I've built the terrain and given it a quick slap of paint.

Terrain for Tourists?

I think it's time for another visit to the Vault and today I'd like to share some more terrain pieces. Not that these items were originally intended to be wargaming terrain! 

One of the fun aspects of the hobby for me is looking for unusual items which I  can re-purpose for use on the gaming tabletop (my love of aquarium pieces is well known). And I came across a couple of such items in the tourist shops of Granada, Spain where I spent my summer holiday.

First up is the Fountain of the Lions, found in the wonderful Moorish citadel, the Alhambra.

 

Multipurpose Terrain Crafting

Welcome back dear Venturers! My summer break is almost over and that means it's time to share some of the fruits of my hobby time with you. I've been working on a number of projects which I'll disclose over a series of posts and I'd like to start with some terrain pieces.

Like a lot of my fellow club members I've got *very* excited about the new Kill Team and picked up the starter box. However from my Frostgrave gaming experience I knew that the amount of terrain in the starter box was unlikely to be enough for a densely packed table so I purchased a couple of the Pegasus Gothic City kits along side it. The lovely thing about the Pegasus kits is that they are both modular and will work for 40K and Fantasy (i.e. Frostgrave).

So I've been busy assembling and playing with the buildings. Please bear in mind that a lot of these kits are still works in progress:

Lots of new toys!

Frostgrave: The Illusion of Progress

The summer heatwave continues and so I've tried to cool down with another trip to chilly Felstad. That's right Venturers; it's time for some more Frostgrave!

I played the second game of the new campaign on Friday evening at the club and decided to prepare and paint a suitable model to represent my Illusionary Soldier. So here's my Cultist Knight:

And the terrain collection keeps on growing

The hobby butterfly visited once more, and this week's hobby time found me casting my eye around my extensive collection of Unpainted Stuff looking for something I could finish in a single painting session.

I bought a number of terrain pieces from Amera during their Black Friday sale last year, and I had painted one of them using standard brush techniques:

Terrace Ruin

Graveyard Scatter Terrain

Welcome back to the Vault! My summer holiday has given me the luxury of extra hobby and gaming time and I've spent some of it working on a little modelling and painting project I'd like to share. 

Earlier in the year I had indulged my terrain addiction with the acquisition of the Garden of Morr kit from Games Workshop; this is a lovely gothic graveyard set, but once I had built it I felt the set would benefit from the addition of some scatter pieces to bulk it out. Blotz produce packs of laser cut MDF gravestones, so I thought I'd give these a go!

The finished article

I think I might be a terrain junkie

Hi and thanks for dropping by the Vault once again. I've been in hobby butterfly mode recently; whilst I should be cracking on and painting more Dark Eldar for Mayhem I rather rashly agreed to run a Frostgrave intro game or two at the club in the near future. So my hobby time has been split between building warbands from my Fantasy model collection, and sorting some terrain out.

And that's the focus of this post; the joy of collecting and putting together a good looking set of terrain on a gaming table. I'll share a few pictures and some ideas on where to pick stuff up.

Skull Mountain; courtesy of the local Aquarium shop