Review: Citadel Finecast

Finecast must die.

How to play and enjoy narrative games

After some rather heated discussion in our Age of Sigmar group following Battleplan 2 of the Path to Glory Campaign, the 3 types to play Warhammer (both 40k and Sigmar) came up, and I thought to share some thoughts and opinions on the matter.

Review: Death Guard models

I got my hands on some of the starter set models, as well as a regular Foetid Bloat Drone kit.

Disclaimer: I'm a little late for a review, as I bought these minis about a year ago. I expected to quickly go through and paint them, and have them painted in the pictures. That did not happen, and I don't know when will I get to them, so here goes.

Happy blogversary - 400 posts reached!

With my last post published, Ender's crafts has reached 400 posts. Real life duties kept me from writing a longer celebratory article, but at least I got around to updating the blog header text - it is quite out of date as of now.

For posterity:

I recently got into wargaming and PnP RPG-s. As these are quite expensive hobbies, I've tried some home-made and low budget solutions - this is where I will share my ideas and work.

New version:

Documenting the winding journey from beginning wargaming and PnP RPG-s, through low budget solutions, to a growing collection of painted miniatures and a veritable chronicle of games and campaigns.

Of course, the blog isn't going anywhere. Let us continue with the DnD adventures in the Zarek Valley!

Ghostlight Brimstone Horrors

At our latest tournament, I acquired a third squad of Brimstone Horrors at a discount price. I left them unpainted for a while, as I lacked both desire and inspiration. But then I rediscovered my fellow blogger and re-read some of his posts. I was suddenly inspired by his Spirit Hosts. I dug up some other ghostly tutorials, and had a go at it...

Painting competition outcome

The painting competition came and went. Check out this on-point report. I felt no added value in posting the same thing.

Just a more personal retelling.

I, of course, went with my Chaos Lord and felt good about my chances. I tried something new: weathered power armor, and I was pleased with the results. Unfortunately, the judge was not. My miniature was deigned too matte and unimpressive on the tabletop. It wasn't that I did not win; it was that the whole point of the paintjob was brought up as its weakness.

Yeah, that did not feel good. I did not touch a paintbrush for a month. I didn't abandon the hobby: I still did conversions, modeling and gaming. Just no painting, at all.

But now I'm back. So let's get to work! Those minis won't paint themselves, after all.

Review: Mantic plastic models

With the weather turning cold, I couldn't spray prime any more models, so I turned to assembling instead.

The first batch was a heap of undead from Mantic. I don't remember when and where did I get them, but most likely for DnD. Too bad that the party is already level 6... but that never stopped a cool model to be used :D

Assembly: 9/10. Most pieces are easy to cut off the sprue, except the legs that have bases attached. I had to break out a heavy-duty cutter as the snippers did not fit between the base and sprue. Mold lines were easy to get rid of, and most of them were aligned to breaks in the armor anyway.

Poseability: 7/10. I don't know if that's how they come out of the box, but I got 10 ghouls and 10 zombies, each as a set of duplicated sprues of 2 models each. This would normally mean a very limited set of poses. However, the legs and torsos are separate pieces, and can be easily rotated for some sick contorsions. The ghouls have an interesting way of assembly, with the arms having grasping hands, but additional hand options available. I chopped off a few hands and glued on other weapon options, which was easy to do.

The zombies have a cool thing in that, if you assemble the models with regular legs and torsos, you get 10 models. However, there are additional pieces where a torso would burst out of the ground, and torso replacements that are just a piece of spinal chord jutting out. By using all of them, I got some additional models.

The skeletons are also very fun to assemble. Again, legs and torsos are separate pieces, although the legs are copy-pasted, with only a couple of variants on the 10-man sprue. Some torsos are set, with arms and head already in place, but others are missing right arms or heads. I, of course, took the chance to put on the most characterful heads - a raven picking at leftovers, an axe embedded in the skull.

Miscellaneous: 10/10. We have a solid amount of bits left. The ghouls have a lot of weapon options, both right- and left-handed, including this fantasy power glove thingy. There are also some pockets filled with body parts that I couldn't fit anywhere on the models, but I already have an idea for them.

The skeletons leave lots of leftover swords and spears. As I mounted the most chipped swords and broken spears on the models, I can use the remainder for any fantasy miniatures. Also there's this sick skeletal rat, for which, again, I already have an idea in mind.

Overall: another solid 5/7.

Blue Horrors finished - review time!

