Monthly Archives: April 2014

Warhammer Fantasy Siege Accessories & Fantasy Scenery

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So I finally got my light box set up. It’s not quite as good as I’d hoped, but it’s still a lot better than my previous set up. I took a ton of pics this evening, and so here’s the first batch – some generic fantasy scenery. While in many ways it’s not especially exciting, I’ve decided that I want to photograph everything that I finish this year, and on a wider scale, photograph everything that I’ve painted that is still in my collection.

Here’s the Warhammer Fantasy Siege Attackers models. The Siege Attackers and Siege Defenders boxed sets were released years ago alongside the Warhammer Fortress, as well as a few other kits such as Siege Mantlets and Siege Towers. I picked up both of these, as well as a Fortress and a few extra wall and Tower sections back in the day. Never got any of the others, but ended up with some miscast mantlets which I added to a Nurgle Rhino which I never finished.

Warhammer Siege Attackers set.

The two pieces in the lighter shade of wood (the wheeled ram and the metal-capped carried ram) were painted years ago. The other pieces were painted recently as part of sorting through my models and seeing them in a box unpainted, and then deciding to knock them out quickly. I’ve got a bunch of Uruk-Hai siege gear somewhere from the LotR sets which I should do the same with.

(Most of) the Warhammer Siege Defenders Set

My Defenders set is missing a few bits and pieces. The cauldron is missing the cauldron piece (I have the side supports), the rock dumping flat platform thing (I think I saw it recently), and the big rock.

Warhammer Siege Attackers Box

Warhammer Siege Defenders Box

Here’s a couple of box pics for posterity. I’m planning to paint that Warhammer Fortress finally, as well as the extra bits, and I also picked up another Fortress from GW Mail order recently, as to my great surprise they were still stocking it. Well, it turned up as a shipping box filled with the components in individual baggies rather then in the original box. But now I’ll have a decent sized castle when I assemble the new pieces, do some putty work on the old ones and then paint the lot of them. Then I can repaint and detail my original Mighty Fortress. Does this middle-era count as Oldhammer? Probably not, it’s got to be from around 4th-5th Edition WFB. But then again, close enough! I’m hoping to get some specific use out of these siege toys via Kings of War and the Lord of the Rings SBG, but they can certainly make for a cool background and scenario in almost any game we can play on the table…

Scotia Grendel Resin Hero's Grave

I didn’t recall who made this model, so I looked it up and again found it on Scotia Grendel’s website – but I got it 10-15 odd years ago, got it mostly-painted, and then never quite finished it. It may have also come with a casket. I’m not sure. I’ve got one or two resin caskets sitting around unpainted, but not sure if any came from/with this kit. Anyway I finished it up about a month or two ago, and now it’s done and chalked up to 2014’s credit!

Scotia Grendel Resin Hero's Grave

Here’s the rear view. The Warhammer-cross gravestone was a separate piece that had to be glued on. The rear of it had no detail at all, and so I added a thin layer of putty and did the best I could at the time to try and add something that would fit. If I did it today I’d use grey stuff and press-moulding and so forth, but I’m not going to change it. It looks a little rough, but it’s one of those things you’d never really notice unless you were told about it. I suspect now that a lot of the area I added static grass to back then was originally supposed to be simply-sculpted dirt. Ah well.

Another piece of resin scenery from the same era, and again finished a month or so ago. Once again, not sure who created this model initially. Again, Grendel would be the front runner, but I couldn’t find it on their modern website so who knows? I’ve based this one on a drink coaster and added a vampire model from …early Reaper? Ral Partha? Grenadier? Dunno. I’m sure it says under the base, but I’m not about to pry her up. It’s the same figure I also used on one of the pillars I showed a few posts ago. No verdigris this time. Need to keep them a little distinct.

I painted the little fungus things in a deep red mostly because I wanted to avoid whites, greys and bone shades. When I eventually get hold of a couple of the Citadel Graveyard sets, I’ll use some deep red flora to tie it in.

