Still alive after this very long silence and some things coming up

Yeah, I am still alive.  Work, health issues, and the loss of some friends in the last few years are still keeping me from having a worth while social life for gaming, let alone the motivation to be the hobby.  I am not going to lie, I don't know if I will have many more entries on this blog in the future, but I hope to try to get some games in this year or at least get some painting done.  

I will say that I do have at least one, possible more blog entries depending if I decide to break them up instead of having one long entry, that I will be showing up in the near future that will be actually be about painted miniatures. (!!!!)  I had some figures that I had Fernando Painting Service worked on back in 2019.  Due to COVID and my loss of wanting to do any miniature gaming for the last three years, I never open the box with the painted miniature.  Just recently, I finally opened the box and I got some pictures (bad quality because I don't have good lighting) of the figures.  I will explain what they are for and what I hope to use them for in these upcoming entries.  So, if there is anyone still out there reading this, hopefully, I will get this turned around again.

Another Speed Painter experiment

This is a Reaper Bones 77498: Werearmadillo. I decided to use it for two reasons, it is plastic vs. metal and I went with a straight Army Painter white primer vs. Zenithal priming.  I used the Army Painter's Speed paint, Crusader Skin for the flesh and on the lower part of the armor as you will notice that armadillos have that pinkish color to their armor.  The armor is Army Painter's Speed Paint, Gravelord Gray.  It is more lighter in colors, but more white seems to be coming through in spots because the speed paint is too runny maybe?  But it does appear to adhere to plastic okay.  

For now, I am sticking with the Army Painter's sprays as they should be compatible with their speed paints, but as I run out of the AP white & black sprays, I will try my usually cheap primers that you pick up at hardware stores and see if there is a compatibility issue with the Army Painter Speed paints.  I don't expect that there will be.

 

My elusive dream

 

A bit further along with Silver Bayonet using Army Painter's Speedpaint over Zenithal priming

 I don't know about Speedpaint over Zenithal.  Everything looks rather faded.

Army Painter Speed Paints

Hello again 

So, below is some pictures of my first attempt with two different methods: Zenithal priming and the Army Painter's Speed Paints.  I have mixed feelings all the way around about this.  I am sure it is more of the painter's failures versus the methods and materials used. 

The figure used is a North Star's hobgoblin that I got for free when I pre-ordered the Wave 1 Silver Bayonet figures.  I decided to go with a green skin versus pink skin.  The skin is Army Painter's Speed Paint Malignant Green.  I also used the Army Painter's Black & White spray paint for the Zenithal priming.  The painting holder that I using is from Game Envy. 

At first, it looked pretty good in my low light of my room as I don't have any bright lights to paint by.  In picture #3, is where I noticed that white paint showing through and some of the rough texture of the surface.  I as thinking that maybe the spray paint was not coming out of the can smoothly.  

That is when I took it outside to take pictures...well, I really don't know if it is just me or has others been getting the same effect with the methods and Speed Paints.

 

 

 

Yes, I did order it

 Comes with 60 emu birds, 6 Lewis MG, and free rules.  I can't wait!

The news of my death have been mistaken

I am still alive and still hardly have a social life, which really prevents me from having anything much to say about hobbies and fun stuff.  I still buy way too much gaming junk only to have it sit and collect dust.  But, I have really started to drive forward with getting back into the hobby.   

How serious am I, well, a few Saturdays ago, I had a trial run of the Osprey’s Silver Bayonet with two friends, Glen and Craig.  Since all of the figures are unpainted and we were using proxies for the monsters, I didn’t take any pictures as evidence that it really did happen.  This is the first miniatures game that I played in since 2018, or possibly 2017 (?).  I like the mechanics of the system, so I will probably be doing some more in the future.  

But that is not all!  Saturday, I played in a game of Fistful of TOWS with Ravi, Pat, and Steve.  Ravi was running it as a trial run to see how the system works.  I guess it was okay, but I still haven’t heard of a good modern battalion size rules system out there yet as they either focus on the tech available during the ‘80s or only skirmish vs insurgents.  It is something seriously lacking in hobby.  Anyways, the scenario was a reinforced Russian Rifle battalion in BMPs, supported a half strength T-72 battalion, an engineer company, and a SP battalion, plus other support elements, including a recon company and drones vs a Ukrainian leg infantry battalion with Javelins and Stingers, plus a tank company.  I played the Russian left flank with a recon platoon, a BMP company, the engineer company, a SPAA battery, a SP-ATGM company, and the artillery battalion.  Steve pushed the rest.  I barely lost anything, but I was using caution and over watch.  In the end, it was pretty much a tie with us seizing one of the two objectives, but Steve’s force was wrecked and Pat’s Ukrainians were pretty much wiped out too.  We probably could have taken the second objective with what I still had, but we couldn’t expect to hold against a counter-attack if one would occur, so we stopped the advance.  Pictures below are from this game.

Opening turn with my Russians the closest to the river

My recon platoon engaging leg infantry on the other side of the river and routing them

Several turns in to the game.  I am preparing to cross the river.  The smoke in the woods towards the bottom of the picture was a ATGM firing and missing my recon platoon.

Hostile tank in the woods finally knocked out my recon platoon, but was chased off by my BMP's ATGMs.

Almost at the end of the game.  My engineer company (the five vehicles near the village - the white paper is an artillery barrage from my SP battalion) would get to the village, dismount in good order and seize the village.