Finally, the two entire boxes of Blue & Brimstone Horrors are finished. I haven't done large squads end-to-end in some time, and this was an excellent reminder of the ups and downs of assembly line painting. Doing this saves a lot of paint (especially when painting smaller details such as dagger blades), but boy is it a chore to do Glorious Gold on 20 Blue Horrors.

Anyway, working with these kits inspired a little rant. Here's my rating.

Miniature size: 10/10. I don't apreciate GW's miniature scale creeping ever upwards. Knight Titans are fine, but Greater Daemons don't need to be that size. (Especially if their stats are nowhere near. Want huge daemons? Make them worth it. Make them Lord of Wars. Something.) Primaris Marines are fine on 32mm bases, but why on earth would regular marines and lesser daemons need larger bases?! And why, oh why, do regular Plague Marines, who are still 1 wound models, need to be twice the size of the old kits? Given the above, I was very pleasantly surprized that Blue Horror miniatures, and especially Brimstones, are exactly that - miniatures. They're teeny-tiny daemons. Awesome. Love it.

Pink Horror and Malignant Plaguecaster for scale:

Poses & poseability: 4/10. Brimstones aren't even multipart. The two little guys on a base are a single piece of plastic. I at least expected Blue Horrors to feel like the Pink Horror kit, with interchangeable heads and arms with extra options. But no. Now, they do have a lot more dynamic poses, so I see how that requires a trade-off. And we already get 20 miniatures in a box, so there might not be room for extra parts. Still, it was very strange to cut the pieces off the sprues, then trying to randomly fit them together, only to fail and resort to the actual assembly guide, to discover that several models are effectively mono-pose. I tried to diverge from the assembly guide wherever possible, resulting in several weird poses. Oh well.

Mono-pose blue horrors:

Painting: 8/10. Brimstones were very fun to paint. They are effectively a single surface, with just some eyes and teeth for details, leaving plenty of room for gradients. Blue Horrors are more traditional, in that they have more details other than skin. In fact, they have way too many details cramped unto those tiny models, sometimes resulting in missteps and corrections.

With the saltiness of the assembly and golden jewels rapidly fading, I can honestly say that I liked this kit and give it a solid 5/7.

Brimstone Horrors finished - Blue Horrors next

All four squads of Brimstones are now finished. Looking back, it was a fun sequence of painting colored flames. I think the first two are better looking, being brighter and having more contrast. It may also be due to me following along some painting tutorials (although not word by word, since I had to adapt to the paints that I had). The blue and green flames both follow the same idea: diluting paints into glazes to achieve a monochrome gradient. My blue and green paints are predominantly darker colors, so the minis darken up quickly, as opposed to the first two groups where the bright oranges go almost to the top of the flames, and even the darker reds are bright enough. I may have played around with mixing white or light colors into the darker blues and greens to keep the minis lighter and brighter, but that is, of course, hindsight. I'll get it better next time (although I won't purchase more Brimstones just for that). But I had fun experimenting; even in those moments when I realized I lacked enough contrast or color variety and I was frantically searching around my paints for something to add (Nihilakh Oxide and Guilliman Blue to the rescue). Looks like both following examples and experimenting yourself can play a part in becoming a better painter. :-)

Continuing to paint the contents of the two opened boxes, I'll follow up with 20 Blue Horrors. They'll be split into 4 groups, just like the Brimstones, each with differing skintones. However, they do have a lot of details on them, which I will paint the same across all groups and show only once. Incidentally, I managed to pick the first group to have every type of detail, so expect one long post, then 3 shorter ones.

Local Warhammer 40k tournament: 2v2 (after action)

As exhausting as it was to play Warhammer for 2 days, 8 hours a day, I had loads of fun.

For the first time, I went to an event where most armies were almost fully painted. With most of the terrain at Checkpoint also painted, and with quality gaming mats, the tables looked, well, impressive.

I signed up not just with an untested army list, but an untested codex. The list cut-off date was 1 day after the Codex: Chaos Daemons was released, and I only had leaks and reviews to go by. Despite the fact, I am still happy with how the list performed. There are rooms for improvement, though - I'll start by firing that Daemon Prince.

I also learned a ton about the fine details of the game. I knew the theory of close combat moves, but the ways you can exploit all that spin a fine web of mind-dazzling possibilities. It really opened my eyes. Don't ever mention multi-level ruins though. I will never, ever, place one in the middle of the board. Also surrounding models needs to be thought of in 3D. Never again.

