Reviews of products – games, paints, miniatures, terrain, anything.
2020 was the year that we had to have, if it could go wrong it did. but we survived, sanity checks passed, and here is 2021…. So it is time to review my year, in 2020 I had time to paint stuff, however 2020 also threw other issues at us. This is everything I got … Read more
I have gotta admit – this has been a VERY long term project. Like all others, it started with some enthusiasm, but after some early progress, interest waned and the whole tray of StuGs sat on the shelf gathering dust. Assembly and painting began back in April 2013 (Yes – over 7 years ago), but … Read more
AK Interactive have released their 3rd Generation Acrylics, clearly they have been doing the research and work on making new paint formula’s. Until now I have been using the Army Painter Matt or the Testors Dull coat, however the Dull coat in the last application just was not matt and it also dulled down some … Read more
The First contact I had with Kings of War: Vanguard was interesting to say the least. The books and miniatures arrived, and we jumped right in. When we started playing games it was with small 100 point forces to get used to the mechanics. I learnt the hard way, didn’t use the rules correctly, had to learn … Read more
A review on the new GW contrast paints. Where they fit in the greater scheme of painting tools.
Zvezda produce a number of 1/100 model kits for Modern and Cold War vehicles.
I’ve been excited to paint Colette’s Showgirls for a little while, but also somewhat intimidated. Most of my painting is fairly earthy in tone. It’s mainly military camouflage which is usually pretty drab and green/brown (for obvious reasons). However, I’ve got a real chance with the Showgirls to step things out to brighter and more vibrant colours. So while the Orc State bloodbowl guys were a bit brighter, I’m now going to pretty it up a little and get a fair bit brighter.
Alban Miniatures recently went back to being a private collection again after being on the general market for some time, they made a whole range Napoleonic figures in 1/56th scale (28mm). So the only thing to do is look at the Alban Miniatures beside the Warlord Miniatures for the same unit. So I choose the 95th Rifles as the miniatures that I will look at.
Both Warlord Games and Alban Miniatures make figures for the 95th rifles, and I do enjoy the 95th rifles, it had to be done.
Who new a US Civil War game about the navys of the time could become a cult classic, well ok it became a Monday Knight Classic, mainly because of the hours of pleasure that we have had picking on this game, but that is Riverboats.
That said a game of Hammerin’ Iron finally happened and I was there to witness what can only be called Riverboats!.
While I lived in the US and started this blog, I have been slowly working on my photography skills, part of that is the lighting I use to take photo’s for this blog. I was lucky enough early on to get some pointers from Dave Talyor who at that time and most likely still does was taking photo’s for War Games Illustrated (Along with everything else he does). While at a Battle Front hosted Flames of War GT, I got to get some tips, stuff to get me going. So very handy and I have slowly been progressing in my ability’s. But I was finding that unless I go into photoshop all my images were just a little too dark, this is where the lighting comes in.
So I went shopping.
As a present the better half picked up a Plastcraft Games Train Station. This piece is part of their ColorED range and is designed for Malifaux. The kit consists of a number of PVC sheets that have had one side printed with the patterns you see on the box. There is also some texture on the printed sides that gives some nice 3D texture to what is otherwise flat sides.
Tyler here, writing to you one last time. You may remember from my last couple posts that your regular author, Floppy, heroically pioneered a new Field Hockey goal defence technique. It involves stopping the ball with your face. It didn’t go well, which is why I’ve been writing to you. For the last couple weeks … Read more
Hi! This is Tyler, writing to you today because Floppy forgot to duck. I’ll be continuing my discussion of Muskets and Tomahawks with a look at the types of forces you can build, and how they look and feel on the tabletop. First, an update on Flop’s health. He’s through surgery now, and recovering well. … Read more
A Year in Review, and what a year it has been, I get to look back at the year and see what we have done, and where we are going. Firstly it has been a long year, much has happened. At the start of the year we didn’t really know where we would be by June, then along came Bane of War which was fantastic, I am sad that I will miss this next year. Adepticon which I will miss next year again I am pretty sad to miss this, it is a great Con and you have to go to it. Then we moved back to Aus in May, and I traveled down to Hobart for a Flames comp, that was a load of fun.
Blood Bowl was one of those easy to get into games, it is good fun, however Games Workshop have dumped the game, along with all other non core games, what we are left with is a Living Rule book, and unlike some of the other specialist games that change alot over a short period of time, Blood Bowl is quite stable, the Teams don’t change much, and everybody plays with the same teams as everybody else, no country has it’s own teams. Because it is being played in leagues around the work the development of teams is tested by alot of people in different ways, it makes for a community that works together. But really it is the mini’s that are great now, there are a long list of kickstarters out there that have produced teams, and if you are lucky or have enough “spare part” you might just have some old Chaos players made by Games Workshop…
SAGA, a game set in the dark ages. Vikings raiding the world etc. what is there not to love. I have two very unfinished war bands for Saga, the Jomsvikings and Scot’s. I have only had them since the game came out, a very long time ago, of course what is embarrassing is that I have never played a game either. Well with the latest addition to the rules out, Crescent and Cross, moving the battle’s to the middle east, I finally find something to bring me back to painting knights.
Back2Base-ix Paint Rack’s came in I set to putting them together, I again choose the perspex versions of their racks as they look a lot better.
While I get to putting I was thinking about the organisation of my desk, I really need a clear space to work on and with the new racks I finally have nearly enough space for all my paint. Well at least the paints that I keep on my desk. There is also a lot of airbrush paints out by the airbrush.
I had the chance to get models from both company’s, so I am racing them in my first ever 1 v 1 test.
Having started the Russians I couldn’t say no to T-34/85’s so here we go as we test both kits to see which one win’s out on the first ever Floppy’s Model Kit Challenge.