Another piece of scenery I got back in the day. I really bought quite a lot in the several-year period around 1994-2005 or so, and then very little for a long time after – until recently. No idea who made this one, of course, but it’s a nice little piece. Hollow resin. I think it was about $20. It’s a little small for Warhammer models, so I suspect it’s a “proper” historical scenery model.

Just the sort of thing I’d buy more of, if I saw for the same price now. This was actually painted back when I got it, so no 2014 credit here. Obviously this can work well in Fantasy or Historical games. The blue struts are perhaps a little garish for a lot of historical games, and if I were to paint this today, they’d probably be brown, but hey!

Remember those barrels that were in that other post? Well, I found the last one of their set, finished it, and have now photographed it. These will make good scenery for large-scale fantasy battles, smaller-scale fantasy skirmishes, roleplaying/dungeon bashing or even Historical games, such as use in Bolt Action.

The War Room

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So, last time I showed off this WIP room was back in January, where we put a ton of work into the space. That link also shows the development of the shed from “full of junk” to the start of what it now is. Also shows many of the first shelves go up, for those interested 😉

By request (and let’s face it – it was gonna happen anyway!) – here’s the (virtual) grand tour:

Bike Racks, out-of-the-way shelf, closed terrain cabinet.

Finally got the bike mounts installed and got them out of the way – giving us much more floor space. Likewise with the high shelving that I finally got finished which gets those detolf boxes out of the way – even more floorspace freed up. Continuing on that theme, the cheap pine shelf will be disposed of. The boxes that fill it are all basically empty. Just being kept for now to rebox stuff that comes out of storage inside much larger boxes after culling. There’s a set of shelves with Rackham prepaint models behind it.

Scenery!

Yep, the metal cabinet is filled with scenery. The GW boxes in the pic are filled with things like fences and hedges and such so they take up less storage space. I reckon it’s about time I finish painting those bloody adobe buildings. At least doing them now, 10-15 years after buying them they will be painted as more generic buildings so they can fit into modern and historical middle-east gaming rather than being covered in checks and dags to become Ork buildings. (though they can obviously do double-duty!)

Shelving!

Two new metal bookcase-style shelving that replaces the old, shitty MDF bookcase that we had for 20 years (and was falling apart). Allowed me to move some of the boardgames out of the inside of the house to a more appropriate place to store them – so I chose “large tabletop” ones to bring out. The Sedition Wars box has been gutted and just filled with 3 copies worth of floor tiles. How I wish I could get my money back for that Kickstarter! The white crate is filled with bottles of homemade pasta sauce which my parents still do every year or so. The bottom right shelf is filled with old roleplaying books from my youth. Cthulhu, Twilight 2000, Judge Dredd and others. About half of that shelf is filled with MERP and Rolemaster (Rulemaster!) I’m wondering if I should palm those off on my friends that I used to play RM with, since they take up a lot of space, and I’d like to have my old WD mags out here.

Alien, Predator, Jeep, models, scenery.

On the neighbouring shelf there’s a bunch of scenery kits that need to be built (some really old now – from the Necromunda era of plastic bulkheads and card). A 1:6 scale 21C Jeep that needs me to find some troops to crew it, and a duo of the Kotobukiya Alien and Predator from AvP. Nice statues, bad film. Top shelf mostly contains resin and metal scenery bits, as well as oversized models that I’ve gotten assembled/primed from eBay – DE dragon, a griffon, and a couple of other things. The LED Lantern was bought on a lark, but I’ve actually found it useful, and should I ever play Cthulhu again it’ll be making an appearance. The lower shelf has a bunch of resin and metal scenery – which like the Fleshhounds just above them were planned for my next set of blog photos about a month ago. So I’ll hopefully get those pics taken in the next week since much of the other work that was stopping me has finally been done.

The other shelf!

And yes, I finally found a place to display some of my Star Wars Kotobukiya statues. They share the space with the Star Wars miniatures AT-AT. It was quite a decent game, and even as a longtime painter and miniatures collector, having a game with prepaints is no bad thing. While it’s a shame that the game was discontinued, I picked up the VAST majority of my collection once the game had gone into liquidation. I was lucky enough to pick up most of the rules (that Sith box is filled with maps and rulebooks) so I guess it worked out pretty well for me in the end. Other than that, it’s the partially-painted KoW Ogre army who have featured in these pages before, sharing space with the partially-painted Elves, the blu-taced Basileans/Lions, some trees and a Dranei Paladin from World of Warcraft.