As for the results, at 2-1, we stood second and got a prize. I also got the "Best painted" award, of which I am most proud of.

(No, that wasn't my whole army, as I didn't have enough painted models, so I borrowed some. Ssshhh.)

New Year's Miniatures Showcase

Inspired by my fellow Warhammer player and blogger, I decided to start the new year with a miniature showcase of my own. The catch is that I only intend to showcase my painted miniatures!

Repainting the miniatures from the Shadows over Camelot boardgame

With real-life currently looming over my hobby, I decided to take a break from extensive projects like Warhammer miniatures, and instead start shorter ones. I'll start off with something I have been postponing for a while now: repainting the miniatures from the Shadows over Camelot boardgame.
I'll post before and after pictures. In most cases, it's nice to see that I have indeed evolved, in both skill and technical knowledge. For instance, back then I did not know about priming (!) and applied the paints directly on the plastic. This resulted in chipped paint, and I started most retouching by fixing the basecoat. But on to the first part: the siege engines!

Painting tips and other projects

... And with that last post, I launched two new projects! One is retouching old miniatures, the other is short, to-the-point painting tips.

On the subject of retouching, I will never completely strip an old miniature that I painted (or, in the case of the Furies, bought painted at an acceptable level). I don't want all the hard work that went into them wasted, even if I have evolved tremendously since then, and there is a visible difference in quality when compared to my newest works. However, I do plan on doing slight retouches - highlighting, reworked bases, and so on.

As for the painting tips, lately I have found myself more and more often looking up certain posts where I detail a process or technique, so that I can follow along when painting. This involves clicking and scrolling through the blog, at times when this is uncomfortable, such as with a brush in hand. So I'm planning on releasing this type of post that I can look up and instantly have a feel on how to reproduce its content.

New Year's Hobby Resolutions

And with the painting of the elves, this year's hobbying is all done!

Of course, a hobbyist's work is never complete. Here's what I'm looking forward to in the new year:

• Dungeons and Dragons:
• 4 out of 9 player characters have finished miniatures. I want to re-base the sorceress onto something more impressive than the rough patch of grass she came with. I also want to convert and paint miniatures for the rest of the players.
• I want to assemble and paint miniatures representing important antagonists of the campaign.
• I want to complete the chronicles of our 4E adventure.
• I want to start publishing the chronicles of our current 5E adventure.
• MAGUS:
• I've painted the rest of the party, with only my own character remaining. I'm the GM right now, so that will come in only later.
• I want to continue chronicling our adventures.
• Warhammer Fantasy:
• Yes, it's coming back! The guys I've been playing Age of Sigmar with decided to embrace movement trays.
• Speaking of which, I need to manufacture more movement trays. This will imply a variety of trays, such as skirmisher and flying bases for playing, as well as more trays for just transport and storage to accommodate my growing collection of miniatures.
• Warhammer 40k:
• I've been pretty much ignoring 40k since the tournament. Frankly, I've had my fill for a while. I do plan on getting back into it with the start of the new year.
• I have some Chaos Space Marines in my collection, so I want to give the Word Bearers a try to help out the daemons.
• Age of Sigmar, X-wing and other games:
• I'll probably get some games in from time to time, but no promises here.
• Miniature painting:
• Yes. Lots of it. But this depends on some other points from this list, such as tallying and display. Priority goes to DnD here, but I've also got lots of daemons in the backlog.
• Hobby management:
• Due to some real life issues, my unpainted miniatures currently reside in cardboard boxes. I honestly have no idea how much of what I actually have.
• First order of business: tally the miniatures and store them in a better way (ideally on magnetized movement trays).
• Second order of business: acquire a display cabinet!

Age of Sigmar disclaimer

Let's not jump on the "Fantasy is better than Age of Sigmar in every way" bandwagon. I played Fantasy and I was as dismayed as everybody when the 4-page rulebook replaced the 200-page one. I kept tabs on how the new game was going, as one player burned his collection of fantasy miniatures, while others came up with homebrew points systems for the new game. I witnessed how Miniwargaming switched from covering Fantasy to Age of Sigmar, then back, when the game proved to be near unplayable - not a proper wargame, even, without point costs. But recently, the General's Handbook came out for Age of Sigmar, establishing not only narrative campaigns and scenarios, but tournament play and points costs. There is an FAQ that is almost double the size of the original rules sheet. At the very least, Games Workshop is trying to give us, the players, what we want. Let's give it all a chance!