Wargames Factory WW2 Russians, were part of the Kickstarter package for WW2 Assault I looked at last week. It has been a long time since I looked at the Wargames factory products as the last time they were very very bad.
I am happy to say that I am very impressed with this product. It is a really nice surprise to see what has changed over the years.
WW2 Assault Tactical skirmish Combat, was a kickstarter that I backed late last year. I was hoping that it would have been on time but it was not, however it was only 2 weeks delayed that is a win in my book. It is a 28mm WWII Infantry combat game.
Adepticon 2015 part 1, I finally have time to sit down and write about my experiences. I finally got to be a con attendee and just spend time walking around talking to people who allow us to experience events like this.
I did a lot over the four days of the con so this is going to be broken up in to two or three articles, there was way too much to do for me to fit it all in one article.
Portable Warfare™ The Sergeant carry bag. One thing that gamer’s use a lot of are containers for storage, Bags for travel, we like to keep our toys safe and in good order.
This is the 2nd Portable Warfare™ bag I have purchased, I also have other brands but these fit the bill for some light travel solutions.
Flock Box is a great tool, those people out there that do Scale Rail modeling will have seen similar products by Noch etc. essentially we charge “Static Grass” and put a opersite charge on the miniature and base. This causes the grass to “Jump” on to the base, where we have hopefully applied glue.
Warlord’s German Halftrack the SD.KFZ 251/1 Ausf C has just landed on my desk and I get to put to it together and do a review, paint it up and make it all pretty and stuff
My Year of painting has been pretty disrupted, a Trip back to Australia in March that ended up being 6 weeks, took pretty much all the wind out of my sails. I really didn’t get painting again until I started this blog. I was lacking some motivation, and really this blog provided me with goals that I should keep to. I find deadlines always help me get stuff finished.
The Blog it’s self is a really good tool for me to get my work out there, I enjoy painting, and so I can show off to a wider community, I hope that I am producing some good work for people to look at. If there is anything people want me to explain more drop me a message, I know my writing is not the best I am also working on that, It is good to get back in to working on some weakness that I have.
So on too what I have completed, what misses, what hit’s and what I am looking forward to
A large number of 3mm tanks, trucks and Helos arrived the other day: the core of my ADF strike group. Rather than just showing some finished models I’m going to show some pictures of how they arrive and provide some thoughts on Odzial Osmy’s (O8) miniatures. The numbers in brackets are the O8 product codes.
Another member of my gaming club and I are planning on doing a bit of 1:1 AIW fighting in 6mm. As a starting point we ordered a few tanks, including some T-55s. Seeing as I’ve got some T-55s that also just arrived for my 3mm AIW it seemed like a great opportunity to compare these two scales.
Just a quick couple of pictures that give an idea of the scale of a couple of the smaller Dropzone Commander units next to a few different 3mm miniatures. The two DzC miniatures are the Prowler (orange/green coloured) and a stand of 3 Destroyers (Grey coloured).
Land of the Free wars from 1754 until 1815 in North America, I have looked forward to Land of the Free since I got told about this rule set coming out a while ago. I have a soft spot for all things colonial. Back home I would love a decent set of ideas for the Eureka Stockade (1854). So the wars between France and England in North America leading into the War of 1812, even the war against Mexico hold a lot of interest for me, the Rule set of Land of the Free does cover the period from 1754 until 1815 in North America.
Finally the fabled Robotech kickstarter has arrived, well wave 1 has at least. I have a number of friends back in Melbourne wondering if they will ever see anything in return for the mountains of coin they shelled out. Unfortunately I think retailers in Australia will get retail product before the kick-starter backers will.
I have had mixed success with Kickstarters over the last couple of years. With slow turn around on Relic Knights and well we all know about the delay’s that Robotech has had, but this past week I received my Rolljordan Nectomantic Fantasy Team.
DBA was my first entry into Ancients, I had not played any ancients before and was keen to give them ago, with out wanting to jump in the deep end and get going WRG or DBM at the time a whole group of us looked at BDA.
Much to my surprise my 90mm hexes arrived after less than a week from ordering them. Maybe I’ve got low expectations provided by a life time of Australian retail, but I wasn’t expecting them for another week or two. Any way, I’m not going to talk about the hexes, because I threw something else random in with the order: 5mm dice frames.
Just a quick post with some photos of our Littlewars event. It was a great day. Thanks to Nic @ Eureka for doing all the hard work getting it going, JB my partner in crime, Lord T for the Axis and all the other players for coming along and making it a great day.
Happy Seppuku manufacture textured stamps for creating you own textured bases. If you’ve ever dreamed of having something more exciting than sand on your bases, but are put off by the expense of cast bases then these might be of interest to you. They are pretty simple to use, in fact there are just three … Read more
Before putting up some game reports and other Hind Command stuff, I’m going to give a bit of an introduction. Hind Commander is a pretty small game that most won’t have heard of from a small Polish publisher Assault Publishing. This will be a very short review, in the next couple of weeks I intend … Read more
Dropzone Commander, produced by Hawk Wargames, has been around for a while. The game is in an odd little scale – 10mm – that’s not particularly popular (6mm and 15mm on either side are quite popular). This game has created quite a bit of debate: it’s not cheap, it looks spectacular and is not the … Read more
I’m back after a bit of a hiatus spent travelling: both for work and fun. One thing that did arrive before my departure was a Ke-Ho tank for Dystopian Legions. I haven’t seen much in the way of online information about this little kit so I figured I might document my experience with it. This … Read more
Just a quick little post to show how Brigade Model’s terrain looks next to some Odzial Osmy 3mm vehicles. Note that the buildings are meant to be in 2mm scale, while the vehicles are in 3mm. As such the buildings are a little small. However, if you put them in little built up areas then … Read more
