Painting Update

Well the holidays were almost a complete write off – I have been crook right through which really hampered any progress I was making with my projects.

I did however complete Song of Fur and Buttons which is great news. I hope to see it released very soon.

As I started feeling better I also got back to the painting desk. I completed my Uncharted Seas Iron Dwarf and Dragon Lord fleets…

…as well as a small Otter Warband for Song of the Splintered Lands – a Song of Blades and Heroes expansion.

I hope you enjoy the photos and I hope to have more work done soon. I’ll keep you all posted. 🙂

– Ben.

Dragon Lord and Dwarf Frigates – Uncharted Seas

Today is just a really quick update on my Uncharted Seas project.

I’ll start off by showing you a few models that I’ve painted up. I decided on a colour scheme for my Dragon Lords and also for my Dwarves. Many thanks to several inspirational colour schemes on the Spartan Games forum (for my Dragon Lords ships)

So here they are:

The Dragon Lords frigates

and the Dwarven Frigates

They are resin miniatures (besides the sails which are metal) so I needed to wash them in warm soapy water to remove any mould release agent and any other dust. This didn’t take long, but really helped the black undercoat to stick to the model.

I have the rest of my Dragon Lords models ready to go. I thought I would paint one group for Dragon Lords, then one for the Dwarves and keep alternating so I would get a nice set of figures to play with.

Uncharted Seas is a new Fantasy Naval game by newcomers on the block ‘Spartan Games’.

So far there are four races available: Imperial Humans, Orcs, Dwarfs (Dwarves) and the Dragon Lords (my personal favourites so far). I was able to pick up starter fleets for all four races for 100 pounds with free shipping to Australia! If you could see the size of these ships, and their outstanding sculpting detail, you would know that this was a bargain. In my humble opinion (and excuse the pun), but these ships blow any of the Man O War ones out of the water.

The instintive reaction to another Fantasy Naval game would be to instantly compare and contrast to Games Workshop’s Man O War… after reading the rules however, it is plain to see that Uncharted Seas is a different beast. I’m sure there will be those Man O War fanatics that won’t even give this game a chance, and I think that is sad for them as they are missing out on something special. I think there is enough room in most people’s collections for both games.

It has also been mentioned on their forums that there will be at least another 8 races added to this four. Half of these have been announced as: Elves, Undead, The Dark Ones (evil dwarves) and an ally for the Dragon Lords (hinted at human, but no confirmation). Needless to say, I’m rather excited. 🙂

If any of you have been visiting their forums, you would know by now that Neil and Mark (from Spartan Games) are both great blokes who listen to and respond quickly to their fans. I have been very impressed with their interaction with the gaming community and would suggest that if you are interested, go and check out their forums here.

My current projects:

• Playtesting a game I wrote (sorry, still can’t tell yet… soon I hope)
• Mighty Armies: Swamp Dweller army
• Mighty Armies: Lord of the Rings – 10mm
• 2’x2′ multiscale board and terrain to go with it.
• Lost Worlds figures (including Bears in a Lost World scenarios)
• Triffids and scenarios
• Blood Bowl 7s teams (currently Halflings)
• Uncharted Seas
• Giant Monster Rampage board (project is on hold for the moment)
• Battlelore figures (haven’t done hardly any on this in ages!)

There are of course always things which pop up in between. Sometimes they become a project in themselves, other times they are just once offs. Laying out all the projects like this is nice to see. It shows me that all my projects are moving forwards (except for the Battlelore figures and Giant Monster rampage for the moment). It helps me set gaming goals and achieve them.

Since I’ve started the blog, some of my completed projects have been:

• Blood Bowl 7s board
• Frogfolk Blood Bowl 7s team
• Chaos Dwarf Blood Bowl 7s team
• Lizardman Blood Bowl 7s team
• Pharohs of Vikhtorah Blood Bowl 7s team
• Frogfolk SoBH warband
• Frogfolk Mighty Armies warband
• Bat Clan Goblin Mighty Armies Warband
• Bears in a Lost World Scenario 1: Sweet as Honey

So I’m really happy that I started the blog, not only to share what I’ve done, but to help me keep on track. I hope you all enjoy the ride! 🙂

– Ben.

Long overdue update!

Well, the start of term for my regular job has seen my hobby projects come grinding to a slow trickle…

But I have been able to get some work done on several projects more recently which I will update you all on now.

I’m still working on my 15mm Frog Army for Mighty Armies by Rebel Miniatures, I have another giant frog and 3 bases worth of 15mm frogs undercoated ready to go (along with another army I am working on… more on that soon). I have been able to paint up and base a Poison Arrow frog unit. I envisage this unit as being a medium range hitter, but with the ability to be competent in close combat also. I am wanting to give them a Poison special ability as well.

One of the other projects I’ve been working on behind the scenes is for some of Rattrap Productions rulesets.

I have been madly sourcing dinosaurs to run a Lost Worlds game. I was able to get some Raptors from Ral Partha… very cool little guys. I also have been able to souce some of the Tamiya Raptors to act as a larger species (as the Ral Partha ones are very small). I am eagerly awaiting to see when the Honourable Lead Boiler Suit Company will be putting up their new Dinosaur miniatures on the website. Aparantly they are releasing some Compsognathus’ and some other pretty cool minis. Keep your eyes peeled! I will be placing an order for some Copplestone figures as well. But so far, I have nothing painted.

I have however painted a bunch of figures for their Fantastic Worlds game. Their upcoming supplement to this – Planet X – will provide more comprehensive rules for fielding alot of the more alien varieties of figures, but have been able to utilise their rulesets to come up with stats for Zombiesmith‘s Quar among other things (Black Hat Miniature‘s Cephalods).

Here is what I have painted up so far:

I finally caved and placed an order for Spartan Games Uncharted Seas, which not only looks incredible, but has received some very favourable reviews. I can’t wait to get my hands on that when it ships out here to the great land of Oz. Yes, the ships are larger than the Man O War ones, but from discussions I’ve read on their forum, they will be filling out the game with a variety of species/races, including adding more ships to the existing factions. Sounds like a great time to jump ‘on board’ so to speak. 🙂

Anyways, that’s all for this time. I hope to get another update up shortly. I apologise for the delay with this one. I will endevour to keep this updated at least once a week from now on. 🙂

– Ben.