All, it has been a bit since I last posted, what with the holidays and all that. Ordinarily, in years previous, this is where I would post all of the minis I painted this year. While I did in fact paint lots of minis, my current living situation makes it difficult for me to pull them from storage and set up a big table for photography. So that tradition will have to be skipped this year. I did get some last minute gaming into the mix though.
While November has been a slow month for me, hobby-wise, it hasn't been entirely devoid of minis. I enjoyed my foray into unofficial Star Wars Armada territory, so I gave it another go, this time with some of the squadrons: a Republic LAAT/i Gunship, Naboo N-1 Starfighters, and CIS HMP Droid Gunship.
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| Black and white just sets the mood for the season... |
Spooktober keeps on giving, and we are firmly back in fantasy land (sorry space) with another creature meant for the apocalyptic fantasy scape of Verrotwood (or Dungeons & Dragons, it works there too). This is a figure from Reaper Miniatures, which was available in their Bones V Kickstarter. The official name is Murkillor the Wraith King, but I intend to use him as a ghostly entity that inhabits dark ruins within the Verrotwood.
You may think with all of the Star Wars recently that I have forgotten about the fantasy side of things. As with many things in life, it's seasonal. And speaking of seasons, we are entering that most wonderful time of the year. No, not you Christmas. Fall. The cooling temperatures, the falling leaves, the mysterious, concerning creatures hiding in the woods....
Picking up where I left off with the Arquitens from last post, the Separatists also get a custom little space ship. This is the creatively named C-9979, which first showed up in the Phantom Menace. It's primary purpose is really troop transport, but hey, there's a few ships like that in Armada, so I see no reason not to include it.
I seem to have a tendency to pick "dead" games: Pirates CSG, Star Wars Miniatures, and now, Star Wars Armada. Unfortunately for the Republic and Separatist factions, they didn't get a full release, at least when compared to the Empire and Rebels. I also have a penchant for customizing things, and just because Armada is generally regarded as a complete and balanced game by the competitive community, I'm here for the lore damnit. And the Republic had the Arquitens before it was cool.
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| A smaller angry triangle for your small conflict needs. |
It's time for some of the OG, most iconic squadrons in all of Star Wars, the Rebel alphabet soup. Soon to be followed by the much more grey, much more annoying to paint Empire. In this post I'll cover the paints I use to bring color to the X-Wing, the Y-Wing, the B-Wing, and the A-Wing.
The Republic has had their time in the sun with a fancy new Star Destroyer, so it was only fair to turn my attention towards their nemesis, the droid filled CIS, the Separatists themselves. I painted all four of the squadron types available to them, as well as some Gozanti-class Cruisers that they gained access to in Rapid Reinforcements I.
As I come to grips with Armada and it's mechanics, I've been learning about all of the various launches of ships and how they affect the game. I also learned that at some point, ownership of the game went from Fantasy Flight Games to Atomic Mass Games. AMG hasn't released any new models, but they have released print and play expansions that allow you to use old ships in new factions, which I think is neat. They've also used some lore justifications for this instead of just willy-nilly adding things, which I think is neater. However, that means you end up with situations where an Imperial ship in Imperial grey colors is flying alongside Republic ships in the egg-white and maroon colors of the prequels. Which isn't neat to me. Luckily, I am an ok painter, so I was able to do something about that.
In Star Wars Armada, all of the big ships come pre-painted. I've been adding some of my own details to the ships, which has been good practice. You see, the little ships don't have any paint on them, and so require you to come up the paint yourself (I guess if you don't mind bare plastic, you aren't required to do anything). I've taken a quick stab at two of the "squadrons" that I randomly picked out of the box of tiny Star Wars fighters: the Millennium Falcon, an Imperial Shuttle, Republic V-19 Starfighters, and Separatist Vulture Droids. More after the hyperspace jump.
The Silverlight Sea is a major aspect of life for all of the cultures surrounding it. As such, many of the peoples have adopted various mythos and customs in relation to the sea.
This particular seaside shrine is common of the Skal Tribes who inhabit the northeastern corner of the Heldeni Empire. Not strictly a religious practice, these mementos dot the treacherous coasts in memory of lost sailors and adventurers.
If you told me the next post I would have written in the sci-fi genre wasn't going to be Warhammer 40K, the game I just spent two posts talking about not too long ago, I would have been surprised. Life has a funny way of working though. I was at a Flea Market at my FLGS, selling some of my wares, when the fine fellow at the table next to me suggested a trade. And that's how I ended up with an entire Star Wars Armada fleet.
The 40K hobbying has begun, and it started with the latest FOMO box, Leviathan. I'm keeping all of the Tyranids and trading away all the Space Marines for even more Tyranids because Space Marines suck and I don't like their aesthetic. But do you know who's aesthetic I like even less? The new Screamer-Killer. It looks like it needs a toupee so as not to be mercilessly mocked. And besides, I like the look of the old Carnifex kit better anyways. With the power of converting, I can have the best of both worlds!