Speaking of posting on this blog, I am really going to try to post once a month.  I am hoping to be mostly what I am working on, but I am trying just get use to posting things again and get into a habit of doing it. 

Still around, still not gaming much at all

Well, I am still alive.  There are personal issues in my life, mainly work.  I have a relative with a serious health issue, I am working a second shift, I have no clue how long my current project is supposed to last (I was originally told 1 to 4 weeks, and it is now going on 8 weeks), etc, etc.  

I am still buying gaming junk and hoping to at be involved in gaming regularly again.  Then last two weeks was probably the most I gamed in miniatures in almost a year.  I played in a couple of 1-to-1 games with a local gamer, Glenn.  The previous Saturday we played three quick games of 'Chainmail', and finished those in about 2 hours!  Last Saturday we played one game of 'In Her Majesty's Name' and finished it about an hour and a half.  I won three out of the four games, so I have not dried up completely!

I am trying to get some stuff sent off to a painting service, but for various reasons I am putting it off...not due to lack of money, just motivation (I think).  I got so much unpainted stuff, I just don't know what to do to get done first.  I am going to attempt to start painting again maybe next week.  I need to get up early enough to prep and prime the miniatures before I go to work for my second shift project because I can't see very well to prime the figures with spray paint outside in the dark when I get home after work!  I am going to try to do some simple uniforms at first because I have not painted in years, literary!  My plan is to paint up some figures for Neil Thomas', "One Hour Wargames" or for Osprey's, "Dragon Rampant", first because the number of figures needed should be low.  I am going to do some 10mm figures in simple uniforms just to try to relearn everything about painting again.  I figure while 10mm has fine details, there will be less details than 15mm to 28mm figures and in a mass, the mistakes will not be as obvious.  Well, that is the plan anyways.  

Also, I need to start planning my road trip for the year.  I was thinking of heading up to Minnesota & Wisconsin to chase Dillinger's gangs hideouts, etc.  But, I am also looking at heading Arizona & New Mexico to chase the Old West like Billy the Kid.  

Be seeing you,

Sapper

This not much to post

Well, the title says it all.  I am still around and not doing much of anything.  I am still reading for the most part, but not as much as before.  To date, I finished reading 32 books for the year and listen to another 26 audio-books.  Needless to say, the bulk of the books were non-fiction, 46 of them total.  

I joined GoodReads (https://www.goodreads.com/) a while back (mid or late 2016) to start keeping track of what books I have read, or listen to, over time.  I also use it to keep track of how many books I have read each year.  As I started keeping track of what books I read on this blog back in 2014, I was able to back date them as well.  The only bad thing is that for my 'pages read' count, I can't separate my actual reading vs. my audio books without dating when I listened to them.  It really does mean much, but I like to see some times how many pages I read over a period of time.  Example is that currently it is showing that I read 13,635 pages for the year, but I only read 7,324 pages and the rest were from my audio-books.

I was also able to go back and marked "read" for all of the books that I could remember reading over all of my years.  I am shocked that I have read 693 books over my life.  I know that there is at least one book that I read which is not included in that number as I can't remember the title, which is okay since it was horrible (I still remember that).  I am sure that there maybe a few others that I have forgotten over time too.  Also, I was shocked to see about 38% of the books I read over time were fiction.  That is a higher percentage than what I thought it would be.  But looking back, I did read a lot of fiction in my pre-teens and teen years, mostly for school.  I have also listen to a lot of fiction audio-books because of the voice acting as I love radio plays and these are close to that.   

If anyone else is on GoodReads and wants to look me up to see what I have been reading, I will be under "Joe Collins" with my dapper Gentoo penguin avatar.  Just let me know that you are asking for a "Friends" request in my comments section below so I know who is sending it. If I don't, I will not "Friend" you on GoodReads.  Sorry, I am a little bit protective.

Be seeing you

Sapper

Last month I got to play in a game vs Blake at Glenn's house.  It was a 25mm fantasy game using Chainmail rules (yes, those Chainmail rules from Gary Gygax in 1971).  This is the second game that I played using these rules and I think that this might be the the second or third game that I played this year (!).  I just never got around to posting these pictures.  I didn't think to take pictures in the previous game and that is why I never posted up anything about it.  

Glenn's first game, I played a mixed group of orcs, goblins, and trolls trying to breakthrough Blake's dwarven defense to the green grass beyond.  I barely did it, but took heavy losses to sprites in that game.  So, this game saw us switching roles and I was the dwarves trying to stop Blake's orcs and goblins.  This was not the same game, but similar.  I lost, but I made the green skins pay a heavy toll for their win (with a little help of a third party werebear and druid.)  Below are some pictures from the game.

The lay out towards the beginning of the game after a few turns of moving.  I am the three units on the lower half of the picture.  The two flank units were melee only and the unit in the middle had bows in addition to their melee weapons.

 My left flank beating up goblins with an orc unit waiting to follow up the assault.  Because of the last game with the sprites being massive killers, everyone was scared to enter the woods so that why this was a major chockpoint.

 A bit zoomed out view of the picture from above.  I already either routed or crippled one of the two goblin units.  If they were still around but just out of the picture, they routed shortly later.

The goblin unit that attacked my left flank retreated to the center and the orcs charged my flank.  My right flank was now getting bloody by the orc archers.  I was going to try to charge them but they kept my unit pinned until they were killed off by arrows.

My left is gone, but the werebear is going to get some payback. 

Well, not that much payback...my archers charged his orc archers and just rolled bad.  The second goblin unit is routed off the board.