Desk – ready to work on!

One of our old computer desks is my new workbench out here. I’ve got the ultrasonic cleaner out to strip some figures, who are right now soaking in Simple Green. Need to pick up some cheap lamps later today to use for my light box, so I can take some better quality mini pics from here on out. I probably need to get an A1 sized cutting mat as well. The idea is that I’ll do things like dremelling and scenery building and paint stripping resin moulding and casting and things on the “large and heavy” (and toxic) side of the hobby out here, while the more delicate and arty stuff happens inside. Big box there for the recyclers. We have a fortnightly pickup. We filled our recycling bin and those of our close neighbours up, and three days later our recycling bin was totally filled up again. Looks like we’ll be doing the same again with our neighbours’ help once more when they come again. It’s been a pretty full-on cleaning operation. My old printer also now lives out here as a photocopier (if not for the driver incompatibility we’d have kept it inside – one of the best random late-night purchases we ever made. Going out to buy some blinds this afternoon for the window.

The War Room. Today.

Pretty much the “room shot” – best compared to the following image from before we started at the very beginning of this year:

The Shed full of Junk. January this year.

No need for a pile of text there. I think the two pics say it all.

Spotlights!

Not the most exciting photo – but a pretty exciting thing to have. A set of LED spotlights above my gaming table spot. As originally suggested by Chris, the awesome electrician I had in to do my work. A real top bloke and a gamer himself, though more of a CRPG/Console gamer. It was great to be able to have someone doing the work who could appreciate our hobby, and chat about shared interests like games, movies, pop culture and all of the rest.

Another flouro!

Equally unexciting from a photo perspective but brilliant if you’re actually here is the addition of a second flouro light on the opposite section of ceiling to the existing one. Really, really brightens the room. With the original, it was still quite decent, but now there’s really no comparison, especially at night.

Entertainment and Atmosphere

The “atmosphere” is supplied by a 50″ 1080p LG plasma. I actually planned to get a much smaller TV (30-40″ or so)  but then I found this particular plasma model had been marked down to less than the 40″ LCDs. So I did the only thing I could do and bought it, and rejigged the entire original wall-mount plan. The green is one of the burn-in slides that are still cycling through. Added another floating shelf, picked up a new, cheap Blu-Ray player and put it in the bedroom, brought the old one down here, added a WDTV Live box and a bunch of appropriate DVDs and Bob’s your uncle. I know it’s right next to the window, but the tv is padlocked to the wall mount, the alarm unit has been moved to right there, the “flyscreen” is actually security mesh that will apparently break your hand if you try to punch through it (I’ve declined to try it out myself) – we got every window covered in it before we moved in – much nicer than shutters.

Games table, and some junk.

Not the best photo, I guess. But you can see the shelves we put up earlier in the year. The lower level is filled with models and such while the upper contains empty boxes and some more random things that aren’t too heavy. The big white board is the games table, in storage mode. The white cabinet behind it is a cheap pantry cupboard that we bought to use in our previous shitty rental that had no clean storage space for the kitchen. Now it holds hills and unsorted scenery objects.

Spray paints and more junk.

Finally, the final corner of this long-winded panorama. Some art supplies (Ink, PVA glue, etc), latex and resin for moulding that I never quite figured out to any decent skill level, spray paints for modelling, a desk that needs to be disposed of. The remaining junk boxes of the moment that still need to be sorted through, and more scenery and things to make even more scenery with. And a bunch of HeroScape stuff.

Welp, that’s it! A bit more sorting, throwing junk away and cleaning still to go (does that ever end, though?) Blinds. A split system cooler/heater in the future perhaps, but that’s pretty much one gaming room ready to roll. After so many years of wanting and planning for it to happen, it’s still pretty unbelievable for it to actually be a thing that exists. Now I just need to make sure I use it!