More Tabletop world goodies

Just received the shipment of the Townhouse and Graveyard set from Tabletop World. As expected the pieces were again amazing. However there was something which made them even better and those were the little bits, that came as a surprise to me.

The graveyard set had a pick axe, shovel and some other tool, which I don't know what it is called plus three miniature CROWS :D which are going to perch on the headstones I suppose. The townhouse had a separate bucket. I don't know if anyone else gets so exited about this kind of stuff, but I was all smiles all night because of those.

Here're some pictures of the stuff I got:

Townhouse - again WOW :D

Sample headstones from the graveyard set.

Some of the headstone were more impressive than others

I wasn't expecting to get tools with my graveyard set

OR birds! Funnily these birds made me happier than anything else in the dispatch (there were 3 of them)

Just to show that there was more than 3 headstones

I also glued the well together for painting and it has got to be done by 3.10. which is the date we set for the war hammer scenario. Maybe I'll put one of those birds perching on the well.

The waterwheel in the well was broken probably in transit. I thought of notifying and asking for a replacement, but it was less trouble gluing it together. It's not perfect, but good enough for me.

Tabletop World Cottage - Painted

Done!

The cottage model is quite a broken up shack with pieces of the roof loose or dropped off. I tried to use that with the painting especially with the wooden parts. Now I'm not sure how the kind of wooden roofs like the one on this would have been made really, but I'd imagine the planks would have been painted to keep the water out, so I painted the whole roof blue.

"Old roof" google image search gave me the idea for a moody roof (which all the images had). The mild is done by sponging various green shades on the finished roof and finally flocking the green parts for some texture. The flock is GF9 Dark Conifer flock.  It's not perfect, but I'm reasonably happy with it.

Maybe, I'll touch it up with some highlights or more washes later, but for now I think this will do. Since another Townhouse is already coming at me from Tabletop world, I get to enhance the look with the that project (I'm expecting it to arrive within a week or so). With the next house (and others, which will probably follow) again I plan to make the roof painted (perhaps red or orange) and make it as moody as this one.

Here're some images of the Cottage:

I'm really exited about the cottage and it actually inspired me to write up the scenario "Jos Metsään haluat sä mennä nyt", which is basically just an excuse to field this model (Well playing miniature games in general is just an excuse to field various painted bits on the table right? :).

Tabletop World Cottage and Well

After selling the war hammer 40000 armies and enjoying my new wealth for a moment, it was time to start investing that money to something and what would be a better investment than more miniature(related stuff). So I put an order to Tabletop World. Since I never ordered anything from them, I thought it would be wise to start small. I thought the Cottage and the Water Well would be a good start.

The package arrived yesterday and Oh My they were sweet! Here're some pics:

The models were very tightly packed, which is nice, since especially the roofs have some quite thin parts.

I would say the scale is 25mm, which makes them look kinda small next to these reaper models, but its not too far off.

The detail is amazing!

Another angle

And off course you can open them up. Even the underside of the roof is fully detailed.

I already begun painting the cottage and the house has inspired me to device a Narrative scenario, which I will post later. I think I'll first paint this cottage and take some pics of the battle board to stand for a map in the scenario. One of my gaming buddies has already agreed to play the scenario with me yay!

Some Gates of Antares work and random musings on playing games

The reason I don't play a lot (and paint more I guess) is that setting up time for gaming is much more difficult after you get kids (mine are 2 and 5 at the moment). Anyway I do get to play occasionally especially in the winter. I recently joined a gaming club of maybe 50 people in Helsinki with a lot of tables and terrain, so setting up games is a little easier now than before.

I used to play 40k and I still kind of like it, but for a very casual player like myself the pace of things and the lists are just a little too much.

About 2 years ago it started to feel like a burden to keep up with all the new books, formations and whatnot. The last 4 or so games of 40k felt like there's no point to go through the trouble. You know, you have to set up a date a few weeks beforehand, set it up with your family also. Then you go to wherever it takes place and pick up your miniatures off the table for two hour. The last game I faced an army of grey knights with 2+/4++ saves with a CSM army, which had a single meltagun and nothing else with penetration powers :)

The same thing happened to me with Warmachine/Hordes some 10 years ago. I think maybe games requiring skill and commitment just don't suit me...

Rick Priestley's Beyond the Gates of Antares, is currently the game in which I put almost all of my limited gaming time. Gates of Antares is Still quite new and the games are smaller (at least for now). The guys I'm playing with are taking it very casually, which suits me perfectly and even though I get trashed almost every time, it's different from 40k in that I get to blow stuff up too.

Here's some pictures of my Concord army for BtGoA

C3M4 unmanned drone tank

X-Howitzer

Some Basic troopers

A Scifi jungle bungalow from Sarissa (which I bought from warlord games. This is supposedly official Antares terrain or sumfing like that)

All the white guys and gear were done with an airbrush and the blacklinings were done with Nuln Oil. I originally used army painters dark tone for the black linings, and I try to stay away from citadel paints because of the stupid pots they come in. In this case I had to make an exception, because Nuln Oil is so much better stuff. Army painter dark tone did not flow properly and I kept messing up the lines. Nuln oil instead flows like a dream. It is so much easier to make sharp lines with it. The visors are just painted black with a coat of gloss varnish.

I still have some unpainted concord (that's the faction in the game, that these white dudes represent) miniatures, 30 or so + another tank. I also ordered some 20 miniatures for another faction, the Freeborn. Haven't begun painting the freeborn yet and am still thinking about the paint scheme. They are pretty high tech so I think it will be black or very dark grey with some OSL stuff or freehand on the capes.

What I know I won't do, is paint them with the official studio scheme. There's nothing wrong with the official studio scheme, and I really can not explain why I don't want to use that other than I usually don't use official schemes.

Really hope Antares will become a popular game. It's still quite new so can't be sure, but I like it and hope it will soar so that I get to enjoy it myself for a long time (or until it becomes too hard for me and I have to move on again).