Tournament review and further thoughts

This isn't even an attempt at a coherent text. Here goes.

• I had my second tournament now. It went a lot better than the first. I was 3rd; last time I was second before last.
• Last time I promised not to go to tournaments until Chaos Daemons get a new codex. We've got Curse of the Wulfen since, so here's hoping we'll get something new before the next tournament?!
• Last time I actually felt that I have no chance. This time, I felt that I do. Although there were no hardcore tourney lists here; no Necron Decurion, Eldar jetbike spam, Space Marine superfriends etc.
• I think I've had my fill of 40k for a while. 
• I haven't painted anything in a long while, even though I promised to in my last rant. A combination of playing 40k and being a DM for a DnD group leaves no time for other aspects of my hobbies. It's time to change that.
• I have models to put on the table, but they are almost always proxies. It's time to change that.
• Short term goal: finish painting the half-painted stuff in my army.
• Long term goal: assemble and paint the stuff lying around in boxes. That should be enough for a Tallyband and a Rotswarm.
• To wrap up, here's a picture of a potato the miniatures I currently own with the painted ones up front:

Taking breaks and getting back into the game

After another long break, I am back in the game! My wife and I took 2 weeks off to travel around Europe. I am now well rested and ready to take up a challenge. Well, two actually.

Challenge 1: paint, paint, paint.

Well, not just paint. But I intend to:

• finish painting my half-painted models. First in line is a squad of Word Bearers Chaos Space Marines.
• base my painted-but-not-based models. I am looking at the two Spawn models here.
• repair my broken models. Daemonettes are flimsy and they frequently loose their arms, but I have a few broken standards as well.

Of course I have a lot more to do besides that, but the goal is to bypass the hobbyist's curse and finish one thing at a time.

Challenge 2: Warhammer 40k tournament

Coming up on the 25th June. 2000 points. 2 days. I already had my first training game, battle report coming out right after this post.

Wish me luck!

Travel, slacking and transporting miniatures

It's been a good while since I posted anything. The reason is a several weeks long business trip that I'm currently in the middle of.
I did try to sneak in some hobbying, even while away from home. So I brought with me a small batch of miniatures, paints and brushes. Now, transporting miniatures is always tricky; even more so when all you have is a crowded backpack and an even more crowded piece of luggage that won't even be handled by you. Of course, I could have just put everything in the backpack; but flight rules and regulations strictly limit the amount and type of liquids that you can carry on a plane. In the end, I resorted in splitting my stuff into three.
I packed my paints in a metallic container and stuffed it in the middle of the cargo luggage. It went reasonably well, although some paints gushed forth in a miniature tidal wave upon first opening.
I packed my brushes along with the laptop, making sure that nothing would break.
Finally, I packed my miniatures in a hardened plastic container with an ample amount of bubblewrap to ward off accidents.

Unfortunately, painting does not go well at the hotel. The desk has feeble lights and I dare not touch fine details. The bed has strong reading lights, but I don't want paint to get on the sheets. I haven't tried painting in the bathroom... yet.
All in all, don't expect much in the following weeks - but I can't wait to get home and get things done!

Holiday Break

You may have noticed the sudden resurgence of hobby-related articles in the past few weeks. I took some time off for R'n'R, and nothing relaxes me as much as a good painting session. So I made time for miniature painting, as well as other hobby related projects, and trying out a new game.
Alas, the holidays are upon us. I'll be visiting friends and family, so no hobby work is in sight for a while.
So I wish you all Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays!
Have a Chaos Cookie!

Slacking, DnD and painting WoW miniatures

I've been pretty much a slacker lately, as far as blog posts go. After solving some real life issues, I got back into DnD (I just forgot to take pictures), so I didn't even have any Warhammer batreps to post. However, my adventurers have gone further than any other group, so we'll soon have enough material for a group presentation. I've also got back into another RPG (which I'll talk about later). This is especially important since I participate as a player, not the DM! Lastly, I did some miniature painting, but didn't finish anything. I have a group of Chaos Marines halfway painted in a Word Bearers color scheme; I also partially painted up some miniatures from World of Warcraft: the Board Game to use in our DnD sessions. This last weekend was somewhat quieter now, and I had a chance to spend more time painting. I still have some finishing touches to do (the difficulties of working on multiple projects in parallel!), but this is what I'll post about in the coming days.