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| Credit: Games Workshop |
Aaaaaannd we're back. Whew. Let me tell you, moving all of that Warhammer was a bitch. Makes me realize how much I have, and that maybe, just maybe, I should stop buying new things. But. The Seraphon have got something of a range refresh going on, and seeing as this blog is literally named after these space-faring fantasy dinosaurs, it would be something of a shame if I didn't jump in on the fun.
You may be seeing less posts here in the next month or so, as I'm in the middle of a move to a different city. Not entirely sure what the home situation will be, so in the mean time a lot of the Warhammer goodies are going into storage at a relative's home. Hopefully, the delay won't be too long, and I'll still be able to pop in and post occasionally if I have something that I can do.
I'll be moving soon for work, and because of that I've been going through the many, many shelves of hobby stuff that I have. This has brought a lot of half-finished projects back up to the surface, and one of those was some old Hirst Arts bricks glued to a circle of cork. I figured that it would be a nice planter in the center of a market center, and I got halfway through that idea before it sat doing nothing for some years. Well I've been picking through the latest Dungeons & Lasers stuff from their Encounters Kickstarter, and they had this nice tree that I thought would be perfect for this project.
After plucking the lowest hanging fruit for a jungle terrain joke, the quality of the rest of this post can only get better. After a streak of painting miniatures, I wanted to pivot to making some good old fashioned terrain again. I'll be moving soon, and as part of that I've been taking inventory of what I have. I found some MDF bases lying around and some palm trees I bought an eternity ago, so I though why not make some jungle terrain. Throw in some bits from Archon Studios and Reaper Miniatures and I was ready to make it specifically into Lizardmen/Seraphon terrain, but it could just as easily be used for games of Dungeons & Dragons.
In the first game of the year on the Space Dinosaur, we have a game of Age of Sigmar, but in the Skirmish variety. So I loaded up the table with tons of terrain and we all got to playing! The objective: gather coins around the table and get them into the well at the center of the map.
I don't even have much to say about these guys other than they've been the bane of my existence for the past month or so. I started painting this unit right after the Black Coach, along with a Lord Arcanum. It's been a bit since I've done any batch painting of a unit. The last time was last year in July with my Plague Monks, and let me tell you, the patience you develop with that fades quickly.
I play Age of Sigmar, which I'm sure is obvious to many of you who read this blog. What that means is that, usually, I will purchase, paint, and play with models made by Games Workshop, the creators of the game. Mostly. But the Skaven Giant Rats are ugly and expensive, and come with equally ugly Rat Ogres and Packmasters. Luckily, giant rats are a staple of fantasy and there are lots of versions available on the market. I got some Reaper Miniatures and Archon Studios rats on display here.
Jokes aside about a catchy song from a kids cartoon, I could belabor the point about how I painted this model or how awesome it is, but a quick Google search will give you plenty of models to peruse and people talking about how they painted it. Instead, I'm going to talk about the theme of this model in relation to its faction.
Late last year, I played a 4 player game of Age of Sigmar. I had participated in a total of two games in 2022, so to say I was rusty was an understatement. I don't have a lot of time to focus on the rules and stay updated, and the meta moves quickly, what with the General's Handbooks dropping every 6 months now and an edition change every 3 years. It's too much, and I sound like an old man. So I need something a little more simple for my old man soul.
Here at the Space Dinosaur Miniatures, I'm trying to grow a little bit, as an artist. Yes, I consider myself an artist, as I paint little figures to be prettier than they were. Art can be done in so many different ways, and I find that I can be pretty limiting in what I post and do. But this is my blog, and I make the rules. So let's get a little weird, a little... experimental. Try new things and see what sticks.
I've had half a mind to write a book...
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| Credit: The Space Dinosaur |
There's always those models that elude your grasp for too long a time. Whether it be because of the price or the rarity, we all have them. For me, it's always been the Skink Starseer. I find the price (at the time of this writing) at $50 for a single character to be too high, especially at this size and material choice. Because you see, this model used to be cast in metal. Which would be ok, but GW in the modern era has replaced the metal with their homebrew resin/plastic mix which they call Finecast. And I dislike Finecast.
Tired puns aside, I had a really good time painting this shark. Does it make sense? No, not really no. I like Age of Sigmar, a lot, but even I can admit that sometimes it gets a tad bit...weird. But I really like the Idoneth, so much so that I bought a whole army at once just to put them on a shelf and forget them. I've painted two heroes so far, but those were mostly tests to see how the paint scheme would work out.
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| Credit to the lovely https://sarahcandersen.com/ |
Bretonnia continues to be a sleeper hit on this blog. Last year, the second mini to get a spotlight was the King of Bretonnia himself, a name that I eternally find difficult to spell, King Louen Leoncoeur. It's all of those pesky French-y vowels. This year, the faction goes up on the podium to the coveted first mini spotlight of the year. While not strictly speaking a Bretonnian (or human, for that matter) model, I did some slight converting to make a Damsel on Foot for the army.
Now that 2022 is good and buried, we can all turn our attention onwards to the year 2023. I have a lot of goals myself for the year. You know, like working out, eating healthy and all of that jazz. But that's not the important stuff. No, what matters is the war dollies, and how I will be different and better with them in the next 360 or so days.
